#orbitalblues — Public Fediverse posts

The latest production from the 'Stations' team is here. A Fistful of Stars - an adventure setting book for Orbital Blues (Soul Muppet Publishing).

I've done some art, @lonearchivist is on layout and design, Kayla Rat Wave on writing duties, Adam Good and Jamie Perez on art direction and general wrangling.

Already more than 200% funded.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/stations/a-fistful-of-stars-adventures-on-the-green-light-express

#OrbitalBlues #ttrpg

Folks looking for a #CowboyBebop style #TTRPG might want to take a look at #OrbitalBlues Month in April on #BackerKit: https://www.backerkit.com/c/collections/orbital-blues-month

It's a collection of 6 different projects for the game - adventures and mini-settings, etc. Always great style, of course.

@HeyeBodo #OrbitalBlues ! I just got the digital copies of the first official supplement (After Burner) which reminded me that I never got the game on my table:
“This is the rock and roll future of yesteryear that never was—and nobody wanted.” It’s such a cool setting & a beautiful rules book! https://soulmuppet-store.co.uk/collections/orbital-blues

A self-described “lo-fi space western”, Orbital Blues is a simple 2d6 system, in some ways quite similar to Traveller, with a lot more emphasis on emotional stakes. I recently ran a one-shot and ended up making some custom character sheets.

The Game

Players in Orbital Blues will be playing low-rent adventurers in a run-down sci-fi frontier.

The three stats are Muscle, Savvy, and Grit. They start off with values from 0-2. Heart is basically hit points. It starts out as Muscle plus eight.

Each character also has Gambits, which are essentially Feats or Stunts.

For most actions, the player makes a Stat Check – roll 2d6, add the appropriate stat. 8+ is a success. Heart points can be spent to add points to a roll, and some rolls will have advantage or disadvantage.

So far, this doesn’t seem wildly different from Traveller/Cepheus Engine games. However, the heart of the game, the thing the makes the game unique, is the system of Troubles and Blues.

Troubles are described in the book as “summations of a character’s past misgivings, misdeeds, vices or regrets.” A number of Troubles are listed in the book. One is selected at character creation. Each trouble has a series of questions attached. New characters need to select two questions to answer. This allows the player to fill out the character’s background, and to provide plot hooks for the GM.

Blues are a measure of the emotional stress a character suffers. Whenever something bad happens, especially if it relates to a character’s Troubles, characters must make a Blues Check – roll 2D6 + Grit. If the roll is 8+, the character gains one Blues point. Each Trouble has a list of events that will cause characters to gain Blues points automatically.

When a character acquires 8 Blues points, they enter a dramatic scene called Trouble is Brewing where they confront the source of their trouble. After the scene, the character advances by doing one of the following: Restore Heart, gain a point in a stat, or gain a new Trouble\Gambit. Blues are then reduced to zero.

The point of all of this is clearly to promote more character-focused, emotional gameplay. The Trouble/Blues system is really interesting, but it seems likely that you need to run a campaign to get the full effect. A one-shot game will probably just feel like a session of Traveller.

There’s also a system of Credits & Debts to keep track of how much money the character has, without doing a lot of accounting. Basically, all you really need to know is – are the players flush or in debt?

Character Sheet

There’s already a perfectly serviceable character sheet available for Orbital Blues, but I wanted to play around with Affinity and some free fonts I’ve been collecting, so I made some alternate versions. They’re all visually distinct, but have essentially the same fields. They’re also all fillable, and allow you to enter a character image.

Boxes for Heart will be automatically generated. I’ve added this to my aging, rickety list of character sheets.

OrbitalBlues_CharSheet_BW

This one is probably the most practical one. It’s designed to be printed. Mostly used the Block font for the titles.

OrbitalBlues_CharSheet_Blue

This one is probably the least practical, and is mostly designed to be a literal version of the title – blue items in orbit. I used a Bauhaus 93 font for the titles.

OrbitalBlues_CharSheet_Yellow

This one was sort of inspired by industrial safety signs, like you might find on a run-down space station. The title font is blooop.

OrbitalBlues_CharSheet_Mono_Green

This one was designed to look like a monochrome monitor for online play. It’s based on a character sheet I made for Hostile. The title fonts are OCR-A II.

https://polyhedralnonsense.com/2024/07/26/orbital-blues-a-small-constellation-of-character-sheets-for-the-low-fi-sci-fi-rpg/

#CharacterSheets #FreeStuff #OrbitalBlues #Review #RPG #SciFi

#RPGaDay2022 The coolest looking RPG product? #OrbitalBlues just blows me away by setting the mood through the images and design. I also like the aesthetics of #DeathInSpace , which gives the whole book a great 80s #Artzine feel, which fits the rules and the setting. https://soulmuppet-store.co.uk/collections/orbital-blues

@LeviKornelsen @Whidou #TTRPG stuff for me:

#AdventuresinMiddleEarth/#LordoftheRingsRoleplaying
#OSR &#NSR
#TalesfromtheLoop
#bladesinthedark
#CallofCthulhu
#D&D5e (if pushed)
#TheOneRing
#T&T

Liking the look of:

#OrbitalBlues
#Spiritof77

Otherwise:

#Cycling
#CrystalPalaceFC
#Hauntology

8. Favorite #TTRPG for the art: I am going to cheat and pick a few again. It’s just so hard to only pick one!

- Orbital Blues
- Tales From the Loop/Things From the Flood
- A Field Guide to Memory
- The Shape of Shadows

#ttrpg #OrbitalBlues #TalesFromTheLoop #FieldGuideToMemory #ShapeOfShadows

7. Sadly I haven’t yet played either The Spire or Orbital Blues, both of which I bought in very beautiful hardcover and I have no regrets. I don’t have any games that I’ve invested more than the cost of a nice hardcover that I haven’t played at all, although my kiddo has gotten a lot more use out of the 5e books than I have. 😆 #TTRPG #TheSpire #OrbitalBlues

The last five #TTRPG I've played/run:
#HauntedWest
#OneRing
#Hunter
#MotherShip
#OrbitalBlues

There's way too many games I want to play, I can't just name five. I'm happy to answer questions about any of the above systems!

#TTRPG #5and5​

Last 5 GMed
#HeroQuest
#RuneQuest

Last 5 played
#Wastburg
#Masques
#Torg
#DD5
#Alien

Next 5
#CastleFalkenstein
#OrbitalBlues
#SavageWorlds
#Dune
#Nephilim