Red Shift
Contents
Contents
RED-SHIFT is a grounded science-fiction tabletop roleplaying game about capable people making hard decisions in a dangerous future.
You travel. You work. You negotiate. You take contracts. You manage limited resources. You deal with governments, corporations, laws, markets, debts, technology, and other people pursuing their own interests.
Sometimes the system works for you. Sometimes it works against you. Sometimes the system itself is the problem.
You still have to decide what to do next.
Start with the Introduction, then read How to Play before moving into Character Creation. You do not need to memorize the entire rulebook before your first session.
Start Here
Learn what RED-SHIFT is, what players do, and what kind of problems the game is built around.
Learn the basic gameplay loop, task checks, Characteristics, Skills, Difficulty, Effect, and consequences.
Build the person you will play, including Characteristics, history, Skills, relationships, obligations, and equipment.
Player's Handbook
What RED-SHIFT is, how tabletop roleplaying works, what the players and Referee do, and what kind of game you are about to play.
The worlds, institutions, history, technology, travel, economies, cultures, and pressures that define the RED-SHIFT setting.
Create a capable but vulnerable character with Characteristics, career history, Skills, relationships, obligations, and consequences.
Learn how Skills, Characteristics, Difficulty, Boons, Banes, Dice Modifiers, Effect, and consequences resolve uncertain actions.
Resolve violence, weapons, armor, movement, injury, environmental danger, and the lasting cost of combat.
Handle people, situations, hazards, opposition, and unexpected developments during play.
Weapons, armor, tools, electronics, medical gear, survival equipment, and the practical objects characters rely on.
Ground, atmospheric, marine, rail, and other vehicles used to move people and cargo through dangerous environments.
Piloting, engineering, sensors, navigation, shipboard procedures, maintenance, emergencies, and jump travel.
Detection, maneuver, weapons, damage, defensive systems, crew actions, and survival during spacecraft combat.
Design and understand the ships that carry people, cargo, weapons, equipment, and problems between worlds.
Contracts, cargo, markets, transport costs, debt, obligations, profit, loss, and the economics that keep a crew moving.
Psionic abilities, Modal Distance, risk, control, regulation, consequences, and the people who live with powers others do not understand.
Build worlds, settlements, institutions, routes, economies, hazards, conflicts, and places where RED-SHIFT stories can happen.
How the Book Fits Together
Chapters 1–4 teach the basic game: what RED-SHIFT is, the universe, character creation, and the core resolution system.
Chapters 5–8 cover danger, encounters, equipment, and vehicles.
Chapters 9–12 expand play into spacecraft operations, space combat, ship construction, trade, contracts, and economic pressure.
Chapters 13–14 cover Psionics and the tools used to build worlds and expand the setting.