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Out in the Black is an adventure for the Serenity Role Playing Game system written by Tracy and Laura Hickman. For those who are unfamiliar with Tracy Hickman, he and Margaret Weis co-created the Dragonlance setting for Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s. This adventure is set on the planet of Regina and involves a mining town by the name of Frisco and a lost treasure from the days of the Unification War. This adventure also features one of the favorite characters from the Firefly series – the mysterious Saffron. She’s best remembered for tricking Malcolm Reynolds into marrying her and then almost giving the ship Serenity (and her crew) to brutal scavenges. One interesting side note is that the authors loosely based this town around an actual mining town where one of Tracy Hickman’s ancestors lived.
Overview This 102-page adventure book is broken down into two major parts – the adventure itself called Saffron’s Star and a detailed guide to the town of Frisco. There is also supporting material consisting of non-playing character summaries, a couple pages of special items that appear in the adventure, a character index and a two-sided character sheet (this was printed in 2006 before a new printing of the core rulebook included a character sheet).
The adventure itself is broken down into four episodes:
Episode One features some flashbacks that can be sprinkled into the adventure in no particular order depending upon the player characters and their backgrounds. It also has the opening scene of the adventure, which involves a race to land on a comet and pick up a load of ice. The ice, mostly methane, will be sold to the mine on Regina and used as fuel.
Episode Two gets the adventurers involved in the town of Frisco where there just happens to be a school marm (Saffron) who goes locally by the name of Brigit. She’s created a complex web of plots that she hopes will ultimately lead to her get off this rock with a treasure that’s been hidden in a local mine since The War.
Episode Three involves the player characters being sent on a boondoggle errand by Brigit and getting back just in time to be tossed in jail. They then get out just in time to foil the plan and learn of the treasure inside an old mineshaft.
Episode Four takes place inside the mines where the players must outsmart Brigit and her henchman to find a treasure supposedly not worth stealing because its contaminated with a virus.
Comments
Before running this adventure, I found myself having to read it a couple of time and take notes. I believe this was half due to the complex plot threads and half due to the poor organization of the book. Anyone planning on running Out in the Black, I suggest you read the introduction section, then skip over the adventure and go right to the details of the town. You might also consider running just the town without the adventure after I point out a few problems that I encountered. The town stands up pretty well. It has lots of interesting encounters such as a drunken oracle that spouts Shakespeare and a woman who plays with electricity. There are also rules for the casino game Faro, which was apparently very popular 100 years ago and will be again in the ‘Verse.
The problems I (and my band of adventurers) had with this book was not with the town itself, but with the scenario. It became too heavy-handed and the ending climatic scene had a fatal flaw. But let me take it one part at a time.
Episode One went well. The race to the comet was a moment for our pilot to shine and there was some nice interaction with the miner that managed to get everyone involved and interested. The flashback scenes were a little forced at times, but players were getting the idea of a hidden treasure would be involved.
Episode Two brought them to the town of Frisco with a funny scene that played out very well. Then came the challenge of getting the melting methane ice off of their ship while getting paid. This was very frustrating for the players. Saffron came into the scene to the delight of the players, but she only added to their frustration by ditching those trying to collect on the ice.
However, my players were not born yesterday and there was simply no way they were going to release a load of melting ice on credit. No money, no ice and that would end the scenario. So Saffron (or actually the union she was cheating) had to make good on the credits.
The party gets around town and soon figures out that Saffron is robbing Peter to pay Paul and borrowing from James to fool Matthew. When she approaches them and offers a piece of the action, they do what any intelligent party would in the situation – they agree and then quietly slip out of town. They want nothing to do with Saffron and he double-edged games of chicken.
I wasn’t too upset when this happened because I’d located the fatal flaw in the adventure – the treasure. The treasure at the end consists of 30,000 platinum coins that have been treated with a virus. The Alliance bio-weapons division crafted them during the Unification War. Alliance would give the coins as a pay off to the Independents and the coins would spread through the ranks leaving their army unable to fight.
Nice idea. The only problem is that all anyone has to do to get around this roadblock is melt down the coins. It took me five minutes to figure this out. It stands to reason the keeper of this treasure’s secret location would have also figured it out long ago, melted the coins and spent the platinum.
My players also figured it out in a couple minutes when I told them about what they might have found had they put up with Saffron’s shenanigans and played the entire adventure. Perhaps the players’ knowledge of the non-player character colored their judgment too much, but honestly, how many crews in the Serenity ‘Verse are going to willingly jump on a hell-bound train when they could just as easily wait for the next one.
Verdict
This adventure is not bad for a bunch or greenhorned players, especially those who are used to yelling, “We kill them and take their stuff!” But it lacks even the charm that Hickman was capable of in the old Dragonlance days.
I really got a kick out of the town of Frisco and I could see the joy the authors got out of placing a bit of family history into their work. The town and the adventure scenario seemed forced together with a shoehorn. Adding in one dangerous red-headed non-player character and it burst this boot at the seams.
On a scale of one to five, I give Out in the Black a two.
