Change is inevitable. Thankfully for every door closing, one very conveniently opens. It is almost like someone has a plan somewhere. Maybe that is what they refer to as "intelligent design".
The Champions campaign that I have been involved in for a couple of years is finished. The game will hold special places in my heart. I love Champions. I love non-conventional supers (my character was a repressed gay man struggling with his sexuality and leaving his wife whom he still loved). I loved the opportunity to play with my real-world wife (one of the better roleplayers I have ever met, if a bit too serious at times). The GM was fabulous, the other players were great; but nothing lasts forever.
Three weeks later I turned 40. A huge amount of reflection, thanks, and a few drinks later I am pretty sure I am not only the luckiest man I know, I am also the most blessed. I have the aforementioned great wife (geek chicks are the best), I have avoided death a few times (the car accident was unlucky, but the change in my life was retrospectively fantastic), my kids make me proud every day (few parenthetical comments could do them justice), and my internal monolog gets better every day ("Fly Heisenberg Airlines, we don’t know where we are, but we’re making damned good time."1).
Somewhere along the way we have lost Aeon. My esteemed editor at RPGnet for the last two years has finally been pulled in one too many directions and snapped. He has shuffled off toward world domination leaving Shannon Applecine to clean up after me. I only hope that I do Aeon proud, and do not make Shannon too crazy with my weird deadline antics.
Last week in a fit of hangover after my 40th birthday party I think I overcame the stumbling block that has been hindering the development of Heisenberg. What is Heisenberg you ask? Why it is my own SF RPG currently in development. I wrote about it a little bit in the September column but now it is better formed. I now know what the spaceships generally look like. I know what the core mechanic looks like. I know what the skill system looks like. So amongst all of this change life goes on.
In the midst of all of this I received a review copy of Etherscope, from Goodman Games. It is a gorgeous game. Hardbound with an extremely evocative cover by Jonathan Hill, the interior art is great, the layout clear, the printing of good quality. Even the binding seems good; admittedly I have only had it for two weeks, but some of the review copies I get come out of the box with crap bindings falling apart. So what is inside this slick package? Goodman goodness, but who are they?
If you have not been watching, Goodman Games has been spending the last few years creating the best old-school adventure modules for any DDL world extant. Dungeon Crawl Classics have resurrected the idea of a profitable adventure module. For close to a decade the idea of a line of adventure modules without a supporting background or overarching metaplot was the surest way to kill a game. Now not only are the Dungeon Crawl Classics selling well, but they are also doing modules for games like Castles & Crusades and Iron Heroes. Add to this mix dinosaurs, dragon mechs, and Castle Blackmoor and you get an idea of the scope of what they are doing.
Etherscope takes place in 1984, which is cool enough by itself, then you realize that it isn't our 1984 at all.
For some reason the idea of clockwork machinery and cyberpunk work together. The idea of steampunk, as it were, has been well explored before. Many games have even made significant contributions, in my opinion, to the genre. Still many of them are stale. They all use London as the center of the world. They all use clockworks to simply replicate the virtual technologies of cyberpunk. Few take these ideas ad try and create something compelling. The idea of the Great Metropolis alone is enough reason to nod in the direction of the creators. Not taking the easy road (Victorian London is startlingly well documented) and instead making the cities of the northern industrial center of England their own was a good move.
The mechanism (dramatic and otherwise) of the Etherscope, the ether, and the method in which these interactions is handled is excellent. Too bad it is a DDL game. One of the things that we need less of, as cool as this one is, are DDL products. Etherscope is OGL, the oddest of the DDL compromises, which overall could doom it to obscurity. So few DDL products stand out, and so few are carried widely in retail stores, that while once OGL was guaranteed to get attention, not it is almost similarly guaranteed to kill interest. At the very least, it may drive many interested consumers away, which would be a pity.
All prestige classes and artifacts aside, this is a great setting and a wonderful treatment of steampunk. It also brings a lot of new stuff to the table. Personally I would have much rather seen this as a True20 or Superlink title. Converting it wouldn't be hard and if the top secret D&D 4e rumors are to be believed, and they are; then DDL games as a whole are limited in the extreme. By the time 4th Edition comes out (probably in 2007) OGL, D&D Licensed, and D20 will all be completely history. Hasbro has been trying to close Pandora's box since Peter left, to no avail thankfully, and smart companies are setting the groundwork to bail out when 4e debuts. I hope that Goodman is looking elsewhere as well, because it would be a shame to see the kind of talent and vision they have simply fall out of the running.
In case you think I have no complaints about Etherscope you are wrong. I have two. First, the technology system and gadget rules are woefully inadequate for a setting so dependant on technology. Second, Even though they address the place of Britain in the larger world, I still think the game is a bit too Anglo-centric. That could just be my being too sensitive about the whole thing.
So if you think that there is still some life in the DDL bandwagon, you love steampunk, and you want a very well thought gaming world I think Etherscope is for you, and you first adventure is free ...
[1] This quote is from Pat Cadigan’s Synners; a fantastic book.
