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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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.
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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.)
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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
My
total calculated score: 14 (docked 1 point for needing a unrelated
and really not appropriately genre-ed rulebook.)
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