2300 AD vs The Expanse Roleplaying Game
Compare 2300 AD and The Expanse Roleplaying Game side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| 2300 AD | The Expanse Roleplaying Game | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi | Scifi |
| Tags | Career-Based, Skill-Based, Simulation, Combat-Heavy, Tactical, Crunchy, Ship-Based, Exploration, Random Tables, Strong GM Support | Licensed IP, Space Opera, Ship-Based, Crunchy, Social Combat, Investigation, Faction Play, Social Intrigue, Strong GM Support, Tactical |
| Core Mechanic | For a task, roll d10 and add modifiers from applicable skills and characteristics; meet a difficulty target from 2 for Simple to 18 for Impossible to succeed. A natural 1 fumbles, while failed checks use a separate roll to determine whether the character may retry or suffers a mishap. Hasty, hazardous, uncertain, and cooperative tasks modify time, failure risk, information, or group participation without changing the core check. | Roll three six-sided dice, two matched and one differently colored Drama Die, and add an ability score plus a focus bonus of +2 if applicable. The total must equal or beat a target number set by the GM or an opponent's result. Rolling doubles generates stunt points spent on combat, exploration, or social effects. The Drama Die's value sets the degree of success. |
| Dice | d10 | 3d6 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — Mongoose Publishing Fair Use Policy | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | GDW | Green Ronin Publishing |
| Year | 1988 | 2019 |
| Best For | Groups who want career-shaped crews exploring a politically divided interstellar frontier where starship operations and hard-science constraints drive missions. | Groups who want a character-focused science fiction campaign of crew jobs, faction pressure, and danger across the Solar System. It suits tables that want structured action, investigation, and social encounters alongside ship travel. |
| Highlights | Career terms turn pre-play service into skills and organizational ties, giving each crew member a practical history that feeds later missions. Space combat uses hex movement and signature-based detection, making maneuver and sensor discipline as important as weapon range. Linked world-generation and mapping procedures build planets down to regional terrain, giving exploration campaigns playable locations instead of setting prompts. | Backgrounds, professions, talents, and focuses build characters with mechanical ties to their lives before the campaign begins. Action, exploration, and social encounters each use dedicated stunts, giving different kinds of scenes procedures beyond a single skill roll. The Churn turns accumulated complications into escalating story events, giving the Game Master a structured way to introduce setbacks. |
| Considerations | Character creation can end when a turning-point roll fails, leaving a concept in its current career before the player intended. Combat routes each hit through location and damage-type tables, adding several lookups to a fight. The future history assumes a World War III and French hegemony, so campaigns are tied to a specific 1980s vision of the 24th century. | Combat stunts are drawn from six separate category tables covering roughly sixty options, requiring both players and the GM to check charts mid-fight to keep pace. Ground and air vehicles receive no example statistics, leaving their combat rules almost entirely improvised. The forty-page setting guide summarizes the solar system's factions and history at a survey level, so groups wanting deeper political detail need outside reading of the novels. |