Cosmic Patrol from Catalyst Game Labs appealed to me the instant I saw the book. Such classic iconography with the rocket ship surrounded by orbiting bodies. A name so evocative of the pulp stories and radio serials that I love. Elegant graphic design in an attractive digest-sized hardcover. Wait. Digest size? I suppose that’s when I knew that something was about to go terribly wrong. After all, RPG books are supposed to be the full size of a 8.5x11 sheet of paper. It’s only reluctantly that Savage Worlds and Fate won me over to the 6x9 novel-sized format. Certainly Palladium’s decision to publish the new edition of Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles in manga-sized trade made the book completely undesirable from my point of view.
I was rushed, so I passed by the core book and grabbed the Quick-Start rules instead. Let’s take a look.
Create Your Character: (D10)
The hardcover books are certainly very attractive leatherette numbers with nice quality paper stock inside. The graphic design is simple, though I don’t have a large sample size. It is formatted for easy reading and graphical elements are laid out intuitively. The iconography and language is very evocative of the genre.
Formulate Cues: (D8)
It’s very clear from the outset that this is a story-based game rather than a number-cruncher. As such, the characters have very little definition in the form of game stats. They do get plenty of definition in the form of Cues, short phrases that define your character’s goals and motivations. These Cues are used to direct the action during the game. The minimal stat blocks are rated in values from D4 to D10 and are used in a combined dice roll. The whole system is very similar to the Cortex system from Margaret Weis Productions. It’s mathematically simplistic, and serves mainly to push the action in the direction of the Cues, Plot Points, and Narration.
Begin Narration: (D4)
“Cosmic Patrol” does not require a gamemaster for play – instead the responsibilities of the Lead Narrator (LN) rotate from player to player throughout the game.” (From the rule book.) Immediate deduction for sloppy terminology; the grammatically correct word is “Game Master”. I’m not a fan of story stick games, but I’m not holding it against this one. Unfortunately, the turn structure is ambiguous, actions are resolved against a purely random die roll, and no effort is made to manage the Plot Point economy. As far as game mechanics go, this one lacks cohesive structure and would benefit from chucking it all in favor of pure narration.
Earn Plot Points: (D4)
This is really where I think the whole thing falls apart. Every action in the game requires the expenditure of Plot Points, which are handed out to players within the game by other players and by the Lead Narrator. Each Lead Narrator takes a “scene” to perform their narration, but this hardly matters since story narration may be performed by any player in any scene. The whole idea is predicated on the “Yes, and...” methodology popular in improvisational acting. The experience is heavily dependent on the presence of a script and the willingness of players to act in concert with that script, despite rulebook claims to the contrary. There is so little in the way of mechanical structure or background elements that players are literally making everything up as they go along.
Achieve Story Objectives: FAILED.
This game is going to go off the rails pretty quickly. There are literally no limits to what characters can do and no framework within which they must act. It’s not a game at all but a storytelling activity. As far as that goes, the stories are really pretty cool and the books are worth reading as improvisational scripts. This would make a neat exercise for amateur actors and acting students. Possibly it is ideally set up for LARPing, as the narrative sequence depends on the Plot Point economy. With the right group of people, this could be a blast; with the wrong one, it’s going to be an unmitigated disaster.
The latter Nineteenth Century of history exists side by side with the literary worlds of Sherlock Holmes, Count Dracula, the Steampunk Science of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and Magicks both dark and mysterious. Victorious can be scaled to meet adventure with investigators of crime, defenders of society against evil monsters, and even mad scientists foiled by masked superheroes. Its up to you to decide the story for your chronicles of Victorious!
Monsters are real. You know because you have one. He's more fun and way tougher than all the other kids' monsters. Try not to let him eat your friends. Monsters and Other Childish Things is a distressingly fun and funny roleplaying game about kids and the relationship-devouring horrors from beyond time and space who love them. Players take the roles of kids and the vicious monsters who are their best friends in all the world -- and the source of all kinds of otherworldly trouble.
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, this Sourcebook explores the Seventh Doctor’s adventures on Earth and beyond. With detailed information on all the allies, enemies, aliens and gadgets that he encounters, as well as examining each of his adventures, the book contains a wealth of material for the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG, and is also a fact-packed resource for fans of the show! Having survived an attempt on his life from his own future self, it is the Rani who forces the Doctor to regenerate once more, into an incarnation that is every bit as sharp, cunning and eccentric as his predecessors. Battle dragons, psychic clowns and out-of-control robots, match wits with the Rani, the Master and Fenric, and destroy Skaro, the home world of the Daleks! And remember – you can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies!
THE GLITCH HAS COME TO TENDORIA A vicious computer virus threatens to corrupt the entire internet, and the only ones standing in its way are the characters from your video games. 8-bit heroes battle monsters and corrupted files - it's Wreck-It Ralph meets Lord of the Rings in a fight for the fate of the world! This 56-page Fate Core adventure provides a complete world to adventure in, including randomized character generation rules, ideas to govern digital adventures, and new Fate point hacks. PIXELS ARE FALLING. IT'S UP TO YOU TO SAVE GAME!
A whispered voice calls from a coffin bound in chains, urging the heroes into the depths of the Shudder Mountains, a place rife with superstition and forlorn secrets. In the shadowy, pine-grown valleys of the Deep Hollows lurk mysteries of a bygone age and a new evil emerging from the ruins of the past. The adventurers must plumb the mountains’ secluded reaches to root out this rising terror before its power comes to fruition. Standing in their path are cackling witches, subtle devils, lingering spirits, and a foul thing that moves in the night. Can the heroes appease that which lies within the Chained Coffin and thwart the dawn of a new and terrible age?
Barbarians of Lemuria is a heroic role-playing game set firmly in the sword-and-sorcery genre. Lemuria is a post-apocalyptic world thousands of years in the future and unrecognisable to anyone from today. The continent has returned to an almost prehistoric state – a land of steaming jungles, vast untamed wildernesses, horror-filled swamplands, and sunbaked deserts. Massive man-eating beasts roam the unexplored regions of Lemuria and beyond, from island-sized sea serpents capable of sinking wargalleys, to the huge jungle-dwelling dinosaurs that can swallow a man whole.
XP Award
Winston Crutchfield is the publisher and small business service provider at
Critical Press Media. His current RPG project is
Opposing Forces: A Tactical Manual and Gallery of Opponents for the Fate System. If you have requests or suggestions for reviews or new information for the scan, you can find him on the Christian Geek Central forum as "MindSpike". May your crits flow like water!
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