The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I should first point out that this games was sent to me as a gift, because he knows the author and so could get some free copies. This means that I was potentially more welcoming to this product since I didn't actually pay money for it, but it also means that the product was not selected by me as something I would prefer, and thus I was completely without expectations as to its content and quality.

It also meant that I had absolutely no background with the RPG for which this adventure is written. Yes, that's right: much to my shame, I have never played or read anything of the most venerable SF RPG, Traveller. However, after reading this adventure, I am desperately looking for a copy, because I really want to run it.

To me, RPGs are not just about one thing, they're about everything. I don't play RPGs to just play wargames, or just play strategy games, or just do character play, or just tell stories or just anything: I play them to do all of these at the same time. So for me, the perfect adventure is one that allows for any and all of these elements to be put into play at the same time, with a structure that permits you to choose just how much combat, strategy, character play, story, humour and drama you want to include, such that it best suits a given group. Very few adventures manage this. This one not only has the whole kit and kaboodle available, but it does all of them with great style.

The adventure was written by David Thomas, and produced by BITS, the British Isles Traveller Support group. Expecting a fan-type production, I was astounded to see that this book was very well produced indeed. The cover featured some stunning artwork by Jesse DeGraaf, which really gives the Traveller feel. The inside text is in a prosaic font, but easy to read and free of typos or other mishaps. Stats, boxed text and important asides are all displayed in different texts, making it a joy to read and very easy to reference during play. The maps are functional and clear, if occasionally ugly, and are nicely collected in the back, along with NPC stats and hand-outs.

The book itself is only 21cm x 15 cm, making it easy to carry, and, at only 40 pages, is a short and easy read. Don't let this fool you though - the good writing, the densely packed information and the way the story is presented means that this adventure is far from lacking meat. In many cases, only the barest and most important facts are listed, or just the sequence of critical events, with the matter-of-fact style of a laundry list. The GM is expected to fill in the rest themselves. As such, the only fault with the writing is that too much stuff is crammed into too little text.

This becomes a major problem in some sections: at one point, and entire battle is summarised in a few sentences, in another, a whole day of black-market dealing is left totally up to the GM to fill in. This causes important and helpful information to be skimped and makes visualising the nature and flow of the larger and more complex set-ups difficult. In such sections, the GM is going to have to do a fair bit of work beforehand creating the details themselves. While this shouldn't prove too difficult, this is probably the biggest problem with the book overall. On the other hand, it is a welcome change from the flowery circumlocution which plagues this hobby, and some GMs do prefer to work this way. And it does allow for around 8 to 12 four-hour sessions (or around 3 months play) to be condensed into 30 A5 pages.

The only other fault I have of the book's design is the positioning of the pre-gen PC descriptions. They aren't split up on one page each, which makes photocopying them a real bugger. In fact, since the stats are listed so minimally, it would probably be necessary to transcribe all this information to character sheets, which would be an annoying and time consuming task.

However, the pre-gen PCs themselves are excellent: not just well designed, but well written, with their quirks and personalities wired into their stats, making them very easy to express. They are also the first example of the wonderful modularity this adventure possesses. If you like pure dungeon-bashing, you couldn't want a better crew: they are all competent warriors, but each have their own specialities and skills to make them distinct. At the next level, they have a simple archetypal personality that allows for some simple but evocative roleplaying: the ex-cop, the grizzled soldier, the psycho marine, the zealotic activist, and so on. At the next level, they have interesting histories and developed personalities for some hard roleplaying along with the hard combat. Finally, these are also really deep and conflicting characters with real human desires and quirks that could keep a Wraith player busy for months, yet they never become overblown or overdone, as so often happens. There really is something for everybody here.

Another example of modularity: the characters are all Vagr - uplifted anthropomorphic dogs - who are all on the sucky end of the social spectrum. This allows your gung-ho gamer types to howl and sniff and enjoy the kind of story leads you get from an orc character in D&D, while your die-hard story-tellers can try and get inside the whole pack-mindset, and revel in a story about the real human cost of prejudice and bigotry.

Finally, the team itself is well designed, with good balance and plenty of reasons to stick together. These are both internal (four of the six characters are romantically linked) and external (with both the odds and polite society against them, a lone char is a dead char).

So enough about the characters, what's the adventure like? Well, like the characters, another example of wonderful modularity.

The hook is simple enough, as good hooks should be. It's the Magnificent Seven, once again: a small, defenceless colony is being attacked by raiders, and our heroes, being broke and having nothing to lose, are called in to help out. Turns out, of course, that there is more to these raids then meets the eye, which throws the PCs into a fight against a powerful enemy with friends in high places. Standard stuff, but that's precisely why it works.

What makes it great is the way it is split into scenes. Each scene is short and to the point, with a clear goal and purpose within the story. Thus they can be slotted in and out with ease, depending on your group. If your players want hard and fast blood, you can cut to the explosions with ease. On the other hand, if you want, there is an entire scene devoted to following the protocols of the Emperor's Court, including fashion requirements and gift buying. We swing from the tightly scripted tension of being trapped in a dying ship with no way out to a city-wide, open-ended kidnapping investigation, and from a action-packed slaughter-fest to a diplomatic battle for legal supremacy. Did I mention there was something for everyone here?

Don't want to get into long and dull discussions on legal precedents but don't want to delete the entire scene? No problem! The writer allows for the less action packed scenes to be resolved as simply as with a single die roll - or expanded into multiple sessions of planning and roleplay, if that is your wont. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the non-action scenes, so this adventure will only really suit those who like to get fairly bloody in their roleplaying. And while I'm sure that is most of us, this points to one of the chief flaws with this product: its overall militaristic tone.

The combat focus is fine, and indeed a refreshing change from all too many scenarios these days. It reminded me of some of my favourite Palladium adventures from my youth in the way that the need for rules-hard action is assumed all the way through, yet it is always interesting, plot-moving action. No, what bothered me was the style in which these combat sections are written. Like some of the worst Palladium adventures, there was a militaristic feel to it all. The writer thinks like a wargamer, and expects his audience to do the same. Descriptions and tactics are described as a wargamer would, and occasionally the writer even assumes the players will automatically choose sound military approaches. They may be common sense to the writer, but it is almost guaranteed they won't be to your players. Finally, abbreviations and jargon are used without explanation or apology, which I found quite irritating. Sure, some roleplayers do enjoy wargaming, but I refuse to feel like an idiot because I'm not aware what HEAP stands for. (High Explosive something or other, I'm guessing)

This is at it's worst in the descriptions of the two major battles in the adventures. As I said above, too much is packed into too little text, and when you combine this with the assumptions the author makes, it becomes confused. The fight scenes need to be explained much more slowly and clearly, with lots more detail on possible actions of the enemy and so on. They would really benefit from more maps and diagrams. However, with some preparation and imagination, any GM worth her salt should be able to fill in the blanks sufficiently.

I suspect some of this military style will be more agreeable to Traveller players. Indeed, Traveller is a militaristic game, in both system and setting, and given the military background of the PCs, the assumptions the writer makes may indeed be fair. I would probably need to read Traveller to really judge this.

Which is, of course, the other problem with this adventure. I am sure Traveller fans will love it, and find it playable straight out of the box. But for non-Traveller players, the brief explanation about system in the front is not sufficient, and the stats and setting info are often confusing. Traveller fans will also find that the adventure just bristles with all the wonderful aspects of the Traveller universe: cold, hard science-fiction where you need brains more than anything to survive, the rough life of empty space that few can conquer, and the political machinations of those who rule it and profit from it. Unfortunately, this makes it harder to convert to other settings, but I'm not going to criticise a game for being true to its origins.

And at its heart this a wonderful, lively, well-written story that could be bent to any universe or genre, from Star Wars to Feng Shui. And because it has something for everyone, I recommend it to any gamer. Even if you never run it, there is always much to learn from something as well designed as this. The dissection of the story into nuggets of singular, sharp dramatic entities is hardly unique, but this is an example of it at its most brilliant. And the story elements themselves are superb, each nugget taking a simple story and adding a clever and dramatic hurdle, one that makes the adventure more thrilling, and not just longer.

Inexperienced GMs may find its laundry list style a challenge to their improv skills, or a sizable requirement of fleshing out before starting, but the necessary information is all there, and the work will pay off exceedingly well. Plus, the tight text means you don't have a lot of reading to do, so you'll have more time to prepare. And aside from the lack of detail, the nuggets practically run themselves, and push the story along nicely. Thus this is, for once, a great adventure for both GMs and players: a fun and easy run for the GM, and a fun and thrilling ride for the players. Highly recommended.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

SpaceDogs
Author: David Thomas Category: game Company/Publisher: BITS Line: Traveller Page count: 44 ISBN: 1-901228-21-5 Capsule Review by Steve Darlington on 12/30/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Far_Future Space	I should first point out that this games was sent to me as a gift, because he knows the author and so could get some free copies. This means that I was potentially more welcoming to this product since I didn't actually pay money for it, but it also means that the product was not selected by me as something I would prefer, and thus I was completely without expectations as to its content and quality. It also meant that I had absolutely no background with the RPG for which this adventure is written. Yes, that's right: much to my shame, I have never played or read anything of the most venerable SF RPG, Traveller. However, after reading this adventure, I am desperately looking for a copy, because I really want to run it. To me, RPGs are not just about one thing, they're about everything. I don't play RPGs to just play wargames, or just play strategy games, or just do character play, or just tell stories or just anything: I play them to do all of these at the same time. So for me, the perfect adventure is one that allows for any and all of these elements to be put into play at the same time, with a structure that permits you to choose just how much combat, strategy, character play, story, humour and drama you want to include, such that it best suits a given group. Very few adventures manage this. This one not only has the whole kit and kaboodle available, but it does all of them with great style. The adventure was written by David Thomas, and produced by BITS, the British Isles Traveller Support group. Expecting a fan-type production, I was astounded to see that this book was very well produced indeed. The cover featured some stunning artwork by Jesse DeGraaf, which really gives the Traveller feel. The inside text is in a prosaic font, but easy to read and free of typos or other mishaps. Stats, boxed text and important asides are all displayed in different texts, making it a joy to read and very easy to reference during play. The maps are functional and clear, if occasionally ugly, and are nicely collected in the back, along with NPC stats and hand-outs. The book itself is only 21cm x 15 cm, making it easy to carry, and, at only 40 pages, is a short and easy read. Don't let this fool you though - the good writing, the densely packed information and the way the story is presented means that this adventure is far from lacking meat. In many cases, only the barest and most important facts are listed, or just the sequence of critical events, with the matter-of-fact style of a laundry list. The GM is expected to fill in the rest themselves. As such, the only fault with the writing is that too much stuff is crammed into too little text. This becomes a major problem in some sections: at one point, and entire battle is summarised in a few sentences, in another, a whole day of black-market dealing is left totally up to the GM to fill in. This causes important and helpful information to be skimped and makes visualising the nature and flow of the larger and more complex set-ups difficult. In such sections, the GM is going to have to do a fair bit of work beforehand creating the details themselves. While this shouldn't prove too difficult, this is probably the biggest problem with the book overall. On the other hand, it is a welcome change from the flowery circumlocution which plagues this hobby, and some GMs do prefer to work this way. And it does allow for around 8 to 12 four-hour sessions (or around 3 months play) to be condensed into 30 A5 pages. The only other fault I have of the book's design is the positioning of the pre-gen PC descriptions. They aren't split up on one page each, which makes photocopying them a real bugger. In fact, since the stats are listed so minimally, it would probably be necessary to transcribe all this information to character sheets, which would be an annoying and time consuming task. However, the pre-gen PCs themselves are excellent: not just well designed, but well written, with their quirks and personalities wired into their stats, making them very easy to express. They are also the first example of the wonderful modularity this adventure possesses. If you like pure dungeon-bashing, you couldn't want a better crew: they are all competent warriors, but each have their own specialities and skills to make them distinct. At the next level, they have a simple archetypal personality that allows for some simple but evocative roleplaying: the ex-cop, the grizzled soldier, the psycho marine, the zealotic activist, and so on. At the next level, they have interesting histories and developed personalities for some hard roleplaying along with the hard combat. Finally, these are also really deep and conflicting characters with real human desires and quirks that could keep a Wraith player busy for months, yet they never become overblown or overdone, as so often happens. There really is something for everybody here. Another example of modularity: the characters are all Vagr - uplifted anthropomorphic dogs - who are all on the sucky end of the social spectrum. This allows your gung-ho gamer types to howl and sniff and enjoy the kind of story leads you get from an orc character in D&D, while your die-hard story-tellers can try and get inside the whole pack-mindset, and revel in a story about the real human cost of prejudice and bigotry. Finally, the team itself is well designed, with good balance and plenty of reasons to stick together. These are both internal (four of the six characters are romantically linked) and external (with both the odds and polite society against them, a lone char is a dead char). So enough about the characters, what's the adventure like? Well, like the characters, another example of wonderful modularity. The hook is simple enough, as good hooks should be. It's the Magnificent Seven, once again: a small, defenceless colony is being attacked by raiders, and our heroes, being broke and having nothing to lose, are called in to help out. Turns out, of course, that there is more to these raids then meets the eye, which throws the PCs into a fight against a powerful enemy with friends in high places. Standard stuff, but that's precisely why it works. What makes it great is the way it is split into scenes. Each scene is short and to the point, with a clear goal and purpose within the story. Thus they can be slotted in and out with ease, depending on your group. If your players want hard and fast blood, you can cut to the explosions with ease. On the other hand, if you want, there is an entire scene devoted to following the protocols of the Emperor's Court, including fashion requirements and gift buying. We swing from the tightly scripted tension of being trapped in a dying ship with no way out to a city-wide, open-ended kidnapping investigation, and from a action-packed slaughter-fest to a diplomatic battle for legal supremacy. Did I mention there was something for everyone here? Don't want to get into long and dull discussions on legal precedents but don't want to delete the entire scene? No problem! The writer allows for the less action packed scenes to be resolved as simply as with a single die roll - or expanded into multiple sessions of planning and roleplay, if that is your wont. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the non-action scenes, so this adventure will only really suit those who like to get fairly bloody in their roleplaying. And while I'm sure that is most of us, this points to one of the chief flaws with this product: its overall militaristic tone. The combat focus is fine, and indeed a refreshing change from all too many scenarios these days. It reminded me of some of my favourite Palladium adventures from my youth in the way that the need for rules-hard action is assumed all the way through, yet it is always interesting, plot-moving action. No, what bothered me was the style in which these combat sections are written. Like some of the worst Palladium adventures, there was a militaristic feel to it all. The writer thinks like a wargamer, and expects his audience to do the same. Descriptions and tactics are described as a wargamer would, and occasionally the writer even assumes the players will automatically choose sound military approaches. They may be common sense to the writer, but it is almost guaranteed they won't be to your players. Finally, abbreviations and jargon are used without explanation or apology, which I found quite irritating. Sure, some roleplayers do enjoy wargaming, but I refuse to feel like an idiot because I'm not aware what HEAP stands for. (High Explosive something or other, I'm guessing) This is at it's worst in the descriptions of the two major battles in the adventures. As I said above, too much is packed into too little text, and when you combine this with the assumptions the author makes, it becomes confused. The fight scenes need to be explained much more slowly and clearly, with lots more detail on possible actions of the enemy and so on. They would really benefit from more maps and diagrams. However, with some preparation and imagination, any GM worth her salt should be able to fill in the blanks sufficiently. I suspect some of this military style will be more agreeable to Traveller players. Indeed, Traveller is a militaristic game, in both system and setting, and given the military background of the PCs, the assumptions the writer makes may indeed be fair. I would probably need to read Traveller to really judge this. Which is, of course, the other problem with this adventure. I am sure Traveller fans will love it, and find it playable straight out of the box. But for non-Traveller players, the brief explanation about system in the front is not sufficient, and the stats and setting info are often confusing. Traveller fans will also find that the adventure just bristles with all the wonderful aspects of the Traveller universe: cold, hard science-fiction where you need brains more than anything to survive, the rough life of empty space that few can conquer, and the political machinations of those who rule it and profit from it. Unfortunately, this makes it harder to convert to other settings, but I'm not going to criticise a game for being true to its origins. And at its heart this a wonderful, lively, well-written story that could be bent to any universe or genre, from Star Wars to Feng Shui. And because it has something for everyone, I recommend it to any gamer. Even if you never run it, there is always much to learn from something as well designed as this. The dissection of the story into nuggets of singular, sharp dramatic entities is hardly unique, but this is an example of it at its most brilliant. And the story elements themselves are superb, each nugget taking a simple story and adding a clever and dramatic hurdle, one that makes the adventure more thrilling, and not just longer. Inexperienced GMs may find its laundry list style a challenge to their improv skills, or a sizable requirement of fleshing out before starting, but the necessary information is all there, and the work will pay off exceedingly well. Plus, the tight text means you don't have a lot of reading to do, so you'll have more time to prepare. And aside from the lack of detail, the nuggets practically run themselves, and push the story along nicely. Thus this is, for once, a great adventure for both GMs and players: a fun and easy run for the GM, and a fun and thrilling ride for the players. Highly recommended. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

SpaceDogs