Daily Archives: 11/18/2010

Review: Legends of Anglerre

Posted by grimachu on

Introduction
The old UK comic Starblazer wasn’t only a Science Fiction comic, it also incorporated some fantasy stories. Like Starblazer Cubicle 7 have decided to cover both genres, unlike Starblazer they decided to split it out into a separate book. I wish my local book shops would follow the same cue and take all the damn fantasy books out of the science fiction section and put them somewhere separate.

Legends of Anglerre is, then, the fantasy version of Starblazer’s iteration of the FATE system. It’s an improvement over Starblazer, a complete fantasy game that doesn’t have the same crazed excess of Starblazer, slimmer, neater and better organised, even if it lacks – just a little – of the manic enthusiasm that Starblazer has.

Background
Legends of Anglerre is, really, a generic fantasy FATE system but it does draw for its examples and illustrations on the fantasy world/s as presented in Starblazer (the comic). This helps ground the game, even though the material on Anglerre itself is limited to the back of the book and a scant, perhaps, two dozen pages. This is actually a good thing in my opinion, the book works much better as a generic fantasy sourcebook for Starblazer and FATE than it would with a specific background though I would like to see some game settings come out for this system – to the point I’m thinking about changing one of my projects to the system from its current focus.

Mechanics
The mechanics are those of Starblazer, a version of FATE that uses 2d6 rather than the +/- dice of basic FATE and Fudge. This roll is then modified by skill levels, stunts and other factors and can be further modified by spending ‘Fate’ points or invoking various descriptives about the scene or your characters. It’s a simple, intuitive base system which can be weighed down – a lot – by all the special exceptions and special circumstances that come about from stunts, magic, artefacts and special cases.

Atmosphere
This is more of a generic system book, the atmosphere is quite ‘old school’ and stems largely from the artwork used – which is discussed below. The examples given are colourful and interesting as are the illustrative art pieces. It has its own feel, very British and I feel that – perhaps – this is the spiritual successor to Dragon Warriors, a UK fantasy RPG with British sensibilities and aesthetics but with a more modern system.

Artwork
The artwork – aside from the cover – is taken from the old Starblazers but, weirdly, it feels a bit more outdated than the SF artwork in Starblazer. The quality isn’t great in repro, but there’s plenty of it and that makes it an art-rich book, which I like.

Conclusion
A worthwhile purchase and as good for fantasy – of all kinds – as Starblazer is for science fiction. Eminently tweakable, possible to be kitbashed into many different styles this is, I think, an essential purchase for creative GMs who want to explore their own themes and ideas with a solid, adaptable system that covers all the necessary ground.

On the plus side:

  • Excellent mass combat rules.
  • Truly generic system.
  • Much more polished than Starblazer.


On the minus side:

  • The artwork looks really dated.
  • Less suited to harder/grittier games – as written.
  • Sparse gameworld data – if you wanted it.

Score
Style: 3
Substance: 5
Overall: 4

Review: Mars Colony

Posted by grimachu on

Introduction
In the interests of disclosure I should point out that, actually, the only reason I bought Mars Colony was in order to check that it wasn’t too similar – and thus a problem – for one of my own future projects which is a, similarly, GMless game based around governing a colony on another planet. Fortunately for me, Mars Colony is really nothing like my planned game, so it was a huge sigh of relief to discover that and then I could read the game again on its own basis.

This is a two-player, GMless, narrative game with a very set structure and a lot of emphasis on political disenchantment and fear of failure, the second apparently being something rather personal to the writer, Mr Koppang.

Background
The background of the game is that a colony has been developed on Mars. Initially a scientific outpost it was then handed over to commercial interests who turned it into a sort of ‘resort’ colony. Now, however, things are going badly wrong and unless the situation is sorted out soon the whole colony will be a failure and all that effort will have been wasted. One player takes the part of the existing colony infrastructure and the other player takes the part of the ‘Saviour’, Kelly Perkins, an expert problem solver brought to Mars in an attempt to sort out all the problems. Kelly’s not sure if they’re up to the task and the problems seem almost insurmountable and are complicated by the prejudices of the people and the political parties on the planet.

Mechanics
The mechanics are very simple and mostly centred around narrative. The only rules are really about the turn order, how markers on the various progressions are passed around and the single dice rule about how plans and progress are made towards dealing with each of the problems. Essentially this is simply a double roll of d6 (2d6) with the score adding towards the progress but 1’s indicating failure and double-1 meaning total disaster. Otherwise everything is down to the two players taking turns, framing scenes, describing plans – their success or failure – and the consequences over a maximum of nine exchanges.

Atmosphere
The game’s atmosphere is presented quite well, one of political paranoia and overwhelming pressure and expectation. There isn’t really an expositionary text, despite the game being incredibly specific but the simple, Spartan nature of the book is evocative of the hard, social science fiction it takes its cues from and the use of NASA pictures from Mars is very effective.

Artwork
There’s no artwork per se, just a simple, graphical cover and many pictures of Mars taken from NASA’s imagery – hurrah for public domain work from government bodies. It does lack any visualisation of the colony itself, which is something that I do feel is a lack.

Conclusion
This feels like it would have been better presented as a novel exploring these ideas and this deeply personal viewpoint of Mr Koppang’s. The text is a little spare and this is not for remotely inexperienced people. It feels very, very self-conciously ‘indie’ and this is to the detriment of the game as a whole. I’d prefer a looser set-up with tighter rules, all things considered.

On the plus side:

  • Sparse, effective presentation.
  • Grown up themes.
  • Perfect for two players.

On the minus side:

  • Too specific.
  • Bordering on pretentious.
  • Write a damn novel.

Score
Style: 3
Substance: 2
Overall: 2.5