Pyramid Review
Blue Planet RPG 2nd Edition Player and Moderator's Guides
Published by Fantasy Flight Games
Written by various authors / Biohazard Games
Two 256 page books, hardbound; $27.95 each.
For those who don't know, Blue Planet is a hard science fiction roleplaying game released several years ago in softcover by Biohazard Games and supported by two supplements, Archipelago and Access Denied. After a recent agreement with Fantasy Flight Games, Biohazard has re-released the contents of the core rulebook and Archipelago in two nicely hardbound books, split into a Player's and a Moderator's Guide. The 2nd edition of the game also replaces the rules system of the 1st edition and adds a small amount of new information.
The main draw of Blue Planet continues to be its superb setting. The game concentrates on Poseidon, a waterworld very similar to Earth. The planet was colonized by a United Nations effort after a wormhole connecting it to Earth was discovered. However, after a vanguard colony was established, Earth suddenly faced a horrible plague called the Blight, which eventually killed over half the world's population, before being controlled by the concentrated efforts of the new world government, the G.E.O. Further colonizing of Poseidon stopped for over 75 years, and the colonists adopted a low-tech lifestyle to survive. When recontact finally came, a gold rush ensued, as newcomers struggled to escape devastated Earth and maybe make a quick buck, usually at the expense of the . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: November 3, 2000
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