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Orbital Blues: A Space Western RPG
208 pages, ebook
Published July 28, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 4, 2022
I finished reading Orbital Blues last night; it's a decent indie type game that riffs on Firefly and dark and sad westerns.
Core mechanic is basically Traveller (2d6 for 8+, with the bane and boon mechanic locked in) except for combat which uses 3d6. You need to get the 8+ but you can chose which dice you use and the third dice underpins the damage. Some of the random tables are fun.
The artwork and layout is absolutely gorgeous although I think that undermines the use of the book as a reference volume at the table. Then again, I'm not convinced that you need to reference it that much.
It was pretty much lacking in typos (although some of the stretch goal content felt a little rushed), which was reassuring after the state of the beta and the mess that was Best Left Buried: Deeper.
I'm not sure that it resonates enough to run though, which is why this only has four stars.
Core mechanic is basically Traveller (2d6 for 8+, with the bane and boon mechanic locked in) except for combat which uses 3d6. You need to get the 8+ but you can chose which dice you use and the third dice underpins the damage. Some of the random tables are fun.
The artwork and layout is absolutely gorgeous although I think that undermines the use of the book as a reference volume at the table. Then again, I'm not convinced that you need to reference it that much.
It was pretty much lacking in typos (although some of the stretch goal content felt a little rushed), which was reassuring after the state of the beta and the mess that was Best Left Buried: Deeper.
I'm not sure that it resonates enough to run though, which is why this only has four stars.
April 10, 2025
A narrative-driven rules-lite system that really captures the space western feel, especially with the example setting in the back. Rules are easy to reference and make creating memorable characters quick and easy. Read the whole book, cover to cover, in basically an afternoon, so it’s easy to digest and can be put into a groups gameplay rather quickly.
My only complaint is that the character creation portion references rules that haven’t been introduced until later in the book, and no glossary makes finding specific terms difficult. Luckily, there’s not much to remember so you don’t have to refer to the rules often during play.
From a design perspective, this is probably the most atmospheric rulebook I’ve ever read. Every page is beautifully done and drips with flavor. Worth picking up for sure.
My only complaint is that the character creation portion references rules that haven’t been introduced until later in the book, and no glossary makes finding specific terms difficult. Luckily, there’s not much to remember so you don’t have to refer to the rules often during play.
From a design perspective, this is probably the most atmospheric rulebook I’ve ever read. Every page is beautifully done and drips with flavor. Worth picking up for sure.
August 18, 2024
REVIEW ORBITAL BLUES
As much of a Star Trek fan as I am, I’m also a big Firefly fan. I’m of an age where there was very little it wasn’t worth being a fan of because there was very little genre entertainment at all!
I’ve long wanted a good Firefly RPG and so I’m petty keen to look at anything that even smells close to it.
The perennial favorite, Traveller is certainly favorite - currently occupying maybe six bookshelves. But in truth the rules are a bit long in the tooth and the only players I know who would be willing to play, want to play it unadorned - EXACTLY as the 1977 rules are, which honestly has no interest to me. I remember it fondly, but I also remember why stopped being played.
So Orbital Blues, having the usually ravenous fans of ANY RPG recently released, sounded like it might be worth checking out. It also has a free ‘Quickstart’ set of rles which definitely whet my appetite.
The first reaction to seeing the 206 page hardback rulebook is ‘Oooo - it’s pretty!’ Definitely first class production values — double ribbon bookmarks!
The second reaction is ‘Ugh… lots and lots of white space and big fonts.’ You’re milage may vary but my milage is… well Traveller who aesthetic is best described in this essay — https://knightattheopera.blogspot.com.... All utilitarian and packed with everything you could ever need. And frankly I’ve seen WAY too many modern RPGs that substitute graphic design for quality writing. You know where you are.
I’ll try not to comment on the graphics too much. It makes for a pretty book and it conveys the flavor it want, but it’s also a lot of cut-and-paste and fake posters which doesn’t really count as compelling to me personally. It’s a nice book and it’s small size is especially appreciated.
Of course I’ll happily name Lamentations of the Flame Princess as the complete opposite. Fantastic graphics that only enhance and don’t smother a really good game design.
But, that’s only a first impression. Like too much make-up, it’s not the final judgement.
Let’s check it out. Tables inside both front and back covers. Nice and utilitarian. Wait… a d18 table? WTF? There is no such thing as a “d18” (nor should there ever be). I haven’t turned to the first page and I already have to google to figure out what the hell I’m reading? Not a good sign.
Oh, I see! Roll 1d6 as a d3 to see if you roll 1d6 and add 0, 6 or 12 to the result! So obvious! So right away the authors give me an FU, to which I say, NO, FU!
I do appreciate the brilliance of how they have designed weapons. Gives you a wide variety of weapons without a lot of fiddly details. Something definitely worth stealing.
The Gambits (what would otherwise be called Talents) are mostly you get an Advantage (called Upper Hand here) when attempting something. It reminds me of D&D Feats which mostly just gave a situational +2. It’s mechanically okay, but just reads pretty boring.
The Troubles (what would otherwise be called Disadvantages or Handicaps) are interesting to read, but I can’t imagine how they work in play. One example, Gain 1 Blues when your abilities are doubted against your predecessor’s. Huh? How does this come up in play? Is a Blues a bad thing? How is it bad? It’ got flavor, but even Firefly didn’t see this type of thing happen on screen.
The graphics illustrations are good and make the explanations much clearer. They take up a LOT of ‘wasted’ space, but they do as they are intended and do it well.
As far as I can tell, the ONLY modifiers that are ever used in this came are Advantages (roll 3 take the highest two dice) and Disadvantages (roll 3 and take the lowest 2 dice) which admittedly makes extremely simple and easy to play. It seems to make a little dull though because it’ll take you about 10 minutes to figure out what you’ll almost always succeed at or almost always fail at. Of course, if you’re having fun, it won’t matter that much but predictability — of ANY kind — doesn’t often lead to fun.
A nice rule I haven’t seen before is that having three or more Advantages/Disadvantages makes something either Trivial (no roll needed) or Impossible (no roll allowed). I very much admire this (and am stealing it as we speak!).
Trouble’s Brewing is where once an adventure, after you have accumulated 8 Blues, for those things that make you sad (you Troubles), you can confront your Troubles either verbally or violently. Except that you troubles are mostly just bad memories. How do you confront those verbally OR violently?
Then you can spend Blues instead of Exertion. In other words for die rerolls. You also take half damage from all attacks. No matter who is attacking you or why? Even if it has nothing to do with your Troubles?
At the end of the scene, you choose one of the following: Gain a new Trouble (why the hell would you do that?), Restore all missing hit points (Heart) or increase a Stat by +1 (why would you ever NOT do that??!). I don’t get what this mechanic is trying to accomplish or whether or not it does accomplish it. Rules-wise, that’s not a good thing.
And using up only a quarter of the page when you could have used the rest of the page for a better explanation and an example, just pisses me off (as the purchaser of such rules).
Money is treated fairy abstractly in this game which interests me, because I’ve never seen abstract money work and I’m curious if they have new ideas about it.
But the first thing on the first page talking about money is that Credits and Debits all reset to zero at the end of each Adventure. So then what is the reason that any player would want to get any credits if it just automatically zeroes out? And who cares how deep you get into debt if it goes away when the latest adventure is over, no matter how profitable or not the adventure is.
I do appreciate that they have tried to keep ‘money’ in single digits. Even a spaceship only costs… oh, they don’t give prices for spaceships. Or vehicles. Or weapons. Or armor. So, you’ll have to figure it out. I appreciate the idea. I’m not sure it will work however.
I understand that this is similar to the genre - our heroes just can’t catch a break, but as a game, they are not convincing me that they have figured by out how to make this work. Money and Debt are prime motivators in ANY game. Unless they are meaningless as they appear to be in this game.
Okay, more reading clears it up a little bit more. Before you zero out the Debt you roll for the results of having either more money than debts or more debts than money. This random gives you: Loans, Savings, Contacts (friendly or unfriendly), Equipment disappearing, Owing a Favor, Lost Savings, Repairing your Ship, advancing a Crew Project, Losing a Contact or Paying off a Loan.
Well overall I think it could work, but it is awfully hand-wavey. Best case scenario is you get to Hire Goons/Mobs, Join an Organization, Get/Invent New Equipment or Upgrade/Ships Weapons. That’s some pretty slim carrots.
Certainly the game isn’t only about making money (Traveller), but this feels more like monopoly than Firefly. By glossing over the transactions it seems like your losing a lot of story opportunities as well. Sure you can always add them as GM, but it would be nice if there were some guidelines.
Combat is next. Initiative is rolled once, but recalculated at a “critical or dramatic” moment with +1/-1 based on the “narrative circumstances of the conflict”. Well, hell, this sounds like an argument waiting to happen.
The Knives to a Cinematic Gunfight rule basically once per combat allows a character with a melee weapon to get an Advantage against a ranged weapon. That’s actually very cool and very genre appropriate.
Range weapon distances are also abstracted to Close, Nearby, Far and Remote. I’ve seen this before but again, I’ve never seen it work in a game, but that doesn’t mean it wont. Of course, the description of Nearby as “the size of a small room” doesn’t match the illustration very well, but this doesn’t seem major.
“Use common sense to decide…”
Is there a stupider phrase to put in a rulebook than this? Okay I guess “feel free to make any rule changes you want” comes close. But whose common sense? The Gamemaster’s (Outlaw Master?) or the Players (Outlaw). If everyone used common sense, then no one would ever have disagreements, right?
I’m not saying I have anything in particular against Range Bands, after all, Traveller uses range bands, but Traveller also gives approximate distances in meters to ‘help out’ common sense.
Attacking adds a new twist, rolling three dice and choosing which two to keep to hit or exceed the target number (always 8 in this game) and the third die will be the damage die. With advantages and disadvantages adding a fourth die to the mix.
I do like that the rule eliminated a lot of crud with weapons, but having every weapon do 1d6 of damage?
Dying happens when a character is reduced to 0 hit points. Then they roll 1d6 and if it is less than their Troubles (disadvantages), they are dead. Meaning the more Troubles you have the easier it is to die. I’m still fuzzy on whether you want Troubles or not and how you get and lose them but as this seems a very minimalist game system, I don’t think it’s really that important.
I do give them props for the Diving Save which allows a character to leap in front of another character that is about to get killed. They take double damage which seems pretty harsh, but it’s something that happens in fiction all the time and is rarely accounted for in games. Of course, you don’t have to do this, but if you don’t when you could, you gain 1 Blues. I love that!
Swansong is one of the first thing I heard about Orbital Blues. Basically you have the choice of going out in a blaze of glory. Now I can’t imagine any GM would deny something like this to a PC in ANY game, but it is specifically quantified here. I’m good with that.
Weapons are done in a super innovative way. This is incredibly impressive and just about worth the price of the book alone. It looks at weapons broadly certainly and makes a-lot of VERY different weapons statistically identical, but if you can live with that (I can) it’s very cool. I wish they’d figured out a better way to do damage, but other than that I love the ideas here.
But, it actually tries to carry this over to vehicle and spacecraft weaponry which I don’t think works at all. Obviously it’s nice to keep both systems the same, but it just doesn’t work for me. I’d rather see something different for space craft at least.
This becomes especially obvious when due to the paucity of statistics for vehicle, drivers and crew are free to use their own skills and abilities to make the vehicles do the kind of thing they do in fiction all the time, boosting power here, dodging asteroids there, etc. On the one hand, this means the crew is far more important than the ship. On the other hand, it means the technology of the ship is virtually meaningless.
To be fair they do have an entire set of shipboard actions which helps make it feel a little different than normal combat.
Again, I’m not saying it doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work for me.
It comes with a good selection of NPCs and sample characters. They are divided into Goons, Mobs, Organizations and Marks. They each also get a little random table of moods so they can be a little distinguishable.
By the way, for what it’s worth, I’ve never seen Cowboy Bepop in ANY incarnation, animated or live-action. Not for deliberately, it just never came up on my notice, so my references for this type of game fall under Firefly or Book of Boba Fett. That may also explain why the constant music references in this book are both annoying and cheesy to me.
The truth is that I like this game. It’s too minimalist for me, but I think that’s just my history with RPGs. It would LOVE to say this book alone is all I need to play (and for those to whom it is, I salute you), but I don’t think so. But it comes pretty close.
Honestly if this were my first science fiction RPG, if this were my ‘Traveller’ I could see never going back. Sure, it would be house-ruled for days, but so is Traveller!
I’d love to play this before running it. I’m not confident I could run it as fast-and-loose as the rules obviously intend me to, so I’d love to see what someone who ‘gets’ it can do with it.
I like that they put a sample star system in the book as an immediate place to play games. I HATE that there is no map for it!
And of course, this is where the limits of cut-and-paste artwork show most dramatically!
This is also where we see how the game is supposed to work in the sense of giving 3 to 6 people enough to do during a session to really make it interesting.
When we see bounty hunters in Star Wars/Firefly there is always something other than bounty hunting going on. The bounty hunters aren’t our heroes. I do plan to see Cowboy Bebop when I get a chance, but I haven’t yet so I wonder how they do it. But right now, I want to know how this game does it.
FWIW I’m also a fan of the Stephanie Plum books and she’s a bounty hunter. That might actually be a good source for ideas…
I’m going through the setting and background provided in the rules and honestly I’m completely underwhelmed. Not only are there no maps, which just makes the descriptions all the blander, but the things that ARE there are neither very interesting or inspiring.
A casino called “The High Rollers Casino”? Convenience stores called “8/12”? The NPCs seem to be taken entirely from ‘The Sopranos’ as well.
The starship terminal where everyone comes and goes from this planet doesn’t even have ticket prices. So does this cause 1 Debt each? 1 Debt for the entire party? Sure, you gave us a free spaceship, but mightn’t this come up some time?
Well, after reading the setting material as far as I can tell the only thing it allows you to do is get into fights in the middle of various space mafia/gang wars. Maybe this is what they did on Cowboy Bepod? I don’t know but it’s not very inspiring.
The NPC Appendix provides much more information on what to do in this game by way of NPCs with agendas that the players may help or hinder. This is good. It’s still skirting around the edge of petty crime, but at least it’s something.
So what have we got with this game.
First, a really good presentation. It think it could be better but it is pretty well layed out. You won’t regret shelling out money for the hard-copy.
As a game I think it works, but only in a very narrow niche. But since that niche is essentially Firefly or Cowboy Bebop it’s hard to see that as too narrow.
For the right gang in the right mood, I think this could be a lot of fun. Of course, that’s true of even badly written games!
I don’t think I could run it. But if coaxed I would definitely give it a try.
I especially appreciate the huge effort they have taken to reduce the mechanical burden down to the very minimum they needed to call it a game. Some of the innovations are out and out brilliant.
I keep trying to find reasons not to give this a 5. And I just can’t. And of course I will keep it and hope someone else can run it!
As much of a Star Trek fan as I am, I’m also a big Firefly fan. I’m of an age where there was very little it wasn’t worth being a fan of because there was very little genre entertainment at all!
I’ve long wanted a good Firefly RPG and so I’m petty keen to look at anything that even smells close to it.
The perennial favorite, Traveller is certainly favorite - currently occupying maybe six bookshelves. But in truth the rules are a bit long in the tooth and the only players I know who would be willing to play, want to play it unadorned - EXACTLY as the 1977 rules are, which honestly has no interest to me. I remember it fondly, but I also remember why stopped being played.
So Orbital Blues, having the usually ravenous fans of ANY RPG recently released, sounded like it might be worth checking out. It also has a free ‘Quickstart’ set of rles which definitely whet my appetite.
The first reaction to seeing the 206 page hardback rulebook is ‘Oooo - it’s pretty!’ Definitely first class production values — double ribbon bookmarks!
The second reaction is ‘Ugh… lots and lots of white space and big fonts.’ You’re milage may vary but my milage is… well Traveller who aesthetic is best described in this essay — https://knightattheopera.blogspot.com.... All utilitarian and packed with everything you could ever need. And frankly I’ve seen WAY too many modern RPGs that substitute graphic design for quality writing. You know where you are.
I’ll try not to comment on the graphics too much. It makes for a pretty book and it conveys the flavor it want, but it’s also a lot of cut-and-paste and fake posters which doesn’t really count as compelling to me personally. It’s a nice book and it’s small size is especially appreciated.
Of course I’ll happily name Lamentations of the Flame Princess as the complete opposite. Fantastic graphics that only enhance and don’t smother a really good game design.
But, that’s only a first impression. Like too much make-up, it’s not the final judgement.
Let’s check it out. Tables inside both front and back covers. Nice and utilitarian. Wait… a d18 table? WTF? There is no such thing as a “d18” (nor should there ever be). I haven’t turned to the first page and I already have to google to figure out what the hell I’m reading? Not a good sign.
Oh, I see! Roll 1d6 as a d3 to see if you roll 1d6 and add 0, 6 or 12 to the result! So obvious! So right away the authors give me an FU, to which I say, NO, FU!
I do appreciate the brilliance of how they have designed weapons. Gives you a wide variety of weapons without a lot of fiddly details. Something definitely worth stealing.
The Gambits (what would otherwise be called Talents) are mostly you get an Advantage (called Upper Hand here) when attempting something. It reminds me of D&D Feats which mostly just gave a situational +2. It’s mechanically okay, but just reads pretty boring.
The Troubles (what would otherwise be called Disadvantages or Handicaps) are interesting to read, but I can’t imagine how they work in play. One example, Gain 1 Blues when your abilities are doubted against your predecessor’s. Huh? How does this come up in play? Is a Blues a bad thing? How is it bad? It’ got flavor, but even Firefly didn’t see this type of thing happen on screen.
The graphics illustrations are good and make the explanations much clearer. They take up a LOT of ‘wasted’ space, but they do as they are intended and do it well.
As far as I can tell, the ONLY modifiers that are ever used in this came are Advantages (roll 3 take the highest two dice) and Disadvantages (roll 3 and take the lowest 2 dice) which admittedly makes extremely simple and easy to play. It seems to make a little dull though because it’ll take you about 10 minutes to figure out what you’ll almost always succeed at or almost always fail at. Of course, if you’re having fun, it won’t matter that much but predictability — of ANY kind — doesn’t often lead to fun.
A nice rule I haven’t seen before is that having three or more Advantages/Disadvantages makes something either Trivial (no roll needed) or Impossible (no roll allowed). I very much admire this (and am stealing it as we speak!).
Trouble’s Brewing is where once an adventure, after you have accumulated 8 Blues, for those things that make you sad (you Troubles), you can confront your Troubles either verbally or violently. Except that you troubles are mostly just bad memories. How do you confront those verbally OR violently?
Then you can spend Blues instead of Exertion. In other words for die rerolls. You also take half damage from all attacks. No matter who is attacking you or why? Even if it has nothing to do with your Troubles?
At the end of the scene, you choose one of the following: Gain a new Trouble (why the hell would you do that?), Restore all missing hit points (Heart) or increase a Stat by +1 (why would you ever NOT do that??!). I don’t get what this mechanic is trying to accomplish or whether or not it does accomplish it. Rules-wise, that’s not a good thing.
And using up only a quarter of the page when you could have used the rest of the page for a better explanation and an example, just pisses me off (as the purchaser of such rules).
Money is treated fairy abstractly in this game which interests me, because I’ve never seen abstract money work and I’m curious if they have new ideas about it.
But the first thing on the first page talking about money is that Credits and Debits all reset to zero at the end of each Adventure. So then what is the reason that any player would want to get any credits if it just automatically zeroes out? And who cares how deep you get into debt if it goes away when the latest adventure is over, no matter how profitable or not the adventure is.
I do appreciate that they have tried to keep ‘money’ in single digits. Even a spaceship only costs… oh, they don’t give prices for spaceships. Or vehicles. Or weapons. Or armor. So, you’ll have to figure it out. I appreciate the idea. I’m not sure it will work however.
I understand that this is similar to the genre - our heroes just can’t catch a break, but as a game, they are not convincing me that they have figured by out how to make this work. Money and Debt are prime motivators in ANY game. Unless they are meaningless as they appear to be in this game.
Okay, more reading clears it up a little bit more. Before you zero out the Debt you roll for the results of having either more money than debts or more debts than money. This random gives you: Loans, Savings, Contacts (friendly or unfriendly), Equipment disappearing, Owing a Favor, Lost Savings, Repairing your Ship, advancing a Crew Project, Losing a Contact or Paying off a Loan.
Well overall I think it could work, but it is awfully hand-wavey. Best case scenario is you get to Hire Goons/Mobs, Join an Organization, Get/Invent New Equipment or Upgrade/Ships Weapons. That’s some pretty slim carrots.
Certainly the game isn’t only about making money (Traveller), but this feels more like monopoly than Firefly. By glossing over the transactions it seems like your losing a lot of story opportunities as well. Sure you can always add them as GM, but it would be nice if there were some guidelines.
Combat is next. Initiative is rolled once, but recalculated at a “critical or dramatic” moment with +1/-1 based on the “narrative circumstances of the conflict”. Well, hell, this sounds like an argument waiting to happen.
The Knives to a Cinematic Gunfight rule basically once per combat allows a character with a melee weapon to get an Advantage against a ranged weapon. That’s actually very cool and very genre appropriate.
Range weapon distances are also abstracted to Close, Nearby, Far and Remote. I’ve seen this before but again, I’ve never seen it work in a game, but that doesn’t mean it wont. Of course, the description of Nearby as “the size of a small room” doesn’t match the illustration very well, but this doesn’t seem major.
“Use common sense to decide…”
Is there a stupider phrase to put in a rulebook than this? Okay I guess “feel free to make any rule changes you want” comes close. But whose common sense? The Gamemaster’s (Outlaw Master?) or the Players (Outlaw). If everyone used common sense, then no one would ever have disagreements, right?
I’m not saying I have anything in particular against Range Bands, after all, Traveller uses range bands, but Traveller also gives approximate distances in meters to ‘help out’ common sense.
Attacking adds a new twist, rolling three dice and choosing which two to keep to hit or exceed the target number (always 8 in this game) and the third die will be the damage die. With advantages and disadvantages adding a fourth die to the mix.
I do like that the rule eliminated a lot of crud with weapons, but having every weapon do 1d6 of damage?
Dying happens when a character is reduced to 0 hit points. Then they roll 1d6 and if it is less than their Troubles (disadvantages), they are dead. Meaning the more Troubles you have the easier it is to die. I’m still fuzzy on whether you want Troubles or not and how you get and lose them but as this seems a very minimalist game system, I don’t think it’s really that important.
I do give them props for the Diving Save which allows a character to leap in front of another character that is about to get killed. They take double damage which seems pretty harsh, but it’s something that happens in fiction all the time and is rarely accounted for in games. Of course, you don’t have to do this, but if you don’t when you could, you gain 1 Blues. I love that!
Swansong is one of the first thing I heard about Orbital Blues. Basically you have the choice of going out in a blaze of glory. Now I can’t imagine any GM would deny something like this to a PC in ANY game, but it is specifically quantified here. I’m good with that.
Weapons are done in a super innovative way. This is incredibly impressive and just about worth the price of the book alone. It looks at weapons broadly certainly and makes a-lot of VERY different weapons statistically identical, but if you can live with that (I can) it’s very cool. I wish they’d figured out a better way to do damage, but other than that I love the ideas here.
But, it actually tries to carry this over to vehicle and spacecraft weaponry which I don’t think works at all. Obviously it’s nice to keep both systems the same, but it just doesn’t work for me. I’d rather see something different for space craft at least.
This becomes especially obvious when due to the paucity of statistics for vehicle, drivers and crew are free to use their own skills and abilities to make the vehicles do the kind of thing they do in fiction all the time, boosting power here, dodging asteroids there, etc. On the one hand, this means the crew is far more important than the ship. On the other hand, it means the technology of the ship is virtually meaningless.
To be fair they do have an entire set of shipboard actions which helps make it feel a little different than normal combat.
Again, I’m not saying it doesn’t work, it just doesn’t work for me.
It comes with a good selection of NPCs and sample characters. They are divided into Goons, Mobs, Organizations and Marks. They each also get a little random table of moods so they can be a little distinguishable.
By the way, for what it’s worth, I’ve never seen Cowboy Bepop in ANY incarnation, animated or live-action. Not for deliberately, it just never came up on my notice, so my references for this type of game fall under Firefly or Book of Boba Fett. That may also explain why the constant music references in this book are both annoying and cheesy to me.
The truth is that I like this game. It’s too minimalist for me, but I think that’s just my history with RPGs. It would LOVE to say this book alone is all I need to play (and for those to whom it is, I salute you), but I don’t think so. But it comes pretty close.
Honestly if this were my first science fiction RPG, if this were my ‘Traveller’ I could see never going back. Sure, it would be house-ruled for days, but so is Traveller!
I’d love to play this before running it. I’m not confident I could run it as fast-and-loose as the rules obviously intend me to, so I’d love to see what someone who ‘gets’ it can do with it.
I like that they put a sample star system in the book as an immediate place to play games. I HATE that there is no map for it!
And of course, this is where the limits of cut-and-paste artwork show most dramatically!
This is also where we see how the game is supposed to work in the sense of giving 3 to 6 people enough to do during a session to really make it interesting.
When we see bounty hunters in Star Wars/Firefly there is always something other than bounty hunting going on. The bounty hunters aren’t our heroes. I do plan to see Cowboy Bebop when I get a chance, but I haven’t yet so I wonder how they do it. But right now, I want to know how this game does it.
FWIW I’m also a fan of the Stephanie Plum books and she’s a bounty hunter. That might actually be a good source for ideas…
I’m going through the setting and background provided in the rules and honestly I’m completely underwhelmed. Not only are there no maps, which just makes the descriptions all the blander, but the things that ARE there are neither very interesting or inspiring.
A casino called “The High Rollers Casino”? Convenience stores called “8/12”? The NPCs seem to be taken entirely from ‘The Sopranos’ as well.
The starship terminal where everyone comes and goes from this planet doesn’t even have ticket prices. So does this cause 1 Debt each? 1 Debt for the entire party? Sure, you gave us a free spaceship, but mightn’t this come up some time?
Well, after reading the setting material as far as I can tell the only thing it allows you to do is get into fights in the middle of various space mafia/gang wars. Maybe this is what they did on Cowboy Bepod? I don’t know but it’s not very inspiring.
The NPC Appendix provides much more information on what to do in this game by way of NPCs with agendas that the players may help or hinder. This is good. It’s still skirting around the edge of petty crime, but at least it’s something.
So what have we got with this game.
First, a really good presentation. It think it could be better but it is pretty well layed out. You won’t regret shelling out money for the hard-copy.
As a game I think it works, but only in a very narrow niche. But since that niche is essentially Firefly or Cowboy Bebop it’s hard to see that as too narrow.
For the right gang in the right mood, I think this could be a lot of fun. Of course, that’s true of even badly written games!
I don’t think I could run it. But if coaxed I would definitely give it a try.
I especially appreciate the huge effort they have taken to reduce the mechanical burden down to the very minimum they needed to call it a game. Some of the innovations are out and out brilliant.
I keep trying to find reasons not to give this a 5. And I just can’t. And of course I will keep it and hope someone else can run it!
May 7, 2025
OSR influenced Cowboy Bebop/Firefly style space western with more modern mechanics. Mid to late 20th century retro-future/cassette futurism aesthetics. Solidly woke.
I enjoyed reading the book. So much so that I read it in a single day, which is unheard of for me for a gaming book these days. This was aided by the very attractive layout that resulted in far less than 200 pages of game in this 200 page book. I don't think this is a bad thing, just that the book is deceptively thick due to the evocative design that results in a lot of page space being used for creative layout elements rather than game text.
The core mechanics seem solid. It uses a 2d6 8+ success mechanic with stats as the only additive modifier, and everything else handled by advantage/disadvantage mechanics where you roll 3d6 and drop the lowest/highest. Advantages/disadvantages stack and cancel each other out, but don't have additional effects until you reach 3 of one or the other, at which point the task becomes trivial/impossible and either succeeds automatically or automatically fails.
There's a little more complication with combat in that you roll one more die and then choose which two you are using for success with the remaining die being your damage die. Advantage/disadvantage still adds an additional die. Also, the target number can vary slightly in combat, where it never does in other tasks.
The game overall leans a bit too deep into OSR territory for my taste at times, but thankfully not into those elements I like the least. While characters are fragile, they aren't disposable game pieces, and a significant percentage of the mechanics center around Troubles and Blues that encourage leaning into your character's "misgivings, misdeeds, vices, or regrets" as they are the only method for mechanical character advancement.
It still is maybe too rules light for my taste, but I'm looking forward to giving it a try and finding out for sure.
I enjoyed reading the book. So much so that I read it in a single day, which is unheard of for me for a gaming book these days. This was aided by the very attractive layout that resulted in far less than 200 pages of game in this 200 page book. I don't think this is a bad thing, just that the book is deceptively thick due to the evocative design that results in a lot of page space being used for creative layout elements rather than game text.
The core mechanics seem solid. It uses a 2d6 8+ success mechanic with stats as the only additive modifier, and everything else handled by advantage/disadvantage mechanics where you roll 3d6 and drop the lowest/highest. Advantages/disadvantages stack and cancel each other out, but don't have additional effects until you reach 3 of one or the other, at which point the task becomes trivial/impossible and either succeeds automatically or automatically fails.
There's a little more complication with combat in that you roll one more die and then choose which two you are using for success with the remaining die being your damage die. Advantage/disadvantage still adds an additional die. Also, the target number can vary slightly in combat, where it never does in other tasks.
The game overall leans a bit too deep into OSR territory for my taste at times, but thankfully not into those elements I like the least. While characters are fragile, they aren't disposable game pieces, and a significant percentage of the mechanics center around Troubles and Blues that encourage leaning into your character's "misgivings, misdeeds, vices, or regrets" as they are the only method for mechanical character advancement.
It still is maybe too rules light for my taste, but I'm looking forward to giving it a try and finding out for sure.
August 25, 2025
Seems like a really interesting system, loved the setting and the graphic design. That said, not sure how useful this book will be for in game reference. The exact mechanics are still a little muddy. Interested in the QuickStart.
The end chapter example system is really interesting and has some cool messy NPC set ups.
The end chapter example system is really interesting and has some cool messy NPC set ups.
October 20, 2024
Excited to try out this new system. The space western angle where it puts struggle at the forefront and has a mechanic for "blues", as well as how you must choose a song for your character sounds cool. The Vegas inspired starter setting also has potential.
Good buy
Good buy
September 1, 2025
A perfect, narrative-first TTRPG for playing space westerns and dramas on the table with friends. Well written, good simple D6 mechanics. The art is good and carries the vibe throughout the book.
October 6, 2025
Really well done. Looking forward to getting it to the table
July 24, 2023
Really interesting system, looking forward to trying it out with friends
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