NASA Just Dropped Its Own Tabletop RPG, & You Can Play It For Free

NASA has revealed a new tabletop RPG game,. NASA’s game encourages players to use and learn science skills to overcome challenges as they embark upon a quest to investigate a dark mystery.

As per the NASA website, the government agency's first TTRPG adventure invites players to explore Aldastron, a city on the planet Exlaris. Exlaris was once a peaceful world that prized knowledge above all else, focusing on agriculture and bettering their society through medical research and the honing of magical abilities until a black hole changed its trajectory, turning it into a rogue planet that its inhabitants would struggle to survive on. Here, a group of researchers dedicated to studying the cosmos has disappeared, and the Hubble Space Telescope has vanished from Earth’s timeline, and players must embark on a venture to find them.

NASA has also encouraged players to share their adventures in with the hashtag #NASATTRPG on social media.

NASA has made completely free to play, with all of its game documents available to download as PDFs from its website. These PDFs include a 44-page instructional booklet with lore about the different cities and characters found on Exlaris and their specialties, which include Astrophysics, Solar Science, Biological Systems, Planetary Science, and Aeronautics. There is also a map of Aldastron to help navigate players through their adventure, and a poster for the game.

is designed for a party of 4 to 7 level 7–10 characters and is easily adaptable for most players' preferred tabletop role-playing game system, making it extremely accessible. To further make the game even more accessible to newcomers, each game also has two parts that can both be completed in a single session that lasts approximately 3 to 4 hours. The first part serves as an introduction to the world and allows players to introduce their own characters and skills. The second part, however, is a journey outside the city in which players will need to complete skill challenges and