Review of Supernumerary

Supernumerary is the first mini-adventure released for Archangel Entertainment's Zero role-playing game. Like Pinnacle Entertainment's excellent "dime novels" for Deadlands, Archangel has chosen to release the module as a half-size booklet. This is a great format; easy to carry around and store, and relatively cheap to produce. More game companies should be doing this.

The Supernumerary adventure begins where the introductory adventure in the Zero main book left off, with the biomechs being chased by soldiers after having lapsed from the Equanimity. Just as in that adventure, a mysterious benefactor saves the rogues. What follows is a quest that can help the biomechs to forge a powerful alliance with beings that can teach them valuable skills in surviving outside of the Hive. More importantly, they can also help the rogues understand just who and what Queen Zero is.

I like nothing better than to take people's assumptions and turn them on their head. A great Trollslayer realizes that he's been committing genocide. A Bishop ends up giving demons an even tighter hold on the populace through his mindless, slavish devotion to the Church. In a good campaign, things should not always be what they seem, and players who choose their actions by rote should find themselves in hot water. Supernumerary has a great twist that explores that and the gray area between good and evil. It's this twist that should make the module tons 'o fun for both gamemaster and players.

My main gripe with Supernumerary is the fact that much of the adventure is generic. Other than the info relating to Queen Zero and the Supernumerary character, the rest of the module is standard dungeon fare. Supernumerary suffers from the same problem as the core rulebook -- too much filler, not enough meat. Gamers look to modules because they want to run a session without having to spend hours thinking up new and creative ideas for their group. Too much of Supernumerary is something that the average GM could come up with off of the top of his head. Archangel needs to give the next module more punch, fleshing out the Zero game-world with more details, characters, and ideas.

The booklet is about 50 pages with a glossy cover, some artwork, and a few maps. If you enjoyed Zero, Supernumerary fills in some of the blanks about the Hive society and Queen Zero, and has the added advantage of being inexpensive. It's hard to go wrong at a price of $5, but I think Archangel needs to make sure that the next booklet, Negative Potential, is more substantial or they may find that gamers will refuse to buy into the system. That would be a shame, because I think the world of Zero could be much more interesting if only Archangel would start exploiting it's potential. Here's hoping they do.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)