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Jovian Chronicles is one of the anime-style games that Dream Pod 9 publishes, the other being Heavy Gear. Jovian Chronicles covers the adventure of humanity in the early years of the 23rd Century. It contains most of the standard staples of anime gaming, mecha, space ships, and lots of people with oddly colored hair.

The book starts with the standard bit of fiction, though Dream Pod 9 is very good about their fiction pieces giving a good feel for the setting. Then we have a section covering the history of the Solar system up to the time presented in the book. This covers the Odyssey that comes from the original Mekton Z books for JC. The background material for the book is excellent, if a little spotty in some places. The book covers most of the nations of the Solar System in a two page overview, with the exception of the two main adversaries f the setting, CEGA and the Jovian Confederation. These two get a more detailed overview of four pages. A little skimpy, but Dream Pod 9 packs a lot of info into those pages.

After the background section, the book goes into the actual rules system. The system is one of the best that I have seen. The Silhouette system is elegant, and easy to understand. It consists of rolling various amounts of dice and taking only the highest as the pertinent roll. The only time the others come into effect if more than one six is rolled, then you get to add one to the final number for each extra six that is rolled. The amount of dice rolled is directly related to the level of the skill that the character has, with bonuses to the roll for the attributes that modifies the skill. Attributes are based around a zero-average system, where the normal human will have a 0, and people that are better or worse, get either plusses or minuses to the attribute. A very simplistic system, but that works for the game.

After the role-playing rules, the book goes into the tactical rules for the game. The tac rules are very neat and simple, though they do resemble the Heavy Gear tac rules already published, with the added space combat rules. The vector movement rules are easy to use, though it might take you more than one reading to understand them, and it will take a real game session to fully understand the implications of the movement.

After the tac rules comes the mecha. This section details all of the terms for the reader to understand the mecha when they come to them, and also goes over a bit of the technology that is used in the setting. Then comes the most common ships and mecha of the setting, including the Pathfinder Alpha that is pictured so prominently on the cover of the book.

The one thing that is missing from this book is the vaunted Dream Pod 9 vehicle construction system (VCS for short). Though that is not really missed much, since they packed the book full of other things, and they give the VCS a more thorough going over in the Jovian Chronicles Companion.

The one thing that really disappointed me about the book was the lack of art in the inside of the book. Having collected quite a bit of DP9's other books, this books art was very sparse. The art that is does have is very good, and up to the quality of DP9. I would have liked more art to get a better feel for the setting, but the book is too filled with other information that I can't really think of anything that I would have liked them to cut out to add more art.

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

Rules and Background for Jovian Chronicles
Author: Phillipe Boulle, Jean Carrieres, Wunji Lau, Marc A. Vezina Category: game Company/Publisher: Dream Pod 9 Line: Jovian Chronicles Cost: $29.95 Page count: 232 ISBN: 1-896776-13-2 SKU: DP9-301 Capsule Review by Scott Payne on 08/05/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Space Anime Espionage	Jovian Chronicles is one of the anime-style games that Dream Pod 9 publishes, the other being Heavy Gear. Jovian Chronicles covers the adventure of humanity in the early years of the 23rd Century. It contains most of the standard staples of anime gaming, mecha, space ships, and lots of people with oddly colored hair. The book starts with the standard bit of fiction, though Dream Pod 9 is very good about their fiction pieces giving a good feel for the setting. Then we have a section covering the history of the Solar system up to the time presented in the book. This covers the Odyssey that comes from the original Mekton Z books for JC. The background material for the book is excellent, if a little spotty in some places. The book covers most of the nations of the Solar System in a two page overview, with the exception of the two main adversaries f the setting, CEGA and the Jovian Confederation. These two get a more detailed overview of four pages. A little skimpy, but Dream Pod 9 packs a lot of info into those pages. After the background section, the book goes into the actual rules system. The system is one of the best that I have seen. The Silhouette system is elegant, and easy to understand. It consists of rolling various amounts of dice and taking only the highest as the pertinent roll. The only time the others come into effect if more than one six is rolled, then you get to add one to the final number for each extra six that is rolled. The amount of dice rolled is directly related to the level of the skill that the character has, with bonuses to the roll for the attributes that modifies the skill. Attributes are based around a zero-average system, where the normal human will have a 0, and people that are better or worse, get either plusses or minuses to the attribute. A very simplistic system, but that works for the game. After the role-playing rules, the book goes into the tactical rules for the game. The tac rules are very neat and simple, though they do resemble the Heavy Gear tac rules already published, with the added space combat rules. The vector movement rules are easy to use, though it might take you more than one reading to understand them, and it will take a real game session to fully understand the implications of the movement. After the tac rules comes the mecha. This section details all of the terms for the reader to understand the mecha when they come to them, and also goes over a bit of the technology that is used in the setting. Then comes the most common ships and mecha of the setting, including the Pathfinder Alpha that is pictured so prominently on the cover of the book. The one thing that is missing from this book is the vaunted Dream Pod 9 vehicle construction system (VCS for short). Though that is not really missed much, since they packed the book full of other things, and they give the VCS a more thorough going over in the Jovian Chronicles Companion. The one thing that really disappointed me about the book was the lack of art in the inside of the book. Having collected quite a bit of DP9's other books, this books art was very sparse. The art that is does have is very good, and up to the quality of DP9. I would have liked more art to get a better feel for the setting, but the book is too filled with other information that I can't really think of anything that I would have liked them to cut out to add more art. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Rules and Background for Jovian Chronicles