NASA Releases The Lost Universe TTRPG Adventure

NASA, the American space agency, released a tabletop roleplaying game supplement titled The Lost Universe. The free download includes a 44-page PDF of the adventure, a map of the adventure location Aldastron, and a poster of the cover art.

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From the website:

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Calling all adventurers!​

It’s time to gather your party and your favorite tabletop role-playing game system.

A dark mystery has settled over the city of Aldastron on the rogue planet of Exlaris. Researchers dedicated to studying the cosmos have disappeared, and the Hubble Space Telescope has vanished from Earth’s timeline. Only an ambitious crew of adventurers can uncover what was lost. Are you up to the challenge?

This adventure is designed for a party of 4-7 level 7-10 characters and is easily adaptable for your preferred tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) system.

NASA’s first TTRPG adventure invites you to take on a classic villain (while also using and learning science skills!) as you overcome challenges and embark on an exciting quest to unlock more knowledge about our universe. Download your game documents below and get ready to explore Exlaris!

Want to share how your adventure unfolds? Share it with #NASATTRPG on social media.

Despite the very D&D terminology of party levels, the adventure itself is system-agnostic with no stat blocks or other rules beyond a few generic tables. It does involve fantasy elements with half-orcs, tieflings, and elves among the NPCs. As you'd likely expect from a NASA adventure module, there is a lot of real-life science involving research done on the Hubble Space Telescope including red/blue shift, dark matter and dark energy, gravitational lensing, zero point energy, and more.

The official NASA Twitter account listed this as "NASA's first tabletop role-playing campaign" indicating that there may be more supplements coming in the future.

 

[Parmandur]

That is wild.

 

[Abstruse]

The title is also interesting because there is a light novel series that was adapted into an anime in the 1990s called Lost Universe. It's a science fantasy story set in an alternate universe from the series Slayers. Which is a more traditional fantasy series inspired by the author's Ars Magicka campaign.

This adventure has nothing to do with the anime.

 

[Von Ether]

Yes. Please drag in more young people into science! I know we have a wider range of ages in the game now, but I'm thinking of my own high school days when the Satanic Panic was a thing. Luckily, it was NOT a thing in my family and I only bumped into it during my part time jobs during college where I quickly learned to keep my mouth shut.

 

[Nikosandros]

My characters has Mid-Infrared Vision out to a range of 60 LY and can cast Type II Hohmann Transfer once per long rest.

 

[Hussar]

HOLY CRAP.

That's AWESOME!

Geeks rule the universe.

 

[GuardianLurker]

The title is also interesting because there is a light novel series that was adapted into an anime in the 1990s called Lost Universe. It's a science fantasy story set in an alternate universe from the series Slayers. Which is a more traditional fantasy series inspired by the author's Ars Magicka campaign.

This adventure has nothing to do with the anime.

What?

You are talking Slayers, as in Lina Inverse Slayers? An Ars Magica campaign?! That'd be awesome. Any more info on that?

 

[Abstruse]

What?

You are talking Slayers, as in Lina Inverse Slayers? An Ars Magica campaign?! That'd be awesome. Any more info on that?

According to an interview I read in a magazine that's been out of print for a decade and a half at least whose name I can't remember because most of those magazines were very generic names and I haven't been able to find it online. But yes, it's loosely based on an Ars Magicka campaign he and his friends played and that's where most of the worldbuilding and general events come from.

 

[Joshua Randall]

(Some of) our tax dollars at work!

 

[MichaelSomething]

I wonder if it would be hard to convert to mutants and masterminds.