The Summer of Sci-Fi

According to Samantha Webb (she/her), who is the Head of Brand at Modiphius Entertainment and Creative Director and Founder of Black Cats Gaming, this is one of the many reasons why science fiction is a particularly rich storytelling vehicle for tabletop role-playing games.

The EUphoria team has declared August 2024 as the Summer of Sci-fi and has prepared a month-long programme of science fiction themed TTRPG streamed content. There's treats like Scum & Villainy by Evil Hat Productions and Starfinder 2e by Paizo actual plays.

EUphoria co-founder JC Darcy (they/she) and our friend and project manager Fiona Howat (she/her) will also be playing solo RPG games by European creatives like Bucket of Bolts by Mousehole Press, For Small Creatures Such As We by Anna Blackwell, One Breath Left by Stout Stoat Press, and Ion Heart by Parable Games.

The Scum & Villainy game will air four episodes and is GM’ed by Chirag Asnani (he/him, a founder of the Desis & Dragons community). His Forged in the Dark campaign titled ‘Star Taker’ follows four scoundrels preparing to steal back what was stolen: precious relics from their respective home planets which have been paraded and displayed in galaxies far far away. Sound familiar? Cough British Museum and many other museums founded in looting and appropriation cough.

Our scoundrels are played by Taylor Ann Navarro (she/her, Diana Jones Emerging Designer Program Winner 2024), Dr. Khalil Thirlaway (he/him) and Dr. Rachel Williams (she/they) from Science and Sorcery who create TTRPG content with STEM flavour, and Ruben Ferdinand (they/him, Dutch LGBT+ activist). And to best serve this unique story, every cast member is a person of colour who relates to themes of having their respective cultural identities historically misrepresented and appropriated by colonising entities.

Our Starfinder 2e game will air two episodes and is GM’ed by Chrifu Bernal (he/him). In his original adventure, the players are star-pirates on a job who end up at a cold and dark tower belonging to the Shadari Confederacy and home to a necromancer.

The players are Dungeon (they/she), Sandra Catharin (she/her), Cedric (he/him) and Pan (he/they/she). Starfinder 2e has just been released for open playtesting during GenCon, so this will be an excellent test drive!

Back by popular demand (we’re the popular demand), is a panel of talented TTRPG players, GMs and designers to discuss “Tropes! Tropes! Tropes!” but with a sci-fi twist.

The panelists include: Fiona Howat (she/her, host of the What Am I Rolling Podcast), Naomi Clarke (she/her, TTRPG podcaster with The Secret of St. Kilda and Realms of Peril & Glory), from RPGeeks Shamini Bundell (she/her) and Emily Bates (she/her) and moderating is Taylor Ann Navarro. Their first panel together discussed tropes as story-telling devices in TTRPGs. While we’re focusing the scope onto science fiction tropes, we’re still expecting Fiona to whip out her numerous dictionaries.

We’re still giddy that Samantha Webb (she/her) accepted our invite for a discussion (aka, nerd-off) about sci-fi TTRPGs and gave us valuable insights about being a professional and leader in the TTRPG industry, including advice that can be adapted to TTRPG content creators of all levels. Samantha chats with EUphoria co-founder Aida (she/her, 2024 CRIT Award-nominated producer and Big Bad Con POC Scholar 2024).

All streams will air at 7pm BST/8pm CEST, continuing with EUphoria’s commitment for content that is accessible to European time zones with cast members exclusively representing the diverse European community.

EUphoria co-founders will also spend a day shouting out sci-fi themed TTRPGs by European-based creatives. If you're a TTRPG creative based in Europe, then reach out through any of our socials and let us know about your sci-fi game! And especially if you identify as someone from a marginalised community, we absolutely want to hear from you.