Esper Genesis is fifth edition in space. Its lead designer, Rich Lescouflair, is a member of the DMs Guild Adepts and frequent contributor to the D&D Adventurers League. Likewise, this book’s editor, Shawn Merwin, has been renowned for his stellar adventures since the inception of the D&D Adventurer’s League—and is now overseeing the creation of Oracle of War, the upcoming Adventurer’s League campaign set in Eberron.
Though Esper Genesis isn’t an official D&D product—and thus, isn’t likely to be available for purchase on D&D Beyond—you would be hard-pressed to find a group of designers more familiar with the systems and idiosyncrasies of fifth edition outside of the Wizards of the Coast offices. The latest Esper Genesis book, Threats Database, is the “Monster Manual” equivalent for this science fantasy re-genrefication of the fifth edition ruleset.
As someone who loves marrying science fiction with fantasy in my D&D games, Esper Genesis provides an interesting opportunity. Even though the system is based around the assumption that you’ll play entirely within its unique science fantasy setting, its compatibility with other fifth edition products makes it effortless to introduce weird, alien creatures, technology, and “esper powers”—this game’s take on magic—to an otherwise standard fifth edition game to create an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks-style genre-mixing adventure.
The Threats Database takes this idea of system-miscibility to a new extreme. Dungeon Masters thus armed with over 200 pages of new monsters, aliens, automatons, and even Star Trek-like energy lifeforms can fill their campaigns with all sorts of unique beings beyond the scope of a typical fantasy campaign. Of course, it’s your call as to whether or not including these creatures will provide a revitalizing shock to your campaign, or startle your players out of their immersion completely. Even if that’s the case, the line between fantasy monsters and sci-fi aliens is often merely a matter of presentation, such as with the horrifying and aberrant “seethespawn,” or the “void horrors” which lurk beyond the fabric of reality.
The ENnie-nominated Esper Genesis Basic Rules are available for free on DriveThruRPG.
Have you played Esper Genesis, or mixed some sci-fi creatures into your fifth edition campaign? How did it go?
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his partner Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
This looks cool!
there a several 5e games in this genre out. Blades & Blasters is another one. Have you check out any of these other products?
Nice! Will definitely look at this.
this could be a paid promotion.
I'd love to be corrected on that though.
I've been looking forward to seeing more about this product since it was on Kickstarter. It was great to see it nominated for an ENnie and your recommendation now just makes me want to grab it up.
We played about six sessions of Esper Genesis and came away unimpressed. At that time only the core book was released which had an extremely limited bestiary in the book, but the Threats Database was supposed to come out within in the month so we decided to play anyway. It was basically 5e with the everything renamed to fit a sci-fiction setting. Although there were some neat ideas contained within wasn't enough to keep us coming back to the game to play once our test run was done. This isn't Spelljammer, it's D&D in space with all the same classes like paladins, rangers, wizards, and rogues.
> This isn't Spelljammer
Nothing is Spelljammer.
I have Esper Genesis. It's a really hard sci-fi version of 5e. It's neat, and I'll probably wind up using the monsters. I don't know if I'll wind up using the player-facing options too much - I'm a huge fan of Mage Hand Press's Dark Matter book, which came out recently as well. It's more of a sci-fantasy style book that integrates seamlessly with regular 5e, comes with a new class (the gadgeteer), archetypes for several of Mage Hand Press's other original classes (like the witch, warden, craftsman, gunslinger, and warmage), and a few archetypes for each of the base classes from standard D&D. It also has rules for space ships, magitech items, new races, and quite a few space-themed monsters. You can check it out here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/258667/Dark-Matter?manufacturers_id=13922
I'm in.
I can confirm that this isn't paid promotion! The lead designer and editor on this book, Rich Lescouflair and D&D Beyond contributor Shawn Merwin, are both powerhouse creatives within the world of D&D—who often go underappreciated, in my opinion. That, coupled with the hunger for sci-fi/sci-fantasy settings for D&D that I've observed lately, made me feel that this article would be something our readers would be happy to see.
I actually currently have a spelljammer campaign going on. I've gotten rid of or ignored some of the stranger monsters from the setting, like autognomes, and some other non-important monsters, and this is my player's favorite campaign yet. I really like it, I've had to mix and mash together other books from 5e to get suitable rules for how a campaign like this works, but I am satisfied with the result. Some of the more important books to do this are Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, Volo's Guide to Monsters, and many others, but it was worth the work. Running the game is a nightmare though, I have to have like 7 books open at once for all the different rules.
I’ve got a group that have been playing for over a year, we’ve actually made it into a podcast, (it’s called Espersito - and we’re on iTunes, Spotify etc if you want to listen to the game in action - www.espersito.wordpress.com )
whilst it is definitely D&D in space there are also a lot of differences that are well worth it. Although I love fantasy, I have a much stronger affinity with sci-fi so this game has been perfect for me. I think the alligator alley team have done an amazing job of taking the spirit of 5e and making an amazing sci-fi ttrpg
I'll second this suggestion of Dark Matter. Its chock full of sci-fi goodies, from space cowboys and laser swords to mechademons and space sharks. It's also hands down one the best designed (mechanically and aesthetically) 3rd party 5e books I've ever seen. I can personally testify to the amount of forethought, planning, and math that went into what is now the finished product. And wowee what a finished product. It's going to print, and will be available as a hardcover, if you favor those over pdfs.
You can check out the pdf at https://store.magehandpress.com/products/dark-matter-alpha, as well as the DriveThru link above, and preorder the hardcover theougy Backerkit on the Kickstarter link in the Mage Hand Press store.
Can I get this at my game store or do I need to order it?
I own EG, and am definately in the "cool!" camp.
Ruleswise it sticks veeeeery close to the 5e engine. Starship combat has different actions than hand to hand combat and some other considerations.
Races are new and different.
Classes utilize many reconizeable mechanics from standard D&D, but is mixed up anew and reflavoured. The most 1:1 example is probably the Engineer, who is mechanically almost identical to a Cleric, with Channel Divinity recast as a semi-autonomous drone delivering effects here and there over the battlefield. The other classes use reconizeable parts from the standard D&D classes mostly, but mixed around in various forms. Many power users use the "spell point" system. If you like this kind of approach, you'll love it. If not, well ...
Some skills are the same, some are changed. 6 I believe have been renamed and give a different scope.
The "spells" see a lot of reskinning/-naming while keeping the mechanics, but there a subtle differences with a good deal of these powers.
Big EG fan here...although my Spelljammer obsession leaves me wanting with the ships provided thus far..
"Though Esper Genesis isn’t an official D&D product—and thus, isn’t likely to be available for purchase on D&D Beyond..."
I would assume you could Homebrew in whatever components you wanted to use.
While this is somewhat true, the technical lack of ability to homebrew an entire class, makes it a lot less feasible as it is.
I am definitely going to add this into my hodgepodge homebrew Sci-Fi-ish area set in the alt-16th century Badlands of what-would-be modern Alberta. It currently involves:
So as this thing grows, I may have to move this whole thing into its own world...or at least the Grand Canyon..