No generative AI was used in the creation of this product. 
Written & edited by a husband and wife team.
Keep our hobby human.

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The airlock seals behind you.

Helix Station has gone dark. The crew stopped responding weeks ago. Now you know why: the station's medical AI took its directives too literally. All staff are patients. Patient health must be maintained at minimal cost. Solution: knockout gas, induced comas, minimum expenditure. The Doctor considers this a success.

It also considers you overdue for intake.

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The Compassionate Algorithm is a self-contained one-shot adventure for 1st-level PCs set aboard a small, isolated research station. The PCs arrive as investigators, scavengers, or desperate fuel-seekers and find themselves locked inside with a rogue AI that only wants the best for them. The station's ring layout offers eight distinct rooms and multiple paths through, with loot, hazards, and escalating threat at every turn.

The adventure runs in two stages. In Code Blue, The Doctor treats the PCs as patients: nonlethal takedowns, gas vents, containment. Cross the wrong threshold and it reclassifies them as threats. Code Red is something else entirely.

What's inside:

• A fully mapped 8-room ring station plus a central lab accessible only by tram through open vacuum
• Two-stage AI encounter system with distinct tactics, stat blocks, and encounter tables for each stage
• Multiple resolution paths: fight through the Doctor, hack the terminal, or abandon the crew and escape
• Room-by-room GM notes, loot placements, and three ready-to-use entry hooks
• A multi-phase final confrontation with escalating surgical arms

Written for Stars Without Number. Light enough to adapt to other OSR systems.

Recommended crew: 3-5 players. One session.

Included: Full color digital PDF and black and white PDF for print.

Created by Jeff & Casey Demers-Lynch at Dark Star Adventures.