Open Beta Playtesting Rules

What Is This?

This is the temporary online beta rulebook for the open beta playtest of A Billion Suns: Second Edition (ABS2), coming in 2026 from Osprey Games. I’m writing the game in this format to allow me to rapidly share updates as I fill in the sections and update the rules.

The stable public url for this site is: https://planetsmashergames.com/a-billion-suns/abs2-beta/rules

Playtesting & Feedback

Thank you for checking out the ABS2 open beta. I’d love for you to find time to read and play the game. I’m very interested in your feedback. There are two ways to provide feedback:

1. Email me at [email protected]
2. Join my discord server using this link

<aside>

Contents

Introduction

Core Rules

Basic Training

Eras of Play

Appendices

</aside>

<aside>

Navigation

There’s a hover menu on the right-hand side on desktop. ⇨

⇧ The breadcrumbs at the top of the page are useful too.

</aside>

2E Design Principles

• Make the game more accessible
• The ultimate spaceship toolkit
• Emphasise the things that make ABS special (epic sci-fi stories, jumping in, multiple tables, neat dice system)
• Create a canvas for players to tell epic science-fiction stories.
• Simpler than 1E, but still not afraid to be an expert game.

Video Dev Log!

You can listen to me chat through my objectives for the second edition here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=694bwtpMcq8

More videos here.

<aside>

Legal

All text, images and diagrams found on this website is copyright Mike Hutchinson 2025. The final text of this game is exclusively licensed to Osprey Games. You are permitted to print these pages for personal use as a playtester, but you are not permitted to re-publish or distribute them, physically or digitally, free or paid, via any method. Thanks!

</aside>

Introduction