Raw Recruits is a Dragonstar adventure Anthology from Mystic Eye Games. For some reason, FFG, the makers of Dragonstar, can't be bothered to put out adventures for it (despite the fact they put out tons of generic mini-adventures), so they licensed it out to Mystic Eye and Thunderhead games.
It's a semi-soft cover book, around 160 pages (it is 160 pages, but the last 10 pages are index, ads, OGL, and junk), and is priced at $24.99. It's a bit pricey for my tastes, but it's much better than some (I think Digital Burn is 160 pages and $35), and it's got a plastic-ish cover and the first 12 or so pages are in color which makes up for the price. I got it on Ebay for $19.
So, about a year after Dragonstar originally came out (the original book), we finally have a 1st level adventure for it (aside from a couple of freebies from the FFG website).
Was it worth the wait? Is it worth the money? Maybe! Depends on what you're looking for.
This is almost sort of a campaign, albeit a mini-one, and the 4 main adventures can be used on their own. The PCs are newly recruited crewmembers of an exploration ship that is due to explore a relatively unknown area of space. There's a bit more to it than that, though the PCs aren't in the know at the begining, so I won't go into it, except to say that whole thing reminds me a lot (a lot!) of the old Star Wars RPG "Darkstryder" campaign.
The ship the PCs are on is a converted carrier which bears a striking resemblance to a can-opener. It really really looks like a can-opener. It's almost something out of Spaceballs, which featured a RV spaceship as well as one shaped like a giant maid with a vaccum cleaner. There are probably a number of other objects that it looks more like than a spaceship. So this can perhaps be something of a sticking point.
The product starts off with a fairly detailed overview of the ship as well as the major NPCs on board. The NPC descriptions are in the color page section, so many have color illustrations. Most the illustrations are pretty good, though one elf lady bears a striking resemblance to Pam Dawber (Mindy from Mork & Mindy). And most of the NPCs are fairly original, though one seems like a rip-off of Star Trek (The guy with the air filter on his face from TNG. Though as if to say this is completely different from him, the NPC here is a while albino woman instead of black man).
Next come some "Interludes", which are meant to be role-playing events between the adventures in the book. Role-playing only, in that there is really no serious combat or anything, just stuff that happens. Very nice, but made me want more.
After that comes the adventures. There are basically 4 of them. They took great care to make sure that you don't have to be using the initial set up in order to use them, they could be used in most Dragonstar campaigns. This was a nice touch, I thought.
The first adventure is a planetary investigation. The PCs are sent to investigate a mysterious signal from a planet thought to be dead. It's fairly interesting, and adds a new race (fairly interesting in concept, but somewhat creepy in appearance. They look sort of like human sized Yodas, even the woman. Ick). This is probably the most original adventure, though it reminds me a bit of the old Star Frontiers Volturnus series (on a much smaller scale).
As a note, it's mentioned that this adventure was designed with certain asumptions in mind, most notably that the PCs will use blasters and lasers. However, with the release of Imperial Supply, players will possibly end up using gauss rifles (or rail guns as they are called in DS), which might alter things a bit and makes things easier. In any event, they seemed to make sure that this was survivable for 1st level characters without being too much of a cake walk.
The second adventure has the PCs investigating an abandoned (mostly) mining factory in an asteroid. This adventure gave me fits. For one, Dragonstar is supposedly set in a fairly realistic setting, there's magic, but otherwise, cosmically, it's like our universe. However, this is set in an 'asteroid' belt, which is incredibly dense. Popular in fiction, completely impossible in real life, not to mention, logically impossible. Think about it - just how many asteroids and such would it take to fill up a volume that big? A whole heck of a lot. Yes, I know you saw it in Star Wars, but Star Wars makes no sense, physically.
For another (and this is a bit of spoiler), in one room of the factory, there is a large amount of plastic explosives stored. The author then says that if the PCs are using torches (as in those with open flames), this will set off the explosives. Argh! One of the whole blood points of plastic explosives is that it only explodes when a detonator is used, it doesn't blow up accidently. It certainly won't blow up the minute someone with a torch enters a room full of it - it only burns, and even then, you'd have to hold it to it to light it. For the room to explode when you enter with an open flame, you'd have to have explosive fumes of some sort in the air. Plastic explosives don't give off fumes, and if they did, surely they would be stored in some sort of container that keeps them in, like say tupperware or the dragonstar equivalent. Bah! Like I said, sorry, this is a bit of a spoiler, but it's a place in which the laws of physics aren't working like they should.
Most of the rest of the adventure is okay, if something of a cliche in sci-fi rpgs.
The third adventure has the PCs exploring a freighter drifting in deep space, apparently abandoned. That is the premise of just about every science fiction horror movie ever made (with the exception of those on mysteriously abandoned colonies, and Barbarella, which was scary because of Jane Fonda ). And the adventure pretty much follows those movies - not very original. Fairly competently done, though.
The last adventure is pretty much a final showdown with the bad guy. Though it's not quite that satisfying, since they had never met him before, and in fact, the PCs don't even learn about the whole story-line until the begining of this.
They essentially assault a semi-secret base, which is being assaulted by another group as well. This can turn into a 3 way fight as they explore the base looking for the main bad guy. This isn't bad, but much of it is on rails in which the PCs really do little other than just follow along. The bad guy keeps getting away.
They also seem to treat it only like a science fiction adventure, not a science fiction & fantasy adventure. They seem to have forgotten quite a few handy spells, such as raise dead, etc. And this also goes into small things - like the PCs come across some dead crewmembers from an old ship. They can return the possessions, but what about the bodies themselves? Perhaps the families could afford a ressurection spell? So really, you'd think they want to return the remains as well. Little things like that seem to have been overlooking, as well as major things like scrying.
Good points: Lots of text, detailed info on a big starship, 4 fairly entertaining adventures, full of stuff salvageable for future use, index
Bad points: Picture of an elf that looks like Pam Dawber, a bit of rail-roading in places, silly looking starship, occasionally silly names (it is a Mystic Eye Games product, after all), a fair amount of cliches, seems a bit rushed or compressed (the plot is more ambitious than the page count). There are a couple of editing problems, and at least one case of using "loosing" instead of "losing".
Also as a note, the cover illustration is really really odd. Especially one person, whose head is being petted by an apparent elf lady. I have to wonder, just what the heck is thing being petted supposed to be? I could rant about it like Chef does about Dr. Mephisto's companion from South park. But I'll just mention it. Still, it is creepy looking, whatever it is.
To sum up, despite some flaws, it's a very solid product, so I would give this B, which probably translates to a 4 here.
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