Orbital Decay
Something brought you here. Just a busted jump drive¸ you hoped. You can salvage parts from the derelict orbiting nearby¸ if you can finish before it crashes into the planet in a few hours.?But it's not that easy. Where's the derelict's crew? Why were gravity and life support disabled? Something brought you here. It wasn't just bad luck. And it won't let you leave.
Orbital Decay is a super-slim¸ self-contained¸ lo-fi sci-fi RPG about trying not to get killed in space. It's inspired by Alien¸ Pitch Black¸ Dead Space¸ and Mothership¸ and fits on 3 pages and a cover¸ printable on two sides of a letter-sized page.
- Basic rules for play based on the FREE 24XX SRD and Emergency Rules
- Really¸ really quick rules for making PCs¸ including just four skills¸ two origins¸ and a short pick-list of items
- A horror scenario and ship map¸ which could potentially be the players' new ship if they are very clever and/or very lucky
- Super-simple rules for creating alien horrors¸ including a d4 list of sample behaviors and and a d6 list to roll on three times for defenses
- Stress rules to give players a boost in fight-or-flight situations¸ with the chance of increasingly dangerous side effects
- GMing prompts including 20 things observed when entering a new room (from treasures to terrifying revelations) and 20 kickers (from the creature was human and can still be saved to this is all some kind of sick reality show)
What is 2400? 2400 is lo-fi sci-fi. It's centuries in the future¸ and it's a decades-old modem that screams like a dying robot when it connects to the net. It's a space ship with an FTL drive¸ artificial gravity¸ and a flickering display you gotta tap a few times to see the jump coordinates. It's hacking something together with whatever cheap materials you have on hand¸ ignoring the rules until you need them¸ banging out something that might not sound finished¸ but definitely sounds fun. It's a series of micro RPGs that might all be in the same setting¸ unless they aren't.