Two Interviews and Part One of the Introduction to Centennia

December 10, 2023.

The free 40-page preview of the Colonist Companion is available on DriveThruRPG.com, so if you haven’t seen it yet you can pick it up at:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/107/Darkfuries-Publishing

This week brought with it a very nice interview and a busy Q & A Discord chat.

I joined Mildra the Monk for a YouTube interview where we discuss Centennia. You can find it here.

You can find Mildra's channel here.

I joined Dan the GMshoe in Discord for a Centennia Q & A. You can find the Q & A here.

Find out more about Dan the GMShoe and his interviews here.

Part One of the Introduction to Centennia is posted in the YouTube channel. Here’s the transcript:

Hi, I’m Brian Moseley of Darkfuries Publishing and this is part one of the introduction to Centennia. What you’re seeing in this video is the cover of the first Centennia sourcebook, the Colonist’s Companion, and some of its interior artwork. The Colonist’s Companion is the ruleset for Centennia. I’m still receiving artwork, but otherwise the book content is done. The Colonist’s Companion is being released as an estimated 160-page PDF this month, December 2023, with Print-On-Demand availability coming in 2024. The core mechanics have been playtested and were completed in 2021. Since then, I’ve been working on equipment, vehicles, spaceships and space travel, and the new world of Gaia (actually, the entire Gaian solar system).

160 pages is not a lot for all of that content. That’s intentional. I didn’t want a 300 to 400-page book. Had I been able to fit everything into 96 pages, it would be 96 pages. But I couldn’t. I put in what needed to be included for the Guide (that’s the person running the game) and the players. There’s flavor text to help set the atmosphere, but this is a concise and streamlined product of character creation mechanics, rules for gameplay and encounters, all the equipment I mentioned earlier, and an introduction to the new world. It’s full, and it concludes with the Day One adventure that introduces Guides and their players to the Centennia universe.

The purpose of these videos is to briefly explain what Centennia is, and what it isn’t, and discuss the content of the Colonist’s Companion. I’ll talk about why I believe Centennia is a very good game system and campaign setting that is a lot of fun and is unlike other systems and campaign settings. I’m going to pitch to you why I think you should give Centennia a try and I encourage you to download the 40-page free preview. It’s available on DriveThruRPG and there’s a link on the Darkfuries website.

Now if you’re thinking, “I don’t want to learn a new system,” okay, that’s fair. But I’ll tell you that Centennia uses a unique dice pool mechanic of six ten-sided dice. That’s all you’ll ever roll for action resolution. It’s easy to understand, and it’s consistent throughout the mechanics. The game system is called 10GINE and it is unlike any other game system I’ve seen.

Centennia is best described as a science fiction setting. If sci-fi isn’t your favorite genre, don’t leave just yet. It is not a dark future and technology is not at its forefront. There are campaign reasons and game mechanics that hinder and can destroy some technologies; especially the more sophisticated ones. This means characters are not defined by their equipment, and what they do possess is meaningful. Characters are more likely to be exploring a world than flying through space, and a shotgun is a lot more reliable than a coil rifle. And the most important point, this allows the campaign to focus on the characters and their stories, and that’s where the spotlight needs to be.

Centennia is an interstellar colony ship; it’s humanity’s first deep space colonization effort. She was made possible because billions of people on earth purchased chances to be selected as one of her passengers. Centennia is known as the ark into space because she carried 12,000 colonists in cryonic berths, nearly a quarter million cryo-embryotic pods, and over one million flora and fauna specimens. That’s a lot of stuff. And then, she set upon a voyage of over 100 years to reach a new world.

All went pretty well for the first part of her journey. And then, the lights went out. Centennia started losing power. The only way for the crew to stay alive was for them to be placed into cryonic berths, and leave the drones and Eos (we’ll talk about those later) to run the ship as best as they could. Eventually, the drones began to wake the colonists because Centennia had entered a solar system that contained not one, but two, habitable worlds. But the mothership was badly damaged. The aftereffects of cryonic sleep make it almost impossible for the colonists to function when they are first awakened, and they have no idea how long they have been asleep. They know almost nothing about this solar system. They have to make a choice, and they have to make it quickly: stay aboard a ship that cannot support them, or escape to an unknown world. They take what they can, and leave everything else behind. This is the exodus. This is where the Centennia campaign begins.

I’ve played many tabletop roleplaying games, and I’ve published titles in print and digital format. I began creating Centennia because I wanted to make a better game system. I didn’t plan for a science fiction genre, it just ended up that way. I began with a universal system because I didn’t intend to create a campaign setting. I’ve done that before and it’s an enormous undertaking. It also requires players to read the setting information so their characters know what they should, because presumably the characters were born and live in the world. That can be a lot, and it’s not always fun for some players. Plus, it’s a common theme that’s been used throughout roleplaying games and I wanted something different. By bringing characters to a new world, everyone gets to learn together.

Character creation is easy and very forgiving. You get 10 points to assign as your stats. You get experience (called Build Points) based upon your character’s age, and you use these points to buy skills and traits. Your stats will increase and decrease, depending upon your age. And even though it’s a skill-based system, there are simple mechanics so that no character can become the best at everything.

You don’t even have to completely create your character before beginning gameplay. You can save a portion of your character’s build points and spend them during your first game to spontaneously buy one or two ranks in skills or traits. You can also change your character a little bit at the end of each game, so you don’t need to make perfect choices at character creation because you can change them. You’re not locked in. You can begin with one skillset and over time rebuild your character’s expertise into completely different talents. Characters grow and evolve, and they don’t lose their experience just because their interests and abilities change.

The Centennia campaign begins with the Day One introductory adventure. This is literally the first day that humanity sets foot upon the new world. So the colonists have all just arrived. It’s up to Guides and players to decide if the characters arrive in the initial exodus, or shortly after. Either way, everyone starts equally.

There are fewer than 4,000 colonists. They are on an unknown world and there are many mysteries. They don’t have all the resources they need, and survival will be a challenge. Plus, surprisingly enough, people don’t always work together and the colonists are no exception. With all of that said, I believe Centennia offers a unique opportunity for players to begin shaping their characters’ world at the very beginning of humanity’s new home.

There’s a lot more coming. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed the video, please give it a like and subscribe, and I hope you’ll share it with your friends. In the next video, we’ll delve into the Colonist’s Companion starting with character creation. Until then, take care and good gaming!

Thanks for reading!
Brian