Customer Reviews

Toxic Memes (Transhuman Space)

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THS is by far the best science fiction RPG out there. It's very telling that a book that would be the flagship supplement for another game manages to be only a marginal contributor for this one.

Jamais Cascio is certainly an A-list author. He's a noted futurist who's given TED talks, published in major media and has appeared in TV documentaries talking about trends in human history. So he's definitely qualified. And Broken Dreams (his other THS contribution) is sterling.

Where this supplement breaks down is in two areas. First, memes are never described as much more than fads or urban legends. "Ideas as epidemiology" has a long history that he could have integrated to make the subject about much more than fashions and conspiracy theories (at the least mentioning people like rogers, bass, polanyi, march, or nonaka). More detail, especially jargon, would have also been a good way for players to convince themselves and their fellow players that their meme-hacker character is actually doing something in the game.

That leads to the second problem: there isn't much attention to highlighting material that could actually make it into a game as a plot point. Ideally, most of the information in the supplement should be usable for driving the PLOT or developing the CHARACTERS, but either way, it should influence gameplay. Much of the detail here is excellent, but not applicable in a game setting. The book tries really hard to get things back to the game world, but never quite makes it.

Now for the strengths: there are some real gems here. First, the chapter on cognitive ecologies and reputation networks is excellent; fleshing out lifestyles of the Fifth Wave but also providing the in-game relevance people need. Farmed as a source of campaign concepts, many of the conspiracy theories are better used not as memes but as plot arcs. Finally, the "transhuman style" boxes are cute window dressing that give you a feel for the culture.

Overall, I'd say this is worth buying-- but only after you've bought everything else.