A Review of The Straits of Sublight

by Michael K. Eidson

Product: The Straits of Sublight
Product Type: Space Opera RolePlaying Game GM Adventure
Author: Tom K. Loney
Publisher: Peryton Publishing
Publication Year: 2008
Review Date: September 28, 2008

If you've read my review of Troll Tunnels, or perhaps read that anthology, you're already familiar with Peryton Publishing, Christina Lea, and Tom Loney. Well, before Troll Tunnels, Peryton Publishing produced the d20-based game system, Peryton RPG, and a non-d20-based game system called Tom's Adventure Gaming, or TAG, for short. What I want to tell you about now is a TAG product called "The Straits of Sub-Light." It's Episode II in the "Rocketmen versus the Saucers" saga. It's a part of the "Spacers" line of products from Peryton Publishing.

"The Straits of Sub-Light" is written by Tom Loney and edited by Christina Lea. Cover art is by the super-talented Simon Lee Tranter, who also did the cover art for Troll Tunnels. (I like his Troll Tunnels cover better, but I prefer color art, so there.) Interior art is a mix of clip art and illustrations by Régis Moulon. My favorite illustration is the one on page 34 of the PCs fighting the winged aliens. There's enough other illustrations to adequately create a space opera mood.

This game is referred to as a "FreeFall," which indicates that it's a standalone science fiction adventure. Yes, this is episode two, but the book claims that the game can be played without having played episode one, and I agree with the claim, having not seen episode one myself but finding episode two quite interesting and more than able to stand on its own. There are a few references to the first episode, which are nice for anyone that's played that episode, but aren't of a nature that requires you to have the first episode booklet available.

To make the booklet a complete, playable game, Tom included the TAG rules in the 41-page booklet. The scenario itself is the last 17 pages. This means that the scenario is a bit less than half of the booklet. One might wonder if you could purchase a smaller booklet for episode two if you already have a copy of the TAG rules, which I assume you'd already have if you'd purchased episode one. Buying a short version of the game that doesn't include the rules doesn't seem to be an option, and I'm not one to say that it would be economically feasible for Peryton to make such a booklet available. I can imagine that some customers might not want to continue to pay for copies of the TAG rules every time they buy one of these FreeFalls. On the other hand, it is convenient to have the rules and the scenario all together in one compact booklet. So I can understand the decision to include the rules in each adventure. But from a consumer perspective, I think I'd prefer my money to go more for new material than for multiple copies of the rules. One way to remedy that would be to make each scenario substantially longer than the rules. But that would likely drive up the price of each adventure. There's always a trade-off on business decisions of this nature. It will be interesting to see how Tom and Peryton proceed with future FreeFalls. (If you have an opinion about it, I'm sure they'd love to hear from you; their web site is at http://www.perytonpublishing.com.)

If you're a Tunnels and Trolls fan, you'll see influences from T&T in this game. Tom admits to influence from Ken St. Andre, author of T&T, but doesn't specifically mention T&T. The eight attributes used in TAG are almost identical to those in T&T. TAG makes use of the "Saving Roll" concept and uses the abbreviation SR just as is used in T&T. The SR mechanic is similar in both games.

Unlike Talents in T&T, TAG makes use of Skills and gives a list of them, with formulae for calculating their values. Indeed, players are just as likely if not moreso to roll Saving Rolls against Skills in TAG than to roll Saving Rolls against their attributes. Skills are an important part of TAG, fully incorporated into the scenario. This sets them apart from Talents as implemented in T&T, where there is no definitive list and very few adventures that try to make use of them.

I'm surprised at how many rules and how much setting flavor Tom packs into the first half of the book. Besides attributes and skills, he covers player species (humans and androids), character types (including psychics), experience points, character levels, advantages of advancement, a money system, person-to-person combat, ship-to-ship combat, equipment lists (I want a Ray Cannon installed in my attic), campaign setting background material, alien species, rules for rocket ships (including rules for customizing your own ships -- if you have the money), five 'spheres' of psychic abilities (with rules for fourteen specific abilities), and optional rules for three special human species. The fantasy genre sneaks into the optional human species rules, with certain species being referred to as "Trolls" or "Gremlins." I like.

The scenario itself is an absolute gem. The back cover of the booklet sets up the scenario, and I'll paraphrase it for you here: The crew of the Venture must retrieve the experimental Icarus-X1, which has collided with a ship from an adjacent dimension. The two ships are fused together and the aliens, not a friendly lot, are trying to pull their ship back to their space and time. The fate of the Icarus-X1 is not clear, the Venture is the ship closest to the scene, and, well, you get the picture.

Tom breaks the scenario into an introduction and eleven scenes. For each scene, he gives an estimate of how long it will take to play through the scene. This will vary from gaming group to gaming group, I'm sure, but it's nice to have an idea of how long each scene might take. His projected time for the entire scenario is nearly three and a half hours. That's one session, if you've already got characters. If you have to generate characters before you play, you might be looking at two sessions. But it's certainly possible for a GM to inject new material into the scenario so as to extend the scenario over multiple sessions.

Within each scene, Tom lists various skills that should be useful and what sort of SR should be required in attempting various tasks. He also suggests how many experience points to give players that think of doing tasks. If players don't think to do certain tasks, the adventure won't stall, because some NPC will make a suggestion if necessary, but the PCs won't earn the bonus experience points in that event. Astute players will catch onto this and try to figure out what they can do before an NPC gives it away. It's of course up to the GM to decide how long to give the players to think about a problem before having the NPC solve it for them.

There are quite a few details about the Icarus-X1, including some spiffy illustrations of the ship. How the thing flies, I don't know, but Tom does a good job of presenting a consistent view of space travel, ship design, and alien motivations. GMs that closely follow the script will give their players a good game experience without much preparation. GMs that want to inject some of their own material into the game should spend the time to read and study the intricacies of the plot before altering it.

If all goes according to the script, the PCs will wind up in the alternate dimension for a while. Dealing with what they find there and getting back to their home dimension is the exciting part, and I'm not about to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say that for a short adventure, this one has a lot going for it.

I do have some small criticism of this game. I know Christina Lea, and she's a wonderful person, but I think she could do a bit better job of editing. It's one thing to check for spelling errors; it's another thing for an editor to catch misplaced words or style inconsistencies. Good editors catch the latter sorts of errors, too.

Take the back cover for an example. The copy on the back cover should be entirely error free, since it's seen by more potential customers than any text in the booklet. OK, so it's such a minor thing, that there's an extra "the" in the first sentence on the back cover. Some potential customers might not even notice it. But it's the back copy, and as I just mentioned, back copy is ultra important. Christina should have caught that error, minor though it may be.

There are a few other little errors like that inside the book, too. Attribute abbreviations are sometimes followed by a period and sometimes not, even in the same table. The abbreviation ST is used instead of SR in one place. The term 'stat' is used in a couple of places, but was never defined (it's use in one place makes it sound like the same thing as a 'skill,' but in another place those two terms are used side by side. I still don't know what a 'stat' is supposed to be.)

I know Peryton is a small press, but small presses need to worry about perfection possibly even more than larger publishers, so as to earn a reputation for excellence. Still, it's a tribute to Tom and Christina that the only things I can find to criticize in this game are such minor errors. (Hell, no one's perfect, not even me! gasp) The errors I saw won't prevent any gamer from enjoying this well-conceived scenario.

If you like space opera role playing or want to try it out for a relatively low price, you'd do well to try The Straits of Sub-Light, Episode II of the Rocketmen Versus the Saucers, a FreeFall Spacers RPG. To purchase, just click the link to Amazon at the top of this page.

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About The Reviewer: Michael is the manager of Eposic Diversions LLC and chief editor for the Eposic web site. He has been interested in reading since before he first read Harold and the Purple Crayon, which he considers a classic. His first role playing experience was in 1976 with Tunnels and Trolls, a game of which he is still a fan to this day. He can be found on the wall in Trollhalla, where he sometimes offers his services as a web developer. Today his leisure reading interests are primarily science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His real job carries the title of Senior Software Engineer and he works for a Fortune 500 R&D IT company. He currently lives in Windermere, Florida, about five minutes from Disney World, with his wife Mary and their dog Rusty.

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Legalese: The above review is the opinion of the individual reviewer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Eposic Diversions LLC. This review is Copyright ©2008 by Michael K. Eidson. Exclusive web rights have been licensed by Eposic Diversions LLC. Please respect these rights and do not further distribute this review or any significant portion of it without permission from the rights holder. If you quote from this review, please give credit to the author. If your quote is on the web, a link back to the full review is appreciated.

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