Casting Shadows

It is Day 30 of #RPGaDAY2026 and the last day of using Space: 1999 by @Modiphius for my responses. Tomorrow is the last day of this yearly RPG-positivity event. It will also be the first and only day I use the game selected for the final “week” of this event. We started with a two-day “week”and the Rivers of London RPG and we will end with a one-day “week” and a game you will have to visit here tomorrow to find out about. The weekly filter ending its run today on Day 30 is “emotion.” The daily filter for Sunday is “blessed.” The prompt for today is “pride.”

As a trait, I find pride is a common one to find among the characters of roleplaying games in one way or another. It can be entertaining to deal with a character blessed with an overabundance of it, and it can be motivating to work to uplift someone worthy who lacks it. If we take a step back and look at all the characters who populate Moonbase Alpha, though, we can see an oft-repeated consequence of pride where it takes a negative stimulus in reaction to our ignorance and confident ambitions to remind us of how little we know and how little stature we should probably claim for ourselves. Alpha itself is one such example of a shining achievement in international diplomacy, in science, and in expanding possibilities for further exploration which directly leads to the events of Breakaway and the explosive separation of the Earth and the Moon.

In the wake of that tragic event. We could rightfully imagine that few would be so obtuse as to be unaffected, but the blessing of it is that the response across the inhabitants of Alpha would be diverse and would become part of the fabric of community. Though some would keep their reactions to themselves, many who could not face the enormity of the experience on their own would need the outlet of sharing their thoughts and emotions with other survivors – changing and in return being changed by those interactions.

Alpha is the peak of pride and also the depth of a new humility.

The characters we make, with their Spirit and their Hopes, can bring this to life and through the system, the dice, and the camaraderie of an RPG transmit an understanding of it to us.

How does that change mark and transform the community of humans (and soon aliens) adrift in the vast expanse of the universe?

What do they in turn choose to do in response to that change?

Will they make it a blessing and in turn spread its benefit as they go?

So often, we do so briefly, then collapse back into some other, lesser state. It is a hard lesson to learn. It is harder to transmit. It is harder still to help it become self-sustaining.

We have the means to achieve a justified pride in being more than just temporary consumers in an indifferent universe, and when the blessing of that transformation finally stirs our hearts, we will seek it out and never let it go.

Tomorrow’s prompt is the final one for #RPGaDAY2026. It is ‘Edge.’ Our weekly filter with its single-day duration is ‘Ability.’ Tomorrow is Monday and on that day we consider for the last time those among us whose life is affected by being, ‘fair of face.’

Until then!