|
Dragonstar: Starfarer's Handbook
Designers: Matt Forbeck and Greg Benage
Length: 176 pages
Price: $27.95
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games www.fantasyflightgames.com
ISBN: 1589940563
 Three words came out of my mouth when I picked up my copy of Dragonstar: "Oh. My. God."
A friend of mine put it correctly when he said: "This is what Spelljammer should have been." People at amazon.com have been saying the same thing.
If you haven't heard, Dragonstar is a d20 setting that posits a high-tech interstellar empire ruled by dragons, where plasma guns and magic sit side-by-side. The background is quite detailed, and extremely well-written. The book opens with a story from the perspective of someone whose world, a sort of typical d20 fantasy world, was conquered by the Dragon Empire. The story, set forth in a full-color insert at the start of the book, was so good I nearly wept, and captures the background perfectly.
 Everything you could want is here. Rules for firearms in D&D, done correctly and well, with every angle covered, in direct contrast to the d20 version of Deadlands. Autofire, cover, everything -- and all a logical extension of the standard D&D rules, easy to read and grasp. There are rules for starship and vehicle combat, handled using a version of the normal d20 combat system; I was able to run a short starship combat only a half an hour after reading those rules.
There are new skills, feats (including all sorts of nifty gun-oriented feats -- again, much more interesting than Deadlands d20), classes, races (including the "soulmech", an android with a humanoid soul attached to it) and prestige classes (including a prestige class that's capable of "Gun Fu", for you Hong Kong action fans), all appropriate to the setting. All the standard classes are covered as well, including how they've changed in the more "modern" setting. (My favorite are the paladins, which have gone from being holy warriors to holy commandos, with access to divine spellware -- essentially magical cybernetics.)
If you asked me, the Machinist class should have been in the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars RPG. The class even has an ability where the Machinist can get a device to work temporarily by bumping it; I've seen Chewbacca do that sort of things in the films. (And Star Wars is a major inspiration for Dragonstar...)
While there are still the usual errors that most RPGs have, these are few and far between, and what is amazing is how much sense the setting makes. None of this wierd ether stuff; physics works like it does in the real world, only with magic allowing you to break the rules. In fact, an aphorism in the setting is: "Science tells you what the rules are, and magic lets you break them." You can't go faster than light with technology, so starships are highly technologically-advanced devices with a magic item (connected to the astrogation computer) that allows one to teleport from system to system. (The item, a starcaster, also provides artificial gravity through magic.) It makes sense that dragons would be best suited to rule an interstellar empire of D&D style fantasy worlds, and it makes even more sense that a red dragon Emperor would choose the Drow to be his secret police. Every fantasy race has a common role in the Empire that makes sense, from elven biologists to orcish soldiers.
And they're even organizing the setting like the D&D core books. The Starfarer's Handbook is essentially the Players Handbook for Dragonstar, while the soon-to-be-released Galaxy Guide amounts to the DMG.
Fans of Star Wars, Shadowrun, or D&D who are interested in mixing science fiction with fantasy, especially those (like me) who are tired of technology being opposed to magic and think they could work together, should check this out. And you'll be drooling as much as I am. I'm already considering joining the RPGA so I can play in the Living Dragonstar campaign...
|
