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Ask The Readers:Dark Space

Dark Space coverIn a recent conversation that I had with Rob Donoghue over Twitter I learned about Dark Space. Dark Space was a campaign setting that Monte Cook created back in the early 1990s for Rolemaster and Spacemaster.

Dark Space is a complete campaign setting well as a unique combination of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Contained within are detailed descriptions of twenty different worlds and the society that binds them together. Organizations, religions and governments of this fantasy/high tech society are included as well as a number of new races and beasts unique to the setting.

Source:  RPGnet

That’s about as much as I could find about this campaign. But the combination of these different genres looks pretty interesting, alas Dark Space has been out-of-print for quite some time. So, does anyone know if there’s still a way to get a copy of Dark Space? Is there a PDF copy somewhere, is someone selling it on eBay? Your help is appreciated.

Aside from that, do you guys know the setting and can you give me a few more details about it?
Stargazer

Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team. In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games. Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.

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8 comments

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UTSquishy

I see an affordable used copy at http://www.amazon.com and some high priced copies as well.
.-= UTSquishy´s last blog ..Curses!! =-.

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Stargazer

Thanks for the information! I will check it out later.

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Vincent Diakuw

There are copies on ABEbooks (my fave source for used/OOP) at 40 $US

http://www.abebooks.com/products/isbn/97815580614…

Well worth it, I might add, with lots of systemless goodness. I didn't realize that was a Monte Cook joint – it explains alot.

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    Stargazer

    Thanks for the link.

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Alex Schroeder

I still own this thing. I never got to use it. It contains rules for all sorts of "wetware" body enhancements and some monsters, a small list of planets with rudimentary maps, etc. It allowed Space Master / Rolemaster cross-overs. I was very much reminded of it when I leafed through Chaositech!
.-= Alex Schroeder´s last blog ..Comments on One Page Dungeon Contest Favorites =-.

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Brian Olson

I have a copy and it is awesome. I ran several campaigns in this setting back in high school, using Rolemaster. It was always a favorite. It is a little light on details at times (but what can you expect for a soft-cover that contains 20+ worlds and thousands of years of history?) but very evocative. The biological technology (aka Softech) is one of the coolest parts of a setting that includes magic, psionics, cosmic Lovecraftian horrors, plasma guns, star ships, and biocrystal. I think this was one of the first of Monte Cook's products that I encountered, and I really loved it. Monte expanded on many of these ideas in his later work, most notably Chaositech. Feel free to email me with more questions if you wish. -Brian

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    Stargazer

    @Brian: Cool. I wish I could get an affordable copy somewhere. Do you think the campaign can be easily used with another system, since I am not an expert in Rolemaster?

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Brian Olson

@Stargazer: Hmmm… it's been a while, but I think so. I wouldn't say it would be any easier than any other book to convert to another system. That is, if used as an Idea Book, it would work well. You might not find much to use from the rules that is worth converting to another system. You'd just take the ideas (many of which, such as the worlds, are really just outlines of ideas anyway) and adapt them to your system of choice.

I bet that I did (at one point) play with converting Dark Space to Alternity (another fave). But I don't think I ever ran that. Sometimes creating the campaign is half (or all) the fun! 🙂

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