Suspicious Leaks from Alpha Blue

The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence is a delightful book. I liked it before I ran an 8 week session with it but by the end I loved it. I think the main reason is it matches the level of nonsense I like to see in my games. Light hearted, silly humour, but with enough coal in the furnace to keep things interesting.

This article however is not about Purple. This article is about Alpha Blue.

Alpha Blue is the latest Kickstarter from +Venger Satanis (the author of Purple), currently in its final few days and successfully funded. When I first read the description I knew Alpha Blue would be something likely to sit comfortably next to my copy of Purple and I immediately backed it. I was however still keen to learn a bit more about what I was letting myself in for so I decided to ping +Venger Satanis a few questions with an additional cheeky beg for any secret info he could leak.

First of all, lets summarise what is on the Kickstarter description. Alpha Blue is the name of a city-sized space station that is essentially a giant space brothel. It began life as a research station to study sexual addiction (and the subsequent attempts to rehabilitate its patients). Being a product of an era past, the scientists worked on the simple idea that the way to cure the sexually over-active was by giving them exactly what they craved sevenfold.

It's now 'now'. The government funding was, presumably, cut and its occupants left to their own devices. The scientists who thought it was a good idea in the first place have, in the words of Venger, 'rounded up with the rest of humanity's failures and blasted into the nearest star'. It drifts around the universe, acting as a beacon of sexual desire. What shenanigans will your players get up to?

That sounds fun to me. I also know at least a handful of players who will be equally enthused by this, but as I said I wanted to know more. So onto the few simple questions.

The Questions

1) I was introduced to your work via Purple, something I had huge amounts of fun running (and reading) - how would you compare Alpha Blue to Purple? Is it a similar hex crawl with hooks, or is it more in line with the style of your CDS modules such as No Escape from New York?

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed Purple. Alpha Blue will be similar to that in a few ways. First, I'm going to include pretty much everything I can think of. Not all of it is going to work for your campaign, but there will be so much game-able content that sustaining a short campaign won't be a problem. There will be more sci-fi and less fantasy than Purple, and more sex. About the same level of darkness, so less than No Escape from New York. The humor and references will be on par with Purple, which is to say, less than Crimson Dragon Slayer.

Maps of various places, such as the Alpha Blue space station itself, will be provided rather than a hex map.

2) Some people have been concerned with your depiction of females in your previous titles - will Alpha Blue be any different?

If anyone had a problem with my previous books, they'll have an even bigger problem with this one. There will be an 80's screwball comedy vibe with plenty of cheesecake and sexy situations thrown in. Not so much sexualized violence and sleazy exploitation - though I can't say there won't be any!

3) On KS you've estimated 60 pages, but you believe you may exceed that - do you have any earlier indicators as to just how many pages over you may go (and what will primarily push the count up - art or text?)?

The biggest factor is if I'll include stuff that doesn't directly pertain to Alpha Blue. For instance, a few days ago I wrote a multi-die table for getting your fortune told. The idea suddenly came to me and I developed it on the spot instead of writing the idea down and maybe I'll get to it down the road, maybe I won't. It's awesome, even if I say so myself. The table is a couple pages, but it's not specifically Alpha Blue related. But there's every chance that it'll get included anyway. The more I do stuff like that, the bigger the book will be. At this time, I can't promise that the book will exceed 60 pages. One never knows...

4) Alpha Blue is this city sized space station, drifting around the universe - who's in charge? Is it a preprogrammed path in space that the station follows, a throwback from its initial purpose?

There will be suggestions and alternatives, scenario seeds thrown out along the way; however, I wanted Alpha Blue to be commanded by a distressingly willful computer, not unlike Paranoia (a RPG I loved back in the 80's and 90's). Plenty of organic competition from various faction leaders, megalomaniacs, do-gooder extremists, alien warlords, etc. Occasionally, the space station is stationary, other times it moves to specific destinations (like a women's prison) or random locations - if Alpha Blue picked up a distress signal, for instance. Imagine it as not only as a brothel in space, but your own personal Love Boat amongst the stars!

5) All good sci-fi escapades need a theme song - what's the theme song for Alpha Blue?

A song called, "I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper" by Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip.

Although, failing that, I can't help but recommend the soundtrack to Heavy Metal.

And the Leak

For the requested leak, +Venger Satanis supplied a D12 Complications table, reflecting what unusual things could affect the station at a given moment.

Alpha Blue is a high-tech and well-engineered space station, but she's also getting on a bit. Age takes its toll, but then again... nothing works exactly as it should 100% of the time. The following are possible complications to be rolled when appropriate (whenever the GM feels it's warranted).

1. Cosmic rays from a nearby blue star has a mutagenic effect! There's a 1 in 6 chance of developing a mutation.
2. A robot's program-interface has degraded - it has gone insane!
3. A robot's human-friendly protocols have been wiped by a freak magnetic storm - it has gone murderously insane!
4. Some random, naked woman streaks by screaming about some "Galactic horror!" She's actually talking about a lube shortage. When asked about specifics, the woman reveals that she accidentally intercepted a private message on her vid-com this morning. That message described an imminent lubrication embargo in this part of the galaxy.
5. That sector's orgasmatron is on the fritz. A repairman is on the scene while a dozen humanoids impatiently wait in line for it to be fixed. There's a 33% chance of a riot starting in that sector - all it takes is a police cadet throwing an apple out the window of his hover-tram.
6. Klaxon (audible warning device) sounds! The space station has drifted off course, headed for 1) the nearest star, 2) a black hole, 3) a worm hole, 4) a planet, 5) a moon, 6) another space station.
7. Phasers temporarily incapable of stunning. Anyone shot with a phaser in the next 1d4 hours will have to make a death save.
8. A particularly savage chartreuse-skinned Auron slave girl has escaped!
9. A woman wearing nothing but silver-sparkly space panties is hysterical and desperately looking for someone to have sex with her (she accidentally took too many blue dreamers). 
10. The space station's gravitational modules have gone out. Everyone will be floating weightless for the next 1d4 hours. 
11. Direct hit! 1d4 attack ships have engaged Alpha Blue. There's a 33% chance of laser fire breaching the hull in that sector - if that's the case, then everyone roll a d6, those with a result of "1" must roll a death save. 
12. There's a soft, furry outbreak! Despite stern warnings, a passenger or crew member of Alpha Blue brought a flibble on board. Now, there are hundreds of them. Anytime a PC wants to do anything, 2d4 flibbles attach themselves to him in some kind of aggressively adorable cuddle-swarm! [If you've already used this result recently, the flibble outbreak is a false alarm - however, a woman's pubic hair mutated into a fuzz-ball creature as is roaming the corridors].

So to Sum Up

I'm super keen, its looking to be very much what I was hoping. Gonzo fun, sexual innuendo, a fun new setting to bounce around in - this is going to be one of those games where its going to be fun just to pick up the book and run with it, see what happens.

Theres still time to get in on the Kickstarter, get a copy for a very low price. Venger's estimated drop date is February 2016. Many thanks to +Venger Satanis for giving me the leak and taking the time to answer my questions!