Messageboard Golem
First Post
My first encounter with Babylon 5 was on the evening of the day I returned to the UK after living abroad for a few years. It was an early season one episode broadcast on Channel 4 and received on a tiny TV with bad reception in my room at a B&B. Half a decade later, I don't remember which episode it was, but I do remember that I was instantly hooked. Since then, between catching broadcasts, renting videos and buying DVDs, I've managed to get my hands on just about every episode. The point of this reminiscing? Mongoose Publishing have just released their new Babylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Fact Book (by Matthew Sprange), a hardcover I've been itching to get my hands on for months. It took a while as the Babylon curse struck once more (it seems to be determined to prevent any B5 RPG from ever making it to stores), but the book is finally in my hands.
The core rulebook consists of 304 glossy pages packed with colour, and appearing to average at least one photo on each double page spread. Usually when a company goes with this level of colour, it's common to run into low-contrast text that is hard to read, but not here - all the text is clear and easily readable.
Mongoose don't allow the d20 system to constrain them: if a rule doesn't fit the setting, the rule changes, not the setting. The d20 system is not allowed to dictate the direction the game should take. This makes B5 a touch trickier to get to grips with than some other d20 games, but every change is for the best and the transition is made easy by the handy guide for people experienced with d20.
But I'm skipping ahead of myself, there's so much good stuff in this book I'll never be able to give a decent overview unless I stop and work through it in order. The book is subtitled Signs and Portents, which is a big clue that despite the thickness of this book, it only covers season one of the Babylon 5 series, not moving beyond 2258. It opens with the Introduction, a sensible decision in my opinion. A shiny double page spread of Babylon 5 with the traditional "What an RPG is." The game requires a copy of The Player's Handbook from Wizards of the Coast, which I understand is thanks to licensing issues. This is a something of a downer for people who don't want to invest in another book before they can start roleplaying, but for those who own the PHB already it just means that Matt doesn't have to fill up more of the 304 pages with copies of content they already have. I'll mention here my first criticism of the book: the references are horrible scrambled. Instructions to look on another page for more information usually lead to having to search up to 15 pages away for it, the references to chapter numbers wouldn't be too bad, if only the chapters were actually numbered!
The introduction continues with an overview of the book, and sections to help both people who are new to the d20 system and those who are veterans get up and running with B5 as quickly as possible. The introduction ends by explaining that B5 is very different from (the average game of) D&D as thinking is much more important than combat. It takes five paragraphs to do this, so maybe, just maybe, it's something Matt thinks we gamers should take on-board. At this point, JMS chips in with his two cents on roleplaying, his style is, as usual, gripping, and his sense of humour shows through.
The main meat of Babylon 5 begins with an brief overview of Earth's interaction with the rest of the galaxy, covering contact with the Centauri, the Dilgar and Minbar wars, the building (and loss) of the Babylon stations, and ending with the events of The Gathering and shortly after. As you turn to page 14, you end 2257.
Mongoose have kept to the usual formula for the organisation of B5, once the scene is set it's time for the first chunk of rules - Characters. It is in this chapter that the first obvious deviations from the usual d20 system can be found, characters do not get automatic languages just for being smart, only their native tongue and English. If any further languages are desired, they have to be bought with ranks in the Speak Language skill. The races available in B5 are Humans (who are once again the Jack of all Trades with a bonus feat of choice), Centauri, Minbari (choose your caste - Worker, Religious or Warrior), Narn, Drazi and Brakiri. Each race gets a good amount of information which briefly covers personality, physical description, relations with other races, spheres of influence, belief system, language, names, and the types of character who are likely to be found away from home.
Then we come to hit points, characters start off with hit points comparable to low level D&D characters, and they do go up - but very, very slowly. Characters now only receive a couple of hit points each level, so a single well-placed PPG shot is capable of leaving Michael Garibaldi in Med Lab very nearly as easily as the mindwiped janitor with the metal detector style floor cleaner. Even the Soldier class only receives 3 extra hit points per level - and characters don't add their Con bonus. Con isn't worthless though, it has a serious impact on a character's chance of stabilisation once on negative hit points, a character with Con 18 has a 40% chance of stabilisation each round, far easier to make than the usual 10%.
There is a choice of eight character classes including Agent (who is more likely to sneak around dark passageways than to try to sell you a used car), Scientist (who is loaded down with skills, and has the flexibility to become anything from a medic to an archaeologist), and Telepath (who can take a high P-rating and specialize, or have weaker powers in exchange for more hit points and skill ranks). As with the Minbari, characters that join some classes get to specialise: Workers are able to choose between white collar and blue collar, while Officers must choose which branch of the military to join.
Skills and Feats requires a fair bit of cross-referencing with The Player's Handbook but this is still a large chapter. Some old skills have been updated and new skills include Computer Use (essential for anyone wanting to break into opposition, or even allies', computer systems), Drive, and Pilot. I've always found feats much more interesting, and B5 has a big stack of new ones. Telepaths can have an Adaptive Mind allowing them to scan aliens without penalty, Narns can swear themselves to the Chon-Kar, and if you're quick you can put yourself in Harm's Way to protect the weaker members of the group.
Eventually we get through the feats and into the rules for Combat. There might be less fighting in Babylon 5 than in the average RPG, but it still happens and characters had better be prepared. Armour class has been thrown out the window and exploded in hard vacuum. I was never fond of it, as the thought that armour makes you harder to hit seemed silly (if simple). AC has been replaced with Defence Value, which is based on a character's reflex save and size modifier, with PPG shots whizzing down corridors and not needing 20+ to hit, it does a good job of encouraging characters to duck down behind cover! Armour isn't useless though, it gives damage reduction, which can go a long way to saving a life.
Next up are gunfights, not only can PPG shots fly down metal passages, but characters can aim to improve their accuracy, or take advantage of rapid fire weapons to target multiple enemies or to simply pepper an area with lots of shots.
Guns and clubs are not the only dangers when you are one of a quarter of a million humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal: space itself can kill, as can the thin or toxic atmospheres of alien worlds. Low gravity makes it hard to control your motion, extremes of temperature can be terrible, you can burn, be poisoned, suffer radiation sickness, and fall victim to a host of other dangers that are nicely detailed here. Tailing the combat section are the rules for spaceship combat, which is complex at the best of times, but B5 handles it with elegance, even managing to cope with the enormous ships that are found in the setting.
The equipment chapter covers the usual selection of goodies, but any player wanting to get their hands on an easily separable and hidden PPG like Londo's will find themselves having to fork out almost a thousand credits, and that's before the cost of finding such an item on the black market is factored in. I'm sure lots of characters would drool over Minbari Battle Armour with its damage reduction 5, but the prohibitive cost and anger of the Minbari warrior caste is likely to put most of them off. There are a good eight pages packed with ships ranging from the simple cargo loader, through the Hyperion class cruiser, to the Sharlin Warcruiser, most of which are lovingly illustrated with stills from the series.
Babylon 5 wouldn't be Babylon 5 without its Telepaths, a group who managed to cause problems on a scale almost reaching the level of those which they solved, so it isn't much of a surprise that they get a chapter all to themselves. Telepaths can have a variety of powers including Surface Scan, Warning, and Danger Sense (OK, own up, who let the radioactive spiders out?). The rules to use these powers (some of which are available only if the telepath has a high enough P-rating) are simple with the victim making a Will save based on the P-rating, class level and charisma of the telepath.
Marking the end of the main rules section and the beginning of the Fact Book part of this hardcover is a two page colour schematic of the station. Unfortunately the middle of it is obscured by the join between pages, but all is not lost! Mongoose have included the map in the first of the preview PDFs on their website; now I just need to a colour laser printer to do justice to this fantastic piece of work.
All Alone in the Night describes the station itself, and the people aboard. It isn't in-depth, for you would need another two books of equal size (or more!), but it does an excellent overview of the station, including the legal system and Med Lab (two sections I think my players will cause me to refer to frequently). The personalities section covers the main characters seen in 2257 and 2258, including Lieutenant Commander Laurel Takashima who was reassigned to a classified mission after the pilot (who knows, maybe some players will run into her out on the rim), and the two commercial telepaths who have been stationed on B5. Aliens are represented as well, including Kosh Naranek, the only character in this section who isn't provided with a stat block - he's that hard.
Following on from the station is the rest of the galaxy, starting with a map of hyperspace routes; this suffers the same problems as the station schematic, and the same solution. And the Sky Full of Stars opens with details methods of space travel, including rules for jump gates and hyperspace. Each of the major space powers gets a few pages, although Earth Alliance is boosted up to eight, focusing mainly on the history of EA since first contact with alien life in 2156, but touching on everything back to the founding of the Earth Alliance after World War III. Human telepaths get something of a rough deal thanks to the regulation imposed on them by their government, Psi Corps gets a few pages including a nice box out dealing with how Corps and rogue telepaths can function in the game. The Narns, Centarui and Minbari are covered with sections covering everything from physiology to spirituality and political systems. The Vorlons are left with a very short section, which is unsurprising given how little was known about them in 2258, no doubt the Fact Books for future years and other supplements will expand on this enigmatic race. Concluding And the Sky Full of Stars is the section on The League of Non-Aligned Worlds, opening with a brief summery, the section briefly details the major races in the League, from the fin-headed Abbai, the profit-driven Brakiri, Drazi, Gaim, Markab, Vree, and even the Pak'ma'ra. Enough rules are given that its conceivable to run a game with player characters from these races, despite them (with the exception of the Brakiri and Drazi) appearing in the Characters section of the book. Although a Pak'ma'ra might have trouble integrating with the rest of a group as they're slow, greedy, selfish, not very bright, they refuse to speak anything other then their own language, and they're carrion eaters, if its not five days dead and decayed - they won't touch it.
The biggest section of the book is Signs and Portents, the guide to season one. It details every episode (very heavy detail, including parts that are easy to miss if you just watch the episodes) and follows them up with rules for things found in episodes and suggested plot hooks for the GM to tie his campaign into the ongoing story. It does a great job of expanding, and applying rules, those bits of each episode that make a GM's mind starting ticking. Take the episode By Any Means Necessary for example, which occurs around July 18th 2258. It gets almost three pages of synopsis, descriptions of the Dockers' Guild, Neeoma Connoly (including her stat block), The Rush Act and The Book of G'Quan. This is probably the thing I dislike most about this RPG. I can't help but feel that Ms Connoly would be better placed with the other personalities of the station, the Rush Act with the history of Earth, and so on. Concluding the section is a selection of three possible plot hooks, including the acquisition of a G'Quan'Eth plant for an important Narn.
After the episode guide, the high point of the book and a fantastic reference, the Fact Book begins to wind down. Advice is given for running campaigns, including the weaving of themes, and handling of canon and non-canon incidents. It deals with the many different types of campaign that can be set in the B5 universe such as the traditional Starfarers campaign, having all the main characters be members Psi Corps, work for IPX, or even take on the roles of Sinclair, Delenn and the other pivotal beings in the original series.
Mongoose may play fast and loose with the Wizards rules (although only in a good way), but d20 wouldn't be d20 without prestige classes, and Babylon 5 has a bucket load. Raiders swoop in, destroy their target's engines, and steal the cargo; The True Seeker undertakes a spiritual quest for the benefit of millions, and the Psi Cop... just don't get in the way of one, alright?
Wrapping up the book are some notes from the designer, the index (yes, a decent index!) and the character sheet, which is so much nicer then previous efforts I've seen from Mongoose, that one begins to doubt it was published by the same company.
Babylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Fact Book: Signs and Portents is a great book which looks and feels fantastic, with top quality content that is slightly let down by poor organisation. Well recommended and deserving of the grade - but you don't have to take my word for it, check out the previews from Mongoose before deciding to make the investment.
The core rulebook consists of 304 glossy pages packed with colour, and appearing to average at least one photo on each double page spread. Usually when a company goes with this level of colour, it's common to run into low-contrast text that is hard to read, but not here - all the text is clear and easily readable.
Mongoose don't allow the d20 system to constrain them: if a rule doesn't fit the setting, the rule changes, not the setting. The d20 system is not allowed to dictate the direction the game should take. This makes B5 a touch trickier to get to grips with than some other d20 games, but every change is for the best and the transition is made easy by the handy guide for people experienced with d20.
But I'm skipping ahead of myself, there's so much good stuff in this book I'll never be able to give a decent overview unless I stop and work through it in order. The book is subtitled Signs and Portents, which is a big clue that despite the thickness of this book, it only covers season one of the Babylon 5 series, not moving beyond 2258. It opens with the Introduction, a sensible decision in my opinion. A shiny double page spread of Babylon 5 with the traditional "What an RPG is." The game requires a copy of The Player's Handbook from Wizards of the Coast, which I understand is thanks to licensing issues. This is a something of a downer for people who don't want to invest in another book before they can start roleplaying, but for those who own the PHB already it just means that Matt doesn't have to fill up more of the 304 pages with copies of content they already have. I'll mention here my first criticism of the book: the references are horrible scrambled. Instructions to look on another page for more information usually lead to having to search up to 15 pages away for it, the references to chapter numbers wouldn't be too bad, if only the chapters were actually numbered!
The introduction continues with an overview of the book, and sections to help both people who are new to the d20 system and those who are veterans get up and running with B5 as quickly as possible. The introduction ends by explaining that B5 is very different from (the average game of) D&D as thinking is much more important than combat. It takes five paragraphs to do this, so maybe, just maybe, it's something Matt thinks we gamers should take on-board. At this point, JMS chips in with his two cents on roleplaying, his style is, as usual, gripping, and his sense of humour shows through.
The main meat of Babylon 5 begins with an brief overview of Earth's interaction with the rest of the galaxy, covering contact with the Centauri, the Dilgar and Minbar wars, the building (and loss) of the Babylon stations, and ending with the events of The Gathering and shortly after. As you turn to page 14, you end 2257.
Mongoose have kept to the usual formula for the organisation of B5, once the scene is set it's time for the first chunk of rules - Characters. It is in this chapter that the first obvious deviations from the usual d20 system can be found, characters do not get automatic languages just for being smart, only their native tongue and English. If any further languages are desired, they have to be bought with ranks in the Speak Language skill. The races available in B5 are Humans (who are once again the Jack of all Trades with a bonus feat of choice), Centauri, Minbari (choose your caste - Worker, Religious or Warrior), Narn, Drazi and Brakiri. Each race gets a good amount of information which briefly covers personality, physical description, relations with other races, spheres of influence, belief system, language, names, and the types of character who are likely to be found away from home.
Then we come to hit points, characters start off with hit points comparable to low level D&D characters, and they do go up - but very, very slowly. Characters now only receive a couple of hit points each level, so a single well-placed PPG shot is capable of leaving Michael Garibaldi in Med Lab very nearly as easily as the mindwiped janitor with the metal detector style floor cleaner. Even the Soldier class only receives 3 extra hit points per level - and characters don't add their Con bonus. Con isn't worthless though, it has a serious impact on a character's chance of stabilisation once on negative hit points, a character with Con 18 has a 40% chance of stabilisation each round, far easier to make than the usual 10%.
There is a choice of eight character classes including Agent (who is more likely to sneak around dark passageways than to try to sell you a used car), Scientist (who is loaded down with skills, and has the flexibility to become anything from a medic to an archaeologist), and Telepath (who can take a high P-rating and specialize, or have weaker powers in exchange for more hit points and skill ranks). As with the Minbari, characters that join some classes get to specialise: Workers are able to choose between white collar and blue collar, while Officers must choose which branch of the military to join.
Skills and Feats requires a fair bit of cross-referencing with The Player's Handbook but this is still a large chapter. Some old skills have been updated and new skills include Computer Use (essential for anyone wanting to break into opposition, or even allies', computer systems), Drive, and Pilot. I've always found feats much more interesting, and B5 has a big stack of new ones. Telepaths can have an Adaptive Mind allowing them to scan aliens without penalty, Narns can swear themselves to the Chon-Kar, and if you're quick you can put yourself in Harm's Way to protect the weaker members of the group.
Eventually we get through the feats and into the rules for Combat. There might be less fighting in Babylon 5 than in the average RPG, but it still happens and characters had better be prepared. Armour class has been thrown out the window and exploded in hard vacuum. I was never fond of it, as the thought that armour makes you harder to hit seemed silly (if simple). AC has been replaced with Defence Value, which is based on a character's reflex save and size modifier, with PPG shots whizzing down corridors and not needing 20+ to hit, it does a good job of encouraging characters to duck down behind cover! Armour isn't useless though, it gives damage reduction, which can go a long way to saving a life.
Next up are gunfights, not only can PPG shots fly down metal passages, but characters can aim to improve their accuracy, or take advantage of rapid fire weapons to target multiple enemies or to simply pepper an area with lots of shots.
Guns and clubs are not the only dangers when you are one of a quarter of a million humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal: space itself can kill, as can the thin or toxic atmospheres of alien worlds. Low gravity makes it hard to control your motion, extremes of temperature can be terrible, you can burn, be poisoned, suffer radiation sickness, and fall victim to a host of other dangers that are nicely detailed here. Tailing the combat section are the rules for spaceship combat, which is complex at the best of times, but B5 handles it with elegance, even managing to cope with the enormous ships that are found in the setting.
The equipment chapter covers the usual selection of goodies, but any player wanting to get their hands on an easily separable and hidden PPG like Londo's will find themselves having to fork out almost a thousand credits, and that's before the cost of finding such an item on the black market is factored in. I'm sure lots of characters would drool over Minbari Battle Armour with its damage reduction 5, but the prohibitive cost and anger of the Minbari warrior caste is likely to put most of them off. There are a good eight pages packed with ships ranging from the simple cargo loader, through the Hyperion class cruiser, to the Sharlin Warcruiser, most of which are lovingly illustrated with stills from the series.
Babylon 5 wouldn't be Babylon 5 without its Telepaths, a group who managed to cause problems on a scale almost reaching the level of those which they solved, so it isn't much of a surprise that they get a chapter all to themselves. Telepaths can have a variety of powers including Surface Scan, Warning, and Danger Sense (OK, own up, who let the radioactive spiders out?). The rules to use these powers (some of which are available only if the telepath has a high enough P-rating) are simple with the victim making a Will save based on the P-rating, class level and charisma of the telepath.
Marking the end of the main rules section and the beginning of the Fact Book part of this hardcover is a two page colour schematic of the station. Unfortunately the middle of it is obscured by the join between pages, but all is not lost! Mongoose have included the map in the first of the preview PDFs on their website; now I just need to a colour laser printer to do justice to this fantastic piece of work.
All Alone in the Night describes the station itself, and the people aboard. It isn't in-depth, for you would need another two books of equal size (or more!), but it does an excellent overview of the station, including the legal system and Med Lab (two sections I think my players will cause me to refer to frequently). The personalities section covers the main characters seen in 2257 and 2258, including Lieutenant Commander Laurel Takashima who was reassigned to a classified mission after the pilot (who knows, maybe some players will run into her out on the rim), and the two commercial telepaths who have been stationed on B5. Aliens are represented as well, including Kosh Naranek, the only character in this section who isn't provided with a stat block - he's that hard.
Following on from the station is the rest of the galaxy, starting with a map of hyperspace routes; this suffers the same problems as the station schematic, and the same solution. And the Sky Full of Stars opens with details methods of space travel, including rules for jump gates and hyperspace. Each of the major space powers gets a few pages, although Earth Alliance is boosted up to eight, focusing mainly on the history of EA since first contact with alien life in 2156, but touching on everything back to the founding of the Earth Alliance after World War III. Human telepaths get something of a rough deal thanks to the regulation imposed on them by their government, Psi Corps gets a few pages including a nice box out dealing with how Corps and rogue telepaths can function in the game. The Narns, Centarui and Minbari are covered with sections covering everything from physiology to spirituality and political systems. The Vorlons are left with a very short section, which is unsurprising given how little was known about them in 2258, no doubt the Fact Books for future years and other supplements will expand on this enigmatic race. Concluding And the Sky Full of Stars is the section on The League of Non-Aligned Worlds, opening with a brief summery, the section briefly details the major races in the League, from the fin-headed Abbai, the profit-driven Brakiri, Drazi, Gaim, Markab, Vree, and even the Pak'ma'ra. Enough rules are given that its conceivable to run a game with player characters from these races, despite them (with the exception of the Brakiri and Drazi) appearing in the Characters section of the book. Although a Pak'ma'ra might have trouble integrating with the rest of a group as they're slow, greedy, selfish, not very bright, they refuse to speak anything other then their own language, and they're carrion eaters, if its not five days dead and decayed - they won't touch it.
The biggest section of the book is Signs and Portents, the guide to season one. It details every episode (very heavy detail, including parts that are easy to miss if you just watch the episodes) and follows them up with rules for things found in episodes and suggested plot hooks for the GM to tie his campaign into the ongoing story. It does a great job of expanding, and applying rules, those bits of each episode that make a GM's mind starting ticking. Take the episode By Any Means Necessary for example, which occurs around July 18th 2258. It gets almost three pages of synopsis, descriptions of the Dockers' Guild, Neeoma Connoly (including her stat block), The Rush Act and The Book of G'Quan. This is probably the thing I dislike most about this RPG. I can't help but feel that Ms Connoly would be better placed with the other personalities of the station, the Rush Act with the history of Earth, and so on. Concluding the section is a selection of three possible plot hooks, including the acquisition of a G'Quan'Eth plant for an important Narn.
After the episode guide, the high point of the book and a fantastic reference, the Fact Book begins to wind down. Advice is given for running campaigns, including the weaving of themes, and handling of canon and non-canon incidents. It deals with the many different types of campaign that can be set in the B5 universe such as the traditional Starfarers campaign, having all the main characters be members Psi Corps, work for IPX, or even take on the roles of Sinclair, Delenn and the other pivotal beings in the original series.
Mongoose may play fast and loose with the Wizards rules (although only in a good way), but d20 wouldn't be d20 without prestige classes, and Babylon 5 has a bucket load. Raiders swoop in, destroy their target's engines, and steal the cargo; The True Seeker undertakes a spiritual quest for the benefit of millions, and the Psi Cop... just don't get in the way of one, alright?
Wrapping up the book are some notes from the designer, the index (yes, a decent index!) and the character sheet, which is so much nicer then previous efforts I've seen from Mongoose, that one begins to doubt it was published by the same company.
Babylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Fact Book: Signs and Portents is a great book which looks and feels fantastic, with top quality content that is slightly let down by poor organisation. Well recommended and deserving of the grade - but you don't have to take my word for it, check out the previews from Mongoose before deciding to make the investment.
