Orbital Blues is a lo-fi SFRPG, a love-letter to offbeat science fiction, vintage music, and cooperative old-school roleplay. In the New Rebel Era, rustbucket spaceships bring scrappy underdogs to their next gig, and corporation freighters carry an empire's bounty over the horizon. These are the music-fuelled, moon-age daydreams of the New Rebel Era, when the only things worth a damn are the sweat off your back, the bullet in your chamber, and the fuel in your tank. As Interstellar Outlaws, players band together to form Crews, making a hardscrabble gig-economy living on the fringes of a spacefaring society.
Developed using the rules-light system of Best Left Buried, Orbital Blues uses a simple D6 based system with three basic stats (Muscle, Grit, and Savvy) to handle rolls and uncertainty. Characters also have Gambits (special talents or unique abilities) and Troubles (heartbreaks and setbacks). With these simple values players can build a wide variety of unique characters to explore the Frontier Galaxy. The player characters' narrative and relationships form the heart of play without hefty mechanics, classes, or roles.
Working together, Crews generate a scrappy ship to call home, and must balance their Credits and Debts to stay aloft. Not knowing how they'll pay for a bowl of bell peppers and beef, or where they'll find another clip for their 9mm, Interstellar Outlaws live rollercoaster lives in a constant search for work, whether it's hauling salvage across back-water systems or getting boots on the ground sniffing out the Frontier Galaxy's most dangerous bounties.
Learn more at the April 2021 Kickstarter campaign page.
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