Option 01 · Weird Western
Deadlands
The Weird West, 1884 — pull up a chair, pardner
System & Dice
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. Each trait is a single die (d4 through d12) — the bigger the die, the better you are at the thing. Combat uses playing cards for initiative, and a deck of cards also handles Fate Chips you spend to survive. Light-medium crunch. Dice "ace" (explode) on max rolls — a d4 can blow up into a d4+4+more if luck favors you.
What a Session Looks Like
You're a posse riding into a frontier town. Maybe the rail crew's been vanishing. Maybe the new preacher is too charming by half. Maybe there's a card game in the saloon that the dealer always wins. You investigate, you negotiate, you draw iron. There are gunslingers, hucksters who deal poker hands to cast spells, Indigenous shamans, mad scientists with steam-powered contraptions, and the occasional walking dead.
The World
Alternate history: in 1863 something woke up under the American West. The Civil War never quite ended. The dead don't always stay down. Magic works, but it's a deal with something hungry. The frontier is wider, weirder, and a lot more dangerous than the history books admit. Pulp adventure first, horror second — think Tombstone with monsters, not gothic dread.
What Kind of Character Can You Play?
Character creation is point-buy and quick — maybe 30 minutes. You pick an Iconic Framework (your archetype), distribute attribute and skill dice, and grab some Edges (perks) and Hindrances (flaws). Customization is wide but not deep — you can absolutely play a half-Sioux gunslinger preacher with a haunted revolver, but you won't be paging through 200 feats. Some flavors of who you might be:
- Gunslinger — fastest iron on the frontier, lives or dies by the draw
- Huckster — wizard who deals poker hands against demons to cast spells
- Mad Scientist — steampunk inventor whose gear works (mostly) (sometimes)
- Blessed — preacher, shaman, or holy person channeling real divine power
- Harrowed — you already died once. Something came back with you. You can feel it listening.
- Texas Ranger / Pinkerton — lawman hunting the supernatural with badge and bullet
Rules Weight
Light–Medium
Tone
Pulpy, swashbuckling
Combat Feel
Fast, cinematic
If You Liked…
Red Dead, Tombstone, Wynonna Earp
Option 02 · Post-Apocalypse
Twilight: 2000
YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN — GOOD LUCK
System & Dice
Free League's Year Zero Engine. Roll a small pool of dice (d6/d8/d10/d12 — bigger dice are better attributes/skills) and look for 6s. You can push a failed roll to reroll, but at a cost — gear damage, stress, injury. Ammo, food, and fuel are tracked individually. Combat uses a card-drawn initiative each round, so no round is ever quite predictable. Light crunch, gritty consequences.
What a Session Looks Like
Hex-crawl across a ruined map. Your unit needs fuel. The next town might trade with you, might shoot at you, might both. You patch up a wounded squadmate with whatever's in the medkit. You decide whether to risk a night march to outrun the militia behind you. The game is structured around survival, scavenging, encounters, and the slow accumulation of allies and enemies. Combat is rare, lethal, and memorable — most sessions are about getting somewhere alive.
The World
The year is 2000. In this timeline the Soviet Union never collapsed, the Cold War went hot, and after years of conventional and limited nuclear warfare there are no functioning armies left — only stranded units, refugees, and warlords. You're survivors of a shattered NATO force in Poland (or Sweden, or Iran). The radio is mostly static. Nobody is coming for you. Get home. If home still exists.
What Kind of Character Can You Play?
Character creation is a life-path system — you walk your character through their pre-war years (career, military branch, deployments) and the war years, picking up skills and scars along the way. It takes maybe 45 minutes and the process itself is half the fun. You end up with someone who has a real history. Not all characters are soldiers — civilians caught up in the collapse work just as well. Some flavors:
- Combat Engineer — demolitions, fortifications, the person who can fix the truck
- Infantry — boots on the ground, the one with the rifle and the will to use it
- Medic — wartime field medicine, every dose of antibiotics counts
- Intelligence Officer — speaks the local languages, knows who to bribe
- Pilot or Driver — keeps the vehicle running through hell and back
- Civilian Specialist — journalist, doctor, engineer, priest, smuggler — anyone whose life got swept up in the war
Combat Feel
Lethal, tense, rare
If You Liked…
The Road, Metro, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Option 03 · Space Opera
Starfinder 2e
The galaxy is open. Suit up.
System & Dice
Built on the Pathfinder 2e chassis — the system you're about to play after this. Same d20 roll-high, same three-action economy, same feat-driven character building. If you've enjoyed PF2e's tactical combat and deep character options, this is that, in space. Medium-heavy crunch, but you already know it. Treat it as a warm-up lap for the engine before our long campaign on Ilvarion.
What a Session Looks Like
Heroic sci-fi adventure. Your crew might investigate a derelict freighter, negotiate with an asteroid mining collective, infiltrate a megacorp facility, or fly the ship through a hostile patrol. Combat is grid-based and tactical, much like PF2e — positioning, action economy, and team synergy matter. Starship combat is its own mini-game with crew roles (pilot, gunner, engineer, captain).
The World
Far-future Pathfinder universe. Magic and technology coexist freely. Dozens of playable ancestries — humans, vesk (warrior reptilians), shirren (telepathic insectoids), androids, ysoki (ratfolk pilots), even sentient sapient AI. The setting is hopeful and adventurous; civilizations trade, explore, and squabble across systems. Less "alone in the dark" sci-fi, more "Guardians of the Galaxy meets Star Trek."
What Kind of Character Can You Play?
Deepest character builder of the four options — if you love poring over options, this is the playground. You pick an Ancestry (your species), a Background (your pre-adventuring life), a Class (your role), and then a feat almost every level. Two characters of the same class can play radically differently. Some flavors of who you might be:
- Soldier — heavy weapons specialist, the squad's anchor in a firefight
- Operative — spy, hacker, infiltrator — debuffs and devastating sneak attacks
- Mystic — magical caster channeling cosmic forces and psychic power
- Mechanic — gearhead with a custom drone or exocortex AI companion
- Solarian — space monk wielding stellar energy as melee weapon and shield
- Envoy — face of the party, buffs allies and manipulates enemies through sheer charisma
- Witchwarper — reality-bender pulling power from alternate dimensions
Rules Weight
Medium–Heavy
Combat Feel
Tactical, grid-based
If You Liked…
Mass Effect, Guardians, Cowboy Bebop
[OPTION_04] // NEON DYSTOPIA
CYBERPUNK RED
> jack in, choom
System & Dice
Simple core: Stat + Skill + d10 versus a Difficulty Value. Combat is fast and brutal — hit locations matter, armor degrades with every shot, criticals can take a limb. You pick a Role (Solo, Fixer, Rockerboy, Nomad, Tech, Media, Lawman, Exec, Medtech) which gives you a unique ability nobody else has. Light-medium crunch, but lethality demands player attention.
What a Session Looks Like
You're a crew of edgerunners taking jobs in Night City. A Fixer calls with work — extract a defector, steal data from a corp tower, escort a smuggler, settle a score in a combat zone. You scout the location, plan the run, hit it, and try to walk away alive with your payment intact. Between jobs you upgrade your cyberware, manage your reputation, and try not to lose your humanity to the chrome.
The World
Night City, 2045. Megacorps replaced governments. The middle class is gone. People replace limbs and eyes with cyberware for an edge — but every implant chips away at your empathy, and burning out is its own kind of death. Style matters as much as substance. The streets are loud, neon-soaked, and dangerous. You're not heroes. You're survivors who get paid.
What Kind of Character Can You Play?
Character creation is the Lifepath system — you roll (or pick) through your character's origin, family tragedy, friends, enemies, and a love interest before you ever look at stats. It's the most narratively rich character generation of the four. Then you pick a Role — your job in Night City — which gives you a signature ability nobody else has. Customization is wide and the cyberware catalog runs deep. Note: we'd cut Netrunning from the table for simpler prep, so the Netrunner Role wouldn't be on offer. The rest are all in:
- Solo — elite combat operative, the muscle and the bodyguard
- Fixer — broker of deals, gear, and favors; the one with the contacts
- Rockerboy — musician/artist using fame and charisma to move crowds
- Nomad — clan-bound driver/scavenger from the badlands beyond the city
- Tech — gearhead who repairs, modifies, and invents cyberware and weapons
- Media — journalist or streamer chasing the story everyone wants buried
- Lawman — cop, corporate security, or vigilante with a badge of some kind
- Exec — corp insider with a team, resources, and a target on your back
- Medtech — street doctor patching up edgerunners off the books
Rules Weight
Light–Medium
Tone
Gritty, stylish, lethal
Combat Feel
Fast, deadly, tactical
If You Liked…
Edgerunners, Blade Runner, Altered Carbon