Sci-Fi Beta Kappa is here- Yay!!

[misterecho]

A few of them went on to found Cubicle 7. Years ago I asked my FLGS if they had Cthulhu Britannica in stock. The owners words were "Indy section is in the corner over there".

Now C7, mongoose traveller, and Pathfinder take up more space than WoTC.

[Rob Lang]

Leisure Games is a delightfully odd beast. It has always had a pulse that is the sum of its mail order/convention attendance/shop frontage. The buzz in the shop was and is palpable. There's a joy to be had playing games there and there are always people in there playing something.

Gordon's right. Angus Abranson was the manager at LG before he went to Cubicle 7. His knowledge of RPGs, both how they play and how they're were produced has made him a beacon in the RPG world. He's also a top bloke. Fact.

[catty_big]

[Abstract Machine]

I saw Leisure Games at Salute yesterday & I was impressed. A friend & I plan a pilgrimage to Finchley in the near future as we'd already blown all our money on toy soldiers.

[Abstract Machine]

So, I looked at Sci-Fi Beta Kappa after purchasing a copy from Leisure Games this week & I liked it.

Good Points:-

- It’s funny – both in itself & about roleplaying in general. I’m not a frat-house movie aficionado myself – yeah, I’ve watched ‘Porkies’ – but I had no problem understanding how much fun turning the genre into an RPG could be.
- It’s the perfect one-session fill-in. Ten minutes’ set-up & you’re off. Lovely.
- The system has a decent dose of originality about it. The consequences of actions come back to haunt both your character & your group – just like ‘real life’. (I know ‘real life’ exists because corporations & governments keep telling me so. It means becoming a wage slave to subsidise banks failing from their own greed for growth. The game’s pretty funny about our collective unwillingness to face up to this too.)

Quibbles:-

- I had trouble, initially, understanding whether ‘demerit’ dice applied when characters attempted actions or at the end of the story arc. (And yes, this is because I wasn’t reading it properly.) Turns out it’s both. This could be made obvious enough for even me to understand by breaking down the text & setting the relevant points our clearly next to each other.
- Similarly, I found myself jumping around a lot pp9-15 to get my bearings with what is, after all, a fairly simple system. The text itself says ‘oh, don’t worry, it’s all on the character sheet,’ but the character sheet is a couple of pages on from this suggestion – copywriting practice would suggest it lay opposite. I have trouble with words, you see. You’d be surprised how many people skim-read, even if they’re signing a pact with the Devil. (Cough.)
- If the game is ever reprinted / picked up by Hollywood / rewritten in biro on the inside of a padded cell, I would suggest the inclusion of tentacles. Great big, hairy tentacles. With suckers. I mean, come on, we’re talking aliens here. It wouldn’t hurt if these were drawn by nine-year-olds. I’d quite like to colour them in.

Overall, what’s not to like about a game in which deviant aliens cut loose? I may not, however, be the only GM with borderline-sociopathic players. The meta-story – sorry, terrible word – seems to suggest that the aim of the players is to keep the show on the road.

Like, really? I can see the eyes of the players I know lighting up at the thought of the destruction of Weber College & the subsequent breakdown of the intergalactic treaty. They’ll create wormholes in the junior common room, cackling manically as they mount Dean Wurmhohler’s head on the wall. The medication stopped working years ago. Just sayin’.

[catty_big]

Glad you like it! To answer your quibbles:

I had trouble, initially, understanding whether ‘demerit’ dice applied when characters attempted actions or at the end of the story arc. (And yes, this is because I wasn’t reading it properly.) Turns out it’s both. This could be made obvious enough for even me to understand by breaking down the text & setting the relevant points our clearly next to each other.
Almost. You roll 'normal' dice during the players' section of the game, then the GM rolls demerit dice at their turn (the Epilogue), the number of which is calculated from the demerit total at that point, plus the House Points. But I've obviously not made that clear enough in the text. Will look into, but meantime please come back to me if you have any further queries about that or indeed any other aspect of the mechanics that's still opaque.

Similarly, I found myself jumping around a lot pp9-15 to get my bearings with what is, after all, a fairly simple system. The text itself says ‘oh, don’t worry, it’s all on the character sheet,’ but the character sheet is a couple of pages on from this suggestion – copywriting practice would suggest it lay opposite. I have trouble with words, you see. You’d be surprised how many people skim-read, even if they’re signing a pact with the Devil. (Cough.)
So, copyediting again. Ok, will look into that too.

If the game is ever reprinted / picked up by Hollywood / rewritten in biro on the inside of a padded cell, I would suggest the inclusion of tentacles. Great big, hairy tentacles. With suckers. I mean, come on, we’re talking aliens here. It wouldn’t hurt if these were drawn by nine-year-olds. I’d quite like to colour them in.
There's a story behgind the artwork. We'd engaged a phenomenally talented illustrator fresh out of uni, who I'd met at a con a couple of years previously, and who was doing it for free in exchange for the benefit to her of having stuff on her portfolio. Trouble is, she had some family problems which were continually bubbling under the surface but which eventually caused her to disengage, and with only a few weeks to go before our launch date I had to rush round grabbing clip art that wasn't too ghastly.

The meta-story – sorry, terrible word – seems to suggest that the aim of the players is to keep the show on the road. Like, really? I can see the eyes of the players I know lighting up at the thought of the destruction of Weber College & the subsequent breakdown of the intergalactic treaty. They’ll create wormholes in the junior common room, cackling manically as they mount Dean Wurmhohler’s head on the wall. The medication stopped working years ago. Just sayin’.
No problemo! Do with it what you want- whatever works for you. Also, try out some of the other scenarios, or make up one of your own. You could even re-locate it to a corporation say, where the CEO (Jakob D Wurmhohler) has had a bunch of xeno foisted on him due to affirmative action legislation, and spends most of his time trying to get them legitimately fired (using some sort of public order clause, as in the game).

Finally, to give you an idea of how the game works in practice, check out the AP reports on .

[Abstract Machine]

I think most RPGers would pick up the mechanics with no issues whatsoever. I'm slower than most in that respect, & even I observed the sliding scale at the Epilogue & the applicable modifiers to the demerit dice there. Somehow, I managed to conflate the two & that's just down to my fragile little mind.

Most RPGs try to do too much with too little, in my not-quite-as-humble-as-it-should-be opinion. Your game does a lot more with less - by which I mean it communicates a view of the world which is both recognisable & a bit different. It has personality. You should be proud.

[catty_big]