Bonin Horse

Review


Title: Bonin Horse
Company: Atlas Games
Category: RPG Adventure
Reviewer: Parker Whittle

Bonin Horse is an adventure developed by Atlas Games for R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. dark future sci-fi role-playing game. Billed as a technothriller, it lives up to that claim.

Set in the claustrophobic confines of a submarine, this adventure is fast-paced and packed with suspense. Complication is heaped upon complication in a deadly spiral that sets the players' nerves on edge an gets the blood pumping.

In the spirit of the Abyss, a team of Arasaka operatives is sent to work with the tight-knit and resentful crew of a submarine owned by a company hastily acquired by Arasaka, simply because it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The potential for tension is rich, and adds to the level of suspense. The operatives are charged with locating a downed Arasaka sub and retrieving its cargo and surviving crew members.

Player characters can be introduced in several ways. In hindsight, the most compelling option is not the one we chose to take. Instead, I introduced my players as the Arasaka agents. Although this worked well in the suspense department, the twists and turns in the storyline left the players feeling as if they hadn't really accomplished anything. A better choice would have been to run the adventure in a one-off fashion, with the players taking on the roles of the submarine crew forced to deal with arrogant and paranoid Arasaka agents.

Another option that I would recommend only to experienced role-players would be to divide members of the party between the sub crew and the operatives, thus creating a level of tension within the group that intensifies the suspense of the storyline.

A caveat: one of my players has actually had some experience on submarines, which proved to be a problem. Since I have had no such experience, I cannot confirm his claims, but according to him, some of the technical aspects of the adventure were inaccurate or even blatantly incorrect. Several of the high tension moments in the adventure were deflated easily by his corrections. Few people have had such experience, so I don't suspect this will be a problem with most playing groups, but it would have been nice if the designers had done a little more thorough research.

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