Review: Dawning Star; Operation Quick Launch
(or Transhuman Space it Ain't)
(or A Great Opportunity for Campiness Missed)
(or "The World Blew Up, and Now Everyone Plays Baseball")
Dawning Star, an RPG by Blue Devil Games, reviewed by RPGPundit
There was a time when the simple techno-freak could say he was presenting "realistic sci-fi" with a straight face and not look like a total goon when his presentation amounted to a bunch of higher-tech guns and a quasi-realistic explanation for how the hell we could ever break the light-speed barrier (or even come close).
That time has past. Transhuman Space killed it.
You see, Transhuman Space created a whole new standard for what was to be considered "realism": not just the presentation of new technology, but the sociological questions of what that new technology would mean to human culture. Not to mention an overall sociological analysis of current trends to extrapolate the rise and fall of nations and groups.
Anything that doesn't make an effort at examining these things can't seriously be called "hard sci-fi" anymore. Back when sci-fi belonged to engineering students and computer nerds it seemed ok, but now sci-fi belongs to pre-med and humanities majors, and we're finally getting into interesting directions.
Unfortunately, Dawning Star is what you could call "old school"; in that they make absolutely NO effort to present a realistic timeline of sociological and cultural changes in a future earth. Hell, Dawning Star practically revels in its america-centrism and the quaint notion that we'll all still be "mom & apple pie" in the future; to the point that it could be run as for great "camp" value.
The whole setting strikes me as one of those cheesy science-fiction shows from the 80s or early 90s; it draws a direct inspiration from Starship Troopers (the regretable movie, not the regretable book), and there are shades in it of Battlestar Galactica (space convoy out to find humanity a home), and Earth 2 (settlers trying to survive in a new and unexplored planet). But even Earth 2 already had more going for it as far as social realism than this setting. There are whole areas that are totally unexamined: if this is humanity a mere 250 years in the future; what do people read? What music do they listen to? What religions are still around, and how have they changed?
The earth has been destroyed, a grossly apocalyptic event. There are only a few million survivors, and this one particular group of survivors end up "lost in space", and forced to settle on an alien planet they don't know anything about.. usually devastating events (ie. the black death) have tended to lead to cataclysmic changes in society. You would think this one would lead to a total re-design of "survivor culture".
And yet the settlers on Eos (the new world) choose to create a system of government that would by then be 475 years old, rather than something new; they seem to want to settle into exactly the same cultural and social styles as 20th century earth, or at least we are lead to assume as much because the book doesn't tell us.
I am making this as much of an issue as I am because the book's authors have conveniently told us their design goals in the book itself (p.6). They state two rules the authors claim to have adhered to in designing the game: 1. It must be fun, and 2. it must be believable, except where believability clashes with rule #1.
These two rules really make me like the authors, honestly. Its what should be the basis of any RPG. Even the choice of "believable" as the key word instead of the impossible "realistic" is a good thing.
Unfortunately, the authors have failed in their intent to make the game "believable" because they didn't think through what was needed to create "believable" sci fi. The authors mentioning getting a special "technical advisor" as one of the very first things they did when writing the game; I'm guessing the guy was an engineer or a physicist or something, who could check if any of their science was impossible. They admit that some of it will be improbable, and it all sounds like they were very concerned that they would end up having tech or science geeks bitchslap them for using bad physics or something.
Clearly, they never counted on us Humanities geeks. Also, they clearly never bothered to consult a "humanities advisor" ("social sciences? why would we need a historian to write a sci-fi book where we predict historical change?").
Anyways, let's try to bring some order and structure back into this review. First: this book is called "quick launch", and when it was first delivered to me I was under the impression that it was going to be something like the "quick start" rules for the Dawning Star game. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that in fact this IS the full blown rulebook for the Dawning Star game, coming in at 208 pages. I was also highly impressed with their layout, illustrations (black and white, but well done), and general format of the book. It was a HIGHLY professional job all around.
The first chapter you get after the intro is the "history chapter", where you get the basic story of the setting. In 2184 a "dark object" is detected in a collision course with the Earth, and with a little more than a decade's time to prepare for it, the human.... er.. alliance? United Nations? Corporation?
Ok, here's where we get the first breakdown. The authors never actually tell us much about society on earth before its destruction, other than the following, seemingly contradictory facts:
1. The earth is almost a utopia, after long centuries of war and environmental destruction.
2. There are still corporations (we only know this because they get "nationalized" in the effort to stop the "dark object").
3. The biggest spaceship project to date was called the U.S.S. Washington in 2169, pretty strongly implying that the United States is not only still around, but still a dominant world power.
Ok, right there, believability has flown straight out the window. Are there nation states, or a world government? If there was so much war and environmental destruction in the last two centuries, why would the US still be around?
Anyways, in the end, the Earth can only come up with 20 huge colony ships, carrying a total of 40 million people (2 million each, cryogenically frozen), and a small "escort fleet" for each ship, with the plan being that these ships would travel an 80 year sublight stretch to a nearby star that appeared to have a moon suitable for terraforming. The people chosen were chosen for their skills, and a large number by random lottery, though apparently corrupt politicians (wait.. weren't we in a utopia?) rigged a lot of the choices. Predictably, these "cheaters" are the "renegades" of the setting.
During the trip to this new system, something goes terribly wrong when the escort ships encounter an alien artifact. The artifact activates, and suddenly the ship "Dawning Star" finds itself alone with its escort, separated from the rest of the fleet, alone in an unknown part of space, teleported away by super-science!
The new star system the arrived at turns out to have a habitable (terraformable) world they name Eos, and the humans quickly settle in. Luckily the Dawning Star was the ship in charge of all the terraforming materials it would seem, and they have all the genetic files of most terran animals and plants, so they're well set-up for this unexpected development.
Oh, a few more notes about these settlers, and another hint about the earth: the crew of the dawning star were mostly from the "United states of the americas", the "Euro-african Union", and the "Indian Consortium". Yea right, "united states of the americas"... like that's going to happen. So clearly this is a "manifest destiny" wet dream on the author's part. They mostly speak english, even those most of the nations that one would assume are represented in those state-names are not english-speaking, but I'm willing to let that one slide. The dominance of the English language throughout the last two centuries means its become the new Latin, and its quite possible that people around the world could still be speaking in English long after US-dominance has faded.
What I'm not willing to let slide is the idea that, faced with having to create a new system of government; the people of the "USoTA, E-AU, and IC" choose to create.. you guessed it, a near-perfect replica of the American system of government!
I mean, fuck off. Come on. What the fuck are you guys thinking??? Do you seriously believe any country that the US hasn't rolled the tanks over is going to want to make a perfect replica of the US system? Hell, even countries conquered by the US (Japan in WWII, Iraq now) aren't replicating the US system!! Why the fuck would a society of worldwide survivors, with the chance of starting totally anew, choose to do so?
Not to mention that this clearly supposes that there has been absolutely NO new developments in political sciences for the last 200 years. Hell, even today in this foul year of our lord 2005 the American model of government, excellent as it may have served that nation for as long as it has, is outdated in that if a fresh start was called for something different would be done. Are you seriously telling me that in 200 years no new political/economic model has been designed? No equivalent to capitalism, or marxism? no infosocialism or neo-corporativism or anarcho-syndicalism or new religious movements with wierd ideas or anything?
I mean, Jebus H-Christ-on-a-stick, boys, what the fuck were you thinking? You go to painstaking fucking detail to examine how science could have progressed "believably" in those two centuries yet it seems like society is not only completely frozen and hasn't changed at all in TWO FUCKING CENTURIES, but its also all AMERICAN society.
I mean, you guys don't tell us anything about how religious movements had changed up till that time, or how they are affected by the destruction of the earth (something that would pretty much mean the end of almost any current Judeo-Christian dogma, and the radical transformation of every other major religion), but you do bother to tell us that in 2239 the very first professional sporting league set up on Eos is... wait for it... wait for it... you guessed it... BASEBALL.
NEWS FLASH: No one on the fucking planet plays baseball other than you guys, Japan, and Cuba. And if it hasn't caught on by now, its pretty fucking doubtful it'll be the most popular sport on earth in two hundred years, much less the most popular sport after the fucking destruction of Earth!
They do mention that a year later the "european football league" is started and becomes the second-most popular. But I mean, really...
Anyways, while they're re-building the United States..er, I mean, "humanity"; the settlers run into some alien ruins, finding out that there was once a highly advanced alien society on Eos.
Also, there are some renegades who refuse to participate in the "Dawning Star Republic" (or more accurately named, USA 2: The Wrath of Yankee). In an unfortunate and boring move, the authors basically present these guys, who move to the outlands to form their own communities, as mostly self-interested and corrupt types (remember, the ones who rigged the lottery?), instead of what could have been done far better: presenting a number of different cultures and ideologies creating competing communities (a lá Alpha Centauri). As is, there is very little about any of the "Eos Freedom League" that makes them very different from the cities of the "Dawning Star Republic", other than the fact that they are full of "dissidents" from the republic, who mainly "hate democracy" (I kid you not: apparently some of the rebels were people who were in favour of continued military governance rather than the foundation of a democratic constitution). Its all so very shallow, and a terrible missed opportunity.
The kicker in the history section, just before the "present day" of the setting, is that first contact is made with not one, but two alien races. The Tentaari are basically the little "grey alien" race that we all know and love, who claim to be a kind of guardian race that watches over more primitive life forms like us humans. They claim that the alien artifact that scattered the survivor fleet was actually part of their gateway system for FTL travel, and that they now wish to help the human survivors here on Eos. They are fairly aloof and mysterious, and there's some secrets about them revealed in the GM section (and no, I'm not going to tell you what those secrets are).
Then there are the Velin, the native race of Eos. They had somehow managed to stay hidden from the human settlers for about 50 years (which isn't too implausible, given that its taken humanity that long to just get rolling on Eos, and that the settlers have actually covered very little territory). The velin are humanoid, with purple-grey skin, and a primitive hunter-gatherer culture not unlike the native americans.
This, plus the whole "frontier" aspect of the colony settlements, creates another possible spin to the setting: the "sci-fi cowboy" setting that Firefly did so well. DS has a lot of the memes of that too.
This is one of the strengths of Dawning Star. Their sociological believability may be all shot to hell, but that doesn't mean that the setting is unplayable, or couldn't be fun. In fact, the authors go to great lengths to create as many different styles of play possible. Like I said, you've got your "earth2", you've got your "battlestar galactica", you've got your "Firefly"...
..and you've got your "starship troopers", when you introduce the third alien race, the real bad guys of the setting, the so-called "darklings". In reality called the vaasi, these bug-aliens look almost identical to the bad bugs in the Starship Troopers movie (at one point the authors admit to basically ripping them off, and more power to them), and are your standard hate-filled "destroy everything" race.
So you can be the sheriff in the distant frontier settlement, trying to keep peace between the colonists and the "injuns" (ie. the Velin), or you could be the squad of Eos Defence League troops sent to stop a Vaasi incursion, or you could be one of the team on board one of the still-functional escort ships, patrolling the Helios solar system (where Eos is located). There are TONS of options.
The one thing you really can't run this setting as is a serious sci-fi setting reflecting a believable cultural setting that's 2 centuries in the future, and one homeworld short. There is nothing there to really emphasize the difference 200 years of history would make in society, nor is there anything there to emphasize the massive psychological and social consequences that surviving the destruction of the Earth would generate.
No, my friends, the authors might not realize it, they might not like me saying it, but Dawning Star isn't "firm sci-fi"; its camp. Its "Americaaaaaaaans Innnnnnnn Spaaaaaaaace!!"... And if you play it with all the campiness of the standard american sci fi TV show featuring "americans in space!", it could be fun. But like most American sci-fi TV shows, the authors of Dawning Star don't seem to realize that what they're making is camp, and take themselves far too seriously.
All this, and I have yet to say a word about the system. Well, here's a couple of words: The system is D20 Modern/Future, and very well done. Its chock-full of options, feat trees, occupations, all very thuroughly done. On paper, it all looks very workable and balanced (this isn't a playtest review, so I couldn't speak for in practice). If you want a playable setting for D20 Future, considering the criticisms I've made of the setting, you could do a lot worse than Dawning Star.
There's all kinds of neat toys in the Technology chapter. Like I said, these guys went to great efforts with their tech and their science. Lots of cool guns and weapons, new types of polymers, some armor that is made to look like a cowboy duster (again, shades of Firefly), a couple of notes about genetics and nanotech (apparently, even though the ship has the genetic material of every species on earth, and the capacity to bring them back into existence, their actual ability to do anything else with genetics is limited. Ditto with nanotech... this sounds like a bit of a dodge to avoid going into the kind of humanity-shattering realms of Transhuman Space to me).
Then there's a bit of alien superscience, complete with the idea of presenting D&D spells as superscience. Not very "hard sci-fi" of them, but I guess that rule of "sufficiently advanced tech looking like magic" is a convenient one.
And then there's the Mecha.
Yup, out of nowhere, suddenly we're told there's Mecha. Not many of them, but there were some, that the Eos defence forces brought with them from Earth. So here, the authors introduce yet another possible angle of play: Macross/gundam style mecha battling evil bugs.
I really love these guys, seriously. I just wish they'd realize that what they've got here is the OPPOSITE of "believable"; and that's ok.
Dawning Star is not of the "believable" school at all, its the "everything and the kitchen sink" school of sci-fi game design, and that's a shitload of a lot of fun!
The subsequent chapter is the "World of Eos" chapter, and I won't comment on it much since I've said most of what was needed to say about the setting already. I will note, however, that this chapter suggests that as much as 5% of Eos' landmass is covered in ruins of ancient tech civilization. That's a lot of ruin. That's a lot of high-tech dungeon crawling; and yet ANOTHER possible genre to play the game in.
Chapter 5 is the overview of the Helios Solar system where Eos resides, and it is chalk full of adventure ideas for a starship-based campaign.
Chapter 6 is the bestiary, with stats for all sorts of creatures native to Eos, and more details on the Tentaari, and the stats for the big bad Vaasi.
Chapter 7 is the DM's chapter which tells you some of the "secrets" of the setting. The only one that I can see being of immediate consequence to any actual play is the secrets relating to the Tentaari. There are secret background histories for the Velin and the Vaasi there too, but those would be far less immediately significant to any actual play. The background story is relatively coherent, no big problems with it; and the subsequent advice for running campaigns and adventure seeds are fairly sound.
chapter 8 contains an introductory adventure, that like most "introductory adventures" in almost all rpg books, is mostly forgettable.
To conclude this review: the designers do some things extremely well, and have massive gaps in other areas. In one sense, in the sense of meeting their purported goal of "believability", they fail massively, because they rely on an outdated benchmark of what "believable sci-fi" consists of. They create believable tech, and believable science, but fail to create believable society, and in so doing fail to create a believable future.
But in another sense, in the sense of playability, this setting rocks. It has almost everything one could want, and the space to focus on just one style of play or to do it all in one huge pastiche.
So while the Dawning Star designers could take a page off of Transhuman Space in how to create a "believable future", the Transhuman space designers, and many other RPG setting designers, could take a lesson from the Dawning Star guys in how to make a setting PLAYABLE.
I'm still looking for a sci-fi setting that can do both (in the interim, I've had to design my own "believable future" for my Traveller campaign, and done quite well at doing so and making it playable, at least if guys like Jong and Alejo are to be believed). But for now let me say this: for all the well-deserved criticism I've leveled at the authors of Dawning Star for their huge "social believability gap", I'm pretty sure I'd be having a hell of a lot more FUN playing a campy game of Dawning Star than I would a straight game of Transhuman Space.
http://www.dawningstar.com/
http://www.bluedevilgames.com/
RPGPundit November 17 2005
Wow... the chip on your shoulder against the US really shows through in that review Pundit.
Normally I can at least see your point, but the idea that A) the US is even still around in 200 and B) the colonists choose a system of government based on the US model qualifies as the game as a "manifest destiny wet dream".
I mean... come on.
In other words, you seem to see it as NECESSARY for the game's believability that the US has either been blown up or slid into obscurity. And you spend way more time slamming the authors of the book for not agreeing with you on that point than you do actually covering the contents of the book itself.
Once you DO get to that point, the REASONS for some of their choices become pretty clear: the ability to play Battlestar, or Starship Troopers, or Firefly type games.
You think that ability to have different campaign styles might have influenced some of those other choices?
I usually like your reviews, but reading you shred the authors because of your political bias for 3/4 of it, only to toss in as an aside at the end that the setting allows for many different play styles and is very well done mechanically didn't sit well with me.
Chuck
Sorry to say, but I'm with Chuck on this one.
IMO, a reviews first objective is to inform the reader of the contents of the book. Second is to sprinkle in your thoughts on the quality (or lack there of) of the contents. Third point out things that are missing or should have been included.
To comment on the political or cultural as being unbelievable in any fiction based RPG is useless to readers unless it's way out there. Nothing in Dawning Star strikes me as any more out of place than in any other Sci-Fi game. We get it that the Pundit thinks the US would not be around this far in the future and that "The United States of the Americas" would never happen. Thats great, but how does that help someone be more informed for buying this book or not?
Bottom line is your personal biases and thoughts should not be inlcuded in a review unless they relate to real failure or success in the product. Pondering whether the "what ifs" in a game are correct or realistic is useless. IMO the should be more fact than opinion in a review.
I have a Dawning Star review here (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12568.phtml) if anyone's interested.
I agree that there is a lack of the sort of Transhumanism we've come to know and love from Transhuman Space and a lot of recent science fiction generally, but on the plus side this is a setting that's a lot easier for most folk to identify with and jump into. The prep alone for a Transhuman Space game with folk who are completely unfamiliar with the setting can be substantial - with Dawning Star the setting is something a group can jump right into.
The follow up product, Helios Rising, makes the setting much more science fictiony and takes a kitchen sink approach to the Helios system - from bug hunts to mysterious ruins to space battles, it works in a bit of everything. Review here. (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12576.phtml)
Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckWow... the chip on your shoulder against the US really shows through in that review Pundit.
Normally I can at least see your point, but the idea that A) the US is even still around in 200
Well, by definition the US isn't around, the earth blew up or whatever...
QuoteIn other words, you seem to see it as NECESSARY for the game's believability that the US has either been blown up or slid into obscurity. And you spend way more time slamming the authors of the book for not agreeing with you on that point than you do actually covering the contents of the book itself.
I see it as necessary for social believability of a setting that in the past two centuries other schools of thought came along. The problem wasn't just that the settlers of the new colony decided to base their entire society on the United States of America, but that they did so based on the 20th century US. As if there had been absolutely no fucking change in the social mores, intellectual development, no fucking HISTORY whatsoever that led to anything different in the past 200 years. Its the classic error of cheap sci-fi; like those movies back in the early 1950s that showed "life in the 21st century" and everyone was looking and acting as they did in 1954, only in spacesuits.
QuoteOnce you DO get to that point, the REASONS for some of their choices become pretty clear: the ability to play Battlestar, or Starship Troopers, or Firefly type games.
You think that ability to have different campaign styles might have influenced some of those other choices?
I usually like your reviews, but reading you shred the authors because of your political bias for 3/4 of it, only to toss in as an aside at the end that the setting allows for many different play styles and is very well done mechanically didn't sit well with me.
I always try to judge games I review based on what the AUTHOR himself claims about the game. In this case, the claim was that the game was supposed to be "believable" as the main priority, except where it wasn't "fun". If he'd stated his goal was to emulate BSG or Starship Troopers, that would be another story.
But HE said believable. And believable this ain't, to anyone other than aspergers-inflicted science-geeks, who think "futuristic" is only about having a good scientific reasoning for how laser rifles and hyperspace travel "really could work", but don't pause for a second to think about the humanities.
RPGPundit