Introduction

In my previous review of the first book in this gameline - Andromeda 2500: Character Generation - I mentioned that this game has an unusual content split between the character generation rules and the system. This review continues on with discussing the second book in the set, Andromeda 2500: Combat.

I mentioned at a couple of points in the previous review that the game is hounded by a number of issues that work against the game as a whole product. The first problem was that the game sets a high goal of being something new and challenging to roleplaying. It then provided a second claim to being quick, easy and "unlike other roleplaying games..."

Combat provides the rest of the vital information needed to play a game set in the universe of Andromeda 2500. However it doesn't really succeed in salvaging anything from the incohesive muddle of the first book. Nor does the expanded setting material at the back succeed in resolving the sparseness of the setting.

Layout

To begin with, I shall discuss the layout and design of the book. It is exactly the same as the previous book, a black cover with a photo of the Andromeda galaxy on the front and a blurb on the back. Even before you open the book the first noticeable issue is that the blurb is exactly the same as on the back of the previous book. There is no mention of how the Combat book differs from the character generation book, and it is word for word the exact same text on the back. The only difference is a different author's photo and a different image from the interior of the book.

The layout inside is also a simple printer-friendly style reminiscent of the old 1980s independent games. I just want to point out at this juncture that Mechanical Dream is also an independent publication that has been produced by a team of two people. Yet there is an entire galaxy of difference between the quality of that game and Andromeda. I didn't mark the books lower because of this, but I do feel that it deserves mention that in this day and age where anyone with a computer can do high-quality layout and design, it seems a bit odd that Earwicker chooses to ignore any attempts to make the book even a little easier to look at. Good design layout makes a game easier to read, and easier to sell.

The art once again is of a reasonable standard, it does suffer from sparseness. I kept feeling that there should have been more location based art. One of the bigger issues I have with the game is the very poor detail about locations and setting. The universe of Andromeda feels very... white. Lots of empty space with people moving around in it but without any detail as to what they are doing. Consider Promised Sands artwork. It has cities, locations, action - we get a strong feeling for what the world of PS looks like, even before we read the text. Given the sparseness of Earwicker's descritions, detailed art really becomes a necessity to help with bringing across the setting's "feel."

Content

Andromeda 2500: Combat is split into two main sections. Firstly is the Player's Section which elaborates on the system and technology of the setting. Then there is a Gamemaster's Section which gives various guidelines, phenomena, characters and setting details.

Introductions from the early nineties

During forum discussions on my previous review, it was mentioned that Andromeda 2500 looked like a throwback from an earlier period. This isn't as far from the truth as it may seem. The book opens with yet another excerpt from the "novel" that I mentioned in the first review. Again, the excerpt seems to serve no other purpose than to promote the book. It is interesting to note that none of the excerpts really help to establish a better feel for the setting at all. They seem as lacking in depth as the rest of the game.

Following the excerpt there is an introduction discussing the aims of the book and what roleplaying involves. Then we are presented with a chronicle of events - a timeline that details the movement of events towards the setting's present. It is here that the game's age becomes apparent.

The events start in the year 1995 and lead up 2500. The problem is that Earwicker chooses an alternate reality style timeline that ignores all recent political events from around 1995 onwards. 9/11 never is mentioned, Iraq remains a sovereign nation that nukes Jerusalem in 2005, relations between the US and Europe are reasonably strong and the timeline progresses with the idea that the US does not get involved in a War on Terrorism. This is just a small issue - after about the year 2010 it all becomes moot. But it does expose the game's age. Given that it is released in a very different political climate to the one proposed in the timeline, it now seems dated rather than futuristic.

How not to write mechanics

The player's section begins with a chapter on the mechanics of the game. Unfortunately it is written almost in a glossary manner. Now for those who have read Unknown Armies you might recognise this style - where mechanics are simply listed as definitions to make it easier to read the rules later on. When dealing with a simple set of mechanics like those in UA - this method works. UA's mechanic definitions fit on one page. Andromeda 2500's sprawl over six.

The outcome of this is a confusing glossary that doesn't do a particularly good job of providing a clean system. Remember how in the first book the author tells us that unlike other roleplaying games, Andromeda 2500 is quick and easy to learn? Well in the first few paragraphs of mechanics, players are given formulas to work out parsecs and quadrants... these details are clearly intended to give the setting some scientific credibility. Except that at some points the game is trying to be more a space fantasy than a science fiction game...

Skills are still not explicitly explained - this is a big issue for me. Given that standard skills apparently work differently from combat skills, it is important that the difference is explained. This never occurs. Instead we are told about Comp Levels. See, using a skill isn't enough. You receive certain intelligence bonuses to some skill if you can succeed in an opposed roll on the probability table against the CL of any machines that you are using.

So in a nutshell, to use a computer you first need to make an opposed intelligence test to see if you know how to use it. Then you might get a bonus to your actual skill roll to use the machine. Hardly the sign of a quick and easy mechanic at all.

Next, all the obscure traits that are derived from your ability scores are explained - in a separate book - and they mostly add more little rule considerations that are mostly unnecessary.

Finally, the mechanics chapter discusses the special abilities - providing a number of rules considerations that really ought to have been in the other book. This is something I constantly find myself saying while going over the two books - they should have been one rulebook, and the mechanics have a lot of unnecessary crunch that serves no purpose whatsoever. These are details that could have been explained more simply and as they stand, are highly unlikely to come up in a game.

Combat

Naturally, given that the book is called "Combat" one would expect quite involved combat rules. In reality, they barely take up a fifth of the book. The system can best be described as a throwback to the days of THAC0 or the Call of Cthulhu/BRP Resistance table.

Whenever a character wishes to attack or perform some other opposed check, they compare the applicable ability with that of the opposing character on the probability table. This then provides a number which is to be rolled over on a d20 to succeed. Sounds simple enough. Except that there are a number of special modifiers - some of which become confusing. Consider aiming, when aiming at an opponent a character gains a +2 probability bonus towards the table, and then a +20% to the die roll of the d20.

That's right, you need to roll the d20, work out 20% of the roll, round off to the nearest whole number and then add that to the roll to see if you succeed.

Spread damage has a similar issue - if you miss, there is still a chance of doing damage. By looking at how many points you miss by you have to then work out the percentage of damage that you manage to do.

Then there are the special rules that involve areas where skill ought to come into play, but instead the system opts for difficulty levels against abilities on the probability table.

This style of game design is, simply put, outdated. Even d20 dropped tables for resolution and simplified all that complexity down into a much more player-friendly mechanic. One needs only look at the non-d20 games that are successful to know that having multiple mechanics and resolution tables are mostly out of fashion. Even the Cinematic Unisystem's table is still built around one simple mechanic - not a complex pile of exceptions and alternating systems. It strikes me that the skills rules are virtually pointless and no real consideration has been given to how skills come into play during a combat.

Vehicular combat, as can now be expected, continues with this trend of complicating the system. While they still use the probability table mechanics, the resolutions are again over complicated with extra rules - most of the complications coming into play when percentages are needed to be worked out.

Finally the player's section ends up with a brief three page discussion of the technology of 2500. This helps clear up what various advances exist - but as stated before, fails to really give a clear picture of the setting itself.

Game Masters - balancing setting with freedom

After another disappointingly obtuse excerpt from the "novel" we come to one of the vital sections of the game. It has been commented that James Eatwicker's GMing of Andromeda 2500 is a fantastic experience. This then means that for Earwicker to capture that feel for other gaming groups - he needs to provide us with a lot of detail in the GM section that will help us capture his vision of the setting.

Unfortunately, he seems to have opted to let GMs figure a lot of things out for themselves. The GM's section starts off without any preamble or discussion of the game. It goes straight into the mechanics of handling Awareness rolls, guidelines for damage calculations when falling, having collisions and other special situations. Including a brief discussion on time travel - again not really giving much help in how all this relates to the actual setting itself. In fact it is not until ten chapters into the GM's section that we get a discussion on GMing Andromeda 2500.

The first ten chapters are fairly dry discussions and rules for a variety of space phenomena, robots and androids, animals including Dragons, dinosaus and pegasi. That's correct. Remeber, this is a science fiction game. Or is it a space fantasy. Earwicker never seems to sufficiently decide what or how to combine the two. There is no cohesion. As I stated before.

Nothing in these chapters really leaps out and comes across as particularly unique. The Alien's chapter is filled with cliched races that you would expect to see - all with mostly scientific explanations of how they came to be what they are. I think the name of particular note belongs to the bat-humanoids, the Cimmerians.

Just before the GM's chapter we have a chapter on the Local space area that is policed by the UTF. This does provide a more detailed overview of the galaxy, but again - very little detail on the individual worlds and systems. Given the depth that the Star Wars gazetteers have, and the unprecedented depth of Blue Planet there is still very little guts to the setting. Just a very brief overview. Not promising at all.

The Adventure rules start off promising. Earwicker begins with some helpful gamemastering tips - many of which are common sense, but it is nice to see that he is writing for new GMs. It's just a shame that they need to have read most of the book to get to them - this is the kind of information that should have been at the very beginning of the GM's section. Unfortunately from there it goes down hill. The random adventure generation tables ought to help provide a better idea of what kind of feel an Andromeda 2500 game should have - but Earwicker seems to want to leave the GM with a lot of freedom.

Now I have no problem with this as a rule. But compared to a game like Blue Planet, Andromeda 2500 is just lacking too much detail to be able to say "go where you want." Because it is also saying "make it up first." This is very bad design - it means that essentially the GM and Players are buying an outdated, clunky game mechanic with the seed of a game setting idea - but without any of the necessary detail to be able to play the game out of the box.

While the chapter does describe a number of locations, all these descriptions are generic - there is no feeling of location anywhere. No major colonies discussed, no big NPCs to help people the universe, nothing. Just some generic locations and general planet descriptions. The blurb talks about intriguing - there is nothing intriguing about a lack of detail.

Finally the book rounds off with a chapter on the "big bads" of the setting, the Stadarians. Once again, we get a very general overview - but there is some more detail here than anywhere else in the setting. However it still fails in providing enough for a prolonged campaign.

The Final Verdict

Throughout the entire process of reading and reviewing both books, I was constantly thinking about how dated everything looked. From the mechanics to the setting to the very presentation of the game. The very first impression I had was that James Earwicker hasn't played a roleplaying game published since around the early 1990's. There have been so many developments and changes in the hobby since the time he purportedly started working on this game, and yet there is no evidence in either book that shows any recognition of this.

I find it hard to imagine who would actually buy this game as is. I can now see, after one person's comment in the forums, where the game could have gone. A kind of spycraft/shadowun in space style game certainly has an appeal and marketability. But to be honest, Earwicker is not the man to produce such a game if this attempt is anything to measure by. The confusion between being scientific and being fantastical never is sufficiently resolved. The text is written in a very bland and mechanical manner. The art, while fair to good, is too sparse to give the setting any depth. Finally, the split of generation rules and mechanics is a big mistake that will work against capturing any players.

Given the hyperbole claiming that Andromeda is unlike any other roleplaying game, I just didn't feel that enough work went into simple market research. The mechanics are simply atrocious, and the presentation is so out of date that it will be nearly impossible to sell the game. Not the worst game on the market, but certainly not the innovative industry shaker that the market spin claims it to be.

Should I buy this Game?No. Simply not unique enough, nor mechanically appealing enough to replace any of the other sci fi games on the market.