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kireteiru's review
5.0
The only problem I actively have in with this book is that there’s no such thing as a “stellar penumbra” to harvest starship fuel from - the writer probably meant “stellar corona”.
flaminggecko's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
steven_v's review
4.0
This is a very well-designed "OSR" style roleplaying game from Kevin Crawford, a prolific old-school style game designer. One caveat I have with this review is that I have not played the game - only read the rules. So I can comment on the rules as written, but I cannot comment on whether this game is fun to play or enjoyable to run as an RPG.
As a rulebook, the writing is clear and easy to follow. The artwork is fantastic. And the publication quality (purchased from Drive-through RPG, standard color print) is excellent.
Overall, there is a lot to like in this book. The book assumes a standard group of human mercs a thousand years in the future, in a human-dominated space sector, but there are tons of options for non-human characters, including AI characters, "trans human" characters (human consciousness transferred into some sort of a bot-body), alien characters, and the like. There are options for psionics, as well as for legit "space magic" if that is your preference. And there are tons of random generation tables to help the GM build worlds, sectors, races, societies, and NPCs.
If I had one quibble, it is just with the size of the thing. More than half of it would be of no use to players, and frankly some of it is material players should not have access to directly (they amount to "spoilers"). I think this book would benefit from being split into a player book, and a GM book, with the player book only having the parts players need to know to make up characters, and the GM book having all of the reference material about space history, how to build societies, and the like. I wouldn't argue that this book could not continue to be one option, but it would be nice if there were GM-only and player-only options as well. Other than this, I have no issues with this book and I think that it is an excellent RPG manual.
As a rulebook, the writing is clear and easy to follow. The artwork is fantastic. And the publication quality (purchased from Drive-through RPG, standard color print) is excellent.
Overall, there is a lot to like in this book. The book assumes a standard group of human mercs a thousand years in the future, in a human-dominated space sector, but there are tons of options for non-human characters, including AI characters, "trans human" characters (human consciousness transferred into some sort of a bot-body), alien characters, and the like. There are options for psionics, as well as for legit "space magic" if that is your preference. And there are tons of random generation tables to help the GM build worlds, sectors, races, societies, and NPCs.
If I had one quibble, it is just with the size of the thing. More than half of it would be of no use to players, and frankly some of it is material players should not have access to directly (they amount to "spoilers"). I think this book would benefit from being split into a player book, and a GM book, with the player book only having the parts players need to know to make up characters, and the GM book having all of the reference material about space history, how to build societies, and the like. I wouldn't argue that this book could not continue to be one option, but it would be nice if there were GM-only and player-only options as well. Other than this, I have no issues with this book and I think that it is an excellent RPG manual.
books17's review
Revised Edition is a vast improvement over the first edition - better assets in art and design, and laid out in (for me) an easier-to-understand way. If I end up running a space game anytime soon I'll definitely be using SWN.
wesbaker's review
5.0
There’s so much good material here. You could run almost any sci-fi game you can think of. Want to play out Voltron? There’s a whole chapter on mechs. Want to pilot a ship and trade goods? Totally doable. How about Starship Troopers? You can make it happen. I have so many ideas I want to run after finishing this book and Kevin Crawford gives you all the tools to come up with even more ideas by generating sectors, planets, societies, missions, NPCs, patrons, and more.
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