Those Dark Places - Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying by Jonathan Hicks
Published by Osprey Games, 2020
Those Dark Places is a hundred and twenty-eight page digest-sized hardcover, described as "Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying." This translates into "Alien." This is territory already covered by Hostile, Mothership, and the actual Alien RPG, but frankly there's still room and this won't set you back too much. It was twenty bucks from Amazon.
Production quality is very nice - the front cover has an image of a spacesuit helmet reflecting a dark, shadowy creature. Interior is glossy paper, with a full-page piece of art every few pages. The artwork fits the theme well - each piece is primarily in black and white with one additional color used.
The book begins with an introduction by the author, telling us what inspired him to write this book (SURPRISE! It was Alien and a few other films and video games), a little bit about what "industrial sci-fi roleplaying" means, and then small sections to tell both players and GMs what to expect. Mercifully, there is no "what IS a role-playing game?" section.
After the introduction, we get to the player section, where the basic game mechanics are explained. The writing here is as though the material is being explained by a corporate trainer - conversational, with occasional snippets of setting information tossed in. I thought this was executed well, with the setting bits getting a little thicker in the GM section.
Game mechanics are fairly light. Each character has four ability scores (Charisma, Agility, Strength, Education), with the player assigning a value of four to the most important ability, three to the next most important, and so on. Each character chooses one of seven shipboard positions as Primary, and another as Secondary. When a test is required, the player rolls a d6, adds the appropriate ability score, and additional plus two or plus one if the character has a Primary or Secondary position that would be useful, and plus one if they have a piece of equipment suitable to the task at hand. If the total is seven, it is a partial success, eight or better is a full success. The target number can be increased or decreased if the task is particularly easy or difficult.
Combat initiative is d6 plus Agility, highest score gets to go first and then in descending order. Combat uses the main roll mechanic - melee combat is an opposed roll that adds Strength. Ranged combat adds Agility, beat a six or seven or eight depending on range. Damage is capped per weapon - a rifle can do up to four damage, roll a d6 and it does that much damage up to a max of four. Damage is deducted from Strength, hit zero and you are knocked out, negative two and you'll die in a few minutes, past negative two you are dead.
The other major mechanic is a "Pressure" check, when something stressful and unpleasant happens (like you run into a dead body or an alien monstrosity). This is a d6 plus Strength and Education, looking for a ten or better. If the roll fails, you gain a Pressure point. After accumulating two Pressure points, the player rolls a d6, and if the result is less than the character's current Pressure level he suffers a bout of terror and rolls on an "Episode" chart to determine the effect. Like damage rolls, this is a capped roll, and a character can only suffer an Episode effect up to the current Pressure level. These effects generally result in attribute loss, can have additional effects that linger. One important note is that Pressure cannot be reduced during gameplay - the book explains that while there are indeed methods of reducing Pressure, none of those methods are practical during the timeframe of a typical game session.
Following this, the player section covers equipment, a brief overview of what a typical job involves, and a rundown of the characters' ultimate goals.
The GM section starts with a slightly more in-depth explanation of attributes and what crew positions are for, then a section on artful interpretation of die results, including some suggestions for partial successes. This is followed by a short Appendix N section and some additional inspiration ideas, a brief note on equipment, then some information on the judicious and sparing use of Pressure rolls and how to handle ongoing effects of Episodes. This adds a little more complication to Pressure (you'll need to track what caused the Episode in the first place, and if a similar situation happens it will have a negative impact on task rolls).
From here, there is a section of sample gameplay, then some suggestions for different things the characters could be doing - they might be Space Marshals checking out some distant colony, or corporate troubleshooter teams sent to fix problems (clandestine or not), or maybe they're just ore haulers coming back from a mining trip when their ship drops out of hyperspace to check out a distress beacon. There is some discussion about different vessel types, different facilities, and a few suggestions regarding types of scenarios to run. There are eight of these, ranging from "accident investigation" to "hostile takeover by another corporation" to "survey a planet." Not a lot of specifics, but each has a few paragraphs that should be enough to spark some ideas if you want something beyond "there's an alien on the ship, it's gonna kill everybody." There is then about two pages of setting material, some pregenerated NPCs and notes on how to create them, and brief discussions on synthetics (both "looks human" Bishop-style and Working Joes from Alien: Isolation).
Finally, we get a ten page starter scenario, which is fairly well done and gets applause for not being Alien with the serial numbers lightly scratched off.
Overall, we have a game that is exceptionally light on crunch - the equipment list is "assume you have what you need to do your job" and there are no detailed rules for starships, ships are simply a way to transport your PCs to where the adventure is taking place. There are no advancement rules, and there are no true end goals other than a nebulous mention of "retirement" after twenty-five years of service. So for extended campaign play, you'll need to come up with some ideas. For one shots, this would be a very easy system to pick up and throw something together, or pull something in from another system.
My only minor complaint is that some of the information in the GM system could have been clustered together instead of separated. None of it is separated by much distance, but I would put the Appendix N stuff right next to the setting material, interpreting the die roll along with the "how to handle conflict" stuff, and the notes on Pressure right next to the Episode information.
Buy it? Like I said, this is ground already covered by several other games that do the job admirably, but Those Dark Places has "pick up and play" down pretty well. If you want additional setting details, Alien or Hostile will do the trick and Mothership has some excellent modules ready to go. Worth the twenty bucks as something quick and easy to run if I have the hankering for Alien.