“One Sentence Review – Excellent game that lets me roleplay my nihilism.”

Let me get to the point. Let us just move aside the beginning paragraph fluff that tries to hook readers into reading the review because I want to talk about this RPG called Death in Space.

Setting: The Dying Universe

The setting of Death in Space is the Tenebris System. The Tenebris System has suffered from intense mining because of a rare gemstone that was used to propel technological advancement. Because of the gemstone’s technological potential, corporations reenacted the gold rush causing corporations to race to get as much of this gemstone as possible. They succeeded. They mined the gemstone to the point where there was no more. Shocking enough, this had repercussions.

Technological advancement stopped, stellar travel has halted indefinitely, and the system is mostly abandoned.

In addition, to being stuck in a slowly dying system, the universe is collapsing on itself. With rumors, behemoths are sighted near the edge of the encroaching universe.

Oh, and the cherry on top of all that, there seems to be subtle whispering coming from electronics, and that whispering gets louder the closer one is to the edge of the universe.

So to sum it all up, the setting of Death in Space is a dying system in a collapsing universe with the possibility of cosmic horrors slowly approaching.

Character Creation

Abilities

Rolls in Death in Space are influenced by these abilities. There are 4 abilities:

• Body: Bodily strength, physical resistance, and melee attacks.
• Dexterity: Reflexes, poise, and speed.
• Savvy: Perception, intuition, physical resistance, and piloting spacecraft.
• Tech: Understanding and operating technology and ranged attacks.

Generating your abilities scores is simply rolling 2d4 on at the time. Your score is the first roll minus the second roll (1d4-1d4=Ability Score).

Origins

The closest thing I can think of to describe what Origins are is that they are the “races” in the Death in Space system. You choose one of the Origins and pick one of the two associated benefits. Two Examples of Origins:

• Solpod: Hibernating for decades, only staying awake for short periods. They dedicate their lives to the scientific study of slow, cosmic phenomena.
  • Long-Lived: You have an old and useful contact in every port.
  • Old Tech: You have a portable hibernation pod. Regenerates lost limbs, prevents aging and the need to eat. Powered by starlight
• Punk: Rebellious and non-conformist with a long history. They have seen civilizations collapse, and others turn against each other.
  • Stubborn: You never give up. Reroll any dice roll once per session.
  • Green Thumb: You know everything about plants and what to use them for. You start with a pocket greenhouse and some random seeds.

Character Details

There is a chart for backgrounds, traits, drive, and looks. You roll a d20 on each of those charts to determine details about your character. I’m sure that you can also pick the ones you want instead of rolling since these are just aids to help define your character better.

Past Allegiance

This section determines the character’s allegiance during the Gem Wars. There is a chart with 6 options, and your can roll or choose your past allegiance.

Hit Points/Defense Rating

Hit points in the system are simple and scary. You roll 1d8, and that is your health… that’s it!

This might be startling for people who are more used to having characters with larger health pools, but I always prefer low health pools. It makes combat more intense.

Speaking of combat, a Defense Rating is the score that determines how well one can avoid damage. A Defense Rating is 12 + Dex score. So hopefully, you rolled well for that Dex. If not, don’t worry because a character’s Defense Rating can be increased with armor.

Starting Gear/Starting Bonus

Characters start with 3d10 spare Holos (Money), one of six starting kits, and a personal trinket.

Carry weight follows a slot system. Where characters have 12+BDY item slots. Items that take up item slots will indicate how many item slots they take up. If you ever carry more items than you have slots, then you will have disadvantage on all actions.

Starting Bonus is a feat that helps those who didn’t roll well on their abilities scores. If the sum of the character’s ability scores is negative, they can roll on the Starting Bonus chart. These bonuses are really good, such as +3 health points, a pistol, or an AI defense animal.

Once you complete all six sections of character creation, you’re good to go. Character creation is very quick, with a strong focus on the character’s personality over what the character can do. The lack of items the character gets is a way to feel that resources are scarce and that everything you own is worth more.

HUB Creation

The Hub is the characters’ homebase, their sanctuary, their home. The Players get to build their Hub as part of setting up for longer games. The Hub can be either a spacecraft or a space station.

There are mechanics that go along with the Hub that determine what the Hub can do and how much power it can produce. Giving mechanics to the Hub makes the Players’ home an additional character. It gives it more life. It is an excellent addition to the game.

The Hub comes with starting stats listing its Defence Rating, Condition, Fuel capacity, and frame integrity. As the player explores and scavages parts, they can add more modules to their Hub and give them more options and choices in the game.

Playing The Game

Let us start with the most essential part of playing the game. How to make checks. Death in Space uses a d20 system. Meaning that rolls revolve around the d20 dice.

As mentioned before, all checks revolve around the ability scores. When asked to make a check, you roll the d20 and add your ability score (1d20+Revevant Ability Score); the result is your final number. If that number is equal to or greater than 12, you succeed. All DCs are 12 except for hitting an opponent in combat, then it is the targets Defense Rating.

If your final number is under 12, you fail the check and get a void point.

Void points are used to gain advantage on ability checks or combat rolls or to activate a cosmic mutation. You can only have 4 void points at a time, so spend them if you have them.

When a void point is used to give yourself advantage on a roll and fail the roll, there is a chance to gain void corruption. If the rolls that the void point was used for fails, roll 1d6. If the result is equal to or lower than the current amount of void points the character has, they experience void corruption. The player rolls on the void corruption chart to determine the experience they go through. These can be from nightmares, mathematical symbols appearing on your body, or having visions of the end of the universe.

Character Advancement

Characters gain experience at the end of each session. The amount of experience a character gain is determined by a questionnaire that the player goes through at the end of each session. If the answer to any of the questions is a yes, they gain 1xp.

Questions are like: Did you find someone new that you can trust? Did you use at least one void point?

Experience can be spent on advancement if you can meet the xp cost. Advancement Examples:

• Increasing an ability score by 1 – 5xp
• Gain one additional Origin benefit (Max two) – 15xp

Cosmic Mutations

Cosmic Mutations are physical manifestations of the void. They can be gained by starting bonus, character advancement, or when the void is let loose… whatever that means…

There are charts for these mutations, and you can roll on.

COMBAT!!!!!

Each round is 10 seconds in-game time. Where each person is allowed one action and one movement of 15ft.

Initiative is different from other systems where you would roll a dice and turn order with be in numerical order based on initiative rolls. In Death in Space, the first person to act in the initiative is the person who initiates the conflict. If it is unclear who initiated combat, the first person to act is determined randomly.

Turn order: After the first person goes, they choose who goes next. Ally or foe. Once everyone has gone, the last person picks who begins the new round.

I can see people either liking or hating this mechanic, but according to the book, it is like this because players can act together in a strategic manner.

Attack rolls are made by rolling a d20 and adding your BDY score for melee or TECH score for range. If the result equals to or above the target’s Defense Rating, it hits.

Risky Attacks are attacks that come with a cost. It can deal more damage but exposes the character to counterattacks. The player declares they are making a risky attack and rolls an attack like usual.

If the attack hits, you add an extra damage dice to the attack.

If you miss, the target gets an immediate counterattack against eh attacker and gets to choose who acts next.

Death/Healing

When a player’s hit point reaches 0, they roll a BDY check. If they succeed, the person stabilizes and becomes unconscious until they can rest. A failure means that eh character is dead.

Healing occurs when the player gets to eat a full meal or when they get a full night’s sleep. Healing consists of 1d8+BDY.

Layout/Design

The layout of the pdf looks great. This is a rules-light system, so there aren’t walls of text that strain your eyes when reading. The information is presented in a straightforward, concise matter. One of my favorite parts about Death in Space is how the pages look. It is a beautiful presentation of information and artwork, where the art that represents the world is on display. This book is core rules and an art book in one.

This book is about 136 pages. The rules on how to run the game cover about 64 pages. The other 72 pages are filled with art, charts, equipment, enemies, lore, maps, off-world exploration, space travel, space combat, and everything you need to confidently run the game. I can confidently say that the layout and design of this book is GM friendly.

The Horror in Death In Space

Let me talk about what in Death In Space piqued my interest. I love horror, and horror RPGs just tickle me the right way. Those systems let me experience moments in horror movies without putting myself in real danger unless they’re metal dice at the dice. Those dice, love them, but they aren’t safe. The horror in Death In Space is different from the monster in the lake or masked killer type of horror.

It is an existential horror.

It is a horror caused by existential despair concerning the character’s mortality and the ability to find meaning in their existence.

How can one find meaning in one’s life knowing that everything around them is slowly dying?

Whether it’s their equipment, home, ship, or universe they live in. The people still living in the Tenrbris System are the only things fighting to strive in a dying environment. Roleplaying a character with this knowledge is really fun and gets the roleplaying juices going.

Final Thoughts

So it comes to an end, like everything else in our existence, even this review comes to an end.

Death in Space is a game that lets players explore and survive in a universe that is dying around them. The horror is not the common monsters that go boo everyone once in await, but the decay of one’s will. The universe’s lore is rich enough to let the imagination hook into something but vague enough that lets that imagination not fully understand what it holds.

The system provides clear and concise charts, maps, and resources that make running it simple.

Character creation is quick and easy once you’ve done it once. This is useful since dying in this game is a real risk.

The only aspect of the system that I’m not entirely sold on is how the initiative is done. With how low hp can be, I feel like there can be some cases where the players defeat all the enemies before any of them go. Risky Attacks are a good way to risk your ability to choose whose next in the initiative, but I can also see groups not using Risky Attacks because initiative is more important to them. I don’t know. Personally, I’m on the fence with this mechanic.

Overall, I think this is a good RPG system to get if you can convince your gaming group to switch things up a bit. However, I would prefer this system for longer games. I feel that the system’s meat is lost when run as a one-shot.

Would I recommend Death in Space: Yes.

Rating and Information

Author: Christian Plogfors and Carl Niblaeus

Publisher: Free League Publishing

Lore: 4/5

Gameplay: 3/5

Design/Layout: 4/5

Overall Score: 3.7/5

Pick up a copy at: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/en/store/?product_id=7639126900994