Twelve Little Space Marines

Lieutenant Ofux raised his blaster to shoulder level. Something had moved behind the hyperdrive machinery. Something scaly, glib and smelly. He was no fool. He would wait until it came out, he was telling himself, when, all of a sudden, the creature sprang at him from above.

In this tabletop roleplaying game, players  do not take on the role of a single spaceship crew member – instead, they start with a team of three to six space marines. Unfortunately, most of these are destined to die, and soon ...

The rules of Twelve Litte Space Marines attempt to recreate survival horror at the game table with as few rules as possible - in fact, just one rule. It also works for funnel adventures. The game is especially suited to one-shots. 

On two pages (front and back of an A4 sheet), Twelve Litte Space Marines includes:

• a big table for quick space marine creation
• its one and only rule, the Saving Throw, to decide between success and failure, life and death
• probably superfluous advice on running the game and converting scenarios

While I've been experimenting with the base mechanic for almost two years now, the actual game was cobbled together for the One-Page RPG Jam 2024. I can heartily recommend the two modules I used in tests:

• Bumpy Ride at Bore IX (written for Mothership)
• Sailors on the Starless Sea (DCC - affiliate link)

Twelve Litte Space Marines is  released under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Can your crew survive the horrors between the stars? How many of you will be left?