Cosmic Dark

Award-winning RPG author, Graham Walmsley, drops his latest offering to Kickstarter backers. His work on Cthulhu Apocalypse and other Purist adventures for Trail Of Cthulhu earned Graham a Gold ENNIE, and he's written for many other RPGs, including Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space and Fiasco. I just received my copy of Cosmic Dark a few days ago and have been excited to read through. What drew me to the Cosmic Dark Kickstarter was "Weird Space Horror." The suggestion of "Cthulhu In Space" was exciting, so I watched the campaign video about the project. Yeah, that sealed my fate. As shown in the video, the game has no character creation and no setup. Your group sits down together and someone opens the book, then you're gaming. This approach is ideal for its theme and RPG genre, as characters are not those that players will protect and treasure like a collectible. Cosmic Dark player characters are called "Employees," befitting their role in the game as employees of an uncaring space conglomerate. As any good story with a massive business entity should be, employees are a resource to be used, and discarded, befitting its profiteering pursuits. At the heart of Cosmic Dark is the Glitch. This is a region of space dominated by a "gold scar." It's not the immediate focus of play, but players may become curious about it early in the game. Their employees are being sent on a mining expedition to an asteroid near this phenomenon, a bleak expanse at the edge of the galaxy. A psych assessment is administered onboard the transport vessel Exchange, carrying employees to the asteroid, as the ship makes its final approach. This is a recurring feature of the game, employees being routinely assessed by their sleeping pod, with discrepancies in vitals or psychological state being recorded. The game meta uses this for character as well as scenario development. What unfolds during play is pure nightmare. While the game master, called the Director, is setting up scenes and situations straight from the text, rules and mechanics are introduced by immediately having players engage them. Utilizing the same core system as

Cthulhu Dark, player rolls never fail. Its simple, d6 pool used for these rolls instead determines degrees and kinds of success. A player's dice pool varies, gaining a d6 each for Reality, Specialism, and Changed. Reality applies to most rolls, getting a d6 for doing something based in reality (which is nearly everything). Specialism gives a d6 when the employee's area of expertise applies, a detail discovered for each player character within the opening scene of the session. Changed offers a d6 to rolls when a player wants to push their employee toward accomplishing more. So how does a game with rolls that never fail produce "pure nightmare"? Easily enough answered for those that partake in Cthulhu-style RPGs: knowing or accomplishing something isn't always a healthy choice. So you succeed at deciphering a page of the Necronomicon... well isn't that special... As with other modern-indy RPGs, narrative is VERY important. What's said at the table about what characters do is pivotal.

Confession: Remember that whole "player rolls don't fail" thing? That's not 100% true. Well, it is and it isn't. Not failing is indeed the core system. However, just like Cthulhu Dark, Cosmic Dark DOES have a failure mechanic. Here's the thing--it only comes into play when someone (anyone, player or Director) decides it would be interesting for a roll to fail. What's great about this is that your group can totally decide nothing fails. This in no way stops the game from going down the rabbit hole, nor does it keep characters from death or other incredibly horrible fates. Game play, and the scenarios of Cosmic Dark, are ultimately about character change. At an early point during the session, players are told their employees have a Changed score representing how much their time in space changes them. All employees are given a Changed score of 1. Anytime a Changed die is rolled, either as part of a push as described above or for a Changed Roll, there's a chance an employee's Changed score increases. Once again, narrative is incredibly important here, as the change that occurs from a score increase is related to what's being done and the situation the employee is in. The critical part of this is, when an employee's Changed score becomes "6", their story ends. At that time, the player gets one last scene where they describe their employee becoming completely broken. The Cosmic Dark book is a well-thought-out and complete product, offering the full RPG, six scenarios, additional rules, advice, as well as (my personal fav) a "How To" chapter on writing your own scenarios. If you enjoy the bleak, weird horror experience, pick it up on preorder now.