First Impressions - Archives of the Sky (tabletop storygame)

Archives of the Sky: How did I miss this when it came out?

Archives of the Sky is a tabletop story game about the turn of the galaxy. It's very much inspired by one of my favourite Alastair Reynolds books, "House of Suns". The players take the part of humans who have stepped outside the hurly-burly of civilisations in the galaxy, travelling onwards and acting as observers and archivists to the changes that happen over eons. 

These Houses are defined by their values, one of which is that they will always remain human. The players take the part of members of the House, each defined by their own personal values. Nominally, there is no GM required, but there is a role of Archivist (the person who knows the rules best). If I was bringing this to a convention, I'd probably take that role to facilitate a better game. The game is built for three to six players.

Archives of the Sky is suitable for both one-shot and episodic campaign play. In an episode, the characters arrive in a star system and play through a series of scenes. These are framed with a question, and the questions will drive towards a dilemma. The dilemma will put two values (either House or Personal) into conflict, and ultimately force the players to choose what value they hold to. This is very much a collaborative story game, so the players are encouraged to mix things up. The conflict the dilemma generates isn't meant to be player-vs-player (or more accurately character-vs-character); rather, it's an exploration of a conflict about values and how it is resolved.

Each player takes a turn as narrator as scenes move on; another player will be responsible for making sure that the scene is as Epic as possible, while someone else will be responsible for drawing out the human and Intimate side of the scene. The scenes may well involve three Others of equal or greater power; an Ally, an Opponent and a Mystery. These are other Houses, Civilisations or things that are happening. In a campaign game, it is possible that further such Others can be introduced into scenes by the players.

Scenes also have a moment of reflection at the end, where the players speculate on the plot or comment on where their character is. This is designed to provide inspiration for the following scenes. During play, the trove can also be consulted. This is a list of words to inspire ideas. There is a sample list provided, but the game suggests that each player brings a favourite SF novel with them to the game and adds a selection of words from that, which is cool. 

There's a decent QuickStart guide and also a worksheet to allow you to run the game more quickly (a typical episode should take four hours, but the sheet will get it to around three). There are also a selection of other settings (for example the Wild West or Post-apocalypse) that the players can explore. 

The print copy is lovely; lots of good use of white space and evocative images, along with clear writing. It's 104-pages full colour and available on DriveThruRPG. I'd have loved a hardcover, but sadly that isn't an option.

I like the idea of this game; not only does it riff on one of my favourite books, but it is a more gentle, epic form of SF game which gives a chance to explore the kind of values judgements not often addressed with more traditional space-opera and cyberpunk SF. I think I may bring this to North Star or possibly Furnace in the future. Recommended

18 June 2023