PUBLISHED BY HOLISTIC DESIGN INC.
WRITTEN BY BILL BRIDGES AND ANDREW GREENBERG
$25

One of the reasons I wanted to be a Literature Major was the tales of King Arthur and his knights. Ever since I picked up A Boy's King Arthur when I was just knee-high, I've been enamored with knights, quests, damsels in distress and the tragic tales of passion and duty. Fading Suns may look like a science fiction game, but deep in its heart, it has the same passion for those romantic tales as I do, which deserves a tip of the hat from me to the authors, Bill Bridges and Andrew Greenberg.

If the names sound familiar, its because Bridges and Greenberg were responsible for a whole lot of the good stuff that came out of White Wolf the last few years. They left the "bleeding edge" last year to join tip with Holistic Design and from there, came up with a game of political intrigue, treachery and hard core science fiction. When I first heard about it, I thought it would have shadows of Dune, but I was very mistaken.

Fading Suns feels much more like Pendragon than Herbert's classic. It also feels a lot like a White Wolf game in its format, which is a good thing. It's organized, clear and concise about its terminology, and easy to understand. The beginning of the book is filled with backgrovind material, and a glossary of both game and world terms for reference. Character generation is a breeze and (again) strikes me as a mixture of both Pendragon and the Storyteller system.

Characters are created from one of the three classical social classes of feudalism: Lords (those who rule), Merchants (those who buy and sell) and the clergy (those who pray). Aliens (those who differ) are also included. Once a player has chosen a social class, they then choose a house and start divvying tip skill points.

The system uses a little trick I've never seen before. Skills and Attributes are on a d20 system, and when you roll, you try to roll under your Skill or Attribute. However, the higher you roll without going over, the more Success Points you get to add special effects to your success.

A character with a higher skill not only has a better chance of success, but also has a better chance of getting the results he wants than someone who is not as experienced in a skill. Quite clever.

When it comes to handling space travel, Bridges and Greenberg have done their reading. Space travel is one of the most difficult things to handle in a role-playing game, especially if you are going to be writing up a "hard science fiction" setting like Fading Suns.

After all, space travel (in reality) is uncomfortable, takes a long time and is quite dangerous. The use of jump gates is a common way to handle the problem, but Bridges and Greenberg have added a twist. When mankind first reached out to the stars, the jump gates were there waiting for him. Created from an alien technology we can't hope to understand, the jump gates immediately became a source of conflict for the faithful back on Earth. After all, if there's life out there, that means that we aren't the center of the universe as many Terran religions dictate.

So what do you do when your faith gets challenged? You do what the early Christians did: assimilate the challenge.

The ecstatic emotions that run through a human body as they pass through a jump gate has caused a major religious movement on Earth, giving birth to a new religion. Of course, this religion has gone through the ringer (just as all early religions do), but its followers are still around, worshipping the memory of their martyr who brought them "the truth."

Fading Suns has something for everyone. It is science fiction, set in a Universe of feudal warfare, giving it a ring of familiarity to those who are only familiar with the high fantasy genre. It also has enough "hard tech" to make the Niven fans out there smile quietly to themselves. And it has a hint of enigmatic mysticism for all of us who think that there's more to the universe than what we can prove.

I liked Fading Suns a lot. If it feels a little bit like a White Wolf product, that's because Bridges and Greenberg were part of the soul that made some of the best WW products so great. Fans of their efforts will not be disappointed, and if you aren't familiar with their work, you should check it out.