Coriolis: The Third Horizon vs The Expanse Roleplaying Game
Compare Coriolis: The Third Horizon and The Expanse Roleplaying Game side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Coriolis: The Third Horizon | The Expanse Roleplaying Game | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi | Scifi |
| Tags | Exploration, Atmospheric, Character-Driven, Faction Play, Ship-Based, Investigation, Cinematic | Licensed IP, Space Opera, Ship-Based, Crunchy, Social Combat, Investigation, Faction Play, Social Intrigue, Strong GM Support, Tactical |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a d6 dice pool (attribute + skill + gear). Each 6 is a success. Pray to the Icons to reroll all non-successes, but doing so gives the GM a Darkness Point to spend on complications, NPC boosts, or cosmic threats. | 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 | d6 dice pool | 3d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | Year Zero Engine OGL | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Free League Publishing | Green Ronin Publishing |
| Year | 2017 | 2019 |
| Languages | English, Swedish, French, German, Italian | English |
| Best For | Groups who want sci-fi exploration with a Middle Eastern-inspired setting, ship-based campaigns, and a mix of trade, intrigue, and cosmic mystery. | 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 | Setting blends sci-fi with Middle Eastern mythology and Icon worship, Darkness Points create a GM resource that escalates over the session, detailed ship customization with five crew roles in space combat, ten factions provide a political backdrop for intrigue campaigns | 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 | Space combat uses a separate five-phase subsystem with added complexity, praying to the Icons is the only reroll mechanic and it always costs a Darkness Point, mystical powers chapter is brief compared to the setting and combat chapters, setting is tightly coupled: 36 star systems with specific lore | 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. |