Adrian Tchaikovski's Children of Time is turning into an RPG
From gaming developers Rowan, Rook, and Decard
One of the best science fiction novels of the last decade or so is Adrian Tchaikovski's Children of Time: a sprawling space opera about a civilization of uplifted spiders on a terraformed world, and the role that humanity finds itself playing when they begin to arrive at the planet.
It's a fantastic book, even if spiders aren't quite your thing. After Children of Time, Tchaikovsky published Children of Ruin, Children of Memory, and earlier this year, Children of Strife, steadily building out the world and exploring the nature of intelligence, sentience, memory, and cooperation in some interesting ways.
Andrew Liptak
And now, there's a new way to experience the world: gaming developers Rowan, Rook, and Decard are adapting the book as a roleplaying game, and it just launched on Kickstarter this week. It's an interesting book to adapt: allowing players to recreate the story of the Gilgamesh and its arrival on Kern's World, or by constructing their own ark, planet, and uplifted civilization to manipulate.
Here's how they describe the gameplay:
- Everyone at the table claims different roles to suit the story they're writing together: the Viewpoint main character, the Crowd of assembled locals, the Ship who speaks for the creaking ancient vessel itself, or even the Guide who facilitates the group's use of the game's rules. Whenever you start a scene, players pick up roles and characters as they wish – and put them down once they've served their purpose.
- Gameplay flows from the writer's-room speculation on events and culture, to viewpoint action focusing on the personal drama of one or two characters, to the background schemes others got up to during that zoomed-in action.
- Stories unfold over multiple chapters. Each chapter, a specific crisis hits your society: a fire or plague, war or mutiny, a rare opportunity or terrible omen, each with their own mechanics. A character's story might continue from chapter to chapter, but they'll always bear the marks of the events they've witnessed.
- Action resolution focuses on the approach a character is taking to a problem, and the consequences their actions bring for them, this place, and their peers. Dice rolls are quick, but their consequences linger.
It looks like a good amount of fun, and they've posted a playtest version for interested gamers to check out.
The project has already surpassed their initial $53,615 goal (it's currently just over $70k). Backers can get a PDF for £30 (about $41), the core set for £60 (about $81), and there are additional tiers with more perks and add-ons. Delivery is anticipated for September 2027.