Farscape Roleplaying Game

Overall score:

I guess it is the fate of all successful science fiction or fantasy television shows to eventually be made into the an RPG. The Sci-Fi channel’s Farscape is not an exception to this rule. AEG games decided to produce the RPG version of Jim Henson’s Farscape using Wizards of the Coast’s open d20 license. I would like to say that this book is the pinnacle effort of many companies, but that would be misleading. It’s really just more franchise fare, and by getting the book you will notice this immediately.

The Farscape Roleplaying Game plays up to the popularity of the television-show, giving Scaper’s what they want. There are lots of graphics and picture stills from the show in the book, making it an appealing and colorful product, if not overwhelming at times. The quality of book is high quality, though the typography and layout is a little too avante guarde making reading in spots difficult. It should be noted that the typesetting for the table heading are particularly difficult to read at first until the reader’s visual codex catches up with the style.

The designer’s obviously placed a large emphasis on setting and campaign issues, moving these details to the front of the book. A synopsis of the first two season of Farscape, personality profiles, racial overviews and setting locations start out the book. From my experience, these details are usually regulated to the game-master section or at least after character creation. However, there is an obvious attempt on the part of the designers to captivate the interest of the players in the world of Farscape before getting to the game mechanics. While this is fine, it can be a nuisance to those who want to start playing immediately as they will have to flip to the second half of the book first.

When you finally get to the character creation section, experienced d20 players will find that the designers have made some changes to the d20 mechanics. Some of the flexibility of d20 has been changed. Many of a character’s abilities are based on his or her race instead of class. For example, hit points and some feats are determined by one’s race. There are twelve races for players to choose from, including series regulars such as Delvians, Hynerians, Nebari and Luxan. Humans are not included in the races, though they are considered to be similar to Sebaceans. Some of the information on the races is repeated from the previous chapter that overviews the major races in the campaign setting.

There are eleven classes presented for players to choose from, though your selection is limited by the race you select. Many of these classes are regular RPG thoroughfare, such as aristocrat, warriors and rogues. A few are more unique to the sci-fi world of Farscape, such as techs, scientists and pirates. The priest and mystics are perhaps the most unusual classes, as they bring a fantasy element into the sci-fi setting. Still, for those who are accustomed to space-fantasy settings like Star Wars, this isn’t unusual. Of course, the priest and mystic do introduce a small magic system into the campaign: magic is run a little like d20 psionics, though for those used to d20 fantasy games they will find Farscape magic to be far less powerful.

The rest of the manual includes those things that every setting must have. There is an assortment of gadgets, gizmos and vehicles to muck around with. For power gamers, the pulse pistols and rifles are weapons of choice, with possible exception of the Talvek gauntlet. There are guidelines for designer space vehicles, and rules for space combat. There is also a section of possible critters for the GM throw in random corridors or use as the basis for a campaign session. Perhaps my only complaint at this point is that they could always include more.

So after briefly reading through the manual, it was time to see how it played out. There is always some difference between how an RPG reads and how it is actually played. This book is no exception. I took the role of the GM and other time-wasters became my players. The player characters consisted of a Nebari Rogue, a Sebacean Tech and two Luxan Warriors. You would think that with two warriors the group packed a lot of fire-power, right? They did. However, we quickly discovered that in the Farscape world things are still very tough.

I set the group out to reclaim a depository that was being held up by some Tavleks and a Banik Mystic. The group quickly discovered that getting hit by a Tavlek gauntlet hurts a lot. Realizing that the D&D tactic of charging in with guns drawn wouldn't work all that well, they resorted to hunting and trapping the guards by hacking into the depository’s computer system and controlling the doors. The Luxan tongue attacks proved to be very effective in this endeavor. Unfortunately, their diplomatic efforts failed, resulting in the loss of some hostages.

Now the biggest surprise for everyone was when they encountered some rats. Almost everyone who has played D&D, or just about any other RPG, finds rats to be your basic low-level fodder. Well, in Farscape the rats are tough. Having not realized this earlier, the group took a pretty good pounding. They then found the big bad guys, where I confirmed my suspicion that the magic system was kind of weak. Despite this weakness, one character did die when a critter stuck its tongue through his skull. For some reason Farscape likes having deadly tongue attacks. I think I should mention at this point that Farscape is a little more PG-13, mostly because of innuendo.

Well, that’s the basics of what happened. We by no means explored the entirety of the game, but what we did play with we enjoyed. In my opinion, for people who enjoy role-playing and Farscape I’d give this game a hearty recommendation. For people who aren’t into Farscape, this is an enjoyable game in itself for d20 experienced role players.

Written by 42 on August 11th, 2003