Pyramid Review
Cryptic Alliances & Unknown Enemies (for Gamma World)
Published by Sword & Sorcery
Written by Owen K.C. Stephens, Alejandro Melchor, & Geoff Skellams
Edited by Ellen P. Kiley
Art by Steve Becker, Mike Chaney, Jeff Holt, & Jeff Rebner
128-page b&w softcover; $22.99
Some game supplements suffer from a lack of direction, while others have a laser-like intensity in the treatment of their subject. Cryptic Alliances & Unknown Enemies, a Gamma World supplement from Sword & Sorcery, falls into the latter category.
The supposed thrust of the book is to increase the social factor in your games. It expands the community and alliance rules from Gamma World, and adds details about leadership. It takes these few subjects and explains the hell out of them.
Specific examples of the allegiances from the core rules sit next to new kinds of allegiances. External ones are those imposed on a person from without, as with brain implants and such, while those dedicated to an object have sworn fealty to some item, device, or place, like a benevolent computer system that spews survival advice. It also talks about allegiances to one's own self, and it stretches the device by talking about opposed "allegiances" -- which keeps things homogeneous in relation to the rulebook, but it comes off a bit forced. More important is the separation of advice on allegiances as part of the narrative and as a set of rules, which is one of that chapter's stronger features. It ends with descriptions of over a dozen . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: October 15, 2004
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