Obsessed with this from the atmosphere (or lack thereof) and artwork this game just screams cool. 100% recommend if you are at all interested in some dark scifi storytelling.

Awesome! Very cool art. A simple old school style space RPG. The backstory is also excellent. We need more space RPGs like these!

This is a great, gritty, distopian sci-fi adventure that I cannot wait to run or play.

Great art. Great soundtrack (yes, there is a soundtrack and it's awesome). Great mix of space horror and dark comedy type stuff.

Cannot recommend highly enough.

GM workshop talk with the guys behind the game..!

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1883725/10803555

The short version: Isn't this just Mork Borg in space? To be honest, yes. But that's not a bad thing! Death in Space is a rules-light, D20-based, dark sci-fi RPG with cargo holds full of tables, tools, and information to shape your campaign however you want to. The rules are simple and easily hackable and the default setting of Tenebris has plenty of dark, gritty sci-fi flavor and is interesting enough to run as-is for a campaign or two. If you want a more detailed review describing the rules and character options, etc, check out my full review below: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/19/19074.phtml

Got this free for buying the hardcover. Worth every penny!

Dark, gritty, and brimming with style and tone, this game is essentially 1/3 The Expanse, 1/3 Mad Max, and 1/3 Lovecraft. If these things are your jam, this game's for you.

Death in Space

The universe is collapsing. The Void, a strange presence that infects and corrupts everything, is the messenger of this collapse. Strange creatures from the edge of the universe are invading civilized systems. Are these stories just old wives' tales or a real threat? Even for the civilized worlds, all is not well. The Gemstone War soon broke out after unique gemstones were found in the Tenebris system, irreplaceable for advanced technologies. The war has no real winners and only losers, as the supply of Gemstones has dried up. Therefore, everything is recycled over and over again and worn down piece by piece like this. In this world of inevitable decay and with its mysterious threat, one's reputation and contracts are what keep one alive (probably) ...

Players do not know what to expect from the title of some role-playing games. With Death in Space, the name does not leave them guessing. Death in Space is a science-fiction role-playing game that builds its light rules on an old-school foundation – with simple stats, many random rolls, and random tables. Only four game statistics – Body, Dexterity, Savvy, and Tech – are required and range from -3 to +3. Rolls are made with a d20 against a minimum roll of 12 using these modifiers. There are rolls with an advantage or disadvantage, which means rolling two d20s and taking the better (advantage) or worse one (disadvantage). These mechanisms define the core of the rules already.

In addition to stats, an origin is rolled at character creation, allowing the choice of one of two advantages. The origin types are also darkly bizarre: as Chrome you are an ancient AI in an organic body, as Solpod you spend most of your time in cryogenic sleep and thus exist for eternities, and as Velocity Cursed you have already lost touch with reality. Thereafter, a few details are rolled out, and stats are determined – and you're almost ready to go.

As a special feature, there are the Void Points, which can be used to buy advantages or activate cosmic mutations as special powers. However, they also pose the risk of corrupting the character.

The next step is creating the hub, which can be a spaceship or space station that connects the characters. Here, too, game stats and many strange backgrounds and peculiarities give the setting its atmosphere. For example, the hub may be infamous for a riot or massacre, and the interior is painted in luminescent paint.

Besides rules for combat (including space combat, which relies more on boarding maneuvers to avoid destroying valuable ships), most other rules revolve around equipment degradation and repair. The approach that everything breaks, is recycled, and gets more and more used up is built into the rules. Besides that, there are a few mechanisms for activities and travel in space.

The book introduces the Tenebris system as a standard background and offers a scenario with a conflict to keep the players busy, but without prescribing a solution. Equipment, modules to expand the hub, and many random tables round out the book.

The layout of Death in Space, like the rules, is deliberately retro. An old computer font in white on black pages, monochrome (but not always black and white) illustrations, which sometimes have the detailed drawing style of fictional spaceship blueprints from the 80s, define the tone here. Take the gritty background, the consistent and unusual layout, and the simple, hardcore old-school rules, and you find the same principles as in Mörk Borg, even if Death in Space has its own less over-the-top but no less gritty flair. The book conveys its style very well and leaves plenty of room for the individual group to fill the collapsing universe with their ideas. Characters are quickly created – and, presumably, die quickly. The book is brutally honest enough to let the character creation end with the words "This was the last step, have a nice death in space".

If you like old-school rules, gritty settings, and dystopian sci-fi (or if you have always wanted to know what would happen if someone had cross-bred D&D with Alien in the 1980s), Death in Space is a very well and consistently implemented role-playing game that is presented in style.

(Björn Lippold)

Fairly light take on the genre. MOTHERSHIP and its products are so similar to this you can probably use them together.

A grim, dark, grimy science fiction game where life is cheap, and resources are worth gold. Imagine a lovechild of Mörk Borg and The Expanse. Et voilá ^^

Highly, HIGHLY recommended. Beautiful artwork, simply amazing setting.