1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.
The Serenity Role Playing Game and both the film Serenity and the Firefly television series are set in the year 2517 in a large system of habitable and terraformed planets and moons that were settled by colonists in generation ships from Earth-That-Was. The core two planets formed the U.S.-Chinese Alliance and sought to enjoin the outer planets under their rules. The Outer Planets declined to do so, leading to tensions that would erupt in the Unification War. Despite their best efforts, the Independents, known as Browncoats for the great coats they wore, were defeated by the Alliance and it has been expanding its authority ever since. The remnants of the Browncoats, dissenters, settlers, and others fled to the border where Alliance influence and presence was weaker, but life was tougher since the worlds there had not been terraformed beyond forbidding, dry environments akin to the Old West of Earth-That-Was. This is the ’Verse, where in both the television series and the film, the protagonists are the rag-tag crew of a Firefly-class small transport, the Serenity, getting by on small jobs, crimes, and shifting cargoes and passengers. In the Serenity Role Playing Game, the Player Characters are the same, whether that is the players playing the crew of the Serenity or creating their own characters and their ships. Either way, they will be telling their own gorram stories.
To that end, as well as introducing the setting of the ’Verse, the Serenity Role Playing Game provides the attributes, skills, and traits for each of the crew aboard—Mal Reynolds, Zoë Washburne, Hoban ‘Wash’ Washburne, Jayne Cobb, Kaywinnet Lee ‘Kaylee’ Frye, Inara Serra, Shepherd Book, Simon Tam, and River Tam, along with ‘Roleplaying Notes’ that are actually Mal Reynolds’ assessment of them. This adds a lot of in-game assessment and flavour and helps set the scene. Alternatively, the players can create their own characters.
A Player Character in the Serenity Role Playing Game is defined by his attributes, skills, and traits. The six attributes are Agility, Strength, Vitality, Alertness, Intelligent, and Willpower. They are represented by a die type, from ‘d4’ to ‘d12’, although it is possible to go higher. Skills are also represented by die type, again from ‘d4’ to ‘d12’. Skills tend to be general up to a rating of ‘d6’, but higher die types represent skill specialisations. A Player Character must have at least two traits, one a beneficial Asset, the other a hindering Complication, but can have up to five of either. The number of points a player receives depends on the Heroic Level of the characters or characters. This can be either ‘Greenhorn’, ‘Veteran’, or ‘Big Damn Hero’. These points are effectively spent twice, first on attributes and then skills with an extra bonus. The cost for any die type is equal to its size, so a ‘d4’ costs four points, whilst a ‘d10’ costs ten. Assets and Complications can be Minor, Major, or both, the cost coming out of the points to spend on attributes. There are two Assets of note, ‘Reader’ and ‘Registered Companion’, which require the permission of the Game Master for a player to select since they might not match the tone of the campaign.
Name: Arabella Townsley
Concept: Historian gone wild
Heroic Level: Greenhorn
Plot Points: 6
ATTRIBUTES
Agility d8 Strength d4 Vitality d6 Alertness d6 Intelligent d10 Willpower d8
VITALITY 14
INITIATIVE d8+d6
ASSETS
Allure (Asset – Minor), Highly Educated (Asset – Minor), Natural Linguist (Asset – Minor), Combat Paralysis (Complication – Minor), Soft (Complication – Minor)
SKILLS
Artistry d6 (Writing d8), Influence d6 (Lecture d8), Knowledge d6 (History d10), Linguist d6 (Mandarin d8), Perception d6 (Research d8), Scientific Expertise d6 (Historical Sciences d10), Unarmed Combat d6, Survival d4
Mechanically, the Cortex System is straightforward. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls the die for appropriate attribute and the skill and adds the total together, the aim being to roll equal to, or greater than, a Difficulty number. This ranges from three or ‘Easy’ to thirty-one or ‘Impossible’. Results that are seven or more higher than the Difficulty number is an Extraordinary success, which the Game Master adjudicates. In combat, it might result in a target suffering a broken limb or being stunned. Various Assets and Complications will add a bonus or impose a penalty on the result. The circumstances can alter the die type to be rolled. If hindered, the die type is stepped down, but if a Player Character has an advantage, it is stepped up. A die type can be stepped down as far as a ‘d2’ and stepped up to a ‘d12+d2’, ‘d12+d4’, and so on. What is notable about the system is that no matter what die types the attributes and skills are, even if they are a ‘d10’ or a ‘d12’—or higher—a player or the Game Master can still roll ones on the dice, and if ones are rolled on both dice, the attempt is a botch. Again, like an Extraordinary success, the Game Master decides upon the consequences of the botch, the most immediate result being a Player Character to lose his next action. In addition, there is no set way in which an attribute or skill can be combined to undertake an action.
Since a Player Character is a hero, he also has access to Plot Points, starting play with six, and can earn more through play. This can come from the effect of Complications and the situation, but they can also be rewarded for cool ideas, and completing challenges, personal goals, and crew goals. They can then be spent to buy extra dice for a task—two Plot Points for a ‘d4’, three Plot Points for a ‘d6’, four Plot Points for a ‘d8’, and so on. This must be declared before the roll, but Plot Points can be spent on a one-for-one basis to a straight ‘+1’ bonus. Plot Points can also be spent to reduce damage suffered, trigger certain Assets, and even change the story to some extent. For two or three points, this will be a consequential change, for up to six, the change is minor, and so on, all the way to a major change that costs eleven or more Plot Points!
Combat uses the same mechanics. Initiative is handled by rolling each combatant’s Initiative die types and anyone can take multiple actions, but each action after the first suffers a step down in die type. Defence is also handled as a roll rather than a set value; the roll being determined by the defensive action that the combatant wants to take. The Defence value applies only to the next attack that a combatant suffers and can be active or passive. An active defence enables a roll of both an attribute and a skill, but a passive defence is rolled on an attribute only. The rules account for aiming, called shots, feints, grapples, automatic fire, and so on. Damage is either suffered as Stun damage or lethal Wounds. Armour will reduce either, but both are deducted from a combatant’s Vitality. If a combatant suffers Stun and Wound damage equal to Vitality, there is a chance he is knocked out, and if he suffers Wounds equal to half his Vitality, he is Seriously Wounded and suffers a Step Down penalty.
In terms of play, the Serenity Role Playing Game and the Cortex System is very variable in its results. Where in another roleplaying game, a player will have the flat value of his character’s skill to add to the roll, what he has to rely on in the Cortex System is Plot Points. Which means that the player needs to generate them through play, so leaning into his character’s complication. Offsetting that is the fact that after play, Plot Points can be converted into Advancement Points—in addition to those awarded at the end of a scenario—that are spent on Player Character improvement.
Two lengthy sections in the Serenity Role Playing Game support the technological aspects of the ’Verse. The first looks at money and equipment, including a section on the economics of operating a tramp freighter, emphasising the default set-up for the roleplaying game, whether that is roleplaying as the crew of the Serenity or as a crew of the players’ own creation. The equipment list is extensive and includes a variety of robots and ‘Newtech’ that will originate in the Core planets and be extremely rare out on the Rim. Amongst the items are the expensive and rare laser pistol from the television series episode ‘Trash’ and the LoveBot from the film. The rules for ‘Newtech’ are effectively design rules for creating interesting devices and modifying existing ones.
The second is on spaceships and vehicles and is just as extensive, explaining how they work and how they are operated. Mechanically, they are treated as Player Characters, with similar attributes, skills, and traits. It enables the Game Master and her players to create ships as easily as they can characters and it literally gives a ship character, one that the players and their characters can love and hate as the crew of the Serenity do. The rules do cover weapons and armour, but the ’Verse of Firefly and Serenity is not a setting in which spaceship combat is common. In the main, weapons add to the expense of a ship’s operation and are the province of the Alliance navy. Several vessels are given as examples. These include the Aces and Eights, a Firefly-class vessel operated by a renowned gambler, the Bumblebee-class homestead transport, the Serenity itself, an Alliance Patrol Boat, the El Dorado, a swanky passenger liner, and a Reaver skiff. These are accompanied by deck plans too.
The Game Master is given decent advice on running the Serenity Role Playing Game and exploring its themes of thrilling heroics, hidden secrets, outcasts and misfits, and freedom. It discusses character creation, establishing relationships, designing adventures, and more as well as suggesting campaign concepts other than operating a tramp freighter. These include a planet-based community, bounty hunters operating on the Rim, or even working for an Alliance organisation. Overall, the advice is sound and is accompanied by a cast of ready made NPCs that the Game Master can use in her campaign. This includes many from the film, such as Mr. Universe, Reavers, and the dreaded Operative of Parliament. Rounding the section out are full write-ups and details of the crew of the Aces and Eights, described in the chapter on spaceships. These are the most detailed characters in the Serenity Role Playing Game and can be used as NPCs or as an alternative set of pre-generated Player Characters to the cast of the Serenity. The Serenity Role Playing Game is rounded out with as decent a guide to the ’Verse as was available in 2005 and an appendix that presents ‘Gorram Chinese’, the slang of the Rim and its mix of Chinese and English.
Physically, Serenity Role Playing Game is decently presented with lots of stills from the film and decent artwork, as well as very good deck plans for various spaceships. The layout is tidy, but feels slightly heavy. The book is well written, but sometimes the use of ‘Gorram Chinese’ and frontier slang is intrusive. There is a lot of in-game fiction, which is quite extensive and enforces the tone of the roleplaying game and its setting.
Unfortunately, the Serenity Role Playing Game is not without its issues, most of them to do with its organisation. The roleplaying game and the Cortex System are not challenging to understand, but the Serenity Role Playing Game lacks examples of either play or character creation. There is an example of combat, which does double as an example of play, but it is presented in-game fiction, so is not immediately obvious. There is no index. The organisation is weird. The actual rules for the roleplaying game are almost two thirds of the way into the book after those for money, gear, and spaceships. There is no character sheet. What it means is that the Serenity Role Playing Game is not as easy to use as it should be.
Although the Serenity Role Playing Game was a success and won awards, and would be supported by several supplements, that was more due to the licence than the roleplaying game itself. It was a decent sourcebook for the Firefly universe when there was relatively little information about it, but its Cortex System was not popular. In many cases, the Serenity Role Playing Game was purchased for its background rather than its rules and the setting run under different rules. TheCortex System drew comparisons, often unfavourably, with Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Savage Worlds, which has proven to be more successful. This is despite the fact that over its history, the Cortex System was used for a number of licences based on popular television series, including the Battlestar Galactica Role Playing Game and Supernatural Role Playing Game. However, it would receive critical acclaim with the development of the more narrative focused Cortex Plus System, first seen in the Leverage: The Roleplaying Game and the Smallville Roleplaying Game.
One of great aspects of the Serenity Role Playing Game is how easy it is to pick and play. Mechanically, it is neither too complex nor too simple, and the familiarity of its setting—Firefly only having been broadcast three years before and the much anticipated film fresh in people’s minds, made it accessible. To be blunt, the Cortex System, more serviceable than great, is nothing to write home about (whereas to be fair, Cortex Plus, was), and that means it is neither intrusive nor difficult to learn. An experienced roleplayer will have no problem picking up the Serenity Role Playing Game and learning how to play. However, the inexperienced or new roleplayer—perhaps attracted by the fact that it is based on the Firefly setting—will find learning to play much, much harder than it should have been.
Overall, whilst far from perfect, the Serenity Role Playing Game is a combination of a stolidly functional set of rules with a good adaptation of its source material that is easy to learn and play.
No comments:
Post a Comment