Those Dark Places: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying (Osprey Roleplaying)

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Test resolution is extremely simple and uses the newly named ODDS system (One Die Determines Success). Roll one six-sided die, add the relevant attribute, add the bonus of either your primary or secondary role if appropriate to the situation, and try to beat a difficulty of 7. Difficulty can be adjusted to a 6 or an 8, depending on the circumstances. The game can support a high-adventure feel if the group wishes it, turning all 1s and 6s rolled into automatic failures and successes. Interestingly, rolling exactly the target number is a partial success. The Players benefit in the short term, but there might be repercussions later on. On that aspect, or elsewhere. Or there might not. Who knows? Hmm.

Shadowrun A fantasy and cyberpunk-infused RPG about the clash of magic and technology The world of Shadowrun is filled with all sorts of odd and interesting characters. A science fiction roleplaying game of exploration, isolation, and survival in a dark and dangerous universe.So, what does that mean? It means that space is not the domain of noble-bright explorers. It is the domain of corporations and their peons. Ships are utilitarian. Their designs are boxy, almost ugly. Corridors are cramped. Technology looks like it came out of a 70s Sci-fi movie because it's easy and cheap to repair. People are left in the cold dark reaches of space for years at a time with little company, living on stale recycled air and food. It takes a toll. The rules are incredibly simple (although it's fair to say that Fria Ligan's Alien game is not significantly more complex). You roll a six-sided dice and add an attribute (ranged from 1 to 4). If you have an appropriate crew position, you can add +1 or +2 depending on how strong it is. Success is achieved if you roll 7 or more. In some circumstances, this may be reduced to a target number of 6 or increased to 8. If you are in opposition to someone, you roll an opposed roll where you look for the highest roll instead. Venture into the darkest corners of the galaxy in Those Dark Places, an upcoming sci-fi horror RPG inspired by the likes of Alien and Dead Space. Rules-wise I may look at creating material for starships, although I don't really want to expand or add to the existing ruleset as I don't want to lose sight of the simplicity of the mechanics. I'm happy for gaming groups to share their ideas and house rules to see what fits best; Those Dark Places was designed to be tinkered with. I guess we'll see what the future holds! Ben: First off, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you do and how you got started in the industry?

Game mechanics are fairly light. Each character has four ability scores (Charisma, Agility, Strength, Education), with the player assigning a value of four to the most important ability, three to the next most important, and so on. Each character chooses one of seven shipboard positions as Primary, and another as Secondary. When a test is required, the player rolls a d6, adds the appropriate ability score, and additional plus two or plus one if the character has a Primary or Secondary position that would be useful, and plus one if they have a piece of equipment suitable to the task at hand. If the total is seven, it is a partial success, eight or better is a full success. The target number can be increased or decreased if the task is particularly easy or difficult. Characters begin with four characteristics: Charisma, Agility, Strength, and Education, or CASE for short. Each attribute is assigned a number no higher than four and no less than one. The higher the number, the more proficient the character is with that attribute. There are no skills in this game, so attributes play a large part. Next, each character chooses crew positions—one primary and one secondary. Crew positions are general designations like Helm Officer, Science Officer, Medical Officer, and the like, giving the characters the abilities to perform those positions’ duties in broad terms. There are seven positions available with a brief overview and the attribute associated with each position. Since the game revolves around a vessel with a small crew, groups should build characters together to ensure a diverse crew. Game Mechanics In this book you will find some guidelines on how to introduce the ‘unknown’ to the game; alien horrors, cosmic terrors and eldritch wonders. There will be a few new rules to help you incorporate these things into a session as well as adventure ideas to get you moving so you can let… things loose on the players. There's also a sanity/panic mechanic called pressure. You have a pressure bonus, which is the sum of your Strength and Education. A character can be asked to make a pressure roll when confronted with something incredibly stressful. You roll D6 and add you pressure bonus, looking for 10 or more. If you fail your pressure level goes up by 1. Once you hit pressure level 2 then you roll a D6; if it's less than your pressure level, you suffer an episode, which results in a roll on a table which can reduce attributes or trip you into freezing or fleeing. The severity of the roll is capped by the pressure level you're at.There is no leveling-up or improvement. Healing pressure is extremely difficult. However the 25-year limit (with much of that time spent in suspended animation) does give a natural campaign arc with an ending. You don't feel triumphant, probably. You feel like you survived. Combat is extremely, perhaps ludicrously, lethal with many weapons capable of killing a PC in one or two hits. The game also has a method for injuries hurting combat effectiveness as strength, the ability score used for melee, is also your HP and decreases with damage. That's kind of neat and it models injury without being overly complicated. To find out more about Those Dark Places and Osprey Games take a look at https://ospreypublishing.com. Even though 'Those Dark Places' is inspired by movies and games like Alien and Dead Space, it's more the aesthetic and design I've taken my cues from. If anything, it's more a thriller like Outland - but you can add whatever strangeness you want.

The ‘GM Simulation Expansion’ is a free short book that gives the General Monitor a few more options to play with in a game of Those Dark Places. In the core rulebook there were plenty of adventure hooks and ideas to get a game going, as well as the adventure ‘The Argent III Report’, and in this supplement there will be a few more ideas for different kinds of games… The Game Monitor's section expands with some more detail on the attributes and positions and has a good worked example of play. It suggests that the characters could be part of a Deep Space Support Team (DSST or 'Dusters'), corporate troubleshooters assigned to resolve issues. The basic crew position needs for such a team are described, followed by some fluff descriptions of ships, outposts and stations which use a lot of words for little content. Different types of simulations (missions) are described. There's good stuff here but it's buried in the same way. There are basic rules for NPCs and synthetic automatons (like Ash in Alien, or a replicant in Blade Runner). If this interview had you wondering about giving the game a go yourself, it is currently available from Osprey Games in both electronic and physical form. Read Our Those Dark Places Review Said to take its thematic cues from the seminal film and video game series, Those Dark Places features an art style that uses bold contrasting colours and shading with gameplay built on a “sleek ruleset that keeps players focused on the story”. (The first images of the game even feature an apparent homage to Alien’s xenomorph-braving cat Jones.) In space, characters don’t have many options to bring down their Pressure Levels. The environments in which they live are stressful. To reduce their stress requires a few stress-free days on Earth or a stay in a LongSleep Chamber. LongSleep Chambers allow the crew to go into deep hibernation states where the ship can conserve energy during long flights. Characters are placed in a sub-zero environment with special gases and drugs to ease one’s stress. They reduce a character’s Pressure Value by one per day while in the chamber but drain a lot of power from the ship, so they are not always an option. Space Travel & GameplayJH: My two favourite moments were from a very early playtest and from a recent session I ran for Garblag Games on their channel. The playtest situation resulted in one fully functional player character trying to drag a half-dazed player character from an unconscious player character as a space station collapsed around them. The rolls just did not go their way and the panic was palpable as the D6 just kept on bringing up 1s and 2s. and Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPGfrom Tuesday Knight Games, both having been released relatively recently Living in cities haunted by a past cataclysmic event, humans, elves, dwarves and other classic fantasy species attempt to survive their harsh and dangerous lives. One important thing to note about Shadowrun is that, like many older RPGs, it contains several problematic elements related to the way it depicts species like orks and trolls as the result of the horrifying aftereffects of the aforementioned event. Nonetheless, Shadowrun’s deep worldbuilding and unusual mishmash of cyberpunk and fantasy elements has made it a household name in the tabletop industry, leading to multiple spin-off titles and video games. Playing Shadowrun may feel like diving straight into the deep end of complex roleplaying games, so it’s probably not an ideal starting point for beginners, but its rich lore and wide variety of character creation options provide plenty of opportunities for engaging storytelling. There are four attributes; Charisma, Agility, Strength and Education. Your CASE numbers. You have scores of 1 through 4 which you assign as you prefer across them. Bear in mind that an attribute of 1 will only succeed on a roll of 6. The book rounds out with a sample scenario outline - The Argent III Report. This sends the characters off on a retrieval mission for Cambridge-Wallace Inc, nearly 12 light-years away from Earth. They're sent to the Proycon system to recover an engineering team who have been decommissioning an old orbital station. It's a straightforward and reasonably linear scenario which should serve as a simple introduction.

Space is a hell of a thing but you need to be sure that this is what you want. Like, what you really want. The idea of space exploration to further the frontiers of mankind is noble, but let's not kid ourselves--it's really all about furthering the profit margins. There's money to be made and out there is the place to make it, but you hear all kinds of stories… equipment malfunctions, strange discoveries, crewmembers going insane... You'll be out there in the reaches, alone, for months or years, breathing recycled air and drinking recycled water, with nothing but a few feet of metal and shielding between you and certain death. Most horrors in other mediums rely on 'jumpscares' to make their point but these are fleeting and don't always work, so building atmosphere is the primary goal, I feel. If you can get the players invested in the situation then they respond emotionally to situations and themes, and if you can make them uncomfortable as well as make them concerned about their character's safety (and sanity) then that's half the battle. The buildup is the key, you only have to watch Alien to see how that works.

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Players create characters based on several potential archetypes - such as the alien or hot-shot - and select a role for them to play on the ship itself. They then select a number between two and five as their set target number. Whenever players want to perform an action, the GM determines whether they think it concerns lasers or feelings - with the player needing to roll over their target number for feelings and under for lasers. This means that players who are more empathetic will be looking to use persuasion or compassion to their advantage, whereas more scientifically-minded characters are better suited to smarts or knowledge. Having such a simple system makes Lasers & Feelings the perfect sci-fi themed RPG for fresh-faced roleplayers.