How to Play NASA’s First Tabletop RPG
NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, recently published its first tabletop role-playing game module. The Lost Universe is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition and can easily be translated to Pathfinder, D&D 3.5, Starfinder, or any other role-playing game rules system with combat, traps, and characters. You can download The Lost Universe for free from the NASA website .
Developed by Christina Mitchell, senior production specialist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, Lost Universe is a standalone adventure in which players take on the role of NASA scientists transported to a fantasy universe where someone or something has been stolen Hubble Space Telescope. from our reality. Using an orbital telescope as the MacGuffin of a science fiction story is more than nerdiness of the highest order. Lost Universe appears to be part of the agency’s educational mission. Players will learn about the importance of Hubble and gain a basic understanding of how it works while enjoying exciting space opera adventures.
The 43-page module details an interesting setting that combines D&D with science, where wizards and elves on the planet Exlaris use dark energy as a kind of magic and borrow data from the Hubble Telescope as part of their research.
The module is an impressive piece of world-building. Mitchell and the rest of the NASA team who built it envisioned a planet where the pursuit of knowledge is valued over the pursuit of gold, and kept it open enough that creative craftsmen could fill in the details as they wished. NASA says its module is designed for four to seven level 7-10 characters, but you can easily customize the structure for any group at any level. With a little creativity, you can also use it as a side quest in an existing campaign.
As written, The Lost Universe can be completed in a single four-hour adventure, but if your players are getting attached to the magical science world of Exlaris, there’s enough source material here to use as the setting for a larger, space-faring campaign. If you’re new to D&D, check out our guide on how to create your very first character and how to play D&D with friends online .