Survive. Solve. Save. Pick one.
— Tagline
A game published by Tuesday Knight Games. It's about dying horribly in space.
Inspired by classics of sci-fi horror such as Blade Runner, Dead Space and Alien, this indie production is intended as a system for anyone wishing to roleplay the ordeals of spacefarers in the worst places between the stars. It lacks any defined setting or canon, which is intentional, as it is intended for anyone to be able to plug their own interpretation of the horrors of the universe.
However, while there is no such thing as a canon, there are themes. The main book (the Player's Survival Guide) and most first- and third-party contributions tend to revolve around Body Horror, Corporate Intrigue, Space Isolation Horror and Cosmic Horror. Players and Wardens are encouraged to discuss various points of their universe together beforehand or when they come up, deciding for example if Androids can take drugs or what kind of corps exist in their universe.
The main books published by TKG are the Player Survival Guide, Dead Planet (the first adventure module), A Pound of Flesh (a sourcebook for space stations) and Gradient Descent (containing a Mega Dungeon called the Deep). The game is designed to be easy to licence and create adventures for, so it has a quite active and collaborative third party scene. Some of these modules even reframe various standalone adventures into a consistent setting, the Third Sector Campaign Framework, complete with star maps and job-seeking rules for enterprising crews.
The creators referred to the initial releases as "0e", and in 2022, released the improved and extensively playtested First Edition (1e), along with some new optional core books on monsters and spaceships, and a conversion kit to convert 0e modules to the updated rules.
Out there, in the dark, hungry space, you'll find examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Vibechete. It hacks off limbs on critical hits.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Par for the course in this genre, but the Monarch of the Deep deserves special mention.
- A-Team Firing: Untrained shooters are unable to control their rate of fire with fully automatic weapons, causing them to waste the entire magazine instead of properly conserving ammo. And since lacking combat skills makes it hard to hit anything, they're likely to miss their shots
- Body Horror: Whether it's horrifically mutilated bodies, alien grey goo melting people from the inside out, or horribly painful transformation of one's organs into crab monsters, spacers can have a lot of horrible ends.
- Character Class System: Characters can be one of four classes, each adding bonuses to attributes, giving the baseline for saves and determining what basic skills each player begin with:
- Teamsters are intrepid spacefarers handy in any situations. They start with basic space survival skills and can go anywhere from there, and they can reroll a panic check once per session.
- Scientists specialize in Master and Expert skills, but if they panic everyone gets stressed.
- Androids make everyone around them nervous, but they're almost impossible to shake. Being A.I.s, they're excellent with numbers.
- Marines, as a staple of the genre, are the fighters. They fight even better in groups, but when they panic, everyone else might start losing it as well.
- Class and Level System: 0e features a class-and-level system. 1e removed the levelling system in favour of better skill bonuses.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Common, considering the setting and its inspirations.
- The titular Dead Planet is likely to end this way for anyone who gets stuck there. Even surviving the landing in a dead ship and the cannibals means that players get to die or go mad in the Necropolis.
- Crowbar Combatant: The crowbar is listed as a weapon. It's more of an Emergency Weapon however, due to doing pathetic damage, and is best used as a tool.
- Custom Uniform: Characters can roll for random patches that their characters have sewn or printed on their clothes and armor. Examples include Chibi Cthulhu, pin-ups and "I Am Not A Robot".
- Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Rules for cyber enhancement are introduced in the Pound of Flesh sourcebook, but use too much and you might lose touch of your humanity, even risking to gain the same fear effect as Androids, because you start creeping out everyone, like androids do.
- Cyberpunk: In Space!
- Defense Mechanism Superpower: A low roll on the panic table can give you laser focus or an adrenaline rush for a period of time, granting advantage on all your roll as your survival instinct takes over. It takes an especially lucky roll and low stress however.
- Flare Gun: Present in the weapon list. Unlike most depictions, however, it's absolutely worthless in combat.
- Harpoon Gun: A space mining version, called the Rigging Gun, serves as a powerful improvised weapon. The initial shot may not seem very powerful, but retracting it can easily kill the victim.
- Heroic BSoD: What can happen to you if you get a bad roll on your Panic Table.
- Hidden Weapons: The Retractable Nanoblade mod.
- Hollywood Jehovah's Witness: The "Witness" scum mercenary.
- Instant Sedation: The tranq pistol can be used to induce this, but it only lasts for 10-100 seconds, though this can be enough time to run away or finish off the unconscious victim.
- Kill It with Fire: Flamethowers are available, and are similiar to shotguns in that they do a lot of damage, but require getting into close range to do so.
- Laser Cutter: One intended for asteroid mining is the most powerful improvised weapon available in the system, with a decent chance of a One-Hit Kill. However, it suffers from a cooldown between shots, and it requires at least an hour to recharge after being fired 6 times.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: People in the Deep sometimes seem to suffer this. It might be because their memories are actually fake, and they're clones.
- MegaCorp: A central part of the game's anti-canon. Usually simply referred to as "The Company", so that players can fill in the blanks.
- Nail 'Em: A nail gun is an available weapon. It does a lot of damage for an improvised weapon while penetrating armor well, being very cheap, and having a very high magazine capacity. However, it has extremely low range, requiring you to get into melee range to use it unpenalized.
- Powered Armor: The Advanced Battle Dress. It gives excellent protection and allows a marine to carry twice as much stuff but gives disadvantage to all speed checks.
- Psycho Party Member: What the Death Drive panic effect might turn you into.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: The revolver is this in 0e, as it's more powerful than most melee or improvised weapons, and is rather decent at penetrating armor. 1e, however, nerfs it to do a lot less damage.
- Sanity Meter: The game features a stress system: as players explore the dark, hungry space, they gain Stress. Stress is added to the rolls on the panic table, which can in turn lead to characters gaining phobias, traumas, unhealthy pulsions until they finally Freak Out or die from a heart attack.
- Sexbot: The Sex Bot scum type mercenary. Given the Uncanny Valley nature of Androids in this universe, they are absolutely terrible at their job, which doesn't stop them from being hypersexual at all times much to everyone's dismay.
- Short-Range Shotgun: The combat shotgun deals up to 20 damage at close range, putting a huge dent in anything it doesn't outright kill. Bear in mind, especially lucky players might get up to 13 hit points at character generation, and will never go higher than 17. In 1e, Shotgun directly deals wounds instead of damage.
- Shout-Out: In spades. Pretty much any piece of equipment in the Player Survival guide is straight up lifted from popular sci-fi franchises. Of course, you get the time-honored pulse rifle with underbarrel pump-action grenade launcher, but the third party modules tend to have their own set of references, like the one set in a park for dinosaurs, but In Space. There's a slightly more unexpected one in the Dead Planet module - "Moon Colony Bloodbath" is a shout-out to the Mountain Goats/John Vanderslice Concept Album of the same name.
- Space Isolation Horror: Naturally. Dead Planet and Ypsilon-14 especially lean heavily into the trappings of the genre.
- Tomato in the Mirror: If it turns out that players are actually clones in Gradient Descent.
- Total Party Kill: All but encouraged by the "Survive, solve, save, pick one" tagline.
- Tranquilizer Dart: Tranq pistols shoot these, but they can be resisted with a roll, and the sedation only lasts for 1d10 rounds (with each round lasting 10 seconds).
- Vibroweapon: The vibechete is one, doing a lot of damage for a melee weapon. 1e actually puts it on par with the pulse rifle in terms of damage.
- Xenomorph Xerox: Encouraged, considering the setting and inspiration. Official adventures include examples such as the Gaunt, the monster on Ypsilon, and the Carcs.
- You All Meet in a Cell: A possible hook for Gradient Descent. The characters wake up with no memories in a strange Mega Dungeon. Horror ensues.
