Stay Frosty is an OSR game of future marines versus whatever the universe can throw at them. Play games in the style of your favourite military sci-fi movies and video games.
Stay Frosty Cover by Benjamin Marra
GAME OVER, MAN
The bugs are through the perimeter, the gates of hell have opened, the mothership is landing, and the Captain's brain got sucked out. There's only one thing you can do, Marine: STAY FROSTY!
Stay Frosty is a complete old-school sci-fi TTRPG of future marines versus the universe. Use these rules to play in the style of your favourite military sci-fi movies and video games. Players have to balance escalating tension and dwindling resources against Staying Frosty to complete their missions.
The system is loosely built on top of the legendary Black Hack TTRPG, in turn based loosely on D&D. What does that mean?!
The central resolution system is 1d20 equal to or above an Attribute; if you have advantage, you roll twice and take the better result, if you have disadvantage, you roll twice and take the worse result.
Four Attributes - Brains, Brawn, Dexterity and Willpower - determined by rolling 3d6 in order. Lower is better!
Eight classes or "MOS": Armor, Cyber, Engineer, Infantry, Intelligence, Medical, Psi Ops and Spec Ops. Each gets a pack of tools and benefits. Armor, for instance, gets a light tank or APC and a repair toolkit, and has advantage to operate and repair vehicles. While Intelligence receives advantage when gathering information and on initiative when executing planned attacks and also get a wrist-comp(uter). Some are stat-locked! You can only be a Spec Ops if ALL your stats are 10 or less, and you get all the best toys and a beret.
Roll for rank! On a 1-3, you're a Private, and get a combat knife and +1 HP per level. On a 4-5, you're a Sergeant, and you have a swagger stick and advantage on Battles of Will. On a 6, you are a Lieutenant, get an autopistol, and can give advantage to a Private or Sergeant once per encounter.
Supply die! After using an expendable item, roll the item's supply die, and if it comes up 1 or 2 you reduce the size of the die. When you roll a 1 or 2 on a d4 that's it, all done. Click, click, click.
Psi-Powers! Roll above your Willpower to execute one of the 9 psionic powers. Did you fail? Push yourself, risk Brain Bleed, take damage equal to how much you failed and cast that power anyway.
Level up automatically between missions. Campaign play as standard!
Danger Die! When the players move between point-crawl nodes, enter dangerous areas, linger too long, or rest in a dangerous place. Something always happens! Tension builds, clues are found, consumables deplete, effects end, and maybe even things get hot and Tension Explodes (please see the included Going Apeshit table)
STAY FROSTY! As the tension rises, so does the FROSTINESS. As the squad get's frostier they become more effective but WATCH OUT! If Tension Explodes you're in for a world of hurt.
The system is perfect for point-crawls and dungeon-crawls where clearing rooms, blasting bugs, descending into hell, flying through space, and defeating hordes of monsters is on the table. Supports campaign length play and one-shot horror-tinged bug hunts.
Written by Casey Garske, illustrated by Andrew Walter, Benjamin Marra, and Noah Brown, layout and design by Shuyi Zhang.
Backerkit exclusive "Distance Chart" and player tokens, making Stay Frosty's innovative range finding system effortless to manage and communicate to your players.
Backerkit exclusive "Frostiness Tracker". Never accidentally go easy on your players again! Track exactly how bad things are going.
Backerkit exclusive double-sided Stay Frosty poster. Decorate your bedroom wall with guns and demons, like the good old days.
Screen printed, organic cotton, Stay Frosty shirt! We've got a reputation to uphold with awesome quality shirts. Get it here, now, or else miss out!
A full and proper zine adventure by Slipgate Chokepoint author, Andrew Walter! With words and multiple pages and everything.
Close up of the Stay Frosty screen printed shirt by Andrew Walter
Stay Frosty is one of the greatest sci-fi systems to come out of the early days of the old-school TTRPG resurgence, and it's finally back and in a BLOODY GORGEOUS HARDBACK BOOK! Which includes...
📚 2 full introductory adventures to jump start your campaign
🐱👤 Rules for making your strike team of ABSOLUTE BADASSES
Get the super mega ultimate pile of Backerkit exclusive Stay Frosty stuff! Including...
A (physical & digital) copy of Stay Frosty
Distance Chart
Frostiness Tracker
Two Sided Poster
Screen Printed T-shirt
A Zine-length Adventure
Basic Pledge - £22
Get everything you need to start playing Stay Frosty in a top-qulaity hardback book.
A (physical & digital) copy of Stay Frosty
Digital Pledge - £12
Get everything you need to start playing Stay Frosty in a hyperlinked PDF through DriveThruRPG.
A (digital) copy of Stay Frosty
Retailer Pledge - £100
Hey shop friends! This is a deposit towards however many copies of Stay Frosty you might want at the Backerkit exclusive price of £10 per copy. We'll sort it out when the books arrive, and you'll get first dibs ahead of all the other shops. The pledge can be split across postage and books, if desired. Offer only available to shops, whether offline or brick & mortar.
We like a good, sleek campaign, so we will not be adding anything to the book. It's perfect as it is!
However, if we make £10,000,000 we will build a research base on an asteroid where we can harness the powers of hell for the betterment of mankind in peace.
The following things which would otherwise be stretch goals are included in the Double Barrelled pledge tier as standard:
Cover is WORK IN PROGRESS, but this is a full sized adventure
Distance Chart with player tokens to keep track of where everyone is
Never be unsure of how close your player (characters) are to snapping like a twig with this handy tracker
The best part of a second edition is people have been playing, and loving, the game for years already!
I highly recommend this game to anyone who has been on a Helldivers kick recently, anyone who wants an easy way to do one shots, and really just anyone in general.
- Reader review on DriveThruRPG
I'm left wanting to run a squad of misfits and crazies versus the legions of hell, the alien invasion, and killer cyborgs from the future.
- Reader review on DriveThruRPG
I never got too close to doing a D&D clone for Mothership, largely because Casey G. had already been there and done that with the superlative Stay Frosty. Stay Frosty was so good I almost didn’t make Mothership.
- Sean McCoy, creator of Mothership
Stay Frosty is awesome. I really hope you enjoy it as much as I have!
- Reddit Person
The game fulfills what was promised. So if you’re looking for “an OSR game of future marines versus whatever the universe can throw at them” - look no further.
Casey Garske started playing D&D in 1984 and hasn't stopped thinking about games since. He is the author of Stay Frosty, a roleplaying game, and the skirmish wargames Space Weirdos and Sword Weirdos. He lives in Minnesota with his lovely wife, two children, and too many pets.
Cover Art - Benjamin Marra
Benjamin Marra is a Grammy-nominated illustrator, designer, and cartoonist.
His illustrations for Numero Group’s Wayfaring Strangers: Acid Nightmares garnered him a Grammy Nomination. Marra’s work has been recognized by The Society of Illustrators, The Society of Publication Designers, 3x3, and American Illustration. In 2006 he was named as one of the Art Directors Club Young Guns. In 2016 he illustrated the cover of American Illustration 35.
Illustration - Andrew Walter
Andrew Walter is an illustrator and writer in the field of indie tabletop roleplaying games, primarily within the science fiction and fantasy genres. Also known for, Whalgravaak's Warehouse (TROIKA!), Dolmenwood, Slipgate Chokepoint, and Zed & Two Naughts
Illustration - Noah Brown
“Multi-disciplinary artist”/jack of all trades based in Leeds, UK. Decades of experience in many dubious realms, including underground comix, illustration (mainly for bands), making techno, writing horror stories, singing in punk bands and working in shit day jobs. Entirely self-taught and obsessed with drawing since childhood. Favourite artists include Simon Bisley, Mark Beyer, Egon Schiele, Junji Ito, Lorenzo Mattotti, Arthur Rackham, S Clay Wilson and Antonio Lopez, to name but a few. Some other influences are early RPG art, early Viz Comics, video nasties, bodybuilding, skateboarding, gangsta rap, death metal/beatdown hardcore, pain, anguish, loss and cute terriers.
Layout and cover design - Shuyi Zhang
Shuyi Zhang is an artist, exhibition designer, and bookshop owner who has accidentally become intimately familiar with every process in the life of a book. Also known for, Fungi of the Far Realms, and Iglootree.com
Everything is hand made! No AI generation has been used with any text or art involved in this book or project page. Robots are for shooting, not cahooting!
