Bundle of Holding - Stillfleet (Sci-Fi RP

I'm not a huge sci-fi gamer (but I definitely play them more than Supers) but I'm far more interested in sci-fi RPGs for the fluff. The crunch is almost irrelevant. The fluff for the Stillfeet Bundle looks damn good.

Voidminer! This all-new Stillfleet Bundle presents Stillfleet, the far-future science fiction tabletop roleplaying game from the Stillfleet Studio about exploring ruined spacecraft ("hulks") and habitable Earthlike planets cut off from contact with Terra for decades or centuries. Players are voidminers, explorers working for the Worshipful Company of Stillfleeters, known simply as "the Co." Their base is the mysterious alien space station nicknamed Spindle – a kilometers-long sea slug made of undulating black stone. The Spindle is shot through with timespace gates that lead to habitable worlds. Using the flexible Grit System, you can play any sapient species from a (post)human to a giant bug, a mobile xeno-cactus, or an AI that projects an invulnerable hologram. No matter what type of voidminer you create, you'll have to contend with a venal Co. that sends you out on dangerous ventures at short notice for confounding reasons. The cosmos of Stillfleet is hilarious and horrifying – the struggles, all too real.

For just US$9.95 you get both titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $34) as DRM-free ebooks: the complete Stillfleet Core Rulebook and the nanotech-based character expansion Subtle Fluid.

And if you pay more than the threshold price of $20.29, you'll level up and also get our entire Bonus Collection with three more titles worth an additional $44, including the espionage-focused regional gazetteer Qadida, the eight-scenario anthology Peregrinations Volume 1, and the full-length introductory venture The Sleeper in the Sky.

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PWYW - Monolith (OSR SciFi)

Its been a while since I covered a new PWYW release, and good things come to those that wait ;)

Monolith is a table-heavy, stat-light OSR-inspired sci-fi RPG, that appears, upon quick inspection, to be fairly flexible in its focus with little implied setting. When I say table heavy, the book is mostly tables, but they can easily be used as a resource with the sci-fi game of your choice.

The price is certainly right :)

Monolith is a Science fiction adventure game for one Game Master (GM) and at least one other player. Players act as daring adventurers exploring a vast & mysterious galaxy filled with weird aliens, lost worlds, and ruthless factions. Inspired by old school role-playing games.

What's Inside?

• Rules-lite mechanics and procedures inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, Knave, and other OSR games.
• 12 backgrounds for PC and quick character creation (or optional stat-aligned gear packs).
• Rules for starships, psionics, weird space powers, experimental weapons and technology, ancient artifacts, factions, quick planet generation & inspiration, and more.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. 

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Deal of the Day - M-Space (BRP/RQ/Mythrus SciFi Ruleset)

Three Deals of the Day in three days. I don't think that has ever happened before at The Tavern.

The latest Deal of the Day, M-Space, is a sci-fi ruleset based on Mythrus, which in itself, is built off of the Mongoose RQ/Legends rules. I'm on a bit of a RuneQuest kick recently, and this looks like a good fit. Normally 15.95 in PDF, until tomorrow morning at 11 AM Eastern, M-Space is on sale for 6.38.

M-SPACE is a d100-based science fiction roleplaying game. Everything needed to play is included. 

With this book, you can create imaginary universes and play characters from a variety of cultures and careers. They can pilot starships, meet strange alien lifeforms and travel deep into unknown space.

Contents include: 

• Rich character generation, with unique, personal characters driven by Passions. 
• Rules for extended conflicts, applicable to any type of conflict, including social. 
• Intuitive, modular starship design. 
• Quick-paced and creative starship combat, based on the acclaimed Mythras combat rules. 
• Alien and culture creation. 
• World building. 
• Rules for how to create and run Organisations. 
• Modular vehicle design.
• Creative combat rules - in both classic and simplified flavour. 
• Psionics. 
• Equipment. 

The game engine used for all this is Mythras Imperative. If you are familiar with any closely related d100 game, you will feel right at home. 

M-SPACE is published under a Mythras Gateway license by The Design Mechanism.

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You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

DTRPG SciFi Sale - Tavern Picks - Part the First

There is currently a SciFi Sale going on over at DriveThruRPG. Some discounts are as high as 33% (and much is lower than 33%). I'll be covering some Tavern Picks that are 33% off.

Hmmm, this may will take up multiple posts...

Stars Without Number: Revised Edition - is an old-school-inspired game of sci-fi adventure, one built from the ground up to encourage sandbox play and simplify a GM's job in providing it. Familiar mechanics are employed to forge new worlds and explore new possibilities, guidelines built on long experience used to help a group venture in wholly new directions. 20.00  13.39

ALIEN RPG Core Rulebook - Space is vast, dark, and not your friend. Gamma rays and neutrino bursts erupt from dying stars to cook you alive, black holes tear you apart, and the void itself boils your blood and seizes your brain. Try to scream and no one can hear you—hold your breath and you rupture your lungs. Space isn’t as empty as you’d think, either—its frontiers are ever-expanding. Rival governments wage a cold war of aggression while greedy corporations vie for valuable resources. Colonists reach for the stars and gamble with their lives—each new world tamed is either feast or famine.  24.99  16.74

Traveller Core Rulebook -A brand new edition of Traveller is now available - based on the original but tweaked, finessed and updated through a massive months-long beta playtest by you, the players! Traveller is a science fiction roleplaying game of bold explorers and brave adventurers. The Traveller Core Rulebook contains everything you need to create one of these adventurers and begin exploring the galaxy. Spaceports, ancient civilisations, air/rafts, cold steel blades, laser carbines, far distant worlds, and exotic alien beasts – this is the futuristic universe of Traveller, the original and classic science fiction roleplaying game. 29.99  20.99

Shadowrun: Fifth Edition Core Rulebook (Master Index Edition) and Shadowrun, Sixth World Core Rulebook - can't decide which edition of Shadowrun to get? Get 'em both ;) - There are cracks in the world. They’re slender, dark, and often cold, but they are the only things that keep you hidden. Keep you alive. They are the shadows of the world, and they are where you live. You are a shadowrunner, thriving in the margins, doing the jobs no one else can. You have no office, no permanent home, no background to check. You are whatever you make

yourself. Will you seek justice? Sow seeds of chaos? Sell out to the highest bidder? It’s up to you, but this much is certain: If you do nothing, the streets will eat you alive. You can survive, even flourish, as long as you do what it takes. Sacrifice part of your soul for bleeding-edge gear. Push the limits of your will learning new and dangerous magic. Wire yourself into the Matrix, making your mind one with screaming streams of data. It’ll cost you something—everything does—but you can make it worth the price.

Either one - 19.99  13.39

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube,  or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar

ZineQuest 3 - Catpocalypse Meow had Low Stakes but Maximum HP was full of Scoundrels

Ah, sweet, sweet ZineQuest 3. Not even a week in and I think I've already blown by the $250 budget I had set aside for it. Eh, I'm sure I can sell my soul for some coin ;)

In addition to this series of blogposts covering the various projects, I'm also sitting down with a large number of project creators over the next few days and weeks via YouTube LiveStreams. Subscribe at YouTube.com/ErikTenkar so you don't miss a chat, like the one I had this morning with the creator of Low Stakes.

Dirty Bowbe's Roadhouse Presents: Catpocalypse Meow - We are creating Dirty Bowbe's Roadhouse Presents: Catpocalypse Meow, a cat themed role playing games supplement for OSR Games. Mischievous, often maligned, mysterious, and oozing with cuddly cuteness and primeval murder is the noble cat. Here at the Roadhouse we have three and couldn’t be happier with all of their puffy tailed, razor clawed, nap taking, sometimes infuriating, snack demanding cattitude. We took the time out of the rolling quarantines and lengthy social distancing to bring all of their yowling hissing fun to our first ever Old School Rules zine! Dirty Bowbe’s Roadhouse Presents: Catpocalypse Now. Let the fur fly!

So why the Zine and why Now?

A lot of the stuff we come up with doesn’t necessarily fit “in” with the creative direction of other publishers that the old Bowbe usually works with. That is definitely the case with this particular Zine. Catpocalypse Meow is chuck full of purrfect new items, creatures, and adventure hooks for your OSR campaign! This product tips the hat to punsters and funsters of a seemingly bye gone era, with gentle nods to Mark E. Rodgers, Robert Asprin, and heaping helpings of Gary Gygax, and Bowbe’s old mentor Jim Ward for good measure.

A year of quarantine and social distance together saw a lot of D&D and Swords & Wizardry played on Discord with friends and gamers around the globe. During that time we started applying our combined lifetime of gaming and cat friendship into what has evolved into Catpocalypse Meow. The zine is a furious feline themed combination of old school style RPG comics and game ready materials like those once featured in the most popular pen and paper RPG magazine of all time! Original comic tales lead to ready to play mini-adventures. Adventures lead to new treasures, strange creatures, arcane artifacts, obligatory cat butts, insane artworks, crazy cat ladies, forbidden feline temples, canopic kitties, and cat-astrophic spells carefully curated to enrich your OSR gaming table!

Full disclosure: Casey is a friend of mine as well as sharing an association via Frog God Games. Casey will be making an appearance on the Talking Crit Livestream this Wednesday at 9 PM Eastern over at YouTube.com/ErikTenkar

Low Stakes - A Game to Play in the Shadows...inspired by What We Do in the Shadows. Low Stakes is a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by What We Do in the Shadows, both the movie and the TV show. 

In the game, you portray a vampire, werewolf, ghost, mystic, or maybe even a regular ol' human sharing a house together in the modern day. And you’re not very good at it. You'll create situation comedy style stories of gothic monsters trying to get by in a world that has moved on from their day. Conflict, character, humor...it's all there for the taking. 

As stated at the top of this page, I sat down for a Livestreamed Fireside Chat with Craig Campbell this morning.

Maximum HP #5 Kobolds! - The old school zine, for the new school world. Joining Zinequest 2021 with 1E extras. Issue #005 is the Kobold issue of Maximum HP, The old school ’zine for a new school world. In this issue we explore the world of the kobolds, their tricks, traps, and treats. Discover the various breeds, skills, magic, lives, and of course, the dastardly kobold traps.

In this project we are returning to our 1E roots, and releasing this Zine Quest project in the FIRST EDITION of the world's favorite roleplaying game.

We're a 'zine for gamers by gamers. Taking submissions from gamers all over and sharing the best with our readers. We intend to enrich the gaming experience of our readers and help them offer new and unique challenges to their table.

Another full disclosure: I've known Lloyd for years, thanks to NTRPG Con and I own some of his original art. Damn Good stuff!

Tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM Eastern I will be sitting down with Jeff Jones, creator of the Scoundrels Zine for a Fireside Chat. A set of three zines with NPCs, locations, tables and rules to inject a strong crime-theme into your sci-fi (or modern) game. At the most basic level, Zine 1 and Zine 2 of Scoundrels provides 200 unique NPCs to drop quickly into your game. Some are tied to locations, some to gangs, and others are tied to a theme. You can randomly determine NPCs or easily flip through pages. The names are taken from 5 different real-world cultures, making this a great resource for determining names and motivations on the fly for any game.

Scoundrels also taking it to the next level, fleshing out your world with factions, locations and institutions and the NPCs that populate them. The NPCs and factions have motivations, and their writeups evoke way for them to interact with the characters and each other.

There are tables for random encounters with NPCs and tables for adding friends and rivals for the characters. But I didn’t stop there, Ther are additional tables that allow the GM to create crime-related jobs and adventures for the players.  There is even a step-by-step example of me creating a job.

But wait, there is more! Zine 3 provides optional rules for the player characters to have their own crew and be one of the criminal factions in the city. Rules taken from the Blades in the Dark SRD but changed to use with any game system. This provides a framework to create games and campaigns for characters increase the reach and influence in the city.

This is a system-neutral reference that works for any sci-fi game, but easily works with any modern game as well.  I truly believe that this will become one of the most-used GM resource in your arsenal.

I'll be back with more ZineQuest picks on Monday - as well as two ZineQuest Livestreams on Monday and two more on Tuesday. Seriously, subscribe to YouTube.com/ErikTenkar so you don't miss any of them :)

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are the affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, 

or wherever you listen to your podcast collection.

Kickstarter - Space Scoundrels - A Not Too Serious Science Fiction RPG

Thom Wilson of Throwi Games has a great track record, both with on-time Kickstarters and quality writing. He is one of those "organized" people. I am not, but I am glad to count Thom among the friends I've made in the old school gaming corner of the hobby.

Thom's latest project is Space Scoundrels - A Not Too Serious Science Fiction RPG, which is being funded on Kickstarter. Light-hearted SciFi is right up my alley, and the pricing is certainly right for my wallet. 4 bucks for the PDf and 8 bucks for the at-cost POD and the PDF (really the sweet point I think). I'm in for 12 bucks, same as the above but I get credited as a backer in the final release.

Designed as a beer-and-pretzels game with minimal rules and fast-paced skill progression, Space Scoundrels takes a lot of the science out of science-fiction for those that love the genre but don't want to get mired in lots of physics and math. 

 The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are the affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection.

Deal of the Day - The Blackest Space - An Interstellar Sci-Fi Survival Roleplaying Game (OSR)

When it comes to OSR based RPG systems, Bloat Games has a pretty good track record. While I'm not sure I need another scifi ruleset, the OSR is famous for its hackability and The Blackest Space may provide good source material for some White Star gaming. At 3 bucks -normally 9.99, there really is no reason now to find out :) 

Written by Josh Palmer (Co-Creator of Dark Places & Demogorgons and Vigilante City) comes The Blackest Space, a Sci-Fi game that utilizes the BoD game system created by Eric Bloat for The Blackest of Deaths RPG

There is 15 Classes represented in The Blackest Space:  Bounty Hunter, Captain. Communications Commander, Ebontear Endbringer, Ebontear Necrojudge, Emerald Champion, Medical Officer, Meta-Psych, Pilot, Pirate, Science Officer, Security Director, Shock Marine, Smuggler and Technician.

And 12 Playable Races: The Apparatus, Arpi, Asaluss, Cymyrs, Gnargfang, Gronslag, Harkfey, Humans, Lanerians. Mirewhips, Qu’fer and Zygaq.

Content included:

• Rules VS Rulings
• Core Mechanic
• Benefit and Hindrance
• Advantage and Disadvantage
• Attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma)
• Determining Attributes
• Luck
• Hit Points
• Healing
• Death
• Move, Evade & Armor Points
• Everything In Turn
• Leveling Up
• Initiative
• Combat
• Vacuum of Space & Dangerous Enviroments
• Gear and Currency
• Weapons, Armor and Equipment
• Cybernetics
• Robots
• Vehicles
• Interstellar Ships
• Space Combat
• Free Actions
• Star Ships (all sizes and upgrades)
• Space Booty (Stat Bonuses, Weapons, Armor, Equipment, Galactic Repute/Currency, Special Items)
• Galaxy Background
• Earth's Timeline
• Sections of the known Milky Way
• Gronslag Empire, Lanerian Depths, The Solar Council,  Earth, PAX I, J-15, Nexus Base Evermore, The Azure Domain, Barrison-5, Zonatt-3141, The Golden Arsenal, Illumination Realm, The Brine Mire, Crucible Center, The Emerald Edge, Arpourus III and XI, Forbidden Zone, Ventura II, Fury VI, Wyll III, Blackspace Corsairs, La'samoo Station, Devogolos, Koshka-8 and many, many more!
• Organtizations:  The Infinity Exchange, The Probers or Greys & The Ruins of the Great Ancients
• Random Star System Generators
• MONSTERS & ADVERSARIES (30+)
• Templates

 The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are the affiliate programs that support The Tavern.

Kickstarter - Era: The Consortium 5th Anniversary Rulebook and Miniatures

There are times I like a Kickstarter less for its core product and more for some of the additional offerings. Such it is with Era: The Consortium 5th Anniversary Rulebook and Miniatures Kickstarter. It's not that I don't like the core rules being offered in the Kickstarter, it's just that I don't play enough sci-fi RPGs to justify investing in a new sci-fi ruleset.

Then I look at the miniatures connected to this Kickstart and I realize I want them. I certainly don't need them, but I do want them.

So, what is Era: The Consortium?

Era: The Consortium is an epic Sci-Fi Tabletop RPG with 500 years of playable history.  

Within this history, every sub-genre of Sci-Fi is available, meaning that you can play as colonists taming a new world, explorers encountering alien races, soldiers in a war against a hostile alien race, resistance members fighting against an oppressive government, and anything else you can think of! 

The endless possibilities have opened up the Consortium to some amazing roleplaying experiences, from being a member of the Resistance, trying to restore it after the Orion Incident to time travel to change the history of the Consortium! 

It's been five years since we first launched on Kickstarter. Since then, the universe has grown more than we ever imagined! With 13 expansions - each of which offers a new dimension for gameplay - three versions of the Rulebook, plus multiple sessions and campaigns released over that time, we have created a lot.

For those heavily digging sci-fi RPGs there appears to be lots of setting potential within the pages of Era. Fuck me though if I don't get continually drawn in bt the minis themselves.

I can see these working well in Rifts, Star Wars, Traveller and the like. Tempt me not Satan, for I haven't painted a mini in over 20 years! But I might...

Neither The Tavern nor myself receive compensation for Kickstarter coverage or Kickstarter posts. Some Kickstarters are brought to the attention of The Tavern by their creators. Such communication does not guarantee coverage here at The Tavern. I do not back every Kickstarter I highlight as my wallet's contents are not limitless but I do find all highlighted Kickstarters interesting for one or more reasons - Erik Tenkar

Kickstarter - No One Warps For Free! (Alpha Blue)

Say what you want about Venger, it doesn't change the fact that his production qualities are top notch:

This book will be full-color and feature fantastic artwork.  I got the taste for color with Blood Dark Thirst and Battle Star: Trek Wars... now, there's no going back! 

Here's a look at the interior layout for both the PDF and (CreateSpace / Amazon) softcover by Glynn Seal of MonkeyBlood Design.  He does awesome work and Kort'thalis Publishing is fortunate to have his services at our slimy pink and blue disposal.

Here's the thing - I'm not a huge Alpha Blue fan. I am, however, a huge fan of good adventures. Just like I run DCC RPG adventures in my Swords & Wizardry games I'm quite likely to run some Alpha Blue adventures in my White Star games. Good adventures rise above the system they are written for.

Did I mention you can get the PDF of No One Warps For Free! for 10 bucks?

The art isn't bad either - though most of the samples might push up against Tavern Norms ;)

Humble Book Bundle: Super Nebula Author Showcase 2018

It's times like this I remember how much I used to read. A bundle like the  Humble Book Bundle: Super Nebula Author Showcase 2018 might have kept me occupied for a summer. Alright, maybe a tad more ;)

There are four "bundle levels" and instead of listing them, I'm going to show them to you:

Yep, that works out to a mere 10 cents a book.

This makes it a total of 24 books for 8 bucks. Shit, alright, this would probably have covered me for two seasons worth of reading material.

Right. 34 books for 15 bucks. Good thing I'm retired.

20 bucks. 42 books. At a book a week you have more than three seasons covered.

Multi-format means it will work with PDF readers, Amazon Kindles, the Nook and other e-readers. Damn it.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/super-nebula-2018-books?partner=tenkar

Yep, that's an affiliate link above. Affiliate links help fund The Tavern and all we do. Help us do the do we do ;)

News - Netflix to Focus its Originals on Fantasy / SciFi

Here are the bullet points from Business Insider (full article at the link):

• Science fiction and fantasy" became the most popular genre of Netflix original show among subscribers in Q1 of 2018, according to data compiled by the analytics firm Ampere Analysis.
• Netflix has been able to "anticipate" an increase in demand for the genre by rapidly expanding its production of original sci-fi and fantasy shows and movies, according to Ampere.
• More than one quarter (29%) of upcoming Netflix originals are in the sci-fi and fantasy category, higher than any other genre.

It's a good time to be a fan of Fantasy and SciFi :)

Who Was Asking for SciFi Themed Header art at The Tavern?

I'll be adding this to the rotation soon.

See, The Tavern spans genres ;)

Huge thanks to Eren Arik.

I'll be putting together artist links in the next week or so.

Tavern Closed for the Night - Reading the First 59 Pages of White Star (S&W WhiteBox SciFi RPG)

Just got sent the first 59 pages of +James Spahn 's White Star RPG. STOP

Installing to tablet. STOP

Falling in love for the first time all over again. STOP

Will update in morning after torrid sex reading in bed. DON'T STOP ;)

(I'll yammer in the morning)

edit: even the preview I have is bookmarked! woozah!

River of Heaven (OpenQuest / D100 SciFi) Giveaway - PDF

+Newt Newport recently emailed me and asked if I would be interested in giving away a PDF copy of River of Heaven (and it's companion PDF, the adventure Reunion) to one of the readers of The Tavern. I'm no fool - of course i said yes!

This is not part of OSR Christmas (that should pick up again this weekend.) This is a total separate generous giveaway.

River of Heaven takes the OpenQuest rules and ports them to SciFi. OpenQuest is the current version of the d100 / OGL RuneQuest rules that I feel comfortable with. They remind me of the classic Chaosium RuneQuest 2 rules, and those were my go to rules back in the day when I wasn't running AD&D.

I'm damn tempted to take River of Heaven for a spin when life reaches a speed that's manageable. In the meantime I'll brainstorm the campaign that will drive my players happily crazy ;)

So, this is how we are going to do it - post a comment between now whenever I wake up Saturday morning (January 3rd, 2015). One random commenter gets a PDF copy of the River of Heaven rules and the Reunion adventure.

It's already a Silver Best Seller at RPGNow and it's only been out for a week and a half.

(if you want to check out the OpenQuest rules for free, OpenQuest 2 Basic is available RPGNow in PDF)

Here's info from the blurb:

It is the dawn of the 28th Century.

The Third Renaissance, or Bright Age as future historians will call it, is at its zenith.

After the catastrophic first contact with extra-terrestrial life that led to the horrific Solar System war, humanity clawed its way back from the brink and finally reached the stars. For millions of people, Earth’s sun is no more than another star in the night sky, a mote of light, a spiritual birthplace that they will never visit in their lifetimes.

It has been over a century since the Machine Civilisation gifted humanity technological marvels such as the Visser Cube, allowing wormhole travel across the vast chasms of interstellar space. Now interstellar distances grow ever shorter. How the myriad of splintered cultures view this gift varies. Some see it as a blessing, a way to draw humanity into a united whole. Others see it as a curse, robbing them of their individuality. And then there are those who would use it as a means to subjugate humanity and impose their own will upon all…

Across the river of heaven, humanity clings to a scattering of islands in a sea of stars. Players can take on a multitude of roles in this future: a crew member on an interstellar trader, a member of the mysterious Engineers’ Guild, a body-hopping Intercessionist agent – out to manipulate human cultures to its own secret ends, a Renouncer Zealot – intent on destroying Artificial Intelligence in all its forms, or perhaps one of the Reclaimers – planetary engineers dedicated to terraforming any viable planet they happen upon…

River of Heaven uses D101 games’ OpenQuest rules engine; a sleek and streamlined D100 rule set that enables you to maintain the tempo of your stories whilst keeping the rules simple and in the background.

In the core rulebook you will find:

The OpenQuest rules engine - tailored to a hard sci-fi setting.

Simple Character generation

Enabling you to go from concept to fully finished character as quickly as possible.

Augmentations

Humanity has found many ways to improve upon what nature created. Quickly augment your character with the latest biotech/nanotech upgrades.

Equipment

All the weapons, armour (those damn Brits ;)and other types of equipment your character might need to go adventuring in the 28th century.

Transportation

Information on how to get around the River of Heaven universe, be it lowly pack animal on a frontier dirt farm or an interstellar trader equipped with exotic stellar-tap drive.

Background

In addition to a timeline spanning 1000 years of future history, River of Heaven includes an introduction to the Bright Age, the default play setting for the game. It also includes a campaign setting – the Kentauran Hegemony – and information about all the colonised star systems at the start of the 28th century.

Adventure Seeds

Ideas for adventure ideas set in the River of Heaven universe, covering a wide range of styles and themes.

Friends and Foes

An A-Z list of lifeforms that may be encountered by the player characters during their adventures. It includes humans from the various divergent cultures and castes, mundane animals encountered on many worlds of humanity, and some more exotic creatures too.

Written by John Ossoway.

Free RPG Day Pick #11 - Stars Without Number (Free Edition)

Want to play sci-fi with rules that feel comfortable and are easy to learn, especially if you are going from the OSR side of the hobby? Look no further.

Stars Without Number is probably the most complete sci-fi OSR ruleset you could find. A sandbox enabling sci-fi ruleset at that.

Simply amazing that +Kevin Crawford gives it away for free. If you don't yet have it in you gaming collection, grab it now. There are also a bunch of free supplements to use with you new copy of Stars Without Numbers

Another "Pay What You Want" RPG - The Void (Lovecraftian Sci-Fi Horror)

The Void released back in early August, but I missed it back then. I've always been interested in a sci-fi horror RPG - kinda looking for a CoC meets Star Trek. Not sure if this one even comes close to fitting that bill, but the price couldn't be better.

From the blurb:

The Stars Were Never Meant For Us

2159 AD. It is a good time to be alive. The nations of Earth still exist, but they have become more civilized, and humanity has expanded into the rest of our solar system. But, alas, it is not to be our time. Something approaches, a thing on an orbit from far away. Seemingly a mysterious shard of dark matter, this object is known in obscure prophecy as the Chthonian Star. It is awakening things long thought lost or dead, things that have slumbered awaiting its return. The Unified World Council sends out special teams of sanctioned Wardens, whose job it is to ascertain the new threats to human life, to learn everything they can about them, and fight them wherever they are found.

The Void is an original Lovecraftian hard sci-fi horror setting.

The Void Core:

Designed with accessibility in mind. A short overview and introductory adventure can have you playing within an hour.
Uses simple but satisfying d6 dice pool mechanics.
Introduces exciting new rules to ratchet up the survival horror.
Gives Characters many options for diversity and customization.
Provides an exploration of our fully colonized solar system in the near future – and the things that threaten it.
Created by the award-winning team that brought you CthulhuTech.