Free League Death in Space RPG - Hardcover Book - Future Space Role Playing Game, Multicolor

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Today we’re going to look at two gritty space horror games which, through relatively light rules and strong emphasis on random outcomes, are easy for players but very tough on characters.

Once again, though, Death in Space aims to make your ship weird; you can find out that your ship was an illegal drug lab, was welded together out of parts of old colony ships, or even that it actually showed up from the future after a jump drive malfunction. What fantastic technologies make it hard to envision a setting as gritty, and what downsides can you envision existing alongside standard science-fiction tropes to make things a little bit edgier? This initial campaign itself definitely shows a lot of what is to be expected from this game because my players did not even make it out of Aerum 80, dying from their first combat moment while one of the players got themselves drugged up on the cheap stuff available and let loose one of the creatures they had in the docking bay (unlucky roll on the creatures hostility chart).The crew of Soyuz 11 were killed after undocking from space station Salyut 1 after a three-week stay. In 1971 all three of the Soyuz 11 mission crew died when their capsule depressurised before re-entry on their way back from humanity’s first ever stay on a space station, Salyut 1.

They’re hungry for contracts and adventure, and take the jobs they can get from anonymous corporations and those few who have carved out seats of power in this harsh place. Death in Space" has its roots in the Old School Renaissance scene and follows similar design principles. Spacesuits let you breathe for 7 hours which is ticked down on a tracker before needing their air replaced.These rules are a great example of how to present an evocative setting, and how to use the rules to reinforce expected gameplay.