Star Marauder! RPG. An interview with the Creator, Part One.

20 Apr, 2026

Star Marauders! RPG. Releasing on May 10th, 2026.

"Marauders crave riches, infamy and violent death. They travel the far reaches of space, striking fear into the hearts of all who meet their gaze."

Question: Do you want to give a gaming background on yourself? Aggie: “My name is Aggie, known by some as the Gourd Dwarf. I have a blog ( https://gourd-dwarf.bearblog.dev/ ) and an Itch page as well ( https://gourd-dwarf.itch.io/ ).

I’m 32 years old, I live in Canada. I’m nonbinary and go by gender neutral pronouns but I don’t give a shit what anyone calls me as long as… it’s not late for dinner. I got properly into tabletop games in, I’d like to say, 2023? Maybe '22. I was introduced to Basic Fantasy Roleplaying by my younger brother, the inimitable NBateman of Press the Beast ( https://pressthebeast.bearblog.dev/ ). That was my first campaign and my first time playing a full session. Prior to that, I did a somewhat traumatizing attempt at Hunter: The Reckoning in high school that rather quickly devolved into sexual violence upon my character, and it really put me off of TTRPGs for a long time. I watched and later played a ton of video games growing up and I was passionate about the hobby but as time wears on, fewer and fewer video games interest me. I still get sucked in now and then.

Ironically, I don’t much like RPG computer games, and I prefer action games that work up a sweat.

The thing is, the lack of tactical infinity actually drives me up the wall in the Fallouts or Baldur's Gates. I find them extremely opaque and difficult to get into. Continuing my tabletop curriculum vitae, I played BFRPG first, and then NBateman started fucking around with different rulesets. Which was bad for his wallet but good for my experience as a player and most likely his development as a GM. We converted our campaign to Dungeon Fantasy powered by GURPS, dabbled in 5e, The Fantasy Trip, I read Mythras, we played a tiny bit of Burning Wheel, as well as numerous homebrew games of his own creation. NBateman invited me to the server where this interview began, and [he] is the single most influential character in my experience thus far with RPGs. So, what ends up happening, is I’m like nervous to run shit for what feels like forever, for some reason, and I can’t really cross the threshold into bringing something to table. That is, until NBateman forgot to cancel his pledge for Mothership 1e. And I get ahold of it and it just clicks.

For the first time, I knew what it meant to grok a ruleset. I enthusiastically started making little scenarios to run thru (Sic) with my brother and before long I was grabbing up pamphlet modules and really trying to run whatever I could.

It was thru this that I developed a philosophy of making something yourself with a game in order to try it. I think that’s important to do.

I actually drifted away from doing my own material for a while, ran some modules, got into Tunnels & Trolls, fell out with Tunnels & Trolls (I came around to it eventually, it’s just not the frickin[’] second coming like I had once thought).

I attempted to make my own game and I finished it, it’s on my blog, it’s called Fantastic Frontiers and it kinda blows. You should check it out!

I played a lot of games these last three years. And I developed confidence and started running shit and playing around. I met Chaoclypse like a year ago and we became fast friends and he encouraged my creativity a lot and now we're here. My recollection is generally piss-poor so there's definitely some missing deets [details] in there but I think that answers your question. What's next?”

Question: When did you have the initial idea that became Star Marauders? Aggie: “Star Marauders began as a blogpost after playing in a game of Classic Traveller. I just whipped something up cos I liked how quick your dude dies in Trav. That was on the tenth of April, so, it's pretty much been a week of rapid iterations followed by play followed by iterations, and so on. [This interview took place on April 18th, 2026.] That said, it's informed by my experience with Mothership, where I was struggling against the harder aspects of the science fiction sometimes and a lot of my ideas for the game could be considered somewhat outlandish and not very frightening. Like, I did a module with Chaoclypse for the Triptech² Jam (btw Triptech ³ is on now so go get involved) and it was called Demon Fist and it was basically an 80s direct to video anime with a martial arts theme and, like, a touch of cyberpunk. Not exactly inappropriate for Mothership but not entirely fitting either. So, in the sense that I am responding to this disconnect I felt with Mothership's tone, Star Marauders began long before last week.” End Part One.