Small Press, Big Dreams.
According to the Online Encyclopedia of Role-Playing Games (http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/encyclopedia/index.html), there is this tiny blurb about Space Infantry; "A spacefaring military sci-fi RPG, where PC's are space cadets in military service."
I wonder, does this blurb do this game justice? Honestly, it depends on the edition you hold in your hands.
In 1982, the authors of this game produced their basic rulebook. At 70 pages, it is fairly complete but it suffers from being somewhat rough around the edges, which is a flaw that tends to characterize all small press role-playing games. The illustrations in the basic book range from decent line drawings of starships to atrocious pictures of combat. The artist though, improved his art, and much better work appears in the Expanded Rules Series of this game (see the end of this article).
This first incarnation of the game had the players as members of the military of an undescribed stellar consortium. These cadets, as the game refers to them, are the force that explores worlds and keeps the peace. The game, being produced 20 years ago (at the time of this writing), seems to have a rather heavy Dungeons & Dragons influence, as I suspect most games of the time period did. There are subtle differences that do make this game unique. I will break down, as much as I can, the system, devoting a paragraph or so to the relevant areas of the game.
The qualities (attributes) are Intelligence, Agility, Speed, Strength, Constitution, and Charm. Each of these attributes are rolled on a d10* and applied to the character. In this basic rulebook, there is no option to select a race or to select your profession. ALL characters are in the military, and there isn't anything permitting deviation outside this. On this point, the game is rather inflexible.
Characters in Space Infantry progress by accruing enough rank points to advance in rank. If this sounds like experience points and levels to you, you would be absolutely correct for that is all it is. Mention is made of the fact that the highest ranks (above Captain) often do not advance in order to remain active adventurers. This is the one key difference between D&D levels and Space Infantry ranks. In D&D you have no choice but to advance. In Space Infantry you have the option of not accepting the promotion to the next rank, though again this seems to happen only at Captain rank and higher.
The next thirteen or so pages list skills available to cadets along with their equipment. The skills are the standard mix of science-fiction skills that you find in any science-fiction role-playing game. The equipment is rather standard sci-fi fare as well, though there are some interesting weapons such as the Anti-Matter ray, which basically phases the body part struck out of this plane of existence, and Flame/Frost Orbs, which explode on contact setting aflame an object or rapidly cooling the object making it brittle. Seeing this is a good thing, as I personally like ingenuity in a role-playing game.
Combat, which is an important part of any system, takes up the next twelve pages. The rules as written seem rather straightforward, with the usual roll for initiative and add dexterity thing (in the book, it's roll a 6D and add agility), descriptions of basic actions in combat, including unarmed combat. Tables are provided with bonus and minuses for using certain forms of armor. This section is nothing to write home about, though it is more complete than the character generation section.
The next section is about starships and starship combat. In here we are provided with the rules on how to fight using starships, how to read a starship record sheet, and some basic ships in use in the game. The system for starship combat is upon looking through my copy of the book, non-existent. There are tables showing damage locations and the type of damage that can be done, but nothing about actually moving a ship is in the starship rules. And then, to add further insult to injury, a personal combat table which should have been included in the combat section of the rules is dropped onto the last page before the "Game Master's Text" section.
The remainder of the book is the information a Game Master should have to conduct adventures using the system. Emphasis is placed upon charting planetary systems, natural dangers in space, an all too brief section on aliens with only ONE alien provided, and other optional rules that really should not be so optional. For example, the only mention of using other races as player characters is here, and all the paragraph really says is that as long as the referee creates a fair alien then the player should be allowed to use it. It's at this particular point that it is realized just how much work is needed to flesh out any background.
The second half of the Game Master's Text section is the "Rules and Reasons" section. This section provides a paragraph for items that the author has considered in his own campaign and believed the rest of us would benefit from. Most of it deals with rules regarding ships, including rules on cloaking, teleportation, and other such items. Most of it is good stuff, but should have been included within the starship rules itself, not a separate section. At the back of the book are the character sheets. Fairly self-explanatory, there is enough room to flesh out a character nicely, if you can provide for a cohesive background for the character in the first place considering there is no background to work with at all. All that exists in terms of background is that there is a vacuum.
Now back at the beginning of this review I noted that how you see the description of this game depends on the edition you have. That is because there actually were two editions of this game put out. In 1985, the authors took the entire basic rulebook, ripped it apart and expanded it into a three book series with some superficial similarities to Traveller, mainly in the organization of the material. The three books in question are:
Character Rules (ISBN: 0-9609918-2-4)
Starships (ISBN: 0-9609918-3-2)
Game Master's Text *Never officially released* (ISBN: 0-9609918-4-0)
In looking through this set of books, I can say that the authors have learned their lessons well in the three years since they wrote the first book. Things are a lot better explained, and there are a lot of enhancements that are not found in the basic book. I will only touch on a few here, but they are significant.
The first book, Character Rules, takes the first eighteen or so pages of the basic rules and blows them up, expanding the rules just on characters to a size greater than the basic rulebook itself. Inside is a timeline to the author's game universe, changes to the qualities (different dice are used for different qualities), character races (FINALLY!), rules for playing outside of the military, more skills, weapons, equipment, a much better combat system, rules on computers, and NEW rules for playing robots and siborgs (cyborgs).
The second book, Starships, provides us with that element that I believed was missing from the basic book, starship combat. Though according to the back cover this is an "improved" system, it actually seems to me to be the real system, as I did not find a starship combat system in the basic rulebook. In the remainder of the 64 pages here, everything found in the basic rules has been revised, and expansions have been made in the number of ships, weapons, defenses, and space travel. What's new in this book? Rules on how to build or redesign your starship, internal damage and targeting, and engines and fuel. This book is clearly stated as an optional book, but this book I found to be quite useful even outside of the game system. This particular book is probably one of the most adaptable books I have seen in quite a while as it can be dropped into any game system with little to no modification.
Now, the game as it stands consists of three books. Unfortunately, when this third book was slated to be published (around 1990 according to the author, who I had been in contact with), the publisher seized the book and refused to release it, thus there is apparently no known copies out in circulation. But, I am one of the lucky ones to own a copy (even if it was a one off copy from Kinko's) of the Game Master's Text. 168 pages long, the GM's Text takes the last portion of the basic book and refines it. All new sections on game mastering are here including general rules, a new rules and reasons section, a gaming example, rules on psychics and high technology, planet generation, and animal tables.
The Psychics section is worthy of note here. The rules in the Game Master's Text do not mesh with the rules provided for one of the character races, in that the character race in question has uncontrolled psychic abilities triggered by fear. That character race is provided a table with psychic abilities and how much they cost, but no descriptions are given of how they work. The psychics section in the Game Master's Text unfortunately doesn't help the situation. For myself personally, I had to draft descriptions of the psychic abilities, using the existing game mechanics to do it with. Your mileage may vary, but I would recommend drafting up your own descriptions. At some point, I may provide mine on the Internet, but why ruin the fun of being a GM?
The one item that makes the GM's job a lot less stressful compared to the basic rules is the Aliens section. Taking up a good 55 pages, the aliens section provides the GM with beasts to inhabit his worlds with. Granted the corner of the galaxy the author's worlds takes up is small, but there is much that can be done with the aliens within this book. And before I forget it, there is one other section in the book that may be of interest. The planets these beasties live on are described in a 47-page section at the back end of the book. Each of these planets is described in such a manner that the GM can place his players on the world and GO. In fact, our solar system is detailed in this same manner. The only thing that the GM may wish to do is to map out the rough outlines of continents if he so wishes. But that is up to the GM.
So, does the blurb at the beginning of this review do this game justice? If all you had in your hands was the first edition from 1982, I would say yes. Now, if you were like me and managed to acquire the Expanded rule set before acquiring the basic rules, then you would be forced to disagree.
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*This game system is unusual in that it refers to dice by reversing the accepted D&D standard of d#. Space Infantry instead uses #D. For example, a six-sided die, which in any other game would be referred to as a d6, is referred to as a 6D by Space Infantry. This could cause some confusion if you are a Traveller player until it's figured out.
**The Basic Rulebook I have rated:
Style: Needs Work
Substance: Sparse
**The Expanded Rules Series of books I have rated:
Style: Average
Substance: Meaty
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