For me, the entire concept here was a hard-sell.
Now I am, at my core, a big political pinko, with my politics leaning toward the brand of Democratic Socialism that my native Canada wears like a particularly inclusive heart on it’s sleeve (and which is widely believed by the current US administration to be a slippery slope leading the way to a return to the likes of Stalin).
That said, it would take a much more inventive and imaginative mind than mine to come up with the concept of a legitimately heroic and positive version of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (which, for the benefit of you whippersnappers out there too young to remember, was the US’s designated “Evil Empire” near the end of the 20th Century).
Even more difficult would be one peopled by telekinetics, sorcerers, and crazy savages and well as a skyfaring Navy of immense, furnace-powered dreadnoughts.
Luckily, we have
T.S. Luikart and
Ian Sturrock who took the raw material of the comic series
The Red Star and—with the help of the comic’s artist, fellow RPG writer
Christian Gossett)—turned all of these disparate elements into not only a decent supplement for D20 Modern (which it is), not just a beautifully-crafted coffee table-ready book with lush art and fantastic layout (though it is that too), but an ultra-cool, adventure-rich setting separate enough from the political realties of that era to allow as much or as little historical detail as is desired. I wouldn’t have thought an allegory of the Soviet Union would make such a remarkably playable game.
The book starts off well, with a quick overview of the worlds history since what is known as the Great Patriotic War (and is pretty clearly World War II), and a note about the fact that the authors designed the game with the idea that PCs would be members of the Red Fleet (the aforementioned Naval Dreadnoughts).
Chapter One covers character options (the heart and soul of any supplement of this sort).
I was a bit shocked to see a departure from the usual “D20 Modern Core Classes and setting -specific Prestige Classes” model so many D20 Modern supplements have used to great effect. Instead the authors present a new set of base classes built specifically for the setting, which I will grant you seems like a great idea. These include…
- Hailer: Massive telekinetic machinegunners.
- Nistaani Warrior: I think the Nistanni are the Afghani analogues in the game. Sneaky, low-tech, religious desert fighters. I can see them being very brutal opponents in the hands of the right GM
- Nistaani Shaman: Practitioners of Ritual magic benefiting the Nistaani tribes. Though not as powerful as the Red Fleet Sorceresses tactically, their ritual magic is extremely powerful strategically.
- Nogorkan Resistance Fighter: This is the Chechen analogue. Another resistance fighter, this one is differentiated by what caused him to join the resistance (and accrues mechanical benefits appropriately).
- Red Fleet Officer: Another broad class is differentiated by chosen specializations such as Infantry, Staff and Engineering. The officers of the Red Fleet gain the ability to improve others actions through their leadership, but most importantly gain Rank (I’ll explain later)
- Red Trooper: The rank and file of the Red Fleet, the Red Troopers are excellent warriors well-trained with their distinctive, telekinetic “Hook” weapon with which—as they go up in levels—they can perform some truly miraculous feats of combat.
- Sorceress: The Red Fleet’s magical wing, the Sorceresses use a highly-codified set of magical spells known as Protocols. As with several of the other classes, the sorceress class is very modular and customizable by choosing as Sorcery Branch such as Warkasters, Deck Kasters[/i] or Medi Kasters. .
- Zek (Gulag Slave): A generalized “outsider” class, again customizable by choosing specializations such as (amongst others) Agitator, Criminal and Engineer.
Rank (as mentioned above) comes next and can’t be overvalued within the Red Fleet as it provides bonuses to Reputation, Wealth, Requisition (which is
The Red Star’s renaming of
D20 Modern’s
Wealth System) and other bonuses.
Skills are up next, and the book provides three new ones:
Kast, which is used to cast Protocols (Magic), Ritual, used for group casting of ritual magics of other cultures (Nistaanifor the most part), and
Telekinesis.
Telekinesis figures largely in the
Red Star comics, and is in fact so common that the character classes
Hailer and
Red trooper make extensive use of the concept. So you can’t very well just handwave away the idea if you don’t want the trouble.
And there is some trouble here.
“Telekinetically Neutral” items (which are rare) can be manipulated as a free action; in all other circumstances, moving the items is a move action. For whatever reason, Telekinesis doesn’t work on living beings (which was kind of a relief to me). So far, so good.
But some very basic questions about the use of Telekinesis in combat go unanswered, and given how common Telekinesis is in combat, these questions ring out as being pretty important to me. If someone involved in the creation of the game reads this review, please feel free to answer them in the comments space below. I’d be much obliged.
- Though I’ve looked for it, Telekinesis doesn’t seem to have a “strength” score associated with it, which could make Telekinetic vs. Non-Telekinetic fights for objects kind of rough to adjudicate.
- It takes a concentration roll to maintain a telekinetic “hold” on an object while the PC is distracted. Is it necessary to make a Telekinesis roll every round to hold on to it while distracted or is it “once per distraction”? I guess what I am asking is is distraction an “event” or a “state of being”?
Admittedly, I think most telekinetic attacks are going to be from Hailers (the giant Machinegunner guys) and Red Trooper
Hooks, so the question is not likely to come up all that often.
But anyone who has lived through a Superhero RPG character based on Marvel Girl or A Githyanki using his “at will” TK to haul around a giant block of stone for Dropping on people knows that the minutiae of Telekinesis can really mess with a game if it’s not all pretty clearly spelled out.
And yes, I’ve dealt with both of those situations.
Also I don’t see any mention that the skills
cannot be used untrained. Well, there is my first house rule right there!
The Skills section is are followed by Feats. They mostly look allright and nothing really jumps out at me as overpowered (the usual downfall of Feats).
There are a variety of Fighting Styles (mostly maneuvers with the Hook, wrestling, TK Firearms and suchlike), Some social stuff (the very setting-appropriate
Black Market Connections) and a few stragglers like
Engine Pull Champion which increases both your Wisdom and Strength synergistically (10 Dollar word!!!)
Hmmm…a friend of mine has concerns about the feat
Advanced Combat Hook. It allows a character wielding a Hook to threaten his first Range Increment with the Hook. The Hook's range increment is equal to PC in question’s Ranks in Telekinesis, which is to say a min-maxed Red Trooper can threaten a 18 square radius. Sounds bad.
At least the prerequisites are brutal. Actually, when I look at the list of prerequisites, I almost change my mind on this. It might be fine. I’ll let you know when we start playing at that level (I can edit this thing at will!)
Chapter Two covers equipment, and it covers it well. I’ve always been kind of shocked when military-themed games give sparse equipment lists (I’m looking at your
Spycraft). Here we are presented with…
- Red Fleet Weapons: Such as the Dragunov 60mm Autocannon, Anti Krawl(tank) Gun, and Sniper Rifle, as well as various Pistols, Shotguns, and Hook variants.
- WTA Weapons: Including the Bronson Home Defense Cannon, the Caso Personal Weapon MK20[/i] and the Officer Personal Sidearm (which is notably absent of Protocol—that is, Magical—Tweaking) amongst others)
- Nistaani Weapons such as the Hawk Talon, the Sha-Osk Pins and the Nistanni Sword (Bo-ring!).
Also included are a vast variety of ammunition types, armour, specialty grenades, and Protocol enhanced (Magical) equipment.
Do I need to keep noting that “Protocol” means “Magical”? I hope not, because I am stopping now. Those of your left in the dark will just have to re-read the earlier bits to catch up.
Armour grants DR rather than an AC bonus! I’ve been wanting to try that variant for ages (and indeed wrote up a very unsatisfying house rule version for 3E), which means there is likely some Armor Piercing weapons in here somewhere...
Ahh, not weapons…
ammunition that halves DR. Nice.
I wish there were more illustrations of the equipment, but I suspect that the publishers were dealing with illustrations from the Comic Books, so we get what we get.
Chapter Three covers Combat. There are some tables for conversion of distances and weights to Metric from Imperial (which I can actually do in my head, as I am a Canadian) and then we get to the stuff that—for lack of a better term—was cool in the comics.
Rules for fighting on the “Rail System” of some facilities and Skyfurnaces (a grid system that allows the character in question to move at up to 200 meters a round so long as they're in contact with the grid and wearing an appropriate magnetic suit). I’ve never really been able to puzzle out why people fight on these things. I mean, I can understand why for a dramatic scene there might be a fight on one, but are the grids really
used for fighting?
There are also rules for Indirect Fire Weapons which is pretty crucial to verisimilitude of a military game, as something like 85% of all casualties are caused by Indirect Fire Weapons (Artillery, Bombs etc)
Chapter Four covers Vehicles; we get stats for everything from…
- MiG Bullpups (Heavy fighters)
- Zero Inertia Fighter Craft (ultra maneuverable fighters)
- The previously mentioned Sky Furnaces (Basically aerial Battleships)
- A Huge selection of land craft (including the aforementioned Krawls (tanks)
- Tons and tons of different weapons systems, all properly statted out
- Plenty of options for customizing vehicles (Camouflage, self-regenerating armour etc).
Chapter Five is
Military-Industrial Sorcery; which is a pretty cool name for the Magic chapter if you ask me. It lists 35 Protocols including interesting bits like the
Supply Protocols which actually seem to make the job of army quartermaster seem like relatively interesting RPG Fodder.
All Protocols listed cause non-lethal damage to the caster, and can be "Overkast" (an interesting option), increasing the power/range/whatever, at a price to the Kasters constitution
Chapter Six is an awesome read. The “Brief History” given at the beginning of the book was barely a taste of what we are presented with in this chapter. Here we are given a fully-realized history of the world
I might be wrong on a few of them, but I think this is how the analogies play out for the different countries mentioned…
- U.R.R.S/Soviet Union
- Al’Istaan/Afghanistan
- Nogorka/Chechnya
- W.T.A/The United States
- Volksreich/Germany
- Isle of the Lion/England
- The Lands of the Dragon/China
- The Land of 10,000 Gods/India
- The Kingdom of Jade[/b]/ No idea…Japan maybe?
Chapter Eight is where the information from the comic is included.
This chapter covers the Spirit Realm, the war against Emperor Imbohl's (Stalin, I think) Soulprisons, and the abilites of the Immortals (a template that can be applied to characters, making them incorporeal, undead…big in the comics I am told).
There are a couple of Prestige classes here for the immortals only, and a good selection of Feats as well. I can’t really imagine playing a mixed group of Immortals and non-immortals, but possibly I am not the DM some readers are
Chapter Nine is a 3 page list of campaign seeds, including several Red Fleet oriented military campaigns (Skyfurnace, Krawl, and Infantry units), The elite “Fifth Hook” unit, who investigate arcane, or inexplicable threats to the people of the U.R.R.S., Scavengers, or….Nogorkans or Nistanni freedom fighters. Neat.
Finally we come to two Appendices: The first has the requisite writeups of the characters from the comic, and some generic Red Fleet NPCs. I can’t really speak to the accuracy of the writeups as I am not really all that familiar with the comics themselves.
The second appendix, handily contains every table from earlier chapters (suitable for photocopying and construction of a DM’s screen to me eye)
All told, I really like this book. Too often when I get a new RPG setting it has the look of something that—given enough time—I could have come up with myself. That is
categorically not the case here.
But it also doesn’t suffer from the opposite experience: when I pick up a new RPG setting and it is so completely
alien that I am utterly lost as to how to make any use of it. Nobilis pops to mind.
This is a great work of imagination (and re-imagination I guess) with excellent production values and--while extremely playable--is not something so run-of-the-mill that it digests as easily as another Elves, Dwarves and Orcs setting. It's heartier than that.
And as such, it is heartily recommended, even if I will likely never be able to get a group together to play it
