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 rolls for aging and career mishaps, so a Traveller can leave chargen weakened or pushed onto an unwanted path. Subsystem rules are spread across multiple supplements, so the core book leaves several procedures without full depth. Characteristics are recorded as a hexadecimal Universal Personality Profile string, an unusual notation newcomers must learn before they can read a stat block. |