 Goto [ Index ] |
The Good: The setting is downright fun, with a great mix of attention to more current sci-fi ideas, Rule of Cool, and action-adventure sci-fi. The character options are very easy to implement while feeling fun and unique. Planet guides aid the GM tremendously, providing stats, pictures, maps, and hooks all on a single page. The included adventures are clearly written by someone who knows how to write FATE adventures, as they're brief outlines that include just enough meat to keep the game progressing.
The Bad: With an existing organization conflict system and planetary conflict system, the addition of a system for tracking cultures feels unnecessary. It's implemented well, and some readers may prefer it especially in a game that focuses on memetic threats (which is why it's included here), but others may find it to be overkill with so many existing sub-systems already in place.
The Physical Thing
At $29.95 this 196 page softcover black and white book offers excellent production values, very similar to those found in Starblazer Adventures. Frequent use of images from the comic book promote a fun adventure feel, though at times these images can clash with the greater attention to scientific detail occasionally found in this setting. The formatting and editing are both excellent, and the presentation of individual planets is fantastic. Call out boxes point out ideas or neat setting aspects, further adding to the usefulness of the book.Under the Cover
The first half of the book explains the Mindjammer setting, introduces new mechanics, and provides examples of those mechanics in play. The second half is devoted to setting resources such as many example planets and several adventures. While I tend to be more interested in setting info than adventures or example worlds, this book is an excellent example of how to do both really well and I've enjoyed all of the content of the book.Mindjammer begins by teaching us a little about life in the New Commonality Era. Humanity long ago spread out to the stars, and over a long period of time created a large interstellar civilization called the Commonality. This civilization encompasses most of humanity and its many children, including synthetic lifeforms, uplifts, and those that have been engineered to be far from the human norm. In recent years the largely benevolent Commonality has encountered a mysterious militaristic theocracy composed of humans that had never before been discovered. A war was fought, and now things remain quite tense though the Commonality retains superior technology and resources.
In the Commonality a normal human lives for hundreds of years, with only the possibility of accidents limiting their lifespans. Upon death their minds are added to the Mindscape, a planetary network of past intelligences that is periodically linked up to other planets through ships (FTL communication does not exist). The Mindscape has become an important cultural and technological resource as users sport brain augmentations that allow them to connect to the Mindscape and learn from past individuals, offering an additional unique mechanical bonus that can allow characters to perform awe-inspiring actions.
The Mindscape becomes a potent part of the setting as it is also the vehicle for most psionics. Classic sci-fi psychic ability, if possible, is in its infancy and relegated to the world of high end research projects. More commonly, telepathy is achieved by allowing others access to your brain implant. Similarly, a psychic attack amounts to nothing more than hacking another person's implant and pressing hard on pain receptors. Exploring all the implications of the Mindscape and any class differences resulting from those who choose not to wear the implants could be a tremendously fun theme for a campaign, and will likely come up at least a little bit in any other game.
Speaking of tools for thought, intelligence is everywhere in the setting. Guns, clothes, ships, tools, everything has at least a general intelligence attached to it. Talking to nearby things to have them do what you want is common enough, and the setting takes this abundance of intelligent tech a step further by stating that computing power and storage capacity and generally not an issue in the setting. In doing this, Mindjammer embraces a lot of modern sci-fi works while keeping the focus set squarely on humanity and not a virtuascape filled with uploads (though, ultimately, that's exactly what the Mindscape is).
That's the guts of the setting, so let's take a look at some of the mechanical changes and additions. A Technopsi Skill is introduced to handle interfacing with the Mindscape and with the implants of other sapients. This Skill can be very strong, since it allows for perfect memory, pulling knowledge from the Mindscape for a bonus, telepathy, and with Stunts various other effects. Existing Skills are slightly modified in logical ways to support the setting. For example, Engineering can be used to repair synthetic creatures and Starship Piloting can be used therapeutically to aid sentient starships in dealing with system stress.
A nice array of new equipment is included, from hand scanners to meson blasters and more. There's a full page of stats for personal weapons and another for vehicles, providing players with a lot more options. While some aspects of the setting tap more recent sci-fi, the equipment is firmly rooted in the space opera of the 70s and early 80s with force swords, vibro weapons, blasters, and “walker” vehicles. This is an odd mix at times for a setting where intelligence is everywhere, but like it's core system Mindjammer is adopting handwavium to make sure the player characters can be related to and are constantly in the center of the action.
While organization stats are provided for the major players in this setting, the new cultural system is much more of a setting focus. Because FTL has connected so many different worlds that previously had contact only via slow ships, at best, there is a lot of cultural strain as worlds are constantly exposed to the ideas and technology of different societies. Mindjammer plays this straight up through the cultural conflict system. This largely works the same as the organization system in Starblazer but has some well considered additions, such as how attacks are carried out. For example, one way to initiate an attack on a culture is to trade them advanced technology and treat the trade as a memetic attack to influence the culture in a destructive way.
The second half of the book is full of play support. A large number of fully statted worlds are included, each with some interesting information to aid a GM in easily crafting adventures based around the planet. Additional system details further aid groups that find themselves in space battles or want to explore the resources inherent to the system other than habitable worlds. With about forty pages of content here a group could subsist on just this material for quite some time, and as a complement to the group's own setting creation efforts this content could easily last a campaign.
The remaining support takes the form of four complete adventures. Each adventure is split into sub-parts and comes complete with fully statted antagonists, area maps, and everything the GM needs. I really like these adventures. Each one engages the setting directly and offers fine play guidance without bogging the Game Moderator down with excessive background or character information. They're easy to build on as a group desires and make for a nice resource when the GM hasn't had time to prepare for an evening.
