The best "Space Western" movies, TV shows, and books blend the gunslingers, frontier settlements, and outlaw heroes of the Wild West genre with the spaceships and blaster pistols of the science fiction genre – and the best "Space Western" RPGs are no different. The following tabletop game systems, in particular, are great fits for RPG gamers who want to create "Space Western" campaigns inspired by Firefly, Star Wars spin-offs like The Mandalorian, or computer RPGs like The Outer Worlds.
The Western genre has always had a strong connection to American science fiction, their themes overlapping in subtle and blatant ways. Golden Age sci-fi writer C.L. Moore's most famous short story hero, "Northwest Smith," is essentially a Wild West gunslinger re-imagined as a futuristic outlaw with a ray-gun and a small, swift spaceship called "The Maid." C.L. Moore's iconic hero wound up inspiring Star Wars protagonist Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon, along with Malcolm Reynolds and the Serenity from Firefly. Even the original Star Trek series was first pitched to producers as "Wagon Train To The Stars," a reference to a contemporary Western drama called Wagon Train.
The following tabletop RPGs explore both the idealized and grim aspects of the Western genre and the sci-fi stories they inspired. On one hand, players are drifters who roam from planet to planet in their trusty piece of junk space-ships, solving and creating problems in each port they stop by, and generally living as individuals free from the rules of civilization. On the other hand, the rules and themes of these RPGs also draw player's eyes to the ugly parts of Wild West-style frontiers - the displacement and persecution of indigenous peoples, corporations brutally extracting wealth from people and their homes, insular colonies with cruel traditions - and challenges players to do something about them.
Space Western Tabletop RPG: Manifest
The upcoming game Manifest, recently funded on Kickstarter, is a tabletop RPG about a distant planet called Manifest, which has been colonized by miners looking to extract its unique resources then left to fend for itself when the wormhole leading to the star system suddenly collapsed. Players take on the role of Drifters, skilled wanderers who travel between the company towns and wildcat settlements on Manifest, solving problems, fighting bandits, and upholding their own unique moral codes.
The characters are essentially Wild West heroes mixed with the protagonists of Destiny 2 and The Outer Worlds, plus a dash of the "Northwest Smith" protagonist described in this Tor article about C.L. Moore. The "Fistful of D20s" tabletop RPG dice system used by Manifest is a narratively-focused but mechanically-detailed mechanic, and is coupled with character skills, attributes, and Talents to create outcomes during scenes of combat and a feeling of suspense more interesting than a simple binary "success/failure."
Space Western Tabletop RPG: Scum And Villainy
Scum And Villainy is a "Forged In The Dark" tabletop RPG system designed to tell stories of ragtag spaceship crews in the vein of Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, and Guardians Of The Galaxy (with a bit of Star Wars thrown in, of course). Using character playbooks with titles such as "Scoundrel," "Mechanic," "Pilot," or "Mystic" and spaceship playbooks for blockade-running freighters and discount military corvettes, players can create tight-knit families trying to keep their "piece of junk" flying in the Procyon Sector of space.
Setting-wise, players of Scum And Villainy need to step lightly around the military forces of the Galactic Hegemony, the business interests of interstellar Guilds, and the unique perils of the space stations and frontier worlds they visit.
Space Western Tabletop RPG: Lancer
Lancer, above all else, is an RPG centered around the "Mecha" sub-genre of science fiction, with players as elite pilots of giant military robots in a distant future where humanity has spread across the stars. Within this broad "futuristic robots" setting, however, players can pursue all sorts of interesting stories based on where they travel and what causes they align with.
Close to the Core Worlds, players can fight for the utopian ambitions of Union or the expansionist objectives of profit-seeking Corpro-States. In the Karrakin Trade Baronies, players can engage in stories of scheming interstellar nobles and rebellious underclasses straight out of Dune. And in frontier locations like the Long Rim, players of the Lancer RPG can be sci-fi versions of outlaws, sheriffs, and mercenaries, particularly if they acquire the "Raleigh" mech model, a giant robot version of the the classic Wild-West gunslinger.
Space Western Tabletop RPG - Star Wars: Edge Of The Empire
Of the three main Star Wars RPG rulebooks published by Fantasy Flight Games, Star Wars: Edge of The Empire is the closest in spirit to Star Wars spin-off media such as Star Wars: A Solo Story or The Mandalorian, a system designed to tell tales about scoundrels focused more on getting by and less on saving the galaxy.
The character creation rules for Edge Of The Empire give players abilities and backgrounds they can use to create bounty-hunter and smuggler PCs, coupled with a unique dice system designed to simulate both the skills of characters and the whims of fortune. Unlike the Light Side/Dark Side karma system in the Force And Destiny rulebook, the Karma system of Edge Of The Empire is centered around Debt - i.e. the obligations and monetary debts players might owe to unsavory figures like Jabba the Hutt.
Source: Tor, Kickstarter