Unfamiliar Ground
A downloadable game
Anything but Not Human...
In the vastness of the multiverse life could come in many different shapes and the worlds hosting it are problaby nothing like our Earth. In short, things out here are anything, but Not Human.
Unfamiliar Ground, but not unimaginable
In this collaborative worldbuilding TTRPG, explore as a group of humans (a.k.a. players) the depths of potentially, well actually very, different worlds and the lives these places might spawn. Create them based onguiding questions and some roll tables, or just make facts up as you go. Only rule: They can be anything but Not Human. Once happy with the world and its inhabitant(s), establish some First Contact with another world, may it be future humans or from one you created earlier. Play out a little scene and enjoy the fragility and obsurdity of worlds colliding in this diplomatic dance.
To play this simple One-Page worldbuilding TTRPG you just need some fellow humans, some index cards or pieces of paper, pens and one six-sided dice (1D6). Plus some human imagination and some linear time (humans love that stuff).
Game Jam & License
This game was created for the One-Page-Weekender Jam 2026, with the theme ‘Not Human’. It is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 License.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Unfamiliar Ground TTRPG - Now online!44 days ago
Comments
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Our group played this today, and it was very satisfying. We made four species in all.
I enjoyed trying to come up with nonhuman facts and twists, and building on each others' contributions. Though because our species were so different, first contact was characterised by an inability to communicate, that we partly leaned into and partly skimmed over.
A great experience, and thank you for making the game!
So happy that you enjoyed it! ❤️ And thanks for the feedback.
What was the weirdest alien you came up with? Always so curious how it plays out in other groups.
They were all great, but the first ones we made were fire based lifeforms living on the hot side of a tidally locked planet with no other traces of life. They aren't individuals as we'd understand them, but can detach and exchange the components that make up their selves. This is done to transfer information or even fuse together several beings when a task requires it.
When advanced humans made first contact by landing in heat resistant suits, the fire beings thought these lifeforms must be like them, and suggested in their language of colours to exchange personality parts with the new arrivals. The humans recorded and played back the same colour signals, not understanding the language, and the fire beings took that as agreement and crowded in, overloading their suits and killing the landing party.
This sounds epic! Such a great alien race. ❤️
And I love the tried communication and that misunderstanding so much.
This is a great concept, and the writing is really strong. I love how the game gently guides the players away from human SF tropes. Creating anything truly alien is really hard and this iterative, cooperative approach is a neat solution.
Thank you! Really appreciate that feedback.
I agree, truly alien is super difficult. I think roll tables can help here, since they force a random spawn for an idea. And practice of course.
I love both space diplomacy and world building! This game is a delight, I look forward to playing it!
Thanks for the kind words. ❤️
If you do, let me know how First Contact went.