Now, the basics: Valence is a 250-page PDF available from Valent Games through RPGnow.com and drivethrurpg.com. If you’re like me – and there’s no real indication that you should be, to be honest – you’ll want to print up a copy because, basically, you’re old and you can’t come to grips with a game properly unless you can actually touch it. In this case, the game gets a definite thumbs-up for the most part – the margins are kept clean and the headings clear, and the book comes out neat and easy to read without looking too dry or dull. The illustrations are for the most part useful in showing the various races, some of which are really peculiar looking and hard to describe in words alone, without being too frequent in the book. The only print problems are the cover, which uses an awful lot of black. I should point out that the illustrations are sparsely-situated throughout the book, and primarily focus on giving an impression of the looks of the various alien races – there’s little concept of what a Genetech city looks like, for example, or how an Armageddon culture junkie dresses. However, as someone who prints out the PDF, I can appreciate sparsity of illustration, particularly as this is independently published, and independent RPGs tend to include some fairly bad art. In this case, less is more. If this were a print product, however, I would have to give it a Style of 2. The PDF nature of it, however, and the considerations in favour of the printer and those reading it from a monitor, earn it a 3. It works within its medium.
Also, I should point out that this is my first review, but that should be obvious from reading it. It would also be fair to say that this is a capsule review – it’s only from reading the book, making up a few characters, and having them shoot or argue with each other (the last part there isn’t as crazy as it sounds).
Anyway, you’ll probably want to hear about the worlds of Valence.
The Universe The game’s world opens on a time after the collapse of humanity’s Empire, and views it through the eyes of those cultures which succeeded it as well as racial groups and cultures who won and lost empires in exactly the same region thousands, if not millions, of years before Man took to the stars. The death of humanity’s Empire did not bring about the technological dark ages usually associated with that sort of catastrophe, and the new cultures are to an extent centred on corporations that dominated certain sectors of galactic trade during the Empire’s heyday. For example, the Genetech Culture, housed in a sector of the galaxy more or less wholly owned by the Genetech Corporation. Based around spoon-fed light entertainment media, nanotech computers, and clothing that alters composition and style based on the latest fashions, Genetech has created an artificial culture that keeps the people happy and mercilessly punishes crimes against the state, which contrasts with the socialist-minded Coalition of Sentient Races and the education-oriented Aegis Corporation, but has a lot in common with the bloodthirsty and mob-dominated Armageddon Industries culture. As well as these “economic” cultures, there are also remnants of older, more racially – or philosophically – founded cultures, such as the Budetug Core Worlds Collective or the Ancient and Venerable Innuelting Star Empire. Each Culture shapes the skills and likely gear of their inhabitants – The Innuel Empire teaches Persuasion, History, Aerobatics (or Climbing), and Lording Complexity, allowing their members access to more complicated effects with the Lording, a force they discovered how to effect reality with millions of years ago. In contrast, citizens of Genetech are likely to be proficient at Carousing, Style, Persuasion, and Bargaining, making them excellent social creatures by instinct. As well as mechanical benefits in terms of skills and possible limitations on, say, weapons, Culture also confers a way of looking at life that is likely to be more important to your character – or at least as important – as anything racially ingrained.
Speaking of the races – there are rather a lot of them. Ten, to be precise, and each one is very different from the others. Humans are brilliantly creative and by no means a default race, Archangels are powerful suits of living armour, the Nesti are clusters of sentient plants, and the Valorians are genius-level insect-people, one of two insect races that have achieved prominence in the galaxy. As well as these distinct races, there are Ultramercs – gene-built bionic supersoldiers, created by Genetech from the ground up to be the perfect warriors, each suited on the molecular level to the task they are assigned.
Star travel is handled only perfunctorily in Valence, as a forthcoming supplement will address the issue of space travel. For now, spacecraft and the like are more settings than vehicles the group can deal with. Space travel is achieved either by means of a Tesseract Drive or – in the case of one caste of the Innuelting – a gem in their foreheads through which they can channel the forces of the Lording to open a rift in space and travel to their destination. Technology is pretty advanced, and the ability exists for Interface Knights – the ubiquitous Hackers found in particular in, say, Cyberpunk – to download entire copies of their consciousness into the Lattice, the galaxy-wide computer network. The most interesting part of this is that the writing destroys the original, so the actual programmer is left comatose (technically, all but dead) while a digital copy of what he was (is?) runs around gathering information and breaking down hostile computer systems. The personality can be uploaded back into the brain, but it remains a copy of the original, and asks the question; would it be possible to back up your soul in this fashion? Technically, yes, but the backup would consider itself also to be the original, and wouldn’t want to remain forever trapped in a computer doing stuff for you – it would be an exact copy of your mind. In some ways it could end up becoming an excellent foe. As well as Interface Knights and other Lattice-users, the possibility of playing an Independent Thinker, a computer who has become completely sentient, exists. It’s an intriguing thought, but you’d have to get used to the idea of being basically KITT. You can affect computer-linked items ridiculously swiftly and retrieve information at the drop of a hat, but unless you can hack a nearby gun turret, you’re not going to get into too many fights.
So, we’ve got this world. High-tech, numerous cultures – many of which are diametrically opposed but might be willing to compromise. A fair few races, six million years of history including epic wars, the rise and fall of Empires, and the recent creation of new races through genetic tampering that may have been responsible for the ruination of Earth. What’s it suited for? To be blunt, what kind of adventures can you run in Valence?
Really, I’d wager anything that would suit this sort of take on science fiction could be run here. While you’re unlikely to be blowing up space stations or having laser-sword fights with your estranged father, covert operations and struggling to liberate a world that until recently was in the purview of your Culture from the grip of a ferocious warlord are a couple of ideas that spring instantly to mind. Of course, a lot depends on your character types – a group consisting of a human diplomat, an Innuel mage, and a sentient computer are far more suited to intrigue than a group consisting of an Ogre, a Caractingessen, and an Ultramerc heavy weapon specialist with four arms and no social skills. By the same token, they’d probably get obliterated in four seconds in a hostile drop zone – combat can be ferocious. Of course, these aren’t the only campaign types: There’s a book dealing with all aspects of the game’s metaplot on the way (Fredericks only gives hints out about it in this volume, but it’s not essential to the game’s operations so those who don’t care for metaplot can avoid it). Personally, I believe that whatever you think of Metaplot, it can provide adventure ideas even if it remains unused in the larger picture, so it can be valuable at least in terms of seeing how the game’s designer views a long-term epic campaign in their setting as playing out.
It’s A Race, But Nobody Wins The basic races of Valence are incredibly varied, and each deserves a brief mention, which I’ll do here before carrying on to the actual system itself. Their abilities are so varied that no one is like another, and each has been given its own history and roleplaying tips so that it is possible to see their place in a workable universe and even empathise with them to a degree.
· The Humans – not much to tell, the humans of the 31st Century are little different from those of the 21st. Of interest are Succubi and Ariels, genetic sub-variants of humans created from people abducted from Earth in the middle ages.
· Ogres – these are actually three sub-races: Titans, Trolls, and Draconians. Each race has a gland that generates secretions – Titans generate flame across their bodies when under stress to which they are immune, and trolls likewise do so with acid. Draconians generate a less powerful flame, but are able to control it at will. Ogres are powerful combatants and stubborn, but have a poor sense of time that leads people to believe they are stupid.
· Sa’crontor – these are a race of snake-people devoted to a trickster god. They consider tricking others to be high art, and can retract their arms and shoot lasers from their eyes. That last ability is somewhat random, and one of only a few out-of-place abilities in the game.
· Archangels – these creatures appear to be flying, winged suits of animated plate mail. They are physically incapable of lying, and have some sort of dark secret in their past. They have a natural affinity with the Lording.
· Nesti – Sentient belligerent plants with radar sense and the ability to interface with their weapons. Nesti have a warrior culture, but aren’t that bright.
· Valorians – genius betentacled centipede-centaurs. It sounds weird, but they’re actually sort of cool. They’re given over to introspection and forethought, and are incredibly peaceful creatures. But they look hideous. An interesting appearance-truth dichotomy for characters.
· Halla – these short, nimble, rodent-like creatures once took control of a mighty Empire spanning the galaxy and then lost it because, basically, they got bored and lost interest. That should tell you all you need to know about the Halla.
· Caractingessen – enormous dragon-like beings, the Caracts are quite fearsome and also probably the biggest character you could choose. Forget about armour. They once had an Empire, but only one Emperor.
· Budetug – another former Imperial power, the Budetug are an insectile race with a strong work ethic and intermittent streaks of individualism. They have twelve “legs”, which they can use as hands if they want.
· Innuelting – the oldest of the space-faring races, the Innuel are the typical willowy, thin, almost-Elven aliens, though they exist in five separate Castes, from the Warrior Golds (who have four arms) to the ruling Platinums, who have Tesseract stones, allowing deep space travel, embedded in their foreheads.
A Lesson In Character Character creation is one of the meatiest aspects of Valence, and as a result deserves a little attention. You are faced with a number of options when you first sit down to flesh out your character’s concept: Do you play a “classed” character, or create an Ultramerc? This is the first question you have to ask yourself, and it leads to a wide array of character options either way. Classed characters are chosen from the basic races (of which, as I’ve said, there are ten, ranging from the giant dragon-like Caractingessen to the pragmatic, insectile Budetug), then they choose their home culture, which exerts its influence over the basic racial template (there are eight cultures, ranging from small communes to the Budetug Core and the overarching economic power of Genetech). In addition to this, there is the matter of a class, and there are eighteen of these, grouped into basic Warrior/Rogue/Academic ethos, and they include such concepts as Archmagi, Interface Knights, Furies (Street Fighters), and Star Commandos – warriors trained to fight inside the corona of suns, where many of the more advanced cultures place databanks, power stations, and other important facilities of the system. To polish that mix off, you gain a number of skill points based on your class as well as a slight quirk (Assassins suffer no range penalty when firing weapons when aiming, while Diplomats gain Charisma bonuses when dealing with groups they have studied extensively and thieves double their Stealth score and are never surprised in an urban environment). As well as this, you gain a number of Background points that can be used to purchase wealth, extra skill points, and even improved senses and Genotypes, and you may select a Walk of Life, further refining your class and cultural ideas through a little life experience.
As an example of a Classed Character, I created Bob, a down-on-his-luck Human Grifter and con-man who somehow ended up as a diplomat for the Coalition of Sentient Races, with his own unique take on their message of greater galactic unity. As well as excellent persuasion and social skills, I saved a few points to give the naturally-creative and agile Bob Ambidexterity and doubled up on his pistol skills. With a little money, Bob can use a half-decent laser pistol in each hand, making him quite good in combat, but by no means a monster. If Bob wants to win fights against bigger foes, he’s going to have to use his head. In an argument, though, Bob’s got it covered. As well as this, I gave Bob a daughter to look out for and a sizeable debt to some criminal interests, as well as keeping an idea that he, as the team’s voice, would be able to help out his mates, and bought the Team Player advantage, allowing Bob to share his Hero Points with other team members. By the time he was finished, Bob was quite a polished and competent con-artist and a dextrous, quick, but not by any means powerful combatant.
Ultramercs are the other main character type, and are very different from Classed characters in the application of their creation method, but ultimately come out the same. A party containing Ultramercs and Classed characters is going to jar a little to some extent, but this will result from the very different personalities that come through either the Ultramerc programme or just growing up in the Valence galaxy. With an Ultramerc character, you are given a budget of 5,000,000 Sections (the standard currency of Valence) to build yourself. You start by selecting eyes, ears, a brain, and locomotion methods, skeletal structure, and biomodifications. This can result in some extremely bizarre but effective creatures, schooled by Mentors and augmented by skill packages, but lacking the more organic skill system of the Classed characters. What Ultramercs gain in terms of flexibility of raw ability, they lose in the tightly regimented skill patterns they must acquire. At the end of the process, however, the creator will be pleased at the combat machine he has created, and isn’t there something about that that appeals to everyone, at least on some level?
My example: I created an Ultramerc, deciding to call him Robodude despite the fact that I had decided really early on in thinking him up that he would be basically a bioform with no cybernetic enhancements. My vision with Robodude was a heavy weapons specialist with a heavy skeleton, big muscle enhancements, four arms, bat wings, a gatling laser and a plasma cannon, encased in a ridiculously-expensive suit of powered armour. Genetically, he was pretty easy to create and train, working from a base of an Ogre Hybrid brain that would give him the determination and grit to get things done without making him too single-minded. Like Bob, he was useless at magic, and it is worth noting that Robodude possesses about a dozen skills, only four of which he was any good with. However, he was capable of wielding his weapons with devastating accuracy, though he couldn’t dodge for toffee. Most of his background points were spent on money to buy him his two weapons, an antimatter grenade, and a suit of power armour (though his weird physique increased the cost by a factor of four, meaning even with the majority of his background points he could only afford a suit of light armour with a small energy field). Robodude was a combat ace, useless at everything else, and in combat his primary method of defence consisted of cutting his enemy to ribbons with a devastatingly powerful battery of assault weapons.
Round One: Fight! Combat in Valence can be used either physically or socially, and attempting to convince someone of your point of view or fast-talk them into opening a door for you is much the same as attempting to blow their head off with a plasma rifle (though less messy). Mental Endurance and Persuasion skills are used in arguments in much the same way as physical endurance and weapon damage ratings are compared in actual combat. Starting characters can begin with a skill rating of 0 (if they don’t have the skill) to 21 (if they’re all but masters of their art already). The skill resolution system is cheeringly simple, with all of the possible complications inherent in creating a character – roll a d20 and add your skill rating and relevant attribute. If you beat the Target number, you succeed. Simple, right? There’s got to be a catch. Actually, I haven’t found one yet. It’s simple. The main problem is the large number of skills (there are over 100, and a few of them could probably be merged into fewer skills with wider remits, such as Make New Contacts, Humor/Wit and Carousing, as well as a number of the Drive skills) rather than the application of said skills, which is generally fairly concrete, and the resolution of the skills, which again is simple and leaves little room for error.
Let’s say Bob wants to pick a lock. He has 15 points in Pick Lock (he’s had practice), and he can choose to base the skill on either his Visualisation or Dexterity. Bob has Visualisation of 4, and Dexterity of 6, so he’ll pick Dexterity, giving him a total of 21 before rolling. If the lock is TN 30 (described in the rules as “50-50 shot for Professionals”), he’ll have to roll 9 or above on his d20 check to pick that lock. If he rolls 8, too bad for him.
Combat is a little different, a little more detailed, and a lot more relies on your speed, your actions, and your opponent’s actions. Each character gets between 1 and 10 actions in each combat round, based on a number gleaned from a table averaging Creativity and Agility. Bob, with Creativity 10 and Agility 6, can perform 5 actions per combat round. Robodude, with Creativity 1 and Agility 4, performs 2. Each action you perform counts against your allocation for the round, and may also eat into your Fatigue points, a counter designed to represent the tiring nature of extended combat that will eventually wind and tire your character if you spend extended periods back-flipping over space pirates while shooting them with your laser pistols. For example, passively dodging costs 1 Fatigue, but is not an Action, as characters are assumed to be doing it anyway. A typical character might have a Fatigue of 8, but most of your Fatigue will be returned after a battle anyway. Passive Dodge represents the base TN to hit your character, and can range from about 15 to 41 or so for starting characters, with a number in the higher end of that range being reserved almost entirely for characters who have min-maxed a bit to be excellent at dodging. Of course, for those on the lower end, a competent fighter will have no trouble hitting them, so the option to sacrifice actions to perform Active Dodges – rolling a d20 and adding that to the TN to be hit for the duration of a specific attack – is available. Options such as seeking out cover and aiming up a shot are available and are, for the most part, desirable additions to combat – weapons inflict a specific amount of damage, and thus it is possible that armoured opponents will soak up any damage a weaker opponent could hope to inflict, while it is still possible that a more heavily-armed opponent can obliterate a careless enemy in light armour with one shot. Damage is inflicted according, again, to a chart, which is sort of 80s in a way but having a fixed system of damage removes a lot of the chance from combat while still keeping it heavily present by reducing it solely to the “to-hit roll” element. At least this way if you hit, you can figure out how much damage you’ll be doing with a fair amount of consistency.
Social Combat, as I mentioned earlier, is dealt with in much the same way as normal combat, with Mental Endurance representing your wounds and your skills at persuasion, public speaking, or fast-talking, representing your weapon of choice. A number of arguments are available, giving you options to vary your “attack” strategy. I would note that, while it’s not cricket to use this system to allow NPCs to browbeat PCs into doing things for them on a regular basis, I would use it for PCs who don’t want to roleplay socially interacting with NPCs (some people just feel awkward roleplaying stuff out, and this system is tailor-made for them). I would also use it to bulldoze PCs who have virtually no mental endurance and yet resist any temptation put in their way like Lot staving off the depredations of Sodom. Mental Endurance is a part of the game, and good roleplaying should cover up a lot, but good roleplaying would take into the account that a character with a Mental Endurance of 2 is going to be either flighty, or gives in easily to things, or just plain doesn’t want an argument.
Skill use, combat, and character generation aside, it’s time to move onto something I haven’t really dealt with at all yet, but I’ve made some references to: The Lording.
Lording It Over All And Sundry The Lording is an ill-understood force that leaks into this reality from an alternate dimension (referred to as The Lords Dimension in the rulebook, though I don’t really like the name personally – but that’s not really a valid point). The Lording is a magical essence able to shape reality and rework substances, though it cannot affect living tissue – with one exception, on which more later. Any character can learn Lording skills and dabble in a spell or two, although Archmagi and Duellists (the two Lording use specialist characters) are far and away more powerful than these dilettantes. Lording Skills come in one specific set, which affects the parameters of all spells the character knows as well as the number of Spell Points they possess. Spells are more specific, and are the particular methods by which the character has learned how to manipulate the forces of the Lording. Spells can be learned in two ways – as Spells (expending Skill points or, later on, XP), or as Powers (by expending double the cost to learn the Spell and permanently losing a number of Spell Points equal to the casting cost). Spells have to be cast as an action, costing Spell points and taking effect. Powers can be effective constantly and, if negated, can be brought up again in a few minutes with no other perceptible ill effects. Spells range from the weird to the regular, and include effects such as Force Shields, Flight, the ability to douse electrical energy in machines, the ability to change the state of matter – say, turning armour to liquid – and the ability to generate a field of antimatter. A good Archmage can generate an Antimatter field that will, for instance, inflict more damage than the heaviest weapon in the game to everything in a 50km radius. Of course, he’ll only have about 10km range on it, so it’ll kill him too, and he has no control over the area affected. Another useful fact about Lording – humans have an innate resistance to it. If that Archmage were to attempt to summon his city-obliterating antimatter in a human city, it would likely fail utterly as the human inhabitants of the city subconsciously resisted his efforts.
As well as the Archmagi and Lording dabblers, there are Duellists: People who have been in contact with the inhabitants of the Lords Dimension and know how to use the Lording in very different ways to normal practitioners – for a start, they can alter living flesh. In practical terms, this means they can heal up injuries to themselves and others in the blink of an eye, and can make themselves remarkable combatants – hence the term “Duellist”. Their contact with the Lords has led them to the belief that the Archmagi can have horrible effects on this other universe, and thus many of them bear grudges against Magi and hunt them down.
In Conclusion In all honesty, there’s a lot more I could have gone into here. There’s emergent backstory, at least two other types of character, and the history of the galaxy. Suffice to say, there’s a lot to Valence, and if it weren’t for a few tiny niggles, this would be getting a “5” in Substance. As it is, the only thing that stops it from getting that “5” is a lack of generic statted NPCs. They have NPC ideas, but there are no statistics attributed to them. Making Valence characters takes a while, and it’s a nuisance to imagine having to do that as GM without a few examples of what a generic mook looks like beforehand. In a similar vein, there are no details at all on sample planets – sure, they talk about a few, but only core worlds for each race and culture, and only in vague terms. A nice solid example of a good world for adventuring on wouldn’t have hurt. I understand that the space rules would have to go in another volume, but some rudimentary iteration of them here wouldn’t have hurt, and would also not make the Space Jockey class and Ultramerc Pilot training schemes completely pointless – which, at the moment, they sort of are. As a final niggle, I’ll say that the Lording system is something which probably won’t be to every science fiction gamer’s tastes, as it comes off more or less as a magic system – which it is. However, I was able to have a few fights both with and without the Lording, and the system feels just the same either way – the loss of the magic system for those inclined more towards hard SF (or even just “social” SF) doesn’t hurt the game system. Also, it could do with a couple of pages near the end summarising the tables most important to the game so you don’t have to look for them. And the picture of a Valorian firing a microwave on page 21 has to go. It is a bad joke.
These small complaints aside, though, Valence is a good game. I can honestly say that, when I volunteered to review it for the author on the RPG.net forums, I thought I might be letting myself in for the disagreeable task of having to rubbish someone’s work on the Internet, but I can safely say that I don’t have to do that. The years of work that have gone into the game are obvious – the system operates on a few older-style assumptions about game direction and that shows, but it operates so smoothly within its parameters and the system works more or less on one central mechanic that it doesn’t seem archaic or clunky. This isn’t the old “abilities, saving throws, class” bolt-ons from TSR’s days. Everything affects everything else – your backgrounds, skills, spells, and abilities are all drawn from the same source, and it is possible to flesh out a very full and rounded-feeling character on your first attempt out of the box (although you’ll want to take it slow the first few times – the process is still fairly complex). There’s a galaxy full of history, there’s a decade of work and playtesting, there’s a combat system where your options and tactics matter, there’s a simple skill resolution system with an extensive array of skills that have specific effects on everything from your resolution in the face of danger to your TN to be hit in combat to your ability to get a discount on a new suit. There’s 10 races, 18 classes, sentient computers, 8 cultures and, if you don’t like any of them, you can build your own freak warrior from the ground up. There’s magic and extra-dimensional beings and fallen empires and corporate espionage and cage-wrestling and mystery and horror to be found in the ruins of fallen Earth. There’s ninjas and dragons and knowledge and learning and courtly duels and diplomacy and betrayal and power and intrigue and war.
There’s a whole galaxy out there. Your options are limitless. And at the end of the day, that’s what Valence is about.
