Review: Interstellar Rebels

"Revolutionaries who come to power by force of arms usually have great crimes in their background. Leaders who survive campaigns by great powers to destroy them do not survive because they observe the niceties of law. Subversives who shape world events by covert action and violence work in shadows and detest the light of day." - Stephen Kinzer

In a nutshell: Obviously, this is nothing to do with Star Wars TM, (R), (C), DSO and Bar, and it would be remiss of me to suggest that it was. Even if the artwork might lead you to suspect that. Anyway: 14 page SWADE micro-setting with adventure, solo rules, and pregen characters from Richard Woolcock. $1 here at time of writing.

Intentionality

I'm struggling with the Arioniad at the moment, hence the pause in play, and knowing how effective the author's products are, I hoped the random tables and solo rules might inspire some positive change. So not quite an impulse purchase just yet, although it came close to breaking a second New Year's resolution for me.

What You Get

The download includes both full-colour and black-and-white versions, each containing:

• Cover, introduction and credits (2 pages). 'Nuff said. The introduction includes links to three other micro-settings by the same author which can be downloaded for free to expand this one. I might just do that.
• Micro-setting (2 pages). The interstellar empire has fallen, leaving a power vacuum filled by the newly-formed republic and former imperial officers turned warlord. The PCs are rebels, sworn to eradicate all remnants of the empire. The first page has a mission generator which uses 3d6 to determine what the rebels decide to do, where this takes them, and what obstacles are in their way. It also gives the statblocks for generic NPCs. The second page has paragraph descriptions of more objectives, locations and complications, plus a d66 twist generator based on icons; that reminded me of Rory's Story Cubes.
• Base Assault adventure (2 pages). The rebels learn of a secret imperial base designing a terrifying superweapon, and must deal with it. The two pages cover approaching the base, getting inside, searching it, confronting a boss monster, then escaping; it's essentially an SF dungeon crawl.
• Solo rules (2 pages). The first page has the yes/no and complex question oracles, and how to set up a solo session; use the mission generator for the main plot and the twist generator for two subplots. Play then proceeds in scenes, each of which is one of six different types of challenge (networking, chase, combat etc.) and awards Victory Points to you on a success or the Big Bad on a failure; first to 10 VP wins. The second page has random tables for events, species, worlds, and curveballs.
• Pre-generated characters (6 pages). Nine different characters at both Novice and Seasoned ranks - a lot of people prefer to start characters at Seasoned; one robot, four different aliens, and four humans. Each is fully statted with racial features, attributes, skills, Edges, Hindrances, derived stats and gear.

What I Think

Richard Woolcock, perhaps best known for the Saga of the Goblin Horde, is an author I will generally take a chance on, especially at this price. These days he often writes for the Tricube Tales RPG, but frequently releases a SWADE version of those products later; I prefer SWADE to Tricube Tales, so I usually get the ported version.

The layout, style, and some of the tables will be familiar to anyone who has looked at Mr. Woolcock's other micro-settings, which grow ever more numerous. The author is particularly good at two things; cramming a lot of usable content into a very small space, and creating concise but intriguing pre-generated PCs.

The solo oracle in particular has two features I expect to be useful. First, my main issue with Mythic and Solo is that they are not dramatic enough for the sort of stories I enjoy, at least not the way I use them; they naturally produce slow-burn stories which build the drama gradually. In contrast, IR takes the view that every scene is inherently dramatic, and the player need only decide which mechanism to use to resolve it. In this regard it's closer to the sort of scenario generators you see in skirmish wargames than the usual solo RPG oracle.

Second, I often struggle to come up with a mission for the characters. IR again dives straight in, dragging the characters straight from one adventure to another with a mission generator which states what the characters are trying to do, where, and what's stopping them. To be fair, Solo has that too, in the form of the patron tables; but I feel constrained to wade through the slice-of-life bits, waiting for the encounter tables to throw up a patron before rolling for a mission.

I can summarise the product by saying it's all killer, no filler. That's not for everyone, but it suits me for the moment. Let's try it out.