I got this in the mail today, and I have to say it looks awesome. Anyone else have it yet?
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I just read the product blurb - Hope, optimism, "All things new again", creating a civilization among the stars - If the book stays true to this, it may be an awesome contrast to all the "angst, angst, apocalypse" stuff out there.
It's on my to buy list along side the Qin bestiery and dr who aliens and monsters book...oh and a bunch of other cubicle 7 stuff aswell :)
Sarah Newton wrote it (maybe with others) and it's all about Banks, and Reynolds and Stross and McCloud.
I'd buy it buy Starblazers is required (isn't it) and that such a brick.
It is a sourcebook for starblazers, it is optimistic, and its really quite fascinating. Its the first Transhuman-style RPG that I've felt can actually be run in ways that would be interesting. Its also got a ton of material that could be poached from the setting to use in piecemeal form in a Starblazers campaign, which is exactly what I'm going to do.
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Starblazers is a brick, but in a good way, Fate powered games are relatively simple with a lot of explained parts. Starblazers adds more to that with concepts from the SB magazine.
It isn't an obtuse read in anyway.
I just got my copy today. I'm a fan. I love the transhumanist stuff (I can actually wrap my mind around it, unlike Transhuman Space, which never grabbed me) and the production design is slick. And they have great sci-fi names. Everything just pops.
What mechanics do Starblazers and Mindjammer use?
Quote from: Tetsubo;373999What mechanics do Starblazers and Mindjammer use?
FATE 3.0. (http://www.faterpg.com/)
Short version, everything is skill-based... there are no attributes. The mechanic is 2d6, subtracting one die from the other and adding the total (positive or negative) to your skill and measuring it against a success "ladder."
There are Stunts, which are special abilities tied to skills that work a bit like d20 feats; Fate points, which fuel Stunts and allow for die bonuses; and Aspects, which are free-form character traits that you can "invoke" to get bonuses, or "compel" to complicate your character's life and thus get Fate Points.
It's taken my group a lot of getting used to -- a couple of my players have really gotten into it; a couple are still in the "I stand in place and attack the guy who attacked me last," which is both boring and completely unrewarded by the way FATE works.
Since I started my campaign, I've made good use of this sourcebook, incorporating quite a bit of its technological elements to my campaign.
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