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Review of Points in Space Volume 1: Starport Locations

Product Information: Points in Space Volume 1: Starport Locations Author: S. John Ross Publisher: Cumberland Games and Diversions Price: PDF e-book #1 "Locations", 40 pages, $9.95 US; PDF e-book #2 "Maps", 103 pages,$7.95 US; both PDF e-books as a package $12.95 US. Cumberland Games and Diversion information: http://www.cumberlandgames.com

Points in Space Volume 1: Starport Locations is the first e-book released for sale by S. John Ross' Cumberland Games and Diversions. Points in Space is part of Cumberland's All-Systems Library (tm), a line of role-playing accessories designed for use with any and all gaming systems.

The entire product consists of two e-books: the first 40-page main book contains all the game-setting information on 15 starport locations, including detailed location descriptions and history, as well as character, map and general "GM advice" notes; the 103-page map book contains 1:36 scale maps of each location, ideally suited to 25mm or 28mm miniatures. The maps are scalable and thus print well on a wide variety of paper sizes.

A free 20-page "sampler" version of Points in Space is available for download at Cumberland Games' website and includes several locations from the main book, and complete multi-page 1:36 scale maps for one location, Ela's Tomb--the starport's "bar".

Reviewer's Rating: 9 out of 10

The Review:

Up-front honesty: Reviewer's biases

I should state first that I'm a playtester for Cumberland Games products. While I didn't specifically playtest Points in Space, I was able to view several versions of this product at various stages of its development. I feel it necessary to point this out so that readers can fully understand the unique perspective of this review, and dismiss or appreciate it as they see fit. I'm up-front and honest, and so is this review.

Some people love e-books, others hate them. I generally espouse the latter opinion. There are always trade-offs with e-books. Generally speaking, the main trade-off is cost versus quality. E-books are usually cheap, but suffer in writing and/or printing quality. The second trade-off is the aesthetic value of a printed book versus the hard copy print of an electronic file. I love books: the feel, smell and substance of a real book is unbeatable. E-books generally don't have this aesthetic value, regardless of the quality of the final printed product.

Viewing quality is often top-notch for e-books, but printing quality is not. Nothing distresses me more than to view a great document on the computer and then have the hard copy turn out to be a stack of unreadable paper. Many gamers use laptops when they run a gaming session these days, but I do not. Printing quality is a major factor in my decision to use an e-book gaming product. In many cases, a decent print out and binding can often push the cost of an e-book higher than that of a similarly sized traditional book. Toss in a new ink cartridge, and the cost rises even higher. In the end, e-books are sometimes just not worth the hassle and cost, even though they are generally "cheap" and easy to acquire.

With that in mind, here are my comments and opinions on Points in Space:

Points in Space breaks the mold of your typical e-book. Not only is it cheap--$12.95 for the whole kit and caboodle--but the final printed product is gorgeous. The layout is smooth and logical, the vectored graphics are rich and finely-detailed, and both books have the aesthetic "look and feel" of any decent role-playing game product in traditional book form.

The location and character detail in Points in Space is awesome. The locations--while most are your typical starport locales--are original and creative. S. John Ross clearly labored long and hard infusing the starport locations with unique little snippets of detail. He's also enriched the starport's resident characters with interesting personalities, motivations and story nuggets.

Here are the locations detailed in the main book, with a note about each location in brackets:

Anar & Moda: Outfitters (supply shop) Bellweather's Arcade (electronic games arcade) Cor/Kraylor Customs Checkpoint (even in the future you gotta go through customs :-)) "Cozy Quarters" Hotel (starport hotel) Docking Bay E-3030 (a docking/maintenance bay) DocuMat: a Datastore (a futuristic newsstand and magazine shop) Ela's Tomb (the proverbial bar--or cantina) Harcorp Medical (starport medical facility) Laxa's Holoporn Theater (a peep-show theater) The Purple Fountain Club (a high-class social club) Q'Zoon (futuristic fast-food restaurant) Red's Ruins (starport "skid row") Security Station Blue Six (starport security) Speed-E Chop Shop (robot and tech repair shop) Whomar's (casino and gambling hall)

Character personalities get serious attention in Points in Space, and this is perhaps my favorite aspect of the main book. The characters come alive and leap off the page, and GMs should have no difficulty role-playing these folks as they appear in the game sessions. To illustrate, Selvia Carkain is the owner of the "Purple Fountain Club", an opulent, nay decadent club for rich, well-to-do traveling spacers. Selvia is a shallow, immoral, paranoid and self-indulgent "madam", yet part of her longs for deeper, more meaningful relationships. Paranoia is part and parcel of the interstellar crime circles in which Selvia dances, and her bed is always open to the most handsome and dullard glitter boys that catch her eye. While this is merely a short summary of Selvia's persona as detailed, the fact that each of the major personalities in Points in Space is lavishly painted with colorful strokes not only makes for great reading, but provides valuable insight for the GM to help these characters shine in the game.

The GM reference maps in the main book possess handy notes and pointers indicating where things are located, brief summaries of relevant main text information, and they also add some extra little details that don't necessarily merit attention in the main text of each location description. For example, the "Red's Ruins" map has notes detailing where the resident squatters keep lookouts, how the crates and bins are positioned to prevent unexpected snoopers from stumbling upon their living space, where "Red" and "Old Gattix" keep their personal effects and sleeping space, and other such useful information. Since these details are right on the map, there's no need to scan through the text for the relevant information. I wish more map designers would think of this.

Points in Space offers even more than maps, and a thorough helping of locations and characters. There are numerous sidebars designed to help the GM take the "generic setting" of the starport and seamlessly weld it into the bulkheads of an existing series or campaign. These are conveniently colored differently from the character notes and map notes sidebars. Now that's attention to detail! There's even an original card game (including cards) in the main book, called Face of Emoch. This poker-style card game will add a unique flavor to any campaign.

The map book contains complete multi-page maps of each location of the starport. They print out keenly and with impressive detail. The only inconvenience is that you'll have to grab your scissors and cut off some of the edges to get the various maps to fit together properly. The only other drawback I can see is that you'll likely need a fresh ink cartridge–-depending on how much ink your printer's cartridges hold–-to print out all of the maps. Unless, of course, you print them at a lower quality. This aspect is part and parcel of e-books and e-maps though, so it won't come as a surprise to those who regularly print out maps on their computer.

The lack of character statistics--or game statistics of any kind--may concern some gamers. However, I find this a refreshing quality of the All Systems Library (tm) of Cumberland Games. Not only does it permit the GM to scale the NPC characters to any "level" of player characters, it expands the potential market base for sales of the e-books. Although this does mean that the GM is faced with a little more work to prepare the NPC characters in this book for game play, this is far easier than working from some abstract conversion system. It also gives the GM a chance to personalize each NPC within his game system of choice; no two Ela Valkunin's are going to be exactly alike.

Summary

Points in Space stands head and shoulders above most other e-book products, and your typical "book-published" products for that matter. S. John Ross is a ten-year veteran of the gaming business, and his experience shows in his attention to detail. I only found one typo in the main book, and the writing-style is clear, illustrative and entertaining. The actual material is top quality stuff and extremely useful. There's nothing bland, boring or stereotypical in this book. Also, the final printed product is high-quality and beautiful. The headers, sub-headers and text fonts are stylish and eye-catching, yet unobtrusive--they catch your eye, but don't distract you from reading.

Overall, Points in Space dramatically succeeds in finding its niche in the gaming supplement market: a generic location book for any space-based roleplaying game. Those who play the various versions of Traveller, GURPS Space, WEG or d20 Star Wars, FASA or LUG Star Trek, Babylon-5--or virtually any other space game–-will get serious mileage out of this product.

I rate it a 9 out of 10.

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

Topics	Author	Date	Latest Reply
Epublishing viable? (20) new	Sandy Antunes	01-17-2001 07:55	01-23-2001 08:49 new

Points in Space Volume 1: Starport Locations
Author: S. John Ross Category: game Company/Publisher: Cumberland Games & Diversions Line: All Systems Library (tm) Cost: $12.95 US/ Main Book only, $9.95 US; Map book only $7.95 US Page count: Main book, 40 pages/Map book 103 pages Capsule Review by Steven A. Cook on 01/07/01. Genre tags: Science fiction Space Generic	Review of Points in Space Volume 1: Starport Locations Product Information: Points in Space Volume 1: Starport Locations Author: S. John Ross Publisher: Cumberland Games and Diversions Price: PDF e-book #1 "Locations", 40 pages, $9.95 US; PDF e-book #2 "Maps", 103 pages,$7.95 US; both PDF e-books as a package $12.95 US. Cumberland Games and Diversion information: http://www.cumberlandgames.com Points in Space Volume 1: Starport Locations is the first e-book released for sale by S. John Ross' Cumberland Games and Diversions. Points in Space is part of Cumberland's All-Systems Library (tm), a line of role-playing accessories designed for use with any and all gaming systems. The entire product consists of two e-books: the first 40-page main book contains all the game-setting information on 15 starport locations, including detailed location descriptions and history, as well as character, map and general "GM advice" notes; the 103-page map book contains 1:36 scale maps of each location, ideally suited to 25mm or 28mm miniatures. The maps are scalable and thus print well on a wide variety of paper sizes. A free 20-page "sampler" version of Points in Space is available for download at Cumberland Games' website and includes several locations from the main book, and complete multi-page 1:36 scale maps for one location, Ela's Tomb--the starport's "bar". Reviewer's Rating: 9 out of 10 The Review: Up-front honesty: Reviewer's biases I should state first that I'm a playtester for Cumberland Games products. While I didn't specifically playtest Points in Space, I was able to view several versions of this product at various stages of its development. I feel it necessary to point this out so that readers can fully understand the unique perspective of this review, and dismiss or appreciate it as they see fit. I'm up-front and honest, and so is this review. Some people love e-books, others hate them. I generally espouse the latter opinion. There are always trade-offs with e-books. Generally speaking, the main trade-off is cost versus quality. E-books are usually cheap, but suffer in writing and/or printing quality. The second trade-off is the aesthetic value of a printed book versus the hard copy print of an electronic file. I love books: the feel, smell and substance of a real book is unbeatable. E-books generally don't have this aesthetic value, regardless of the quality of the final printed product. Viewing quality is often top-notch for e-books, but printing quality is not. Nothing distresses me more than to view a great document on the computer and then have the hard copy turn out to be a stack of unreadable paper. Many gamers use laptops when they run a gaming session these days, but I do not. Printing quality is a major factor in my decision to use an e-book gaming product. In many cases, a decent print out and binding can often push the cost of an e-book higher than that of a similarly sized traditional book. Toss in a new ink cartridge, and the cost rises even higher. In the end, e-books are sometimes just not worth the hassle and cost, even though they are generally "cheap" and easy to acquire. With that in mind, here are my comments and opinions on Points in Space: Points in Space breaks the mold of your typical e-book. Not only is it cheap--$12.95 for the whole kit and caboodle--but the final printed product is gorgeous. The layout is smooth and logical, the vectored graphics are rich and finely-detailed, and both books have the aesthetic "look and feel" of any decent role-playing game product in traditional book form. The location and character detail in Points in Space is awesome. The locations--while most are your typical starport locales--are original and creative. S. John Ross clearly labored long and hard infusing the starport locations with unique little snippets of detail. He's also enriched the starport's resident characters with interesting personalities, motivations and story nuggets. Here are the locations detailed in the main book, with a note about each location in brackets: Anar & Moda: Outfitters (supply shop) Bellweather's Arcade (electronic games arcade) Cor/Kraylor Customs Checkpoint (even in the future you gotta go through customs :-)) "Cozy Quarters" Hotel (starport hotel) Docking Bay E-3030 (a docking/maintenance bay) DocuMat: a Datastore (a futuristic newsstand and magazine shop) Ela's Tomb (the proverbial bar--or cantina) Harcorp Medical (starport medical facility) Laxa's Holoporn Theater (a peep-show theater) The Purple Fountain Club (a high-class social club) Q'Zoon (futuristic fast-food restaurant) Red's Ruins (starport "skid row") Security Station Blue Six (starport security) Speed-E Chop Shop (robot and tech repair shop) Whomar's (casino and gambling hall) Character personalities get serious attention in Points in Space, and this is perhaps my favorite aspect of the main book. The characters come alive and leap off the page, and GMs should have no difficulty role-playing these folks as they appear in the game sessions. To illustrate, Selvia Carkain is the owner of the "Purple Fountain Club", an opulent, nay decadent club for rich, well-to-do traveling spacers. Selvia is a shallow, immoral, paranoid and self-indulgent "madam", yet part of her longs for deeper, more meaningful relationships. Paranoia is part and parcel of the interstellar crime circles in which Selvia dances, and her bed is always open to the most handsome and dullard glitter boys that catch her eye. While this is merely a short summary of Selvia's persona as detailed, the fact that each of the major personalities in Points in Space is lavishly painted with colorful strokes not only makes for great reading, but provides valuable insight for the GM to help these characters shine in the game. The GM reference maps in the main book possess handy notes and pointers indicating where things are located, brief summaries of relevant main text information, and they also add some extra little details that don't necessarily merit attention in the main text of each location description. For example, the "Red's Ruins" map has notes detailing where the resident squatters keep lookouts, how the crates and bins are positioned to prevent unexpected snoopers from stumbling upon their living space, where "Red" and "Old Gattix" keep their personal effects and sleeping space, and other such useful information. Since these details are right on the map, there's no need to scan through the text for the relevant information. I wish more map designers would think of this. Points in Space offers even more than maps, and a thorough helping of locations and characters. There are numerous sidebars designed to help the GM take the "generic setting" of the starport and seamlessly weld it into the bulkheads of an existing series or campaign. These are conveniently colored differently from the character notes and map notes sidebars. Now that's attention to detail! There's even an original card game (including cards) in the main book, called Face of Emoch. This poker-style card game will add a unique flavor to any campaign. The map book contains complete multi-page maps of each location of the starport. They print out keenly and with impressive detail. The only inconvenience is that you'll have to grab your scissors and cut off some of the edges to get the various maps to fit together properly. The only other drawback I can see is that you'll likely need a fresh ink cartridge–-depending on how much ink your printer's cartridges hold–-to print out all of the maps. Unless, of course, you print them at a lower quality. This aspect is part and parcel of e-books and e-maps though, so it won't come as a surprise to those who regularly print out maps on their computer. The lack of character statistics--or game statistics of any kind--may concern some gamers. However, I find this a refreshing quality of the All Systems Library (tm) of Cumberland Games. Not only does it permit the GM to scale the NPC characters to any "level" of player characters, it expands the potential market base for sales of the e-books. Although this does mean that the GM is faced with a little more work to prepare the NPC characters in this book for game play, this is far easier than working from some abstract conversion system. It also gives the GM a chance to personalize each NPC within his game system of choice; no two Ela Valkunin's are going to be exactly alike. Summary Points in Space stands head and shoulders above most other e-book products, and your typical "book-published" products for that matter. S. John Ross is a ten-year veteran of the gaming business, and his experience shows in his attention to detail. I only found one typo in the main book, and the writing-style is clear, illustrative and entertaining. The actual material is top quality stuff and extremely useful. There's nothing bland, boring or stereotypical in this book. Also, the final printed product is high-quality and beautiful. The headers, sub-headers and text fonts are stylish and eye-catching, yet unobtrusive--they catch your eye, but don't distract you from reading. Overall, Points in Space dramatically succeeds in finding its niche in the gaming supplement market: a generic location book for any space-based roleplaying game. Those who play the various versions of Traveller, GURPS Space, WEG or d20 Star Wars, FASA or LUG Star Trek, Babylon-5--or virtually any other space game–-will get serious mileage out of this product. I rate it a 9 out of 10. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)