Points In Space: Volume 1: Starport Locations (PS1 for the purposes of this review) is an inexpensive systemless electronic sourcebook of starport locations that a game master could easily drag and drop into an ongoing sci-fi game to enrich its quality and flavor.
[Disclaimer: I am a named playtester on this project.]
PS1 is made up of the main sourcebook detailing the starport locations and a card game, and a map book, both in Adobe's PDF format. The map book provides tactical maps broken down into letter
sized pages that can be easily assembled, and are roughly the correct size for 28mm figures. They are sold seperately or teogether, at Cumberland Games website http://www.cumberlandgames.com.
The sourcebooks has a total of 15 locations The locations include some old standards, like customs, a bar and a docking bay, but as per usual with Sjohn, the locations and their inhabitants have an interesting twist that makes these locations more than just stock locations. At first impression, the locations seem pretty normal, and in a casual encounter the players may not think twice about them. Given a reason to look beneath the surface, and things are not always what they seem.
What lies under that surface are plot hooks. While the author doesn't include plot hooks explicitly, the design of the characters and his writing style will fire the creative neurons in the brain, and ways to weave these characters into an adventure, or an ongoing campaign will start to flow. This material is great for those short on time to develop the characters for their adventures, but don't like pre-plotted scenarios.
The card game is a poker variant, based around the god of an alien race. The cards are included in the PDF file, and just need to be printed on cardstock for use. The game is included to fit with a
gambling location (Whomar's) and will certainly lend flavor to any scoundrel's adventure.
The maps included are designed with much consideration given to how they are going to be printed. They are easy to comprehend, colorful, and print out well on even low quality deskjet printers (I know, I own one). Assembly is done quite easily, with crop marks helping to show where to trim to make the seperate pages come together well.
PS1 is fun to read, sparks your imagination, has neat maps, and takes a lot of work out of setting an adventure while leaving you in control. Highly recommended.
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