For Small Creatures Such As We
For Small Creatures Such As We
FSCSAW is a 256 page solo/co-op RPG about being a human captain in charge of an alien crew. It is a game about exploration not just of the wider galaxy but of the aliens you share your ship with. To get started you generate your Captain and your Crew, choose their skills, and customise your ship to better suit the type of Missions that you want to undertake. Whether that be as a passenger transport, cargo delivery, bounty hunter, diplomat, explorer of uncharted worlds, asteroid miner, derelict salvager, shuttle racer, criminal, or researcher.
As you play, you will use a deck of playing cards to generate story Events that prompt you with scenes that build a narrative with your alien crewmates. After generating the basics of your alien crewmates, the rest of the game gives you ways to learn about their biologies, their cultures, their personalities, and their pasts naturally though gameplay. Share a laugh about some ancient sci-fi films and learn about how their species depicted aliens before they met them. See their best side as they push themselves to help during a difficult spacewalk. Learn why your pacifist monk pilot took their vow. There are endless possibilities for how your crewmates will shape up!
For Small Creatures Such As We is built to create a narrative while still having enough mechanical depth to make it a fun game. As you play, you'll have to keep your ship fueled up and your Crewmate's Healthy and Happy. Manage your Food supplies, plot your course on the galactic map, juggle Missions, and face off against the many threats the galaxy can pose or play it safe and stick to secure space at the cost of time.
The beauty of the emergent narrative focused systems in FSCSAW is that you can never predict where your story is going to go. A simple cargo mission could see your ship badly damaged by a micro-asteroid cloud and with no money left after repairs for Food, you find yourself having to perform a Heist just to make ends meet. Your bounty hunting crew might capture their target only to discover that they are this universe's equivalent of Luke Skywalker and you're inadvertantly working for a malicious superpower. Or maybe you'll get stuck in an alien multi-level marketing scheme and are desperately trying to sell dodgy diet bars before you get hit with the hidden fees. Like I said before, the possibilites are endless.
All you need to play is a Deck of Cards, a six sided die, and something to record your adventures in.
🪐 Influences 🪐
A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet
Star Trek
Star Wars - specifically the prequels
Firefly
Farscape
Mass Effect - yes, you can romance your crewmates!
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $19 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Community Copy
Support this game at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.
Community Copies
If, for whatever reason, you can't afford the usual price, feel free to grab one of these if there are any left.
I will put up a Community Copy for each Rating that people leave :)
Download demo
Development log
- Fixed ResolutionJul 24, 2024
Comments
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I haven't get a chance to play but I'm sure it is as good as your other works. I'm patiently waiting for a community copy :)
Sorry to keep spamming you with questions, but are you aware that all of the coordinates in the Map file you provided are reversed from the ones in the book? For example in the book everything in column 2 is listed as 2.X (2.A, 2.7, etc.) where every in column 2 in the individual map files are X.2 (A.2, 7.2, etc.). It's still perfectly usable but just seemed odd and wasn't sure if anyone else had reported it. Curious which one is considered "correct".
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I must've uploaded the old version by mistake! I will sort this once I'm back home.
the coordinates are also reversed in the print friendly map provided in the
.zippurchased directly on your shop.just started to play, it is already a bliss.
Thanks for the heads up!
Can you always choose to do the Old Ship exploration on Grave or Delve on Ruin or does it need to be triggered by an event? I assumed that it was something you can just choose to do, but since there is a Planetary Event that specifically lets you explore an Old Ship it seemed like the opportunity might be a triggered event or something.
You can choose to
Do you have any plans on releasing expansions on this one like you did for apothecaria or is this a one shot ?
I'm actually working on 3 expansions right now as part of the Kickstarter campaign stretch goals!
One is basically done sans art and is called Love & Lust. It centres around romance, family structures, relationships, and intimacy and how the different alien species in your setting might express of experience such things.
Next up is A Guide To Fauna which is a xenozoology centric expansions where you can help ferry animals off of a doomed planet and have to fill out Species Files for them to work out what planet they would be best suited on.
And finally, War! is an all out galactic war between the Unified and the Free. It adds a tonne of new combat focused mechanics and Missions and lets players either join in on the war or try to remain outside of it.
I have plans for other expansions as well but that's the what's coming out hopefully before February.
crazy ! I just picked up a physical copy which just got shipped but I have already read almost all the digital copy already. Can’t wait to start my campaign. This looks like my dream solo rpg 😁
Thank you! :) I hope you have fun
Please leave a review if you can as it really helps us out with the algorithm <3
I’d love to do that but I bought the physical copy on your website so I don’t think I can leave a review here
As someone who crowdfunded this I am begging that you put out printer friendly character sheets to both save ink and so you don't have to open the entire book's PDF to print Captain/Crew pages.
Seeing as ya begged ;P
I've put up both the original full colour ones and one that is as print friendly as I could make it without removing the design.
This looks awesome, BlackwellWriter team
Question about shoreleave, because I feel I may be overthinking it. When does shoreleave reset? Does it reset completely when you land on a planet? Or do you have to stay there several cycles for the numbers to go back up? I have a starting cargo mission to haul some antiques from Ruin to Grave. If I stop at Progress for a day, does that reset shoreleave or only add +1?
Resets completely once you land on a Planet. Though if you'd like to do it the latter way, I'm sure that would feel more realistic :)
Thank you! I assumed the simpler way to continue but I may give the more realistic way a go for the next mission I play and see how it feels. Loving the game so far!
I stumbled across FSCSAW today, and it was meant to be! I was immediately drawn in by the vibes and especially when I read the inspirations behind this RPG! I love Becky Chambers' books, the expansive Star Wars universe, and I'm a huge Firefly fan! This looks absolutely amazing! I'm saving up for the digital version! Seeing the bundle of all the other amazing projects, Anna's creativity is incredible and inspiring.
Hi, I've ordered the physical copy from your website and have received the pdf. The captain and crewmate sheets in the book are very blue; is it possible to get printer friendly versions of these? Really excited to play 😊
Seconding this request, and I would also really appreciate a print-friendly version of the map!
I'll add it to my to do list!
Thirding this request. I took the book off the shelf today, planning to start playing it on an upcoming trip. But with the captain and crewmate sheets so ink heavy, I’m inclined to wait, as I’ll need multiple crewmate pages.
bought FSCSaW at Glasgow World Con, but I am struggling to find the online copies of the ship plans etc that you mentioned, how do I get access to them please? Also is there somewhere in the book that tells me how to download my pdf version? Having fun creating my captain, Gabriel "Black Gabriel" Gray, a Pirate Kid, Wild Soul Pirate, one of my Crewmates came up with Insubstantial, Armoured, Warrior Cult, (either completely useless or horribly overpowered, depending on how you interpreted it) so I shuffled some traits with another crewman. I sometimes struggle to find answers to questions I have, (like do I have to return to the planet that a received a mission to collect payment on completion, (I decided not)), but on the whole well laid out, (much better than "5 leagues from the Borderlands" for instance) Looking forward to the expansions and the inevitable home brew tables that will emerge with time.
Hey Nick, send me an email at annablackwell1994[@]gmaildotcom and we'll sort out a PDF copy to go with your physical book :)
I need to sort out the ship plans! I discovered yesterday that they hadn't been uploaded like I thought they had.
Glad you're having fun with it :)
I'm having trouble working out when I find a space station, are they at all co-ords that don't have a planet, or are they only found via the travel events table, (I don't want to read through the travel events to avoid spoilers).
Generated via Travel Events or as part of some backstories
OK thanks
I had a blast with FSCSAW and wrote up my first session here:
https://soloist.substack.com/p/solo-sessions
What a great write-up and format! I *also* rolled a pirate kid who grew up to be a good cook, lol :D
Chef pirates are best pirates! With my captain as a cook, the kitchen ship upgrade, and a crewmate who produces fruit on his branches, food supplies aren't a problem on the Evinrude!
I saw the physical book at the UK Games Expo. I opened it to a page of an adorable space otter. 10/10 no notes.
I am so jealous of ppl able to get the physical book. Hoping it comes to NA soon (group order!)
Weirdly couldn’t find my way back to your stand at UKGE and struggling to walk on a busted foot or I would have ordered. Grabbed a pdf as soon as I saw the email though. Looks really good now I’ve finally been able to relax and read.
This is the first solo journaling game I've tried that I've found exciting and engaging, that's held my interest for more than a day or two and made me want to try new ideas, take different paths, be different people. It provides a generous setting and structure to build narrative, to inspire ideas, to make it all come alive.
I've recommended it to pretty much everyone I know. It's so much fun ✨
I love how open-ended it is. Like it just kinda is this system to generate a framework and you tell whatever story you want on top of that!
Absolutely! Very adaptable :D
Does this 256-page version also include the 3 Kickstarter campaign expansions? And are there images of the different intelligent species as well as the flora and fauna in the book?
The expansions are books of their own and will be released later this year.
There are no defined alien species in the book but instead systems that help you to create the intelligent species and encourage you to think about the flora and fauna of the different Planets.
Thank you for your fast reply. I really love the vibe of the stories which could be experienced. For me the book just seems to lack the visual immersion in the universe you create, which in role-playing games is important to me to "feel" it
The game isn't trying to provide a pre-built universe, it's trying to give players the power to explore and create. The best way to think of it is that the galaxy is a framework to help you create. If someone is from Forge, you get a chance to think about how their clothing, technology, health, mannerisms, culture, etc might reflect their upbringing on an industrial factory world with all the pollution that entails. Then, you can compare that to someone from Harvest or Windsong and because the game encourages you to think about these things rather than just giving you 13 generic species, it'll hopefully let you engage with it on a deeper level.
Okay, I see. Coming from Possum Creek Games books which visualize their colourful, wholesome and diverse worlds in the role-playing materials, it would be hard for me not to have that kind of immersion. Different concepts and to each one their prefered piece of cake
I grew up as a Trekkie. I love all things fantasy now, but sci-fi always has my heart. After reading Becky Chambers THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET I went down the black hole that is cozy, character-drive sci-fi adventures. Where the focus wasn't the science, or the tech, but a soft musing of what life might be like in the future.
Enter: FOR SMALL CREATURES SUCH AS WE. I'm a big fan of Anna's games in general. But this one might, imho, be her most perfect game yet. It's a little bit crunchy, some fun management bits with suggests on making it easier. And like all solo RPGs, take what's fun for you, skip what ain't.
The real gold here is just the gentle guidance into creating a beautiful rich and diverse universe. Prompts are fun and varied, ranging from "oh nooooo" to "omg fuuuuun!" Depending on how you set things up the game can be a challenging adventure of daring do through the universe, or a cozy found-family romp that is healing and fun.
I will be playing this game for a long, long time!
Thank you so much :)
Of course, thank YOU for sharing such a great game with us :D
Love this game!
Ach, ready just after UKGE
Literally got copies the day after UKGE, raging doesn't do it justice XD
See you again next year then!
I've been playing this game since the early play test phase and it's quickly become my favourite RPG. The story I've created while playing it has taken turns I'd never have expected but what's come out of it is better than anything I could have imagined.
It's a really fun journey through an imaginative and vivid world with enough gameplay to really keep you on your toes and throw you curveballs. I really feel like different players would have completely different story experiences depending on their own unigue styles, flavours, and takes on the prompts. Mines has turned into an epic but heartfelt stuggle of a pirate trying to turn her life around while I know others have been extremely cosy. Takes a wee bit of organisation to really keep track of the story but sooooo worth it!