Customer Reviews

Fading Suns: The Roleplaying Game

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Man did not rise to the stars on the shoulders of men who came before. He rose to the stars on the shoulders of giants who came before, leaving a network of jump gates to all the known worlds. He rose on the blood and sweat of aliens he conquered and forced onto reservations. He rose on the technology stolen from the alien race the Vau. He rose on the sweat of the serfs after the fall of the Second Republic and the churches declarations of the evil of technology. Man built republics, and empires and tyrannical mega corporations. He built a church to carry himself into a new era of progress, and then a new dark age. He create art and nobility and enslavement and cruelty and beauty and peace and war and murder.

And then the stars began to die.

Fading Suns in a role playing game set in 4999 A.D. in an empire built on the crumbled remains of a great republic. It is a game of nobility and seeking and discovery. It is also a game of hatred and racism and persecution. It is a game where feudal nobility and the ideal of bygone ages rule an empire built on the jump web of a long dead race.

There are three main forces in contention under the rule of the new Emperor. The five noble houses and various minor houses form the royalty which rules the secular life of the people. The church and it's various sects rules the spiritual life of the people. The great merchant guilds rule the financial life of the people.

Fading suns is a game of disparity. Serf toil in the fields behind oxen while nobles live in air-conditioned castles and travel about the sky in nimble flitters. The Inquisition hunts those who would use technology and puts them to the fire, but an uneasy truce, steeped in martyrdom and the redemption of the common man has arisen to allow the noble house use of high tech gear and craft. The guilds seem to hold onto it only by the strength of their monopoly.

Fading suns in a game of mysticism and the occult. Priests wield magic and psychics harness the powers of the mind. Ancients artifact perform miracles that no science can explain and old technologies are often maintained by rote memory alone.

Emperor Alexius is the first Emperor to actually rule the Empire (the original Emperor was assassinated before he could really rule). He has put forth an decree of discovery and exploration (a religious powder keg just waiting to happen). He has created the office of the questing knight and now the cohort (a knights companion). He is pushing the empire forward, where for years it only slid backwards.

But the suns are fading. Why? No one knows for sure. There is obviously no scientific explanation. There is a religious one, however.

When the Prophet formed the choice, he stated that the holy light was embodied in all the stars. He also stated that the vast stretches of space were filled with demons. It is the churches belief that the stars are the light of the Pancreator, holding back the darkness of the void and the demons therein.

And now the stars are fading. Obviously man is flawed. Obviously, his sins are granting demons powers over the light. It is because of this that technology has been decreed sinful. It is because of this that the Inquisition prowls the Known Worlds in search of sinners and heathens. It's because of this they put them to the flame.

This is the universe of Fading Suns.

Fading Suns has been around for a few years now, but at GenCon this year, they released their second edition. For those of you who just want to know the differences, I'll list them first.

1) It's Hardback. This might not seem like a big change, but I hate softbound core books.
2) A New Jumpweb map. It really looks sharp.
3) New Alustro's Journal (for those of you who think this is the best part of reading the books).
4) Updated history brings the game up to 4999.
5) New character creation method using "Histories" to speed up the creation process.
6) Alexius has opened up the ranks of knighthood to young knights, allowing begining characters to become knights. He has also created the Imperial Cohort, allowing a noble's entourage to carry a certain amount of knightly power.
7) The human/alien characteristic has been removed. Cybernetic now go off Ego.
8) Benefices are no longer used to by starting equipment. You now by the Riches Benefice and use the money to purchase equipment.
9) The new psychic paths: Sympathy and Vis craft. Also some new theurgy.
10) Resolution of damage in combat now uses six sided dice (you can still use the old method is you like).
11) Many weapons from other books have been added to the lists.
12) A list of common wages and costs have been added.
13) Revised cybernetic rules.
14) Starship rules have been added.
15) A treatment of Passion Play Role Playing.

These are the changes between first and second edition. But what if your new to the game? Read on.

Pros

Fading Suns' greatest asset is it's setting. Hands down. This game is set in a rich and interesting universe. Sure it borrows heavily from Frank Herbert, naming the power point trait "wyrd" and simulating dueling methods using shields that only activate when the damage is above a certain level. It comes together well, however. I had as much fun reading the background material on this game as I do reading some novels.

Fading Suns combines the expandable and the unexplainable into a beautiful union. By the time I was done reading the background I wanted to play this game. The universe is compelling on an emotional level. The more I read of it, the more I want to play.

In addition, unlike some games, they are not afraid to put out source material. They are up to about a dozen support books detailing everything from the church to the merchant guilds to alien races. More are coming. Holistic is obviously a company that is knows that the setting sells a system, not the rules.

Cons

First Edition had more cons than second (the lack of ship combat rules, for instance). Second Edition seems to have tried to address these.

The rules are maybe just a touch ligth for my taste. It's not that I really needed more rules, but there are still things I'm not sure I really understand. There are area, like with cybernetic and starship combat, where I really felt a little more explanation would have been helpful. For instance, it makes reference to people withholding victory dice in duels, so that they do less damage to their foes (thus not activating the shield). It never states whether or not there is a mechanic associated with this. I can only assume there isn't, but I would have like a line or two stating that.

Finally, though the game does a good job of making me believe both the mystical and the scientific at the same time, it fails to integrate them some time. I'm willing to accept that their our demons in the void (they might be a super advanced race, or something unexplainable). I'm willing to except all the stars are fading. I'm willing to accept psychic phenomena and even theurgy.

The problem arises in casual references to tech which don't have any scientific basis. I could give them the radar with a range of 5 AU's (the implications of such a powerful radar system are lost on most people). Most everyone, however, knows that there is not oxygen in space. The explanation of the heat blaster as "super hot flame" was a little too much for me. Maybe Noble Armada explains it as plasma. I'll have to pick up a copy.

Conclusion

This is the perfect game for a group where the gamemaster and players disagree about whether to play science fiction or fantasy. It has all the tropes of the fantasy game (magic, noble houses, a great empire, unexplainable evils, questing knights, etc.) in a science fiction universe where technology is unobtrusive. If you've ever had problems with a game where technology quickly gets in the way of the story, this is the game for you.

I'm a big fan of this game, but I can't claim it's perfect.

Let me get the faults out of the way first. This game was designed by former employees of White Wolf, so it shares some features with that company's flagship Vampire: The Masquerade line. Most unfortunately, that includes the fact that the character classes are actually social factions that might be difficult to integrate into a party, given the setting of the game. It also includes, to a lesser extent, a White Wolf-like tendency to push endless sourcebooks. Fortunately, FS is nowhere near as oversupported as the average WW game. There are a few points, such as the sections on the alien PC races, where a little more depth would be nice. Another issue is the level of setting detail--this book provides primarily deep background and lots of macro-level information. If you want to start off your campaign in a more-or-less canonical location, you're going to need to shell out for a sourcebook like Byzantium Secundus (Fading Suns) (or, if you don't mind immediately ditching the core Fourteenth-Century-in-Space scenario, go for the excellent, pulpy Star Crusade 2: Lost Worlds (Fading Suns) ).

Now, the positives, of which there are many. As noted, WW alumni designed this game, so the basic mechanic (attribute+skill success-point rolls) will look oddly familiar to fans of WW games, or Lion Rampant's Ars Magica. Here, it's been streamlined to work on a single d20. Combat is a little clunky for a game that depends so much on atmosphere, but it's still quite fast to resolve.

The setting is great. The most obvious point of reference is Dune which FS has cribbed from a great deal, even to the point of using a very Dune-like device to explain the dearth of fancy computers. From there, it's an insane, space-operatic mishmash of the late Byzantine Empire, the more western Inquisition, wars with barbarians and infidels, and the von Däniken hypothesis.

I recommend this game for experienced RPG players who enjoy either intrigue/social-interaction-based play or breezy high adventure (the rules support both styles of play), and for new players looking for something easy to play, who aren't tied to the idea of picking up something faux-medieval their first time out.

Fading Suns is a great sci-fi RPG with many elements of science fantasy. With an almost medieval culture in a star spanning setting, Fading Suns features a well developed world and history cycle. If you like RPG's and sci-fi, this is the game for you.