Salvage Union vs The Expanse Roleplaying Game
Compare Salvage Union and The Expanse Roleplaying Game side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Salvage Union | The Expanse Roleplaying Game | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi, Post-Apocalyptic | Scifi |
| Tags | Mecha, Resource Management, Base-Building, Character Building, Exploration, Sandbox, Tactical, Survival, Narrative, 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 pilot's risky action, roll an unmodified d20: 20 succeeds with a bonus, 11–19 succeeds, 6–10 presents a Tough Choice, 2–5 fails with a setback, and 1 brings a severe consequence. The Mediator frames costs and consequences from the situation. | 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 | d20 | 3d6 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | Salvage Union Open Game Licence 1.0b | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Leyline Press | Green Ronin Publishing |
| Year | 2023 | 2019 |
| Languages | English, Italian | English |
| Best For | Groups who enjoy building custom mechs, scavenging parts, and managing a shared stockpile of scrap to maintain and improve their equipment and mobile settlement. | 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 | Recovered scrap funds mech construction and crawler upkeep, linking equipment choices to the community's survival. Swappable mech components let players build for jobs such as hauling or hacking. Players choose setbacks when NPC actions fail, giving the table authority over consequences beyond its own characters. | 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 | Players track separate pilot and mech resources, including Ability Points and Heat. Unpaid crawler upkeep normally prompts a deterioration roll, making regular salvage income an ongoing pressure. Encounters follow the world's circumstances rather than guaranteed balance, making reconnaissance and retreat consequential choices. | 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. |