Dragonstar Guide to the Galaxy is more or less the Dungeon Master's Guide for the Dragonstar setting. It's the same size as the Dragonstar Starfarer's Handbook, and is the same price. $27.95 for 172 pages (including 16 color) index & Ogl. Unfortunately, like the Starfarer's handbook, it's somewhat flimsy for a hardback. Both the SFHB and GG I own have developed cracks in the back cover. Not a big deal, but annoying, and the only d20 hardcovers I own to do so (though my Freeport hardcover's spine has fallen off).
The text is relatively small, and the margins are pretty small as well. About 7/8 of an inch to the side and bottom, and inch on the top. There's about 70 pieces of art, most of pretty good quality (nothing terrible, but nothing spectacular, either). So, you do get a pretty value, in terms of content for your money. I paid full price at my local-ish game store (which came out to be exactly $30, with tax), and while I wish there was less fluff and more rules, I'm satisfied with it.
Chapter One is in color, and is on the Dragon Star Galaxy. It's 16 pages or so, and gives a pretty good history of the Dragonstar setting. Has a starmap, too, though it's awkwardly spread over 2 pages. (A better version is available on their website)
Chapter Two is "The Dragon Empire". It's 20 pages, and gives details about the empire itself. It starts with the noble houses, then goes into politics and trade, and finishes with more info on the various gods (Really, nothing on religion that wasn't in the SFHB other than a lot of fluff)
Chapter Three is on organizations. It's pretty short at 14 pages, and covers them in alphabetical order. It starts off by describing some Blackguard orders, moves on to a criminal organization (Black Hole Syndicate), the Druidic Society, the Imperial Legions, Imperial Society of Arcane Magic, Imperial Secret Police, The Insurrection, some Paladin orders, a monastic order, and the Royal Exploratory Service. Most just a few paragraphs of descriptions, though a few NPCs are given for the militant (Blackguard & Paladin) orders.
Chapter Four is also 14 pages. It details a newly discovered system, the "Primogen System". You get a history of the system, and what the Dragon Empire is up to on the main planet. It's fairly well done, but didn't do much for me. There are also 7 adventure hooks.
Chapter Five is another setting, but one more useful to most Gms (and they say so). It's only 10 pages, and describes a rather unique space station. It's a space station, but a special one. It's actually 10 different space stations connected via teleportation portals It's not detailed all that well - there's an overview of it, some NPCs (mostly ones in charge of the station), and descriptions of the major areas of it. No map. Seemed to me sort of bland, as well, though they went out of the way to counter stereotypes. There's a Drow who is handicapped (though apparently this doesn't affect her stats), a half-orc with a heart of gold (and they use that phrase), an attractive lady dwarf (though her picture is actually more creepy looking than attractive).
Chapter Six is on magic items, and is 20 pages. Some interesting stuff here, but the real highlight is probably spellware. That is sort of like the magical version of cyberware - or just magical items implanted into the body. There's much less spellware than I had hoped - not much more than in the d20 Annual magazine article on Dragonstar - only about 6 pages.
Chapter Seven is on monsters. It's 16 pages. New monsters are the Asterwrath, which is like a asteroid sized Xorn - it eats minerals, the Burstbeast, a thing that lives on gas giants, Space and Star Dragons (which aren't very interesting - just loner dragons that live in space), Electric ooze, Radiation and Space Elementals, Laserball (like the floating ball thing Luke trains with in Ep. IV), the Soulmech (largely repeated from SFHB), and the Space Kraken.
Chapter Eight in on running a Dragonstar game, and is 28 pages. It had lots of rules and info for space situations. Most things are covered, from variable gravity, to vacuum and radiation. But they tend to be fairly simple. Radiation exposure is handled okay - it causes damage, and has a 10% chance of the character getting radiation sickness, which causes permanent constitution damage. I wasn't really expecting anything deep, like say in the Deep Space supplement for Cyberpunk, but I had hope. I was also hoping they'd address the effects of long range exposure to radiation by longer lived species. Everyone picks up radiation, but because us humans are so short lived, it doesn't really affect us much. But if we lived 200 years, it would start to have effects. So I was curious to see if this would be address in elves and more importantly, Dragons. But apparently not. Again, not surprising, but I thought it worth mentioning, since some game systems have gone that far.
World building is a subset of the chapter, and runs about half of it (13 pages or so). The world building part is pretty good, but fairly simplistic. Rather than using the normal scientific way of describing stars (F,G,K, etc), it describes them by color and by age. Which works, but IMOH, it's not as easy as the scientific system, and can be confusing (but then I was a space science major in college). The stat block for a planet is like this:
Planet Type: Terrestrial or Gas Giant, or Asteroid belt (3 types)
Size: Very small to very large (5 types)
Gravity: from microgravity to extreme (7 types)
Atmospheric Density: from Vacuum to Very Dense (6 types)
Atmosphere: Breathable, Tainted, or Hostile (3 types)
Geology: from very flat to very rugged (5 types)
Hydrosphere: from No Water to Very Wet (5 types)
Biosphere: from No Life to Abundant (5 types)
Population: from very low to very high (5 types)
Technology: Primitive, Pre-industrial, Industrial, Post Industrial, Imperial (5 types)
Magic: Primitive, Low, Moderate, High and Advanced (5 types)
So, while there are a lot of combinations, it's still fairly simple. And it's easier to decode than those from Traveller. On the other hand, you don't get specifics, just vague statements. The technology is particularly problematic. Primitive equals stone age, but pre-industrial ranges from bronze age to Rennaisance. Still, pretty good. And like most games, there are tables to let you roll up random planets and star systems. And I might add, the science seems pretty sound.
Chapter Nine is on Dragonstar campaigns. It's 17 pages. It starts off by giving several ways Dragonstar campaigns can be started, and advice on how to do so. The invasion method (in which the Dragon Empire invades the characters planet) is the most detailed, with 13 paragraphs. Next is a few pages on adventures, including some adventure hooks. There's also some advice on how to incorporate differing fantasy worlds into Dragonstar, with some brief rules for character unfamiliar with technology trying to figure out hi-tech devices. And it ends with a discussion of combat in Dragonstar
Chapter 10 is a sample adventure, and is 15 pages or so. It's set on the world described in Chapter 4. I haven't used it, and probably won't, because it seems like a pretty dumb adventure. But it's fairly simple, so it probably does what it was designed to do - be an introduction to the Dragonstar setting. Basically, the PCs are hired by a Paladin to find a guy who has some information she needs. Why can't she do it herself? She doesn't want to blow her cover (apparently she's never heard of disguises). Anyway, it involves some shadowrun-esque talking to people, then infiltrating a building to rescue the guy.
There's also a 2 page index, and a page for the OGL (with an add for other FFG books on the back). These are not numbered, and are in addition to the 172 pages.
All in all, a pretty good book, but I was hoping for more. Specifically, more magic items and such, and maybe more hard setting info, like details of dozens of different planets. Instead there was only a few of each given (mostly throneworld). I was also hoping for trade tables, like in many science fiction games. (You know, buy x from planet a, then sell it at planet b and buy y).
Contentwise, I would give it a B-, which translates into a 4, with a disclaimer. Since a lot of the book is setting heavy, it's pretty much only useful for those who are running (or want to) Dragonstar games. There's really not enough crunchy bits to rip off for other things for non-Dragonstar gamers.
Style wise, it's decent enough, but nothing remarkable either way. The cover is downright ugly. There's nothing much in front except a bunch of lines and symbols, and on the back is a picture the resembles Rosie O'Donnell.
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