Cepheus Deluxe vs The Expanse Roleplaying Game
Compare Cepheus Deluxe and The Expanse Roleplaying Game side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Cepheus Deluxe | The Expanse Roleplaying Game | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi | Scifi |
| Tags | Space Opera, Career-Based, Skill-Based, Sandbox, Ship-Based, Exploration, Random Tables, Toolkit | Licensed IP, Space Opera, Ship-Based, Crunchy, Social Combat, Investigation, Faction Play, Social Intrigue, Strong GM Support, Tactical |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6, add a relevant skill and characteristic modifier, and meet or beat the target number. The margin is Effect, and Advantage means rolling 3d6 and keeping the best two. | 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 | 2d6 | 3d6 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | OGL 1.0a; Cepheus Deluxe Compatibility-Statement License | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | $$ |
| Publisher | Stellagama Publishing | Green Ronin Publishing |
| Year | 2022 | 2019 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups who want a self-contained interstellar sandbox where career histories feed a shared shipboard trade loop. | 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 character history into usable relationships and obligations that already point toward adventures. World profiles feed local law and trade into the crew's travel decisions, giving generated destinations mechanical consequences. Space combat assigns distinct actions across bridge and engineering roles, keeping the whole crew involved. | 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 | Career creation can span several career terms before play, making a fresh crew slower to build than the basic 2d6 mechanic suggests. A ship-based campaign tracks recurring operating costs and cargo prices, making accounting part of the travel loop. The book supplies generators and adventure seeds rather than a ready-made sector or campaign, so the Referee must turn those pieces into an inhabited frontier. | 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. |