INTRODUCTION:

For those unfamiliar with Blakes 7, I feel it's important to point out before passing a careless judgment upon the series and it's legacy that Blakes 7 was a labour of love on the part of the many actors, creators, designers and the many fans like myself, who have kept it alive all these years. Although Blakes 7 had been renowned for it's at times dodgy props, costumes, low key special effects etc, to me it has always been a work of brilliance. Why? Firstly it involves my all time favourite genre, that of the 'Space Opera'. However Blakes 7 was is much more than just good space opera. Blakes 7 is a work that triumphed against the hardships of resticted budgets and rediculously tight filming schedules to give us a view of a distant future where the human race had conquered space travel, but as always had still not conquered itself. It was filled with new worlds and inhabitants of which the writers put in elements of that were alien to us. Amidst the struggles of a group of outlaws against a totalitarian government with it's own agenda's raised higher than that of the people(resulting in the loss of true freedom to the point were the population can no longer tell due to there water and food being contaminated with mind control drugs), Blakes 7 showed us perhaps the first true to life view of a space opera. Like Paul Darrow (The actor who plays Avon in the series) declared in a recent interview. Up until Blakes 7, no hero type character, had been able to display the elements of true human nature of which many of us would prefer to avoid. Despite many people calling the character Avon, a heartless machine like person with no feeling at all and only his own objectives at heart, Avon was actually, simply an honest person. This character, along with characters Vila, Blake, Tarrant, Dayna, Soolin, Jenna, Cally etc all helped to explore not just the void of space throughout there adventuring and struggle to bring freedom to a repressed galaxy, but the chance to explore the human element into the bargain. This along with many other great facets about Blakes 7 make it timeless. In fact in terms of representing a great setting for a Role Playing Game, Blakes 7 has to be an undisputed King. Why? It presents a lot of great space concepts and if you look a little beyond the older style model special effects etc and use your imagination, it really is a great setting with endless potential for creativity (as the now countless and astonishing amount of fan fiction out there will back up). At the end of the day, Role Playing is about exploring things we wouldn't normally expose ourselves to. As the book declares: "As a child you have played "make-believe" where, in your imagination, you could be anyone you liked; performing heroic deeds, reacting to situations, creating new ones... Problems arose when other children joined in because there were no rules and only arguments."

Role Playing is simply a mechanism to stop those arguments and continue the exploration of imagination. It's a great aid to help people learn about themselves and think beyond there own thoughts to how others might actually think about things. The worst Role Playing games I have ever played are those were the players are basically just playing the characters based on themselves. This nearly always leads to power struggles and I'm better than you type of mentality. Some would argue that a good referee(game master, dungeon master, the rule keeper), should prevent this from happening but honestly, no referee can do it all and anyone going into any Role Playing Game with that mentality will not gain nearly as much as if they put in the effort themselves.

For over 12 years, the Blakes 7 Role Playing Game, has been available through HORIZON - The Official Blakes 7 Fan Club / Appreciation Society. To date (please correct me if I'm wrong), there has not been a single review. So here is my first review on the Role Playing game which should be on the shelves of every true Science Fiction fan the world over.

TECHNICAL DETAILS:

Here I will outline the book format and comment on content and layout etc.

-The Book.

The book is a 127 page book in totality plus the hard front and back cover(RPG Online may like to note that a feature to upload a picture of the front cover of the book, might be a good idea to aid reviewers if extra web space becomes available in the near future). 23 of these pages are devoted to the table of contents, character sheets and game note guides. The book is spiral bound.

-Artwork.

The artwork in the book ranges from excellent to poor. Some of the artwork is nice and clear in a comic like representation of essentail areas like Federation Troopers and weapons etc. There is a lot of hand drawn artwork, some of which is somewhat sub standard by todays Role Playing Games (devastatingly so in comparison to books like the Serenity RPG for example), on one page 92, for example there is a picture so poor in quality I can hardly make it out. However the saving grace is the well drawn spacecraft, weaponry, dot type sketch format for the major characters in the series which look stunning and represent the characters very well. So for those concerned, on a percentage of good to bad, where looking at 70% good and 30% bad, which is really rather good. I've purchased other role playing games where the artwork was appalling the book through, so I was rather pleased all in all with the work in the Blakes 7 RPG. The art on the character sheets is also excellent and there's character sheets designed for use with The Liberator, Scorpio and Federation spacecraft as well as generic Blakes 7 logo sheets which is nice for aiding players to sought there characters accordingly. Lastly it should be noted that the artwork was produced by die hard long time Blakes 7 fans and the fact that this out does artwork I've seen on books of much greater cost is a tribute to the artists.

SUMMARY OF CONTENT:

To ensure this review keeps to a reasonable size, I'll brief through the major sections of the book.

- Introduction

A perfectly acceptable 8 page run through on Blakes 7. I'd strongly recommend viewing the series if you havn't seen it before(only view if you have an open mind and can accept that with shoe string budgets, not everything can look pretty but for Blakes 7, this is perfectly acceptable as in Blakes 7, things don't always end up well, in fact often badly, it's based and modelled on real life when it comes to the way events and the galaxy presents itself). A run through on what Blakes 7 is and the major characters which define it.

- Characters

The next section should be self explanatory in terms of content, here's were we learn of the games mechanics for the players. There are 6 attributes which can range from 1 to 20 and then there's skills which are based on a percentage out of 100. The 10 attributes are divided into physical and mental. In Blakes 7, there exists psionic abilities such as telepathy and mind control, so mental attributes feel very comfortable when playing the game. I feel without these, players could get out of control in some areas, so these aid to prevent this well. Overall this section is nice and concise at just 8 pages and having always been someone heavily against games which feature so many attributes and details they restrict play to the point of being calculating exercises rather than games(take for example Aftermath (Don't go there)), Blakes 7 RPG has just the right amount.

- Skills, - Tasks and skill use, - Personal Combat, Wounds and Injuries, -Stress(Optional Rules), - Psionics,

All of these sections detail the major mechanics and I'll sum them up in this first review by saying if you mixed Call Of Cthulhu with Traveller and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (The original Gygax era), you'd more than likely get the Blakes 7 RPG as mechanics go. Blakes 7 RPG uses just 6, 10 and 20 sided dice too by the way (never did like AD&D's 6 different forms of dice system, it get's messy, this leans more towards a kind of Call Of Cthulhu form with a little less detail, more in next review).

- Space Combat

I'd like to bring this section up as it's what I found to be the more weaker part of the game. Let's get one thing straight, Space is just that, it's big but most importantly, IT'S 3D. Once again we have here gamers, a 2D system. In Blakes 7 almost all starships have amazing computer systems to handle life support, back up, drive control, orientation, fuel, energy monitoring etc. In many Blakes 7 episodes, it was most evident that the 3D nature of space was very relevent. Starships docking with other starships, like The Scorpio docking with a pleasure cruiser in the episode Gold or several episodes where craft were put in clouds for cover. Another point would be the escape from planetary orbit, which is even displayed on computer screens in terms of the Z direction. Alas this system does not cater for 3D combat. Perhaps you can compensate for this by declaring that the computers do all the compensating, however several times, the crew is forced to go to manual and has to do all the flying themselves, so computers can't account for everything. It does however detail the key elements which pop up time and again in the Blakes 7 universe and with some work and imagination, any gamer should be fine to use a 3D system. Might I suggest complimenting the system with Traveller for example.

- Worlds

This section was rather brief and I would have liked to have seen stats and descriptions for all the worlds explored in the series from the authors view point in terms of the game. However it's not to bad, but not as good as Traveller.

-Non-Player Characters

I liked this section, it's simple and straight forward, perfect for both dispensable and indespensible NPC's throughout a game.

-Refereeing

Another section I would have liked to see more added to, however for the experienced or hardened Traveller role playing gamer, everything should be fine. For the beginner, this is also great because it's straight forward and will allow for more imagination and promote more thought to be put in, instead of having everything handed on a platter which in my experience is often a good thing. (Take the White Wolf RPG's for example, there more story than rules, which most gamers prefer). I hope future editions will expand on this section however, as this can often be a source for debate instead of gamming (which can get really annoying and tedious for everyone).

-Equipment.

Excellent. Just the major Blakes 7 equipment the players are likely to come across. This paves the way for an equipment book, which would focus on other weaponry which pops up frequently in the series.

-Scenarios.

This left a lot to be desired also. 4 pages of scenarios and then presto end of the book. With all the great fan fiction out there, surely an adventure of say 20 to 30 pages could have been included to highlight key excitment and player reactions to characters could have been included. Blakes 7 has a wealth of material to offer the gammer and this section might lead the uninitiated to believe otherwise. There is a warning declaring players should not read any further, to preserve the element of surprise. This leads me to believe this section was going to be much greater, however the authors must have been pressed for time. This is sad as overall the game is a good one. The rules and nice and consise and with all the wealth of material in the Blakes 7 universe, there really was no need to cut this last section so short. Here's were the most room for improvement should be focussed and I hope many gammers who purchase and play this game post there own scenarios etc for others to help promote this great game.

FINAL WORDS

For those who love Traveller, I'm certain you will recall the early days were you had a basic set of rules and came up with some amazing ideas and even developed entire campaigns purely from your imagination and these simple rules. Blakes 7 The Role Playing Game is in this infancy stage. It's mechanics are sound and it plays well. It's simply begging to be expanded and explored. Let the adventure and perhaps even your own rebellion begin.

AVAILABILITY

I include this section as obtaining a copy of Blakes 7 The Role Playing game is not a simple task of walking into your local gamming store and handing over the cash I'm afraid. For details on how to order the game, you need to contact HORIZON - The official Blakes 7 Fan Club and Appreciation Society. Visit www.horizon.ork.uk for email contacts and ask for there product list. Tell them I sent you if you like.

Enjoy, Sean A. Curtin

*Blake: They're human. *Jenna: I'll need convincing of that!