Pyramid Pick
Star Crusade 2: Lost Worlds (for Fading Suns RPG)
By Bill Bridges, et al.
Published by Holistic Design Inc.
120 pages, $20.00
Science fiction roleplaying has always labored under two conflicting desires: realism and playability. The desire for realism is easy to understand. Science fiction, as its name suggests, is about science, which in the minds of many is tantamount to saying "the truth." Consequently, SF fans expect their favorite authors (or game designers) to create rich and detailed worlds, all of them in accordance with the Laws of [Insert Pertinent Scientific Discipline Here].
Unfortunately, science is a double-edged sword, for it also tells us that faster-than-light travel is, if not impossible, highly improbable. Not surprisingly, this fact (and others like it) runs afoul of the desire for playability. While many excellent gaming environments could be constructed without the need for FTL travel, they'll always seem a little pale in the minds of most science fiction gamers, who dream of star-spanning empires and myriad alien races.
Thus, the designers of science fiction roleplaying games must make a decision: how far will they sacrifice one of these two desires to accommodate the other? In the case of Holistic Design's Fading Suns, it's quite clear the designers chose rollicking playability over scientific verisimilitude and with good reason. Four years after it's release, Fading Suns remains a game that demands to be played, not just read. This is especially . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: September 22, 2000
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