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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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