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Sure, Third Edition brought those days back with a vengeance, but it is difficult to ignore the huge number of games out there today that focus more on telling a story than kicking some tail. That is why Battlelords of the 23rd Century is a refreshing return to the simplicity of gearing up and breaking things, a theme that many games tend to forget in the rush to create the ultimate immersive experience.
Admittedly, this game is not all about violence. Sure, about half the book is dedicated to the delicate art of dismembering foes, but there are still a few ideas here that don't involve heavy weapons. Overall, however, Battlelords of the 23rd Century is a fun, high-powered fragfest in a deadly future.
The Game
Battlelords of the 23rd Century takes place in the year 2279. Megacorporations own the entire galaxy and hire corporate mercenaries to fight for possession. Ridiculously overpowered body armor and man-portable cannons dominate the battlefields of the future, where alien races fight, kill and die to secure the future of the very wealthy.
In case you had not noticed, this is not space opera. This is gritty combat and meaningless death. Battlelords has more in common with Hammer's Slammers than Star Wars, which makes it a very interesting read. I personally love futuristic tactical warfare, and it was fun to flip through the massive equipment list to find just the right piece of deadly hardware for my erstwhile mercenary bloodletter.
Battlelords might be interesting, and have lots of exciting potential, but it is not overly original. The concept of the megacorporate future has been around for decades, and so has the science fiction RPG. The races in Battlelords are at times cliche, at times absurd, and often downright derivative. Floating cities and arachnid enemies are so ingrained into science fiction that they have become commonplace, and Battlelords of the 23rd Century is original not in presenting these elements, but in how they are used.
Introduction
Battlelords of the 23rd Century starts out with a six-page piece of fiction intended to introduce readers to the setting. This is not terribly well written, and slightly confusing, but it does show exactly what kind of game players can expect. The story is about a group of mercs on a violent mission of corporate espionage. There is a great deal of violence, lots of explosions, and several severed body parts. The super-violent theme of the game is presented in all its glory, and if this sounds the least bit interesting to you, then this is your kind of game.
After the ubiquitous explanation of roleplaying, the introductory chapter provides a short explanation of the setting. Several rival corporations are mentioned, as are some differing types of mercenaries. Players are largely expected to take on the roles of these trained warriors as they battle the forces of opposing companies.
Player Races
This chapter details the possible player races available in the core book. Twelve different races present themselves, providing a good variety of possibilities. These races are unfortunately unoriginal, for the most part, but still promise to be fun to play. For example, the Cizeracks (cat people) are fast and agile, and can mount weapons on their backs so that they can fire while running on all fours. The Ram Pythons (giant lizard men) are semi-retarded machines of destruction capable of absorbing damage and dealing it in copious quantities. Other obvious races include the blob alien, the X-files alien, the squid alien (complete with tentacles), and the pointy-eared-but-otherwise-human alien.
There are some cool races in here. The Eridani is a warrior race of ugly aliens with mohawks. The Chatilians have heads like vegetables and are highly skilled in psionics (called matrix controlling in Battlelords). The Zen Rigeln are made up of two groups - healers and torturers. Any of these aliens could make a very fun character.
Character Creation
As the reader dives into this chapter, he begins to realize that this game might be a little bit complicated. After rolling percentile dice several times and allocating scores to the eight vital statistics (Strength, Manual Dexterity, Agility, IQ, Constitution, Aggression, Intuition and Charisma), you can determine your secondary statistics (Terrestrial Knowledge, Military Leadership, Persuasion and Bargaining). You can then determine your race, name, height, weight, size class, body points, movement, number of attacks, damage per attack, vision, smell, hearing, social status, primary occupation, secondary occupation, experience points, experience points available, salary, rank, black marks, and survival matrix roll. Then you roll on a couple 'life experience' tables and pick out a bunch of skills.
If this seems like a lot of work, that is probably because it is. Any time I need separate stats for vision, smell and hearing, I know I have a complex game on my hands.
Skills
There are so many skills in Battlelords that they get their own chapter. Skills are broken down into occupations, and if a character has enough skills in an occupation, he may list that at his job. He also gets bonuses for other tasks related to his occupation, which is a nice way to create some synergy between the skills.
The skills chapter has several rules for using and obtaining skills. A character who has enough skills in a single occupation becomes an expert in his field, and further skills in that field become cheaper. Raising skills is done through experience expenditure, and is fairly standard.
Using skills is actually quite a bit simpler than the character creation rules would initially suggest. The player simply makes a single percentile roll, hoping to roll low. The base difficulty of a task is 50%, increased by 10% per skill level, and reduced by the difficulty of the task. Other modifiers are added in, like bonuses from stats, and if the percentile roll is under this modified difficulty, the attempt is a success.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that there are over a dozen tables in this chapter that summarize the skills and group them handily into their respective occupations. This is a boon, because the skill list is twelve pages long.
Armor
When I turned the page and saw that I was starting a chapter devoted exclusively to armor, I began to understand just what a power romp Battlelords promises to be. Players not only purchase a suit of armor, but they personalize and customize it with a huge range of options. Weapon mounts, jump pads, jet packs, missile racks, corrosive protection - you can even purchase a carrying case for your armor. There are plenty of illustrations to let you know just what kind of armor you're buying.
One interesting thing about the armor in Battlelords is that it is not just a modifier to your damage or dodging. Each piece of armor has three basic stats that describe how well it absorbs pain - integrity, threshold and absorption. As attacks inflict damage beyond threshold, they penetrate the armor, dissipate through absorption, and reduce integrity. This much detail is obviously a draw for the powergamer looking for options. That powergamer will be pleased - there are hundreds of options available just in armor.
Weapons, Equipment and Cybernetics
This chapter describes the real heroes of Battlelords of the 23rd Century - the guns. More than 100 different weapons are described here, from old-fashioned Uzis to pulse cannons and mag guns. Since there are many different forms of damage in Battlelords, these weapons do not have much trouble standing out. Even though I am not usually a fan of powergaming, I found myself drawn to the idea of strapping on some huge mechanized suit of armor, grabbing a two-handed cannon, and bringing the fight to legions of foes.
Equipment is just as diverse as the weapons. Two pages of tables summarize hundreds of miscellaneous pieces of gear, from blowtorches and gas masks to sleeping bags and salt tablets. The more bizarre equipment is accompanied by art that shows just how it might work.
A large segment of this chapter discusses computers in some detail, from programming and building to hacking and updating. There is even a short primer on using computers in the game, which is nice because no party of gun-toting psychos wants to take a break while the tech-head goes through a lengthy exercise in downloading music clips.
Cybernetics, in contrast to the rest of the gear, is not addressed in the same detail as the other gear. Sure, there are plenty of options, but when stacked up against the armor or weapons, this section seems to beg for a supplement.
Matrices
Magic and psionics are rolled up into one big ball in Battlelords and called 'matrices.' Matrix controllers get power points that are used to hurl all kinds of effects, from making people angry or healing them to erecting instant shields or burning opponents alive.
If there is one thing about Battlelords of the 23rd Century that sets it apart, it is the huge number of options in every section. There are literally several hundred different abilities that a matrix controller can use, and they range from giving a target the chills to destroying planets. Timing and power points seem to balance the power available to a skilled matrix controller, and the fact that a tiny bullet making a tiny hole can put a quick stop to the most high-powered matrix.
Combat
Ah, the meat and potatoes of Battlelords. If you are looking for a deep, cerebral experience, this game is not for you. If, on the other hand, you love to blow things up, the combat chapter provides plenty of ways for you to do just that.
As soon as a fight starts (and odds are, that won't take long), players roll initiative. Add your modifier from your Agility stat, add modifiers for encumbrance, and the lowest result goes first.
The basic chance to hit is determined by your weapon and range. A laser carbine might have great distance range, as shown by a high percentage chance to hit at long range, while a pulse cannon might have a huge chance to hit at close range and next to none at long range. This is fairly innovative - not often have I seen systems that illustrate the abilities of a weapon this way. This system gives individuality to the weapons, so that they are more than just a renamed version of the same big gun over and over. You can select the weapon that is most useful for your combat style - snipers will be more prone to long-range weapons, while fast, commando types will want massive firepower up close.
Once you determine your base chance to hit with a weapon, you add a pile of modifiers. Your skill with your weapon increases your chance to hit, as does any modifier from abilities. There are many modifiers that could also add or subtract from your chance to hit, but these are pretty standard (darkness, target size, called shot, etc.) and easy to figure on the fly.
My main beef at this point is the amount of math required for one shot. I could start at 20% for weapon and range, add 16% for skill, add 8% for an ability modifier, subtract 5% for a size modifier, and then subtract 20% because it's too dark. That is a lot of math. Granted, most of this should be done before the game starts, because players should record the weapon, range, skill and ability modifiers before they start playing, but this is still a pain and could slow me down when I'm running and gunning.
To further delay the process of reducing opponents to their component atoms, Battlelords uses a hit location chart. When firing on full-auto, this could mean that after a successful hit, I must then roll hit location for five or more bullets, then damage for each, calculating the amount of damage that exceeds threshold, affects absorption, and reduces integrity. Oh, yeah, and I still have to subtract any excess damage from my body points – up to six times.
In all fairness, the game would just not be the same if it were ‘rules light.’ A game this focused on combat should be detailed. I might not love playing this much detail, but it does allow me to reenact some fine bloody battles.
Living In The Future
Finally we arrive at the setting chapter. These twenty pages (of almost 300) summarize the setting of Battlelords of the 23rd Century. I, too, will summarize, since this review is getting really long.
Basically, the Galactic Alliance governs the civilized worlds, but the real power lies with the corporations. There are rebels, arachnid invaders, pirates, and many other unsavory types that threaten the Alliance, and the players may or may not be sided with them. There is more here, but it is not all that compelling. It is an interesting read, but the point of this game is not the setting, it is the really large weapons.
The Battle Master
Battlelords uses the term ‘Battle Master’ for the gamemaster. This chapter has a few decent tips on running this game, and while a lot of it is obvious, some of it does present some useful information. A good random encounter table, some non-player types, and some info on speeding up play make this section actually useful. Some stats for opponents would have been nice – I finished the book without seeing a stat block for the arachnids – but there is at least enough in here to get started.
Hell’s Point Campaign Setting
It seems that nearly every game released these days comes with an obligatory adventure. Fortunately, this one is not entirely bad, and it is accompanied by a very cool floating city large enough to handle a wide variety of adventures. This was interesting reading, and I was delighted to find abbreviated stat blocks for several NPCs. There are also twelve archetypes that could be very handy.
Presentation
Having done some publishing, I shudder to think what the art and design for Battlelords must have cost. The cover is great, both front and back, and the interior art is awesome, especially for the race descriptions. There are hundreds of excellent illustrations in this book that convey the feel of the game very well, not to mention being fun to look at.
The design and layout is superb. Easily readable headers and text guide the reader through the book with ease, and the tables are exceptionally easy to follow. There are designs in this book that must have taken weeks to get right. This is obviously intended to be a serious contender in the RPG market, and the reader can get a feel for the value inherent in Battlelords just by glancing through the pages.
Unfortunately, the writing style is considerably less impressive than the design. I can appreciate a sense of humor in writing, but the writing in this book is painfully bad in places. For example, after describing how one alien often rides another, the writer comments on the fact by ending his paragraph as follows:
“Weird!”
What is weird is that the writer would bother to point that out. What is also a little weird is how often the writer uses exclamation marks. There are multiple examples on nearly every page where the writer simply put an exclamation mark at the end of an otherwise unremarkable sentence. After a while, the book began to feel remarkably immature, which is unfortunate. I enjoyed reading Battlelords, and could even see myself running a game, but I became weary of the slightly sophomoric writing style employed in the book.
Support
There are more than a dozen supplemental books for Battlelords of the 23rd Century, providing a huge amount of support, with additional races, more guns and armor, locations, adventures and more. If the 300 pages of core book is not enough to get you started, you will have no problem finding more source material. And if you still need more, there are tons of free downloads at the site. In fact, considering the support for this game, and the fact that it is over ten years old, I am surprised that I had never heard of it before a few weeks ago.
Summary
After all this exposition and critique, the real question is simple – would I play this game? The answer is a resounding ‘yes.’ The setting might be a little shallow, but the game itself is fantastic. It is all about options, and once a Battle Master learns to use the system, the mechanics could be fast and very deadly. Players can customize their characters more than nearly any other game, and if the supplements are used, customization is almost infinite.
The book is gorgeous, and even includes a very good index (which I used extensively writing this review). While the writing may have been a little immature, the game is not. Battlelords of the 23rd Century is probably the best science fiction game you never heard of.
Style: 4 – The art is great and the design is impeccable, but the writing style can really grate on you after 200 pages.
Substance: 4 – A setting this shallow would normally never garner a score this high, but the wealth of player options and clean percentile system more than make up for it.
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