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TECHNOLOGY! is a rules expansion that is effectively a conversion book to expand AFTERMATH! into any of a number of genres ranging from fantasy to sci-fi. It is very useful when creating post-apocalypse settings that vary from the default AFTERMATH! setting; a new dark age or near-future collapse are especially viable.
Content
Character Generation – This section offers additional rules for combat in the AFTERMATH! system such as aerial movement. There are descriptions for over thirty races. The races span fantasy races such as goblins, kobolds and ogres to races typical of science fiction games such as ursoid, feline and insectoid creatures with hit location charts to match.
Cybernetics – This section covers all manner of cybernetic enhancements. It’s all standard fare for cyber-punk settings.
Space Travel – This is a small section contributes minimally. It provides a brief overview of vacuum and hyperspace with a barest classification of spacecraft. There are no rules for space combat or ship design, those will have to be derived from another system.
New Skills – The skills section matches skills to the new abilities and equipment mastery offered in other sections.
High Tech Equipment & Guns – These sections cover all manner of standard sci-fi equipment (blast rifles, force swords, anti-grav belts, etc.). The real meat is in the gun section. I’ll wager the author is a gun buff, over 16 pages are dedicated to this topic. There are pictures of every modern gun available and really helps bring the original AFTERMATH! gun lists more current. There are pictures for most of the weapons listed, saving non-gun buffs from scouring the Internet.
Alien Creatures, Net Running and Robots – These sections round out the book to offer a complete conversion to a sci-fi setting. An appendix with tech level listings for all equipment is handy for planet hopping (or time travel) where the technology achievements of the natives vary. You’ll find everything from Greek Helmets to Flak Jackets and Battlesuits.
Conclusion
If you enjoy the core AFTERMATH! rules and are eager to expand your post-apocalypse setting and beyond, this is the expansion for you. The race additions would work nicely for a fantasy genre conversion. Coupling them with the cybernetic and technology rules would bridge the gap to a space opera setting. It feels like a consolidation of an AFTERMATH! enthusiast’s house rules that fills in the some of blanks left in the core rules.
I still run an AFTERMATH! campaign and personally found the rules very helpful in converting some of the near-future tech encounters. The race section was handy for creating various mutants of the nuclear wasteland.
Layout: below-average – It’s packed full of rules in a font that matches the original AFTERMATH! books. There is a format error here-and-there, but it’s mostly easy to find what you are looking for. The esthetic is pedestrian compared to modern RPG’s, but I personally appreciate the style matching the original books.
Content: average – the book offers a lot of specific content that can be used in a variety of genres.
