The Mindjammer Roleplaying Game 2nd edition

It’s been a couple of months now since we set up Mindjammer Press, and we’ve been working away on the new second edition of the Mindjammer roleplaying game, for release in spring 2013. Things have now firmed up enough to say a few things about the new Mindjammer – so here goes!

The most important thing is that Mindjammer will be a complete roleplaying game in its own right. The slim Mindjammer 1st edition was a setting sourcebook for the Starblazer Adventures game – for the second edition, we’ve given the game a complete overhaul, and brought it in line with the upcoming 4th edition of the FATE Core rules from Evil Hat Productions. We’re very excited with the new system – it’s similar enough to 3rd edition FATE that existing gamers will have no trouble adjusting, while incorporating some seriously cool new mechanics to make it even sleeker and more elegant.

In the end the decision to go with a standalone game was a relatively easy one: the FATE Core rules will be extraordinarily flexible, and the Mindjammer RPG is intended to be a FATE Core game: but it also requires systems for, amongst other things, starships, cultures, planets, alien life forms, and much, much more. We initially specced out the book as a supplement to the FATE Core RPG, but rapidly realised that it would make much more sense to include the core rules in the single Mindjammer volume – we hope you’ll agree. In the Mindjammer RPG, the rules will be tightly integrated with the game’s transhuman space opera setting, providing you with a seamless and focussed FATE game.

Mindjammer Second Edition will also be much bigger than its first edition predecessor – we’re currently envisaging it to be at least twice the word count, clocking in somewhere around 350-400 pages, and our current intention is to make the core book a hardback, hopefully incorporating multiple colour plates, with successive campaign packs and supplements coming out in softback. There will be a PDF edition, and we hope to offer a special price pre-order bundle once layout is complete. We’ve completely redesigned the starships, organisations, and cultures rules, fleshed out character creation massively, and provided heaps of detail on genurgy, enhancements, synthetics, and the Mindscape. We’ve also been hard at work producing a brand new planetary and star system creation system, incorporating the latest in exoplanet and astrophysics discoveries, which we hope you’ll like. The transhuman element is also everywhere throughout the rules, and we’ve incorporated lots of hitherto unpublished background and setting detail, including a glimpse into Manhome, the solar system of Old Earth, an overview of the Commonality, and a whole new introductory scenario, Hearts and Minds.

We’re in early playtesting at the moment, and expect to go into layout early in the new year, with all new artwork and cartography. Over the next few months we’ll begin to showcase some of the cool elements of the new second edition game – in the meantime, if you have any questions, please fire away here and we’ll do our best to answer.

The Commonality salutes you!

Best,

Sarah Newton
Mindjammer Press, Oct 2012