PUBLISHER: Lulu
SYNOPSIS:
When it became apparent that Earth was on its last legs with pollution, zombie viruses, running out of resources, conflicting ideologies and wars over all the above, some of the greatest minds and richest corporations built terraforming machines to turn uninhabitable planets into somewhere that Humans could settle and, you know… not go extinct.
Knowing this wouldn’t be a short process, they opted to test out a couple of hundred such devices in a small cluster of space so they could see which ones worked and which didn’t, that way future generations or those frozen in stasis could use the ones that worked best to terraform a much larger world as a second stage. (Terraforming or terraformation of a planet, moon, or other body is the process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography and/or ecology to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable by Earth-like life.) The small rocks chosen were those in the rings of Saturn, relatively local to Earth in grand scheme of things and once Humans reached it with conventional space travel, the machines would have had time to do their thing, so the destination would be somewhere with flora and fauna.
The good news is that most of these worked and the system of small 50-300 km2 planetoids are indeed habitable, the bad news is that by the time Humans arrived they were not exactly the dominant species like they were back on Earth, leading to this curved bit of the universe becoming known to them as Weirdspace.
It also didn’t help that some of these machines hit odd space phenomena on their way to these strange little worlds, which only made them more even more abnormal and may have been the start of some of the Gods and Godlike entities here.
The core rulebook is set approximately 100 years after the Humans arrival, with most now having being born and growing up in this system and these devices being lost to time. There are still groups searching for the terraforming devices, but as with anything over time some of the information as to why these are being sought have been confused, mistranslated, or recorded in now corrupted databanks. There are corporations and religious organisations wanting the tech for themselves to start new worlds in their own image, and still large planets that have yet to be tapped for their resources. These groups often hire independent contractors to seek these devices, and map the system in the guise of producing a guidebook for travellers and tourists. If a device is located these can sell on the black market for thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands if found on a successful world.
REVIEW:
I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of this ttrpg (and its additional books, Ganzo, Vampire Vending Machine) in exchange for an honest review. Ok, now that we have the disclaimer out of the way lets get down to facts, what is weird space?
Well to be blunt, as the name would imply its a futuristic ttrpg set in space and nothing that can happen can ever account to how weird the players are. (I'm not joking, this is a TTRPG for people who love to create memorable PC's who can be as twisted or as mentally challenged as you like. For example, you can be a Space pilot like Howling Mad Murdoch (with the skills being offset by the fact that he's technically insane), as tough as BA Baracus with a habit of losing your temper etc. or something so unique that no one has thought of it yet.)
What makes this fun is that there are various ways of generating your character, for example you can be a young person out in space on their own for the first time, learning first hand that its a messed up universe and thus learning through experience, or you can be a jaded adventurer who has seen some hell and knows enough to look at getting the hell out of dodge while the going is good.
The system is a pretty simple one to follow for character design, doesn't require a ton of dice for each player (D6's and D10's mainly) and above all else really has had a lot of careful thought added to how you advance and level as well as giving you idea's that you can implement into your game or completely ignore and create your own version of the Weird.
It is fun, players will get confused and wonder whats happening and with the addition of Space Vamps and Were's if you find yourself on a certain planet you'll either be a slurpee or a steak dinner.
That said, there are multiple ways to introduce characters, be they a player getting a new character because their last one didn't listen and got munched, stomped, sucked into space or even dissolved into a pile of space goo by looking down the wrong end of an unknown machine or a new person to the ttrpg scene who has a penchant for space opera and can't wait to hear the fat lady sing whilst looking for strange people in extremely spangly bikini's.
It is, as the name ensures us weird, it is space and when you throw in all sorts of chaos that not just the DM throws in, we all know how crazy players can be, really will lead to an experience that will entertain all of you for quite some time, whether its laughing at Mongo for eating the dodgy alien curry and getting xenomorphed or watching Dirk getting covered in latrine contents as he's in there whilst the ship goes to hyperspace. (Someone forgot to flush beforehand.)
All round, it is a really cool experience and with so much freedom being granted within the rules, really means that the only limit is the teams imagination. Can't find a rule, invent one and make a note. Its all for the good of the team and I suspect that a followup with contingencies will be forthcoming as more people allow the author to know about the chaos they've caused. This really is a game that I can see a whole host of people who don't like to take things too seriously enjoying and if you get the right DM, a game that will create many lasting comedy memories.
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