Force on Force

This is an interesting set of skirmish level rules for modern warfare. I'm not sure how accurate my information is on the history of this game, but from what I've seen it appears to have its origins as Ambush Alley. Ambush Alley is apparently a game designed to model the kind of modern asymmetrical conflicts typified by recent US conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where conventional forces find themselves fighting against irregular insurgents. Force on Force takes those rules and expands them to allow for more conventional conflicts between two regular forces, or conflicts with a mix of regular and irregular forces on either or both sides. The new Force on Force book from Osprey appears to be the second edition of this game, with the first published by Ambush Alley games.

The new book is the same kind of high quality production that Osprey became known for with Field of Glory, at least in terms of materials. Sturdy hardcover binding, full color printing, and lavish illustrations. Although I haven't playtested them, the rules seem just as solid as the physical book. Keep in mind that the game is purely scenario driven, and not point based. The rules are meant to reflect the realities of combat in a playable manner, not provide balanced matchups for tournament play. They appear to have accomplished that goal.

Unfortunately, the book is marred by poor editing. Numerous minor typos can be found scattered throughout the book. There's also a handful of more serious errors that will require errata. Most notably two missing charts which have already been posted on Ambush Alley's site in an errata document. Fortunately, both charts are related to special rules unlikely to come up in the average game.

There are three editors listed, but two of them appear to be one of the author and his wife. I hope that in the future Osprey will consider bringing in a professional game editor to do at least one pass though their core rules, if not every supplement they publish. Such an editor would have caught most of the problems with this book before it went to press.

Still, I'm happy with my purchase. A solid set of rules with all the data you need to play scenarios set in the "modern" era, basically from the first Gulf War forward. Supplements should push this back to WWII. There's already a Vietnam supplement planned for later in the year.

It uses a unique initiative system where one side controls the initiative throughout a turn, while the other side can only react to the actions of the first player. Whether or not the non-initiative side can gain the initiative in the next turn depends on the scenario being played, and the results of the current turn. This appears to result in a game that is much more interactive than the typical igo/ugo, or even that found in alternating unit activations.

The overall design is focused on affects rather than causes. Much of the hardware is abstracted. There are no lists of small arms. What counts is the skill and morale of the soldiers fighting, not their gear. If there is a true disparity in gear (such as a unit with bolt action rifles facing one with assault rifles) that will be reflected in die modifiers, either to the number of dice rolled, or the type of dice rolled.

Speaking of dice, the game does not limit itself to the d6. It uses d6s, d8s, d10s and d12s; and recommends you have at least ten of each. The "nearly universal" mechanic for using these dice is 4+ for success, with the type and number of dice being used the main differentiator in quality, rather than a host of + or - modifiers (although they occasionally creep in).

The core rules are for infantry, but the game also covers vehicles, airmobile operations, air support, artillery, and a host of special situations. These latter include such things as cavalry, IEDs, civilians on the battlefield, and much more.

Admittedly, I'm not sure I'm fully comfortable playing games set in most of this time period. A lot of people have issues with wargames that cover recent conflicts, and my own comfort zone begins roughly a decade in the past. For example, I'm more or less OK with playing out scenarios set in the first Gulf War, but scenarios set during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (covered by the first scenario book for the game) are still a little iffy for me, while the current conflict in Afghanistan is pretty much right out (covered by the second scenario book out for the game).

As a result, I probably won't get a chance to give this rules set any actual play until they start covering some of the less recent conflicts.

Diaspora

Diaspora is self-described as a hard science-fiction role-playing game. One of the biggest issues for me with role-playing hard science-fiction in today's world is the trans-humanism element. If you're unfamiliar with this concept, it's basically the improvement of human mental and physical attributes through technology that seems probable based on where modern scientific research is headed. Combined with the tendency of scientific progress to increase exponentially, and it becomes hard for me to identify with what my descendants are likely to be like in just a few centuries.

This contrasts with what hard science-fiction was like when I was younger, where the characters were pretty much identical to modern humans, just transported into other settings.

Diaspora gets around this with the concept of "collapse." Basically, the authors postulate that once technology reaches a certain point it inevitably leads to the collapse of the society that develops it, at least from the point of view of societies less technologically advanced. Whether that's because the people in the society ascend to a higher level of consciousness, or destroy themselves with their folly, is irrelevant. From the viewpoint of the average human the society collapses and a new one grows from its ashes. As a result, humans in the game are basically the same as humans today, without the kinds of changes that could result from certain advances in technology.

In terms of the setting of the game, the development of faster than light travel occurs some time before the collapse, and has led to humanity spreading to the stars at some time in the past. How long ago this first happened is up to the individual game, and is likely unknown. The nature of the way FTL travel works means that it tends to be confined to clusters of a half dozen to a dozen systems. In game terms these clusters are created at the start of a game by all the players involved in a collaborative process that both creates the setting and begins to define what the players expect out of the game.

This process is continued in character generation. The game does not assume that a gamemaster has yet been chosen at this point. All the players are equally involved in creating the cluster, and all of them create characters. Even if the group does know who will be the GM, the GM has no special authority at this point in the process. By the end of the process, whoever does become the GM should have a fairly clear picture of what kind of game the group is looking for based on the decisions everyone made in cluster and character generation.

Mechanically, the game is based on the Fate system, most famously used in Spirit of the Century, and I think the way they've tinkered with the core system is excellent. My favorite bit is how they handle stunts. The biggest problem I have with Fate as implemented in Spirit of the Century is how stunts are handled. They're presented as a catalog of abilities which means it can take a lot of time for a player to browse through and find the ones he wants to take for his character. In a system that's supposed to be designed for pick-up games, this has always seemed to me to present problems.

The designers of Diaspora decided against the catalog method, and instead distilled stunts down into four categories that many of the more detailed stunts seemed to fall into, plus the ability to make up stunts that don't fall into one of those four categories. So, instead of going through a whole catalog, players just have to look at four things, or better yet, decide what they want their character to be able to do, and then with the help of the other players create a stunt that allows them to do it.

Another innovation is the addition of a wealth track to the health and composure tracks. In Fate, damage is handled by the use of tracks. Health for physical damage, and composure for damage taken in social situations. Diaspora adds Wealth to handle the monetary economy of the game. It makes for a nice abstract system that creates economic pressures for the characters without requiring actual bookkeeping by the players. Damage to the Wealth track represents debt. Take enough damage and your character could be taken out of the game just as he could be with health or composure, in this case sent to debtor's prison, or stuck in a dead end job to pay the bills.

I'm not quite as enthusiastic about the four combat mini-games: personal combat, space combat, social combat, and platoon combat. This may just be because I haven't yet had the chance to use them in play. They are all map-based to some extent, and I have a preference for more narrative combat systems. There are also some issues with how range is handled in personal combat that I initially had a hard time wrapping my head around but I think I understand it better now. Of the four, I think space combat is my favorite based just on reading it, possibly because as GM I don't have to come up with maps for each encounter (it uses a simple range band system).

I'm probably most leery about the very mechanistic social combat system, but I think the key there is the advice they give on using it as a tool when the roleplaying is bogging down and isn't going anywhere rather than as a replacement for traditional roleplaying.

I don't want to overstate how I feel about the mini-games. I suspect that my reservations are mostly due to not having had the chance to actually use them in a game.

A brief note on the production quality of the book itself: it's excellent. Currently only available as a hardcover from Lulu.com, the bindery is very well done. The layout is attractive and functional. There is both a table of contents and an index. The contents are black & white, and the artwork is sparse, but this did not detract from the product for me.

I do wish the authors would work through their issues with releasing a pdf of the game, if only because my likely players would appreciate having one available, but they have released pdfs of the charts and forms useful for playing the game, as well as making an SRD available online.

Overall, this is an excellent book, both as a stand-alone game and as a toolkit of ideas for anyone who wants to tinker with the Fate system to create other games.

I hesitate to mention, but feel it is my duty to do so, that the authors are working on a revised edition of the game to be released in both hardcover and softcover versions. I've gotten the impression that this will be released shortly, but I have no insider knowledge as to exactly how soon this might be, especially given that "shortly" is an extremely flexible unit of time in the world of indie RPGs.

Edit: The corrected version is now on Lulu. You can safely order the book knowing you are getting the most up-to-date version. They're describing it as "corrected" rather than "revised" as it's apparently mostly fixing typos and grammar.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Most reviews I've seen so far seem to go off on the film for nothing more than being a Michael Bay film, as if none of us have ever seen one before. You've seen Michael Bay films before, so you know what to expect. If you liked the first film, you're probably going to like this one. If you didn't, then you won't.

There are lots of things that can be criticized about the film, but few reviews seem to actually go into any of that, instead going off on tangents about how much plastic surgery Megan Fox must have had, how Hummer has been sold to the Chinese, and how Obama is portrayed in the film (here's a hint to the clueless reviewers, he isn't in it!)

So with that in mind I felt it was time for me to do my own review. I'm limiting this to things that aren't really spoilers (although if you can't stand anything at all being revealed, then just stop reading here, and particularly stay away from #4 in things I don't like). There are certain specific things about the plot that I both liked and disliked, but I won't get into that here.

Here's what I didn't like about it:

1) Frenetic editing in action scenes is one thing, but circling the camera around Megan Fox and Shia LeBeuf a half dozen times as they stare into each other's eyes just made me dizzy.
2) Coeds can be hot, but they don't all look like they're getting ready to go on stage at MBOT. The college scenes are ridiculous. I guess the idea is to make it plausible that Shia might be tempted to wander from a hottie like Fox, but it just looks ridiculous.
3) Was Lucas involved in this? Why do we have "ghetto" speaking autobots? It's the return of Jar Jar, but with a thankfully smaller amount of screen time. Also, unlike Jar Jar, they do actually get a couple lines worth a chuckle, but it's not a fair exchange for all the others that induce winces.
4) Obligatory government bureaucrat. It seems we always have to have one of these guys around to keep the good guys from doing their jobs, only he's not really needed here. He doesn't prevent the good guys from doing anything. He's a cliche that the plot doesn't even need (and is why we get all the pointless meanderings from reviewers about Obama).
5) Megan Fox's boobies. OK, like #2, I realize this could go in the plus column, but not when it's done in such a ridiculous manner with shot after shot of slow motion jiggle as she runs from Decepticons. If the director is that obsessed with her chest he should just go for the R rating and show her topless in a sex scene.

Here's what I did like about it:

1) Autobots kick ass. In the first movie they were pretty weak. It usually took multiple Autobots to hold their own against single Decepticons. Apparently they've been doing some intensive training since then, because in this movie the situation is often reversed. When they do end up on the losing end it's only because of being massively outnumbered.
2) The human military kicks ass, and gets its ass kicked. NEST shows why the Autobots think it's worthwhile to work with the humans instead of on their own, but at the same time shows what happens when soft and squishy humans and their primitive tech fight giant metal robots. It's good old fashioned John Wayne style heroism. No blood or gore, just lots of explosions and broken toys.
3) The fight scenes are long. This is a criticism from many reviewers, but it's a plus for me. It's why I go see these movies. It's just fun to watch all the special effects.

My conclusion is that it was a fun movie despite its flaws. If you liked the first one, then go see it. If you didn't like the first one, then go see something else.

Edit: it turns out Obama is in the film, very briefly. It turns out that Michael Bay briefly met the man before he was President, was impressed with him as a person, and chose to include him in the film more as a tribute than anything else. Any discussions as to the presence of a political message in the film still misses the point of the film, which is pure entertainment.

Tae Guk Gi

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War is a Korean made movie about the Korean War. I've seen it described as the Korean Saving Private Ryan due to the realistic brutality of the combat scenes, and I think that's not a bad comparison as far as it goes.

The movie follows the story of two brothers drafted into the South Korean Army as the war opens, and uses their story to show many facets of the tragedy that was the Korean War for the Korean people. The film doesn't shy away from showing the atrocities perpetrated by both sides during the war, atrocities committed both by and upon civilians and soldiers alike.

The film has been criticized in a few areas, mainly in not adhering as accurately as possible to some of the combat effects. The tanks aren't as accurate as they could be, and there are times where weapons behave in an unrealistic manner, but most people aren't going to notice this. I'm one who usually does, and I knew to expect it going in, yet I really didn't notice it while watching because the story itself held my attention.

It's also apparently been critized by some for not showing much of the US involvement in the war. Those criticisms must have been made by Americans without a sense of irony given how much Hollywood overemphasizes the role Americans played in just about every war we've ever participated in. Besides, the story focuses on soldiers who are part of the 1st ROK, a Korean Division, and not a US force, so it's quite natural to not see US troops. There are a few mentions of US participation, specifically announcements of the Inchon landings, and McArthur's crossing of the 38th parallel. There's also CGI American planes in the final battle sequence.

What the critics in this case fail to accept is that this is a movie about the Korean experience in the Korean War, not the American experience.

Overall, it's a movie well worth watching if you have an interest in the period, or simply an interest in a good war movie.

Things We Think About Games

This is a book about games by people who design and play them. The bulk of the book consists of 101 short observations on games by the authors, along with 26 more observations contributed by others. These observations are either about playing games or designing them. As the foreward by Robin Laws points out, some of them will seem obvious and some of them will seem wrong. I'd add that some of them would make for good entries in a "Miss Manners Guide to Gaming."

This book is worth reading, and it won't take you very long to do so. Unfortunately, that's because in many cases a page consists of only a single sentence, and averages about a paragraph per page for a book that's only around 150 pages long. That's unfortunate because the book costs $20. The fact that it costs $20 is unfortunate because it really is worth reading.

I'd suggest buying it as a gaming group and passing it around. Perhaps adding your own comments into the large amount of white space available on most pages.

I'll leave you with two of my favorite entries, and also two of the shortest:

44: If you want to play again, you should probably not act like a fuckwit.
45: If you don't want to play again, still do not act like a fuckwit.

More Traveller

I finally got my hands on the 760 Patrons and the Mercenary books for Traveller. I haven't gotten to read much of either yet, but I've browsed through them enough to give my initial impressions.

Mercenary is very much what you would expect if you ever read the original Mercenary book for Traveller. It's all about expanded rules for running mercenaries, from character generation, to equipment, to combat rules everything has been given new options. Toss in a system for generating mercenary tickets (otherwise known as jobs), and we have the classic Mercenary book updated for MGT. It looks promising.

760 Patrons on the other hand, is not at all what you would expect if you ever read the original 76 Patrons supplement. A patron encounter has a specific meaning in Traveller terms. A meaning that is clearly defined in the MGT core rules as follows:

Each patron encounter lists:

• The patron’s name and role.
• The skills and resources required to complete the mission
• The suggested reward for the mission
• The mission as described to the characters
• What’s really going on. Several possible variants will be presented – either pick or roll for which is the real situation.

760 Patrons lists the patron's role and that's pretty much it. There are no missions here, merely charts of NPC motivations that could be used to inspire a mission or flesh out an NPC. If they were insistent on stealing a name from an older supplement, it would have been more accurate to call this one 760 Characters after the old 1001 Characters that simply gave you line after line of randomly generated character stats, even though there's no stats here.

To be fair, I can see this being a very useful supplement. It's a great way to bring to life an otherwise random NPC. It's just not what I was wanting or expecting based on the title and marketing. I would still love to see another book of true patron encounters at some point. In the meantime, I still have the FFE reprint of 76 Patrons.

Pyramid of Shadows

While the title of Keep on the Shadowfell was meant to recall memories of the old Keep on the Borderlands module, Pyramid of Shadows actually has more in common with that old module in terms of content. Both KotB and PoS (what an unfortunate acronym) feature sets of vastly different monsters somehow living in close proximity to each other. This formula is a bit of a trope in many older D&D modules. The only real difference between PoS and those older modules is that the writer at least comes up with a more plausible explanation as to why these creatures are living near each other, and how they manage to survive without killing each other off.

One problem with the explanation that the writer comes up with is that it essentially locks the players in the dungeon for the entire adventure. From Level 7 to 10 they will find themselves stuck in the same small area with no opportunities for interaction with the outside world. This is both a strength and a weakness. The strength is that this adventure has to be one of the most portable adventures I've ever seen in regards to the ability to drop it into just about any D&D world with little or no adaptation necessary. The weakness is that if you're dropping it into an existing campaign you're basically putting that campaign on hold for the duration of the adventure since the characters will have no way to interact with the world outside. Not to mention that the the group is entirely on their own.

Death could become a serious issue as the party has no reason to own a Raise Dead ritual prior to starting the adventure. They can find one during the adventure, but it's not guaranteed, and there are only enough components available to perform it once.

Aside from the premise, which I feel was stronger in Thunderspire Labyrinth, this module shares many of the same strengths and weaknesses with its predecessor, if in slightly different proportions. The included battle mat again feels like an afterthought with 90% of the battles occurring in areas not on the mat. The difference is that the locations included are a bit more generic, so you're more likely to be able to reuse the mat in other adventures.

Like with the last module, there's a problem with the paintings meant to represent some of the locations. The difference here is that the problem is much worse. One is described in the text as "brightly lit" but the painting is so dark that it's unclear at first what's being depicted, especially since once you figure out what it's supposed to be showing you realize that it leaves out key tactical terrain features. Another is fairly accurate in showing the three main opponents in the room, the problem being that two of those three are supposed to begin the encounter hidden! Most of the others are also inaccurate in some way, or just plain useless for giving the players a decent image of the setting.

Really, unless you're going to make sure the illustration is useful and accurate, don't even bother. There's certainly room for inaccurate flavor artwork in fantasy roleplaying products, but use them as filler art, not as play aids!

More new monsters are introduced, and this is a strength of the module, but not as big a one as in Thunderspire. Mainly because I found the monsters there more interesting overall than the ones introduced here. Out of all my comments on the module this one is the most subjective, and others may find these entries fascinating and highly useful.

One thing that all three modules in this series are excellent at is serving as a source for sample encounters. While I might have issues with the overall premise, each individual encounter seems well constructed with unique challenges to be overcome.

Overall I feel this is the weakest of the "Heroic Trilogy" of modules. It comes down to the fact that the strength of this module is that it's a classic dungeon crawl, and the weakness of this module is that it's a classic dungeon crawl.

Thunderspire Labyrinth

A sequel to 4th Edition D&D's first published adventure, Keep on the Shadowfell, Thunderspire Labyrinth also takes place in the Nentir Vale setting described in the DMG. While it's technically the second in a series, there are very few real connections between the two modules, and could easily be run without having played the first module. In fact, there are "hooks" for both situations.

The adventure shares the same basic layout as the Keep on the Shadowfell: cardstock folder with two books and a map (only one map this time). Instead of being a player's book with starter rules, the first of the two books in this module includes the hooks, adventure summary, first encounter, visual aids, and entries for new monsters that appear in the adventure. This last bit is probably the best part of the module, and includes entries for Duergar, Bronze Warders, Enigmas of Vecna, Norkers, and Phalagars.

The visual aids take the form of color paintings showing some of the locations in the adventure. A nice idea, but at least one of them is completely inaccurate and could cause potential game issues if the players take it too literally: a picture showing a multi-story construction that actually only consists of one level. Having a picture that doesn't accurately show the described object defeats the whole purpose of having a picture.

The only other real issue I have with the adventure is the included game mat. It's not that there's anything particularly wrong with it, it's just that I have to wonder why they even bothered with it. Over 90% of the locations in the game will have to be set up by the DM. The locations portrayed on the mat aren't that complicated that they need the mat, and aren't generic enough that the DM will want to use them again. It ends up coming across as just a bit of filler so they can say that all their adventures come with a poster map.

So, that's the bad. The good is that the adventure seems fairly solid. You get an interesting new base of operations that isn't exactly a "point of light" more like a point of twilight where otherwise antagonistic races can meet to do business. The people that run it aren't exactly good, but they aren't exactly bad either. It appears that each major section of the adventure leads naturally to the next section without railroading the players. That is, as long as you use the Slave Rescue adventure hook. Out of the four starting hooks provided, this is the only one which the players have to complete the entire adventure to achieve. I could easily see a group that didn't have this hook decide to go off and do something else before completing the adventure as written. The adventure should emphasize that hook over the others, but it doesn't, so I'm doing it here.

As long as the DM uses the main hook, things look like they should go smoothly. There's a good mix of encounters, and adequate clues to show the players where to go next. Without a playtest I can't say if there are any unbalanced encounters, but there aren't any obviously unbalanced encounters that I can see.

I particularly like the way traps are being used so far in 4th edition. There always seem to be multiple ways of dealing with traps, from solving a puzzle, to using thief skills to disable it, to smashing it to bits, to simply ignoring it and hoping you can survive the damage. I don't know about 3rd edition, but I know that in 1st and 2nd many traps tended to be "save or die" type traps that you either detected and disabled or else triggered and died (or were otherwise incapacitated). Traps seem to me to be more interesting now. They can still kill you if you're stupid, but they won't kill you just because you can't read the mind of the person who created the adventure.

I supposed this is more a comment on 4th edition in general, but I make it here because more than one encounter in Thunderspire Labyrinth features traps.

In summary, this isn't a stellar effort, but it provides a reasonable framework in which the players can kill things and take their stuff.

Lost Battles

Ancient battles are not something that I know a lot about. One of the reasons that I got this book was to better educate myself on the subject as I have become more interested in games that draw inspiration from the era. Games like Commands & Colors Ancients, Hannibal, and Field of Glory. I first became aware of the book as a result of it being mentioned in some discussions on Field of Glory, and when it showed up as a "users who bought Field of Glory also bought this" item when I ordered Field of Glory on Amazon.

One thing that you quickly learn from reading this book is that we don't really know a lot about ancient battles. We know what role they played in shaping the history of the ancient world, but we don't know a lot of the details of the battles themselves. We know what sides participated, but not exactly how many of them there were on each side. In most cases we don't know exactly where the battles took place, only the general area. Primary sources for the battles are few and far between, often contradict each other when there is more than one, and are often written by those who had reason to alter some of the facts.

With this in mind, the goal of the book is to provide a new way to better understand some of these battles using what information we do have with a new tool. That tool being conflict simulation, or wargaming. In order to present this tool, the book consists of three parts. It's one part game, one part game design theory, and one part history.

The game part is fairly short and consists of less than twenty pages of rules that form an appendix at the back of the book. I have not yet tried to play them myself, but based on reading them, they seem to be playable.

The bulk of the book covers the other two parts. Since the game is supposed to help model historical reality, the author goes into great detail in his reasoning behind every element of the rules. This is where the book really shines for anyone interested in game design. This section has to be the most comprehensive set of designer's notes ever written.

The history portion of the book takes the form of a set of scenarios for the game. Each battle represented is discussed in terms of what we know about it and where the game might help to answer questions about what we don't know. Game stats for the sides involved and a diagram of the battlefield are also included. Often there are suggestions on how to alter either the stats or the battlefield to test alternate theories as to where or how the battle was fought.

Overall, I have to say that the book was a rather dry read. If you don't have at least a passing interest in both game design and ancient battles, with preferably a major interest in at least one of them, then this could be a very hard book to slog through. If you do have those interests, then you could find it a rewarding read. For myself, I enjoyed it, but I think I'll probably get more out of it after I've had the chance to do more reading on the period. Once I have, I plan to come back to this book and read it again.

Dresden Files DVDs

I haven't read any of the Dresden novels, but I wanted to learn a bit about them due to the upcoming Dresden Files RPG. Normally I wouldn't care anything about a licensed game based on a property that I was unfamiliar with, but this game is going to use the Fate system. As I've mentioned before, that's a system that I'm quite interested in.

A quick look at some online reviews indicated that the Dresden Files TV series was favorably viewed by at least some of the fans of the books. Taking this as a good sign, I ordered the first (and only) season on DVD.

My wife and I watched all twelve episodes over the space of two days, and they were quite enjoyable. The acting is generally good, the stories are entertaining, and the presence of a few meta-plots makes for some extra interest. For the record, most of the meta-plots appear to be resolved, or at least partly resolved, over the course of the single season. The main one that I felt was unresolved was more of a "where are they going to go with this?" situation than it was a "what the hell is going on here?" situation. So, the ending of the series doesn't leave you on a cliffhanger.

The special effects are mostly good as long as they are kept to minor effects, but the few fully animated creatures aren't really rendered all that well. Fortunately, they are kept mostly to the shadows.

With vampires, werewolves, ghosts and wizards, this should be a good series for anyone who's a fan of fantasy set in the modern day. I'm generally not, and yet I still enjoyed them.

Finally, I feel reasonably well enough educated on the universe of the Dresden Files to better appreciate the game when it comes out. I may still try to read one or more of the novels if I have time, but if I don't then I'll at least have some idea of what's going on when I read or play the game.

Battlestar Galactica RPG

Back a few months ago when I was getting ready to move, I read through the Battlestar Galactica Role-Playing Game whenever I felt like taking a break from packing. I haven't played the game, but I've decided to write about my impressions of the game after a read through. I'll start by discussing what I don't like about it.

First things first, it's too expensive. Forty-five dollars is simply too much for a 232 page book, even a hardback in full color. You have to blame Universal Studios Licensing for the expense, because the high price is reportedly the direct result of high licensing costs. I probably wouldn't have bought the book except that I was able to get it at a significantly reduced price, which is a shame because it's a pretty good book of a license I love.

I have one big issue with the style of the book. The show does such a great job of not introducing "parallel development" between the colonies and Earth. From the die-cut paper to the different sports to the odd clothes, very little is exactly the same. The commentary on one of the earlier episodes even mentions how they accidentally allowed a mention of "chickens" in the mini-series, when they were deliberately trying to leave such "earthisms" out. Unfortunately, the RPG doesn't take the same sort of care, particularly in the Gear section. There are lots of references to Kevlar (they even capitalize it, so they know it's a proper noun and not a generic substance), and various caliber weapons from .45 to .30-.06. Why would the colonies have such things? They should have kept things more generic, referencing bullet-proof cloth and large or small caliber. Instead, they left in dozens of "earthisms" that really tend to pull you out of any immersion you would otherwise have.

So, those are probably the biggest issues I have with the game, neither of which deals with the game itself. That game is based on Margaret Weis Productions' house system, the Cortex system. The Cortex system previously appeared in the Serenity RPG, and has its origins in the Sovereign Stone RPG. At its core every attribute and skill is rated based on its die value from d2 to d12 (with values higher than d12 rolling multiple dice, for example d12+d2). Most actions use one attribute and one skill with the total being matched against a difficulty number.

The one thing distinguishing this system from other mainstream systems is the use of Plot Points, which I touched on briefly in my post on The Evolution of the RPG Disadvantage. Players get these points for a variety of actions, including allowing their negative traits to be used against them. They can then spend them on a variety of actions including getting extra dice to roll, or even changing small things about the story itself. For example, for a few points a character might say that his character finds some extra ammo even though the GM didn't say there was anything there. The GM then chooses whether or not to allow the expenditure. While not offering as much player input into the environment as in some "indy" games, it does allow more than in most other mainstream games.

Character generation is point based. Players get three pools of points to spend, one for attributes, one for skills, and one for traits. Points cannot be traded between pools. Attributes and skills are pretty straight forward. Traits are a bit different in that basic characters start with a pool that equals zero. If the GM wants characters that are more experienced then they may allow for a few points, otherwise characters can only get positive traits (assets) by first taking negative traits (complications). It's a decent system, but I find the selection a bit anemic after such indy games as Burning Wheel, or even such mainstream games as Hero or GURPS . There's just over 30 assets and just under 50 complications. Still there's enough there to make a variety of characters, and it shouldn't be hard to introduce new traits.

Other reviews have said that combat is deadly, and I'll have to take their word for that since I haven't been able to playtest it. I can tell that it's definitely more deadly than some other mainstream games, like d20. Overall I think this is a good thing, especially since players can try to save themselves with Plot Points if they have to.

When it comes to the background, the scope of the book covers all but the last episode of the first season, including the mini-series. I've seen it mentioned elsewhere that there will be four add-on products which will expand this coverage. In particular, the book covering the colonial military is expected to deal with season two as that is where the Battlestar Pegasus first appears.

Overall, the game looks pretty solid, and not too complex. I'd give it a try either running or playing if I had the opportunity, although it wouldn't be at the top of my list of RPGs to play.

Conquest of Paradise

I've always liked 4X games on the computer (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate). There have been similar games available as board games since before there were computer games, but they tended to be long games like Avalon Hill's Civilization that often take six hours or more to play. They also tend to play better with more players. This combination makes it difficult for me to even consider getting them on the table.

Conquest of Paradise has changed that. This game shares a lot of similarities with traditional 4X games, but it plays just fine with only two players, and comes in at around two hours for a game between two inexperienced players (the box claims as little as half that time for more experienced players).

Unlike its predecessors, CoP features a South Pacific theme instead of the more typical Mediterranean one. It covers the period from 500AD during which the area known today as Polynesia was colonized.

The game is obviously a labor of love by the designer who includes a set of designers notes at least twice as long as the rules themselves, and contain mostly historical background. Unlike many other games that start with a historical theme rather than a set of rules, CoP achieves a great balance between that theme and playability.

The components are attractive, but not up to the quality level that people have come to expect from most board games today. The board itself is made of thin cardboard. It's Better than paper, but not as good as a mounted board. Counters are typical wargame quality cardboard chits. The cards aren't up to playing card quality, but are ok, especially since you only need to shuffle them once at the beginning of each game.

Each turn of game play consists of five steps. Each step consists of both players taking their actions before moving on to the next step. The steps are Turn Order, Exploration, Movement & Battle, Building, and Victory.

The Turn Order and Victory steps are essentially bookkeeping phases during which initiative and victory points are determined respectively. The meat of the game lies in the middle three steps.

During Exploration each player takes their explorer and proceeds to explore the map by entering unexplored hexes and drawing random chits to determine what is there. If an island is discovered, then a random island tile is drawn and placed on the map.

Players move their other units during the Movement & Battle step. These units consist of transport canoes, war canoes, colonies, and warrior bands. After movement is completed, units that have moved into a hex containing enemy units or villages conduct a battle during this phase.

After all movement and battle is completed the game moves to the Building step, where players calculate how many building points they have and use them to build new units and villages, as well as to buy cultural cards that can give victory points or bonuses to different activities, including exploration and combat.

Getting back to the four 'X's, the first obviously corresponds to the Exploration phase. The Movement & Battle phase corresponds to the eXterminate phase, although there probably won't be much extermination going on, as combat is usually pretty bloodless in CoP. The last two, eXpansion and eXploitation, are covered in the Build phase.

Compared to 4X computer games, there's not a lot of depth here. No tech trees or anything like that to go through, but that kind of thing is often better left to computers. CoP distills the most exciting bits out of 4X games so that the play doesn't get bogged down, at least not with the two player game. I can't speak for how well it works with three and four players as I've only played with two so far, but I suspect those games will be at least as fun as the two player game.

I can fully recommend this game to anyone who wants an entertaining and relatively quick playing 4X or civilization-lite style of game.

Field of Glory Review

The following is a rather longish review of the new miniatures rules by Osprey Publishing: Field of Glory. I'm posting it here before submitting it to BoardGameGeek, so any feedback is welcome.

First things first, this is not a play-test review. This is a review of the main rulebook based on reading it. Also, most of my miniatures gaming has been using rules by Games Workshop, or rules heavily influenced by Games Workshop. I don't have any experience with the popular DBA/DBM system for ancients miniatures games. Hopefully this gives you some idea of where my biases might lie.

First up is the physical quality, layout and writing of the book. Rulebooks for miniatures games see a lot of use and abuse, and it's important that they be able to stand up to that. It looks like this one can. It's a nicely bound hardcover the size of a standard Osprey book (about 9 1/2" x 7 1/2"), 176 pages in full color. After one reading, it lays flat when open, even when viewing pages near either end of the book.

Chapters are color coded on the edges of the page, and each phase of the game has its own chapter. In addition to a table of contents and an index for the book, each chapter includes a summary of the chapter contents in a column along the left side of every two page spread. This should be a great help in actually using this book during a game.

I do have to say that the index failed me once while I was reading through the book. The concept of a "severe disorder" is mentioned after the concept of "disorder" is explained, but before the concept of "severe disorder" is explained. When I attempted to find "disorder" in the index I was unable to do so. Later, after I had learned what a "severe disorder" was, I was able to find "disorder" listed under "movement" as "move distances and disorder". It would have been nice if "disorder" had its own listing in the index given that it's a fairly important concept. Of course, now that I've read the rules, I doubt I'd have the same problem if I had to look it up during a game.

The rules are filled with illustrated examples of the concepts being explained, and there is an appendix with further illustrated examples of some unusual situations. I found these illustrations very helpful in grasping concepts, especially where I found the text somewhat unclear. Fortunately, the text is usually clear, but there were several cases where I had to re-read a section multiple times before fully understanding the meaning. This was due partly to concepts needing to rely on other concepts that hadn't been fully introduced yet (inevitable when concepts rely on each other yet one has to be introduced before the other), but mostly due to it being written in English and not American English. The latter became less of a problem as I became more accustomed to the writing style. That style is actually quite concise, more so than I'm used to seeing in other rulebooks.

That covers the book, now for the rules.

The game scale is rather loose. Each base represents approximately 250 men, but this can vary greatly depending on the army being represented. Turns do not represent any fixed time period, but instead represents a "phase of battle." Ground scale is discussed as "defined by effective bow range," but is never actually given a fixed definition. I have seen it referred to as 1" = 50 yards in some forums, but not in the actual book. Movement rates are given in Movement Units (MU) which equal either 1" or 25mm depending on player preference. Base sizes are recommended to be 40mm wide for 15mm figures and smaller and 60mm wide for 25/28mm figures. Depths vary depending on the type of unit, but aren't as important as widths. The main thing is that all bases in a game be of equal width.

The game consists of alternating player turns, each consisting of five phases: Impact, Manoeuvre, Shooting, Melee, and Joint Action.

The Impact Phase consists of the active player declaring charges, the inactive player declaring responses to those charges, the active player making the charges, and both players resolving the effects of those charges.

The Manoeuvre Phase consists of the active player moving any units that didn't charge and that aren't already involved in a close combat. It also involves the active player adjusting units that are already involved in a close combat so as to conform to the enemy or bring more bases into contact.

The Shooting Phase consists of the active player doing any shooting that doesn't involve units involved in close combat.

During the Melee Phase, both players resolve any ongoing close combats.

Finally, during the Joint Action Phase, both players resolve ongoing routs and pursuits and then move their commanders.

There are three basic dice mechanics used in the game. The first is the Complex Move Test (CMT), the second is the Combat Mechanism, and the third is the Cohesion Test.

The CMT is used whenever a unit attempts to do something involving movement that isn't automatic and involves rolling two dice and adding them together with any modifiers to beat a target number based on the troop type.

The Combat Mechanism involves rolling a number of single six sided dice based on the number and types of troops involved in combat. No modifiers are added to the rolls, but the target numbers are determined by applying Points of Advantage (POA). POAs are determined by comparing the qualities of the attacking unit to the qualities of the defending unit and assigning '+' and '-' POAs. POAs are a zero-sum amount, meaning that if one side has a + than the other must have a -, and have a maximum of ++ and a minimum of --. The result is applied to the base target number of 4, resulting in a final target number from 2 to 6. So there is always a chance of failure or success no matter how mismatched the opponents are.

The Cohesion Test is similar to the CMT using 2d6 and adding them together with modifiers. It's used whenever something happens that might affect the morale of a unit.

Units in the game are rated on four categories, plus they may have one or more special Capabilities. The four categories comprise the overall Troop Type and consist of Type, Armour, Quality, and Training. Type is divided into two basic categories: Foot and Mounted, which are then further subdivided into more specific types such as "heavy foot" or "knights". Armour has four possible ratings from "heavily armoured" to "unprotected". Quality also has four possible ratings from "elite" to "poor". Training only has two ratings "drilled" and "undrilled".

Capabilities refer to special factors that influence combat, and mainly stem from the type of weapons that the units use. Some examples are "longbow," "offensive spearmen," and "lancers".

The game uses these factors to determine modifiers to CMT and Cohesion Tests, movement rates, POAs, shooting ranges, number of dice used in combat, and whether a CMT is required in the first place.

Commanders are rated on a single category that determines their command range. Having a commander in range can add a positive modifier to some tests. Commanders can also form multiple battle groups into a single battle line, can rally troops that have failed cohesion tests, and can fight in the front line when necessary to gain an edge in a key fight, although this last ability can lead to the loss of your commander.

There are a few more details I haven't gone into, but this should give a general idea of how the game works.