Close
Close
Advanced Search

Orbital Blues: A Space Western RPGClick to magnify
Quick Preview
/gs_flipbook/flip.php?xml=/demo_xml/365815.xml&w=500&h=375
Full‑size Preview
https://watermark.drivethrurpg.com/pdf_previews/365815-sample.pdf

Orbital Blues: A Space Western RPG

ADD TO WISHLIST >

This is the rock and roll future of yesteryear that never was—and nobody wanted. 

It is an intergalactic age of cowboys, outlaws and bandits playing on an interstellar stage. It is a time of hyper-capitalism and a cut-throat gig economy. Unreliable trash-heaps carry scrappy underdogs to their next gig, and corporation freighters lumber across the horizon laden with an empire’s bounty.

These are the music-fuelled, moon-age daydreams of a rebel space age. 

These are your ORBITAL BLUES.

ORBITAL BLUES is a lo-fi space western roleplaying game from SoulMuppet Publishing, written by Sam Sleney & Zachary Cox.  A roleplaying love-letter to off-beat sci-fi, vintage music, and cooperative old-school styled roleplay, Orbital Blues allows you to play out rules-light tabletop adventures in the style of space westerns such as Cowboy Bebop, Firefly and Guardians of the Galaxy

Stepping into the shoes of Interstellar Outlaws, players band together to form Crews, and navigate a hard-going, gig-economy living on the fringes of a space-faring society.

Developed on the critically acclaimed rules-lite system of Best Left Buried, Orbital Blues uses a simple D6 based system with 3 basic stats - MUSCLE, GRIT, and SAVVY - to handle rolls and uncertainty - putting the narrative and relationships of the player characters at the heart of play without the baggage of hefty mechanics, classes or roles.

Art by Joshua Clark. Layout and Cartography by Lone Archivist.

pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
 
 Customers Who Bought this Title also Purchased
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif
Reviews (6)
Discussions (13)
Customer avatar
Bernardo E November 12, 2023 8:59 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I've heard so many good things! Looking forward to playing this!

I purchased the latest rulebook as of 11/23. On page 35 under the 'fast hands' gambit, I wanted to make sure there is no typo. It talks about rolling 2D3. So just roll two 2D4 and subtract 1 or get a DCC d3 die?
Customer avatar
Andrew T September 20, 2022 8:05 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Are we going to see the adventures mentioned in the Kickstarter eventually released as PDFs and (also, hopefully) as physical print versions?
Reply
Customer avatar
Zachary C September 21, 2022 9:22 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Hi Andrew,
We're working hard on them and they're proceeding well, making five extra books is not a quick or simple task. One is basically finished, one is about to go into layout, the last few are in the manuscript stage. 3.5 of the 5 are fully illustrated. You'll get them when they're ready.
Thanks
Zach
Customer avatar
Ray T March 06, 2022 10:11 pm UTC
I’m looking forward to this being print on demand. I will buy it. Great looking game. Heard about it on the podcast The GreenBox.
Reply
Customer avatar
Zachary M March 18, 2022 5:12 pm UTC
PURCHASER
The designers sell hard copies on their website. UK based.
Reply
Customer avatar
Ray T March 21, 2022 7:20 pm UTC
Thx. I did see that after I posted. Unfortunately with shipping it gets costly. I appreciate the message.
Reply
Customer avatar
John C P April 20, 2022 9:58 am UTC
PURCHASER
Have you looked at exaltedfuneral dot com? You can order a hard copy there. And it ships domestically within US.
Reply
Customer avatar
Ray T May 07, 2022 2:27 am UTC
I just seen this message and ordered it. Thx
Customer avatar
JB L February 12, 2022 7:07 am UTC
Hey there - DropTheDie on twitter or DropTheDie.com

Love the style and the vibe of the PDF, it's dripping with exactly what makes shows like Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop, or Firefly so engrossing. Rules light but with just enough zip and long enough legs that I think it'll make for a fun serialized campaign!

We're in the process of planning out a livestream game of Orbital Blues and in our excitement I basically touched up the PDF, optimized some stuff, added bookmarks, and revamped the character sheet into a form fillable sheet for our party. If y'all are interested cross pollinating, please feel free to reach out! Well done, everyone.
Customer avatar
Ian W November 18, 2021 10:10 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I can't seem to find anything about pricing for equipment, am I just missing it or is it something that the DM is supposed to make up?
Reply
Customer avatar
Brian S November 26, 2021 10:34 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Money is pretty abstract in this game, measured in Credit and Debt where that could symbolize large denominations of money (100s? 1000s? If its Cowboy Bebop's Woolongs it could be millions) rather than exact figures. I believe the GM should just eyeball it. Look at what accrues Debt (repairing and refueling the ship, using limited ammo weapons like rocket propelled grenades, etc) and judge by that.
Customer avatar
Tanner R August 17, 2021 2:03 am UTC
PURCHASER
Will there be a fully editable character sheet we can use for online play at some point?
Reply
Customer avatar
Brian S August 27, 2021 11:07 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Roll20 character sheet up and running!
Reply
Customer avatar
Tanner R August 28, 2021 4:12 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Sweet, thanks! :)
Customer avatar
Brian S August 12, 2021 11:34 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Errata fixes and rules clarifications are in the latest version (8/12/21).
Customer avatar
Jackie K July 30, 2021 8:24 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I can't actually see where fuel is for ships past it being referenced as part of the money system.
Reply
Customer avatar
Brian S July 30, 2021 8:58 pm UTC
PURCHASER
My understanding is refueling happens (or at least is paid for) off camera at the end of a session when calculating Credit and Debt.
Reply
Customer avatar
Jackie K July 30, 2021 9:34 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Well yeah but the issue is that fuel is talked about as if it's more than a binary.

And if it's just a binary then why's it a separate condition from just travelling broadly?
Reply
Customer avatar
Brian S July 30, 2021 9:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Ohhh I see! That looks like a holdover from an older version. Page 61 mentions a "Hull" and "Fuel" stat. Neither exist for current ships I think. I'll add that to errata on the discord.
Reply
Customer avatar
Brian S July 31, 2021 1:34 am UTC
PURCHASER
While the author is compiling errata, I'd say you can safely ignore any Mention of "Hull" or "Fuel" stat, they appear to be left overs from the Unchained Melody playtest doc.
Reply
Customer avatar
Zachary C July 31, 2021 11:08 am UTC
PUBLISHER
Yeah we got rid of Hull and Fuel since we preferred the new ship combat system. We'll remove all references to it in the next errata.
Customer avatar
james H July 30, 2021 12:15 am UTC
PURCHASER
will there be a print version?
Reply
Customer avatar
Zachary C July 30, 2021 3:32 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Most certainly. Check out our webstore at soulmuppet-store.co.uk and jump on the mailing list at soulmuppet.co.uk for updates!
Customer avatar
David P July 29, 2021 3:52 am UTC
PURCHASER
Quick question to the game makers. My downloaded copy of the game included 5 different versions of the corebook, some of which were multi-hundred MB files. Is there some reason for this? Thanks.
Reply
Customer avatar
Derek V July 30, 2021 1:50 am UTC
PURCHASER
One is a flattened, compressed, spread view. That'll be the smallest file size, but suffers from compression artifacts. There's flattened uncompressedspread view and page view, the former being the two page spread version and the latter showing single page view. There's also a spread view and page view "screen reader version" or SRV, which are the ones that let you copy-paste and ctrl+F text inside the file.

Take your pick. Though I recommend the spread view, if only to maintain the absolutely beautiful artwork that is every two page spread.
Customer avatar
Anton R July 28, 2021 9:45 pm UTC
PURCHASER
First of all, such a beautiful game!
Also a have a couple of questions
If I do 3+ damage with lethal or dangerous weapons, how much will I reduce the size of the crowd?
And if deadly and explosive?
In addition, I did not find any mentions of the armor in the book, other than the description of the spacesuit, am I missing something?
Reply
Customer avatar
Zachary C July 30, 2021 3:32 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Hey this has been discussed in depth on our discord server. My reading as one of the game's designers:

1. My gut says that Explosive stacks with Deadly/Dangerous, but they don't stack with each other.
2. If you're weapon is Dangerous/Deadly, 3+ damage roll wouldn't do anything extra.
Reply
Customer avatar
Zachary M March 18, 2022 5:16 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Y’all have a public discord to discuss game details? Game across this recently and thinkin I might try to wrangle folks into a game.
Customer avatar
July 28, 2021 8:42 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Since we're doing questions/answers/issues:
1) On Page 60 you have "You sell something important" on the Credits greater than Debits table.
2) On Page 29, it'd help to either list the ship stats or list a reference to where to go to get them.
3) Some examples of what Troubles Brewing looks like and how a Blues check should be handled (both successful and otherwise) would be helpful... I really don't understand the failure condition of a Blues Check... nothing is at risk if you fail other than not getting the Blues point... which makes the roll counter-intuitive...
4) Hiring Mobs (page 61), do you have to pay 10 credits for a Mob (i.e. you have to buy the Goons first)?
5) Crew Projects cost more for bigger crews? That seems weird.
6) Page 67 mentions "Scoped" tag, but I didn't see it anywhere in the equipment section. There is a Long Range tag that seems to do what scoped is meant to do.
7) Page 74. Military weapons don't seem to have any real benefits......See more
Reply
Customer avatar
July 28, 2021 9:08 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I've also spotted some typos here and there if you'd want to know them.
Reply
Customer avatar
Zachary C July 28, 2021 9:19 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Thanks for mentioning these, I'll take a look at them
Reply
Customer avatar
Brian S July 28, 2021 9:21 pm UTC
PURCHASER
You might enjoy the Soul Muppet Discord, we're errata hunting right now.
Reply
Customer avatar
July 28, 2021 9:38 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I'll track down the discord and join... thanks!
Reply
Customer avatar
Jackie K July 31, 2021 11:29 am UTC
PURCHASER
Military Weapons in vehicle combat auto inflict damage without needing a 3+
Customer avatar
Rafael K July 28, 2021 5:58 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Backed it and started reading the PDF today. I'm only on page 50 but I have a few questions/comments:
1) Is "spread" the only pdf version available? Can we have a "regular" version with individual pages?
2) There are quite a few tables (mementos for example) that ask me to choose or roll... But some tables have 18 items numbered from 1 to 18.. How exactly am I supposed to roll on an 18 items table? Some tables say D6 or d100 but others don't.
3) Troubles says "WHenever you answer one of these questions during play, gain 1 Blues. Can the player decide to just answer all of them during the first minute of play and get all the Blues? The troubles section doesn't explain.. unless it's explained later in the book how its used?
4) On Page 50 it says that if the total is 8+ (so 8 or more) you succeed.... On the paragraph just under it says that the target number is 9.. Is it 8 or 9?
5) The mementos table has "Former Crew Patch" twice (numbers 3 and 9)....See more
Reply
Customer avatar
Zachary C July 28, 2021 6:04 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
1. There are 3 versions in the product now, you should be able to grab a different file format now.
2. You can do a D18 by rolling a D3 for the column and D6 for the row. 1 and 3 would give 3, 2 and 4 would give 10, 3 and 5 would give 17.
3. If you're trying to powergame, you're probably playing the wrong kind of RPG.
4. Target number is 8, we'll get that fized.
5. We'll get that fized.
6. It is certainly a ship that you could have. There are lots of different styles of ship in the OB universe. The stars are the limit!
Reply
Customer avatar
Rafael K July 28, 2021 6:12 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks for the quick reply!
1. Will do
3. Not trying o powergame.. is just that being a game designer myself (not tabletop) I always analyse the rules for those kinds of exploits...
4. I thought it was 9 because the dice show 9 :D Thanks for the clarification though.
6. That's a weird looking ship but I got the idea haha

Really enjoying the book so far! Best of luck with the release!
Narrow Results
$ to $
 Follow Your Favorites!
NotificationsSign in to get custom notifications of new products!















Product Information
Gold seller
Author(s)
Pages
200
File Size:
120.2 MB
Format
Original electronic Click for more information
Scanned image
These products were created by scanning an original printed edition. Most older books are in scanned image format because original digital layout files never existed or were no longer available from the publisher.

For PDF download editions, each page has been run through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to attempt to decipher the printed text. The result of this OCR process is placed invisibly behind the picture of each scanned page, to allow for text searching. However, any text in a given book set on a graphical background or in handwritten fonts would most likely not be picked up by the OCR software, and is therefore not searchable. Also, a few larger books may be resampled to fit into the system, and may not have this searchable text background.

For printed books, we have performed high-resolution scans of an original hardcopy of the book. We essentially digitally re-master the book. Unfortunately, the resulting quality of these books is not as high. It's the problem of making a copy of a copy. The text is fine for reading, but illustration work starts to run dark, pixellating and/or losing shades of grey. Moiré patterns may develop in photos. We mark clearly which print titles come from scanned image books so that you can make an informed purchase decision about the quality of what you will receive.
pixel_trans.gif
Original electronic format
These ebooks were created from the original electronic layout files, and therefore are fully text searchable. Also, their file size tends to be smaller than scanned image books. Most newer books are in the original electronic format. Both download and print editions of such books should be high quality.
File Last Updated:
July 15, 2022
This title was added to our catalog on July 28, 2021.