An age ago, I thought to myslef "I'll just quickly read d20 Future, then tackle the new Vampire". How silly - I should have known d20 Future would take ages to get through.
This is a 224-page hardback book from Wizards of the Coast, done in glorious full-colour. It's a companion piece to d20 Modern, discussing the future, in all its many guises. This includes realistic, near-realistic, and fantastic visions of the future. It tries to do a great deal, and this loose focus is both a great strength and a great weakness.
There are thirteen chapters and an Introduction. The Intor presents the key feature of the book, that allows it to cover all possible futures - the Progress Level, which is a simple measure of the advancement of a society. According to the book, we are currently either late in the Industrial Age (PL4) or early in the Information Age (PL5). The highest PL is 9, at which point much of the technology described is essentially magic, which seems fitting.
Chapter 1 deals with Characters, presenting the usual raft of Advanced Classes, Occupations and Feats for a future game. These are okay, but nothing special. The highlights are the feats, of course. The chapter runs to 28 pages, 20 of which are Advanced Classes.
Chapter 2 describes Campaigns, and in many ways is the meat of the book. There are eight campaign models here: Bughunters (Aliens), Dimension X (Sliders), From the Dark Heart of Space (eh, X-Files meets Resident Evil meets Event Horizon?), Genetech (Dark Angel; this first appeared in Dungeon magazine), Mecha Crusade (the Singularity Campaign, this first appeared in Dungeon), Star*Drive (a revival of an old TSR campaign setting), Star Law (um, there was a Gerry Anderson TV series that was just like this, but I can't think what it was called. Cops in space is what it is) and The Wasteland (Mad Max).
The campaign models are good, giving a flavour of each aspect of the book, and providing lots of good motivations for campaigns. I like this a lot. The chapter runs to 22 pages, 6 of which are filled with material reprinted from other sources.
Chapter 3 deals with gear, and seems mostly plausible. One neat idea is the "item template", which is a feature or set of features that can be added to otherwise notmal gear to make it better, or to adapt it to the appropriate PL for the game. This expands the utility both of the equipment here, and also elsewhere, at the cost of very little space. This chapter is also 22 pages. I like it, but as with all other visions of the future, it will look really silly in 5 years, when much of this either exists, or has no chance of ever existing.
Chapter 4 deals with Environments, detailing such hazards as radiations sickness, gravitation, atmospheric effects, and star systems. The only problem I have with this is that, at 6 pages, it's too short.
Chapter 5 discusses Scientific Engineering, and is the point at which the book starts to drag. In 12 pages, it discusses genetics, cloning, nanotech and matter replication. Some of this stuff is okay, some of it is really far fetched (sorry, I just don't believe in Star Trek replicators, and won't until I own one), and I'm pretty sure I spotted a couple of glaring scientific errors. Still, it's not too bad. The biggest weakness here, and one that's carried on in the rest of the book, is that they don't call out what is reasonable expectations based on current science, what is wild conjecture, and what's pure fantasy made up to make a better game. If this book is to be used for all sorts of games, that should have been done.
Chapter 6 is Traveller Science, and covers all means of getting about. It described realistic and fantastic space travel, both between planets and stars, dimensional travel (a la Ace Rimmer) and time travel. One thing it does not cover, and really should, is realistic interstellar travel in the absence of faster-than-light drives. Whether through the use of stasis, cold-sleep or generational ships, mankind will eventually reach the stars, unless we're wiped out first. There are several good games that can be based on such a setting (mostly one-offs, I'll grant), and it would have been nice to have seen those covered.
Chapter 7 deals with Starships (38 pages), chapter 9 with Mecha (22 pages), chapter 10 with Robotics (18 pages) and chapter 11 with Cybernetics (8 pages). Each discusses what is possible at each PL, the appropriate rules for each system, and then provides a bunch of samples, both in parts and completed units. Nice features include the starship templates (which work just like monster templates in D&D), and the entire robotics chapter. Oh, and the cybernetics rules are very nice, too, if rather more generous that I'd be around the whole issue of post-op care.
Weak areas are as follows: The startship combat rules are lifted from Star Wars revised, and while they don't entirely suck (and have been improved since that game, I think), they allow heroes far too little impact on the performance of their fighter craft, and far too much impact on the performance of larger ships. Basically, the pilot can apply his Defense bonus to the ship he's flying, but not his hit points. Which means that Luke died long before entering the Death Star trench, and that the Enterprise is impossible to hit with Sulu at the helm. Sorry, I don't like it.
The various construction systems are weak, too. A single character can theoretically put together a Death Star in his local mechanic's workshop. He can theoretically put it together without, in fact, and only takes a -4 penalty on the Craft roll!
Finally, the game needs more cyberware, and needs some thought put into the question of whether cyber eyes with built-in targetting and zoom and infra read count as one implant, four implants, of something in between. One seems too lenient and four way too harsh (that's the default number, by the way).
Chapter 8 deals with vehicles, in 6 pages, and covers hovercars and bike, and also the wonderful hoverboard. Very nicely, the hoverboard uses the Tumble skill in place of Drive. I like this.
Chapter 12 deals with Mutations, in 10 pages, and steals liberally from Dungeon's version of Gamma World. The rules are therefore a little wonky, although they seem to work not too badly. You can't build the Hulk with them, but if that's what you want, play Mutants & Masterminds.
Chapter 13 deals with Xenobiology, in 13 pages. It discussed using Monster Manual creatures as aliens, provides two "alien" templates, and then provides eight non-human PC races, probably from the Star*Drive setting. This chapter is alright, but nothing special.
The great strength of this book is its diversity. I can see running lots of games inspired by, or at least featuring, stuff from this book. However, the great weakness of this book is its diversity. By covering so much ground, the book fails to cover much of it satisfactorally. The Starship rules are pretty complete (and I don't think they need too many house rules). The Mecha and Robotics rules are really good, and the Traveller Science is probably just enough for what's needed. The rest is a very solid foundation, but probably not enough to run any game that's not directly taken from one of the settings in chapter 2.
Still, a good book, a good buy, and recommended for anyone interested in expanding d20 Modern to the future.
Next up: my long-awaited review of Vampire: the Requiem! (well, long-awaited by me, at least.)
No comments:
Post a Comment