Here is another review of Chronicle 002 by Curt Meyer:
As a kid my favorite sci-fi franchise was the generation-spanning animated saga Robotech. Of the three Robotech series, the "
New Generation" was my favorite. Earth was occupied, humanity is the underdog and victory has more to do with day to day survival than with grandiose battles. Without suppling too many spoilers, I'll say readers will find the Xenomorhverse in an analogous scenario in Chronicle 002. Most of the presuppositions of the status quo of the various factions, technology, etc, in Chronicle 001 have been done away with. A new threat emerges, new alliances are formed, new technology takes shape and secrets are revealed.
The Good
This installment would be a much easier "sell" to any of the gaming groups I've played with over the years than Chronicle 001. While you need Chronicle 001 for the
game mechanics and the "story so far," Chronicle 002 places gamers immediately in the thick of things, a war on multiple fronts with devastating enemies. Without saying too much, imagine the malicious children of the Cybermen from
Dr. Who and
Cobra Commander. The book provides "tier" options for various colony world careers, along with corresponding mecha, etc.As with all Dilly Green Bean Games [DGBG], the GM has a lot of generic stat blocks to play with.This allows GMs to make the game their own by creating unique "micro-settings" [my term, not Jay's]. Several "open ends" are presented to that effect. The
Lewis and Clark and Dante's Outpost could support their own books [more on suggestions of future publications below].
If you're familiar with the books DGBG has but out in the past two years, praise for the art is a given. What hasn't been brought up enough is the excellent customer support. A Life Path for Chronicle 001 appeared on the website two days after I requested one.
My Largely Unsolicited Suggestions to Dilly Green Bean Games
Editing:
Here is a representative example of grammatical errors in the advance copy of Chronicle 002 I received:
"Their beam weapons are equal if not better than that of the Hbots" (37).
Pronoun agreement and similar issues don't make or break RPG books, but they can distract from the suspension of disbelief.
Show Don't Tell:
As with Chronicle 001, point of view of the
flavor text facilitates between a third person, textbook style and various would-be unnamed
first person narrative voices. Describing a armor as allowing the wearer to "do a number in combat" or a weapon as a "bastard" is great if a Gunny Sargent is describing them, but reads as slack if presented in the third person, so why not present this material through such a persona via transcripts of briefings, intelligence reports, etc? This is a saga, so why not begin each chapter with an exert of a history thereof, like in the Dune series? Rather than give rather generic commentary of the states and points of views of the factions, do so through the lens of fully stated characters representing the UEU, RLF, MORDUM, etc.
If you've wondered why
White Wolf and Green Ronin consistently follow the corporate megalith that shall not be named in sales, it isn't necessarily because the premise of their games is any more compelling--I like the plot of Xenomorph Invasion far better than that of most White Wolf lines and certainly better than that of the
Transformers movie series. The vast majority of these companies' books do consciously approach RPG, at least in part, as a
literary form. Chronicles 001 and 002 are complete in the sense that all of the elements are there for good gaming sessions. Mechanics-wise, I have no complaints, though I am no fuzion expert. I do like what Jay is doing with the "Bloks" system in terms of
character generation. That aside, the game needs more literary flavor to hook potential players. A sad reality is that most of us table-top gaming enthusiasts purchase far more games than we ever actually play. A successful game has to stand on its own as an enjoyable read.
Some Ends Are Too Open:
This is my own peeve, but Jay is very clear on what's going on with radical Evangelical Christians in the Xenomorphverse, but what about the practitioners of other religions?
In Closing
Chronicle 002 is a solid game. An experienced GM could have a lot of fun with it, but even after the initial releases of all the Chronicles, I hope we won't have seen the "definitive" editions yet. The Xenomorph Invasion setting has a lot of potential. It could use a face lift. Releasing these inexpensive pdf versions of these books is smart. Each release is a testing ground.
