Flare Star is a campaign module that’s been around the block a few times, appearing in Space Gamer magazine and online in the Journal of the Traveller’s Aid Society. But like any good piece of work, it’s not only survived the test of time, but is also able to be translated between gameing systems without losing too much of the flavor or feel that pervades it. While the adventure’s basic stat blocks are written for a GURPS Traveller 2/e campaign, anyone remotely familiar with GURPS stat blocks can easily convert them to the system of choice.
At times, Flare Star refers to itself as a campaign, so that’s what I’ll refer to as the overall package. The campaign is composed of four distinct but linked adventures. While each adventure could be run as a standalone module, they are also interconnected enough that any adventuring group would benefit greatly from an end-to-end run of the campaign. The writers of the campaign took care to include plenty of detail about the various locales, lifeforms, equipment, and creatures that are encountered. This provides the dual benefit of creating a vivid world for the characters to adventure in, as well as making the players wonder if that seemingly insignificant detail was the key to the whole puzzle.
The campaign is also balanced for play quite well. Like many modules, it starts out with simple problems that can snowball quickly should the players allow that to happen. By the end, the challenge level is quite high, forcing the characters to make critical decisions based on more than just their skill with a blaster. There are plenty of opportunities throughout the campaign for the characters to meet their untimely end, and not all of the hazards come from gun-toting soldiers. The settings for the campaign are brilliantly chosen, allowing sadistic game masters plenty of opportunities to bring death from natural hazards or wandering creatures.
There are a few shortfalls in the package, however. While the campaign is quite detailed, we never get more than a basic block of combat stats for any of the alien lifeforms. This is especially troubling with the various alien races that are encountered throughout the campaign… should a game master ever want to write up a new alien NPC or a group of players want to set a campaign on the worlds found in Flare Star, they would be required to first create a set of statistics for the alien race. While there might not be a large crowd of people clamoring to see such statistics, it would have been a nice addition to the package, and would have allowed an even greater degree of flexibility and roleplaying.
The other issue is that one of the adventures in the campaign is missing both a map and an event table. They are referenced a few times throughout the adventure, but are nowhere to be found in the PDF package. While a game master can easily generate a believable map from the background information, and other event tables can quickly be modified to suit the needs of the given adventure, the fact remains that these items should be included with the PDF package, especially since Flare Star is being used as a carrot to entice people to purchase things from e23.
All-in-all, however, Flare Star is quite pleasing, and the price is right. With four adventures, a well-designed background and setting, and enough challenges to keep a gaming group busy for a night or two, you would be doing your sci-fi gaming group a disservice if you denied yourself a look at Flare Star. Even if you’re not a GURPS Traveller 2/e player or GM, you’re sure to find some sci-fi gaming inspiration in here.
