Game Review: Battlelords of the 23rd Century RPG
A few weeks ago I had the chance to review SSDC’s new web site. What I discovered was a company using the Internet to reintroduce gamers to a twenty-two year-old gem of an RPG. Battlelords of the 23rd Century is billed as “Roleplaying in a dangerous future”, and this game lives up to that billing. This review is being written solely based the core rulebook and observations from the website.
System
Battlelords is a rules crunchy D100 system that is to say that most of the rolls are based on percentages. While I have seen and used a 100 sided dice, I find that using different colored 10 sided dice to be much easier. The key to using the 2D10 (2, 10 sided dice) is declaring which dice is the high number. As your character advances, their abilities can be increased by percentages. This system even accounts for hit locations and degradation of armor. The only problem with this amount of detail is the amount of math it takes to figure it all out. An example: to determine a hit (Weapon’s Attack Number) + (Skill Level x4) + (Manual Dexterity Attack Bonus) + (Size Class Modifier) – (Firing Penalties) = Percentage Chance To Hit. That is quite a few factors just to determine a hit, and if you are suffering from a negative condition or three, that is three or four more numbers to add into the Firing Penalties section. I have said I am not a math magician, so this formula frightens and confuses me. The developers understand that there are knuckle draggers like me, and have placed an automated hit calculator on their web site. Well played, devs!
Equipment
One of my favorite things about RPG’s is the equipment section. I love reading the weapon descriptions and looking at the cool pictures. Battlelords did not disappoint. In my review of SSDC’s website, I mentioned the large amount of artwork and this has spilled over into the equipment section as well. While I was underwhelmed by some art in the book, the artists depicted every character with the proper equipment. It really gave me a feel for how my Ram Python might look in full combat gear, locked, loaded and ready to drive my enemies before me and hear the lamentations of their women. Some of the weapon concepts were interesting and different from the normal Space Opera fare – one equipment aspect that needs some improvement is the older, lower tech weapons like the ones we are using today. The book lists guns like the AK-57, the M16A3 and the IMI Eagle. The replacement for the AK-47 was in fact the AK-74. This game is set hundreds of years in the future, while the AK series of weapons might still be in use, they might have a different name. I think it would have been better to describe the firearms based on the tech level of the planet they are found on rather than compare those weapons to current weapons like the M-16 (the M-4, a variant of the M-16 is the current main battle rifle of US armed forces). If they had broken the weapons into heavy, light, semi automatic, burst and fully automatic, I think it would have worked well. So a heavy pistol from a tech level 3 planet would do X amount of damage. This might have lead to interesting home brew versions of guns like the AK-2300 or the M-69 Assault Cannon and kept the system fresh. An example of real world weapon evolution that has occurred in the twenty-two years of this games existence happened with the M-60 machine gun, being replaced by the M240B. Both excellent weapons, but quite different. If these changes have happened in the last twenty years what could we see in a few centuries?
Character Creation
I found the Character Creation system to retain the crunch of the rest of the book but it was loads of fun as well. There are twelve races in the core rule book and more available for free on the web site. The art for each race was great and the racial descriptions were interesting and at times had me ROTFLOL’ing. Three things I absolutely loved was the “Everyone is a Little Freaky” section; “I was just growing up”; and “The Fickle Finger of Fate” tables. These three stooges of tables added great flavor to the normally bland RPG character creation process. “Everyone is a Little Freaky” is a part of the race descriptions. Case in point – one of the races has chronic sleep walkers and use tools called the “Brain Scratcher” that induces euphoria. These little touches give the player some quirks to play with and the descriptions are flat out funny. Imagine the fun players and the Battle Master could have when a character sleepwalks away from camp on a mission. The “I was just growing up” and “The Fickle Finger of Fate” tables were frosting on the character creation cake. They added a real random feel to making a character. Some of the rolled results are beneficial while others were downright mean. This is a wonderful way to make each character unique, and I find that this makes role playing much easier for folks who might not be great at it. Plus, it gives the Battle Master something to play with as well.
Book Layout
I was quite happy with the layout of the book. The devs didn’t spend too much time explaining RPG’s but their description was good. Being a “Fear the Boot” fan, I was glad the devs had links to FTB on their website to do the heavy lifting on describing the genre and how it works for new comers. The only change I recommend would be to move the combat rules in front of the equipment section, it’ll make the weapons feel more alive. I was also impressed that they included five very useful pages of quick reference charts near the end of the book, as well as an interesting adventure and pre-made characters guide, also including a good example of how to play to give you a feel for how things work. They might be even better placed all the way to the back of the book to make it even easier for the Battle Master to reference; however it isn’t anything a few sticky tabs won’t fix. Giving these charts a section in the web tools might help as well.
Humor
The folks at SSDC are clever. I enjoy reading RPG rule books (yes, I’m in a support group for that and the first step is admitting you have a problem) but round about page 100 or so things start looking the same. Some RPG books read the way the teacher in the Peanuts cartoons sound, or the way some wives hear their husbands when they talk about gaming or their fantasy football team. This book was more like reading a Terry Pratchett book, honestly. I found myself double checking pictures to make sure I didn’t miss something and re-reading descriptions because they were that funny. A fantastic example on page 215 is there is a picture of a salvage ship from the Lamont Salvage Company (can anyone say Sanford & Son?). It is little nuggets like this that made this book a fun and interesting read.
Final Thoughts
This is a great RPG. The level of details the rules allow you explore is second to none. The universe that the devs have given us is rich and truly alive, and the inclusion of the web tools and website in general is player centric. Many games that I’ve played in the past seem to forget just how important their players are and SSDC is winning when it comes to the player. This game is not for everyone – if you hate space games, gritty combat and the right amount of humor, then avoid this game. If you like those kinds of things, this game is for you (and me). I would urge the devs to develop an application for their web tools to make the whole electronic experience more portable. SSDC has managed to fuse three or four Sci-Fi concepts into one large crunchy uber lethal game that manages to maintain a morbid sense of humor. Look them up on the www.ssdc.com, like them on Facebook, sign up for their RSS feed and you will find that the facelift the game has been given makes it well worth a try.
Look for a contest and possibly an interview with one of the games editors in the near future, don’t worry it won’t be a dangerous future…. or will it?
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http://www.ssdc.com Michael Osadciw
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