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Starcluster 2
Evolve or Die
Review by C. Demetrius Morgan
Synopsis
Star Cluster 2 is a 287-page space opera role-playing game available in both print and PDF format. Written by Albert Bailey and Clash Bowley, with an introduction by Marco Chacon, Starcluster is an independent RPG published by Flying Mice LLC that is currently available from RPGnow for $10.00 (sale price). An free rules lite version of this RPG is also available from here. This is a review of the full PDF version.
Target Audience: Gamers looking for a “survival oriented RPG - where the object of the game, the behavior that (is) rewarded, (is) staying alive and learning new things” in a game whose setting is within a firmly established space opera backdrop that is “underpinned with some serious science - science the players don't need to bother knowing to enjoy the game.”
Rating: 8 and a half out of 10 golden apples. (Graded on a curve taking the existence of a full supporting product line into account.)
Preface: Since I wrote the initial impressions outlined below I have received an “update” of the Starcluster 2 core PDF. This means that this review has been a long time in the coming. Apologies to the publisher for that. Alas, after allowing time for those first initial impressions to fade so I could tackle the new PDF afresh, I am sad to say that many of the comments that follow stand much as they were originally written. Now, onto those initial comments . . .
The illustrations are unique, to say the least, though there are one or two that my initial reaction was: “Gah! Lay off the smudging tool already!” But otherwise the style works in so far as it is uniform. It’s not as obvious a photoshopping job as, say, merely the use of basic filters to alter an image would be. But then again the selective use of additional filters could have added much needed character to some of the otherwise blah illustrations. Then there are the maps. Oy, the maps!
With the exception of the star maps, are all very well done and easy to read. Alas there aren’t a lot of maps besides those star maps and, truth be told, those are the maps that will probably make or break the game. At least from a ready reference standpoint. They are supposed to be on a graph but, for the most part, the graph lines do not show up. (This is probably an artifacting problem common to low source image resolution or using JPEG or GIF sources.) Also, not to sound tetchy, but I would rather have seen more spaceship schematics and fewer of the color illustrations. Especially since this is a space opera game and, the one thing I know players want to look at, regardless of what the campaign is going to be, are the starships. So why aren’t more presented? Inquiring minds want to know. top
Starcluster 2 is a space opera role-playing game in the finest tradition of Starfrontiers and Traveller. The rule book presents not only the expected basic rules of game play but also material that presents a sizeable resource of richly detailed background material covering a goodly portion of the Starcluster universe. Those not familiar with the classic RPGs mentioned above, but who have real their fair share of space opera novels or even played video games like Elite or Wing Commander, should feel right at home in this pen-and-pencil cosmos of ever expanding action adventure. top
The Setting: You’ve probably heard it before: The post Diaspora era of a far-flung space opera future. Do I really have to paraphrase the story for you? I didn’t think so. What? Ok, ok, you twisted my arm! Ya great big meanies. *sniffle*
So were are in a unspecified future in the year 2250 where peace-on-Earth has finally been achieved, more or less, when it is suddenly discovered that the entire planet will be vaporized in about 300 years as the uncaring sun makes like a drunk driver and goes roaring out of control down the celestial highway at speeds that end in a not at all majestic boom. So what’s this newly unified planet to do? Prepare for a mass exodus. And exo- what’s it? IOW: Prepare to Get the F--- Out of DODGE!! That’s what.
Starcluster concerns itself with the universe of colonies spread out across the stars in the far distant post-Diaspora era. A little over 1200+ years have elapsed since the first ships launched themselves out of their earthly cribs and reached destinations end. Of course not all those who arrived were quite the same as their ancestors were when they departed, that’s one of the many in-game wrinkles. The game setting is centered on a sector of space referred to as “the Cluster”, dozens of worlds are outlined, and there appears to be a number of supplements to flesh out the various odds and ends of the rules and setting. Lots to read through and plenty of potential for role-play here. top
Game Universe: The genre is standard Space Opera with an overall Hard Science Fiction approach to what is essentially a setting located in the far distant frontiers of space. But what is the setting really like? Now that’s a tough question. I’ve been trying to think of something to compare this too but nothing readily pops to mind. In some ways the system is similar in concept to Traveller, only it’s not really very much like any of that products settings. Too, the rules are also something else altogether, which doesn’t say much. So what about settings other than RPGs ones? Again, nothing comes to mind, so here‘s a quick run down of what Starcluster is unlike: it’s not Star Trek or Andromeda, it’s not Battlestar Galactica or Space 1999, it’s not even Star Wars! If pressed into a corner I’d say that Starcluster is. . . It’s. . . That is to say. . .
Starcluster is a dystopian post-apocalyptic adventure set within the wasteland of space, rather than the wasteland of an ill defined desert, where survival is the goal of play. At least I think that’s what Starcluster is all about. This is really a core rules document, granted a core rules document with a lot of flavor text, but it presents way too many possibilities of what play could be like. I prefer a game to be a bit more focused. Don’t get me wrong Spelljammer was the exact same way and that‘s one of my all time favorite settings. Spelljammer’s one flaw was that it gave the DM tons of options, alas too many DMs ended up feeling like they just didn’t know what the point was supposed to be. I fear that may happen with Starcluster. Especially if the GM in question is more of a casual type gamer. Someone who likes to play but really isn’t “into” the genre, so to speak. However, for those who are hardcore fans of the Space Opera genre, Starcluster offers just about all a fan boy could ever wish for. More than that it provides all you need to start playing, out of the box, and then some. top
System Mechanics: Starcluster apparently uses a %ile system. I say “apparently” because, when taken at a glance, you really don’t have much of a clue what is going with the rules as they are buried beneath a library wing of flavor text. That and I am used to chapters clearly labeled with numbers. What can I say, I‘m an old fogy. (Also there wre no bookmarks. Which is a bit annoying in a document this size.) What that means is, as presented, the rules may not be very newbie friendly. This is bad. Especially since the “optional rules” section is written with a straightforward clarity often lacking elsewhere. It may just be me, or the fact I am reading this onscreen, it‘s hard to tell.
That said the actual game mechanics are given a good overview around page 267, which is where the “design notes” are found. Which isn’t to say the information isn’t present elsewhere, it just could have been organized, and indexed, to be easier for the newbie to locate. Also it would have helped to know, upfront and before anything else, that players will need to have six-siders handy and %ile dice (2d10). Otherwise the system appears functional as it presents Task Resolution as %ile roll (+ modifiers) under TN. The core STATS are: Strength, Coordination, Agility, Endurance, IQ, Psi, Rank, and Charisma. While it is my opinion Sweet Chariot was a bit better organized, if you’ve read, and understood, one then you know how both games work. Major plus.
Character creation is a bit different from most games. You essentially have two methodologies in place, a random roll, which is essentially suggest for use by those new to the system, and a point buy system. Both appear to be serviceable, though the point buy method provides static numbers to distribute between the various attributes. I assume this is evidence that the designer sought to balance out the beginning level characters, however it would have been nice if a variable system was in place to allow GMs to adjust how many points are allotted based on initial difficulty and experience level of the players. Also, for those who hate classes and see classes in all things, that players get to choose “Schools” for their characters may not go over well. Essentially “Schools” are the archetypal profession that a character is expected to follow. Not quite a class, but close enough that some may complain. Even though this is really just part of a character’s background. I know, what can you do, some players are just impossible. *wink* top
Character Creation: Being a space opera game the first step, naturally, is to determine a character‘s homeworld. Typically the homeworld of characters is assigned by the GM at the outset of play. Character attributes are generated via either a random method, where each attribute is assigned its own set number of die that have to be rolled, or what is called the “directed method”. The latter being a fancy way of saying point distribution. In this second method players have 35 points to distribute between the various core attributes and 150 points to distribute between IQ, PSI, and RANK.
Character generation actually goes into a bit of detail. There is a chart that, though optional, is keyed to allow you to literally roll your character’s entire physical appearance. There’s even a chart to roll for random character traits, which are just likes or dislikes. Overall the average gamer will probably either love the system or hate it, depending on what their tolerance threshold is for charts. There’s a smeg load of charts here. top
Combat: I have discovered something. Whether it is due to age or the number of games I’ve reviewed recently I can’t say. That discovery is this: I loathe combat systems that use large numbers and don‘t get to the point in the first two sentences. Not math, mind you, or even the talking about math. It’s information overload. They make my poor brain hurt. Let’s review what led me to this epiphany: “The combat system ... works on the assumption of a one-minute round ... divided into 120 half-second segments called "initiatives".” What? “Normal initiative is ... decided using a %d roll. During their initiative, the character may use a weapon and attack, use psionics, or perform a major action.” You mean we can’t just roll dice to compare against a chart to see if we hit things? “Each player rolls %d separately, and the enemy rolls collectively. Lowest roll goes first, and proceeds to highest. Characters and enemies can talk out of turn, but remember there are 120 initiatives in a round and each initiative is half a second long, so talking must be short.” No! No! I just want to roll the dice and be told whether or not things were successful.
Why you make players think about big words and stuff?
Ok, that’s a bit melodramatic. But this section is a bit of a thick read. Take this for example: “Characters may trade percentile points between initiative, the to-hit roll, and damage. That is, a player may choose to delay his initiative in order to achieve a better percentage to hit, or take a penalty on damage to speed his initiative, or take a penalty to hit to speed up initiative and increase damage. Any initiative lower than 1 goes first, any initiative higher than 120 goes last, and in case more than one character does so, the player with the lower total goes before the others.”
Surely there must be some way to simplify all that?
In the real world I would have given up and just relied on some experienced gamer to paraphrase the rules to me as needed. But I also have Starcluster Lite. Surely that will shed some light on what is going on?
Nope. It’s pretty much the exact same text, sans a lot of the flavor text. And here is where I say, with head hung low that based on a reading of the combat section alone I have no clue what is going on. None. It relies too much on- I assume- material from elsewhere in the rules. Not that that is bad, but it’s been my experience that most gamers don’t really want to read every single chapter. They want to sit down and play, and that means having sections written succinctly, straightforward, and independent of other chapters so they don‘t have to do a lot of page flipping. It could just be me but I feel this entire section is overwritten. As a player I want to be told, in no uncertain terms, up front and in as few sentences as possible, what combat is and how it works. What I don’t want to do is have to read through dozens of paragraphs and have to separate the wheat from the chaff. Or worse yet make guesses about what I “think” the author meant!
Hint: Any time you find yourself starting a sentence with “that is”, that may be a hint it‘s time to go back and edit for clarity. Just spell it out upfront and keep it simple! top
Chapter-by-Chapter Overview top
Actually I am not real sure what the actual chapters are supposed to be. The contents page has a number of titles of sections in bold, but as there is a total lack of numeration what is presented below is a guess of what the major chapter breaks are supposed to be.
Introduction - 2-pages broken up into two main sections: the Preface, providing a thumbnail overview of the history and background of the game universe, and the Diaspora, which is essentially a thumbnail overview of the campaign milieu.
Character Generation - Here we find 20+ pages beginning with the usual space opera character generation modus operandi: assign a home world to the player character then determine “character’s birth Tech Level”. Characters have five key attributes- Strength, Coordination, Agility, Endurance, and Charisma- attributes that may be determined either randomly or by point distribution. However this section is mostly taken up by page after page of tables that may balk the average gamer.
Humans and Humanoids - Here we have seven pages of in-game races. All together there are six races detailed. The Sastras, who are essentially monkey people; the SaHus, whose two sentence description is so vague I don’t know what they are supposed to be; Vantors, who are basically fish people; VaHus, whose write-up is even vaguer than that for the SaHus; Tigras, some furry being that sounds like cross between a otter and a mutant body builder; and finally the HuTas, whose description is just as vague as the SaHus and the VaHus. (Based on the naming conventions and the constant reference to traits derived from parents these are obviously intended to by human-alien hybrids?) There is also some artwork, however what is provide does not remotely reflect the creatures as described.
Equipment: Personal - Your typical section on equipment. This section takes up twice as many pages as it needs to since everything is double-spaced so expect to have to wade through several pages to find stuff.
Equipment: Weapons - Weapons lists. This section is much better organized than the one for personal equipment as all the lists herein have been formatted into neat and easy to consult tables.
Playing the Game - Some basic info on playing the game, creating characters, combat and the usual overview slash how-to guide for those who might need to know what to do now that they’ve purchased this thing called an RPG. Covers a lot of ground.
Non-Player Characters and Character Options - This section is more or less an extension of Playing the Game for the GM containing ready to use character archetypes like the Mook, Thug, Gunman, Bodyguard, and etcetera. There are also a few sample templates provided such as the Ex-Marine, Ex-Smuggler, Ex-Courier, and well that’s pretty much the theme here. Just append the prefix “Ex-” to the beginning of a titular noun and that’s pretty much what’s here.
Star Travel and Space Combat - There are a number of types of space travel mentioned, if all too briefly, followed by the all important chart of comparative Technology Levels- ranked from 1 to 10- which then jumps into a glossary of genre nomenclature before moving on to an equally brief page or so on spaceports. The section discussing Space Combat is also rather brief, and devoid of examples. The overall tone seems to be one of providing the rules basics while encouraging a more dramatic- and thus less rules reliant- style of play.
Guide to Cluster Politics and Societies - This section goes on for dozens of pages and is basically one large guide to the universe at large kind of thing. Numerous systems are detailed, well in lists anyhow, but then that’s what constitutes the bulk of Starcluster 2; lists. top
Interview With the Author top
Kester: How long has Flying Mice LLC been involved with the roleplaying industry?
flyingmice: We started publishing in 2001, with StarCluster v1.0. It was a mess, but it had some nice features once you waded through the garbage. We learned a lot and kept improving the game based on reader feedback and continual game testing.
Kester: What led to the development of the Starcluster 2 revised edition?
flyingmice: We have been revising the game every few months as we went along. The previous version of the game was 1.7. Along the way, we decided that there wasn't enough setting in the core rules, and that some things just needed a full overhaul. This version is twice as large as version 1.7 - 287 pages to 144. BTW, StarCluster 2 was sent out as a free upgrade to all of our previous customers.
Kester: Speaking of upgrades. What sort of updates and support products can we expect to see from Flying Monkey LLC in the future for the Starcluster product line?
flyingmice: Flying MONKEY? LOL! We've had to push back a couple of products til next year. Shoot and Glorianna are coming then. Both are very high tech worlds in the Cluster. We also intend to do a Pre-Diaspora game set in Earth's solar system and a few interstellar colonies before the Diaspora happened.
Kester: What are some of your favorite RPGs, past and present?
flyingmice: JAGS, TMNT/After the Bomb, Ringworld, and Call of Cthulhu are my favorites.
Kester: Any word on up-and-coming releases that are intended for, or could be used with, the Starcluster 2 RPG?
flyingmice: We just released our first StarCluster 2 adventure, La Famiglia Amalfi - don't worry, it's in English! The next release is the completely rewritten Book of Jalan setting - a world in the cluster where humans have evolved very powerful psionic powers. Jalan is in the Renaissance-Age of Enlightenment technology level. We will also be releasing a combined Starship Design/Engineer's Handbook sometime soon.
Kester: Do you accept unsolicited submissions? If so, do you have any words of advice to would be authors who might like to submit material to Flying Mice LLC?
flyingmice: Yes we do! Right now we have two systems, StarCluster and F20. We don't need any other systems at the moment, but settings and supplements we can use. We have a lot of releases in both lines coming up!
Kester: Will there be, or is there presently, a print edition of Starcluster available?
flyingmice: StarCluster 2 is in print and available from our Website or from Amazon.com or Borders.com.
Kester: If you had to reduce your game down to a one-sentence description what would that sentence be?
flyingmice: Eeek! How about "A deeply character oriented game in an epic setting. top
While the resolution of the art is superb certain of the illustrations that really count, namely the star maps, have been woefully neglected to the point of being a bit of an eyestrain. Whether this is a matter of poor resolution of the source, or a problem with display on my end, is unclear. Either way this needs remedying. In a space opera campaign the last thing you want are fuzzy and unclear maps of the various sectors and surrounding quadrants that GM and players alike are going to need to know how to navigate around and through. Neither, sadly, did the update mentioned above include any new or expanded starship data that I could discern. Thus, while the setting material appears to be thoroughly detailed, there are a few underlying deficiencies that may or may not detract from actual play. top
PDF Issues: None immediately discernable. The PDF is well put together. While there are no bookmarks, there is a hot linked table of contents. Search is fully functional, as is copying to clipboard. Internal illustrations, save for a few maps, look clear and crisp. The PDF is not locked, though at 287 pages you aren’t likely going to want to save this to a TXT file. An index is also present that, as with the table of contents, is hot linked to take you to the corresponding section. However there are no bookmarks. top
Negatives: I wanted more. It’s hard to define exactly what, but I came away feeling overwhelmed with details yet not knowing a whole heck of a lot, if you know what I mean? Otherwise the font is caught somewhere between fuzzy and blurry, thus making it not very suitable for onscreen viewing. While there is an index it appears that it was squeezed into three-column for no other reason than to save space, which is odd considering the font size seems to be the same. (Next time try reducing the font size?) The “Map of the Cluster” spanning pages 248 to 252 need to be redone, preferably with a minimum DPI of 300, as they lack clarity. The character races presented are very generic, bordering on run of the mill, and thus many gamers familiar with the genre may not find them all that interesting. top
Positives: This is part of larger product line including Sweet Chariot, which I have reviewed, and thus any perceived failings of this material are mitigated. As does the sheer quantity of content. Those used to having GM and player material organized in separate tomes may be disconcerted by the fact Starcluster includes a smorgasbord of GM and player info all in one core text. Then again there is something to be said for having everything organized in one core book as it means players will actually have to read the rules, not just the rules about how to create a character. More simply put Starcluster 2 provides just about everything the average gamer should need to start playing a space opera campaign “out of the box”. For more detail about the system see my review, and corresponding comments, for Sweet Chariot. top
Rumors: According to the CEO of Flying Mice LLC we can expect to see “more adventures, technical and social supplements, world-specific settings, and whatever we can think to make the games more fun! That applies to StarCluster, Blood Games, and our forthcoming F20 games. … We also intend to do a Pre-Diaspora game set in Earth's solar system and a few interstellar colonies before the Diaspora happened.” top
"Action will remove the doubt that theory cannot solve."
Copyright © 2004 C. Demetrius Morgan
