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Ten planets inhabit this interesting corner of space. Triple Ace Games has winning little booklet of adventure seeds based upon these planets. What is innovative about Triple Ace Games is that the tropes taken do not resemble any known existing property (ok, I could detect some respectful ripping) but are fully unique and guaranteed for at least one’s night’s worth of fun.
To be played with the Savage Worlds rule set but with minimal difficulty could be transported into any game system – so long as your adventures have a pulpish feel otherwise, they veer toward the Space Opera but with the smallest of tweaking – I could easily see how to incorporate Hard SF tropes. Therefore, I found these would be idea for plunking into a game of Traveller but one would be more hard pressed if they wanted to place it in Transhuman Space - although they would fit right in the weirdness of Gatecrashers for Eclipse RPG. So think of the style of game that you plan to run. If it is action packed filled with daring saves, chilling adventures and dastardly villains but you are bereft of ideas then this supplement is for you. I am sure that Triple Ace Games will have plans to bundle them together in the near future, as they have done with their adventures. One might want to hold on till that happens – allowing Triple Ace Games to add some extras such as planetary/system maps which is the one omission that deserves rectification. Another drawback each planet has only 1-2 seeds with pretty well the course laid out. But, because it just provides just enough to hook the GM – this product in no way constrains GMs or railroads players. Sandbox play at its best.
Lastly, there is a small section on making a crew – pretty well old hat for experienced gamers but for new gamers who all want to Anakin Skywalker or be Starbuck – it provides a logical explanation why it best to have a well-rounded ship’s crew.
[h1]Combat Hazards[/h1]
Yet another in the line that Triple Ace Games for the Savage Worlds system – Daring Tales of the Space Lanes. In this case they have come up with rules that make it easy play with dramatic environments and chases drawn very much from the pulp Space Operatic school of Science Fiction. Therefore, asteroids are larger than life but at the same time distantly spaced apart to allow great severing and rapid breaks that defy the logics of astrophysics and the dynamics of asteroid fields. Acid Rain, a novel concept for any battlefield is said that it could be substituted with a plasma thunderstorm –> good idea or a psionic energy cloud –> bad idea. But, all these are familiar tropes of bad science fiction.
Notwithstanding, with again a little handwavium can go a long way even in the Hardest of games most GMs will be guilty of using some to move the game along. The use of playing cards in Savage Worlds allows one to mix things up nicely with the dice rolls being the players have to pit their wits against provides a nice mechanic for fast interactive play.
[h1]Tales of the Space Lanes: Adventure 07 - Deadly Chant[/h1]
There is pulp and then there is silly. Pulp is where the laws of the natural world are suspended for the moment and then massively reassert themselves in the course of play. It is a style of square jawed heroes save the day, filled with bountiful babes and steely men and real furry creatures from Alpha Centauri filled with impossible yet credible vistas of planets encased in water yet it never rains or desert planets with blue skies. Space is filled with dangers from migrant radiation clouds to Black Klaxzon Killer Destroyers waiting to prey upon the unsuspecting. Pulp is the soft snoozing sleeping mass beside you after the fireworks and the slush and gush – hence the warm and fuzzy feeling. So Flash Gordon is Pulp and Doctor Who is silly.
Both have their place in the SF tradition but I would side more with having pulp in RPGs than just plain silliness for it becomes a question where does the camp end and adventure begin. Unfortunately, for this Triple Ace Games adventure suffers from just that. Ostensibly, this adventure revolves around saving a bunch of farmers who eek their living among the asteroids from the rampage of deadly space whales (who in turn ought to be protected from Space Whalers) engineered by evil corporate trouble-shooter.
This adventure cannot clearly be redeemed for any Hard SF milieu unless the whole action is shifted planet side and even Nomads of the World Ocean stretched credibility to the limit. So conceivably it could be within a Space Opera game. Does it then make for a good pulp game? It certainly has elements of pulp but the setting is still too outlandish for pulp.
[h1]Tales of the Space Lanes: Adventure 06 - Stealer of the Light[/h1]
Now, this adventure reads straight out of a good pulp magazine of the 1930s mixed in with some good fantasy. The basic storyline is to save the princess or in this case a holovid actress who is the last descendant to a throne on a distant planet.
Lots of interesting pulp situations/clichés appear throughout from the reluctant robocab driver, to the buxom holostar (sadly the product is not very illustrated) to a classic tale of Light/Dark races. It also provides for nice rule transitions for many of the encounters allowing lots of room for actual role playing, as opposed to roll playing.
The story, although outlandish in many parts could fit well within a space opera game minus some of the silly claims (such as one planet whose core is composed of helium). The pacing on the adventure is excellent and changeovers between scenes are handled quickly and effectively. And, if your game is already quite soft/pulpish then they should present no problem for the Gamemaster to integrate these into a series of regular play sessions. And, if even if not, the adventure provides for lots of interesting locales and stereotypes that can be good for any game (minus the silly portions).
[h1]Tales of the Space Lanes: Adventure 05 - The Black Guardians[/h1]
This last adventure alternates between the silly and pulp (see the definitions in the above review). Essentially, it is grab the treasure to help the powerless aliens (fortunately they are not cute and fuzzy but scaly and ugly) restore their world. Echoes of Dune reverberate throughout the adventure. Nice rules for a futuristic card game ensure. The pacing of the adventure is fast enough to keep the players moving from one scene. Unlike the previous adventures, it does not offer too many silly planets but the rather silly premise that a moon evaporates a world’s oceans and psionic gates can transport the water back. Whilst, I do find it stretching my mind’s credulity to believe in pocket universes and similar handwavium that I know are quite improbably – I would draw the line on psionic gates. This is an adventure clearly grounded in the pulps, as it pays homage to several standard clichés of the genre.
Chases ensure, as do the mandatory meeting with the village elder/magician. Each step of the way, it does seem like that players are being railroaded from one destination to the next which is the point that I did not like about this adventure. Rather than an adventure that one can play in, it reads more like an adventure’s log. Furthermore, there is a lack of maps or similar playing aids in this and previous adventures. True, the Game Master can drawn her/his own but that defeats the purpose of buying an adventure – rather than a book of adventure seeds.
