For Imperial Friends

In more recent years, James Maliszewski has become known for his championing of the ‘Old School Renaissance’ via his blog, Grognardia and of TSR Inc.’s Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel via his House of Worms campaign and his fanzine, The Excellent Travelling Volume, but before that, he was an author and designer of RPGs and supplements. One of these is Thousand Suns, the RPG published by Rogue Games that was the author’s love letter to the ‘Imperial’ Science Fiction of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s written by authors such as Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Alfred Bester, Gordon Dickson, Larry Niven, H. Beam Piper, Jerry Pournelle, and A.E. van Vogt. This is not the Science Fiction of Space Opera, it is much dryer and harder edged than that, though it is no less fantastic. In later 2016 the designer decided to return to Thousand Suns and support the RPG if not necessarily the ‘Thousand Suns’ meta-setting with new material via a new fanzine, Imperio.

Imperio #1 comes as a twenty-eight page black and white A5-sized fanzine that is very professionally presented with fine artwork and decent writing. It includes contributions from other writers besides James Maliszewski, in particular from Greg Videll, the author of Starships, the Thousand Suns supplement. The inaugural issue contains adventures, a new species, description of a spaceship, some NPCs, and more. Which is quite a lot to pack into just twenty-eight pages.

The fanzine opens with ‘Deep Background’, the first of two adventures by Greg Videll. In ‘Deep Background’, the characters are hired to check the background and bona fides of the man his daughter is to marry. Six options are given, ranging from the prospective son-in-law having a few debts to unsavoury types to his being a deep cover agent for the Terran State, plus variations. These variations include the need to visit a second world and the involvement of a major arms manufacturer, and both the two worlds and corporation potentially involved in this adventure are detailed such that they can be added to a GM’s campaign. To be fair this is not so much an adventure as a Patron encounter a la Traveller, but with greater detail and more options. In fact, there are almost too many options since the GM is unlikely to use all of them here, although there is room to mix and match them a little, or indeed adapt them for use elsewhere.

Greg Videll’s second adventure is ‘Runaway’. This touches to a varying degree upon Asimov’s Robot stories and takes place at a deep space refinery in an asteroid belt. A runaway maintenance robot has forced the shutdown of all traffic in and out of the station and the Portmaster hires the characters to chase it down. Again some six options are given, including there something being found with the robot, the characters being used as decoys or patsies, and the robot being operated by someone other than the Portmaster. There are also fewer variations given with this adventure and while this means that it is is not as sophisticated as ‘Deep Background’, it means that it is much more direct and easier to use.

In ‘The Ĉaristoj: Nomads of the Thousand Suns’, Robert Saint John describes a strange bio-mechanical alien species that travels individually travel in sealed,  upright, floating, sea-turtle-like suits. Collectively, the species is currently fleeing a disaster in its home sector towards the galactic centre. They are designed in the main for use as NPCs, although stats are given so that they can be used as a player characters. Both player and GM alike can have fun playing these species as all of the Ĉaristoj knowledge of Humanity comes from Terran pre-starflight broadcasts. Admittedly, it is something of a cliché, but this does the Ĉaristoj fun to portray and it does take the Ĉaristoj away from feeling just a little too much like the Puppeteers from Larry Niven’s Known Space tales. It also adds some colour to an otherwise slightly difficult to use or play species, which is indicated by the underwritten adventure seeds.

James Maliszewski’s first contribution to Imperio #1 is ‘The Fast Freighter’. This describes in further detail, the Bizono-class freighter, previously described in the Thousand Suns: Starships supplement. The stats remain in the book, but here the ship is given a full deck plan—it only has the one deck—and a description of how it is by its operators, its interior, and its armament, plus slight variants. In Traveller terms, it feels like something in size between the Type-S Scout ship and the Type-A Free Trader, although the cargo capacity is tiny at just under eight tons.  In some ways it feels more like a courier vessel than a freighter. The combination of a description of a spaceship and its deck plans is a always a plus because it always a great tool to add to a Science Fiction game. Certainly the players always want to to know what their spaceship looks like and what its layout is, and ‘The Fast Freighter’ is a good combination. The Bizono-class freighter is a good fit for most groups and suitable for four or five players.

‘Random Name Generation’ is James Maliszewski’s second contribution. It is simple set of tables for creating names. Now what makes this is interesting is that it draws from the positive, even utopian elements of Imperial Science Fiction and from its explicitly non-American, multi-cultural vision of the future. This is because Thousand Suns uses Esperanto as the universal Terran language in its future. The tables allow the creation of names that feel different, yet familiar. Just exotic enough to enforce that the world of Thousand Suns is set far into the future.

Rounding out Imperio #1 is ‘Allies and Antagonists’, James Maliszewski’s third contribution. One of the highlights of The Excellent Travelling Volume is the ‘Patrons’ section, presenting NPCs that the player characters could encounter or be employed by. The author repeats the exercise here with three such patron or NPCs, but simplifies the format so that each can be an ally or an enemy for the player characters. They include the hereditary ruler of a planet who wants to regain her throne, a belter who is an amateur archaeologist, and an ESPer for hire. Each has full stats, some background, and options to use him or her as a friend or foe. Each is also useful and a solid addition to the fanzine.

Physically, Imperio #1 is presented to a high standard. It is well written and the artwork is excellent. The deck plan of the Bizono-class freighter is nicely done too.

James Maliszewski has had six issues of The Excellent Travelling Volume to get the format of his fanzines right and this shows in Imperio #1. Of course, Imperio #1 is much more of a traditional fanzine in that it is written by others as well as the publisher, but that does not detract from the quality of the writing or presentation. A good first issue and a good issue, one that provides excellent support for Thousand Suns—as well as certain other Science Fiction RPGs—Imperio #1 is as professional a fanzine as you can get and still be a fanzine.

The Thousand Suns Signal

Thousand Suns from Rogue Games is perhaps the best emulation of Imperial Science Fiction – the subgenre best seen in the writings of Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, and Jerry Pournelle – in RPGs since your preferred version of Traveller. It offers a pleasingly simple approach to the subgenre that is relatively easy to modify to a setting of the GM’s choice, and for the players offers a means to create characters without the chance of their dying. Foundation Transmissions is a companion volume for the game, bringing together a number of short articles that either expand upon aspects of the game and its provided setting or detail an aspect of the game not covered in the core rulebook. The other notable fact about Foundation Transmissions is that it has attracted a number of first time writers and artists.

The first of Foundation Transmissions’ eight chapters is “Moving Through The Ranks,” which presents a means of handling rank and promotion in military Science Fiction games in the mode of Babylon 5, Star Trek, and Starship Troopers. It works by assigning three ranks to each of the Career Levels – Novice, Experienced, Veteran, given for the military paths in the game. Thus for the Navy career, the three given at Novice level for the Enlisted are Recruit, Able Spacehand, and Senior Spacehand, and for the Officers, Cadet, Subaltern, and Sublieutenant. During character creation, each rank grants the player extra Skill Ranks to assign, but their main purpose is to handle eligibility for promotion during play.

As a campaign progresses, a player tracks his character’s earned Experience Points and once he has accrued enough, the character is eligible to be promoted from his current rank to the next. This need not be automatic and so presents opportunities aplenty for roleplaying. For example, why is a character not being promoted when he has accrued enough Experience Points or in-game, enough time in service? Or it can act as a reward for heroic action during play. In addition, the gap between each Career Level acts as a natural break between ranks. For example, Sublieutenant Matsue Nioko cannot be promoted to the rank of full Lieutenant, which is at the Experienced Level for the Navy, unless he has, as a character, increased his skills to a required minimum.

The second chapter is devoted to the art of the con trick. “The Ways of Scheming” is all about pulling the long trick from a planetary to the galactic scale, much in the mode of Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series or the television series, Firefly. It builds on Thousand Suns’ Social Combat mechanics, with the players needing to set their objectives – rig an election, bring down a government, or conduct corporate espionage, for example; their methods – bribery, extortion, infiltration, surveillance, and so on; and their assets – people, adoration, and so forth before the GM. These factors are used to generate the modifiers that will affect the rolls for the final skill checks. Unfortunately, the article leaves the reader wanting, the problem being the lack of application and the lack of examples, so we never get to see the mechanics working and the author’s intent brought to fruition.

Where the previous “Moving Through The Ranks” is easy to apply to a game, “The Ways of Scheming” is less so, being in places a touch obtuse. There is the obvious use in that any scheme can used as a framework for a campaign, perhaps with the players gaming out individual parts of the scheme, such as breaking into a bank to place a certain piece of evidence. Yet it could have been made obvious and easier to use if there had been a full example provided so that the GM could see a full scheme as the author intended. There is clever intent here, but poor editing has prevented it from being brought to the fore.

With “The Aurigan: Nomads of the Thousand Suns,” Chapter three introduces us to a new alien race. They are a biomechanical arthropod, upright turtle-like species fleeing the death of their home world and travelling aboard their massive starships through Thousand Suns space. Renowned tinkerers with a love of mechanical devices and particularly pocket watches, little is really known about the species and interaction is rare, except the occasional Aurigan which signs on as a passenger aboard commercial vessels. Although details are provided that they can be played as player characters, Aurigans are intended to be used as an NPC encounter, their being too alien for some players to roleplay. To that end, some encounter ideas would have been welcome.

The title of the fourth chapter, “Planets of the Core,” is pretty much self-explanatory, detailing the twenty or so worlds of the Meridian sector. Every planet is given its primary terrain, gravity, climate, atmosphere, government, tech level, and population as well as a quick thumbnail description. The planets themselves are a varied lot, with a cliché or two included, and perhaps could have done with a bit more description than is given. Still, this sector is easy enough to add to an existing game.

Chapters five and six, “Custom Weapons” and “Custom Protection,” are essentially the two sides of the same coin. Their rules enable a GM or player to design new arms and armour, customised or otherwise, beginning with the base concept and technological base before adding refinements. Together these determine cost, weight, damage, rate of fire, and tech level as well as a new value, concealment, for weapons, and armour value, dissipation value (protective against energy weapon fire), weight, bulk, and cost for armour. The system is really easy, so melee weapons and leather armour can easily be created as can advanced plasma rifles and powered battle armour. So for example, here is an attempt to do “Vera,” Jayne’s Callahan full-bore autolock from Firefly. It uses the assault rifle as the basis with the Assault Rifle, Spread Shot, Barrel Extension, and Revolving Magazines refinements to reflect the fact that it can fire both rifle and shotgun ammunition. Its magazines do not revolve, but rather the ammunition type is changed. This is reflected with two sets of stats for the gun. The first is for when it is fired as a rifle, the second when fired as a shotgun.

Callahan full-bore autolock, “Vera”
Damage Value: 6-4
Maximum Damage: 75-/70
Range: 32m-6m
RoF: S/A-S/A
Cost: $2975
Concealment: +5

What the previous chapters did for arms and armour, the seventh, “Robots and Androids,” does for all things robotic. Again it works much the same way, but here the GM selects a technological level or Class for his robot, from the Class V semi-autonomous models up to the synthetics of Class VII and the metallic liquid metal models of Class VIII. The obvious cues for the latter two are the Tyrell Corporation’s Nexus-6 model of Blade Runner and the T-1000 Terminator of the later Terminator movies. These are not just rules for the GM to create and design his own robots and androids, but for a player to create and play a robot character, either a mechanical android or a biological synthetic. Still, ready to play fully designed examples would have been useful.

Chapter eight, “A Space Farer’s Introduction to Lingua Terra,” rounds out Foundation Transmissions. It presents a short guide to the pronunciation of the constructed international language, Esperanto, along with five pages of common words and words pertaining to the Thousand Suns setting. The aim here is not teach either the GM or his players how to speak Esperanto, but rather to help add flavour to said setting with just a little detail.

Physically, Foundation Transmissions is a nice little softback book, with a neat and tidy layout and an array of decent artwork. What lets it down is the editing. Some of the writing should never have made it this far and really should have been sent back to the relevant authors for clarity.

There is a great deal to like about Foundation Transmissions. “Custom Weapons,” “Custom Protection,” and “Robots and Androids” round out the technical aspects of Thousand Suns, whilst other chapters such as “Planets of the Core” and “A Space Farer’s Introduction to Lingua Terra” add to the setting. Although there are places where both a better edit and more detail and examples would have been both welcome and useful, Foundation Transmissions still provides the GM with plenty to work with and use in his game.