The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Two Areas (Antarctica and Oceania), a few religious movements and sects, a few more pages about spacepiracy, astronomical data, popular sports in the 22nd Century and an adventure (eventhough the latter is a bit of a disappointment). Did I mention the short article on mass-transit systems, new vehicles and equipment? And the GM´s Screen has everything you need printed on it.

I admit that the data in this booklet seems to be what WW has left out of the Trinity rulebook, but you have to stop somewhere. Besides, discussing marketing-policies is not my intention, so I will ignore those. So one question remains: is it useful?

Antarctica an Oceania get a description, not much, but enough to have a picture of living there and a few plothooks. It was sufficient for me to make adventures there and capturing the feel for the players.

The section about religions descibes those in a way to get a rough idea of their ideals, goals or whaterver. Also useful if you consider that religion does influence our lives (come on, everybody is happy to have a few days off, when Chrismas time is here), so why not ask a player: `Hey what does your character believe in?´ Makes them much more real persons even if he answers: `Nothing` - Well then that´s his point of view.

The section about spacepiracy is not bad too, describing who in the general sense gets a pirate and why, their motivations and diverse tactics. Well, to the newbie GM this tactics part is not bad I think, because not everyone of us had a career as a pirate in a former live. So it is written how they approach (different tactics in deep space and close to earth), what they do once aboard (eventhogh that´s not hard to imagine) and how military or police vessels react. This part ends with, guess what? - Right, a template for pirates and a short description of typical pirate vessels.

The equipment sector covers a few new underwater vehicles and some new personal equipment. Nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking, but nice.

The astronomical data covers the planetary positions and their change over one game year and traveltimes from planet to planet. Also, there are a few paragraphs about exposure to vacuum and hard radiation (Best thing is you avoid those). Those are theories but quite ´realistical´ and plausible.

Then there are three kind of sports described, which too makes the gamesetting a bit more colourful.

The adventure is a seperate thing: The basic idea is of average quality, it reminds me of a bad Star Trek episode (the characters are a kind of lab rats in a holochamber and must find their way out). Maybe this sounds like an interesting adventure but the problem is, that it is very very ´constructed´ - I mean there are situations when the book says (in a sense) the players have to do this and if not, make them do it. The whole thing is built upon such ´desicions´ and so I have to say that this adventure needs quite a work to make it more ´natural´. Besides I think its a bad adventure for beginners, there are better ways to introduce players to Trinity.

Well and the screen: as I said it has everything on it and I´m quite glad they gave the weapons chart on it too - why? I must say that I had quite often the question when a player got a new ´toy´ that was like this: ´Can I conceal this Pistol in my pocket or is it too big?´ Or ´What was the Damagecode for this weapon?´ et cetera. So just one glace and I knew the answer, no need to look it up in a book. And for spontaneous enemies it´s worth gold - What else needs a thug than Dex, Firearms and the Weapon he´s carrying (ok, and a good description). The only problem I have with it is the size. Because of the smaller size of Trinity books this one´s also smaller :-(

So returning to the question ´is it useful?´ I have to say that it was for me. Another reason for me why I did this review and why I wrote so in detail about it (for a GM screen), was (I have to admit it) the review of Scott Shafer. This is definitely not one of the best supplements on earth, but there are things out there that are much worse - and I did´t even mention the interesting section about space architecture and famous buildings in space :-)

The average rating for substance is because of the adventure, which is wasted space, the remaining book is better.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Hidden Agendas
Author: Andrew Bates and others Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Cost: 14.95 Page count: 64 and GM´s Screen ISBN: 1-56504-758-3 Playtest Review by Attila Toth on 04/01/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction	Two Areas (Antarctica and Oceania), a few religious movements and sects, a few more pages about spacepiracy, astronomical data, popular sports in the 22nd Century and an adventure (eventhough the latter is a bit of a disappointment). Did I mention the short article on mass-transit systems, new vehicles and equipment? And the GM´s Screen has everything you need printed on it. I admit that the data in this booklet seems to be what WW has left out of the Trinity rulebook, but you have to stop somewhere. Besides, discussing marketing-policies is not my intention, so I will ignore those. So one question remains: is it useful? Antarctica an Oceania get a description, not much, but enough to have a picture of living there and a few plothooks. It was sufficient for me to make adventures there and capturing the feel for the players. The section about religions descibes those in a way to get a rough idea of their ideals, goals or whaterver. Also useful if you consider that religion does influence our lives (come on, everybody is happy to have a few days off, when Chrismas time is here), so why not ask a player: `Hey what does your character believe in?´ Makes them much more real persons even if he answers: `Nothing` - Well then that´s his point of view. The section about spacepiracy is not bad too, describing who in the general sense gets a pirate and why, their motivations and diverse tactics. Well, to the newbie GM this tactics part is not bad I think, because not everyone of us had a career as a pirate in a former live. So it is written how they approach (different tactics in deep space and close to earth), what they do once aboard (eventhogh that´s not hard to imagine) and how military or police vessels react. This part ends with, guess what? - Right, a template for pirates and a short description of typical pirate vessels. The equipment sector covers a few new underwater vehicles and some new personal equipment. Nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking, but nice. The astronomical data covers the planetary positions and their change over one game year and traveltimes from planet to planet. Also, there are a few paragraphs about exposure to vacuum and hard radiation (Best thing is you avoid those). Those are theories but quite ´realistical´ and plausible. Then there are three kind of sports described, which too makes the gamesetting a bit more colourful. The adventure is a seperate thing: The basic idea is of average quality, it reminds me of a bad Star Trek episode (the characters are a kind of lab rats in a holochamber and must find their way out). Maybe this sounds like an interesting adventure but the problem is, that it is very very ´constructed´ - I mean there are situations when the book says (in a sense) the players have to do this and if not, make them do it. The whole thing is built upon such ´desicions´ and so I have to say that this adventure needs quite a work to make it more ´natural´. Besides I think its a bad adventure for beginners, there are better ways to introduce players to Trinity. Well and the screen: as I said it has everything on it and I´m quite glad they gave the weapons chart on it too - why? I must say that I had quite often the question when a player got a new ´toy´ that was like this: ´Can I conceal this Pistol in my pocket or is it too big?´ Or ´What was the Damagecode for this weapon?´ et cetera. So just one glace and I knew the answer, no need to look it up in a book. And for spontaneous enemies it´s worth gold - What else needs a thug than Dex, Firearms and the Weapon he´s carrying (ok, and a good description). The only problem I have with it is the size. Because of the smaller size of Trinity books this one´s also smaller :-( So returning to the question ´is it useful?´ I have to say that it was for me. Another reason for me why I did this review and why I wrote so in detail about it (for a GM screen), was (I have to admit it) the review of Scott Shafer. This is definitely not one of the best supplements on earth, but there are things out there that are much worse - and I did´t even mention the interesting section about space architecture and famous buildings in space :-) The average rating for substance is because of the adventure, which is wasted space, the remaining book is better. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average)

Hidden Agendas