Space Western - Tumblr Posts

THEME: Space and Stars

This week's themes are all loosely categorized under space, from space-westerns, to space-fantasy, to some games entirely within their own genre.

Boar Beasts on A Barbarous Planet, by Z.W. Garth.

Boar Beasts on a Barbarous Planet is a 2-page Push Powered roleplaying game of boarfolk warriors surviving on a planet of swords-and-lasers, covered in hostile biomes and littered with the sci-fi tech of planetary invaders who couldn't cut it in this harsh world. 

Players take on the role of warriors dedicated to protecting their sounder from the many threats that plague them, in this harsh, psychedelic world. 

Push games use an interesting 'push-your-luck' mechanic, in which your can choose to re-roll and add to your roll in order to make a "weak" success stronger - but roll too high, and you meet disaster. In my opinion, it's an SRD that feels a little over-looked in the indie scene.

This game is meant to be brutal and violent, on a world that is difficult to survive. Your characters enter the story battle-scarred, and will leave the story worse, possibly even dead. This looks to be a game that’s full of prompts and roll-tables, so if you like random generation, I recommend checking this one out.

From Out of the Boundless Deep, by Scyllaycs. 

From Out the Boundless Deep is a two-player game about a mech pilot and an engineer working on the starship the Boundless. The game follows the pilot’s dangerous missions off the ship, the engineer’s meaningful repairs onboard the ship, and the brief moments the two meet between missions.

This game has two players, and no set GM. If you want to be a character who’s interacting with a dynamic set of stats and risky endeavours, you can pick up the Pilot. If you like building and modding things to set up the two of you for future challenges, then the Engineer might be more your style. The Game itself is split into two phases: Ship Phase and Mission Phase, with each phase giving the player a chance to shine. A Tarot Deck will be used to provide benefits and drawbacks throughout the course of play.

This is a game where you can really explore the conflict and community between two characters, in a situation where they can’t always communicate in a way they’d like. It doesn't demand an epic storyline but definitely has the space for it. This is also a great game for two people who have different and complimentary styles of play. 

Dead Belt, by A Couple of Drakes. 

Dead Belt is played by building a Belter and taking them out into the Belt to scavenge randomly-generated starships, using things you already have laying around: a six-sided die, a deck of common playing cards, and a few tokens of whatever sort happen to be close at hand.

With a dozen unique ship deck plans, over 100 flavorful prompts, and plenty of character stats to help you avert certain death, no two ships will ever feel the same. You’ll board these derelict starships, navigate barriers, dodge threats, monitor your air-supply, and salvage as you go.

You’ll deal with all the dangers lurking onboard these starships, push your luck, and finally return to spend your hard-won booty to secure better equipment, improve your skills, pay down your crippling debt, and hopefully, maybe, eventually set yourself up to live out your dreams far from the Belt.

There are three ways to play this game: Solo, Co-Op and Rivalry. This means that in a two-player game, you can choose to either work together or attempt to sabotage each-other in a race for pay. This game is an homage to Cowboy Bebop and similar Space Westerns, with a lot of tantalizing options designed for duet play.

Vaults of Vaarn, by graculusdroog.

Vaults of Vaarn is a 48-page, black and white tabletop RPG zine, which presents setting information, a full game system, and character creation procedure for adventures in Vaarn, a vast blue desert that lies at the very end of time. The game is built on the chassis of Knaveby Ben Milton, with lightweight rules, speedy character generation, and gameplay that emphasizes creativity and problem-solving on the part of players and referee. 

This game setting feels like a space opera smashed together with acid fantasy, with bright colourful descriptions of strange monsters, NPC’s and locations. It is a dangerous setting that is designed to work with OSR games, primarily Knave but I have a feeling it would be pretty easy to steal ideas from this for other OSR systems as well. If you’re a fan of big space epics like Dune or weird futures like Numenera or Gamma World, this game is probably worth checking out.

If you want to see what the community has created for this setting, I recommend checking out the submissions to the Vaarn Summer Jam of 2022!

Nibiru, by Araukana Media.

Nibiru is a science fiction tabletop roleplaying game, set in a massive space station in a neighbouring solar system. Players take on the role of Vagabonds; people who woke up in the space station with no memories of their past.

Nibiru tackles themes of memory, nature and artificiality through simple mechanics, evocative art and immersive worldbuilding.

This is a game in which you create your character’s backstory as you play, filling in pieces of memory as you explore a space station filled with strange inhabitants and abandoned or deteriorating locations. The way you write about yourself will also fuel your character progression, with rewards for creativity and turning some of your memories into tools that you can use as you play. The setting is unique, evocative, and has a lot of potential to tell a compelling and heart-wrenching story. 

If you want to see a bit of the game in action before buying it, there is a Quickstart Guide available on DriveThruRPG!

Other Space Recommendation Posts

Star Trek (and its sequel)

Space Adventures

Space Westerns

Space Fantasy

Vault Hunter Flow

Shit, man, I’m shootin’ different.

This sorry ass shituationship started when I loaded titanium tipped overpacked powderkeg personnel carrier poppin’ penetrator class peashooter punching ordnance into my 25mm Magnum battle cannon.

Now I’m trading Shit Oil with space psychos outta the cursed canyons so I can take 20 shots from a Torgue weapon to the ass and still siddown in a chair good after I get my hundred grand I spent on hookers and sPACE BLOW, man.

I’m putting a chain saw onto my chainsaw on my battle rifle so I can cut shit even better to get riled up Rakk fumes into my lungs.

I’m smoking that Purloined Pandora Pirate’s Property pack. Shit so purple you’d think it was laced with Eridium via Energized Electrolysis.

Shit so gas it could fuel a raider’s ruckus rig till rain starts falling in the Droughts.

I let a skag bite me in the chest so I didn’t have to feel the fuckin’ flamethrowin’ sawblade launchers dig into my spine, causing irreparable damage to my nervous system.

They call it a new you cause they knew I’d never be like you cause I’m already him.

I shot a vault monster With a Jakobs from a jillion miles away like that nasty motherfucker was nothin’.

Fuck it, I looted the opp. Sold all of his gear to the nearest town, and they didn’t bother to bury his dumb ass.

Arthur Morgan, and the Rings of Paradise

Arthur was confused.

His mind reeled and his stomach ached like he’d been drowning his insides in putrid liquor. Doubled over, coughing, half laughing at his predicament he remembered lengthy drinking binges with Lenny or John or Javier. He wiped spittle from his chin as the daze began to be replaced by a painfully everpresent dull ache. The outlaw scratched unkempt hair from under his hat, looking this way and that, looking for his horse. Arthur was alone, too, on a familiar lookin grassy plane surrounded by sparse woodland islands. Birds’ egg blue skies embraced him. A gentle breeze whispered here and there.

He whistled in vain, sputtering out into a coughing fit. “Rachael! Oh, goddamn creature, run off again... What the hell did we drink last night..?” Arthur wiped his eyes and very suddenly, something caught his uncertain gaze.

Foggy disorientation vanished from his thoughts in an instant.

The sky above him arched upward into an elegant, impossible Ring growing increasingly thin and tiny against a dreamlike blue-black sky. Before and behind him stretched landscape and horizon as it reached into the air. He saw gorgeous oceans, crimson deserts, steaming jungles, glacially entombed mountains, hissing badlands: all in endless glory above him.

Arthur Morgan fell to his knees in silence, staring upward in disbelief. Thoughts of fireside roars by Dutch about paradise echoed in his mind, stories of rich eternity in an untamed and uninhabited frontier. Arthur Morgan felt tears prickle at his eyes. The weight of his rifle and repeating shotgun and revolvers, his aged knapsack, the weight of running from the law, the weight of fear that had grown in him as dreams of paradise slipped away into unreality: all seemed to evaporate into nothingness. Another life.

Then: a scream in the skies above him. Arthur threw himself to the ground and drew his ornate revolvers, turning upward just in time to watch bulbous, unnatural shapes wrought in organic purplish-black racing overhead. The flying machines were larger than any carriage or steamboat he’d ever seen, and they flew like horrendous angels!

More strange craft like howling demons passed overhead and away from him, thrumming with predatory energy. Suddenly the Outlaw felt very, very small.

When Arthur noticed he was not alone, and when Arthur saw the hulking giant metal man carrying a rifle unlike any he’d ever seen, a singular thought grew in his thoughts.

What the in the goddamn hell did I get myself into?