Diaspora is a role-playing game that uses the FATE system to deliver a hard science-fiction framework for adventure, where you build the setting on top of the basic, gritty axioms of the universe: everything is bigger than you are. You will pilot spaceraft driven by fusion torches that light the night sky towards rifts in the fabric of space that shift you between a small number of lost worlds, each with thousands of years of history. And it's all yours.
Although Diaspora is based on FATE, it is a complete game requiring no other purchases to play. You will need dice, pen, paper, and friends, but all the rules you need are right here.
Diaspora is a 2009 Indie RPG Award nominee as well as the Gold winner for Best Rules in the 2010 ENnie Awards!
"I started giving Diaspora an honest read (rather than a skim) last night. It kept me up an extra hour. INCREDIBLY well-written. I'm now in danger of blowing off most of the day just to read more of Diaspora. [...] Hell, I'm in danger of RUNNING it (once I'm done reading), and I am not a hard science fiction RPG type guy."
— Fred Hicks, king of Evil Hat Productions
"I finished it last night, and it's really good. It makes me want to run a campaign of linked short stories with lots of characters, like a Kim Stanley Robinson series. I worried about getting my group to play - it's kind of crunchy - but you can take or leave the crunch. Anyway, guys, great job."
— Clinton R. Nixon, author of The Shadow of Yesterday
"If you were to walk into a hypothetical Ice Cream Shop which operated on the same principles that Diaspora works on, the attendant behind the counter would inquire as to your preferred flavors and textures, what toppings you enjoyed and disliked, what form of cone you like and the consistency you like it to be baked to, and collating this information, the attendant would serve you the most delicious frozen dairy treat you've ever been offered. The entire thing would be honed into some sort of weaponized ice cream, complete with a custom pinpoint delivery system, targeted specifically at your taste buds and food aesthetics, designed to destroy your sweet tooth and sate your hunger."
— Matt Greenfelder, enthusiastic fan at RPG.net
January 31, 2011: February sale at Evil Hat
August 26, 2010: RPG Geek says we are awesome
August 17, 2010: Evil Hat links arms with VSCA
August 10, 2010: Brazilian fans rejoice
August 7, 2010: Victory!
July 9, 2010: Award nominations!
March 25, 2010: PDF and errata list released!
March 5, 2010: Softcover released!
February 16, 2010: Corrections and softcovers
December 23, 2009: Landmark sales
December 2, 2009: Available!
November 25, 2009: Unavilable?!
November 14, 2009: Canadians rejoice!
October 21, 2009: Brad blogs.
October 9, 2009: We got some AP reports!
September 19, 2009: We want your AP reports!
September 15, 2009: Diaspora tables PDF
September 7, 2009: Invading Germany
September 1, 2009: Brick and mortar presence
August 28, 2009: Got mine!
August 19, 2009: Diaspora in actual hands!
August 7, 2009: At long last
July 2, 2009: Almost there folks!
June 1, 2009: Web site launched
diaspora news
You might have noticed that there's not a lot of news updates here on the Diaspora main page. That's because I am mostly musing about things over at my blog, blue collar space or on Twitter as @BradJMurray, coupled with the fact that there's just not all that much news! I did miss something pretty important, though. Back in September, the gang at Evil Hat partnered with us to do a huge (1000 books!) softcover print run in order to make Diaspora available to some of the big comic and game distributors. Since then we've seen a big boom of sales from game stores all over the world and can certainly announce that the project has been successful for all parties! Hurray!
Now the reason I set up all that background is because Evil Hat is holding a big sale for the month of February! If you click on that link up there for Evil Hat you'll find that Diaspora can be had for only $22.50 USD. You'll also find a ton of other great titles there, some FATE based and some not. So go fill out your collection!
Well the fight's over at RPG Geek and they have declared Diaspora as the best game mechanics for 2010! This has been an especially brutal process -- essentially a round-robin of cage matches of system versus system leaving blood and teeth everywhere. I admit I could not watch after a while into it and so was completely surprised by our victory. As always please note that all of the contenders are awesome. 2010 was a great year for games, it seems.
The VSCA is delighted to announce a partnership with Evil Hat, those folks that brought us all Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files RPG, to publish a softcover version of Diaspora that we are targeting for a late September release. This version will be substantially the same as the existing one, though with the Evil Hat logo and back cover text revised for in-store sales. It will contain all of the errata incorporated in the text and will be pre-printed rather than printed on demand. This new version will be available through IPR, Evil Hat's company store, and any other venue that Fred can swing. In addition, the PDF version will be available through the usual Evil Hat venues, which means hooking into their distribution network.
What all that means is that Diaspora should be available in your favourite game store Real Soon Now!
We're looking forward to this change in scale, which brings with it the opportunity to reach a whole new category of players through brick and mortar stores.
EMERGENCY UPDATE: You can pre-order this now! Yes, that's a couple bucks cheaper than the Lulu store and it will stay that way.
VSCA Publishing is pleased to announce a brand new baby translation is in the works. RetroPunk Game Design, a Brazilian role-playing game company with an increasingly awesome catalogue, has acquired the rights to translate and publish the translation of Diaspora!
We are eager to bring this game to our Brazilian fans, several of whom have complained bitterly about shipping costs, by bringing it closer to home both literally and figuratively.
While an actual contract with actual signatures is still pending delivery by post, we see no obstacles to this partnership and are looking forward to seeing RetroPunk's treatment of the material.
BMurray; August 10, 2010
Well, exactly one year after releasing Diaspora for sale, we have won the Gold Ennie award for best rules at GenCon! Thank you everyone!
Well this summer's convention schedule certainly has a few highlights for us this year. Though VSCA will not be present at any of the big cons, Diaspora has been nominated for two separate awards! It was just recently announced that we have been nominated for Best Rules at the ENNies and best indie game of 2009 for the Indie RPG Awards! So if you can vote, vote for us! And thanks to everyone for making us visible through your enthusiasm and your play!
Diaspora is finally available in PDF form. We decided to keep its existing page format so that pagination does not change, but gave it a new ISBN and build a powerful bookmark list for it. We also did some internal linking and that sort of thing and added a little note to your pal behind the counter at your favourite copy shop saying it's okay by us if you print yourself a copy. The sticker price is $12.95 and you can get it at Lulu from the VSCA storefront there, or from our digital-only storefront at RPGNow. The content of this digital version is the same as the corrected edition (also available in paperback). Now if you bought the old one, of course we invite you to buy the new ones too, but you can just grab the errata sheet instead. This has all of the major changes in it, though it doesn't detail the typos.
At this time we don't have a bundle deal but we're working on that by pursuing listing our products at IPR. That's a way down the line, though, as we need to handle some other practical concerns in order to get things rolling there (a cheaper print run, basically) so we don't know when that is and we won't be able to offer it to folks who've already purchased, so if you're waiting on the bundle, I'm afraid there's still more waiting. When it comes it will be softcover plus PDF only.
So thanks to all the people who have supported us and continue to play Diaspora! Enjoy. And post about enjoying!
You might have noticed that last month I changed the "buy Diaspora" link so that it pointed to the whole VSCA store instead of specifically the hardcover link. That's partially because of our little experiment, Deluge, but mostly because we anticipated adding more products. Well now, there is one more: the long-awaited softcover version!
The softcover version has the same corrected contents as the hardcover, but is almost a third cheaper! It's also cheaper to ship, cheaper to buy in bulk, and prints faster than the hardcover. I know plenty of you have been waiting for this, especially those of you who buy in lots of 20. So enjoy!
Been a while, huh folks? Well a lot has happened since last Christmas. We hit 700 copies sold. We built a corrected version, so if you click over there and buy a copy of Diaspora today, you'll get one with most (all?!) of the typos fixed. And soon enough there will be a softcover version at that link too! We're also working on buiding an errata PDF that summarizes the major changes between these revisions (nothing seriously game-changing though, so your old version is till perfectly good).
We're also working on some new things that we hope you'll be into. There's some epic surreal fantasy in the pipe, some extremely violent modern action, and some other stuff I won't talk about yet. As always, the action is on the mailing list or at GeekDo!
Well, we just broke a nice round landmark number of revenue-generating sales -- 500 copies of Diaspora are in hands or stores around the world! Thank you everyone for your support and your kind words and especially all of you vendors that have taken a chance on a little title like ours. We're blown away. As a small measure of thanks, we've added a list of links to all our brick and mortar vendors that we've worked with since August.
Almost forgot -- Lulu will give you 20 percent off your purchase until the end of the year with the code HOHOHO. Enjoy!
We're back in action at Lulu! By way of apology, compensation, and recognition of everyone's patience, Lulu has given us a coupon for you as well -- use the coupon code DIASPORA for 10% until the end of the year. Thank you for all your patience and kind words during this unexpected difficulty!
We're experiencing some downtime with our printer and storefront, Lulu, at the moment. In fact, it's been going on for a week (and I know from my inbox that many of you are already aware) and it's increasingly frustrating, but I've been hoping that it will be fixed "real soon now" for a while and have avoided announcing it here. Well, a week is pretty long, so I'm announcing it.
If you're trying to get a copy and can't, please feel free to contact us by email and we'll get in touch with you as soon as things are back in order. Lulu currently has no ETA on our recovery but has promised us some kind of compensation and I have suggested that the most appropriate thing would be to compensate you, the customer, as directly as possible. I don't know if that's what will happen or what it would entail, but there you go. Of course our recovery will also be announced on the mailing list and in every public venue where fans have shown support—we will be loud and clear.
We are delighted to announce our first Canadian retailer carrying Diaspora! Buck Lum of Craving For a Game in Surrey, British Columbia just stuck these on his shelf:
We're working hard to get a few more Canadian resellers to pick up the game as well, but so far they are a conservative lot. Watch for more news on this though — I have it on good authority that Drexoll Games will soon be joining the club as well, at both their Kitsilano and Port Coquitlam outlets. Watch this space!
It's been kind of slow news-wise. Ho-hum, we got our stuff in another retailer's store — Jim at Patriot Games in the UK has ordered a bunch for his store there. Actually we're grinning pretty wide at this kind of interest and we love to be able to get books in front of people as well as sell them over the interwebs. Also, Brad (that's me in faux-third-person) is blogging about gaming stuff in general and Diaspora stuff in specific. If you're on the mailing lists it might occasionally be redundant, but Brad can be redundant. Finally, VSCA is dreaming up some new stuff for 2010. Nothing's firm, but we're thinking about Diaspora supplements, a softcover edition, and new games. Keep your eyes here or the mailing list or Brad's blog or pretty much anywhere that you found out about Diaspora!
Well, we gave some dice away! Thanks to Nathan aka Eisenmann and Todd for posting their plays and their thoughts on the game! We are really pleased to see both how people get what we wrote and also how they interpret it and make it their own. A genuine delight! You can get your own set of black Fudge dice by sending us a link to your public post of actual play!
In other news, EndGame just put in for a third order. Chris there tells me he ran out so hard he had to sell his personal copy. So if you're in California, go console Chris.
We want your AP!
Post a report of your actual play for any Diaspora session anywhere on the net that people can see it, and we'll send you Fudge dice! We want people to play this game, so tell the universe about it and send the link to us with a mailing address and we'll ship you four Oort-cloud-black Fudge dice. Wherever you are in the world (assuming it's legal to own Fudge dice there), show us your play and you'll get dice.
This lasts until we run out of dice. Or until I come to hate the taste of envelope glue. If you have already written an AP report (you know who you are), you obviously still qualify. One set of dice per person and unique session (so you could have a set for everyone at your table if you wanted to game the system, which I invite you to do, but each will need a play report for a unique session).
Tonight I added a new PDF to the downloads list: by popular demand, you can now have all of the tables and play sheets from the back of the book to have and to hold (and to print!) for your very own.
Soon to come: the complete space combat rules as a PDF and an easy way for you to get a free set of Oort-cloud-black Fudge dice!
Emergency update: Chris at EndGame in Oakland, CA sent me this:
Hurray!
As if that wasn't enough, we just finished a deal with Leisure Games, and so in a few weeks they will also be carrying some Diaspora!
Today we finished a deal with Sph채renmeisters Spiele in Germany to carry Diaspora! So now you can pick it up from their mail order business or their brick and mortar store! I mean, if you're in Germany, of course. Thanks to Roland who made it work! Roland found us through RPG Geek at GeekDo which is a very cool site for all things RPG. Including contacting publishers, it seems!
Well, yesterday we got put in touch with Chris Hanrahan of EndGame in Oakland, CA thanks to Fred Hicks of Evil Hat Productions. Turns out Chris wants Diaspora in his actual real-world store. Naturally we said yes, and so sometime in the next few weeks Chris should have books on shelves. If you're in that area, say hi to Chris and tell him we love him.
We got our copies, finally, and they are pretty much exactly what we wanted to deliver. The cover is what I wanted, the insides are what I wanted, and the game, of course, is intact. We've made our "legal deposit" to the National Archives, so it's even a "real" book in every sense. We are happy authors here. I hope you're all as happy with what you've got and, if you're here wondering whether or not to buy, know at least that the authors are satisfied. It's what we wanted you to get.
I've also removed the SotFF mailing list link from this page. It's really not useful any more and having two mailing lists is confusing.
Well I've heard customers actually have copies in hand! We don't, yet, though we have our tear-stained draft copy. I added a review section to the right because we already have a review up, from the UK no less. I understand they are an especially sophisticated and discerning lot across the water there.
I also added a one-page letter-sized skill list to the download section. This should make those first session skill-shopping trips a little easier with only one book. You could always get more books of course.
Diaspora is here. Today Tim brought our draft copy up from the states and we adjusted the cover and corrected a couple typos, looked at each other, and agreed that this was the time. We uploaded, pushed the button, and bought 20-odd copies for ourselves and others. So now you can buy one too. It's priced at $34.95 USD at Lulu and it's a lovely 6x9 hardcover that we are very proud of. Thanks to everyone who's been chipping in ideas, support, and promises to purchase. Keep your eye on this page as we'll be adding material to download, starting with the complete Space Combat system from the book as a PDF and a skill list formatted for letter-sized paper.
We're too late to get in on the Ennies, but we're all a little exhausted anyway. Currently we're planning to be present at V-Con in October, so if you're in Vancouver, swing by!
Okay so a month has passed and we are a month closer to making a book. That doesn't mean we're as close as we thought we'd be, though. The last chunk of editing has of course introduced new changes and new fixes and, well, they are all good and all important and all worth it. So we're running a little late. The version we're all reviewing now is really close. Really. But not ready to go. I'll stick by my last prediction: summer. Nice and vague, yeah?
Finally Diaspora has a web site that isn't just a window into the Diaspora wiki. Now that we're very close to having an actual book that you can buy, it's time to make sure there's a way to do that and to get more information, and so here we are. As always, if you want updates pushed out to you, join the increasingly badly named SotFF mailing list, where you are invited not only to hear announcements of our progress but also to discuss the game with other players.
The Diaspora section of the Evil Hat web store!
Diaspora and Spirit of the Century PDF together!
The complete Space Combat chapter!
C.W. Richeson at RPG.net says, "Diaspora expertly blends hard science fiction adventure with the FATE rules system to produce a game that is fun from the moment of character creation to the end of a campaign."
A mini review from Graham Spearing
There are several brick and mortar stores carrying Diaspora now!
Endgame in Oakland, California. Say hi to Chris Hanrahan and look out for Endgame events and mini-conventions!
Leisure Games in the UK. Leisure Games has a burgeoning mail order business and was one of our earliest, biggest buyers.
Sph채renmeisters Spiele in Germany, and they also run a brisk mail order business. I understand they sold a copy to a gent in Kazakhistan!
Patriot Games in the UK. For all you gamers in or near Sheffield, you already know this place!
Drexoll Games in Vancouver, BC, Canada! Tamara and Darcy run two stores in the vicinity and they (and their staff) are all awesome.
Craving for a Game in Surrey, BC, Canada! Buck runs a lot of mini-cons and a great shop.
Olympic Cards and Comics in Lacey, Washington now carries Diaspora as well! We pretty much have the west coast of the continent sewn up now!
Gamescape North in San Rafael, California also carries Diaspora! And they take pre-orders, so if they are out give them a shout anyway, and they will get more.
Game Kastle in Santa Clara, California! What is it about California, anyway?
SciFi Genre in Durham, North CarolinaSan now carries Diaspora! They have a vibrant online sales site, too!
The system reference document for Diaspora. This represents all of the material in Diaspora that is "open content" as per the Open Content License. The SRD is intended as a searchable reference during play and as a clear statement of content available for authors building derivitave works according to the OGL.
