Orbital Megastructure - Playtest

The Stat Sheet

The Snapshot

• Saw some creepy cyborgs?
• Travelled to a node and scavenged
• Old contact visited our camp

The System

Orbital Megastructure (OB) is a system in the works by Evlyn Moreau, known for a variety of illsutrative work in the RPG scene. I most recently picked up A Feast for a Sphinx at Pax Unplugged this past weekend where Evlyn did the illustrations. Can't wait to get it to my table but back to OB!

In this system, there are many components of it I thoroughly enjoyed. From the usage die to the map creation, it is full of delightful subsystems that I want to see more of in game design. I wasn't able to playtest every sub-system as the session type we did was a Settlement-based one rather than a Nomadic one and even within the session type, we did not cover all the procedures in the one session. I'll cover what I can!

First, all equipment is tied to a usage die. Each use has the risk of the item stepping down a die (only on a 1 or 2) until it breaks. There's inherent risk to using items, but even if it steps down, you still get the benefit which is nice.

Even the marching order for a party's travel is interesting. Each player is marked as either the HEAD, EYES, BODY, or TAIL of the party. This gives each member in marching order an area of focus in regards to travel. For example, the HEAD is for pathfinding, while the EYES are for scouting. To me, this makes a marching order more interesting and party involved rather than leaving it to the best party member involved.

Another neat subsystem that I enjoyed was node creation. Traveling is a pointcrawl, and when you come to a new node, each person draws a line to generate the node. You can see the one we created below in The Brief. I loved this idea of the interior of the nodes not being designed in advance.

The camping and downtime system reminded me a lot of Dolmenwood and in a good way. Camping provides the narrative opportunity for the party to bond or continue conversations which don't relate to pure survival, so it's a nice break in the vibe

You can tell how in love with Orbital Megastructure I am, and I hope to be part of future playtests. Huge thanks to Evlyn again for its creation and organizing playtests for it.

p.s. I'm happy to run a session of it at any time, Evlyn. <3

The Party

• Jules (she/they)
• Nerith (she/they)
• Ento (he/they)
• Jordi (he/they)

I somehow managed to fit my character on an index card. Although it isn't the best organized, I enjoyed the challenged of managing everything in such a compact way. I felt it fit the theme and vibe of OB well.

The Brief

The starting node for the party's settlement.

As we leave the Settlement, Ento sees a body wearing Kevlar drag a corpse to throw onto another one. We see a tendril from a corpse. Whatever it is, it notices us. Their cybernetic eyes swivel and focus on us. Ento waves at them, hoping for a peaceful response. They continue their way, ignoring us. Once they leave through a side tunnel, we inspect the corpses. The two corpses have gunshot wounds riddled through them. Jordi examines the body and believes they are scouts with weathered boots and bags. Were they trying to reach our settlement? They had a data pad on them that indicates they came from the Agora. We loot their bodies and notice their weapon holsters are missing. The cyborg probably took them. Jordi hacked a personalized data pad and ended up talking to a ghost. We decided not to follow the cyborg and continue our journey.

The Healthcare node as generated by the party with a numbered area.

We make it to the Healthcare node and being so tired, we decide to survey the Healthcare node and scavenge for anything useful before continuing. I found a battleground in the Security sector where there was a fight between cyborgs and people who had the nanoplague. We found a landmark and some other useful items. Someone found a Personal Data Log from Vina of Clan Morovo. We opt to make camp in this node and then continue tomorrow. Nerith keeps watch, while the rest of us make chit chat or maintain our equipment.

Throughout the night, someone approaches our camp. It’s an older woman with a feminine voice that seems to recognize Nerith. Some sort of old contact. They converse, and we pack up camp ready to climb north towards Agora.

The Takeaways

Pros

• No prep, very procedure-based
• Good use of usage die for both environment and items, especially since scavenging and using equipment is a big part of playing your character

Cons

• Want to see more from clans
• Procedures seem GM-heavy and requires knowing how to pilot it (can become a pro once you’re familiar with it all)

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