Starship Scavengers is a solo roleplaying game system produced by Grinning Frog Games run by Stephen Hart in York, United Kingdom. I joined the Grinning Frog fandom earlier this year through a Kickstarter campaign for the adventure Station Thirty-One and have not looked back since.
The Grinning Frog website describes Starship Scavengers this way:
Set hundreds of years in the future, the galactic empire of man has fallen, torn apart by the Wars of Unreason.
You have grown up in the aftermath and now make your living scavenging derelict spaceships, abandoned space stations or taking on dangerous missions on hazardous planets – anything to make a credit or two. That golden data horde has so far eluded you, but you have confidence that one day, eventually, your time will come. That is, if the hostile aliens, hazardous environmental conditions or rogue robots don’t get you first. Who said getting rich in the future would be easy?
All you need to play is the rule book which also comes with a full adventure and a set of poly dice (not provided).
What you get full RPG game system designed for solo play. Five simple stats, clear rules and lots of examples ensure you can get up and running in no time.
As I enjoy physical copies of my roleplaying games I purchased the deadtree version though pdfs are also available. Starship Scavengers rules and adventures are full color, saddle-stapled, digest-sized booklets usually running 48 to 52 pages in length. The Starship Scavengers core rule book (52 pages) contains setting material and all the rules needed for play; individual adventures add flavor rules for that adventure as well as the maps and non-player characters (NPCs) needed. The Kickstarter campaigns often add stretch goals of cards or other player aids to ease game play; those items are nicely produced but not absolutely necessary for play.
Player characters in Starship Scavengers are described in five stats each of which is a die type from d4 to d12. The five stats are Ranged [Combat], Melee, Tech, Salvage, and Mind. Character creation is either by modifying pre-generated archetypes or using a point buy system. Points can be used to purchase stats or augmentations (cybernetic enhancements). Characters are also given a budget of credits to buy equipment.
As a solo game, the various adventures for Starship Scavengers are somewhat formulaic but deliver the essentials for adventurous play. Broadly speaking, the player character (often accompanied by at least one NPC) will move to a new location, establish the environmental conditions at that location, and then take actions at the location to (hopefully) advance towards completing the mission objective. Along the way there will be skill challenges and almost certainly combat. There are enough differing choices at each location that the adventures do not feel like they are railroading the player. Likewise, the array of choices and inherent randomness of outcomes make each adventure suitable for replay several times.
Trouble on Helanga
The latest adventure to arrive is Trouble in Helanga. [I also picked up a copy of Moon Crash to help complete my collection.] The Kickstarter campaign page describes the adventure as: “A sci-fi adventure on the surface of a jungle planet filled with dangerous foes and duplicitous NPCs. If the heat, giant snakes or deadly plants don’t get you, the renegade robots just might!”
Trouble on Helanga is the first Starship Scavengers adventure to be set on a planet; other adventures such as Moon Crash, HMS Brutus, or Station Thirty-One take place on derelict ships or space stations.
Playing the Starship Scavengers adventure Trouble on Helanga took just over a casual hour. I admittedly spent some of that time rereading the core rules to make sure I understood combat and the like. While adventures can almost certainly be played faster I find the casual pacing much more enjoyable.
AI aye
As you might be able to tell, Grinning Frog uses AI generated art. Stephen Hart is very up front about the use of Mindjourney; if you disapprove then please move on. For those that stay the artwork is excellently done and highly evocative of the adventure setting. As a long time player of the Traveller roleplaying game that, in the early days, had limited art, I am comfortable with using “theater of the mind” where artwork is inspirational vice definitive. The AI art in Starship Scavengers helps with player immersion into the story but does not drive the story in rigid directions.
Solo joy
The Starship Scavengers adventures are just about perfectly sized for an afternoon time filling game. No adventure will take hours to play; players are free to set their own pace playing as fast or slow as they desire.
Firebird next
Grinning Frog already has the next installment of Starship Scavengers in production. Firebird Down promises more adventure:
The agent known as Firebird is missing. Believed captured by a mercenary outfit known as the White Ghosts the hunt is on to retrieve Firebird and the intel he was gathering on ship disappearances on the outer rim.
The ghosts are aptly named and their whereabouts are unknown. Scouts report their previous base has been abandoned. Luckily for you, you have friends in low places and you’ve learnt about a tech specialist who is rumoured to have worked for the ghosts.
The only problem? The specialist got themselves into a spot of bother with a criminal overlord in the asteroid belt. The good news? You and the overlord have history, so maybe, just maybe, they will be willing to do a deal.
And after that, then you can go and bust Firebird out of captivity and snag yourself a big reward – after all, you aren’t doing this just for fun, are you?
Grinning Frog is also running a Kickstarter campaign for a new solo game set in the Starship Scavengers universe. Xenos Genesis is a, “Tense solo play alien survival game using a regular deck of cards and a handful of dice” (Kickstarter sub-banner).
Starship Scavengers – Trouble on Helanga is an enjoyable, affordable, cost-efficient solo sci-fi roleplaying adventure highly suitable for casual play. The Starship Scavengers series features quick character creation, easy to learn and use rules, and a variety of adventure types that not only are engaging but have sufficient variability for multiple replays.
RockyMountainNavy, August 2024
Feature image courtesy WordPress blog “Generate AI” function for Feature Images using text, images, and tags of post.
The opinions and views expressed in this blog are those of the author alone and are presented in a personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Navy or any other U.S. government Department, Agency, Office, or employer.
RockyMountainNavy.com © 2007-2024 by Ian B is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 
Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 
Are they replayable, or do they only work properly once?
They sound interesting.
Especially given my own recent solo game acquisitions.
Really well done and not super expensive! Well worth the purchase!
Would be awesome to have you onboard. Our website is http://www.thegrinningfrog.com and in the download section you can get the development guide with a bunch of the background for the universe in.
Thanks to RockyMountainNavy for his blog and kind words
Stephen Hart