You are a drifter. A merchant, a smuggler or a pirate. You are jumping from planet to planet in the deep space with a full load of merchandise, to be sold at the best price, and you may buy some more on other worlds. Or, if you want to dive into piracy, you will attack space cargos and steal them.

You'll first need to work a few things out before starting your adventure:

Build your character

Pick a name

Well... it's a solo game, but please, no, don't pick "Han Solo".

Your stats

Stats reflect how skilled your character is in various actions needed when you want to live the life of the Drifter.

Negociate

A bit of charm, a bit of persuasion. Useful when you want to bargain, discuss with Space Patrol officiers who want to snatch you or parley with Pirates.

Drift

The knowledge of physics, astrophysics, hyperdrive and space-travel, combined with the art of dodging and escaping when involved in space fight.

Fight

Your capacity to fight in the air, choose the right tactics, find the best position to attack your opponent with the maximum of damages.

Special stat: Reputation

The higher, the better is your reputation. You're well-known and respected by other Spacedrifters, Space patrols and local planet governors. Great if you're in legal trade, but can be bad when you're a Pirate. When this score is negative, you're well-known too, but for evil and illegal deeds: murder, raids, traffic.

How high are your stats?

First of all, assign factors to your stats. You must assign -2, -1, 0, +1. You've read it right, when you add them, the result is negative. Well, you're new in this game, don't you remember?

Further then, you will pick a class and roll dice for your origin, and apply the designated modifiers.

Your class

You have three basic choices, each one has pros and cons:

Merchant

You're a regular merchant, you usually take care of legal stuff, and always pay the right price. Space patrols won't usually bother you ; but take care of bad encounters on your way.

Smuggler

Everything is not black or white. Sometimes you're assigned legal cargo, sometimes you know it's illegal. Space patrols don't like you and they just dream to snatch you as soon as they could.

Pirate

PLANET AHOY! you don't want a patron, you don't want to deal with customers. Life is short! You'll only have to let yourself drift between stars, waiting for poor innocent traders to be raided. Your loot will be drunk and spent in other weaponry, armor and fuel for your pirate ship.

Your origin

Normally, the Playing Characters are Humans, but they come from various areas of the galaxy. Roll 1D6 to tell where you're from:

Capital planet

You come from the main planet of the Galaxy, its "center" in a way. It's the richest place in the Galaxy. You are educated and versed in the Galactic Lore.

The Surroundings

You come from close-from-the center planets. They're usually rich and educated areas, but not as rich as Capital Planet.

The Outer Arms

Some of the coldest and farthest worlds in the Galaxy. Your world is a hard place, people are tough, you had to fight to survive. You don't know much about Galactic Lore and Etiquette. And you don't care.

Possessions and wealth

At the beginning of the game, your character has a basic ship (see the "Ship" chapter for more details), and a few credits.

Solo example

Let's play Stardrifter! My character will be named Dante Hewett. I've chosen him to be a Smuggler, just because I don't want him to be too nasty or too gentle.

I've assigned stats this way:

• Negociate: -2
• Reputation: -1
• Drift: +1
• Fight: 0

I'm now rolling for Origins: it's a 3. Dante is coming from the Surroundings, so I am applying both Class and Origin modifiers.

Now my characters stats are:

• Negociate: -1
• Reputation: -2
• Drift: +3
• Fight: 0

Well, it looks like I'm a hell of a drifter, but my tongue is not as skillful.

I'm now rolling for wealth: it's a 3 again. I'm adding 1, since Hewett is coming from the Surroundings, and here's my money: 4000 credits.

How to use your stats?

During the game, you'll be asked to roll dice associated with a stat. The roll will be noted: roll+Negociate, or roll+Reputation.

It means you'll have to roll two 6-side-dice and add the designated stat to it. Usually, a result with 10 or more will be a success ; a result with 6 or less is a failure. A result between 7 and 9 will be a partial success ; you'll succeed, but you'll experience little drawbacks.

Solo Example

Dante is being asked to roll+Drift to perform evasive maneuvers. He rolls 1 and 6, and adds his Drift score (+3). That's a 10. His roll is successful, he manages to escape without trouble.

It may happen that you'll have to roll+Reputation or roll-Reputation.

Let's imagine that a character Reputation equals to "-2". Rolling roll+Reputation means it'll be a "-2 roll". If it's being asked to roll-Reputation, it means its a "+2 roll".

Now we're going to look after your best friend: your spaceship.