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Rogue
Publisher: Old School Role Playing
by Todd B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/19/2022 10:48:26

I just ran this adventure for my Cepheus Deluxe game in the Terra Arisen setting. We finished the adventure in one night. It was a mixed bag.

Pros: It's a neat premise, clearly inspired by "Space: 1999" and similar schlocky sci-fi of past eras which I love. The three main locations are different enough to give some interest to the exploration of the rogue planet. It's flexible enough to be used as a one-off adventure or as a hook for more adventures along the same lines. And it's generic enough to fit into any campaign setting and ruleset.

Cons: The premise is totally unrealistic, so if your game is on the hard side of sci-fi it won't really fit. And if your players understand astronomy, they'll laugh at the absurdity. The adventure isn't very deep; you could grab three random dungeon maps off the internet and make up the premise and connective material yourself in a couple hours, or even just wing it. And there's no conflict or challenge, so the storyline is sorta "we came, we saw, we left again."

So, my recommendation is to grab a copy (the price is right!) and then spend some time tweaking the adventure a bit before you run it in your campaign. Add some extra danger and conflict to overcome. Add some extra plot hooks for followup sessions. For example, maybe extend the story to include evidence of an underground city that lies intact.

Lastly, here's an oddity. The publisher's website, https://oldschoolroleplaying.com, doesn't make any mention of this publication. It's not listed on their page of Cepheus Engine products, and if you use their search feature for "rogue" all you get is D&D stuff. Did they write it and then disown it? I have no idea.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Rogue
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Quantum Starfarer
Publisher: Stellagama Publishing
by Todd B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/27/2022 17:14:01

This looks great! I love how the game is so streamlined. For example, compressing the huge list of Traveller or Cepheus Engine skills down to just 7. And combining stats and skills into one thing. Character creation will be a breeze. For the first time in my 40 year Traveller love affair, I can imagine "rolling up" characters and starting an adventure in the same sitting. I also like the character advancement approach, throwing out the traditional approach for something more D&D-like.

This seems like a great system for cinematic games. Whereas Cepheus Engine is great for running an RPG that feels like The Expanse, Quantum Starfarer seems great for running an RPG that feels like Star Wars

This is the most radical Traveller-ish variant that I've seen, and I look forward to trying it out.

Now what I want is a version formatted to make into a Pocketmod format tiny booklet, like this: https://pocketmod.com/howto

Here are a few little issues that snuck through proofreading:

Sheet 1:

"Surgeon: when treating a Seriously Wounded character, the surgeon may throw Heal 6+ to double the recovery rate.." - There is no skill called Heal in this game. Do you mean Knowledge or Technical?

"Each time a player succeeds in a skill throw of at least 8+ and surpasses the target number by 6 or more, the group Hero Points pool gains another point." - I'll be interested to see how this works in play. It's impossible for any character with skill of less than 2.

"PERSONNEL COMBAT" - I think you probably mean "personal" here, not "personnel".

Sheet 4:

"ENCUMBRANCE" - The next line starts "a character may carry a number of major". The "a" should be capitalized. Also, there appear to be at least 2 - maybe more - spaces after the end of that sentence. Just a weird formatting thing...

"Submachinegun(Auto)" - There should be a space before the left parenthesis.

"restores full Lifeblood in 1" - That "r" should be capitalized.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Quantum Starfarer
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Creator Reply:
Thank you for the excellent review and finding the errata!
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All the errata you noted have been fixed :-)
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Sci Fi Game Planner
Publisher: Felbrigg Herriot
by Todd B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/10/2021 16:33:02

I like this tiny booklet more than I expected to. It comes in two formats. The main one is 8 tiny pages printed on one sheet of paper in such a way that you can fold and cut it into a little pocket-sized booklet. Or you can just use it in your PDF reader as a regular document.

What is it? A simple series of interconnected tables for generating a Cepheus Engine or Traveller story hook by rolling 1D6 on each table. It's a neat idea, and the table entries cover a wide enough variety of possibilities that you can spark your creativity just by sitting down with a die and generating an adventure outline in a few minutes.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Sci Fi Game Planner
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Terra Arisen: Wreck in the Ring
Publisher: Stellagama Publishing
by Todd B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 11/30/2020 22:19:27

This adventure has kept my sci-fi gaming group occupied for two sessions, and tomorrow is the finale. I've enjoyed this adventure. I really appreciate all the little adventure hooks the author put in to give you ideas for follow-up adventures. I'm sure my players will ignore most of them, because that's just what they do! But maybe they'll follow up on one or two of the plot threads, at least.

The most fun part of the adventure so far was hearing the players speculating wildly on just how the wreck came to be in the ring. Why did it crash? Was it sabotage? Alien mind control? Suicide? Accident? Nobody knows! We'll see tomorrow night if they can figure it out. Or maybe they'll have to gather more clues on other planets.

I also enjoyed the flavor of the setting that the adventure author added - little things like the order of monks who specialize in recovering and burying people killed in space, and the tension with the untrustworthy hired hand. I will buy more adventures from this writer, if I can find them.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Terra Arisen: Wreck in the Ring
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Moon
Publisher: Felbrigg Herriot
by Todd B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/25/2020 09:39:20

I haven't had a chance to use this material in my game yet, but after reading "Moon" I'm very excited to. This is exactly the kind of RPG supplement I love. It's got lots of adventure hooks and details, but without tying things too much to any particular setting or location.

When I bought it, I was under the impression that it had locations and events for a variety of moons, but that's not the case. The supplement describes a bunch of adventure seeds to take place all on the same moon. Many of them are interconnected. I feel like I could base a whole mini-campaign on just the one location described here, and maybe I will.

I'm planning to use this in the "These Stars Are Ours!" setting, but it could be used in any Cepheus Engine game or, of course, Traveller.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Moon
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The Lost King
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
by Todd B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/17/2008 22:53:53

The premise and general structure of this adventure is nice and fun. But now that I've run most of it for my gaming group, I see that there are several fairly serious plot flaws that weren't caught.

For example, there's pretty much only one way to really fully complete the main quest and that is - according to the module - to use Speak with Animals to talk to a key creature the adventuring party encounters. But the creature the PCs have to talk to isn't an animal, so the spell wouldn't actually work.

There are several cases like this, where the module contradicts what's written in the basic D&D books. But for the most part, you can improvise your way around these problems, and the story itself is good and fun. My players were surprised by one particular plot twist, which is always a good sign. And the price can't be beat!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
The Lost King
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