Babylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Factbook
Let me preface this adventure by getting my D20 dislike out of the way, I feel that will make some of my prejudices towards it plain. It is difficult for me to accept that some people can overlook what I see as flaws and play a D20 game (especially one intended to simulate some non-D&D setting.)
I am however a huge Babylon 5 fan, and if I thought I could sell enough of my belongings I would own the entire series on DVD. As it stands I have to accept occasional reruns on television. This makes me very sad. In order to satiate my Babylon 5 desire I obtained the Babylon 5 "Role playing Game And Fact Book."
It is a beautiful work,
truly, and simply worthy of the Babylon 5 name in appearance, a
glossy hardback with stills from the show. A crisp clean two column
layout that is not obscuring the meat and substance of the book.I
fully intended this to be a play test review, having arranged time
(with two different groups) to run the game, both on line and off
line.Both crumbled under time constraint and didn't bode well, and
so this review ended up taking far more time between my obtaining
the book and my review because I really wanted to run a convoluted
mysterycladen adventure
set in the B5 universe.
Sadly it was not to be. But I still wish I could. I may manage it someday yet. I like to make use of every RPG I own at least once (and preferably in a campaign if possible.) The book is 303 odd pages and that is not counting the basic necessity of this needing the Dungeons and Dragons (TM) 3rd Edition Player's Handbook. Unfortunately this is where I first get annoyed. I own the book, but why couldn't this be a OGL game, complete in and of itself! It deserved it! Alas it is not, but if that is the only small price of suffering I must pay for B5 Iwill pay it!
Chapters in the Babylon 5 game are not numbered merely given a name and a border space marker of the section.
Introduction
The first chapter is aptly titled Introduction, it begins with the general basics of tools needed to play (and ARGH there it mentions the 3E PHB.)After that it gives us a breakdown of the unnumbered chapters, with the chapter numbers (it's a shame the chapters themselves are not numbered as this list suggests) then some general basics on B5, D20 system, and the like arecovered nothing inherently spectacular but one little note under the Veteran players heading:
that all characters have a Defense Value (which is 10+reflex save bonus+size modifier)
behold a simple change that makes the game more interesting to me. A solid and good fix that took prettybasically a paragraph at most to describe.Beneath that note it mention the difference in Hit points. Your average B5 character earns far fewer and so is has a far riskier life than "Core" D20 characters using the classic scheme.
14 of 20 faces
Preface
The following chapter is a Preface written by J. Michael Straczynksi himself, and a solid pace of work this is in conveying just what Bab5 can be, and where it came from. In particular of interest is how he compares his creation to his ultimate role-playing game, putting his characters through "absolute hell." Quite an interesting beginning.
20 of 20 faces.
Welcome
Sheesh at this point I'm saying "where is the game?" but I forget that this is a licensed work and so has a certain amount of rigor which it must pass through in terms of getting to the point. The Welcome in this case does a quick overview of history to get us up to speed. (Isn't that an Introduction--yes, but this is to the setting not the game...)
The chapter is short like the preceding ones so far, but it does its job of letting us know what we are in for
12 of 20 faces
Characters on Babylon 5
Finally GAME! Yes GAME we find out there is more to this than a tacked on game which might be of interest to the odd gamer and B5 fan, instead we actually get the game book part and it is very solid and intrinsic to the work. We are given the races that were chosen as suitable for play in the initial book: Humans (of course), Centauri, Minbari, Narn, Drazi, and Brakiri. The last race surprised me a bit, as I don't recall enough emphasis on them in the show to be included, yet it does offer another option which is rarely a bad thing.
Character Classes are then details: Agent, Diplomat, Lurker, Officer, Scientist, Soldier, Telepath, and Worker. This is a point at which I begin to worry about the detail or faithfulness to the work, as Officers (in general) are also soldiers of some form (usually better educated, with more specialized skills but not always), and Lurker is more a social status/situation than a "set of knowledge or skills" as lurkers could be criminals, rogue telepaths, and the like. Classes in general create restrictions that somewhat mar the modern and less arch typical nature of science fiction--there are fewer big bold clear distinctions of such things in most fictions. Unfortunately the licensed work came out at a time that D20 Future was not.(nor I believe d20 modern) both of which would have provided a firmer basis together than basing this work on D&D. Hitpoints and stabilization are included in a brief summary before we get more information on the classes in detail, this is odd location as such information would most suitably fit in combat or health related chapters.
10 of 20 faces
Skills and Feats
The core of any SF game is its skills, even most solid class, or archetype like games would be a bit remiss in not having a reasonable skill list, because there is far more going on than a bit of wire to open a door lock, and doors rarely fall to a shoulder or foot especially aboard a multi-ton space station. Though nothing relatively speaking is new or different here from D20 standard skill wise at least.
Feats are a bit more significantly adapted to the setting, including the various fighting feats we get feats which are aimed to represent certain racial traits, special abilities, and even skills. I know that I find it odd that weapon use, even starship weapon use is a feat driven ability rather than a skill, and this is another element where the D&D based designed seemed to fail the source material, as while I suspect our good friend Mr. Garibaldi is bad ass in all sorts of ways, I don't think he'd use a sword as readily as the rules allow (since to my knowledge it isn't a exotic weapon at all.) Yet in some ways this can be forgiven, as well, because we also don't know that he isn't a good swordsman, and the fact means that dramatic characters often are flexible as their situations allow, and the feat driven and BAB based system is actually a bit more dynamic than a skill system in some ways.
Though I think the feat system needs a tighter definition in d20, because it seems to be the catch all for every perk that they couldn't fit anywhere else, from racial traits (Centauri tentacles), to pieces of unique equipment (Family Ka'Toc for Narn), skills, talents, wealth, and numerous other things as the given game suggests. It runs counter to the word "Feat" and what it means in actuality, and actually confuses the issue especially for new players. Though this is hardly an issue that Babylon 5 alone possesses.
10 0f 20 faces
Combat
Like most RPG's we get to the essence of the most common form of conflict resolution, combat! We are treated with the basics of Defense (10+total Reflex save bonus+size mod) which is the replacement for Armor class, and probably the easiest, and yet most useful change possible. Another solid change is armor which blocks damage (with damage reduction). We then move on to cover gunfights, with pretty solid rules for them, including area fire, rapid fire, and stray fire elements. The combat chapter then takes a bizarre left turn and we move into the "hazards" essentially the rules for suffocation, vacuum exposure, variant gravities, climate differences and so on. Now if this had been called a hazards chapter, I might understand, but I am a bit confused. While yes the environment and these hazards are sometimes referred to a "battles" when one struggles to survive against them, its hardly a combat element, and no, you don't get BAB added to help you resist starvation. I am pleased however with the representations and detail covered. I've seen a couple of science fiction games that neglect covering important factors such as vacuum exposure or gravity effects.
The combat chapter doesn't end their we then get the rules for vehicles--their scaling, speed, maneuverability, terrain, and then finally actual vehicular combat. Pleasantly detailed with information on B5 specifics as well as general information on guided weapons, cargo, and crews.
14 of 20 faces.
Equipment and Vehicles
The general chapter on stuff, we get in most games, but we also get vehicles thrown in for good measure. Wealth is covered (the same random way, most D&D players will be familiar with) although we get the ubiquitous sci fi trope of credits (which is of course accurate to B5).Though we also get a rather interesting bit of information on the Black Market right on the first page for equipment. The writers are surely not suggesting the fine officers and ambassadors would do something so underhanded would they? Weapons come up in more than brief detail, and again I'm a bit bothered by this chapter. We get information on antique slug throwers (which while appeared in an episode of B5 is unlikely to commonly re-occur) and we get a umber of melee weapons (but not the Minbari fighting pike, which makes sense considering it doesn't show up until a later season of the show than the book covers).Yet we don't have many other alien weapons. Admittedly the PPG seems the most common use weapon but still not all aliens use the PPG, and it would be nice if since a bodyguard to a an alien ambassador might have access to something a bit more than a pointy stick.General gear is reasonably covered, again like the weapons it is significantly humanocentric, considering the focus of the show this is not surprising.
Vehicles follows shortly after, we get explanations of the core shuttle, cars (wow...a ground car...I'd never have known...on a space station woot, lets pull a Blue's Brothers through the Zocolo!)
Spacecraft are lovingly covered, from Minbari flyers, to T'loth Assault cruisers and Drazi Sunhawk we get detailed information on their combat capabilities their handling and other useful things. This is a point at which I note that I feel a very good job was done in conveying the depth of B5, in great detail.
15 of 20 faces.
Telepaths
Telepaths and their goings on took up a significant number of subplots from time to time, from the insidious Bester (played by Walter Koenig)to the Ivanova cuddling lesbian Talia. The chapter covers their various powers and effects through a very 'spell' list like format, fortunately that is only a vague representation format. The various abilities are tied to P Ratings (which fits Babylon 5) and are done as a check of the Telepathy ability.
14 of 20
All Alone in the Night
Detailing the station, the staff, the guilds, associations and how in general to use B5 the station as well as maps laying out common rooms, the Med labs, and so on we get a virtually room by room description of the station with sufficient detail to allow a GM to truly make the station come alive. This chapter also gives us game statistics for the various personalities of the station in the first season (except Ambassador Kosh which is entirely appropriate considering the secrecy surrounding the Vorlons.)
There is also a list of fairly and commonly met character types from Thugs to Medlab personel for quick reference. There are not however sample aliens in this list, I suspect more for the intent that aliens when they appear are meant to be seen as more than just window dressing.
16 of 20 faces.
Sky Full of Stars
Setting information, more than you can shake your alien pointy stick at! Starting with a map of systems and governments then the chapter proceeds to detailimportant information on the galaxy, space travel (including hyperspace and jumpgates) as well as the specific major racial governments, starting with Earth Alliance and moving to the League of Non-aligned worlds. Here we get modifiers for making characters for as representatives of each of the represented races we come across in the show, including a Drazi drinking game and details on the Pal'ma'ra and their rather loathsome diet (at least to the other races)
18 of 20 faces.
Signs and Portent
Simply put this is a chapter which covers at least on my read through every single event throughout the first season in summary, what makes it even more useful is that rather than just an episode guide, we get potential scenarios and campaign hooks for playing and living the first season of B5 for our own characters. This makes the game a huge use to any fan of B5 who might want to run a game (even one not using the D20 system) simply for the reference material and ideas provided. This chapter covers a significant portion of the book, as well it should.
20 of 20 faces.
Campaigns
The final "true" chapter this section provides a plenitude of advice for running a Babylon 5 game providing information suggestions, and ideas that expand on Signs and portents, and offer alternatives too simply reliving the show. These chapters together make the book a seriously good buy for any gamer with a mind for solid SF gaming, simply because they do their job very solidly. The latter bit of campaigns covers some prestige classes, though sadly not the later season Rangers (and many gamers favorites for "play", but there are always source books.)
20 of 20
The rest of the book is a Glossary (of Babylon 5 terms not D20.), and Designers notes. It is here that I must also applaud the authors for their lovingly
applied and culled details. While this game is not, sadly the best of the d20 license it is among the best of the Babylon 5 license. Hopefully with solid sales behind it we someday may get an OGL edition, more fully adapted to the setting. Until then I suggest picking up this book for a read. Even a borrowed copy for
the Signs and Portents and Campaigns chapters.
Overall score 15 faces of the D20
