Space Radio

 A d66 Journaling RPG of Space Exploration, Interaction and Survival

Your ship is equipped with a travel generator. Its best analogous measure is that of a Space Radio that tunes into stars. It is mostly uncontrollable. This sort of story device resembles Alone Among the Stars, Quantum Leap, Sliders or any, 'let's see where this thing takes us,' portal fantasy.

As with all art and even journaling, it's helpful to move from the general to the specific – with that in mind, we're laying down foundation and backdrop first.

This environment might be left at broad strokes of ideas and your interaction with it can be satisfying from a distance where details, biomes, governments and societies can't affect you. Or we could drill down if we chose and not only create a star and basic star system setup, but begin to create what might await us on the surface of a planet, or inside a space station or moon base.

Your interactions can be observational or intrusive! The depth to which you're willing to go can be explored here within a particular limit, The Hex.

I decided to stop myself from excessive granularity by deciding that no pick of choices should go beyond six possibilities (which is still a lot!) and in many cases, some of the six spaces for possibilities will be blocked by random factors. The hex also adds a visual cue for travel time and proximity of some story elements. That might help create storytelling mechanics that wouldn't otherwise have come to mind.

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IN EXAMINING mechanics with dice, the d66 really excited me. 36 choices can go pretty far and I'm always on the hunt for role playing inspiration for writing ideas. Space Radio is the closest you're ever going to come to a Peace Galley game where a crew of run aways explores civilizations around stars at random. I love Earth and nature but I'm always more appreciative of what I have when I consider how different things could be - I think that's the basis of this ambitious effort.