Space and time warps provide disorientation of obvious nature. I don't recommend using these unless you plan on playing for a prolonged period of time - it can be rather difficult trying to find one's way back. There is already enough to make things go wrong, like the space amoeba, which is a sort of stellar unicellular jelly fish. Its sole purpose in life is to consume and divide. Ships enter the creature without warning, and then have a devil of a time trying to get out. Even if they succeed, the amoeba will pursue at warp speed, so the only way to really accomplish anything is to kill it, done by searching through the mess of jelly and lysozomes until it locates and destroys the nucleus, or all five mitochondria. The amoeba is about as powerful as a Confederation destroyer, so if the players do not read the rule book and learn how to destroy the amoeba, a battle of attrition will ensue that favors the monster. If an SM wants to end an expedition quickly, the amoeba is good to have hiding in the wings.

Space buoys are designed to test the moral fiber of the crew. Should the crew fail the test, they may as well hang up the success of the mission or be able to call on Lady Luck for salvation. This is the God-factor of S&S. The SM can selectively within the bounds of the rules, do anything he desires, reason and logic set neatly aside. Because of the power this gives him, the SM should take great care to use the space buoy in only the most unusual circumstances.

Lastly, gravity wells serve to channel starships into any favorite phenomenon the SM has designed. Having a 1-6 hex range, the gravity well draws ships to its center regardless of evasive action. Should time factors prohibit handling whatever is there, the SM may elect to have the well produce a slingshot effect that will pop the travelers out the other side at an accelerated rate.

The next extra that makes play different is the disease factor. Kanterman provides aging disease, reverse aging disease, psionic fever, space malaria, and lover's lunacy, a form of space VD (at last, a game designer with my sense of humor!). These provide a nice touch if time provides, or if the game has been played so much that a novel stimulus is needed to enhance entertainment, as do the sixty or so varied flora and fauna listed in the rules.

This flora and fauna helps the SM program inhabitants of alien ships or planets. What is provided serves as a stable guideline, but it is much better to supplement with the myriad beings from Alpha. Together, the two give a more comprehensive view of happenstance creatures. Also, it is easy to use the terrain maps from that game if the SM has already constructed his "Warden."

The game's designer has also written alien artifacts into the rules. Twenty-six an suggested, again as a starting point for what the SM may wish to design himself. I won't go into all of these, but they are generally quite powerful devices to have around, since they allow the user to control other beings, manipulate time, change size, race, or sex, acquire new psionic abilities, create artificial body parts, develop personal teleportation capabilities, and the like. These are similar to the physical and mental mutations present in Alpha, though the list is not as comprehensive, so again the two games would work well in conjunction with one another.

And finally, the author hints that SMs should create a system of medals or decorations of honor to award the players for heroic actions or especially meritorious behavior. I created an anti-award, yet unpinned, called the Honorary Order of the Twit, given for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty - this one, when awarded, will probably be done so posthumously, or posthumorously, whichever is the case. Additionally, a good SM will provide shore leave for surviving spacemen at the conclusion of the mission. Shore leave consists of attending a carnival-like arrangement known as a Universal Fair, in which players who are lucky may gain some last minute experience, or add to the mutable values on their character sheets.

This concludes what I had originally thought would be a brief game perspective. I have been more verbose than intended, but I believe I've hit on enough of the rules to give more than an adequate basis for the reader to understand what has gone into S&S. Still, I haven't given enough to allow him to make a decision before buying. What follows is my analysis of game preparation, flow of play, a sample expedition, and my personal evaluation of the overall success of the game.

As with all role playing simulations, the bulk of the load falls on the Master. In S&S, this load can be tremendously heavy, especially if the SM wishes to create an expedition that will keep all his players involved. Not only must he design a star map, complete with starbases, space hazards, and planetary systems, but he must also design each of those planets, or at least portions of them so that stamen will have something to see should they shuttle down to the planet's surface. It is crucial that time be spend here, for if players descend to a relatively drab, spontaneously concocted alien environment, they will cease to participate with the zeal that is necessary. The SM must make them see, smell and feel what they encounter, and only the most gifted story-teller can do this without sufficient preparation.

And so I iterate; use Traveler to randomly generate star systems and some terrain; use Alpha to randomly generate terrain and creatures. There are undoubtedly other games which would serve the purpose as well; I name these because they are the ones that I had at hand, and they served me extremely well. Another playing aid, mentioned in the S&S rules booklet, is the combo of the Star Trek Technical Manual and Star Trek Concordance. Since these sell for a combined total of $14, I do not agree with this recommendation unless the SM is already a Trekkie, in which case, he probably has them anyhow. I acquired them, had them stolen, purchased them, and then found them of only nominal utility. If given the choice, I'd buy Traveler and Alpha instead.

Once the playing universe has been completed, it is time to begin. To facilitate the first adventure, I personally rolled the characters to populate the Waterloo, designated all races, branch and subclass, equipped them, and named them. Although this took something away from the players, we got into the thick of it after only ten minutes of rule talk.

The first thing we noticed was that in hyperdrive between planets, them are only two or three key roles, those of captain, navigator, and the fire control officers when aliens are encountered in deep space. The rest of the players kind of sit around and offer suggestions, or dink around with the computer. Before long, a sameness sets into play, not unlike what one might find during travel in the far reaches of space. This is the routine: captain and navigator plot out day's movement; submit to SM; SM rolls dice for random encounters and plots movement on star map; if nothing is encountered, day ends; if something is encountered, it is dispensed with. Since cosmic encounters are about twice as frequent as wandering monsters in D&D, a large amount of time is spent in outer space, and if the SM is not careful, space travel becomes a not-looked-forward-to inhibition to play. When a starship is as vulnerable as our destroyer was, players audibly groan when they know something is approaching.

The ship's computer becomes the high point of action in space travel. It, through the SM, becomes the sole source of knowledge for crewmen. Players attempt to get "on-line" with the computer by rolling less than their intelligence on a 20-sided die, then rolling a 6-sider to determine how many questions they can ask. Since the computer answers only with "yes," "no," or "insufficient data," an SM such as myself can have untold glee taking what the characters ask literally, For example, when the Waterloo met an alien warship, a character asked, "Is there anyone on board?" The computer replied, "No.", since it interpreted "anyone" as not including "anything," which applied to the intelligent xenophobic plants on board the enemy ship. Players quickly learned to employ a phraseology reminiscent of talking to a four-year-old (me), and things progressed more fluently. By the way, the ship's computer is really an asset to the game, as it provides a nice link between the SM and the players within the scope of the game; the SM becomes a player at times.

When the Waterloo did encounter the enemy, though, we all learned some lessons about interstellar combat. Ship-to-ship combat is seriously limited according to how much power a ship has available. I already mentioned what occurred when the power balance was shifted in favor of the opponents - not a nice experience for the home team, guys. To make matters worse, the Waterloo wasted energy at long range and had to deficit spend energy too soon. In one case, both ships ran out of energy on the same turn and sat side-by-side in space until their energy sources had regenerated for the following day; then hostilities resumed once more. I know, I know. This is not too realistic - we all snickered about it for quite some time.

Once on the planet surface, or on board an alien craft, the man-to-man system proves to be quite clean. It is abstract enough to make it comparatively realistic (we all exercise our imaginations in role play, anyhow), yet it is not so detailed that one needs miniatures to plot out the course of battle. Ranged weapons are taken care of first, with die roll adjustments made according to range, weapon type, and marksmanship. When close combat occurs it is handled by adding the roll of a 6-sided die to one's strength, then comparing it to an opponent's similar roll. The difference between the two determines the outcome, with the weaker party becoming stunned, and often taking damage, unless the difference in rolls is zero or one. The beauty of this system is that there is no longer the endless hacking of D&D or Alpha; after one or two mile by each group of combatants, the skirmish is over. Normally, the stronger party wins - this is the usual case in most free-for-alls, anyhow. Rather than spending ten minutes flailing madly about in melee as their hit points shrink, players can move on to the specified mission task. In close combat, it's the "stun" that makes the system so successful; no longer does a man with 15 hit points remain standing at full power when he's down to one point.

While combat is taking place, the commander of each force rolls for morale as characters fall around him. Should he roll greater than his charisma when a fellow player dies, his force will break and run. Otherwise, they will remain in command control and continue. In all, the close combat system is my favorite of the many games I've tried, and I've since adapted it in part for those other games. Its efficiency supersedes any loss of realism.

Thus the flow of play depends greatly on what the SM allows to occur. He should be wary not to let things get hung up in outer space, but he should also provide characters enough action to keep them from getting the doldrums. Once play moves to the planetary level, there is enough variety to keep things exciting; I wish hyperspace travel could do the same without relying so much on the captain, navigator, and computer.

To give my adventures an element of mystery, I gave Jetz Williamson an envelope labeled TOP SECRET, with specific instructions not to open until the Waterloo was three light years from Starbase 37. When that had been accomplished, Jetz found this missives:

For the past 6 1/2 years, people of the planet and star system Marinat have been engaged in a costly war of attrition with the people of the Confederation. Realizing that this war can only end in the total annihilation of life as we know it in the galaxy, King Quaren of Marinat has sent his ambassador, Wrak-nam, to SB37 to sue for peace.

While visiting SB37, Wrak-nam contracted a rare virus called psnueme, which will bring about his demise if its growth goes unchecked. Obviously, his death would be considered an act of aggression by our enemies, and the war would continue indefinitely.

Wrak-nam has been placed in suspended animation in the forward cargo hold until such time as you and your crew are able to procure the rare "stepleaf" which will control the virus.

As you know, stepleaf is an alien fungus grown only by the Migratoids, a wandering tribe of humanoids. The Migratoid activity has been reported of late in the star systems of Anorphis, Klaren, Neper-nen, and Slest; therefore, you should proceed to those systems to find the antidote. As you know, Migratoids are xenophobic in nature and you should exercise utmost caution in dealing with them.

Following this, I had typewritten specific objectives, but nothing so specific that I would take free will from Jetz. He was on his own, as long as he did what he had to do in 25 days or less.

As they sought to complete their mission, they fell into one calamity after another. At one point early on, it was necessary to return to SB37 for refurbishing, and although they luckily avoided all the nasties I'd programmed into space, they encountered everything plus some on the random encounter matrix. On one turn, I rolled 5 consecutive meetings. It was at this point that I realized outer space was getting to be a drag and sent them on without the random rolls. It appeared as though every horror in outer space had lined up in their pathway.

The Waterloo arrived at one destination, the Anorphis system, and lost precious time while they awaited the passage of an amoeba. Then they departed for Slest, a journey of some 30 light years. En route, they discovered an uncharted system which they named after the ship, and named the planets, oh, so-o-o-o imaginatively, One, Two, Three, and Four (did a Tauran name these, or did a Tauran name these?). In Slest, crew members found what they needed, but not before becoming involved in a planetary war between the members of Bedbie and Canny, the twin planets of Slest.

To make a long story short, Wrak-nam was brought from suspended animation and returned to SB37 with hours to spare. The Waterloo, aided by the slingshot effect of a gravity well, and down to 15 units power per day, limped into dock-up. Jetz was awarded the Confederation Medal of Honor posthumously, and Truk-Truk (a Tauran) received the Confederation Symbol of Diversity ... whatever that is.

At the conclusion of the adventure, we all sat back to talk about whether it had been worth the effort. Was the game worth the money, and was it worth playing again? On the negative side, S&S is just too much like every other role playing game I've participated in. Sameness sets in in the very first encounter, while other games seem to last for at least a few shots before this occurs. Granted, this could have been my fault as a poor SM, but I have enough experience behind me that I do not think that this was realistically the case. Also, I am quite taken aback at the amount of preparation necessary to pull this one off. If I had not already had Alpha at my disposal, I would have been at a total loss. To give an idea of what went into this, I spent 15 hours designing star systems, programming space hazards and planets, and learning the rules. I had thought I had enough, but when my characters descended to a planet surface for the first time, I realized how unprepared I was. I then used my Alpha maps, which gave me every type of terrain possible. I used five different Alpha levels, each of which I had spent at least five hours on, designing and programming. With these added, I was ready for anything - but was 40 hours preparation worth the few hours we spent playing S&S? And finally, there is a greater burden on the SM than in other games for he must strive to prevent monotony by throwing characters into crises, but he must do so without inhibiting their chances of successfully completing a mission. In the mission I used, I gave an extra ten days, just in case, and they needed them all!

On the other hand, the game does have its positive elements. The most apparent is the similarity to Star Trek. Since this was one of the original goals of the game, I admit that it does a fine job, and for that reason, it must be considered a success - the play accurately captures the kinds of occurrences that permeate the Star Trek logbooks. The characters' racial traits and the specific rules for gaining experience are also excellent points in the games. The close combat system is a definite high point which I dwelled on at length earlier, as is the use of the computer. And finally, the introduction of psionica as an inherited trait (rather than a mutation, as in Alpha) is a powerful point in favor of S&S.

But when one weighs it all, he will probably come to the same conclusions I have. S&S is a good simulation, alas, only in passing, primarily because it is so successfully topical in nature. If you are a Trekkie, by all means, get the game and use it - you'll not be disappointed. But if you're not that inclined, stick to the more conventional games, or purchase this one as a means to clean up some of the systems utilized in other role play simulations.

Warp Ten, Mr. Scott. This is over.

Starships & Spacemen, Part 1