Retrospective: Dark Side of the Moon

In my musings on Traveller's birthday earlier this week, I reflected briefly on my introduction to what is not only my favorite science fiction RPG but also my favorite RPG period. However, in doing so, I mentioned that Traveller was not my sole SF RPG. For some time, it vied with several other science fiction games for my affection, including Star Frontiers, which I, as a TSR fanboy, snapped up eagerly when it was published in 1982. 

Aside from surface similarities, Star Frontiers and Traveller aren't all that similar. Traveller has always had a somewhat serious, almost literary tone, whereas Star Frontiers seemed to have more in common with SF movies and television shows. I don't mean that as a criticism, since there's no one-size-fits-all RPG for any genre or subject matter – especially science fiction, which encompasses a huge swath of possible ideas, concepts, and situations. 

That said, Star Frontiers could be more "serious," or touch on more serious subject matter. That's very much in evidence with 1985's Dark Side of the Moon by Jim Bambra. Like its immediate predecessor, Bugs in the System, this adventure was a product of TSR UK, whose approach to nearly everything, from subject matter to tone to artwork, cartography, and even layout was noticeably different than their Stateside counterparts, which had a pulpier, Saturday morning matinee vibe to them that was probably deemed more suitable for its "ages 10 and up" target demographic. 

The adventure takes place on the world of Kraatar, a world in the Tristkar star system, whose primary colonists are the insectoid Vrusk – at least according to the Star Frontiers expanded rules book. Bambra, however, postulates that Kraatar was originally colonized by humans some 200 years before the present, where they established a self-reliant, agrarian society. A little more than a century later, the Vrusk arrived, bringing with them their high technology and megacorporations. As a consequence, the original human colonists experienced culture shock that displaced many of them from their rural settlements and left others disaffected and angry, as Vrusk corporations came to dominate the planet.

The adventure proper kicks off when Jack Lagrange, a human scientist and businessman who heads up Trojan Enterprises, is assassinated while receiving a prestigious award for his work in advanced organ and tissue regeneration. His assassins are two former members of the Vrusk corporate security forces and this revelation alone threatens to throw Kraatar into political and social turmoil. Riots then break out between humans and Vrusk after a Vrusk terrorist organization claims responsibility for Legrange's death. The characters, whom the module assumes are working with Pan-Galactic Holo-News, soon find themselves enmeshed not just in inter-species hostility but also a grand conspiracy in which little is what it first seems.

Dark Side of the Moon's reach exceeds its grasp. Bambra's ideas are mostly quite good, but the execution leaves a bit to be desired, starting with the somewhat ham-fisted way the characters become involved. As presented, the situation on Kraatar is somewhat nuanced, with plenty of blame to go around. Despite this, there's still a supervillain worthy of James Bond behind it all, plotting something cartoonishly horrific. That's not necessarily a terrible thing; it's very much in keeping with the general tenor of Star Frontiers. At the same time, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed, because there's a lot of good stuff here about social alienation and non-human psychology that I wish had been further developed. Perhaps it was inevitable that such topics could never be properly explored in a RPG module, but I had high expectations nonetheless.

Dark Side of the Moon is still a solid adventure, one of the better ones produced for use with Star Frontiers. Unfortunately, it doesn't treat its chosen subject with the same degree of sophistication or polish as did Bugs in the System. All the same, it's yet another example of TSR UK's willingness to innovate and push boundaries within the products they produced. The division's closure was a real loss for TSR, which would have really benefited from the industry and talents of its British writers and designers in the latter half of the 1980s. That's an alternate universe I'd like to have seen ...