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Millennium's End v2.0 is a very cleanly designed and organized book: Rules through the text are boldfaced and clarifying examples in the sidebars accompany the text. The Table of Contents is solid, and the index is extraordinarily thorough; It is hard to not find what you're looking for in this book. And what's between the covers? Well, let's have a look:

Chapter 1 -- Character Creation

The end product of character creation -- Allocation of dice, rolling Attributes, determining Secondary Attributes, and buying skills -- is a professional and competent (but by no means super-human) individual. The process can take a while -- especially tuning skill levels to get exactly what you want, but the result is just that: The character you want.

On a min-maxing note, because skill points are largely dependent upon the character's education, without some application of common sense the most deadly thing in the game can be a Ph.D.

Chapter 2 -- Game Rules

The Skill/Subskill system in Millennium's End is a reasonably thorough cataloguing of the character's knowledge and abilities. Skill checks (like Attribute checks) are made with percentile dice, and are the core of the system. It's easy to understand and to use, and adding any skills that may have been overlooked is not difficult at all.

The vehicle rules focus on realism in chase scenes (and resultant crashes). The vehicle stats have been derived from real-world performance numbers, so in game a Lamborghini Diablo will run out of gas about 400 km before a Honda Civic will -- just like in real life.

Chapter 3 -- Combat

Combat is visual, from the attacker's perspective. The attacker centers the appropriate Attack Overlay (Hand-to-Hand Swing, Point-Blank/Hand-to-Hand, 11-30 meters, 31-100 meters, 101-300 meters, or 300+ meters) on the desired aim point on or near their target. A check of the appropriate combat skill indicates whether and where the attack struck its target. It's an engaging, realistic, and fast paced system that's very flexible. The targets printed on the inside back cover don't address the attacker having a raised or lowered vantage point -- even after the GM is advised to use three dimensions in combat situations -- but they're a good start.

The damage system is also quite good, though the damage table can be a bit awkward at first and having a calculator on hand is a very good idea. A wounded character suffers impairment to some or all of their actions (depending upon the wound's location) and severe wounds can also cause blood loss, stun, maiming, the character to go into shock, and/or death. A fire fight is realistically deadly, so combat is pretty much a last resort.

The section explaining silencing firearms demystifies the subject by explaining the three sources of noise in a firearm's operation and ways of dealing with them. Rules for body armor, cover, aiming, and explosives are all realistic and clear (the martial arts rules seem to need a re-read or two before they can be comfortably used in play but they're also quite good), and the elegant treatment of optical sights -- divide the distance to the target by the scope's power and use the overlay for that effective range -- is belied by its simplicity. The usefulness of a laser sight, on the other hand, is exaggerated.

Chapter 4 -- The Millennium's End Campaign

This chapter concentrates on the differences between the early 1990's (as that's when it was written) and the game's 1999. Though interesting and plausible -- and often not far off -- the setting's near future history loses some of its impact having become an alternate past. The advice for planning and running Millennium's End is good, and BlackEagle/BlackEagle -- which initially seemed like an excuse for why the characters keep getting into trouble together -- is fleshed out well enough to make it a useful tool in a campaign.

Conclusion:

Millennium's End is an excellent game set in the near contemporary world, and a game to buy for the system even if you aren't too fond of technothrillers. It's realistic and flexible -- the game's strongest aspect -- and can easily be used, practically without modification, anywhere between World War I to the near edge of Cyberpunk. Historically accurate vehicle and weapon stats can be generated using the design tables CEE has posted online (or you can email me for them) and adding cybernetics, for those so inclined, shouldn't be too tricky. Also, using its realistic combat system in a horror game does have an undeniable appeal.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Millennium's End v2.0: Modern Roleplaying in the Technothriller Genre
Author: Charles Ryan Category: game Company/Publisher: Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment Cost: $25.00 Page count: 200 ISBN: 0-9628748-5-X Capsule Review by Andrew Baker on 12/06/98. Genre tags: Modern_day Espionage Conspiracy	Millennium's End v2.0 is a very cleanly designed and organized book: Rules through the text are boldfaced and clarifying examples in the sidebars accompany the text. The Table of Contents is solid, and the index is extraordinarily thorough; It is hard to not find what you're looking for in this book. And what's between the covers? Well, let's have a look: Chapter 1 -- Character Creation The end product of character creation -- Allocation of dice, rolling Attributes, determining Secondary Attributes, and buying skills -- is a professional and competent (but by no means super-human) individual. The process can take a while -- especially tuning skill levels to get exactly what you want, but the result is just that: The character you want. On a min-maxing note, because skill points are largely dependent upon the character's education, without some application of common sense the most deadly thing in the game can be a Ph.D. Chapter 2 -- Game Rules The Skill/Subskill system in Millennium's End is a reasonably thorough cataloguing of the character's knowledge and abilities. Skill checks (like Attribute checks) are made with percentile dice, and are the core of the system. It's easy to understand and to use, and adding any skills that may have been overlooked is not difficult at all. The vehicle rules focus on realism in chase scenes (and resultant crashes). The vehicle stats have been derived from real-world performance numbers, so in game a Lamborghini Diablo will run out of gas about 400 km before a Honda Civic will -- just like in real life. Chapter 3 -- Combat Combat is visual, from the attacker's perspective. The attacker centers the appropriate Attack Overlay (Hand-to-Hand Swing, Point-Blank/Hand-to-Hand, 11-30 meters, 31-100 meters, 101-300 meters, or 300+ meters) on the desired aim point on or near their target. A check of the appropriate combat skill indicates whether and where the attack struck its target. It's an engaging, realistic, and fast paced system that's very flexible. The targets printed on the inside back cover don't address the attacker having a raised or lowered vantage point -- even after the GM is advised to use three dimensions in combat situations -- but they're a good start. The damage system is also quite good, though the damage table can be a bit awkward at first and having a calculator on hand is a very good idea. A wounded character suffers impairment to some or all of their actions (depending upon the wound's location) and severe wounds can also cause blood loss, stun, maiming, the character to go into shock, and/or death. A fire fight is realistically deadly, so combat is pretty much a last resort. The section explaining silencing firearms demystifies the subject by explaining the three sources of noise in a firearm's operation and ways of dealing with them. Rules for body armor, cover, aiming, and explosives are all realistic and clear (the martial arts rules seem to need a re-read or two before they can be comfortably used in play but they're also quite good), and the elegant treatment of optical sights -- divide the distance to the target by the scope's power and use the overlay for that effective range -- is belied by its simplicity. The usefulness of a laser sight, on the other hand, is exaggerated. Chapter 4 -- The Millennium's End Campaign This chapter concentrates on the differences between the early 1990's (as that's when it was written) and the game's 1999. Though interesting and plausible -- and often not far off -- the setting's near future history loses some of its impact having become an alternate past. The advice for planning and running Millennium's End is good, and BlackEagle/BlackEagle -- which initially seemed like an excuse for why the characters keep getting into trouble together -- is fleshed out well enough to make it a useful tool in a campaign. Conclusion: Millennium's End is an excellent game set in the near contemporary world, and a game to buy for the system even if you aren't too fond of technothrillers. It's realistic and flexible -- the game's strongest aspect -- and can easily be used, practically without modification, anywhere between World War I to the near edge of Cyberpunk. Historically accurate vehicle and weapon stats can be generated using the design tables CEE has posted online (or you can email me for them) and adding cybernetics, for those so inclined, shouldn't be too tricky. Also, using its realistic combat system in a horror game does have an undeniable appeal. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Millennium's End v2.0: Modern Roleplaying in the Technothriller Genre