Now let’s be fair as often as Fantasy games are more or less set in a vaguely Tolkienish world, There are just as many obvious tropes in sci-fi. Now don’t get me wrong I am not saying everyone copies Tolkien verbatim, but I have been to conventions and listened to gamers go on about how lame halfings/hobbits are and then brag about playing a kender. And that is the first part of what makes Orbit unique, it’s feel. Set in the Far future, your characters are not set up to be brave federation officers, or explorers of uncharted nebulae, or even a rag tag group of resistance fighters staving off the high powered galactic overlords. Nope, your characters are simply old enough to get kicked out of federation space on their wandershen, kind of like trekking through Europe to find yourself, only much larger and much weirder. The premise is that as your characters have come of age the federation makes them undergo Wandershen to gain citizenship, Which offers a great deal of reason for adventure, and a unique perspective of why Pcs of all races might travel together without an obvious home base. Of course not all characters have to be from federation space, in fact that is one other really cool thing about Orbit, the selection of races. Of course like so many Sci fi games, there are the standards such as humans, a cat like and wolf/dog like race, (no huge surprise here) a big lizard like race, and a race known as the Vanng, a race that screams I want to play a combat monster type. I know not very impressive huh? Well luckily that is just the tip of the iceberg. Besides these races, beings such as the Traxxians who beg to be played for laughs, pel’tuurians a race that looks like those aliens on Star Trek who were white on one side and black on the other, and if that is not enough that’s just a smattering of the league races. (League of Allied Worlds that is), you also have the option to play non-league races, which opens the ball field up considerably! The selection in this book is staggering, not to mention there are very decent rules for building your own alien race, assuring that if you don’t want to be a known race (for any reason) you are covered. Characters also get to choose from 14 professions again with the option to make your own, which is helpful for those of us who want to play a Traxxian Fast food employee, as the professions simply assume you are going for guts and glory, one thing I would have preferred to see in this game would have been more stock professions, but this is pretty minor. From a campaigning stand point this game could be played seriously, or with a few laughs, prettymuch I would put the genre somewhere between classic Star Wars, and Red Dwarf, with it’s own unique share of fun and interesting ideas, that beg to be exploited.
Of course character selection is only part of the game how are the mechanics? The game is percentile based, I know, that seems so 1980’s Well the system does have a certain retro charm, much like digging out my old copy of Star Frontiers. One unique feature is that skills are based on a multiplier to the score. (Example a character with a tech attribute of 34, and a repair skill of level 3 (which is a x2) gives your character a total skill of 68.) the amount of success will affect the exact amount of success for each roll. In essence, the amount you beat the roll by determines success as well as damage for combat rolls, again with a handy chart on the character sheet. Characters can also have access to psionics or technomagery, which covers, players who love them extra powers.
Physically the book has a quality that is on par with most palladium books, it is a softcover tome weighing in at 258 pages mostly black and white with a few color plates, that are not glossy, unlike so many games with a few color pages, The art is decent, I wouldn’t rush out to by an “art of Orbit” portfolio set, but I have seen a heck of a lot worse from bigger publishers, even those who pride themselves on having great art. And given that the price, it’s certainly not too outrageous to consider not buying, especially if you are into this kind of game.
I would have to recommend this game to fans of older sci-fi games, especially Star Frontiers, This game feels easily like a spiritual successor to that TSR classic, also anyone who wants a sci-fi action game that is not based on oppressive galactic warlords and coming up with new synonyms for dark and depressing, This game has a lot to offer for the right play group, and is a relatively easy game could easily become a cult classic. So what are you waiting for, go out and see the universe!
