I just noticed Albedo, what I think are first and second editions, on drivethru yesterday. One of them is definitely First Edition, the other one is called "Platinum Catalyst".
I'd vaguely heard of it as a combination of hard military SF and furriness. One of those elements interests me, one rather less so.
Anyone have any experience of it? Are the background and/or system good enough to interest alone? How easy is it to look past the furriness - I am guessing that should be very easy as reskinning is generally trivial?
Quote from: Marchand on September 24, 2020, 05:34:37 AM
I just noticed Albedo, what I think are first and second editions, on drivethru yesterday. One of them is definitely First Edition, the other one is called "Platinum Catalyst".
I'd vaguely heard of it as a combination of hard military SF and furriness. One of those elements interests me, one rather less so.
Anyone have any experience of it? Are the background and/or system good enough to interest alone? How easy is it to look past the furriness - I am guessing that should be very easy as reskinning is generally trivial?
The games are based around the Albedo comic created by Steve Gallacci and yes, the characters are all animal uplifts but it is definitely not a furry comic. The stories are very hard science fiction and were very good, I enjoyed them immensely. The background is rich and meaty, using that alone makes the books worthwhile (but then again, I loved the comic).
The game, is lackluster in comparison. it is one that I have not been able to find much interest in getting people to play, which is good because the rules come close to FGUs Space Opera in disorganization (mainly around spacecraft and space travel). I keep the books for reference, but I don't hold out a lot of hope for playability.
You might want to check out his professional website (https://www.stevegallacci.com/) which has some of the Albedo Anthropomorphics comics on it in order to get a taste of the background and story, most are under Erma Felna EDF.
Quote from: jeff37923 on September 24, 2020, 08:23:32 AM
The game, is lackluster in comparison. it is one that I have not been able to find much interest in getting people to play, which is good because the rules come close to FGUs Space Opera in disorganization (mainly around spacecraft and space travel). I keep the books for reference, but I don't hold out a lot of hope for playability.
You might want to check out his professional website (https://www.stevegallacci.com/) which has some of the Albedo Anthropomorphics comics on it in order to get a taste of the background and story, most are under Erma Felna EDF.
Interesting - are the rules just disorganised, or actively bad?
Thanks for the website pointer
Quote from: Marchand on September 24, 2020, 12:19:23 PM
Quote from: jeff37923 on September 24, 2020, 08:23:32 AM
The game, is lackluster in comparison. it is one that I have not been able to find much interest in getting people to play, which is good because the rules come close to FGUs Space Opera in disorganization (mainly around spacecraft and space travel). I keep the books for reference, but I don't hold out a lot of hope for playability.
You might want to check out his professional website (https://www.stevegallacci.com/) which has some of the Albedo Anthropomorphics comics on it in order to get a taste of the background and story, most are under Erma Felna EDF.
Interesting - are the rules just disorganised, or actively bad?
Thanks for the website pointer
A little of both. The hard science approach to space combat meant a lot of jockeying for position by ships which then close on each other in fractions of a second at thousand kilometers per second - Player Characters end up having little to do.
I was working on a 3rd ed when Sanguine got wind of it and yanked the agreement out from under me to make their "Platinum" edition.
I got the greenlight from Steve because I knew the setting well and was footing the bill myself. It would have been a better organized version of 1e. 2e is ok. But feels like it lost a little something that made 1e so gritty and brutal.
1e works. But yeah organization of rules was not one of Paul's stronger points. He did alot better with Lace & Steel and I'd like to think Albedo helped hone his skills. 2e is better organized to be sure.
As for the space combat rules. They are overall meant to be more a backdrop to the personal side of things, be it sociopolitical, or NATO level city combat. Ships and ATVs are not meant to be front-and-center as it were. If you want ship-to-ship combat then plug in some other games system. t Traveller or Star Frontiers are my personal suggestions if you want to go that route. My version would have fleshed that out a little more. But not by much. We knew where the settings strength was.
As for platinum. The less said of that the better. It doesn't even have a translation of the Albedo font, AND has art that is not from Steve? WTF? (Not to mention that a fair portion of the art from Steve that is in the book is pulled straight from 1 and 2e.)
If you for some reason opt to get into the comics be aware that at some point someone else took over for a while and killed off the whole setting. Just ignore it if you ever get that far.
Quote from: jeff37923 on September 24, 2020, 04:26:48 PM
A little of both. The hard science approach to space combat meant a lot of jockeying for position by ships which then close on each other in fractions of a second at thousand kilometers per second - Player Characters end up having little to do.
I read someone somewhere (might have been Winchell Chung from Atomic Rockets) saying the more realistic space combat gets, the less fun it is.
EDIT: clearly, the less fun it is to game, rather than to participate in...