Flotsam hardcover + PDF

£30.00

Flotsam: Adrift Amongst the Stars is a roleplaying game about outcasts, renegades and misfits living in the belly of a space station, in the shadow of a more prosperous society. You play through their everyday lives, interpersonal relationships and small-scale drama in the Below, a dangerous world where poverty, social strife and gang conflict sit side-by-side with alien technology and supernatural weirdness.

Imagine the Belters of the Expanse watching as Earth and Mars shape their lives, the civilians in Battlestar Galactica living with the decisions made by the military and the folk of Downbelow in Babylon 5, abandoned to destitution and squalor by those who built the station. This game is about characters like that.

The game is GMless and diceless, with rules that point your characters at each other and bring their relationships into sharp focus. They help you create a rich setting, flawed characters, and charged relationships which develop over time. You’ll watch your characters evolve and change before your eyes. It’s really cool.

FLOTSAM IS A GAME FOR 3-5 PEOPLE AND TAKES 3-4 HOURS TO PLAY.

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Description

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The game needs 3-5 people to play. It gives everyone a Primary character to play and a Situation to run the rest of the time, so you’ll be fully engaged in the game at all times, and every scene will harness the full creative power of the group. Clean, simple rules enable you to juggle those roles without difficulty, even if you’re not used to playing without a GM. There’s a one-page overview of how the game flows below, and you get access to the full draft rules immediately when you back the game.

“It felt like taking a small step towards GMing” – Sue Elliott, playtester

Your Primary character might be:

    • The Thunder, a gang leader or law enforcer
    • The Spider, a trader, spymaster or criminal
    • The Voice, a cultist, community leader or demagogue
    • The Cast-Off, a drifter and freelancer
    • The Sybyl, a prophetess with uncanny powers
    • The Hybrid, a blend of human and something else (AI, alien, god)

You could push forward a Situation like:

    • The Community’s social strife and internal divisions
    • The relentless effects of Poverty
    • The Gangs who run things down here
    • The Above, a more prosperous and powerful society
    • The Spirits who inhabit this place
    • The people and things that come and go from Outside the station

“A wonderful, evolving story of the tangled relationships of people trapped in very difficult circumstances” – Simon Miller, playtester

Flotsam is all about the way your characters’ personal issues and relationships develop over the time. And it’s designed to unleash the creativity of your gaming group to produce a completely unique setting. As such, it’s at its best when played as a campaign, so you’ve got time to make those things happen.

However, the game also includes quick-start scenarios which enable you to leap straight into a tense social situation full of charged relationships, perfect for one-shot play. You can play a satisfying Flotsam scenario in 3-4 hours.

Videos

A short, simple summary of how the rules work is here:

 

You can see a short example of Actual Play here:

Flotsam downloads

Scenarios, handouts and other resources for Flotsam.

Additional information

Weight .46 kg
Shipping

No Shipping, UK, EU, USA, USA (express), Rest of World

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