Players Duty and Despair
GM
Create a Character
First: Pick the role you serve on the vessel.
You are: Once you’re done vomiting you can gather yourself enough to get to the bridge where the crew awaits, much in the same state as you.
1. The Scientist
2. The Teamster
3. The Soldier
4. The Android
5. The Captain
6. The Computer
Second: Choose your character's priority for when shit hits the fan,
do not tell other players about this priority unless you feel like your character would do so.
Your priority is to:
1. Ensure the survival of the Horror
2. Ensure the survival of the humans
3. Ensure the survival of the property
4. Ensure the survival of the profit
5. Ensure the survival of yourself
6. Ensure the survival of nothing
Third: Choose a number between 2 to 5.
A high number means you’re better at DUTY
(what you were trained for, what you have experience with, what you were hired for).
A low number means you’re better at DESPAIR
(what you need to do to survive, what you wish you didn’t have to do).
This number you choose is your Center.
Fourth: Choose a fitting name for yourself!
Create a Vessel
First: As a group, pick three characteristics for your vessel.
Your vessel is: under-staffed, held together by duct-tape, claustrophobic,
far too advanced for most of the crew, far too classified for most of the crew,
prone to self-destruct, running low on resources, full of mysterious cargo, maze-like,
massive, of dubious origin.
Second: Give your vessel a name!
By Envi Wiklund
A hack of Lasers and Feelings by John Harper, based on Alien and other classic sci-fi horror.
Create a Horror
Cryosleep is a bitch, doesn’t matter how you slice it. Roll or choose on the tables below:
The Horror, which is:
You’re months away from home still, and your vessel has stopped because of a transmission of unknown origin. 1. Man-made
By company mandate, you’re obligated to identify its source. 2. Extraterrestrial
3. Interdimensional
4. Undead
Rolling the Dice 5. Natural
-6. Unknowable
When you do something risky or desperate, roll 1d6 to find out how it goes.
Roll +1d if you’re calm and +1d if you’re determined Wants to:
Roll your dice and compare each die result to your Center. 1. Spread through the cosmos
2. Kill everyone
If you’re rolling DUTY you want to roll under your Center. 3. Convert everyone
If you’re rolling DESPAIR you want to roll over your Center. 4. Open a gateway
5. Awaken something even worse
0: If none of your dice succeed, it’s just not enough. The GM says how things get worse somehow. 6. Survive another day
Shift your number up or down by one away from Center.
In order to:
1: If one die succeeds, you barely manage. The GM inflicts a complication, harm, or cost. 1. Doom the universe
2. Save the universe
2: If two dice succeed, you do it well. Good job! 3. Judge the universe
4. Taste the universe
3: If three dice succeed, you overdo it. The GM inflicts a complication, harm, or cost. 5. Control the universe
Shift your number up or down by one away from Center. 6. Rebuild the universe
!: If you roll your Center exactly, you have DUTIFUL DESPAIR.
The die counts as a success and you get some special insight into what’s happening.
Ask the GM a question about the immediate situation, they must answer you honestly. Run the Game
If your Center ever reaches 1 or 6, Play to find out whether the characters, the horror, or neither survive.
tell us how your character succumbs to,
and is destroyed by a consequence of either DUTY or of DESPAIR.
Introduce the horror slowly. Give the character less warning as the game goes on.
Always ask them what they do. Call for rolls when the outcome is uncertain.
Do not pre-plan outcomes but let the chips fall as they may.
The player of a destroyed character spends Use failure to terrify and drive the story forward.
the rest of the game playing tertiary characters. The situation changes after every roll, for good or for ill.
Examples: the ship itself, minor Horrors,
nameless crewmembers, outer space.
Lean into the horror
Embrace the hurt
Pursue your priorities
Play to find out what happens
Ask terrifying questions
Give even scarier answers