Review & Commentary On Explorers By Paul Elliott For The Cepheus Engine Rpg For The Hostile Rpg Setting & The Original Traveller rpg

 "Explorers is a supplement for Cepheus Engine and for the gritty HOSTILE science fiction setting.
It provides all of the tools the explorer needs to tackle dangers and exotic encounters on remote worlds. Included within the book is a fully detailed survey ship, the USCS Castle Bravo; an in-depth look at both the Tharsis Armadillo All-Terrain Vehicle as well as the explorer’s habitat of choice: the Leyland-Okuda modular base series. The space suits of the HOSTILE universe are also featured, with a set of customisable options.
Finally, survey and exploration procedures are explained with advice and rules provided which will allow the referee to create a tense, unpredictable and (hopefully!) dangerous survey mission. These come with 36 uninhabited world descriptions for use in your game. "

Players & friends alerted me to the release of Zozer Games Explorers was shoved int erm came exploding into my email box by my players. The cover alone is what really grabs your attention with a creepy classic Science Fiction & 70's Alien style poster artwork feel to it. The supplemenrt dives into the 'Upstream' space mining & exploration faux industry magazine cover.  But this is actually the first section of rules & organization over view. Shades of West End Star Wars rpg with the fake adds which were often used as player hand outs. This is gives a solid feel of the field of space exploration in the universe  of Hostile. You get a quick arm shot of a common survey vessel & overview of the Armadillo ATV. And its very well done giving the DM a perspective on the ATV and it almost feels like you could actually drive one. And that's one of the things about Explorers as a supplement it feels very grounded in its own universe. 

The module base section is very well done & we get down, dirty, & very scientific within Explorers take on living the pioneer life on the edge of galatic discovery. This section has a very much updated feel of those Eighties faux NASA books such as the Mars Mission Manual. This is life on the bleed edge of surival & space exploration. This section of Explorers gives an excellent overview of the shelters, colony pop up dwellings, and bases that are going to be used by PC's. 

Next we get into some hard core space suit design & mission specific stuff with regards to the day to day workable skin of the explorer. This section is very well done & hits the high notes that Hostile does with added benefits of actually being another customizable PC section of Explorers. This is one of the best sections of the book because it allows the DM & players to work together to tie together the gear for the PC's missions. 

'How To Explore' is one of the best sections of Explorers which involves planets, systems, missions parameters, planetary characteristics, & much more. This section ties in nicely with Explorers especially for instellar exploration campaign.  This section goes right into The Castle Bravo survey vessel which was introduced around a decade ago to compensate for the inadequacies of its predecessor, the North Star long range scout. And this is a perfect star ship for the players PC's and its a slamming ship! 

The Castle Bravo survey vessel reminds me of many of the classic original Traveller rpg ships. An actual star ship that the PC's can use for missions across the board. Its a real neat design incorporating elements of the classic 70's art Science Fiction ships with the Two Thousands bleeding edge space exploration. In many respects I really love the Castle Bravo survey ship class its really well done. 

Explorers within seventy one pages feels like an update of Paul Elliott, & Ben Lecrone's Orbital 2100 campaign setting with huge expansion of many of the ideas, adventure elements, space suits, ships, etc..

 Explorers takes the Hostile rpg setting into the outer bleeding edges of instellar space exploration. This means that its a solid drag & drop supplement right into the back end of the Hostile rpg setting. Explorers is a must add on for Roughnecks because the explorers are often the trail blazers or runners for the Rougneck's mining  operations. 

Because of Explorers the way that the book is set up its perfectly tuned for adding in sci fi horror elements to make the lives of the PC's wretched. All in all Explorers is a solid add on book for the DM of Cepheus Engine campaigns & yes I'm really glad that I grabbed it! 

Two Eighties Cultclassic Sci fi Films & Their applications For A Hostile Rpg Campaign universe & A Mini Review of Zozer Games Roughnecks By Paul Elliott

 One of the things that I inherited from my uncle were not only his campaign notes & some of his Traveller rpg supplements. But back in the 70's there were lots of other lesser known 'bad'  sci fi films & believe me our group of players in the 80's sat through lots of them on Beta Max. Case in point is Saturn 3 & Disney's The Black Hole. But from these my uncle weaved a very dark Traveller universe. Let's get a very different perspective on Disney's villain  Dr. Hans Reinhardt. Earth is in shock after his theft of the long-lost USS Cygnus. He leaves Earth with some of the the incomplete  formula for hyperdrive & leaves for the remotest part of the solar system. But Reinhardt has been an iconoclast in the universe of the  Hostile rpg.  For  Reinhardt decades has advanced space research for the benefit of mankind. He's basically wunderkine  & the corporate governments of the Hostile rpg are very much for funding these rogue scientists because of the incredible breakthroughs they provide the corporations. But the theft of the USS Cygnus shakes the corporations to their core. This theft was not only a headline on every major screen  at the time. It also represents an act of rebellion that can't go unpunished as the history books remember Reinhardt in the same breath as Hilter & Einstein. The hunt for the wreckage of the  long-lost USS Cygnus is the hunt for the 'Flying Dutchman of space's ship' in our campaign universe of the Hostile Rpg. 

The USS Cygnus is a cathedral space craft, a testament to the everlasting  power of the corporations as much as a space craft for exploration. And then its stolen.. The Earth mourns, the history books have a footnote not knowing the true horror of Reinhardt's madness. Here are three reasons why the film  'The Black Hole' works as 70's space campaign inspiration: 

1.    The Black Hole is a very dark film & the loss of the USS Cygnus is going to put corporate relations back twenty years at least. Not to mention the brain drain on the world of space exploration. 
2. The Black Hole universe uses psi without any problem so it fits the Cepheus Engine Rpg rules. 
3. Experimental psi robotic programs are evident with the V.I.N.C.E.N.T incarnation of the cybernetic entities we see in the Black Hole. 
4. For a recent viewing in preparation for this blog post indicated that there were other historic ships in the Earth's database of the spacecraft USS Palomino. Where are those other lost space craft?
5. The spacecraft USS Palomino joins that data base later on. And that's where our Traveller rpg crew picked up the trail. 
6. The technology of the Cynus was decades ahead of the rest of the Hostile rpg universe. 

And this is where Saturn 3 picks up from the ground running, very recent viewings indicate several things that the Roughnecks aesthetic of the Hostile rpg universe. 

These folks are good little corporate scientists doing the company's work out in the middle of Saturn three. And its the Saturn three wiki entry that gives a nice detailed view point; "In the distant future, an overcrowded Earth relies on research conducted by scientists in remote stations across the solar system. Contact is maintained by spaceships shuttling between the stations and large orbiting space stations. Captain James is preparing to depart from one of these stations when he is murdered by Captain Benson (Keitel). Benson, who was rated "potentially unstable" on a mental exam, steals James' cargo ship and departs the station for a small, remote experimental hydroponics research station on Saturn's third moon. Arriving there, he finds the station run solely by Adam (Douglas) and his younger colleague and lover Alex (Fawcett). Adam, Alex, and their dog, Sally, enjoy their isolation far from an overcrowded and troubled Earth. The couple have been on Saturn 3 for three years, but Alex has spent all her life in space, and knows little of the habits and mores of humans who live on Earth." 
Bang right off the bat we've got all of those 70's space highlights, overcrowded Earth, spacers on the outer edges of the solar system, & corporate scientists doing cutting edge research. Then we've got the Captain Benson (Keitel) & his robot — named Hector — is one of the first of its kind, a "Demigod Series", relying on "pure brain tissue" extracted from human fetuses and programmed using a direct link to Benson's brain. 

And its the fact that at the end of the film Alex  (Farrah Fawcett) makes it back to Earth & we roll credits. But we've got a corporation whose going to want to recover the remains of Hector. Hector has the brain scans of both Captain Benson & scientist Adam. Their going to want to know what went wrong?! And speaking of what went wrong. Our group always placed Saturn 3 in the same universe as Outland & Silent Running.. How & why?! There are five reasons: 

1. The hydroponics research conducted on Saturn 3 is highly exerimental & the corporate time table is really 'iffy' at best. 
2. Hector's neural interface with Captain Benson is something we see in Space 1999 season one's episode "Guardian of Piri". And it's cutting edge perhaps leading to insanity & worse something we see in the Space 1999 character  Kano. Only he's able to handle it far better then Captain Benson. 
3. Alex the scientist of Saturn 3 has been rewarded with his service to his corporation with his posting on Saturn three. 
4. Saturn 3 is far too valuable a piece of interstellar property to leave unclaimed & this is an opening for another corporate entity to send miners in to claim it. 
5. These research outposts are as much propaganda for Earth citizens as they are a tax write off for their corporate masters. 

As I said the remains of Hector the first of the demi god series of robots is far too valuable to leave on Saturn 3. And sending in a bunch of miner's to do a pick up & delivery is smart & easy as they reclaim the moon from another rival corporation. Hector's destruction could signal to another corporation that there's research to be plundered. 

Zozer Games's Roughnecks is a supplement that you can just about feel the 'Outland' vibe coming off it. The whole book fits the asthetic of Alien & Eighties sci fi so well. The PC's are not your typical heroes of 'Luke Skystalker' mode but working stiffs and miners at that. And lay out & production are so well done. Roughnecks works so well with Far Horizons that its not even funny. These two books together brings exploration of the outer solor system home. Zozer Games puts out fantastic products & again this is brought home with Roughnecks. You get everything you could want as a dungeon master for running Hostile Rpg Eighties sci fi hard core mining operation. One  where you can run your people hard & they can play harder in the wastelands of space. And Roughnecks fits in with the asthetic of Eighties sci fi that I'm going for with our group of players coming up. 

1.  Roughnecks works because it gives the PC's the tools to actually pull a profit from their operations. 
2. The DM has a a mini mining book to play out within the Hostile campaign. There's far more going on below the surface of the solar system that can be pulled from for the corporations. 
3. The solar system is last great frontier before the alien worlds of beyond but our own solar system is dangerous as Hell. 
4. Roughnecks presents mankind as their own worst enemies when it comes to the making of a profit. The corporations do what they do & even here their still faceless. 
5. There's a good chance for heroics even within Roughnecks but watch out for your fellow miners & bugs.