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No Man’s Land is a “campaign supplement” for the game Battlelords of the 23rd Century. This is the fifth review I have done for SSDC’s game; the previous reviews were the core book and all three of the Galactic Underground player’s supplements. This review continues my thoughts from the previous book reviews.

The Book Itself

No Man’s Land is a 140 page black and white soft covered book. The cover art is one of the finest pieces in any of the Battlelords products, depicting several starships in the foreground and a few planets in the background. Having several starships in the picture allows the artist to show off some of the different styles that are in the game. Interior wise the book has the usual Battlelords look; though, there does seem to be a lot more pieces of artwork.

Chapter Breakdown
Chapter One: Introduction (Pages 3-8)

Chapter one, the introduction, has to be one of the most weird I have ever encountered in an RPG book. I would assume the point of this section is to introduce you to its contents, of course, and to begin instilling within you the mood of this part of the setting. I feel that the introduction could have brought me into the game a bit smoother, but instead it jumps straight into things; sometimes you just have to figure out what the section is doing by yourself. No Man’s Land covers an area of the setting that is supposed to be frontier and not unlike the Wild West. The chapter begins with a timeline that follows more local history of the Fornax Galaxy. And then has a very small fiction piece called The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The story could take place in a wild west film, except for a few science fiction elements mentioned, and the fact the protagonists are not human. Along with the piece of fiction are several quotes with headings such as The Sheriff and The Gunfighter. Each one has quotes from a figure living within the setting giving a sort of view of their lives or beliefs. The Wild West comparisons are so thick and blatant that, like the short story before, they could almost be about the Wild West, and not the 23rd century. These glimpses into the characters of the setting finish the introduction. If the point of the intro was to make me feel like this area of Battlelords is like the frontier of the Wild West, it accomplished its goal.

Chapter Two: Major Group Encounters (Pages 9-29)

Too be honest the chapter is exactly what I feel most of the Battlelords supplements could use more of. The entire chapter is dedicated to groups, races and other important aspects of the setting. Not only does it give a decent amount of information on the Anarchist Rebellion Movement and their fight against the alliance, it also covers 15 minor races with complete stat blocks for players. Which comes to something I find odd when looking at resources for the game Battlelords; these races are not mentioned in the lists of playable races. Why not? While they may not have the dedicated space for fluff the main races enjoy, they do have full stat blocks to play as the race. I assume the authors felt they were too rare in the setting to make full races in the same sense as the others. Still that’s 15 more races to choose from in my eyes. And if you have kept up with my reviews, that is a huge plus to me.

Chapter Three: Race Expansion (Pages 30-46)

Okay now I am really confused. Chapter three does not have a chapter page like the other chapters and snuck up on me. Not only does that cause some confusion but it adds three more playable races to the game, right after having the section with 15 new races. I know, it boggles my mind too. Anyways the races added are:

• Aeodronian- A race of salamander like humanoids who as a whole are against the Alliance. They are militaristic, yet are extremely environmentally conscious of their home world.
• Misha – The Dream Merchants. They are small and frail and have the ability to see the future through dreams. The problem is they are constantly sleeping and even if not they are daydreaming.
• Sye-Men- The Sye-Men are a mysterious race of gaunt skeleton like beings. They have the ability to bring people back to life after death. The Sye-Men come off as being enigmatic and knowledgeable in the unknown areas of the spirit and death.

The chapter finishes up with an NPC write up for each race.

Chapter Four: Deep Space Wayfarers (Pages 47-52)

This chapter is dedicated to pirates. It’s full of fluff and game information for pirates in the setting. One has to assume if this area of the setting is frontier, then the area has a pirate problem. Besides fluff that talks of the consequences of being caught as a pirate and what it’s like being a pirate, there is a system for calculating one’s pirate “rank.” A chart shows how many points a character can earn for doing pirate things and how many points makes them what rank in the pirate hierarchy. There are also sections on the different pirate clans and on a pirate’s normal methods of attack. The fluff of this section is a nice bit to read; however, the whole section feels a bit “tacked” on. The chapter does not go into enough detail for me to feel it warranted its own chapter. It simply could have been added to the groups of chapter two with much the same information.

Chapter Five: Spaceport Services (Pages5 3-66)

This section explains a lot of what adventurers may encounter at the spaceports they dock at. It covers a tremendous amount of neat information for the Battlemaster and players to have. I feel a list will convey what’s in the section well.

• Armor Station
• Assassination Services
• Clonic Production
• Cybernetic Repair Station
• DNA Masking
• Fencing Opportunities
• Government Networks
• Hyper Training
• Identification Change
• Laundering Services
• Legal Networks
• Refit
• Refuel
• Rent-A-Skill
• Sleep Cheap
• Resorts
• Robotics Repair Stations
• Slave Auctions
• Terrestrial Knowledge Service
• Weapons Shop

What an awesome list. That list does a better job of selling me on the setting than any blurb on the book or even most of the fiction within. That’s not to say those aspects are bad; on the contrary they are quite good. But it’s the little things that add up for me, especially when they are not crammed down my throat. Each listed item has a 5-10 paragraph section describing them and what they might entail. They do not add subsystems, or become so overbearing as to feel complicated. There is just enough information to get the point across as to what their purpose is and help BMs as guides to the normal Fornax Spaceport. This Chapter alone I feel has added more “feeling” to the setting than any other section out of all the books reviewed so far. And to top it off, it ends with a two page “graffiti wall” picture. Awesome.

Chapter Six: Structures (Pages 67-71)

And fortunate to us readers, Chapter Six continues with the same vibe as Chapter Five only this time it is about the different structures in the setting. There is a little bit of confusion as to why certain things are in this chapter and not the previous one, but with the same feel being continued I am likely to ignore the oddities. This Chapter covers Matrix schools, Dyson spheres, medical research facilities, prisons, and many more locations. Each subject gets about a half a page. There is not much mechanically to this chapter, but as I said before it is continuing to bring out the setting to me; which is much appreciated.

Chapter Seven: Planetary Defense (Pages 72-79)

Chapter Seven goes into detail about space stations, orbital defense platforms and satellites. It also lists charts of the weapons and defenses these structures have. My problem is I am not certain I have seen anything to do with ships and their combat yet. I can’t recall having even seen stats for a ship period. There might be a few tucked somewhere in the core, but I don’t recall seeing anything. After a bit of research, SSDC has planned to release a ship and ship combat supplement, but it has not arrived yet. The closest is a normal vehicles book which I will be reviewing in the future. Perhaps it could be used for ships? Otherwise this section is a little bit useless for now except in the way of setting information.

Chapter Eight: Sector Layout (Pages 81-90), Chapter Nine: The industrial Province (91-102), Chapter Ten: The Dendredon Hemisphere (103-110), Chapter Eleven: The Plains of Desolation (111-122), and Chapter Twelve: The Voidlands (123-132)

Chapters Eight through Twelve are being combined in my review because they all do close to the same thing. They describe this section of the Fornax galaxy through hex based star maps, planet “stock market” charts, and quick summaries of each planet or other space object that is important. The section ends up with page after page of adventure ideas, planetary information and maps. Flipping to any page is guaranteed to be full of information for a GM to run an excellent campaign. Finally I feel as if the locale of the setting has been fleshed out. And to be honest this could be used with any number of space RPGs for ideas. It is an extremely well laid out “Atlas” to a large area of space. These chapters alone justify the purchase of the book.

Chapter Thirteen: Contacts & Networks (Pages 133--135)

Chapter Thirteen adds a new subsystem to the game for using contacts. Each player starts out with a certain amount of contacts based on race, social class and Charisma. There are also rules and charts for the field the contact is in and their location. One of the more interesting aspects is the rules on Contact Strength. Contact Strength is how strong your network is with the contact. The rules give ways to influence this attribute. Contact Strength degrades over time, and using a contact lowers it temporarily. Contact Strength is raised by doing favors for the contact instead of them helping you. It makes a nice quick and easy subsystem if the players want to go beyond just RPing them.

Appendix and Index (Pages1 63-139)

The book ends with an Appendix that lists planets and their locations based on what groups, services, or structures are there and also gives their map coordinates. This is very handy for when players want to know what their ship’s database says about the surrounding locations. The index is one page and is more than enough for the book.

Overall

This is the best supplement of the game so far. To be honest, I wish it was all in the core book; which makes it a must buy in my eyes. There is so much useful information about the setting and each page is full of adventure ideas. Though it has a few oddities in the location of certain information, I wish all the supplements followed this exact same layout and content. It has new races, it has descriptions of groups and locations, and it is full of maps and charts to help better understand the setting. If all the supplements followed this exact same method, barring the equipment guides, I would eat them up.

Ratings

Style is getting a 3.25 The basic look of Battlelords as done by SSDC is what I would consider industry standard. However their prices seem to be somewhat lower than most of what you see, so there is that. I would normally have given it just a 3, but there is more art work in this book than usual and there is hex based map charts.

Substance is getting a 5. There is so much information in this book. Entire systems are described and each page is brimming full of ideas for adventures. All of the fluff brings out the setting better than any book previously reviewed by me. And if you include the rare races described there are 18 new races in this book alone.

Note: The next review in the series will be for Beyond the Rift.