Coriolis: The Third Horizon vs Traveller
Compare Coriolis: The Third Horizon and Traveller side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Coriolis: The Third Horizon | Traveller | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi | Scifi |
| Play Style | Exploration, Atmospheric, Character-Driven, Faction Play, Ship-Based, Investigation, Cinematic | Sandbox, Simulation, Exploration, Deadly, Character Building, Faction Play |
| 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 2d6 + skill + modifier ≥ 8 to succeed. Character generation is a mini-game. |
| Dice | d6 dice pool | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | Year Zero Engine OGL | Traveller Fair Use Policy |
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Free League Publishing | Mongoose Publishing |
| Year | 2017 | 2022 |
| 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. | Hard sci-fi sandbox campaigns with trading, exploration, and realistic space 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 | Comprehensive sci-fi toolkit, lifepath character creation, detailed trade/travel systems |
| 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 | Lifepath character creation can produce unplayable results, subsystem rules are spread across multiple supplements, steep buy-in if using official sourcebooks |