John Cooper
Explorer
OUT IN THE BLACK
By Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman
Margaret Weis Productions product number MWP-1003
104-page softcover, $24.00
Out in the Black is an adventure for the Serenity RPG produced by Margaret Weis Productions. As such, it would be best if you didn't read the review that follows if you're likely to end up as a player going through the adventure. As always, writing a review about an adventure is made increasingly difficult if you try to avoid spoilers, and I don't intend to hamper myself so. Therefore, be warned: there are some spoilers about the basic plot in the review below. Read further at your own risk!
Reading through Out in the Black has been an interesting, if frustrating, experience for me. I absolutely love Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly TV show and Serenity movie sequel, so an opportunity to expand my experiences in that world (or, more properly, the 'Verse) was one I couldn't pass up. And to their credit, authors Tracy and Laura Hickman do a fine job of capturing the "feel" of the show. However, upon having finished it, I find that my opinions of the abilities of Tracy, Laura, and even Margaret Weis have all been sadly diminished.
The cover artwork is a nice piece by Susan Renée Tomb depicting a Firefly-class ship coming in for a landing on a barren world. Done all in golds and browns, it perfectly captures the feel of the opening sequence of the Firefly TV show, with its Western-style maps and such. Best of all, the painting wraps around to the back cover, where we can make out three figures on a hilltop. Two are identifiable as Captain Malcolm Reynolds and Jayne Cobb; the third is not as clear but is probably Zoe. In any case, it's a very nicely-done piece, and very appropriate to the book. In fact, using such a "generic" work is actually a very shrewd tactic, since putting the good ship Serenity on the cover is more apt to grab the attention of Firefly fans than would an action scene from the adventure itself.
The interior artwork is all black-and-white, consisting of 20 illustrations by artists Lindsay Archer, Dan Bryce, Larry Elmore, Tracy Hickman (that was a surprise!), and Ryan Wolfe. There are also 6 black-and-white maps by an uncredited cartographer (unless that falls under the general concept of "Interior Graphic Design," in which case it's cover artist Susan Renée Tomb) and 3 black-and-white diagrams. Of the illustrations, the depictions of Mal on page 3 and Jayne on page 56 (both by Susan, and probably considered "graphic design" as she isn't listed as an interior artist) blow the others out of the water, but the rest of the artwork is still pretty well done, and the maps are for the most part clear and easy to read. (The one exception there is the map of the Lullabelle comet mine on page 17, where the tiny white lettering on a gray background is very difficult to read.) It's probably worth noting that the sole Elmore piece seems to be a "generic" illustration of a bunch of people (many of them lumberjacks, apparently, judging by the saws on the walls) in a bar, with the "Blue Sun" logo (an organization from the TV series) grafted onto a liquor bottle to force it into the Firefly mold.
But the proofreading and editing -- ugh! This ranks as some of the worst jobs of either that I've ever seen in a book that expects to pass itself off as a professional product. It was actually painful to read at times. I've never heard of proofreader James Davenport before, but "competent" will never be the first word to jump to mind upon ever seeing his name again. Likewise, I'm not sure what specific non-proofreading job Margaret Weis herself was performing in her job as editor of this book, but it certainly didn't include catching any errors that made it past "proofreader" (in quotes on purpose, as it seems the title is purely ceremonial) James Davenport - which, judging by the vast quantities involved, looks to be nearly all of them. And, as much as it irritates me when proofreaders collect paychecks without actually doing any work, the fact that there are so many errors there in the first place says either the authors, Tracy and Laura Hickman, have a rather poor grasp of the rules of the English language (to include spelling), or perhaps that they wrote the adventure out longhand and the typist decided to try out his "ninja touch-typing skills" while blindfolded. In either case, this is the kind of stuff you can expect to see when reading through Out in the Black:
Okay, enough of my outrage, especially since it seems these kinds of things bother me much more than they do most people. Let's move on to the actual content of the adventure, shall we?
Out in the Black, despite its odd title (as most of the action does not take place "out in the black" - the Firefly term for "out in space" - but rather in the mining town of Frisco on the planet Regina), is an interesting little adventure involving the PCs smuggling comet ice to Frisco, where they get involved in a hunt for buried treasure dating back to the Unification War. I suppose the highest praise I can deliver as to the plot is that I could see it working as an episode of Firefly. There are even several "flashback sequences" that can be run showing how the PCs get involved in the adventure, depending upon their own backstories (usually tying into the specific Assets and Complications they chose during character creation). The authors also do an excellent job in keeping the "feel" of the show throughout the book. As an example, when talking directly to the GM (in introductory paragraphs and such), the language converts to the frontier slang of the show, what with the droppin' of the "g" in words endin' with the "-ing" suffix, and all the Chinese phrases (which are all explained in footnotes all proper-like) intermixed with the normal English. Likewise, the NPC stats in the back are referred to as "Folks and Rascals," and the scene setups and results are referred to as "How It Is" and "New Way of Things," respectively. I also like the fact that they provide several parallel ways for the PCs to get involved in the adventure: they can be working for the miners, for the townsfolk, for the Chinese Tong in Frisco, and so on, and based on who they're working for there are different plot hooks to keep them involved with the overall ongoing plot.
I do have a few concerns about the adventure's plot, though. First of all, there are several places that seem to "railroad" the PCs into taking specific actions (or preventing other actions) that will probably cause many players to chafe. For example, if the PCs are of a less heroic bent, they might take it to mind to rob the payroll (which offers a significantly larger payoff than they'll be seeing in the adventure otherwise), in which case their ship is locked down almost immediately (preventing them from leaving the planet) and the bank manager automatically tracks them down no matter where they go and more or less forces them to hand over the loot and walk back to town in their underwear. (The other option is to face a lynch mob of 500 miners who also automatically track them down, and the adventure ends with the PCs being hanged. Great fun, huh?) At another point in the plot, where it's important for the PCs to be off-planet for a week grabbing another cargo load of comet ice, no matter what they try to do they end up off-planet for a week getting another cargo load of comet ice. Another concern I have is that Saffron (the eponymous con-woman from the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds") is involved in the adventure, and while that's cool from a "shared world" sense, the fact that she's basically given "lead character script immunity to death" is sure to rub some GMs the wrong way. Finally, while the adventure itself is based on a hunt for buried treasure, after the PCs jump through all of the appropriate hoops to find said treasure, it ends up being tainted by a viral disease affecting anyone who touches it (leading eventually to death). So, surprise: you don't get the treasure after all! While that makes for an appropriate twist ending in a TV episode, I'm sure the players are going to upset in a major way to find out that their entire quest will have been for naught.
Besides the adventure itself (contained in Book One, which takes up 53 pages), there's a very detailed Book Two devoted to the town of Frisco (which takes up 37 pages) and Appendices covering the major NPCs, minor NPCs, plain folks, the cursed treasure, a game piece needed to get to the treasure, and a one-page afterword explaining how the major plot details are all based on a real-life mining town named Frisco where coauthor Tracy Hickman's great-grandfather ran a store. (In fact, there are footnotes scattered throughout the book explaining how this NPC was named after a real-life character from the real town of Frisco or that this landmark was based on a real-life landmark in Beaver County, Utah - facts that are no doubt more interesting to Tracy than they're liable to be to anybody else reading them. As an example, on page 95 we learn of a NPC named Tony Kampus who checks to see if he got any mail at the post office every week, spelling his last name to the clerk every single time, and never receiving any mail. The footnote explains that Tony Kampus was patterned after the real-life Tony Kampus, who used to check to see if he got any mail at the post office every week, spelled his last name to the clerk every single time, and never received any mail. Fascinating stuff there, Tracy.) On the plus side, there are rules for a card game called Faro that plays a part in the adventure (not a large part, granted, but it makes for an interesting diversion).
Taken as a whole, Out in the Black is a fairly interesting adventure for the Serenity RPG that is hampered somewhat by several "railroading" turns and an appalling lack of proofreading and editing. If these things don't bother you, you'll probably end up liking Out in the Black a lot more than I did; as it is, I'm going to go with a very low "3 (Average)." It's an okay first attempt, but hopefully future Serenity adventures will turn out much better than this one.
(Incidentally, as Serenity uses its own game mechanics (it's not a d20 game), I didn't feel I was competent enough with the rules to comment on how the stats blocks measured up, for those wondering at the lack of an "unofficial errata" for this product. Fortunately, Serenity mechanics seem a considerable deal simpler than d20 mechanics, so there's much less of a chance to make errors. I'd hazard a guess that the stats are pretty much fine as written.)
By Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman
Margaret Weis Productions product number MWP-1003
104-page softcover, $24.00
Out in the Black is an adventure for the Serenity RPG produced by Margaret Weis Productions. As such, it would be best if you didn't read the review that follows if you're likely to end up as a player going through the adventure. As always, writing a review about an adventure is made increasingly difficult if you try to avoid spoilers, and I don't intend to hamper myself so. Therefore, be warned: there are some spoilers about the basic plot in the review below. Read further at your own risk!
Reading through Out in the Black has been an interesting, if frustrating, experience for me. I absolutely love Joss Whedon's short-lived Firefly TV show and Serenity movie sequel, so an opportunity to expand my experiences in that world (or, more properly, the 'Verse) was one I couldn't pass up. And to their credit, authors Tracy and Laura Hickman do a fine job of capturing the "feel" of the show. However, upon having finished it, I find that my opinions of the abilities of Tracy, Laura, and even Margaret Weis have all been sadly diminished.
The cover artwork is a nice piece by Susan Renée Tomb depicting a Firefly-class ship coming in for a landing on a barren world. Done all in golds and browns, it perfectly captures the feel of the opening sequence of the Firefly TV show, with its Western-style maps and such. Best of all, the painting wraps around to the back cover, where we can make out three figures on a hilltop. Two are identifiable as Captain Malcolm Reynolds and Jayne Cobb; the third is not as clear but is probably Zoe. In any case, it's a very nicely-done piece, and very appropriate to the book. In fact, using such a "generic" work is actually a very shrewd tactic, since putting the good ship Serenity on the cover is more apt to grab the attention of Firefly fans than would an action scene from the adventure itself.
The interior artwork is all black-and-white, consisting of 20 illustrations by artists Lindsay Archer, Dan Bryce, Larry Elmore, Tracy Hickman (that was a surprise!), and Ryan Wolfe. There are also 6 black-and-white maps by an uncredited cartographer (unless that falls under the general concept of "Interior Graphic Design," in which case it's cover artist Susan Renée Tomb) and 3 black-and-white diagrams. Of the illustrations, the depictions of Mal on page 3 and Jayne on page 56 (both by Susan, and probably considered "graphic design" as she isn't listed as an interior artist) blow the others out of the water, but the rest of the artwork is still pretty well done, and the maps are for the most part clear and easy to read. (The one exception there is the map of the Lullabelle comet mine on page 17, where the tiny white lettering on a gray background is very difficult to read.) It's probably worth noting that the sole Elmore piece seems to be a "generic" illustration of a bunch of people (many of them lumberjacks, apparently, judging by the saws on the walls) in a bar, with the "Blue Sun" logo (an organization from the TV series) grafted onto a liquor bottle to force it into the Firefly mold.
But the proofreading and editing -- ugh! This ranks as some of the worst jobs of either that I've ever seen in a book that expects to pass itself off as a professional product. It was actually painful to read at times. I've never heard of proofreader James Davenport before, but "competent" will never be the first word to jump to mind upon ever seeing his name again. Likewise, I'm not sure what specific non-proofreading job Margaret Weis herself was performing in her job as editor of this book, but it certainly didn't include catching any errors that made it past "proofreader" (in quotes on purpose, as it seems the title is purely ceremonial) James Davenport - which, judging by the vast quantities involved, looks to be nearly all of them. And, as much as it irritates me when proofreaders collect paychecks without actually doing any work, the fact that there are so many errors there in the first place says either the authors, Tracy and Laura Hickman, have a rather poor grasp of the rules of the English language (to include spelling), or perhaps that they wrote the adventure out longhand and the typist decided to try out his "ninja touch-typing skills" while blindfolded. In either case, this is the kind of stuff you can expect to see when reading through Out in the Black:
- Simple typos/misspelled words: "!hat" instead of "What," "p" instead of "up," "Homstead" instead of "Homestead," "manag" instead of "manage," "lobbiests" instead of "lobbyists," "fiance" instead of "fiancée," "yeas" instead of "years," "Beni" instead of "Benny," "PICs" instead of "PCs," "Sheriif's" instead of "Sheriff's," "obscurred" instead of "obscured," "cerw" instead of "crew," "eminities" instead of "amenities," "dinning" instead of "dining," "Coretex" instead of "Cortex," "a a" instead of "a," "treaments" instead of "treatments," "illusive" instead of "elusive," "Symtoms" instead of "Symptoms," "n" instead of "in," "handome" instead of "handsome," "sherif" instead of "sheriff," "wha" instead of "what," "shaftt" instead of "shaft," "deciminate" instead of "disseminate," "aide" instead of "aid" (on two separate occasions), "sttore" instead of "store"
- Improper word usage: "bunked" instead of "bunks," "challenger" instead of "challenge," "resourced" instead of "resources," "one's" instead of "one," "whose" instead of "who's," "passed" instead of "past," "crew" instead of "crew's," "manages" instead of "managed," "effect" instead of "affect," "Sacket" instead of "Sacket's," "loser" instead of "winner" (which completely twists the meaning of the sentence!), "joint" instead of "join," "his" instead of "this," "else" instead of "else's," "teaming" instead of "teeming"
- Punctuation misuse: Words with an apostrophe missing when showing possessiveness ("miners" instead of "miners'," "towns" instead of "town's"), apostrophes incorrectly used in simple pluralization ("Woodbury's" instead of "Woodburys," "miner's" instead of "miners," "sometime's" instead of "sometimes"), apostrophes missing from words with missing letters ("tis" instead of "'tis," "Twas" instead of "'Twas"), commas and periods darting in and out of quotation marks, quotation marks occasionally being used as apostrophes (as in the words "wonderin"," "doesn"t," "slipper"d," "stol"n," "o"," and the name "O"Malley"), apostrophes occasionally being used as quotation marks (which is fine if you're British, but this is an American publication), several instances of a quoted word or phrase having an apostrophe at the beginning and quotation marks at the end ('like this") or vice-versa ("like this'), lack of a period and capitalization merging two sentences into one nonsensical one, three periods instead of four at the end of sentences that trail off, a period-comma (".,") instead of a comma in a sentence
- Sentences with missing words: One sentence needs "who" for it to make sense; another needs "as"
- Sentences with extraneous words: No need for the word "the" in "the Luke Pearson" (although this could also be fixed by adding the word "sheriff" between "the" and "Luke"); another sentence has both "as" and "so" but shouldn't have both; no need for the "be" in "are be typical" and no need for the "The" in "The Act III"
- Spacing problems: No space between two words; or occasionally several spaces between two words; or a compound word (like "halfway" and "anyone") split into two by use of an unneeded space; or a space between a word and the punctuation that follows
- Formatting problems: A Chinese term not in italics when all of the others are; a footnoted number ("19") not being in superscript font
- Editing problems: Map references leading to the wrong locations (as in "(5)" instead of "(24)," "(33)" instead of "(30)"); lack of standardization ("Miners Guild," "Mining Guild," and "Miner's Guild" are all used interchangeably); the fact that the Malloy and Lawrence saloons are described as being directly across from each other but they aren't shown that way on the map on page 58; no explanations are given for positions 11 and 12 on the Faro diagram on page 81; an extraneous carriage return in a bulleted list splits one bullet into two separate bullets (neither one complete); "Looks like George C. Scott" is listed in a stat block under "Weapons" (although maybe that was supposed to be a joke)
Okay, enough of my outrage, especially since it seems these kinds of things bother me much more than they do most people. Let's move on to the actual content of the adventure, shall we?
Out in the Black, despite its odd title (as most of the action does not take place "out in the black" - the Firefly term for "out in space" - but rather in the mining town of Frisco on the planet Regina), is an interesting little adventure involving the PCs smuggling comet ice to Frisco, where they get involved in a hunt for buried treasure dating back to the Unification War. I suppose the highest praise I can deliver as to the plot is that I could see it working as an episode of Firefly. There are even several "flashback sequences" that can be run showing how the PCs get involved in the adventure, depending upon their own backstories (usually tying into the specific Assets and Complications they chose during character creation). The authors also do an excellent job in keeping the "feel" of the show throughout the book. As an example, when talking directly to the GM (in introductory paragraphs and such), the language converts to the frontier slang of the show, what with the droppin' of the "g" in words endin' with the "-ing" suffix, and all the Chinese phrases (which are all explained in footnotes all proper-like) intermixed with the normal English. Likewise, the NPC stats in the back are referred to as "Folks and Rascals," and the scene setups and results are referred to as "How It Is" and "New Way of Things," respectively. I also like the fact that they provide several parallel ways for the PCs to get involved in the adventure: they can be working for the miners, for the townsfolk, for the Chinese Tong in Frisco, and so on, and based on who they're working for there are different plot hooks to keep them involved with the overall ongoing plot.
I do have a few concerns about the adventure's plot, though. First of all, there are several places that seem to "railroad" the PCs into taking specific actions (or preventing other actions) that will probably cause many players to chafe. For example, if the PCs are of a less heroic bent, they might take it to mind to rob the payroll (which offers a significantly larger payoff than they'll be seeing in the adventure otherwise), in which case their ship is locked down almost immediately (preventing them from leaving the planet) and the bank manager automatically tracks them down no matter where they go and more or less forces them to hand over the loot and walk back to town in their underwear. (The other option is to face a lynch mob of 500 miners who also automatically track them down, and the adventure ends with the PCs being hanged. Great fun, huh?) At another point in the plot, where it's important for the PCs to be off-planet for a week grabbing another cargo load of comet ice, no matter what they try to do they end up off-planet for a week getting another cargo load of comet ice. Another concern I have is that Saffron (the eponymous con-woman from the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds") is involved in the adventure, and while that's cool from a "shared world" sense, the fact that she's basically given "lead character script immunity to death" is sure to rub some GMs the wrong way. Finally, while the adventure itself is based on a hunt for buried treasure, after the PCs jump through all of the appropriate hoops to find said treasure, it ends up being tainted by a viral disease affecting anyone who touches it (leading eventually to death). So, surprise: you don't get the treasure after all! While that makes for an appropriate twist ending in a TV episode, I'm sure the players are going to upset in a major way to find out that their entire quest will have been for naught.
Besides the adventure itself (contained in Book One, which takes up 53 pages), there's a very detailed Book Two devoted to the town of Frisco (which takes up 37 pages) and Appendices covering the major NPCs, minor NPCs, plain folks, the cursed treasure, a game piece needed to get to the treasure, and a one-page afterword explaining how the major plot details are all based on a real-life mining town named Frisco where coauthor Tracy Hickman's great-grandfather ran a store. (In fact, there are footnotes scattered throughout the book explaining how this NPC was named after a real-life character from the real town of Frisco or that this landmark was based on a real-life landmark in Beaver County, Utah - facts that are no doubt more interesting to Tracy than they're liable to be to anybody else reading them. As an example, on page 95 we learn of a NPC named Tony Kampus who checks to see if he got any mail at the post office every week, spelling his last name to the clerk every single time, and never receiving any mail. The footnote explains that Tony Kampus was patterned after the real-life Tony Kampus, who used to check to see if he got any mail at the post office every week, spelled his last name to the clerk every single time, and never received any mail. Fascinating stuff there, Tracy.) On the plus side, there are rules for a card game called Faro that plays a part in the adventure (not a large part, granted, but it makes for an interesting diversion).
Taken as a whole, Out in the Black is a fairly interesting adventure for the Serenity RPG that is hampered somewhat by several "railroading" turns and an appalling lack of proofreading and editing. If these things don't bother you, you'll probably end up liking Out in the Black a lot more than I did; as it is, I'm going to go with a very low "3 (Average)." It's an okay first attempt, but hopefully future Serenity adventures will turn out much better than this one.
(Incidentally, as Serenity uses its own game mechanics (it's not a d20 game), I didn't feel I was competent enough with the rules to comment on how the stats blocks measured up, for those wondering at the lack of an "unofficial errata" for this product. Fortunately, Serenity mechanics seem a considerable deal simpler than d20 mechanics, so there's much less of a chance to make errors. I'd hazard a guess that the stats are pretty much fine as written.)
