You should absolutely back this game. Especially if you want to support a Canadian designer. Extra_ especially_ if…

Posted on by Paul Beakley

You should absolutely back this game. Especially if you want to support a Canadian designer. Extra_ especially_ if you want to play a game that was designed to actually feel like science fiction while you play it.

Please reshare if you don’t have the funds to back it.

Published by Paul Beakley

I founded the Indie Game Reading Club in 2010. I've written and developed RPGs since the mid-90s, now I mostly talk about playing them.

0 thoughts on “You should absolutely back this game. Especially if you want to support a Canadian designer. Extra_ especially_ if…”

  1. I was stoked that there’s like, so many details filled in for each setting, and they’re ACTUALLY USEFUL to game play instead of just fluff!

  3. I’m with Paul a bit – some things make me a little worried about the game being flat based on what I read. I backed for now but am still on the fence

  5. Are there any rules descriptions or sheets or stuff? I couldn’t find anything like that on a skim of the project page… (and unfortunately I had to recently go from “back everything that remotely piques your interest” to “watching finances a bit more, making more reserved choices” etc)

  7. I’ve played this two years running now at GoPlay NW, and I’m super-excited to see it come to Kickstarter. One of the things that is clever about it is tying rule abstractions to “in fiction” justifications that support the “this is a high tech future, not just a western with blasters” feel. For example it does a sorta-Blades like thing with equipment, where your ship has a pool of supply points, that in fiction are matter blocks you feed into your 3D printer, so whenever you EVA you just say “hmm… I’d like to have this specialized piece of equipment, so I’ll just print that out” and you deduct the cost from your supply pool in the moment. Or everybody has a multitool that is a combo weapon, handheld tractor beam, shield projecter, and runcible spoon, and your skills represent how good you are at using your multitool in a particular fashion.

    One thing I haven’t got to experience in the GPNW is all the stuff around sector / alien /ship / etc generation, e.g. all the sandboxy stuff. Looking through the pre-genned stuff Christoph always hands out makes me suspect there is a lot of juice there though. I love the super bio-sciencey way that the various species you can play are described, full of evocative material for making your guy be more than just a person with a funny forehead.

  8. I agree with John, it’s not like SWN’s D&D-in-space vibe. It’s got more Burning Wheel and Fate in it. It doesn’t really do nebulous wandering sandbox style play either, you’re supposed to be explicit about what interstellar society and its species and factions are like, and also what sci-fi themes you want to explore in play. When you accept a mission, there’s an emphasis on the contract, including negotiating with the faction employing you.

    Christoph’s got this weird “cone of spacetime” thing going on with the maps too, so it’s not just a flat hexcrawl.

    I’ve only played some missions and didn’t do any trading, but I also like how in this game the planetary economies aren’t necessarily integrated, so if you show up to a new planet you need to bring actual goods to trade. They won’t accept your foreign currency.

  9. The contract is a great way (and is intended to be) a mechanism for collaborative adventure design at the gaming table. The stuff that the players are negotiating into or out of their contract are flags that let the GM know what kind of stuff they’d lake to see happen on this particular expedition, and what’s not so interesting.

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