I'm running the new edition of the excellent Blue Planet roleplaying game at North Star next weekend, twice. One game is a re-run of the QuickStart adventure which I last encountered as a playtest scenario back in 2019. The other is a sequel to that adventure set perhaps six months later. I'm looking forward to it, and the game system is locked into my head, unlike Star Trek Adventures, where I'm finding the usual slippery effect that I get from Modiphius' 2d20 engine. It's coming, but slowly.
Anyway, I produced a quick crib sheet of the rules for playtest, which I shared with Jeff Barber (the author). He later told me that they'd been updated post playtest, and the difference would be in the QuickStart. I decided to update the crib sheet so started to read the final document properly for the first time (I got a lovely spiral bound colour print version from Doxdirect as the core rules won't be out for some time yet). The rules changes weren't significant, but they did make complete sense.
In preparing for the scenario (which has morphed from 'Red Sky Charters 2' to 'Time to Pay the Piper') I started to get confused. I ordered a lovely print of the new map on PVC to go on the table, but then realised that there was something different. The names had changed.
Blue Planet's native culture in the first and second editions was described as Rastafarian. The biggest independent island was New Jamaica. The biggest town Kingston. Another Marley. The political and independence movement was the New Rastafarian Movement. This is exactly the same in the playtest draft.
But the NRM is no more. Let's welcome the NGC; the New Gaia Collective. Kingston becomes Harmony. Marley become Freeport. New Jamaica becomes New Corazon. All the Rastafarian references are gone. Erased.
I suspect that someone has had a sensitivity read done and decided that it may cause offence. I've no issues with this, as it always seemed to be a little cliched and a bit force fitted to the setting. That said, just like having watched Blade Runner with the voiceover first, the vibe is never going to fully go away in the same way I always hear the dialogue in my head.
The issue I have for next weekend is that I have some handouts with 'Kingston' and 'New Jamaica', and others with 'Harmony' and 'New Corazon', and not a lot of time to fix them. That's what happens when you draw on the previous edition. However, nothing major.
Looking forward to running this.
20 June 2022
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