Restore the Warp: Ashcan Edition

This is the Ashcan Edition. Get updates on the full release here!

Interstellar travel is about to get wrecked. Invaders have summoned the warp god, with a plan to steal its power. If they succeed, the entire universe will be planet-locked, with only the Invaders traveling from star to star, while a wounded space god screams across the void.

Join a team of robots with glowing swords, stressed-out gadgeteers, and aliens that look like pandas. Fight for the worlds you love. Believe you will see them again.

Restore the Warp is a tabletop role-playing game of cosmic drama and personal struggles. This free ashcan includes everything you need to get started, but the full game is still in development. 

Key Features

• A fusion of the Apocalypse Engine with Forged in the Dark ideas
• A flexible science-fantasy setting with cosmic scale and personal stakes
• Simple rolls (2d6 + Stat) with situational adjustments and guided outcomes
• Moves focused around themes of community, rebellion, and hope
• Grids track progress and keep the story moving with milestone reactions
• Character arcs through advancement: you lean into volatile powers that spring from personal struggles, or into healing and synergy from community
• Each Protagonist is attached to a Galactic Pillar (ex. The Pirate Captain, the Oracle, the AI) to create compelling story connections

The Heroes

◦ The Big Brute: A powerful hero with devastating force who causes collateral damage by unleashing rage. Touchstones include the Hulk and Drax the Destroyer from Marvel.

◦ The Gadgeteer: A visionary who makes brilliant inventions, while struggling with imposter syndrome. Touchstones include Ted Kord as the Blue Beetle and Professor Farnsworth from Futurama.

◦ The Renegade: A rebellious thrill-seeker who defies the odds. Touchstones include Han Solo from Star Wars and Star Lord from Marvel.

◦ The Starblade: A noble warrior with a code to follow, gaining powers from both enlightenment and corruption. Touchstones include the Jedi from Star Wars and the Asari Huntresses from Mass Effect.

◦ The Tempest: A vessel of incredible magic or psychic energy, not always under control. Touchstones include River from Firefly and Eleven from Stranger Things.

Watch It Played

Get updates on the full release and/or give feedback on this ashcan here!

Join the discord here. (Let me know if the link expires.)

Here's what people are saying so far...

"Restore the Warp is so much more than your standard 'kitchen sink' sci-fi fantasy game. With a collaboratively made setting, a set of threats that are mythic in scale, and a handful of idiosyncratic but evocative playbooks, Restore the Warp can accommodate a wide variety of sci-fi stories while still having thought-provoking opinions about how we tell those stories and why they're relevant. Most importantly, it's perfectly tuned for epic tales of found family, resisting oppression, and holding on to hope. And it's an absolute blast to play."

- Jex Thomas, designer of Bump in the Dark

"I'm a big fan of a lot of the tech in here like challenge grids and the clarity of support for MCs, but the thing I love most is the emphasis on different aspects of character growth through processing conditions and group dynamics. Bill understands that the fun of a galactic romp is the friends we made along the way, and this game gives you all the tools to do that" 

- Aaron Lim, designer of Spectres of Brocken

“Over the course of playtests for Restore the Warp I played as a jaunty cyborg pirate, a cloned warrior woman from an order of mystic dragonslayers, and a necromantic experiment-gone-wrong haunted by an assortment of ghosts, among others. My companions have included tentacular time-travelers, talking animals with anger issues, cyberpunk hackers out for vengeance, and a host of other weirdos. Together we've dealt with world-eating monsters, temporal paradoxes rooted in our characters' psychodrama, terraforming imperialists, megalomaniacal AIs, and a rogues gallery of gonzo space villains. What's great about the game is that we came up with all of this together, in the room; Restore the Warp is full of creative prompts that encourage players to think imaginatively not just about their characters but their relationship to the setting and one another. Light-weight and flexible, the system leverages the Powered by the Apocalypse framework to inject rich interpersonal stakes into swashbuckling space opera. The loosely implied setting, with its hundreds of earths and mythic, sometimes surreal scope, supplies abundant storytelling fuel. An absolute blast to play."

- Jonathan Newell, creator of Genial Jack and Hex

"Restore the Warp is my favorite kind of adventure game: A perfect balance of lightweight and crunchy, with playbooks that pop off the page and mechanics laser-focused on ensuring the characters’ stories hit you right in the heart."

- Sam Roberts, co-designer of Escape from Dino Island

"It's been a joy to watch Bill develop Restore the Warp from his earliest ideas to a full-fledged space adventure engine with a killer hook and incredible intentionality around why and how the heroes take on the galaxy's biggest problems. Restore the Warp has a lot going on, but Bill has built a careful and thoughtful space for this found family of weirdos to save the day over and over." 

- Mark Diaz Truman, creator of Urban Shadows and Cartel

Thanks to early play testers*

Adam Ultraberg, Bronwyn McIvor, Chad, Chris Greenbriar, Dain Slatton, Damon Wilson, Dean Beckwith, Elliot Peterson, Emily Gorham, Isabelle Cyr, Jex Thomas, John Ostermiller, Jonathan Newell, Kat Lim, Kathryn, Kay, Kim Fu, Luke, Megan, Ren, Rigby, Sam, Sam Riley, Sarah, Shane Mclean, Taylor Brown-Evans, Todd, Vivek Santayana, zzslider.

Restore the Warp was previously tested under the title "Cosmic Resistance".

*Names are listed here rather than in the pdfs for ease of editing. To request a change, contact the designer on bluesky or use the feedback form.