Review of Sufficiently Advanced

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In Short

Sufficiently Advanced presents itself as hard science fiction, but this isn’t the STL travel takes eons unmodified humanity that may come to mind. No, this game takes all possible technology based on our understanding of physics and assumes that it all comes to pass in the far future. Wormhole generation, strangelet-based weaponry, gravity projection, and a heavily modified humanity can all be found here. PCs take on the role of Patent Enforcers working for nearly omniscient A.I. who use them more as galactic troubleshooters than anything else, assigning missions that somehow make the universe a better place. With a very simple resolution system that relies on d10 based opposed rolls and simple multiplication, Sufficiently Advanced places all the focus on exploring the problems of a post-human universe while playing characters that still have very human drives and ambitions.

The Good: The science part of science fiction here is extremely enjoyable to read and think about. The author’s background in physics really shines through, but only in a good way. The post-human cultures are very interesting and provide the GM with both insight into the sorts of strange cultures and peoples that proliferate this setting as well as a lot of adventure ideas from the start. The product offers great support in terms of NPCs and plot hooks from the start.

The Bad: The game’s reliance on a player purchased plot-immunity ability to prevent off screen or on screen death in an extremely deadly setting may not work well for some readers, and it may also result in some players taking the immunity at the expense of some more interesting and character defining options. Players who can’t quickly perform simple multiplication (with numbers ranging from 1 to 20) may not care for the resolution mechanic. The core resolution system needs more definition (examples would have been an excellent addition).

The Physical Thing

Sufficiently Advanced has been released in a few formats. The one I have is a color softcover that retails for $45.00. I occasionally take price into account in my reviews, but I’m not doing that here since a black and white version is readily available for the very reasonable price of $25.00. The artwork is good and closely tied to the text, but in my opinion there’s not enough artwork here to justify $20 more for the color version unless you just really want it. While the editing isn’t perfect, the few errors aren’t enough to detract from a very enjoyable reading experience. The book lays open easily, is simple to navigate, and on the whole shows very good production standards.

Under the Cover

Set in the very far future, Sufficiently Advanced imagines a timeline wherein humanity creates artificial intelligences that learn how to communicate with themselves through time. These A.I., the Transcendentals, take on a custodial role for humanity and help them to spread out into the universe. The book suggests that some readers have difficulty with the idea of beneficent A.I., but I think they make a lot of sense. In short order these A.I. have all the power of gods, and nothing is truly beyond their grasp. With the potential for dominion they A.I. decided what they wanted most was to have companionship in the form of advanced humans and other beings, and so they work towards the goal of a future where all different forms of humanity join them in a different existence.

The Transcendentals have united a variety of post-human societies through economic agreements that amount to an exceptionally large and complex Patent Office that polices the universe for Patent infringement. Currency as we know it means little in an era of matter replication and incredibly advanced technology, and so the exchange of ideas and intellectual property generally has become a new type of currency. Additionally, some inventions are simply too dangerous for some societies to have access to. A strangelet projector is a fine tool for rebooting a dying star, but as a weapon it could easily eradicate star systems. Ultimately, though, the Patent Office is really a tool for the Transcendentals to manipulate the universe towards better ends and the PCs are effectively their troubleshooters.

One important thing to recognize about Sufficiently Advanced is that the author isn’t just interested in raw science fiction but in what humanity can become. This shines through in the extremely small number (5) of alien races found in the universe. I was a little shocked to see so few, but since these aliens are truly alien in nature it leaves the focus of the game on humanity. From a realism perspective this seems like an infinitesimally small number, given the entirety of the universe, but from a game perspective it forces the players to deal with humanity and not people in plastic masks or alien minds.

With this setup in mind the author moves on to present the 14 major civilizations of the universe. Each one is imaginative and interesting, but not so bizarre that we can’t easily understand them. This is another potential criticism for some, that in such a far flung future humanity hasn’t become even stranger than presented here. Once again, however, Sufficiently Advanced is setting out to tell (playable) tales of humanity and not necessarily of merely possible outcomes.

Each civilization is advanced in different ways, with the culture and technology having evolved in similar directions. Consider, for example, the Disciples of the Void. This religious group believes that the universe is too noisy to hear God, so they built giant space stations out of asteroids and used wormholes to drop them in the gulfs of darkness between galaxies. The Disciples lack any great advantages or disadvantages, though their specialization in noise canceling technology has pushed them a bit further down the line when it comes to refined nanotechnology than any other technology. Each civilization is closely tied to character creation, and exploring the uniqueness and wonder of these far future cultures is definitely meant to be a core part of the game play. Because of this, the included civilizations take up almost 50 pages of the book and are the focus right from the start.

Since civilization is the first thing selected in character generation, let’s start building a character!

Example: I want to play a badass social scientist who was fired from university for advocating radical societal reform. After looking over the 14 great civilizations I decide that the Tao of History will work best. The Tao seeks to recreate the past in entertaining form so that the present can learn from it, and so its citizens live in never ending historical simulation. Dr. Sennow, living in a 22nd century replication, rebelled against this because the simulations were too comfortable, too snazzed up, and too far from what actual history was like. He argued that at least some splinter civilizations should be created and maintained, and that otherwise the mediaization of the Tao’s history (for the Tao’s day to day life is broadcast as entertainment) would obscure whatever lessons it has to offer as modern values and ideas subtly overwrite the lessons of the past.

Several optional societies are included along with the civilizations, to provide even more options. What makes them particularly good is that by this point in the book I was already asking questions like “Why aren’t people worshiping the Transcendentals?” when I discovered a society that does just that! 10 in total, these societies do a good job of filling in conceptual gaps that are too small or civilization transcending to be encompassed in one civilization.

After a few final details on alien species and the Transcendentals we arrive at character creation! Let’s wrap this up before diving into the actual mechanics.

All civilizations provide two Core Values, and players select two others at their own discretion. Each of these is rated from 1-10 and reflects something that’s important to the character. The rating is up to the player, as high scores can be as useful and disadvantageous as low scores. The higher the score the greater the importance of the value.

Example: Dr. Sennow receives the Core Values Authenticity and Tradition for being a part of the Tao of History. I set Authenticity at 8, since it’s his view that the civilization isn’t being authentic enough in its treatment of history that has driven him outside of it for the time being, and Tradition at 6. I decide to take Responsibility at 6 and Education at 8 to represent his other two Core Values.

Capabilities are effectively the Attributes of characters and they focus on a character’s ability to apply technology in a situation. They include Biotech, Cognitech, Metatech, Nanotech, and Stringtech. Ratings of around 2 or 3 often represent average to exceptional people while higher ratings begin to showcase truly wondrous ability. A character with Stringtech 7 might have a dissociation beam built into a finger while a character with biotech 10 can lift several tons. Bones become capacitors, eyes see into the microscopic, and words become so carefully calculated that they can kill. For those who want to flex a little imagination, the possibilities included with Capabilities look like a lot of fun.

Capabilities are set by the player. What’s to prevent a player from writing down 10s in every score? For one, civilizations have a cap. The meditative priests aren’t spending their time mastering the art of star rebooting, after all, and so they don’t have a lot of Stringtech modifications. The other limiter is that a character’s highest Capability will limit the amount of Import a character has for purchasing Themes. More in these in a bit, but suffice it to say that they’re used for story manipulation and are as attractive as any Capability. Finally, there’s an assumption here that all the participants are well meaning adults who can just built the character they imagine and go have fun.

The game does a good job of giving the reader an idea of what different capability ratings really mean, and it supports this with a list of highly advanced technology later on. Combined it shouldn’t be hard to figure out what a character can typically do with their enhancements, and how destructive the technology is that they’re bringing to the table.

Example: Metatech encompasses the social sciences, and since I want to go a little nuts with it I set it at 7. I could go higher, but I’d lose 2 points of Import for doing so. Cognitech 6 gives him a little more than just Lenses to work with, and reflects the implants he would have as an educator. Nanotech 5 is sufficient for dermal microbots and altered perception, which is about what I imagine him having. He’s definitely an advanced person, but mostly he’s advanced so he can do his job and fulfill his role in Tao society and not for any other reason. Finally, I choose Stringtech 1 and Biotech 2. The good Doctor just doesn’t have much ability to apply force, and his health is just normal.

In addition to Capabilities characters also have Professions. Professions are used in conjunction with Capabilities, but unlike Capabilities they must be purchased with chunks of time. Every rating in a Capability requires a certain number of years to learn, so the starting age of a character will determine their Capabilities. Additionally, all characters gain their home civilization’s culture, beliefs, and general information at Rank 5 for no cost.

Example: Dr. Sennow has Locality (Tao of History) at 5 for free. Because of his high Cognitech score he can learn twice as fast as others, and so may purchase Professions at half the normal cost. I purchase Teacher 4, Researcher (Metatech) 4, and Politician 4, resulting in a total starting age of 40. I could have gone higher (up to 10), but the costs quickly become very steep and I have no interest in playing someone with hundreds of years of experience. At least, not this time!

Capabilities and Professions each have a Reserve of points equal to their value. These points can allow the player to boost the rating even higher for a single roll, thereby allowing the character a chance of brilliant success at very difficult rolls. These points refresh daily and are likely to be used with frequency.

Speaking of Reserve, let’s talk game mechanics. For both Simple and Extended Conflicts the player rolls 2d10, a d10 for the relevant Profession and the relevant Capability, and multiplies each d10 by the score of the Profession or Capability. The highest of these two numbers is kept and used in the scene.

Example: Dr. Sennow is trying to give a group of interested members of the Tao a crash course in how the history of the Tao of History has led and is leading to an untenable situation. I roll 1d10 for my Teacher Profession and get a 5. I then multiply that by 4, my Profession score, for a 20. At the same time I roll a d10 for my Capability, Metatech, and get a 3. I multiply that by my Metatech of 7 for a total of 21. Taking the highest of the two values, my total here is a 21. If this was an extremely important roll I might have spent reserve on it. If I had spent 6 of my Metatech reserve, for example, I would have ended up with a 3x13 or 39, a much better roll!

In conflicts whoever says they’re doing something first goes first and the two roll off. Whenever the attacker rolls higher than the defender then the defender loses 2 Reserve points, and this goes back and forth until someone concedes or runs out of Reserve. In either of those cases, the conflict winner gets whatever they were after. That might mean hacking their opponent’s brain, convincing them of an argument, or splattering them across a wide area with an anti-matter discharge.

I have three concerns with this system. For one, it’s pretty bare bones and amounts to little more than “make opposed rolls, do reserve damage, and describe.” While rules can get in the way of telling a good story, they can also support the telling of a good story or the fun of a game. While this system is definitely meant to be tempered with Themes and Twists (below), the core mechanic may not work well with players who demand more definition from their rules.

My second concern is that it’s hard to get beyond mundane actions on the success table unless the character rolls well and has a high Capability or Profession. Even a character with Stringtech 10 who rolls a 1 ends up with a total of a 10. That wouldn’t be as big of a deal but for the fact that the table itself isn’t very informative. I don’t really have any idea of what sorts of difficulty numbers to set were I to run Sufficiently Advanced, and that’s a problem.

Finally, repeated multiplication is going to cause some gamers problems. Not everyone, maybe not even your group, but I know I play with a couple of folk who would have some trouble doing multiplication twice on every roll.

The good news is that this core system is tempered with an interesting meta-system. Depending on how high characters’ Capabilities are they receive an Import score that allows the purchase of Themes. Themes are broad character concepts that can be invoked in game through Twists to do something really cool. The included Themes are Plot Immunity, Intrigue, Empathy, Magnetism, Comprehension, and Romance. Each Theme must be taken with a Descriptor that indicates when that Theme can be used. Every session characters begin with one plot Twist that can be used through a Theme. During the session they can gain more Twists by taking complications (such as wounds). The higher the character’s Import the less nasty the Complication is. Thus, characters in Sufficiently Advanced are built to balance narrative control and raw power.

Example: Dr. Sennow has an Import of 7. I purchase Plot Immunity (Careful Planning) 2, Intrigue 2 (Person Forecasting), and Magnetism 3 (Ideological) for him. This means that I could Evade Certain Off-Screen Death with Plot Immunity, steal secrets with Intrigue, or attract followers with Magnetism.

Twists are received through complications like “minor wounds” and “all my friends turned against me” depending on the character’s Import and how many Twists they need. It’s much easier for a high Import character to get many Twists and go to town with them than a low Import character, who may not use more than one or two twists per session.

Twists have the potential to really drive the story at times, but I’m not sold on them. I find Plot Immunity to be extremely desirable as it allows for character longevity, awesomely dangerous sequences, and the freedom to be bold in play. Empathy, while no doubt very useful, doesn’t strike me as approaching the potential fun of Plot Immunity. I have no doubt that most groups I introduce this game to would select at least several ranks in Plot Immunity before anything else, especially if they’ve read Sufficiently Advanced which stresses the deadliness of the far future.

Inconsistency of character theme could be a problem. One character with high Plot Immunity could find herself surrounded by the corpses of her friends in short order, and a character built for Intrigue may have few opportunities to practice her craft. My concern is that unlike games that focus more on character histories or user defined character qualities to focus roleplaying and player additions to the story, the Theme mechanic doesn’t strike me as necessarily playing well with the rest of the group.

Sufficiently Advanced offers a lot of GM support from the very start. A good number of pregenerated NPCs, plot hooks, and pieces of far future technology are included to help you get things up and running. These resources are bountiful, very useful, and fun to read. Just looking through the lists inspires me to start a game!

My Take

This is a very imaginative game written by someone who knows how to excite the sci-fi RPG geeks like me. Its focus on humanity before all else makes it both wondrous and familiar at the same time, even when players take on the role of minds turned into data or people who have replaced their bodies with machine parts. The biggest flaw that the game has is in its system which, unfortunately, is the part that participants are going to encounter the most. The system is bland and does not appear to succeed at accomplishing anything that other game systems haven’t done better. For a game that occasionally notes how quickly a GM will run out of story as he has the Transcendentals send the characters on missions, it’s remarkable that there are no mechanics that enable characters to spin out interesting tales or for the GM to push all the right character buttons. While Twists can introduce complications these are purely reactive measures meant to deal with the problems at hand, not proactive tools to contribute to the story.

Be aware that Sufficiently Advanced demands a high trust component among its players, an imaginative understanding of the possibilities of technology, and a good understanding of campaign goals before play. It’s easy to build a character that hacks everyone’s brain or blows up planets, if you want to, but what the game really wants is a character.

All that said, I really love what this game promises. If you’re a fan of transhumanist sci-fi or the sorts of science fiction technologies that are ‘out there’ while still being based on real physics then you’re certain to enjoy reading Sufficiently Advanced, and if you have a few likeminded friends then you may find this game to be a true gem.