This is a great rule-light system. It has become my go-to for sci-fi one-shots. Purchasing the companion is recommended. Using Resolve as health and action points is a feature I really like.

If you're looking for a fast and fun heroic space opera game, you found it. I would also strongly encourage you to go ahead and buy the Black Star Companion as the two together seem to feel more complete.

A very fun, easy to play RPG. The game does not pretend to be anything else than its seems. No surprise, you can use it to play in your favorite Space Opera setting or make your own Sci Fi universe ! The thing i like the most is the Resolve, both hero points AND health points ! Very clever.

The only criticism I'll make is that the companion is essential to have the best experience. Definitively the Beers & Bretzels RPG you're looking for.

An amazing game that has provided hours and hours of fun for me and my children. I can't recommend it enough for people that appreciate Star Wars and rules light systems. Full review at my blog https://lonelygm.blogspot.com/2023/10/augury-blast-star.html.

Black Star might just be my favourite RPG right now. It's tempting to underestimate the small-format rule-lite Core book, but don't be fooled - Black Star has depth and flexibility as well as being very, very playable.

The game mechanics make sense and work for various play situations, are satisfyingly complex while still being fast and fun and easy to play. It's adaptable to a massive range of campaign settings and is going to be my go-to for science fiction roleplaying in the future

I'm embarrassed that I didn't get round to writing this review sooner. Black Star is a fantastic little game which perfectly emulates a certain setting in a galaxy far, far way and any other type of space fantasy/space opera which your heart may desire. I've run the game in THAT setting already and it went very well. If you had told me that I would find a game that could supplant the D6 system for games in that style then I wouldn't have believed you, but here we are. I've found the system to be so versatile that i've already statted up characters from the British TV show Blakes 7 with ease, and i'm also going to use it to run a 1930's set pulp adventure game. So basically I can't recommend it highly enough.

I've always loved running games, it's great fun being able to tell a story with your pals. For a while though, I've found a lot of systems require a lot of prep work and a lot of book keeping to run properly and smoothly. There's been an itch I've wanted scratching for a while.

Along comes Black Star, which promises a rules light approach to roleplay, emphasising ease-of-use to tell a story, and a player-facing system to ensure they're the ones in the limelight. And on these promises, this game delivers. The 2d6 with bonus/penalty system is wonerfully elegant, and having the same target number to succeed removes a lot of the tedium with difficulty scores and enemy modifiers and such. There are a good number of skills, talents, and equipment listed in the book to choose from to really tailor make your character however you see fit, and creating additional options yourself with homebrew is wonderfully simple due to how straightfoward the system is. While the inspiration for its setting and presentation are obvious, you can just about use these rules for any science-fiction/cyberpunky setting you can think of.

Combat is wonderfully streamlined, making focusing on dramatic action and setpieces all the easier without the need to track things like actions, hit points, initiative, etc. A player has a turn, then an NPC has a turn, and this alternates until the round is complete. Attacking is as simple as making a roll and if you succeed then you shoot a guy. Being attacked is as simple as rolling a defense roll to not take damage. The core of this system also applies to space combat, which in a lot of other science fiction roleplaying games, usually becomes an entirely separate subsystem with its own tedium and several new moving parts to juggle and track.

Overall, Black Star is a great lightweight science-fiction RPG for those who don't like the granular, number-crunchiness of some other combat-focused RPGs, and who prefer a fast moving engine for storytelling and roleplaying. Its relatively small word and page count make it an especially excellent RPG for beginners or for veterans on-the-go looking for something to learn quickly and improvise with.

Not as clumsy or random as (insert licensed space opera game name here); an elegant system for a more civilized age.

Other reviewers have covered the system before (which provided the motivation to buy this game and the companion), so these are impressions gained from a thorough reading.

Player-only dice rolls make this easy to adapt for GM-less or solo games.

Simple rules for different enemy types and combat scaling allow for cinematic scenes that can also be adapted to other genres. E.g. a high fantasy game might treat a dragon as a Villain with multiple Hits that uses the vehicle scale.

Similarly the rules for Conflict and falling to Darkness can easily be adapted to other settings and genres. Think sorcerors becoming corrupted by summoning beings that humanity was not meant to know of, in a typical swords and sandals or Lovecraftian setting.

Some other systems dedicate an entire chapter to rules covering chases...Black Star uses one paragraph that manages to cover the essentials while allowing room for narration.

Ridiculously good value for both the core rules and companion.

Black Star obviously inspired by Star Wars. The Star Wars RPG, while having a wealth of books and sources available, when played was less than smooth with my players. But along comes Black Star! This is a minimalistic system, which means combat is fast and less clunky, it's also fun to run. Character creation is a snap, and has enough options to make your character truly shine from others. Black Star is set up to play in other sci fi / fantasy scenarios or more importantly: create your own.

If you want to play some Sci- Fantasy, don't want to spend about a grand on collecting books, get BlackStar!

Non-Playtest Review:

Black Star is a rules light system for running Star Wars style games. The core mechanic is rolling 2d6+modifiers against a difficulty of 9. Beneficial circumstances can add bonus dice, in which case you roll all dice and take the two highest in order to obtain your action dice. Negative circumstances impose penalty dice, which are similar but after rolling all dice you take the two lowest as your action dice. Bonus dice and penalty dice cancel each other out. In combat, on a successful result each action die showing a 5 or 6 represents an extra "hit." Similarly, on a failed result a 1 or 2 can represent a negative circumstance.

PCs have Resolve, which is a combination of hit points and hero points, as well as a resource for powering special abilities. Resolve can be spent to reroll dice, turn a failure into a success at the price of a complication, activate some powers, or just get a lucky break.

This is a player facing system, meaning that the GM doesn't make rolls on behalf of NPCs. Instead, PCs make rolls to resist NPC actions. NPCs have descriptive tags which can add bonus dice or impose penalty dice on a PC rolls if the tag is a beneficial or hindering one. NPCs are ranked from relatively easily defeated minions to tougher, full-fledged villains.

Character creation involves selecting two Archetypes from a list of 10. Archetypes are essentially lists of thematically linked talents, including one eponymous signature talent. At character creation, you obtain the two signature talents named after your Archetypes, one talent from each of your Archetypes' lists of talents, and one other talent of your choice.

By default, a character's species isn't a factor in character creation and is not represented mechanically. However, you can choose talents that represent your species abilities, including from a list of innate talents that can be used to represent inborn abilities or cybernetics.

Powers are used to represent the equivalent of the Force and can be obtained by picking up the Attuned talent. There are optional rules for Resonance that essentially model falling to the Dark Side.

There are no detailed lists of gear. Access to or special training with types of gear can be represented using gear talents.

There are rules for operating and fighting with vehicles. However, there are no role-based ship combat rules similar to games like Stars Without Number Revised or Coriolis. There doesn't need to be, of course - I just wanted to mention it. Combat in which PCs operate several ships - like a fighter squadron - seems to be the focus.

Overall I think this is an excellent game for running a pulpy, Star Wars-inspired setting. I can see it working great for a lot of "band of space misfits" settings beyond Star Wars, too, like Firefly, Blake's 7, Killjoys, Dark Matter, and so on. Character creation is fast and fun - putting together two archetypes is straightforward, but it's also enjoyable and feels impactful. The rules feel like a combination of TinyD6 and PbtA - it's a farily lightweight, traditional game system like the former with a bit more mechanical crunch, while the archetypes and player-facing dice mechanic give it a little bit of a PbtA feel. To be clear though, this is a traditional gaming system, not narrative like PbtA. My primary criticism of the game is the lack of clarity that arises when using "Archetype" to refer both a list of thematically related talents as well as for a talent itself. In the character advancement section, it says buying a talent costs 5 Destiny (i.e., xp) while buying a new Archetype costs 15 Destiny. It is not clear from the text whether "buying a new Archetype" means buying access to the list of talents, buying only the eponymous signature talent, or both. On the LakeSide Games Facebook page, the author has stated that during advancement PCs may buy talents from any Archetype. It is good to have this clarification, but I recommend including this information in an errata, FAQ, or some other resource. EDIT: This clarification has also been included in the Black Star Companion.

That said, I think the game is great and can't way to run/play it!

Kid, I've been from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of space adventure RPGs. Black Star is the one I want for adventuring in a galaxy far, far away.

I'm supposed to be informative? Here's some information: go read the other reviews. They've got it right, and I can't say it any better than they did.

If you like Star Wars (or science fantasy writ large) this book is a must buy. It's lightweight and good at prompting cool narrative moments without getting overly perscriptive. Wonerfully "fiction-first."

Another title I find myself loving more and more from LakeSide! Player facing, fast, furious (as the game engine name implies), easily winged (is that a term?), and thoroughly enjoyable to a fault. Take their movies for guys who like movies action piece Magnum Fury, give it an upgrade with some overhauled fun fun 2d6 bell curvaceous die mechanics, then slap some space opera chicanery across its smug face and behold the game of Black Star game!

What an awesome, fun, rules-light game! You basically roll 2d6, add the relevant Ability (which are a combination of stats and skills), and you need to get a 9 or better to succeed. That’s pretty much the basic mechanic, but there is minutia beyond that. Such as rolling a 5 or 6 on your dice gives you extra damage; bonus and penalty dice, etc.

Every character gets 2 Archetypes, which I love because nobody ever really seems to be just one thing. Wanna play a Luke Skywalker type character? He’s a Mystic and a Pilot. Etc.

Then there are Talents (like Feats) for each Archetype. There are also Gear Talents for super-fancy or high-end equipment, Mystic Powers for your “Force” users, and Innate Talents for creating bots, cyborgs, and aliens. If you want to play an alien instead of a human, simply choose an Innate Talent during character creation and you get to make up the rest (assuming you aren’t just importing your favorite sci-fi races).

Resolve is a combination of Hit Points and Hero Points, which I’ve never seen done in a game before and I think is really cool. Is it worth using a point of Resolve right now, knowing that its going to reduce your “hit point” level?

Only the players roll dice! Not only do the player’s roll when their characters attempt to something; they also roll when something is being done to them. So, assume a bad guy is shooting at you (the PC) and will hit you unless you make your dodge roll. It’s all in the hands (well, dice) of the players.

The setting information is pretty bare bones. But I think the assumption is you’ll be playing Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off, so there’s no need for pages and pages of world information, alien races, etc. This is a plus for GMs who like to create their own worlds, because you could easily ignore what setting info there is and import your own. I could easily use these rules to run Firefly, Farscape or Cowboy Bebop, and with a little work Star Trek, Stargate, and the like.

And with a companion book nearing completion, there’ll be even more options. New talents, new archetypes, rules for classic psionics, ship rules, and more.

Fantastic job on this game! I can’t wait to get this to my table.

An excellent game, easy to learn and a bit of a relief from the high rule content games availiable. I called it the "not" star wars game :) A nice simple system, with the potential to mod easily. A few things that seem missing/not well explained No capital ships. They were mentioned, but no examples. Also some rules on modifying ships and vehicles would have been nice Some of the talents are very under detailed. For example, Primary function (bots) seems to serve no purpose except as a description. (Though thinking on it, that may be the point) Another thing is no currency system. Nothing seems to be for sale or to be sold. Cred chips are mentioned, but no costs are. None of these are non starters, but still are there. But I am definitely going to GM this game. I already have an idea. The bot wars and the purging of the Star Knights (Started have the bot wars) Or maybe a smuggler game I think there is room for a few supplements, may be a campaign book, and a ship book? But it doesn't need it that bad.