A bright star shines in the Cepheus constellation!
I’m very excited to announce Alpha Cephei: my brand new tabletop roleplaying ruleset of space exploration and science fiction adventures.
- Advanced science fiction RPG that aims at being approacheable and playable for people with no previous experience of sci-fi roleplaying.
- Space travel, ship-to-ship combat, off-world trading, vessel design, psionics, aliens, world generation and more… in a concise package.
- Comfortable layout for the best accessibility at the tabletop—fully cross-referenced with clickable links, and also including a thorough keyword index.
- A deep yet very streamlined abstraction of staple sci-fi scenarios such as space warfare, starship design, interstellar trading, and the creation of worlds and alien creatures.
- Revamped signature career-based character creation mini-game.
- Compatible with pre-existing content for classic systems such as Cepheus Engine or Traveller SRD (no affiliation, based only in OGL content).
Why play Alpha Cephei
The aim of Alpha Cephei is to provide an easy, approachable entry point to sci-fi and space-based roleplaying adventures, based on the advanced rules systems found in the Cepheus Engine, with the support of additional information to make the game understandable to newcomers with no previous knowledge of classic sci-fi gaming.
Mechanically, this game is similar and compatible to Cepheus Engine and most of its derivatives. That is to say, it is ruled by a simple, skill-based 2D6 core mechanic, with a rich character creation experience, enhanced by extremely flexible options for science fiction adventuring, albeit tweaked for ease of play, with a flatter learning curve than similar rulesets.
On the topic of being compatible with the Cepheus Engine, there’s a rich ecosystem of existing content for that system. Existing adventures, campaign settings, creatures and equipment released for Cepheus Engine by other publishers are fully compatible with Alpha Cephei with minimal change required.
Not sure if you want it? Preview the free chunky sample of the rules in the store page.
More in the making
You can also expect as free upgrades to your purchase in the next couple weeks:
- Complete System Reference Document, open-licensed under the same terms as Cepheus Engine.
- Full Foundry VTT support (largely compatible already through the TwoDSix System).
- Sharing of all AI-generated art from the book, completely free to use anywhere, for personal or commercial purposes.
- Ship design spreadsheet utility.
- Existing spaceship deckplans in gigantic sizes for digital or print.
Future development
It’s also cool that I’m actively working on additional content for the base game, and you can get involved. I’d love to hear your wishlist for the sci-fi game of your dreams. Direct-message me over Discord to share your experiences and feedback. Your input could help shape the future of Alpha Cephei!
Here’s some of the planned stuff for the near future if sales pick up:
- Core rulebook in premium print version.
- Premium deck plans for all 21 featured common spacecraft, completely free and open licensed for other Cepheus games (that’s right, I’m donating all deckplans I create for Alpha Cephei to the community).
- Web-apps (and possibly native mobile apps) for generating new characters, new worlds, encounters and alien creatures.
- Fillable digital character sheet.
- Fillable sheets for spaceships, worlds, alien creatures.
- Content expansions (ie. alien/creature manuals, additional careers, sandboxy generators, etc.)
- New, completely original, fully-featured campaign settings.
- Human-made commissioned premium artwork.
Grab a copy for yourself
Buy the book in DrivethruRPG!
Cover art by Dane Celestia, under license. Check out his Patreon here.
