WOTB - T30 - Mastery - Oasis Palms

 

5957 damage, 5 kills, 920 assistance, 460 blocked, 1651XP

#wotb #wotblitz

Revelation 8 (2024) - after action report

A tense moment at Revelation, as the Chief of Berlin Station discusses the fate of the Mole with the CIA Operator in Magpie Games' official hack of their Cartel game to Cold War Berlin.

The weekend of 17th/18th February brought the eighth run for Revelation at the Garrison Hotel in Sheffield. This is a weekend of gaming dedicated to games which use the 'Powered by the Apocalypse' (PbtA) engine, a group that includes 'Forged in the Dark' engined games. We often also have a guest game (usually because someone has blagged it past one of the con team) but these are like guest-ales, welcome and a refreshing change.

This year, we responded to feedback in the various forums and tried to make the Garricons more approachable to those who haven't attended before. Graham delivered a refocussed opening speech (which is on YouTube) and we innovated with QR codes for the timetable on badges and around the venue. Both seemed to get a good response but we're open to more feedback. As an organiser, the big change for me was that no-one asked me for the timetable throughout the con (which is normally a regular thing).

We'd thought we were going to be at the lower end of players, but had around 40-people, which is the best that this has been since the pandemic. We had enough games running so everyone could be involved. The trend to later sign-ups by players and later offerings of games continued. Because we thought we'd be low in numbers, we hadn't asked Patriot Games to attend but instead opened up a bring-and-buy. I brought two large boxes and was pleased that quite a few things went. All Rolled Up did a delivery service at the convention, with Paul Baldowski bringing pre-ordered items.

Candela Obscura - Slot 1

After the convention opened, my first game was run by Declan. I'd signed up for this as Candela Obscura is a game that has intrigued me. I'd looked at it in Travelling Man in Leeds but didn't buy it as I couldn't see what it offered that Vaesen didn't. I was still interested in finding out more, as it would have been a potential purchase if Patriot Games were present. It was a delightful game, with a lovely winter-festival theme, and a hint of the ghostly. It was challenging to run in such a short slot (the first slots of the day are three-and-a-half hours), as the scenario probably needed 5-6 hours to be run with space to breathe. That said, the whole table became focussed to push the game to a conclusion, and we concluded bang-on-time. Declan did a fantastic job of explaining the system and running an evocative game and the other players were fantastic and engaging. I'm still in the camp that I'm not going to buy Candela Obscura, but I will definitely play this again if the opportunity presents.

Slot 2 brought the first of three games which I was running. This was actually the third game that I'd pitched when we were light on GMs, one of two outings for City of Mist. As one of the players didn't arrive, I had three players for the session. The scenario was taken from the forthcoming "Local Legends" book and was called 'The Maestro of Chalk'. A street artist in the Tourist Trap district of boardwalks, beaches and entertainments suddenly develops the ability to create extremely realistic chalk images that can come to life, and their mythos is compelling them to recreate the 12-Labours of Hercules. Other factions want to exploit the new Rift's powers and are hunting for him. Meanwhile, people are disappearing and the crew get drawn in to investigate.

Lunch from Morrisons.

Overall, the scenario went well; I offered all the pre-made folios for characters and let the player choose who they'd like to be. This does mean that I need to get them to capture their mysteries, identities and weaknesses at the start so I can reference in the game. My one regret was that one of the players selected 'Post-Mortem', which is effectively an undead killer assassin and very much focussed on combat. That did leave me concerned during the game as the spotlight opportunities for that player were quite reduced as they were limited with the power tags they had. That said, when it came to combat, they were very effective. However, I felt like I'd let them down by failing to to warn them about the limitations of the character build. I hope that they enjoyed the game. This was very much a more traditional neon-noir investigation that the game is sold on. Sunday's game was to be far more epic in scale. Foolishly, I forgot to take any pictures.

Dinner was the traditional KFC with Keary where we caught up on books, games and putting the world to right.

I had five excellent players who all got the aim of the game and understood that this was 'character-vs-character' not 'player-vs-player'. I had an open table; all the players knew each other's secrets, but their characters didn't. I must give shout out to Will, who has run Cartel much more than me (I've played it once before this session), and gave sound advice on how the game works throughout to the players and myself. We eased ourselves slowly into using moves against each other, but it got increasingly messy. The ending saw the Mole shot and killed by the Operator, after they'd tried to kill the CIA agent in a car crash. The Chief managed to retire with honours, leaving with a former lover who was an agent. The Spycatcher leveraged the situation into becoming the Chief of Station. The Prize (KGB agent) did everything they were asked to but realised the Americans weren't going to fulfil their promises of exfiliation any time soon.  Both the Prize (Will) and the Mole (Jag) played an excellent game. The nature of those roles means they can feel isolated, and they were great sports and pushing the narrative. This is a great game, and I'm half tempted to bring it back at Furnace later this year.

The Berlin'87 players - thanks for a great game

I spent a bit of time in the bar chatting to Jag, but headed to bed reasonably early.

The morning saw the usual lovely Garrison breakfast, and a chance to say 'hi' to some of the staff that have been there the last 19 years!

Impulse Drive with Table bling

The morning saw me play my second game. This was Graham's run of Impulse Drive, a game I've both played and run in the past. I took the role of the Scoundrel, Drake Valentine. She was from a 'scum' backgrounds and had her childhood friend (a bounty hunter, Gaen Frith) onboard, along with a renegade mystic Knight (Dromon) and a youngster who had been experimented on and had anger-management problems. We had a tangled web of bonds and then jumped into a system on 'a milk run' and things obviously got very complicated. Graham was drawing on a book he's published for the Cepheus Engine, and we had a fun time! My dice were absolute traitors throughout the scenario; I rapidly accrued enough XP to gain another move! A fun game.

Jamie's cake!

Before the final session started, we had a cake to celebrate Jamie's 68th birthday. We were delighted she could attend, as she has been suffering from an inoperable cancer prognosis. The fantastic news we got was that a surgical pathway has opened up, which will hopefully remove this threat.

The second game of City of Mist

The last session for me was my second City of Mist game. This drew upon a City of Mist Garage book which has a scenario in called 'The Nightmare Underground'. The crew got drawn into the mystery of a missing subway train. Very soon they realised that bad things had happened and the World-Serpent, Jörmungandr, had been released and that Ragnarok threatened. Working with the Rift of Freyr, the party were caught up in a desperate race to trap the Serpent back into the realm of dream. They prevailed spectacularly (well, there was at least one loose end) and the threat of the end of the world was put off. This was City of Mist in its epic mode, rather a tight noir-procedural. I enjoyed the game a lot; I had been worried that the plot was possibly too linear, and that it may not work, but in practice it was great fun, and everyone got involved.

And then the eighth Revelation was over and we all headed home. We will be back next year. We are considering broadening the Guest Ale selection in the future to encompass more story games (and no Graham, D&D 4e doesn't make that cut) but more on that to follow.

Thank you to all the players, GMs, the Garrison Hotel and my fellow organisers Graham and Elaine. Also a hat tip to both Jag and Faye who I seemed to be on the same track with for the games we played!

A fun convention.

25 February 2024

First Impressions - Dragonbane RPG - Bestiary

The Dragonbane Bestiary

This will be a short one, as this is a simple book. The Dragonbane Bestiary is a 148-page full colour hardback illustrated gorgeously by David Brasgalla. The artwork is in a similar style to the cover and other material provided by Johan Egerkrans for the core rules. This is the expanded monster manual for the Dragonbane roleplaying game; there is some overlap between the two books, but the entries in the Bestiary are significantly expanded. In addition, the book provides the information to make some of the kin usable as player characters. Goblins, Hobgoblins, Ogres, Orcs, Cat People, Frog People, Karkions, Lizard People and Satyrs are now available to join your adventuring party!

The conceit of the book is that it is the work of one Theodora Sneezewort, a halfling scholar who may have been lost in crevice while trying to enter the lair of Arknarath, the Father of all Dragons. The entries reflect this, starting with Theodora's commentary on the creature or kin, before being followed with an example random encounter and then a more extended adventure seed. There's an evocative illustration, and then the stat blocks plus details of the ability the kin would get if used by a player.

The general categories used are Nightkin (Goblins, Orcs etc), Rare Kin (the likes of Cat People and Satyrs), Insectoids, Beasts, Trolls, Giants, Undead, Dragons and Demons. Whereas the core book has one Demon example, the Bestiary gives six different types. Similarly, there are five different dragon examples (differing ages and the wingless Lindworm). Trolls and Giant have similarly expanded entries with several different flavours.

This is an unpretentious book; it delivers exactly what you'd expect, a large selection of potential allies and opponents. It isn't essential, but if you plan to run Dragonbane it will add some great options and flexibility to your game.

Recommended.

25 February 2024

First Impressions - Dragonbane RPG - Rulebook

Dragonbane core rulebook.

I backed the original Dragonbane Kickstarter and really liked the boxed set that arrived, but was loathe to read the softback books (because I reckoned I’d trash them), so I was delighted when Fría Ligan announced that they were producing a hardcover of the core rules and a bestiary. Here’s my first impressions of the core rules, only tempered by the fact that I read the QuickStart at the time of the initial release and also the influence of First Age, whose boundless enthusiasm for the game is somewhat catching.

TL;DR: Overall, I’m impressed with Dragonbane. It’s mechanically light enough to fade away but provide lots of fun. The boxed set promised mayhem and mirth, and this polished, well written, simple and beautifully illustrated rulebook gives you the tools for a lot of fun time adventuring. It reminds me of the old-school, but it takes the BRP-heritage and hones it to a sharp and effective modern point.

Dragonbane is a 124-page full colour hardback book which presents a full game system with introductory adventure. The interior art is gorgeous, produced by Johan Egerkrans and Niklas Brandt. It’s printed on matte pages rather than gloss, and feels nice. Layout is very clear and the text is easy to read. This is the second printing of the rules, so there is a list of errata changes at the front, something that reminds me of reading RuneQuest 2 back in the 1980s.

You can see the BRP (Chaosium’s Basic Role Playing percentile engine) lineage in the game engine. But, Dragonbane uses D20, you say… BRP does step into the D20 space; it was only after the first two editions of RuneQuest that the game moved away from 5% skill steps, and Pendragon was always a D20 version of the engine. However, Dragonbane is a fast and slick version of the game engine, married with some modern design concepts.

Characters are described with six attributes (Strength, Constitution, Agility, Intelligence, Willpower and Charisma) rolled on 4D6 with the worst die dropped. You can swap a pair around at the end of the rolls. They may be modified by the Kin that you select at the start. This are pretty traditional (Human, Halfling, Dwarf, Elf) until you get to the Mallard and Wolfkin. Mallards are very much a nod to the RQ heritage of Ducks. Each Kin is described, and has at least one heroic ability activated by spending Willpower points. You then choose (or roll) a profession for your adventurer, and there are ten on offer. They cover most of the fantasy tropes, and at least half of your skills must come from those in the profession. You also gain an additional heroic ability and a selection of starting gear builds. You can generate a name by using the name table for kin and the nickname table for profession. The number of skills depends on the age of your characters (with bonus attributes and less skills for the young and lowered physical attributes and more trained skills for the old). 

Derived attributes give movement (based on Kin and Agility), Hit Points, Willpower points (which fuel magic and abilities) and a damage bonus. Skills either start at a base derived from the governing attribute or are doubled if you are trained in them. An average character would have a skill of 5 for untrained skills and 10 for trained skills. Favoured attributes could push this as high as 6/12 or 7/14.  Characters can also chose to have a weakness; playing to it will give you a bonus on experience checks at the end of a session, and resisting it can gain you more in the short term, and end up causing a change. As well as the starting gear, you’ll have a memento that’s important to you that you can use once per session to recover an additional condition. 

Character generation rounds out with simple encumbrance rules and some ideas for appearance. Experience comes from rolling a Dragon (1) or a Demon (20) when making a skill roll. You also get it for answering certain questions at the end of a session. Each question answered or dragon/demon rolled gives you an attainment mark which can be placed against skill. You roll a D20 for each, looking to get more than the existing skill. If you do this, you can raise it by 1, up to a maximum of 18. Any skill raised to 18 gives an additional heroic ability. 

The game engine is a D20 roll equal-to or under, usually against skill but attributes can be an option in some limited cases. Rolling a Dragon is a critical, with extra damage, higher achievement etc. Rolling a Demon can’t be pushed and a fumble of some sort happens. Generally, you get a single chance to roll. Rather than having modifiers to the roll, you can have boon or bane.Unlike D&D, these can stack, so you can roll more than two D20s for task. Generally, one person can help, giving a boon. 

If it goes badly, there is an option rule to push rolls (like in the YZE engine); however, this gives you a condition which imposes bane on skill groups derived from the same attribute. If you get all six conditions you can no longer re-roll. You have to re-roll all the dice. 

Combat initiative is derived by drawing cards (much as used in most YZE games). When it gets to your turn, you can chose to wait, and swap your card with someone who hasn’t been. Monsters will often have multiple initiative cards. The action economy is simple. You get one action and can move. If you are forced to react to defend yourself (for example by parrying or dodging) then it uses your action if you still have one or cannot be done. There are a limited number of free actions like swapping weapons, shouting, getting off the ground or getting down to the ground. 

Melee combat is by a skill roll, and success means you deal damage (less armour). A Dragon means that you can roll double base damage, do a second attack against another enemy or bypass armour with a piercing weapon. When facing a non-monster, if your damage bonus is higher than theirs and you hit then you can shove them away from you. Demon rolls have a simple fumble table ranging from dropped weapons through to hitting yourself. If you use a reaction and parry an attack, your weapon can be damaged if the damage exceed the durability of your equipment. Mostly, you can’t parry monster attacks. However, you can dodge monster attacks. Ranged combat works similarly, but has a more limited set of options for rolling a dragon. You can parry a ranged attack with a shield (and with a weapon if you have the right ability) or you can dodge it. 

When your hit points reach 0, you fall to the ground and start to make death rolls versus your CON attribute. These work a bit like D&D5e and 3 successes see you recover D6 hit points and return to combat. Three failed rolls mean you are dead and gone. Demons and Dragons count double. Additional damage is treated as a failed death roll. If you ever take damage in a single attack that takes you to the negative score with the same magnitude as your hit points, you die instantly.

Other characters can help you: you can be rallied back to your feet to fight on at zero hit points (but you still make death rolls), or someone else can try to save your life with a healing roll. If you survive death rolls, you need to make a CON roll or suffer a long term injury. 

Magic is presented as resting in three schools; animism (deals with nature and the world), elementalism (deals with the elements) and mentalism (control of mind and body). There are lists of spells and magic tricks for each school. There is also a group of core spells and tricks. Mages have prepare a spell to use, with limits set by INT. Spells are also recorded in the mages’ grimoire, and at a push can be cast from there. Metal interferes with casting and enough can stop spells being used. Spells have power levels, needing Willpower points to activate. At a push, you can take damage to your hit points to gain Willpower to cast a spell, except for healing magic. Rolling Dragon boosts your spell, rolling a Demon causes a mishap. 

This section is followed by a decent equipment list, and then the bestiary which gives a small but interesting selection of monsters that cover the basics for most fantasy games. Some creatures are treated as NPCs; they follow the same basic rules as player characters. Goblins, Orcs and Skeletons are examples of these. More scarily, some creatures are Monsters. Monsters typically have multiple attacks and always hit, with the GM rolling or choosing from a table of nastiness (shades of Forbidden Lands and Alien). As Monsters will typically have more than one attack, they are to be feared. Monsters can also cause Fear, which needs a Willpower roll to resist, and a failure can cause conditions to be inflicted or a character to flee or freeze.

The book draws towards its close by covering Journeys, GM advice and Treasure. Characters take roles on when travelling; pathfinders will lead the party through, with others taking the action to make camp or hunt and forage for food. The GM section focuses heavily on using NPCs and creating adventures with some light guidance and random tables for adventures, treasures and NPCs. The book rounds out with a short introductory scenario (The Castle of the Robber Knight) which will reward thinking around the problems faced rather than a straight line combat solution.

The book concludes with a short selection of tables, the character sheet and a functional index.

Overall, I’m impressed with Dragonbane. It’s mechanically light enough to fade away but provide lots of fun. The boxed set promised mayhem and mirth, and this polished, well written, simple and beautifully illustrated rulebook gives you the tools for a lot of fun time adventuring. It reminds me of old school, but it takes the BRP-heritage and hones it to a sharp and effective point. Recommended. 

12 February 2024 

First Impressions - Orbital 2100 - Cepheus (Hostile) setting [compatible with Traveller]

Orbital 2100 - a setting usable with Traveller or Cepheus

Orbital 2100 is Zozer Games’ prequel to the popular Hostile setting. It uses the Cepheus Engine but should be easily usable with Mongoose Traveller (although you’ll need to tweak some space combat elements if you’re using either the 2nd edition or 2nd edition refresh). It is set in our solar system in 2100, one hundred and twenty-five years before the main Hostile settings. It is pre-FTL (faster-than-light) and the ships and vessels used to travel between planets are recognisable extension on what is possible today.

It is a 240-page colour hardcover print-on-demand book, ordered via Lulu. The copy that I have is the second edition, published in 2016. If you get the hard copy and reach out to Zozer, they will (very quickly) send you the PDFs on DriveThruRPG. The book is mainly black and white, with some effective images included. However, I really don't like the layout, which continues Zozer’s ‘use a bigger font-size than you need’ theme. As the font used looks like Tahoma with italics used liberally in a single column format, it looks like an essay or report in parts, especially as the page numbering is always on the same side whether on a left or right handed page. It's clear enough to read though. I don’t like their layout, but it doesn’t make my eyes bleed nor have quite the same visceral reaction as the ‘Made on Timeworks Publisher in the 1990s’ approach that rendered Sorcerors of Ur Turuk unreadable to me. There are a small number of typos scattered through the text. Overall, a functional book, rather than a pretty one. 

The book is structured into twelve chapters, beginning with an overview of the situation in the game setting and a variety of suggestions on how you could use the book; for example, as a set of mechanics to play in the past of another setting that uses more traditional SF-tropes.

The second chapter dives into the ongoing Cold War between the Earth Union and Luna. The setting predates the Expanse TV series, but there are echoes between the two. It also reminds me of Paul McAuley's 'Quiet War' novel series, which has a similar conflict over the resources of the solar system. There's a feeling of tension in the writing, and the two protagonists have just stepped back from the brink. An uneasy peace exists; Luna has the power to drop mass-driver rocks on Earth (and has, in the past) and Earth has enough space-based nuclear weapons to destroy the settlements on the Moon. This could be a backdrop to your game, or you could put the players right at the heart of it. The setting is Tech Level 9 with Tech Level 11 Computing & Electronics.

The third chapter looks at the various organisations in 2100. It starts with government agencies of the type that the players are likely to encounter (research, police, military) before moving into corporations. The corporations have some easter-eggs in them if you've already explored the Hostile line, as they are the precursors to those that dominate the future, 125 years later. A number of NGOs and criminal organisations are also described before the chapter rounds out a short piece of fiction to set the mood, sadly marred by the use of a large block of italics for the text.

Chapter four talks about how to alter the Cepheus mechanics for the setting when creating characters. The main changes are that social standing is no longer linked to aristocratic titles, but a combination of fame and wealth, and the background skill selection is more tailored. Careers in 2100 are mapped against the careers in the core book, and there are tweaks to some of the skills and how they cascade. Military and spacer ranks are also adjusted to fit the setting background, along with some changes to the mustering out process to reflect that characters are more likely to still be in employment within their career than having retired from it. Finally, the chapter presents Nikolay Kamov, a plain clothes agent of the Space Activities Regulatory Agency. The character is reassuringly summarised with a short UPP code and skills list that will be familiar to anyone who has played Traveller in the past.

The fifth chapter gets technical, exploring spacecraft design. Orbital lacks jump-drives or other FTL, and also does not have artificial gravity. Starships use thrust or spin to create gravity; the technology is more akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010, or the Expanse than the classic Third Imperium setting. Ships use chemical reaction based rockets or nuclear-thermal rocket engines for propulsion. The latter are the main drives for ships, and an extrapolation of work explored in the mid-20th Century. A nuclear fission reactor is used to superheat liquid hydrogen as reaction mass. Ships will usually boost to the required velocity, and then burn to slow down and rendezvous with their destination after coasting for much of the journey, with the same kind of orbital mechanics that probes sent out by NASA and the ESA use today. 

Radiation has significant effects, and drives need shielding. Deep Space Vessels also carry flare dampers that create an artificial magnetosphere to protect the crew and vessel from radiation from Saturn and Jupiter, and usually also have storm shelters which are protected. Low berths are used for long haul flights, and are slightly more survivable than usual.

The design sequence approach will be familiar to anyone who has used Traveller before; you select a hull size and fill it with components. All hulls are distributed, very much lattice-works of components not designed to enter an atmosphere. Weapon systems can be fitted with a combination of railguns, particle beams, missiles and lasers. Autonomous Kill Vehicles have station and ship killing capabilities. They're large weapons likely to cause a huge amount of damage, available in kinetic kill, nuclear, bomb-pumped X-ray laser and ground strike variants. 

Engineering defines function, and most DSVs will have a similar design with the reactor and NTR drive at the rear with fuel clustered nearby. The crew and passengers will be located as far away from the drives as possible, with radiation shielding between.

There is an alternative nuclear pulse fusion drive detailed in the book, a TL10 system similar to that seen in the Expanse. This drive removes the need to burn and coast, which means overall a much faster transit time (eight days to Jupiter from Earth rather than eight months). The constant thrust will mean a different style of ship, more skyscraper like rather than International Space Station style.

The design sequence then moves onto orbital vehicles, which may be designed to enter an atmosphere. These are the small craft of the setting. Technology includes chemical reaction rockets, fuel cells and solar panels. Flare dampers may be included to protect crew, but the power demands of these system means that their duration of their protection is too short to be effective in Jovian and Saturn space. In those areas, small DSVs fill the orbital ferry role. The section concludes with guidance on how to modify the orbital vehicle design sequence to make a launch vehicle. It's interesting that when the book was written, SpaceX had yet to successfully carry out a controlled Falcon-9 booster landing, but there are rules to design rockets with that feature.

The sixth chapter explores operating spacecraft, and has a simple system to account for the movement of the planets in the inner system. This uses a template to track movement through the various orbits. Outer system travel ignores this on the basis that the outer planets will tend to be broadly in the same place in any ten year time frame. There's discussion of LaGrange points, Gas Giant Moons and how fuel impacts operations. Fuel is a limiting factor, with even DSVs needing husband supplies; two thirds of their typical fuel tankage will be used for the burn to leave orbit and enter orbit at the destination planet. Simple mechanics are presented for maintenance and revenue during starship operations. There's an encounter table, which varies based on which part of the solar system you're in. This is followed by guidance on how to run space combat in this kind of environment. This isn't stand alone, but does modify the sequences in the core rules.

The next chapter is entitled 'Hardware' and is the equipment list. There's a significant section on space suit designs, which makes sense as they are much more critical in this kind of lower technology setting compared to Traveller's Third Imperium. Rovers, computers, orbital vehicles, launch vehicles and deep space vehicles all get a variety of examples, more than enough to run most of what you need for a campaign. The space station section gives examples of multiple 10-ton modules that can be used to quickly construct a space-station. 

Chapter 8 covers Orbital Society, starting with law enforcement, but moving on to art and culture (including the Eros Wrap, a massive lighting installation around the asteroid), and then a discussion of the kinds of towns, outposts and bases you may encounter. Most of these will rely on oxygen and fuel refineries if installed planet-side. Regolith-bags or burying modules provides protection from solar flares. On Europa, the installations are underwater, below the ice-crust. There are examples of orbital module stations (and how to recover older, abandoned ones) and also larger space colonies such the three O'Neill stations in Earth space in the L4 and L5 Lagrange points. The section also covers typical DSV operations and treaties and regulations agreed between Luna and Earth, before concluding with a short description of the 'Earth Orbit Network' of launch facilities and low and high orbit stations.

The ninth chapter makes it real by exploring the challenges of working in Zero-G before looking at ways to die is space. This starts with 'blow-outs' (pressure loss) and explores how to puncture the hull (and the speed of decompression following) and the effect of vacuum on the human body (you'll stay conscious for 12 seconds or so). Alternatives to guns are suggested. Other exciting ways to die include exposure to extremes of temperature (get cooked on Mercury and Venus, or frozen on Mars or Titan), or poison gases in the atmosphere of Venus or Titan. Finally, radiation is the pervasive killer. If a ship loses its flare damper, or you're caught outside in a solar storm or just in Jovian space, then you are likely to become very sick. Airlocks are described in some detail. The chapter has sections on asteroid mining and establishing an outpost to wrap things up. 

The tenth chapter looks at the worlds in the Sol system. They're all presented with their Traveller style UWPs (Planetary Profiles), then the significant ones all have entries with an image, more detail on the world, its planetology, human development and places of interest. There's enough painted in broad brushstrokes to give hooks for the referee to dig into when running the game. 

The penultimate chapter discusses running Orbital. It gives ideas of the kind of activities characters could get involved in and guidance on how to build a campaign. This is important; I can remember reading Transhuman Space, really liking it but struggling to work out how to run it. The author recommends giving the players secret agendas; links to the organisations in the setting that may create friction or slightly different needs on the mission that they are undertaking. Imagine the slightly different motivations you see in the characters in the Expanse. There's an example mission to show this (which looks like a fun session with enough friction to create some interesting interactions). The section rounds out with example NPCs and then a discussion on Aliens and are they out there (answer = 'yes'). Ruins have been found on Mars and there are other intriguing hints, some of which are explored further in Hostile. 

The final chapter lists recommended movies, TV series, books, roleplaying games and web-links to look at for inspiration. An Appendix N for the setting. There's some really good recommendations there. 

The book rounds out with the Cepheus Engine Compatibility Statement, Mongoose Traveller OGL and the NASA/JPL declaration. 

I really like this setting. It feels fresh and different to many other SF-games and it feels real. Space is a frontier and dangerous and humanity is confined to a single solar-system and is in a period of Cold War. Corporations are gaining influence and there's an opportunity to make difference. 

I've rated it four stars out of five (content 5 star, layout 3 star). 

Highly recommended.

4 February 2024