Afterverse
Welcome to the universe. Here's what comes next.
Afterverse is a science fiction tabletop RPG created by Ray Nothnagel. The setting spans dozens of systems and hundreds of years of future history, and can scale from small adventures to epic journeys; the game system is explicitly designed to facilitate this setting and the continuity within.
Some of the core concepts and design principles of the Afterverse setting and game system:
In Afterverse, the setting and the characters are the central focus of the game; every game rule written in this book is explicitly designed to facilitate the Afterverse setting.
Continuity is central to the game. Afterverse has a broad history, and a campaign may take place at any time and place within it. Available equipment, species, and so on can vary between different cultures and eras. Rules for long and short time skips and generational campaigns are included. This philosophy does not just apply to history. The combat system is designed to be compatible with combat on any scale - large capital ships and small humans use many of the same combat mechanics.
Afterverse has a rule set that is designed to be intuitive and extensible. Players with only a partial understanding of the game's rule set should be able to act rationally by following their instincts, and allowing the GM to determine how best to represent those actions within the rules.
Afterverse has mechanics to encourage powergamers and roleplayers to be playing the same game. In Afterverse, good roleplaying is directly rewarded with XP - good roleplayers become more powerful characters, and those seeking more powerful characters will have to really get into their character's skin. The Motivation system is the cornerstone of this concept.
Afterverse has a combat system which encourages off-turn players to be alert and engaged, while speeding up the majority of combat resolution actions, moving more quickly from each player to the next. The number of dice rolls is reduced to a minimum, with other decision points being handled by decision-making and point pools.
Afterverse is open source. Anyone may read and modify the core book, and submit these modifications for consideration via git. For smaller modifications, users may comment on the online sourcebook after logging in to gitbook.
Note: Charts and tables are not (yet) part of this document; they're located on Google Spreadsheets.