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Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars
Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars is a roleplaying game about outcasts, renegades and misfits living in the belly of a space station, in the shadow of a more prosperous society. You play through their everyday lives, interpersonal relationships and small-scale drama in the Below, a dangerous world where poverty, social strife and gang conflict sit side-by-side with alien technology and supernatural weirdness.
The game is GMless and diceless, with rules that point your character at each other and bring their relationships into sharp focus. They help you quickly create a rich setting, flawed characters, and charged relationships which develop over time. You'll watch your characters evolve and change before your eyes.
The book includes everything you need to play, plus six varied and evocative quick-start scenarios and a teaching guide to help guide your group through the rules.
The game is GMless and diceless, with rules that point your character at each other and bring their relationships into sharp focus. They help you quickly create a rich setting, flawed characters, and charged relationships which develop over time. You'll watch your characters evolve and change before your eyes.
The book includes everything you need to play, plus six varied and evocative quick-start scenarios and a teaching guide to help guide your group through the rules.
- GenresRole Playing Games
175 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2019
12 people want to read
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February 16, 2022Part of a Bundle of Holding Indie Cornucopia purchase, all of which I'll be reviewing separately because they are very different. (Though for end of year book numbers, I'm counting all of these as one item.)
Flotsam is one of those games I’d like to see in action. The central premise is that you play the lower class folks (the Below) vis-a-vis some upper class (the Above) in some space station or ship. Perhaps your character is a gang leader, or a demagogue, or a cast-off from the Above.
But in addition to your Primary Character, you also play/manage a Situation, like “Poverty”, “Community”, “The Gangs.”
Except you don’t really control/own any part of the world, but like in an improv show — or, say, Avery Alder’s The Quiet Years — should feel free to play with any element that’s been introduced.
Also, maybe there are spirits or other supernatural elements; or maybe they are given SF explanations, like AIs, aliens, etc.
So each scene is framed for drama (like Hillfolk), where the PC’s weaknesses/relationships are tested by other characters and/or larger forces, but then their actions might influence those larger forces, etc.
Is there a GM? Honestly, I’m not sure — the book talks about a “facilitator,” but again, it feels like this is real close to a GM-less story game, like Fiasco.
So there’s elements here of a lot of games I like, and the fun art does a good job mostly of selling the idea of “how people survive when they’re up against the wall”; and my one complaint is really that the instructions for creating a world feel little vague. Like rather than the evocative questions you get from the Oracle in The Quiet Year, here the questions are a little too open-ended, like for a “Spirits” Situation, you are told to ask questions about “Visions, omens, prophecies, dreams.”
The main book comes with several sample game-worlds, some of which I liked more than others. (The bundle also included all these games as separate bundles with rules that would make it easier to get people on-board, I think, and is a smart move.) The included worlds are:
- An ex-pilgrimage ship, where a demagogue is stirring the below into storming the above before a maybe spiritual comet returns; featuring religious robots
- A fading transport hub, with little work now, and a broken refrigeration system for the Below
- A space station riven by politics where the losers get sent below and scheme for their return
- A space prison where scientists experiment on prisoners, unlocking potential powers
- A space station where a disease ravages the below
- A new gateway that some outside military wants to take over
So there’s a nice variety there, but except for the image of robots following their original programming on a ship that has lost its purpose, I didn’t ever fall in love with anything here. And yet, the idea of a Quiet Year setting-creation for a Fiasco style game really intrigues me.
Flotsam is one of those games I’d like to see in action. The central premise is that you play the lower class folks (the Below) vis-a-vis some upper class (the Above) in some space station or ship. Perhaps your character is a gang leader, or a demagogue, or a cast-off from the Above.
But in addition to your Primary Character, you also play/manage a Situation, like “Poverty”, “Community”, “The Gangs.”
Except you don’t really control/own any part of the world, but like in an improv show — or, say, Avery Alder’s The Quiet Years — should feel free to play with any element that’s been introduced.
Also, maybe there are spirits or other supernatural elements; or maybe they are given SF explanations, like AIs, aliens, etc.
So each scene is framed for drama (like Hillfolk), where the PC’s weaknesses/relationships are tested by other characters and/or larger forces, but then their actions might influence those larger forces, etc.
Is there a GM? Honestly, I’m not sure — the book talks about a “facilitator,” but again, it feels like this is real close to a GM-less story game, like Fiasco.
So there’s elements here of a lot of games I like, and the fun art does a good job mostly of selling the idea of “how people survive when they’re up against the wall”; and my one complaint is really that the instructions for creating a world feel little vague. Like rather than the evocative questions you get from the Oracle in The Quiet Year, here the questions are a little too open-ended, like for a “Spirits” Situation, you are told to ask questions about “Visions, omens, prophecies, dreams.”
The main book comes with several sample game-worlds, some of which I liked more than others. (The bundle also included all these games as separate bundles with rules that would make it easier to get people on-board, I think, and is a smart move.) The included worlds are:
- An ex-pilgrimage ship, where a demagogue is stirring the below into storming the above before a maybe spiritual comet returns; featuring religious robots
- A fading transport hub, with little work now, and a broken refrigeration system for the Below
- A space station riven by politics where the losers get sent below and scheme for their return
- A space prison where scientists experiment on prisoners, unlocking potential powers
- A space station where a disease ravages the below
- A new gateway that some outside military wants to take over
So there’s a nice variety there, but except for the image of robots following their original programming on a ship that has lost its purpose, I didn’t ever fall in love with anything here. And yet, the idea of a Quiet Year setting-creation for a Fiasco style game really intrigues me.
September 17, 2023
Excellent gm-less RPG. I look forward to playing it soon with my group.
The focus on the "small stories" close to the main characters, distinguishes it from typical "big picture save the world" plots. Plus I'm always a fan of anything from Black Armada games, since hanging out with the authors in my Oxford days.
The focus on the "small stories" close to the main characters, distinguishes it from typical "big picture save the world" plots. Plus I'm always a fan of anything from Black Armada games, since hanging out with the authors in my Oxford days.
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