For 10 years we have worked on a game system and a setting to recreate the
science-fiction experience we, as gamers and fans of good sci-fi crave.

Originally it was not our intention to try and sell this game, it was just for our group. Now however, we are so proud of what we have created that we want others to experience it as well.

We settled on a percentage based d100 system for Dark Stars because it provided us the most flexibility and ties in with our core philosophy of Player Agency. We tried many other dice systems, we tried a d6 based system and that didn’t give us what we wanted, the numbers were too small to allow for lots of variables and adjustments based on Player actions. Next, we tried a variant of the d6 system based on d10’s, but again it didn’t deliver what we wanted. Then we turned to a d20 system; we tried a roll-up d20 system where target numbers were set, and modifiers were applied to the d20 roll. We tried a roll under system where the target number for the roll was determined by the character abilities plus modifiers, and that didn’t give us what we wanted.

The main reason was the lack of variability of the dice. Even with a d20 everything is done in increments of 5% and that didn’t provide enough granularity for us to be able to have modifiers of very small increments to the roll. We chose a roll-under d100 system to give us that granularity. In a roll-up d20 system like Pathfinder or D&D, everyone loves rolling a nat 20 and dreads roll a nat 1, but each time you roll you have a 10% chance of one of those results occurring, which cheapens the miraculously lucky result and lessens the value of the story of how the character defeated the enemy with lucky hit. With the roll-under d100 system, the much coveted 01 result only occurs 1% of the time, making a rarer occurrence but all the sweeter when it happens, the rarer the event, the more memorable it is. That’s what we want, to create memorable experiences and that is why use d100.

All the effort to get something like Dark Stars ready for production and release to an audience is not easy, it has been hard work and we have contracted many artists to create the awesome artwork in our books. This is the culmination of many people’s efforts and I hope you will enjoy the game and the setting and take a moment to appreciate the hard work that all the contributors did to prepare our books.

If you like the look of what we are doing, if you’re a fan of good sci-fi and table-top RPG’s, then please check out our Kickstarter and consider supporting our efforts by clicking play below.