Miskatonic Monday #299: Operation Hope

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Operation Hope

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Marco Carrer

Setting: Post-‘the Stars are Right’ Germany, 2035

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Eighteen page, 512.92 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Plot Hook: A search for sanctuary in a time when dreams are all that anyone has

Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, five handouts, five maps, four NPCs, and four Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Near future-set post-apocalyptic scenario for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos

# Ososphobia

# Oneirophobia

# Phagophobia

Cons

# Requires Cthulhu through the ages

# Who was calling for help?

# Needs an edit

# Sanity rewards too high

# Underdeveloped setting

Conclusion

# Operation Hope turns to Operation Hopelessness...

# Underdeveloped setting

# Reviews from R’lyeh Discommends

Miskatonic Monday #120: Into the Unknown

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Into the Unknown

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sean Johnston

Setting: Near Future Antarctica & Beyond

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-Four page, 1.02 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Atlantis: The Lost Empire meets Pitch Black

Plot Hook: An elevator straight to a hell offers ‘the experience of a lifetime’. 
Plot Support: Staging advice, seven handouts, one map and two sets of  floorplans, no NPCs, and nine monsters and Mythos creatures.

Production Values: Underwhelming.

Pros

# Science Fiction horror one-shot

# Could be adapted to earlier modern time periods

# Hints at interesting future setting

# Decent descriptions

# Potential for Investigator versus Investigator action

Cons

# Needs a strong edit

# Linear and light plot

# No pre-generated Investigators

# More exposition heavy travel log than adventure

# Potential for Investigator versus Investigator action

Conclusion

# Serviceable set-up leads somewhere interesting with a plot that is more story than interactive.

# Into an unknown of what the Investigators are supposed to do.

I Got The Altered Morphology Blues II

A decade ago, on January 12th, a plague struck the world. A flu-like plague which seemed resistant to the then available treatments. Fortunately nobody died, but eleven days later, on January 23rd, all of the symptoms vanished and everyone recovered. Only later did people realise the significance of what became known as ‘Ghost Flu’ as months later, sufferers began exhibiting powers and abilities only found in mankind’s wildest imaginings and biggest cinema screen franchise. The ability to fly, phase through walls, read the minds of others, control gravity, flatten or enhance the emotions of others, and read or even enter dreams. Literally, people had superpowers. This manifestation becomes known as the ‘Sudden Mutation Event’ or ‘SME’, and in the next ten years approximately one percent of the population will manifest SME. In response, there was no rash of costumed heroes or villains, though a few tried. The most photogenic of SME suffers became celebrities, sportsmen, television and film stars, or politicians, others found jobs related to their newly gained powers, for example, a firefighter who control flames or oxygen, a transmuter who could literally turn lead into (industrial) gold, or a healer who work as a medic or doctor, and the most popular sports found ways of incorporating them into their play. Some though turned to crime, and of course, there were criminals who exhibited SME, and whilst the Heightened as they became known were mostly assimilated into society, they could still be victims of crime and they were also victims of a prejudice all their very own. For example, the Neutral Parity League campaigns against ‘Chromes’ (from ‘Chromosome’) as the Heightened are nicknamed, often violently, whilst organisations like the Heightened Information Alliance campaigns for the protection of their rights. In general, the Heightened have become one of society’s accepted minorities and most just get on with their lives.

When one of the Heightened is involved in crime—whether as victim or perpetrator—the police will investigate and handle the matter just as they would any other crime. However, most big city police forces have established a unit to specifically deal with such cases. This is the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit (HCIU), staffed by Heightened members of the police force and tasked with investigating and solving SME related crimes, whether committed by or against SME sufferers. The HCIU also serves as a combination liaison/bulwark between the mutants and ordinary folk. The law has also adapted to take account of the prevalence of Heightened abilities. Thus investigative powers such as Observe Dreams and Read Minds require consent or a legal warrant, the use of X-Ray Vision ability must follow strict health and safety guidelines as its emits radiation and can cause cancer, the wrongful use of Impersonate is fraud, and several powers, including Radiation Projection, Invisibility, and Read Minds are deemed inherently dangerous. Such powers fall under Article 18 which regulates their use and may even see their users being monitored. The study of superpowers and SME expressives is known as Anamorphology, while members of the HCIU are trained in Forensic Anamorphology.

This is the set-up for Mutant City Blues, a super powered investigative roleplaying game, originally designed by Robin D. Laws and published by Pelgrane Press in 2009. It uses the author and publisher’s GUMSHOE System, designed to play investigative games which emphasise the interpretation of clues rather than their discovery, and which has been used with another genre in a number of roleplaying games from the publisher, including horror in The Esoterrorists, cosmic horror in Trail of Cthulhu, space opera in Ashen Stars, and time travel in Timewatch. In Mutant City Blues the other genre is the classic police procedural of Law & Order, Hill Street Blues, and NYPD Blue. The combination though is specific. The Player Characters are police officers with powers, not superheroes who are cops. So not DC Comics’ Gotham Central or the Special Crimes Unit from Superman’s hometown, Metropolis, or indeed, Wildstorm’s Top 10. This is very much not a ‘Four Colour’ superheroes setting. The action and the investigation of Mutant City Blues also takes place in a real city, whether New York or Toronto, or a city the Game Moderator is familiar with. Although Mutant City Blues has the feel of a setting that is North America, it would be easy to set a campaign elsewhere, and there are notes on adapting it to the United Kingdom.

To help the Game Moderator adapt Mutant City Blues to the city of her choice, the roleplaying game comes with a number of elements which mapped onto that city. This includes a future timeline which runs from the outbreak of Ghost Flu to the present day, a guide to the future city’s politics and leading figures, as well as its new institutes and businesses. First and foremost amongst them is The Quade Institute, the world’s foremost Anamorphological research centre, run by the renowned geneticist, Lucius Quade. The Quade Institute is also where members of the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit are trained in Forensic Anamorphology. A complete Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit is described, ready for the Player Characters to be slotted into. Lastly, there is a ready-to-play scenario, ‘Food Chain’, which introduces the history of the Mutant City Blues setting as well as providing a case for the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit to investigate.

In actuality that is the set-up for Mutant City Blues as published in 2009. In 2020, Pelgrane Press published a second edition, this time by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan and Robin D. Laws. Mutant City Blues still retains the same set-up and flexibility in terms of where it can be set, but it also introduces a number of changes, not least of which is a new scenario, ‘Blue on Blue’. The majority of these changes have been implemented to make the game faster and easier to both set up and play.

As with other GUMSHOE System games, Player Characters in Mutant City Blues are defined by various abilities, either Investigative or General. Investigative Abilities are further divided into Academic, Interpersonal, and Technical. As a superhero roleplaying game, Player Characters in Mutant City Blues also have superpowers or Mutant Powers, which are again split between Investigative and General Powers. What defines the split between Investigative and General Abilities and Powers is how they are used. In the first edition of Mutant City Blues both Investigative and General abilities are represented by ratings or pool of points. For Investigative abilities, if the Player Character has the ability, he can always use it to gain core clues during an investigation, and his player could always spend more points from the Investigative ability pool to gain more information. For General abilities, such as Health, Infiltration, and Preparedness, a player expends points from the relevant pool and uses them as a modifier to a die roll to beat a particular difficulty. This is on a six-sided die and a typical difficulty is four, but can go as high as four. In the second edition of Mutant City Blues, a Player Character still has pools of points for his General abilities, including mutant powers, but not for Investigative abilities and powers. Instead of ratings, a Player Character either has the Investigative ability or power, or he does not. During an investigation, a Player Character will always pick up a clue related to an Investigative ability. If a Player Character wants more information, he can Push.

The Push is the major rule change in the second edition of Mutant City Blues. Replacing ratings for Investigative abilities, a Push is primarily used to gain more information or overcome obstacles preventing progress in an investigation. For example, it might be used to speed up the investigative process, such as getting the results back from the laboratory quicker than usual for Forensic Anthropology or Ballistics, to add an expert in the field as a friend using Art History or Occult Studies, or even use Cop Talk to impress the media or a Player Character’s superiors. A Push can also be used to sidestep or lower the difficulty of a General ability test. However a Push is used, a player only has two to expend per session, and they cannot be saved between sessions.

To create a member of the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit, a player receives three pools of points to spend on his character. These are standard for both General abilities and Mutant Powers, but will vary for Investigative abilities, the value depending upon the number of players. To ease the creation process, the second edition of Mutant City Blues includes templates that model particular police departments, such as the Forensic Science Division, Gang and Narcotic, Robbery, and Special Weapons & Training. Each template has a cost in points, with any excess being used to purchase other Investigative abilities and purchase and increase General abilities.

Whilst choosing Investigative and General abilities is relatively straightforward, selecting Investigative and General Powers is more involved. In standard superhero roleplaying games, a player is free to choose what powers he likes, in any combination, often to model particular superheroes from the comic books and films. Now that option is possible in Mutant City Blues, but that diverges from Mutant City Blues as written. Mutant powers in Mutant City Blues are clustered together genetically, so that if a Heightened has the Transmutation power, he is also likely to have the Disintegration, Phase, Touch, Reduce Temperature, and Ice Blast powers. He may also have the Wind Control, Healing, Radiation Projection, and Self-Detonation powers, but not Pain Immunity or Gravity Control. All this is mapped out on the Quade Diagram—as devised by the renowned geneticist, Lucius Quade of The Quade Institute—and in addition to using it to select powers during the character creation, the Quade Diagram serves as a forensic tool in the game. HCIU officers can use it to determine the powers used at a crime scene, as many of them leave some form of residue. It can determine the involvement of one Mutant if the residue is clustered, more if there are several clusters. The point here is that mutant powers are known quantities and do not vary, and in addition, where in the comics, a superhero will often tweak or adjust his powers from one issue to the next, this is very difficult to do in Mutant City Blues.

Our sample member of the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit is newly appointed Grace Bruckner who transferred across from Robbery where she specialised in art theft. She has become adept at identifying forgeries from merely touch alone. Her tendency towards Disassociation means she has few friends on the force, her colleagues seeing her as cold and unfriendly. This is despite the fact they know her genetics.

Detective Grace Bruckner, 1st Grade
General Abilities: Athletics 4, Composure 10, Driving 2, Filch 2, Health 10, Infiltration 4, Mechanics 2, Preparedness 5, Scuffling 5, Sense Trouble 5, Shooting 4, Surveillance 6
Investigative Abilities: Architecture, Art History, Bureaucracy, Bullshit Detector, Charm, Document Analysis, Evidence Collection, Fingerprinting, Forensic Accounting, Forensic Anthropology, Languages, Law, Negotiation, Photography, Research, Streetwise
Investigative Powers: Touch
General Powers: Disintegration 1, Healing 3, Phase 5, Transmutation 3
Defects: Disassociation

Certain powers and clusters, however, also have ‘Genetic Risk Factors’ associated with them. For example, Heightened with the Night Vision and Thermal Vision powers have tendency for Watcher Syndrome, whilst those with Telekinesis and Force Field, suffer from Sensory Overload. As she has both Phase and Disintegration, Detective Grace Bruckner can suffer from Disassociation, which means that she has a tendency to emotionally withdraw from people, and if the condition worsens, to see the world and her actions as unreal. Genetic Risk Factors need not come into play though, but it all depends upon the mode in which the gaming group has decided to play Mutant City Blues. The roleplaying game has two modes. In Safety Mode, Genetic Risk Factors are seen as potential risks to the Player Characters and may occasionally be topics of conversation, but in the main do not enter play except when they might affect Heightened criminals. In Gritty Mode, Genetic Risk Factors can express themselves in the members of the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit, and in play, are one source of Subplots.

Subplots are plots extra to the main investigation, the ‘B’ plot to the ‘A’ plot, and are typically personal or tied to another case. The players are encouraged to suggest them and the Game Moderator can add them, but in Gritty Mode they can also take the form of a personal Crisis which will affect a particular Player Character, and they can be triggered by the expression of a Genetic Risk Factor or an event which occurs in the line of duty. The latter can affect all police officers, not just members of the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit, but those triggered by a Genetic Risk Factor is specific to the Heightened. Mechanically, a Crisis requires a test and if failed, earns the Player Character a Stress Card. Similarly, if a Player Character exhausts the points from a power, but manages to refresh it by testing his Genetic Risk Factor (done against its resistance ability, which is different for each Genetic Risk Factor), he also gains a Stress Card due to the strain. Mutant City Blues lists over fifty, each with a tag like Addiction or Home Life, and Deactivation or Discard conditions, these being ways a Player Character effectively forestall the effects of a Stress Card or get rid of it completely. Should a Player Character acquire three or Stress Cards, then he is forced to quit or is fired from the force due to stress and his consequent actions.

Crises and Stress Cards are obviously storytelling and roleplaying tools, but they are also ways of enforcing the conventions of Mutant City Blues’ genre. In effect, Crises and Stress Cards are a way of handling a Player Character’s story arc over the course of a campaign. Just as in the television shows which inspire it, characters in Mutant City Blues leave, resign, take a new assignment, or are killed. Similarly, the use of the two modes—Safe and Gritty—model the two types of police procedural. Safe Mode represents a police procedural which focuses on the powers and the cases, and less on the personal and home lives of the Player Characters, whereas the grimmer Gritty Mode brings into play the personal and home lives of the Player Characters as well as the dangers of using their mutant powers. Of the two, the Gritty Mode more strongly enforces its genre than the Safe Mode. And this is in addition to the grind of dealing with the bureaucracy of the job, the Player Characters’ superiors, the media, and the criminals.

The two genres for Mutant City Blues—police procedural and superheroes—will be familiar to most, but not necessarily together. The roleplaying game’s authors provide plenty of advice to that end. The rules and advice cover collecting clues and using Pushes and their benefits, action at non-lethal, lethal, and superpowered levels, including combat, shootouts, chases, and more. There is a lengthy discussion of how the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit operates, including an orientation manual (with annotations from a member giving an explanation and opinion on how things are actually done), handling interrogations and court scenes, how the presence of the Heightened has changed the law, and running cases of the week and big plots. Plus there is a guide to the future world of Mutant City Blues, its politics, cultures, sports, and notable figures that the Game Moderator can map onto the city of her choice. Plus that mapping need not be onto a city in the near future, but could be the here and now, and there is advice for doing that too. The players are not left out here with advice on selecting their characters’ watch commander, using subplots, and suggesting some interview techniques, since after all, few of the players are going to be trained police officers. Lastly, there is an adventure, ‘Blue on Blue’ which does a good job of introducing the setting of Mutant City Blues and its various elements as they are affected by the Heightened, and takes the story of SME all the way back to the beginning. That said, it very much has the feel of a North American city and the Game Moderator will need to make some adjustments to set it elsewhere.

Throughout the pages of Mutant City Blues, there is another option discussed. That is instead of the Player Characters as members of the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit, they are Private Investigators. This gives the players and their characters greater flexibility in terms of how they approach investigations, as well as less responsibility and also less authority. However, they are still private citizens and they will need to be equally as careful, if not more so, in their use of their powers than members of the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit. Rather than the set-up and organisation provided by the Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit, the players and their characters will need to work out the details of their agency ahead of time. The scenario, ‘Blue on Blue’ does have notes to enable it to be run using private investigators, but it is really written to be played using Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit officers.

Physically, for a book published in 2020,Mutant City Blues is surprisingly done in black and white. In some ways, that is thematic, and to be fair, it does not detract from the book in any way. In general, the artwork is excellent, the book is well written, and the layout clean and tidy, and best of all, easy to read.

If there are any issues with Mutant City Blues, it is in tone and setting. Some players may well find its strongly implied setting to be too North American, but the police procedural is very much a North American television staple, which for others it is that its superpowers are too low powered, to be not quite Four Colour enough. Yet even the roleplaying game’s Safe Mode is not Four Colour, although it is much closer than Gritty Mode, and after all, it is written to be a police procedural with superpowers, rather than it is a superpowered police procedural.

The GUMSHOE System was always designed to ease the process of playing investigative roleplaying games, but its iteration here in the second edition of Mutant City Blues has gone even further, switching from the previous edition’s pools of points to a simple binary yes/no for its Investigative abilities. Combined with the equally as simple Push mechanics and Mutant City Bluesmakes investigations even easier, shifting any prior complexity to the game’s action when General abilities—mundane and mutant come into play. And really, they are not that complex.

Inspired by two genres—police procedural and superheroes—Mutant City Blues still remains underpowered for handling either separately, but merged together, the result is an appealing combination of familiar genres that are consequently easy to roleplay. And that is made even easier by the streamlining of the GUMSHOE System and the cleaner presentation in this new edition. Mutant City Blues does what it says on the badge, present police procedural and investigative roleplaying in a near future that is almost like our own world, and make it accessible and engaging. The combination is very specific, but there can be no doubt that Mutant City Blues does it very well.

Blue Collar Sci-Fi Horror

It is over twenty-five years since the hobby had a roleplaying game set in the same universe as the films as Alien and Aliens. The roleplaying games the Aliens Adventure Game, published by Leading Edge Games in 1991. Now the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is not the Alien or Aliens roleplaying game anew, but a Science Fiction roleplaying game in which a starship crew must survive the horrors of outer space, of confronting the unknown on worlds yet unexplored, of salvaging derelict spaceships and discovering what drove its crew to abandon their vessel, and of being terrorised by aliens intent on using them as incubators for their eggs. This is a roleplaying game of blue collar Science Fiction, of films like Outland, Dark Star, Silent Running, and Event Horizon, as well as Alien and Aliens.

Published by Tuesday Knight Games, Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG looks like a thick fanzine. Even at forty-four pages, its content is rather cramped, but around some rather scrappy illustrations, Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide covers character creation, game mechanics and combat, handling stress and panic, and all you need to know about the starships. There is no specific background supplied for Mothership, but any Warden—as the Game Master is known in Mothership—should be able to develop something of her own with relative ease.

As presented in Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide, this is a Class and Level roleplaying game. Characters are defined not only by their Class and Level, but also their Attributes and Saves, Skills, and how they react to Stress and Panic. The four Classes are Teamsters, Scientists, Androids, and Marines; the four Attributes are Strength, Speed, Intellect, and Combat; and the four Saves are Sanity, Fear, Body, and Armour. Character creation is a matter of rolling six ten-sided dice for the attributes, picking a Class, noting down various values, and finally choosing some skills. These come rated at Trained, Expert, and Master levels, indicating the bonus they grant to any roll. Each Class starts off with the same basic skills in addition to giving some options and some points with which to take more skills or improve those already known. No character begins play with any skill at Master level, but will typically have one skill at Expert level as well as a handful at Trained. Lastly, there is the matter of the Loadout, the equipment they start play with. There are four to choose from—Excavation, Exploration, Extermination, and Examination. A character also receives a random patch and a random trinket.

Character generation is simple and quick, taking no more than five minutes if you take your time. What speeds it up is the fact that the process is actually built into the character sheet. In a clever piece of graphic design, character generation can be done on the page. All a player has to do is go through five steps following a flowchart and he is done in minutes without any real reference to the Player’s Survival Guide. It is as simple as it is impressive.

Our sample character is an Android currently owned by Rasmussen Salvage Rights, a husband and wife, now husband and wife and android salvage team, which operates a salvage scow called the Mother’s Pride. She is a reconditioned Matsui-Poulton Class-12 model who has been named Sindy, a name that everyone laughs at for reasons she does not understand. Her current tasks involve computer operations aboard ship as well as tending to the hydroponics bays. Sindy sense that that is something that is missing from her programming, something that her owner is not telling her. Unfortunately she cannot break into certain files on the computer. Nor can she answer why is wearing a DNR Beacon Necklace and who it belonged to. In her spare time, she has been searching for answers in religious texts.

Name: Sindy
Class: Android Level: 1
Attributes
Strength: 36 Speed: 43 Intellect: 53 Combat: 32
Saves
Sanity: 20 Fear: 85 Body: 40 Armour: 25

Stress: 2 Resolve: 0 Health: 72

Skills
Trained (+10%): Computers, Hydroponics, Linguistics, Mathematics, Theology
Expert (+15%):; 
Master (+20%)

Loadout: Excavation Trinket: DNR Beacon Necklace  Patch: #1 Worker 

Notes
Fear saves made in the presence of Androids have disadvantages.

In terms of mechanics, Mothership is a percentile system. Rolls are either made against an attribute or an attribute plus an appropriate skill. If a character has the Advantage in a situation, his player rolls twice and keeps the best result, but rolls twice and keeps the worst result if the character is at a Disadvantage. Rolls of doubles are counted as critical successes or fumbles depending upon if the roll is a success or a failure.

Saves represent a character’s reaction to bad situations and his ability to survive against the horrors of space. Again, they are percentile rolls. If a Save is failed, a character gains Stress and potentially other effects too. For example, when a character is shot at, his player makes an opposed roll of his character’s Armour Save against his opponent’s Combat roll. If the Armour Save roll is failed, not only does the character gain Stress, he also takes damage. Making a Save with a critical success and a character will gain some other benefit, such making better use of cover in combat or gaining insight into a situation. Fail it with a critical fumble and a player will have to make a Panic roll. This requires a Stress Check, a roll of two ten-sided dice against the character’s current Stress. If the player rolls over his character’s current Stress, he succeeds, the character loses a little Stress, but if it fails, the player needs to roll on the Panic Effect table. This is another roll of two ten-sided dice, but modified by the character’s Resolve score. It can result in the character being struck by crippling fear, gaining a nervous twitch, or even suffering an Adrenaline rush. 

Although it  is possible to gain relief from Stress through rest, but this will only be a few points, if that, at a time. Instead, there is a constant chance of a character gaining, whether from when the ship a character is in is hit, going without food and water, from certain locations and creatures, and so on. So it is likely that a character will be constantly accumulating Stress. The Panic Rolls will be occurring when the ship a character is in suffers a critical hit, he sees another character die, encountering a strange and terrifying alien, and so on. The There is some balancing between them across the four Classes, so that the Android has a better Fear Save, the Scientist a better Sanity Save, the Marine a better Combat Save, and so on, but the Save mechanics in Mothership are designed to be unforgiving.

Combat itself is pretty straightforward, generally involving Combat versus Armour Save opposed rolls. Weapons are as deadly as you would expect and include a mixture of military small arms as well as utility devices which in an emergency could be used as weapons, like rigging guns and hand welders. Where the rules for character creation, combat, stress, and panic are all relatively simple, those for starship creation are less so. Starships are treated basically like characters, but do require working through a step-by-step design process and a fair bit of arithmetic and balancing of numbers. The rules also cover starship travel as well as starship combat, which works mostly like personal combat.

In addition, there are rules for handling and hiring mercenaries and running them in combat. This includes multiple roles, so starship crew as well as soldiers. The Warden can also roll for their motivation and some sample Scum—cheap and barely competent—are given as quick and dirty examples.

And this is all that the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide covers. There is no advice for the Warden, no background, no threat or dangers defined, and no campaign set-ups. The sample mining ship lends itself to a certain type of campaign, working class and blue collar much like Alien, whilst the inclusion of the Mercenaries rules lends themselves to not only providing a military sci-fi campaign like Aliens, but also provides a ready source of NPCs. Yet what the rules do not allow is for characters to be created straight out of the book with the ability to command a ship. So a character is always going to be a member of the crew, not its captain, at least initially. This is despite the fact that the players are going to be running the ship anyway. Similarly, for all that Mothership is a horror roleplaying game, there is not a great deal beyond environmental dangers to be horrified about.

In terms of design and presentation, Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide could have been better. The design of the character with its flowchart for character creation is undeniably clever, but it is not as effectively carried out in other parts of the rules. There is one for combat on the Player’s Cheat Sheet on the book’s back cover, but not one for panic and stress. The one for starship design is too cramped to be of easy use. It needs an edit in places and the layout could have been better organised. That said, there are plenty of examples throughout that do show how the mechanics work as much as they hint at what the sort of threats the characters might face.

As rough as it is around the edges, there is a great to like about Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide. Its look and its mechanics effectively evoke the film sources it draws very heavily from, the blue collar Science Fiction movies of the seventies and eighties, but it leaves the Warden left wanting more—a lot more—when it comes to taking both characters and rules up against the type of horror it wants to portray. If the players have the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide, then the Warden deserves her own Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Warden’s Horror Guide. Although the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is not the Alien or Aliens roleplaying game, it is a very good evocation of its genre and its aesthetic.

Retrospective: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Perhaps the oddest licence to come out of E. Gary Gygax’s sojourn in Hollywood in the early 1980s was a pair of modules for Star Frontiers, TSR, Inc.’s Science Fiction roleplaying game of space opera and action-adventure. The licence was for one of the most revered Science Fiction films of all time and its sequel, the latter released in 1984, which probably explains why the licence was sought and won. The film was, of course, Stanley Kubrick’s highly regarded 2001: A Space Odyssey with the sequel being Peter Hyams’ 2010. As it is fifty years since the release of Kubrick’s classic, there is perhaps never a better time than now to review 2001: A Space Odyssey, ‘A Special Star Frontiers Adventure Module’.

Certainly, 2001: A Space Odyssey was special in terms of its support and production values. Not only does it include maps of the African Wilderness circa 4,000,000 B.C. and the Magnetic Anomaly Search Zone on the Lunar surface, but also a set of deckplans for the USS Discovery. The first of these on the inside of the module’s card cover, whilst the latter two are on the foldout poster map included with the module. The deckplans in particular are rather nicely done and do add atmosphere and verisimilitude to the 2001: A Space Odyssey scenario. In addition, the thirty-two page scenario is lavishly illustrated with black and white stills from the film, whilst the front cover is a full colour photograph, something that was rarely used by TSR, Inc. (Notable other uses include on the covers of the modules 2010 Odyssey Two and  CB1 Conan Unchained! and CB2 Conan Against Darkness, the pair of adventures written for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition prior to the release of David Cook’s highly regarded Conan Role-Playing Game.)

If physically well done, what then of the actual content and adventure? Written by Frank Mentzer for use with the Alpha Dawn Expanded Game Rules and Knight Hawks Campaign Book for Star Frontiers, the adventure takes place across four chapters. As with the film, these are ‘Dawn of Man’, ‘Lunar Excursion’, ‘Jupiter Mission’, and ‘Through the Star Gate’. Of the four, only the third and fourth are directly connected in terms of what the players will roleplay. In ‘Dawn of Man’ they will play the Man-apes evolved into hunter-gathers by the Monolith; in ‘Lunar Excursion’ they are freelancers racing to find a magnetic anomaly on the Moon; and in ‘Jupiter Mission’ and ‘Through the Star Gate’, they are the crew of the Discovery, first finding out about and then coping with HAL’s perfidy before entering the Star Gate.

To reflect the film, the 2001: A Space Odyssey module strips out the pulp sensibilities of Star Frontiers to present a dry, technical adventure. So no Void or Faster Than Light travel, and of course, no aliens in the traditional sense. What it does add is two new skills and three subskills. These are Astronomy and its subskills Identify and Calculate, and System Navigation and its Plot Course subskill. They are of course only used in the third chapter, ‘Jupiter Mission’. That said, there are suggestions as to how the module might be used with the other races to be found in Star Frontiers. The default is of course, for the player characters to be human and the events of the module to take place in the United Planetary Federation’s distant past.

The scenario opens with ‘Dawn of Man’, which takes place on the plains of the African Wilderness circa 4,000,000 B.C. The players take the roles of Man-apes, not far from extinction who must spend much of their day foraging for food and water, as well as contending with rival bands of Man-apes and carnivorous beasts. One day something is different—a strange slab of black rock stands in the valley—and this drives the Man-apes to change, to use other means to improve their chances of survival. This includes throwing rocks, using bones as weapons, realising the benefits of a carnivorous diet, and so on. And that is that, really. ‘Dawn of Man’ really does not give a great deal for the players to do. There is no carry over from this chapter to subsequent chapters and this is very much a vignette which simulates the events of the film. The suggestion that it might be a vignette is compounded by how ‘Dawn of Man’ is played and that is essentially as a wargame, using counters on the Africa Wilderness map. What this means is that there really is very little roleplaying involved in this chapter.

The wargaming carries over into the second chapter, ‘Lunar Excursion’. Now in the film, Doctor Heywood Floyd travels from the Earth to the Moon, is briefed about a magnetic anomaly in the Tycho crater, and when he visits it, it is revealed to be another slab of rock, a Monolith which sends a signal towards Jupiter. Here the players get to create their own characters and then have them hired by the American Office at Clavius Moonbase. The existence of a large magnetic anomaly has been detected and the Americans want to hire the characters as search teams to pinpoint its location. There is opportunity for roleplaying here as some of the characters may be contacted by the Chinese to locate the anomaly for them rather than the Americans, but what the act plays out as is a race from one crater to the next, scanning each crater for the anomaly, the aim being to find it before anyone else and claim it for whichever country the character is allied with, secretly, or not. There are also NPCs involved in this race, but their inclusion is all but irrelevant, for “If they reach the goal first, assume that they do not test it accurately and believe it to be a large (300-400 gamma) but not unnatural anomaly.” Again, it is a case of the player character actions not really mattering, a problem exacerbated by the fact that the players do not get to see the anomaly or see it send the signal.

The third chapter, ‘Jupiter Mission’, switches from player created characters to pre-generated characters, the crew of the USS Discovery. Initially, this will be Dave Bowman and Frank Poole, but later on, they will be joined by Doctor Walter Kaminski, William Hunter, and Peter Whitehead. There are two issues with this. First, the first half of the chapter involves just Bowman and Poole, so if the module is being played by more players, they have nothing to do… Second, there is very little to distinguish one character from another and so they all feel a bit flat. Fortunately, the chapter is far more involving and far more challenging, because as everyone knows, the HAL 9000 computer which runs the Discovery will try to kill the crew. So not only do the characters have to contend with that, they also have to fix and cope with the consequences of whatever HAL tries to do to them. This is probably the best chapter in the module, as it comes with some good advice on what HAL might do and there is a chance here that the characters might fail… There several points in this chapter which are lifted verbatim from the film, but much like the rest of the scenario, there is little that the players can do to avoid them.

If the module has so far felt like it was on rails, then that feeling is confirmed in the fourth and final chapter, ‘Through the Star Gate’. Here the surviving characters get to decide whether they want to stay aboard the Discovery or go through the Star Gate—and that is about that…

Oddly, given the licence, 2001: A Space Odyssey appears to have been released with little fanfare or press coverage at the time. Further, the module appears not have been widely released—certainly this reviewer only obtained his copies direct from an ex-TSR (UK), Inc. employee.

2001: A Space Odyssey is not a good scenario for too many reasons. One issue is the shift in tone it represents from Star Frontiers, dry and technical, rather than the excitement of its usual space opera and action-adventure. 2001: A Space Odyssey is hard rather than pulp science fiction and whether is that is a good fit for every group is another matter and a lesser matter in comparison to the adventure’s other issues.

Obviously, the adventure involves very little in terms of player character agency and roleplaying. Indeed, the first and second chapters involve little to no roleplaying whatsoever and whatever the player characters do by the end of chapter, it has real no effect upon the outcome of the module’s story anyway. This is because it adheres too closely to the plot and outcome of the film, with no opportunity for alternative events or ‘what-ifs’ to be explored, leaving it to run on rails. Further,  if the players have seen the film—a high likelihood even at the time of the module’s release—there is little incentive for them to play the module. There is also only the one real opportunity—in ‘Lunar Excursion’—for players to create and roleplay their own characters, so there is no opportunity for character growth or change. Even when the players  are given characters from the film to play, that is, the crew of the Discovery, they are just numbers and there are no backgrounds to any of the five crew. In fairness, three of the crew do not appear in the film and the two that do, are fairly buttoned down characters. As presented here, the quintet has a cypher-like quality.

As a technical manual for the film, the 2001: A Space Odyssey module has the details and deckplans of the USS Discovery to recommend it. As a scenario, 2001: A Space Odyssey is constrained by the limits of the film which fundamentally do not translate into a good playing or a good roleplaying experience. Whether this is due to the constraints placed on the project by the licensor is a matter of conjecture, but the end result is a simulation rather than a real roleplaying adventure.

Disappointingly Close To The Near Heavens

The advent of the Open Gaming Licence opens up a world of publishing possibilities for both creatives and other publishers. So it is with the Cepheus Engine System Reference Document from Samardan Press which details the core rules for a Classic Era Science Fiction 2D6-Based Open Gaming System. In other words, it allows the creation of Science Fiction gaming content which is compatible with Traveller, the first big Science Fiction roleplaying game, though not set in the same background as Traveller’s primary setting of the Third Imperium. So for example, Stellagama Publishing has its own setting in These Stars Are Ours! as does Battlefield Press with Warren C. Norwood’s Double Spiral War. Stygian Fox Publishing, best known for publishing the highly regarded Things We Leave Behind for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, also has its own setting in the form of ‘The Near Heavens’ of which A Life Worth Living is the first release for.

‘The Near Heavens’ offers “Hard Edged Science Fiction Roleplaying in the Near Heavens Setting of AD2151’. In the twenty-second century humanity has explored and colonised worlds out as far as Groombridge and Sirius, the limits of the authority of the Terran Associative. This is the governmental organisation which has come to regulate life on and off world as nation states shattered in the wake of a limited nuclear war in the twenty-first century. Although there are still nation state holdouts, what has replaced them across most of settled space are polities based around cultures, often fracturing out of their former states in a series of ‘Culture Wars’. These continue to this day, with some ‘Culture Wars’ actually serving as proxy wars for other polities or corporations. Such conflicts, typically low scale, offer employment opportunities for mercenaries. Interstellar travel is achieved via Jump Space, but a Jump takes weeks and requires passengers to travel in cryosleep as only Synths, or Synthetic androids, can withstand the rigours of Jump space. Passengers do not age in cryosleep, so frequent travellers are typically biologically younger than their chronological age. Space travel is not entirely safe and Jump inversion incidents, which occasionally result in the loss of passengers rather than a starship, are a known hazard.

A Life Worth Living is an introduction and scenario for ‘The Near Heavens’. It is a fairly linear affair designed to highlight various aspects of the setting and comes with a set of pre-generated player characters designed to play the scenario. They are Private Security Contractors—or mercenaries—who operate as a special operations cadre known as Black Maul. Currently on Groombridge after completing a contract, they receive messages from Terese de Sainte, an ex-member of the squad. Her messages make reference to the ‘Cabin in the Woods’, an incident on the world of Eden in the Groombridge system in which the squad was attacked by Edenite separatists and had to hold out until it was evacuated. It was a defining moment for the squad and the constant references to this incident suggest that she might be serious trouble.

The trail leads back to Earth and beyond, the mystery revolving around a McGuffin or two, both of which will remain elusive and just out of reach for much of A Life Worth Living. The plot is fairly straightforward and involves a good mix of interaction and combat as well as investigation. Whilst it has some decent moments, it does end on a downbeat note with little in the way of a decent climax. Both it and the ‘Near Heavens’ setting is supported by details of various drones and vehicles, ’Bots and Synthetics, and arms used by both the members of Black Maul and other Private Security Contractors. The description of the Synthetics includes the means to create them as characters—both player characters and NPCs—and it should be noted that one of the members of Black Maul is a Synth.

Although A Life Worth Living is designed to be played using the pre-generated characters provided, it can be played using characters that the players created themselves. They need to be mercenaries, primarily with ground combat related skills, but there are plenty options within that framework. The Game Master will need to work some of the scenario’s background into that of player characters’ background, especially to establish the relationship with Terese de Sainte. One way to do that is to stage the ‘Cabin in the Woods’ scene is as a prologue. This would strengthen the ties between the Terese de Sainte and the rest of Black Maul and so strengthen the motivations of the Black Maul squad members—that is, the player characters—to go to the help of Terese de Sainte at the start of the scenario. One of the players would have to roleplay Terese de Sainte as one of the members of Black Maul does not turn up until the closing moments of ‘Cabin in the Woods’ to rescue them. This would also strengthen the player characters’ ties to Terese de Sainte. Plus, it would work with the pre-generated characters as well as those created by the players.

Physically, A Life Worth Living is beautifully presented. The layout looks clean and the book is liberally illustrated with stunning artwork, the best of which is very well done as contemporary adverts. Unfortunately, A Life Worth Living is far from perfect. As pretty as the layout is—and it is undoubtedly pretty—look closer and it is just a bit rough around the edges. The editing, or lack thereof, is excruciating and leaves the reader wishing that time had been spent on this. It does not help that there are no page numbers and no index. For some gamers, the scenario’s linear plot may be more of an issue, but A Life Worth Living does involve a lot of space travel, going from point A to point B, and it really is an introductory scenario, so arguably, this can be overlooked.

The primary problem with the design of A Life Worth Living is that there is no explanation of the plot. Instead, the plot is explained as it progresses in the book and this is the most awkward means of presenting the plot. A summary of the plot would really have helped the Game Master prepare the scenario.

A Life Worth Living is probably the prettiest and most professional looking book ever released for use with the Cepheus Engine System, let alone for Traveller. Yet that professionalism is not carried off as far as the content is concerned. Although the it is far from unplayable, A Life Worth Living needs another edit and it needs just a little further development. 

Coming Together

Reunion is the first scenario for River of Heaven: Science-Fiction Roleplaying in the 28th Century, the near Transhuman Space Opera RPG published by D101 Games. Designed for four to six players, it is an introductory adventure that can be used as a one-off scenario, a convention scenario, or as the starting point for a campaign. They take the roles of crewmembers serving aboard the interstellar stepship, the Cape Verde, a vessel owned by House Harper-Yung, one of the ruling families on Jericho. Of course like any stepship, all interstellar piloting and navigation functions are carried out by a Pilot’s Guild provided Stepdaughter, who is literally plugged into the ship.

As Reunion opens, the crewmembers are waking up from Vitrification, the means of cryopreserving both passengers and crew for the long, typically years’ long, voyages between star systems. This is typically an unpleasant experience, those put under usually suffering from nausea, disorientation, and even temporary sleep sickness. Fortunately, the crew are trained to overcome these symptoms and quickly realise that something is amiss… First, the medical team that would usually be on hand to help revive them is not present. Second, they are in zero-g—which means that the ship is not accelerating. So where is the medical team and what has happened to the rest of the crew? Further, what is going on with the Cape Verde?

The truth of the matter is that the Cape Verde has been attacked and boarded. To say more would be to spoil the scenario, but the player character crew members need to find out by whom and why as well as what has happened to the rest of the crew. In doing so, they not only get to explore their stepship from nose to tail, they may also discover a deep, dark secret at the heart of River of Heaven. The player characters are free to pursue the plot in Reunion however they like, though much of the plot will proceed unless they intervene. There will certainly be locations aboard the Cape Verde that the player characters will want to visit—the bridge being an obvious example—and the scenario does include certain encounters to that end. For the most part, the scenario and its plot are location based, but this will diminish as the actions of the player character crew members impinge upon the plot. 

To support this set-up and plot, Reunion includes descriptions of, and deckplans for, the Cape Verde, plus the vessels used by the scenario’s adversaries. Also given are the stats and write-ups for the NPCs, both the crew members of the Cape Verde and of the adversary vessels. Last of all are the character sheets for the six pre-generated player characters.

Physically, Reunion is slightly underwhelming as the deckplans for the various spaceships and starships feel just a little too basic. The deckplans do break the book’s text as otherwise there are no illustrations. In places, Reunion could also do with another edit.

Reunion is a scenario in which the player characters really do need to be proactive in pursuing the mystery at its heart. If they prevaricate, there is every chance that they will find themselves adrift and potentially be unable to get back to civilisation. This is not so much of an issue in a one-shot or convention scenario, but in one intended as the start of a campaign…? Other than this, Reunion is a solidly done scenario with potential for some good action and revelations at the heart of the setting for River of Heaven.

A River of Heaven Dammed

The year is 2701 and mankind has reached the zenith of the Bright Age or Third Renaissance. In the past four centuries, world after world has been colonised and whole polities have declared their independence from Earth, but Faster Than Light travel remains a scientific impossibility. The first colony ships were slow, but in the wake of the near disastrous Solar System War that followed mankind’s first contact with the extra-terrestrial species known as the Spooks, recovered technology gave us the Step Drive and thus the Stepship. Piloted by Stepdaughters—each trained and provided by the Guild of Pilots and integrated into their vessels, these kilometre-long vessels are capable of achieving near Light Speed, cutting interstellar travel times by years—though passengers are still required to remain in cryogenic vitrification. This has enabled the Guild of Pilots to become one of the most powerful economic agencies across the River of Heaven, alongside the Guild of Engineers that maintains all Stepships  and the Guild of Communications that maintains the near instant Quantum Communications network along the 'River of Heaven'. More recently, the Machine Civilisation—descended from the first A.I.s built by mankind that escaped beyond the Solar System—returned to present us with amazing technological advances, including the Visser Cube. When linked Visser Cubes are placed in separate star systems, they enable interstellar travel via wormholes, further cutting travel times to as little as instantaneous or minutes.

The gifts from the Machine Civilisation have enabled the feudal corporate polity of the Kentauran Hegemony—centred on Alpha Centauri—to eclipse Earth and the Red Empire of Mars. This is a golden age, one that other worlds want to participate in, whilst others see the relationship between the Kentauran Hegemony and the Machine Civilisation as a threat to their individuality and their independence. Worse, away from the Cardinal Worlds of the Kentauran Hegemony, there are signs of interstellar piracy in the Outremer Worlds and a growing number of Renouncer Zealots—each intent on destroying all Artificial Intelligences.

This is the default setting for River of Heaven: Science-Fiction Roleplaying in the 28th Century, a far future, near Transhuman Science Fiction RPG published by D101 Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Notably, it is written by John Ossaway, who is best known for Cthulhu Rising, a near future setting in which mankind went out to the stars and discovered that the secrets best forgotten about the universe in the 1920s had a basis in a reality. It was a setting that showed much promise and was well supported by the author, but never received the support it deserved from Chaosium, Inc. bar a pair of Miskatonic University Library Association Monographs. The influences upon River of Heaven are as diverse as John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, Alistair Reynold’s Revelation Space series, and Frank Herbert’s Dune novels—the latter in particular.

Mechanically, River of Heaven uses D101 Games’ OpenQuest, a stripped down version of Chaosium, Inc.’s Basic Role-Play, the original generic RPG first published in 1980 and most recently republished in 2008 whose  mechanics underlie  so many of the RPGs published by Chaosium.  These mechanics are still percentile-based, but OpenQuest keeps the number of skills and possible modifiers to a minimum. For the most part it does this effectively, but its combat mechanics cannot escape a certain degree of extra complexity, surprisingly more so for personal combat rather than for vehicle or space combat. Personal combat is also very deadly, two shots or a single critical hit being enough to disable, if not kill, a player character. This is particularly important given that under OpenQuest and thus River of Heaven, the ‘monsters’ or opposition are often as deadly as the player characters. Indeed, the advice for the Games Master is to keep the number of threats or foes faced by the player characters to a relative few lest they be overwhelmed. Over all, the rules are simple and straightforward and for anyone who has played Call of Cthulhu or RuneQuest, very easy to pick up.

Character creation is also simple. A player selects  Human Subspecies—Baseline Humans (from Earth or Outremer Worlds), Genies (most of humanity from the Cardinal Worlds), Skinnies (microgravity environments), Tweaks (bio-engineered pilots, soldiers, or for Zero-G environments), or Bioroids (biological robots) and either buys his character’s stats from a pool of points or rolls for them. Every character receives the same pools of points to spend in turn on his Resistances and his Combat, Knowledge, and Practical skills. A character also has a pool of points to spend on Augmentations—Biotech, Cyberware, and Nanotech like a GPS, Hypaedia (personal encyclopaedia), improved organs, subdermal communications, and so on. Many of these need to be activated to work and for every one installed, it pushes a character towards a personal singularity at which point he becomes Transhuman and a Games Master NPC. Every character has two Hero Points that can be spent to gain a re-roll, downgrade a Major Wound to a normal wound, and to avoid death. Options allow for Personality Traits that can triggered for skill bonuses and Motives that once fulfilled grant Improvement Points which are spent to better skills.

Our sample character is a minor member of House Harper-Yung of the Kentauran Hegemony. Of the Noble caste, he was caught up in a sex scandal two years ago and was exiled on a low remittance. Thus he has to be careful when he is in the Kentauran Hegemony. He is persuasive and well-mannered and prior to his exile was training to work in the family corporation. He had barely begun his studies when the scandal occurred. Now his primary skills are his charm, and his swordsmanship and ability to play chess.

Xiang Tu Harper
Human subspecies: Genie
STR 16 CON 13 DEX 18 SIZ 11
INT 17 POW 12 CHA 17
BioEnergy 12 Transhuman Points 6
RESISTANCES
Dodge 53% (+20%) Persistence 37% Resilience 35%
COMBAT SKILLS
Close Combat 64% Ranged Combat 45% Unarmed Combat 44% Heavy Weapons 17%
KNOWLEDGE SKILLS
Computer 17%, Culture (Kentauran) 47%, Culture (Other) 27%, Language (English) 67%, Language (Mandarin) 37%, Natural Sciences 27%, Religion 27%, Religion (Other) 17%, Technology 17%, Science 17%
PRACTICAL SKILLS
Athletics 39%, Craft 27%, Deception 35%, Drive 35%, Engineering (Type) 17 %, EVA 45%, Influence 47%, Medicine 27%, Mechanisms 35%, Perception 34%, Performance 27%, Pilot 37%, Streetwise 39%, Trade 37%
AUGMENTATIONS
Beacon/1, Combat Reflexes/2 (+4 to Combat Order), Cortical Shunt/1, Pheromones/2
Motivation – to be restored to House Harper-Yung

River of Heaven’s chronology runs from fifty years hence up to the early years of the Fourth Millennium. It is fairly detailed, whilst still allowing room for the Games Master to run his games. The setting at the time of the Bright Age is similarly detailed—if not more so—and that is something of a problem because River of Heaven does not quite get the presentation of its setting right. The primary focus of the RPG’s setting is physical in nature. Now this is understandable. After all, River of Heaven is a near space Science Fiction game set on other worlds, so some detail is needed about the physical nature of these worlds and the star systems they are in. Yet River of Heaven concentrates on the physical details—such as each star’s Metallicity and each planet’s Obliquity to orbit—at the expense of other background detail. Again, this is a Science Fiction RPG and some of these details are needed when running a Science Fiction campaign.

Yet others are not and what is lost in this focus is a feel for the people and organisations of the River of Heaven as well as their aims and objectives. So what are the aims and beliefs of the governments and corporations of the Kentauran Hegemony or the Empire of Mars? What does a Guild Engineer know and believe? Why does a Renouncer hate the Artificial Intelligences used throughout the River of Heaven? What does the Machine Civilisation want? To an extent, some of these questions are addressed in the Friends and Foes chapter under the individual entries, but even the given answers feel underwritten and unhelpful. This is despite the back cover blurb suggesting various roles that a player could take on, including “a crew member on an interstellar trader, a member of the mysterious Engineers’ Guild, a body-hopping Intercessionist agent – out to manipulate human cultures to its own secret ends, a Renouncer Zealot – intent on destroying Artificial Intelligence in all its forms, or perhaps one of the Reclaimers – planetary engineers dedicated to terraforming any viable planet they happen upon…” Unfortunately, River of Heaven just does not provide enough information or advice on how to create and portray such characters, and similarly, not enough information for the Games Master in creating interesting NPCs and plots.

Creating an interstellar Science Fiction RPG in which there is no means of Faster-Than-Light travel was always going to be a challenge because Slower-Than-Light makes travel from one star system to another very slow and thus slows a story down. River of Heaven works around this with the advanced technology of the Visser Cube, but only to an extent, so that interstellar space travel becomes more of a storytelling device for the Games Master. Where River of Heaven is actually interesting is in that it presents several centuries of playable history. The default time period is the Bright Age during which contact with the Machine Civilisation advanced humanity by several centuries, in particular enabling near instantaneous interstellar travel. Yet other timeframes also lend themselves to campaigns. for example, during the Solar System War against the Spooks in the late twenty-third century and then later during the Renouncer War at the end of the third millennium. Of course, the Bright Age framework suggests its own campaign possibilities, such as merchant traders—though the extreme high cost of starship ownership means that the player characters are likely to working for someone else or renting space aboard a Step Ship; participating in the ongoing cold war between the Kentauran Hegemony and the Empire of Mars; and archaeologists exploring the Solar System and the ravaged Earth for its secrets.

Physically, River of Heaven is a brightly and breezily presented. The artwork is decent, though it may not be to everyone’s taste. Unfortunately, the editing inconsistent and the presentation suffers towards the end of the book, as does the writing, almost as if the layout artist and editor began to lose interest. If there is one thing definitely missing from River of Heaven, it is a star map. Which is an odd omission given that the RPG is meant to be set in an accurate representation of the stars near Earth.

As a Science Fiction setting, River of Heaven benefits from a simple, but familiar set of mechanics and a far future setting that is interesting and not without potential. Unfortunately, the setting of  River of Heaven: Science-Fiction Roleplaying in the 28th Century feels undeveloped and under-presented, and until the author and D101 Games can give us better support, is something for the Games Master to develop.