Blue Planet: Recontact Quick-start

Gorgeous new cover

I had the privilege of being allowed to run a playtest of the new edition of the Blue Planet RPG at North Star 2019 earlier this year. I mentioned it briefly in an earlier post here on the con, but here's a quick summary.

Slot 5 was the game that had been both filling me with anticipation and terror in the run-up, a playtest of Blue Planet: Recontact with the scenario Trouble in Paradise. The scenario is the kick off for one of the campaign frames in the game. The characters are all part of Red Sky Charters, a family business already struggling to make ends meet. The game opens in media res, with the characters kidnapped by a group of Russian mobsters. It worked really well and the players just went through it. We all had a learning curve to do with the game, but the setting worked for people familiar with all the previous material and for those that had never seen it before. The players were awesome and it felt like the opening of a TV series. I’d have loved to have run a follow up with the same group. I’m pleased with how I GMd this. I was enthused and full of energy mostly. I will do this again. Big thanks to Alison, Tilly, Paul, Dr Bob and Neil for making this such good fun.

There's a counterpoint view from one of the players here.

I was really pleased to find out from Dr Bob on the Tavern this weekend that the Quick-start version of the game that  I ran has dropped as a 'pay-what-you-want' file on DriveThruRPG. It looks gorgeous and I really recommend that you check it out. The streamlined synergy system is well worth a look.

The adventure in the Quick-start comes with four characters. At North Star I was running for up to six players, so I needed some extras. One of the other playtest GMs created some extras, but they didn't completely float my boat (to use a Poseidon appropriate pun), and they aren't mine to share even though I had them ready at the convention. I expanded two NPCs linked to the family, Uncle 'Digger' Jones and Bobby Whalesong, which I've linked to PDFs on Dropbox below if you want to use them.

Uncle 'Digger' Jones (PDF)
Bobby Whalesong (PDF)

I can't really say enough how much I recommend this game.


26 August 2019