Dawning Star: Helios Rising

[Master of the Game]

I was going to start reading this book tomorrow, but I was curious if I should pick up and read Operation Quicklaunch first. If it's not necessary to understand or play the game I'd rather skip it right now, since I'm a little buried at the moment, but I don't want to be lost when I read Helios Rising either.

Any opinions?

 

[Jorjowsky]

I guess Justin Jacobson (from Blue Devil Games) will be here to give some advice as soon as he spots this thread. Personally, I think you could certainly enjoy Helios Rising without reading Operation Quick Launch first... but you'd be missing on few things. While HR has a "quick recap" of OQL at the beginning of the book, it's very sparse, and you'll be a bit lost when certain events, alien races and individuals described in OQL are mentioned further in the text (things like: "here's a plot idea for this planet. Let's suppose the players are working for Maximillian Dagos and have to race with a group of the Eos Freedom League for the possession of such and such artifact..." will make you wonder who all these people are supposed to be).

So, yeah, you *can* go ahead with HR without any previous Dawning Star experience if you want (specially if you just want to mine the book for ideas -- there's a *lot* to mine in there!), but you should keep in mind from time to time you'll come up with unexplained bits of information. Not many (compared to what actually is in there), but there you go.

One way to mitigate this, by the way, would be to read as many reviews of OQL as you can beforehand (there are quite a few in RPGnet and maybe here in ENworld too -- some of them linked from the game's homepage). That way you'll have a head start when the book starts mentioning things like the war between the galactic federation and the vaasi, for example. Besides, it might convince you to buy OQL too.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

I'd say Jorjowsky has it pretty right. You certainly don't need to read OQL to get the most out of Helios Rising, but it provides a nice background and context for the material. In any case, given your situation, I am happy to shoot you a pdf of OQL for free. Just e-mail me at justin[at]bluedevilgames[dt]com (or post here) with your e-mail address, and I'll send you a download link. That way you can skim it as you feel necessary.

And for any of the other judges who happen to see this, I make the same offer. I did feel a little guilty about submitting a 500+ page book to Ennies judges I know are already knee-deep in material.

 

[Master of the Game]

Thanks a lot, but never feel bad about sending great products in. Sitting next to Ptolus in my "Big Books That Scare Me Stack" it doesn't look too frightening

I wouldn't really complain about all the reading, but it's late enough in the process that I'm trying to avoid the side-treks as much as possible.

That said, I've been trying to avoid judging products that aren't stand-alone in a vacuum, so it doesn't seem quite fair to judge Helios Rising without giving Quicklaunch a try.