Join me on a journey into the past. Cue harp sounds.

Yesterday was my birthday, and a photo memory flagged by my magical handheld device reminded me that a year ago I celebrated by playing a DnD-based sci fi themed one-shot that I created. It was a lot of fun, so I thought I’d share it with you.

The mechanics of the game ran pretty much the same way as DnD, with character creation and stats working in a very similar way. The adventure was set on a huge space station, and the characters were tasked with finding a missing scientist.

This is the blurb I gave my players in advance:

‘Welcome to Bysindrial. In the Durrass Galaxy there lies a system of planets known as Bysindrial. Comprised of eight planets in total, Bysindrial is governed from a space station in the heart of the solar system, called BYL-1. Peace is fragile, however, as this disparate collection of communities and settlements across the planets contains warring factions and competing leaders. BYL-1 houses the newly elected government, which has pledged to unite the planets and bring stability and prosperity to Bysindrial. But even within the government itself there are shady groups, dissenting voices and people jostling for power. In Bysindrial, many people think they are heroes. Very few are. A floating city, BYL-1 is comprised of four sections: the housing quadrant, which contains accommodation, clinics and schools; the leisure quadrant, with bars, shops and entertainment facilities; the governing and judicial quadrant, where laws are made and enforced; the research, military and defence quadrant, where scientists work alongside soldiers. Tucked away in the leisure quadrant is the office of Sharm Keru. Sharm runs an agency for freelance workers, matching them up with jobs. The jobs that Sharm finds for his workers are not the kind that are advertised in the BYL-1 media – they are jobs that exist under the radar, for people who don’t mind (or don’t ask) what the job might entail and who their employer might be. And Sharm Keru has a job for you…’

That seemed to set the scene and build their intrigue. Or at least the reply emojis on Discord suggested so.

When it came to creating characters, I devised new races and classes, taking heavily from the existing DnD ones, but with some sci fi inspired changes.

The races were:

Humans (not much explanation needed – they gave you +1 on INT and +1 on STR stats)

Elves (like DnD elves but more… spacey. They come from the planet Eleevon and have silvery blue skin. Playing as Elves gave you +1 on INT and +1 on WIS stats)

Lytraxans (humanoid but with reptilian features, Lytraxans are tall, strong and proud. They gave you +1 on STR and +1 on WIS stats, and you also got an optional multi-attack on all melee attacks as they swipe with their tail)

Halflings (from the peaceful forest planet of Rappas, halflings are happy-go-lucky folk. They gave you +2 on CHA)

Dwarf people (stout and surly, and very much like DnD dwarves, but with green skin. They come from the mining planet Hess and gave you +1 on CON and +1 on STR stats)

Gorrow folk (perhaps the strangest of the races, the Gorrow are two closely linked beings who operate as one. They must always stay within 30 feet of each other, or they start losing HP. They gave you +1 on INT and +1 on DEX stats)

I reworked the classes in a similar way, with Mystic as the main spellcasting class. They had three types of spells, Touch (cast by touching something), Close Range (cast from person to person in the same room/space) and Long Range (cast from one spaceship to another, through space). Fighters and Rogues were basically the same as their DnD namesakes, as were Gunslingers, but stylistically they were space cowboys, with laser guns. There were Bards, of course, and Preachers, which were similar to Clerics. The final class was the Specialist. For this class, players could pick a specialism from Medic, Scientist, Pilot or Mechanic, and they had different proficiencies according to the specialism they chose.

But enough about the mechanics, let’s move on to the story.

The premise was that on a distant planet, a rogue gang were holding people hostage and threatening to cut off their power supply, leaving the population with a limited life span. Unfortunately the planet was too far away for anyone to get to in time to help, using the current methods of space travel. But luckily a scientist had been researching ways of travelling more quickly, and it was suspected that she had had a big breakthrough. The problem? This scientist disappeared.

A fun investigation followed, with the party searching the scientist’s home and lab, visiting her favourite bars, and running into some shady gangsters (who they spent some time gambling with) and a couple of helpful colleagues along the way. They discovered her tablet in her office, and I presented them with a real life tablet, sparking much excitement from the players. When one of the party asked “can I unlock it?” and then looked at me expecting a dice roll check, I simply replied, “I don’t know, can you? Give it a try!”

They could, of course, by using the knowledge they’d gleaned about the scientist to figure out her password. And getting to physically enter it on a real tablet and then look through the files made it so much more fun. Along the way they had found a handwritten note saying ‘F I N D S U S A N’. On the tablet they were able to see that of course ‘SUSAN’ wasn’t a person; it was actually SUS-AN, a suspended animation ship that would allow passengers to put themselves in stasis, travel faster and reach the planet safely.

The adventure reached its climax with a chase to the aircraft bay, as the party were pursued by unknown but powerful adversaries, and a big combat before they just managed to get safely on the ship and leave. This was technically the end of the one-shot, but I left the story hanging in a place I could pick up at some point (if one day I decide to write the rest of it).

It took a fair amount of time to devise and write but it was hugely fun to play and indulged my passion for sci fi. All things considered, a great way to celebrate a birthday.