Deep 7’s 1PGs are stripped-down affairs with a handful of pages and minimal detail. They’re the roleplaying equivalent of a drag racer: wave the flag and let ‘er rip. HARDNOVA is a more rounded creation at 34 pages, a fully-fledged roleplaying game that has pared things down to bare essentials, but not beyond.
Character generation is a perfect example of HARDNOVA’s thoughtful design. Rather than have the players toss a couple of dice, fill in a box or two and then move on, there’s a solid, point-based system complete with skills, backgrounds and even psionic powers. Those who don’t want to do the work can grab one of a selection of archetypes and go with that. There’s even a provision for character advancement, just in case a one-night game turns into something more involved.
The game’s task resolution mechanics are elegant, and feature a method for determining degrees of success or failure that’s so simple it’s plugged into the character sheet without being obtrusive. The combat rules handle everything from fistfights to SCANNERS-style battles between psions to space-borne capital ships slugging it out with laser cannon. True, HARDNOVA handles all of this by sacrificing levels of specificity that some gamers demand, but if one is the sort for whom one energy weapon is pretty much the same as any other for story purposes, this hardly matters.
Not content to simply provide a toolbox, HARDNOVA also includes four complete scenarios. Though good, they point out HARDNOVA’s only real shortcoming. Intended to emulate a wide variety of SF settings, it’s clear that the game works best when focused on a slightly harder form of the genre. This isn’t the Kim Stanley Robinson RPG, but one gets a strong TRAVELLER, or perhaps STAR FRONTIERS, kind of vibe from HARDNOVA. The game is more BABYLON 5 than STAR TREK. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s noticeable. Of the scenarios, the first (“In the Void”) is the best, an unambiguous homage to the underrated SF film THE BLACK HOLE.
In the ‘80s, HARDNOVA would have been considered more than complete; pop it in a box with a few dice, a black crayon and a character sheet. In the day of 400 page tomes jammed with game fiction, setting details, and other minutiae, HARDNOVA might seem too small, too simple, but that’s far from the case. The game has everything most players could possibly need for one night’s gaming, and enough for an entire campaign. PIG might call HARDNOVA a diversion, but it could easily end up being the main attraction.
