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Spirit of the Century has been a well-known secret (around rpg.net) ever since it first came out. I never showed any interest in it until a couple of events: a poster on rpg.net statted out a character that included the Aspect “Man of Titanium”, and with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull about to be released in theatres I just had to have a copy of a game, and soon I did...
spir·it - an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms
cen·tu·ry - a period of 100 years especially of the Christian era or of the preceding period of human history
the book
Spirit of the Century (SotC) can be purchased from the print-on-demand company lulu in hard-cover format. I obtained a soft-cover copy from www.indiepressrevolution.com.
The book I have is 6” x 9” with a soft-cover illustrated with a biplane piloted by a gorilla, a man flying after it with a jet-pack and guns blazing, and two people holding onto the plane's wings fighting the gorilla (who is seemingly doing an admirable job of both flying the plane and fending off his attackers).
The book itself is 400+ pages illustrated by a few black and white pictures. The chapter and section headings use a font that I would normally attribute to pulp adventure (e.g. Indiana Jones). Each page has the numbers 1701, 1801, 1901 and 2001 in Roman numerals along the top and bottom.
the game
The cover advertises SotC as a “pulp pick-up role-playing game”, and the introduction expands on this: in summary, SotC is based on the pulp genre and has been designed to be played with little or no preparation.
The game can be broadly divided into two sections (can't they all!): system and setting.
The setting is covered in two chapters: Background and Secrets of the Century (this being a more GM-centric chapter). In short, SotC is set in the 1920's, with the Great War over but having a large influence on the character. The game presents a sparse background in the Century Club and the characters being members (called Centurions) of this club. The secrets of the setting includes brief mention of Millenials and the purpose behind the existence of the (Spirit) Centurions and those called Shadow Centurions... but I think I've said enough about that.
The game also includes sample signature characters used throughout the book to illustrate the system and a couple of foes to serve as foils to the characters' heroism (if the GM does not care to create their own). Other than these few antagonists plus those mentioned in the sample adventure The Nether Agenda, the GM is left to his or her own devices.
The rest of the book is devoted to the system: Fate 3. A lot of the book actually covers the uses of Skills and Stunts with over 120 pages shared between the two sections aptly named Skills and Stunts.
The Basics introduces us to the, ahhh, basics (I really need to get a thesaurus) of the game. SotC uses 4 “Fudge” Dice to determine success or failure. The values rolled on the dice are negative one, zero, and positive one with a roll resulting in a range of -4 to +4. The system includes “The Ladder”, a chart that rates everything (Skills, dice rolls, difficulty of a dice roll).
Character Creation details the system for character creation; being an affair that involves all Players and is designed to give the game master hooks to base the story on and results in a party of characters who are familiar with each other. Part of this process involves the Player coming up with the title on a novel the character played a starring role in, with the following step having these titles randomly distributed to determine what novel the character Guest Starred in.
Characters have a number of Skills, Aspects and Stunts. Also Players have access to Fate Points that allow re-rolls, bonuses to rolls or powering Stunts. Aspects describe the character and offer advantages and a small section is included to try and explain how to choose (and name!) the Aspects for your character. They have names such as “Man of Titanium”, “Sally Save Me!” and “Irish” and can be invoked for effect by the Player costing one or more Fate Points, or compelled by the GM gaining the Player Fate Points. Stunts are special abilities, minor powers or provide minor benefits. Skills are... skills.
But of course we always need to know How To Do Things and luckily there is a section to tell us exactly that. How does one going about resolving an attack, gaining initiative etc. Also included is the use of Minions (and how characters who use them are called.... what was that word again... cowards) and Companions, the resolution and effects of conflict (Stress and Consequences) and gaining Temporary Aspects.
More probably needs to be said about Stress and Consequences: these are your “damage” attributes - physical (Health) and mental (Composure). Stress is just marked down as you gain it and Consequences are a special kind of Aspect. After taking three Consequences a character is then taken out (which could be, if appropriate to the situation, death!).
And a Pulp game would not be Pulp is there weren't Gadgets and Gizmos for the characters to use against their enemies (or their enemies to use against them and the rest of the world in their attempt at World Domination). And so a section on how to build such devices using the rules is included. This section also covers vehicles and bombs. And lists common and not so common items of the 1920's a character is likely to try and purchase.
To round out the game the GM is given advice on Running the Game and some Tips and Tricks to keep the game running smoothly. Running the Game includes how a GM should adjudicate Skills and Stunts and Explosions!... and some other things that sound quite boring after the mention of explosions. Between this section and the previous two (Skills and Stunts) the majority of the pages in the book look very similar. In fact each section contains page references under the appropriate headings to the other two – an extremely helpful feature to Players and GMs alike.
Tips and Tricks contains advice on how a GM can create an action-packed game in the Pulp genre and other more general advice on creating and running a game (including scene framing, transitions, and setting decisions).
The last few pages of the book includes Stunt Packages to give Players a quick start to character creation and an Index.
the good, the bad, and the ugly
Even though SotC comes with a basic setting, the system is flexible enough to use for almost anything. I really like the concept behind Aspects where a description or catch-phrase offers both advantages and disadvantages that have a mechanical effect. This was one of the driving forces behind my purchase of the game.
Not enough setting information for my liking. There is some but not everyone can just “pick-up” a game and run it at short notice. I know I can always come up with villains such as the Electro-Engineers of Ur, Scientists possessed by the Ghosts of an Ancient Ruined City (or EEUSGARC for short... Eeeyousgar... oh, never mind) hell-bent on using a mixture of Science! and the Arcane to Take Over The World... but I like to read about creations of others (hey, I'm lazy!) which are infinitely better than those produced by my fevered imagination.
I really like the handy-dandy size of the book – I can just pop it into my bag and easily carry it around and whip it out when I need to work out what Aspects might be attached to a scene or person (hmmmm I think that might be Angry Boss on my manager and Pile Of Work To Be Done on my desk.... oh crap).
in summary
If you are looking for a full-colour game with many illustrations to help you get in the mood for running or playing this game – then this game probably isn't for you. It reminded me of earlier games from the 80's and early 90's using more of a minimalist approach to presentation. But that was a simpler time when we didn't know the glories of Technicolor (and I still haven't worked out how to cast Mind Bondage on my parents – Jack Chick Lied and I want my money back – or at least the three minutes of my life spent reading Dark Dungeons)!
That said, this is a fantastic game. Reading through it just inspired my imagination. It has heaps of advice for both players and game masters on creating characters, stories, and using the system itself.
For Style Spirit of the Century deserves a fist pummeling 5. Although I figure I'm still hung up on having nice presentation (colour) just reading the book had my imagination overflowing with ideas.
For Substance I give a brain dazzling 4. Spirit of the Century offers much in the way of advice but the setting is sparse. Even though the game is presented as a game easy to play with little preparation I still would like as much to help me as possible. I'm left to figure out how a simple Zombie works in the system, and if I wanted to Electrify my Undead creations (um that's Aspects of Not Among The Living, Crumbling Bits, Braaains! and Electrified.... should I include Lurching Around Town...? ...oh my poor aching head)!
As an aside, I note that Evil Hat are in the process of writing The Dresden Files using the Fate system. If the pulp genre isn't to your liking then The Dresden Files, modern supernatural genre, may be more to your taste An interesting piece of information I just picked up is that Spirit of the Century was he result of the initial development and testing of the Fate system to be used for Dresden Files – it was considered good enough to publish as a separate game!
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