Albert Rakowski has just released a 40-page PDF supplement to OD&D called Terminal Space. It's available for free and, having spent a lot of time reading it last night before bed, I can say that I'm very impressed. As noted, it's not a complete game but instead provides additional rules to expand OD&D into the science fiction and science fantasy genres. So it includes some new character classes, equipment, alien creature creation and starship rules, and more.
Reading it, I found myself amazed at how much material Albert had managed to pack into 40 pages. As someone who's written his fair share of RPG products over the years, including SF ones, it's more than a little humbling to watch someone else do so much with so few words. As with OD&D itself, Terminal Space is a masterpiece of concision and makes demands on referees and players alike to fill in the gaps. Fortunately, that's very much my style these days, so I have no complaints, but anyone expecting an exhaustively detailed, ready-to-run game may be disappointed.
I'll probably talk in more detail about Terminal Space later this week. It's a really amazing piece of work. I wish I'd thought of it.
So this is OT for Terminal Space, but I read it and immediately thought of D&D and GW:
ReplyDeletean extra-terrestrial "roadside picnic" has left dangerous and incomprehensible materials strewn across a zone of Northern Canada. Although sealed off for scientific research, this zone is raided by "Stalkers" who sell the unnatural trinkets for black-market cash. To do so, they brave bizarre dangers, because the zone has been transformed into a place that is utterly at odds with our own world. The alien is never seen or even described, and all the characters encounter is its terrible remainder: landscape made alien. Pools of jelly that will cripple a man lurk in basements, extra-terrestrial cobwebs that can stop a heart beating are strung across doorways, and gravitational mantraps will crush anyone who passes over the wrong patch of mud.
I wonder if Roadside Picnic was in any of the appendices N?
Thanks for very kind words :-)
ReplyDeleteThis...this sounds awesome! Gotta go check it..
ReplyDeleteThanks for the pointer. I just downloaded the pdf; I like it a lot!
ReplyDelete