[DSR] Dark Scifi Renaissance

Zhu Bajie

Baron
Aesthetically Rogue Trader adjacent, maybe some retro-feel, indie games, not an IP-tie-in. TTRPG > Skrimish >Wargame.

Scifi with a dark edge:


Any others out there I've missed? Any oldhammerers given these a shot?
 
I played 1 game of starfrave. It reminds me a bit of Confrontation but with somewhat more streamlined combat rules. I think it would be good for a campaign with a GM.
 
We played a bit of Mothership, using it's Dead Planet module.
The system might be a bit too simple for my taste, but we had a good time.. and the Stress mechanic is good at pushing the horror of the situations. The whole adventure felt doomed and dangerous.
I like its aesthetic and the sort of gameplay it's going for.
 
ringworm":3emi583y said:
https://deathinspace.com/
Not out yet but the KS looked good.
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Yeah, that does look good.

Death in Space":3emi583y said:
And as if war wasn’t enough, rumor has it that the Universe is dying, accelerating towards a future big crunch. And the rate is increasing, sped up by the blackness of space itself. The void corrupts and infects, whispering strange words through an omnipresent white noise that grows more intense every day.
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Really conjours that sinister weirdness of warpspace in Rogue Trader, before it went all Khaos! Evil! Demons!

AranaszarSzuur":3emi583y said:
Does Stargrave have realistic weapon ranges or compressed weapon ranges?
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They're compressed, but you can just ignore them, as it uses small tabletop, and realistically everything would be in range.

knobgobbler":3emi583y said:
We played a bit of Mothership, using it's Dead Planet module.
The system might be a bit too simple for my taste, but we had a good time.. and the Stress mechanic is good at pushing the horror of the situations. The whole adventure felt doomed and dangerous.
I like its aesthetic and the sort of gameplay it's going for.
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Mothership has been getting a lot of traction, and looks great. Only heard about it and didn't realise they had a free PDF, the stress mechanics could easily be ported into RT as Cool test.

Oh, and it's CYBER rather than SPACE, so maybe a bit more Shadowrun than 40k, but looks like we're getting sci-fi Mork Börg, which looks kvlt:

EmuvOfsWMAAqAza
 
I might suggest adding Wiley Games Galactic Heroes to the list. It's the Sci-Fi offering in their Fistful of Lead series. The mechanic is partially card driven, but it plays well. (And his card decks are things of beauty.) It's maybe a bit more in tune with Star Wars, but there's some very clear Rogue Trader/40K references in it. The game seems to work pretty well for a combat involving maybe up to a platoon's worth on a side. I've played it a couple of times at conventions with Mr. Wiley himself and some of the other early playtesters. If you want the full-on cooky variety of weapons in RT you'll probably find it disappointing, but it plays faster thanks to the simplification. And still has quite a lot of variety. There's definitely room for psi/force/mystical warp energy stuff. I would definitely recommend it.
 
symphonicpoet":35yv65v5 said:
I might suggest adding Wiley Games Galactic Heroes to the list. It's the Sci-Fi offering in their Fistful of Lead series. The mechanic is partially card driven, but it plays well. (And his card decks are things of beauty.) It's maybe a bit more in tune with Star Wars, but there's some very clear Rogue Trader/40K references in it..
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That does looks really cool, but I think it's more Pulp Sci-fi / Retro-Raygun area than Dark Sci-Fi. There's more of a horror theme and a hard sci-fi aesthetic that runs through things like Mothership and the rest.
 
^I'm not really talking about the fluff, as it's honestly pretty fluff agnostic anyway. But it plays well and it's fairly well suited to a good dark sci-fi skirmish game, since there's good ways to deal with psionics and scary creatures. But it can handle larger units than Pulp Alley, say. Probably about Rogue Trader scaled, but faster. One of the suits in the deck is even fairly clearly "not 40K." (Complete with greenskins and armored space maroons.) There's also not Star Wars, not Star Trek, and not Buck Rogers, so you're not wrong about the pulp creeping in. But I don't think pulp and dark are mutually exclusive. They might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I think they're good rules for an Oldhammer styled game. (And I figure most of us use our own variation on RT inspired fluff anyway. Else we'd be playing OldGrunt II or Oldblazers.)
 
Yeah, DSR isn't just 'background' and setting either, if that's what you mean by 'fluff'.

I'm not sure including Space Orks and Marines automatically make something Dark, they can be pretty cheesy, fist-pumping, gung-ho cartoony fun as well (especially in later editions). The artwork of "Galactic Heroes" doesn't suggest a dark and gothic, gritty and hard sci-fi universe. It's just a whole different feel, there's no real horror or grungy elements coming through.

Also most DSR goes beyond just having a dark background, and incorporates those elements into the games mechanics. Take a look at Motherships stress rules, or In Those Dark Places pressure rules, for example, or going back to the old-school the cyberpsychosis thing from Cyberpunk 2013 / Near Orbit, or Synthicides starvation and food scarcity mechanics. Theres a modelling of psychological elements that go beyond woo space ghosts.
 
Nice :grin:

Also came across Diogo Nogueiras Screams Amongst the Stars

Screams_Cover_1-1.jpg


The combat resolution is probably a little too streamlined - ranges and distances might need moving from abstract to concrete numbers for miniatures tabletop gaming - but has some interesting detatchment notes and weird aliens alongside the >genre< psychology stuff. Also has a nice disclaimer about the psych stuff being based on media, and not an attempt to accurately model trauma.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/33 ... -The-Stars
 
Well, Ion Age, a bit like Warzone/Mutant Chronicles and Kryomek doesn't really have any horror elements, and is over 20 years old, and can't really be said to be part of a 'renaissance' that's happening now. DSR is a bit more than 'stuff that looks like a 40k clone with space marines', so not all those things are relevant really.
 
Lovely lovely! And if you go the full "Lord of the Rings in Space" route they could also be darned useful. (Along the Way of the Dead, for instance.)
 
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