(Note: as of 1 September 2022, this effort is moribund. You can find PDF versions of the original sourcebooks, plus supplemental material, at my Dropbox site. --J.P.G.)
An open-source version of the out-of-print role-playing game “Universe” from SPI.
OpenUniverse is a text-based role-playing game (RPG) set in a future universe. Unlike computer-mediated RPGs, the interaction between players and non-player characters (NPCs) takes place solely in the imaginations of the players and the gamesmaster (GM), who acts as a sort of referee and storyteller combined.
OpenUniverse is based on Universe, originally created by SPI in 1980, in the heyday of text-based RPGs like “Dungeons & Dragons”. When the company was bought out by TSR in 1981, the trademark of and copyright over the game passed to them, and hence to a series of corporate owners. As of this writing, the trademark has been abandoned and none of the former owners appears to be asserting copyright.
In 2002 Ian Taylor, an avid Universe fan, undertook the task of scanning the text from the various Universe books and supplements, turning them into electronic format. This distribution is derived from that effort, with changes made here and there to conform more closely to the original books. The original books, both first and second edition, along with other play aids, are available at spigames.net.
The RPG (role-playing game) “Universe” consists of three basic documents:
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The GM Guide, which despite its name is meant for both the players and the GM (gamesmaster);
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“DeltaVee”, a tactical space combat system; and
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The Adventure Guide, which contains information meant solely for the GM's eyes.
If you are not a GM, you need only the GM Guide, plus whatever supplemental material your GM may recommend.
You will also need:
- Paper and pencil
- Two or more ten-sided dice
- OR twenty-sided dice (just drop the second digit and count 0 as 10)
- OR percentile dice
These dice can easily be obtained from most game stores.
First and foremost, the staff of SPI and the original designers of Universe deserve mention. It seems like every time I think of tweaking this or that rule, on closer examination I can see the virtual fingerprints of a designer who already decided against the change for reasons I had not yet thought of. Here's the complete list, as given on page “i” of SPI's Universe 2nd Edition:
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Game design and development, project coordination: John H. Butterfield
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Design of physical systems and graphics: Redmond A. Simonsen
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Codevelopment and NPCs: Gerard C. Klug
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Creatures and advice: Edward J. Woods
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Developmental Assistance: David McCorkhill and David J. Ritchie
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Rules editing: Robert J. Ryer
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Research assistance: John Boardman, Ph.D.
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Game testing and advice: James Mulligan, David Spangler, Greg. A Gerold, Richard A. Edwards, Eric Lee Smith
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Additional testing: Robert B. Kern, Linus Gelber, Justin Leites, Julid Spangler, Ian Chadwick, Wes Divin, Mark Barrows, the Olympia Gaming Association
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Art production management: Manfred F. Milkuhn
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Art production and technical editing: Carolyn Felder, Ted Koller, Michael Moore, Ken Stec
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Cover illustration: John Pierard
Ian Taylor deserves my endless thanks for having scanned original Universe manuals and turned them into text in the first place. His web site (now only available on the Wayback Machine) was an invaluable source for many things Universe.
My thanks go out also to the members of the Yahoo! group “Universe_RPG” , who were an invaluable source of ideas, imagination and practicality.
Lastly, thanks go to Russ Gifford, who maintains the spigames.net site. Finding that site, with its wealth of materials, spurred me to revisit this project after an absence of several years.