All the advertising blurb, the cover text, even some of the opening remarks on the first couple of pages, suggest that this is an excerpt from a mythical galactic encyclopaedia which your Thousand Suns characters might find useful. Useful this book is, but not that way: it's a collection of articles aimed at players rather than characters, rules additions in the main.

Now, Thousand Suns is more of a toolkit for running an SF game (especially one in the space opera mode) than a full-blown game, and this book continues in the same vein with a collection of well-considered articles about various aspects that you might care to add to your ruleset. Beautifully presented and illustrated, it's well worth a look.

The first article, Moving Through the Ranks, looks at how to link military advancement to the character development inherent in gaining experience points during play - something useful if your game is based around the activities of a military unit. It includes ideas about how to incorporate rank into a role-playing game without getting bogged down in the kind of hierarchy that military organisations thrive on, and is well-explained and mechanically sound although some of the text sounds more as if it came from mechanical translation than a human being's pen!

Next comes The Ways of Scheming, which is an ingenious if mechanistic way to simulate in-character plots and the use of influence to accomplish them. Whilst most people are likely to be comfortable role-playing their acts of intimidation, threats and blackmail, it could prove useful for the GM to 'book-keep' more elaborate plots, or for the moderation of plots against, rather than by, the characters.

This is followed by the introduction of a new race, the mysterious Aurigan. Clearly intended to be NPCs rather that player-characters, there is plenty of scope for adventures involving them and a lot for the curious to discover. Next comes brief single-paragraph notes on The Planets of the Core, rather thin but useful enough for characters who come from or wish to visit these planets. The fifth article is an extensive one about weapons, designed to enable you to describe just about any death-dealing device you care to imagine in appropriate game terminology, and this is followed by a companion piece on Custom Protection... with all those weapons around you probably need some! Similar detail is then given to robots, with plenty of detail should you wish to incorporate them in your game - or even play one!

The final article, A Spacefarer's Introduction to Lingua Terra, is rather fun. Based on Esperanto, it's an attempt to lay out the basics of a possible intergalactic language, with sufficient material to allow for muttered asides, notices, etc., to be concocted to give an added air of the exotic to your setting... but no swear words!

It's an interesting collection, worth casting your eye over to see if any of these components would be useful in your game. A good editorial eye might improve it, not so much glaring errors but a certain clumsiness of expression makes some of the articles hard to follow and a bit clunky, but overall a useful addition to your toolkit.

The technical problem I had with the images in the original download of this .pdf has been resolved.

Rogue Games believes that the problem stemmed from the Preview app in Mac having trouble reading the layered file. I haven't had this problem with any other .pdfs, but since I didn't tell them what I application or operating system I was using and they were able to quickly fix the problem, I think they are right.

The adjusted rating reflects the value of this .pdf for the price. The new systems for weapons, armor, and robots add some complexity, but they use a cafeteria style approach that lets you quickly add up traits to produce a piece of gear based on its in-game effects, without a lot of number crunching.

The Lingua Terra section is fun and the Way of Scheming looks interesting as well. All in all, a good value.

I downloaded this on 9-3-09 after seeing it mentioned in Ken Hite's Out of the Box column. It looks interesting, but unfortunately the current .pdf has a significant glitch: MANY of the pages with artwork have significant areas of obscured and/or distorted text that cannot be read. This is a particular issue for the weapons and armor modification sections, where a lot of needed info can't be read.

I found this problem on pages 8, 17, 34, 43, 46, 48, 58, 66, 71, 76, 84, 88, 94, and 116. (Less test is cut off on pages 88 and 94, but the problem is still there.)

I appreciate the larger amount of art in this book and it looks to have some interesting additions for the game, but until a corrected .pdf is made available and I've gotten a copy, I'll have to say I'm disappointed and give it a lower rating than I otherwise would, because the blocked text issue makes it harder to read and understand the examples in some of the more interesting sections.

TRANSMISSIONS FROM PIPER is not your usual supplement. What you get in 208 pages is actually three short-ish stories written by H. Beam Piper (Naudsonce, Last Enemy, and Ministry of Disturbance) each followed by "hooks" explaining how you can use the story in a game of Thousand Suns.

THE result is a book of 208 pages, of which 10-12 are "front/back" matter, 137 are stories (66%) and only 59 are "game content" (29%).

POSITIVE: The game content itself is very good and shows a real appreciation of Piper's work and how his stories can be grand inspiration for players and GMs.

NEGATIVE: I found the balance of story:game a bit upsetting. The writings of Piper have passed into the Public Domain and are readily available on the net. I just can't help but feel like I paid for something that is mostly free.

PRESENTATION: Nice and clean, though if you want to print you have to deal with the watermark background.

Rogue Games' "Thousand Suns" RPG is a game for which I've been waiting a long time, and I didn't even realize it.

Some of my passions as a teenager were the novels of Isaac Asimov, H. Beam Piper and Pournelle/Niven, and; roleplaying games such as "Traveller" (for sci-fi) and Steve Jackson's "The Fantasy Trip" (a very accessible alternative at the time to D&D).

At the time, Traveller seemed like it would be a good way to mix the RPG experience with the grand Imperial Space Navies of the books I loved, but for some reason it never completely clicked for me. Too much number crunching, and the atmosphere of the game didn't feel right unless you were playing in the Imperium setting. SPI's "Universe" could have been a contender, but it was a little too dry with virtually no atmosphere, and SPI died soon after in any case. For me, it seemed that nearly 30 years passed with no real hope of finding the right SF RPG.

"Thousand Suns" has changed all that for me. It's like they got into my head! The rules, using their own 12° game mechanics (as opposed to something like D20) are lightweight and very accessible. It's extremely easy to quickly create some characters with great depth and background. Where "Thousand Suns" really shines, though, is how it handles the setting of the game. In some ways it's very minimal, allowing the GM to superimpose nearly any "Imperial SF" style setting (established or their own) into the game. At the same time, it's not generic. Maliszewski gives the reader just enough structure and resources that the game is definitely geared toward establishing the atmosphere I was looking for. He does define a "Meta Setting" with its own history, organizations, aliens and so on (a good one at that, sort of a "Best of All Worlds" approach), but the reader won't feel compelled to use it word for word. It's simply a great set of resources.

As I said, Character Creation is fast and novel, gameplay is as well. The rules aren't exceptionally crunchy, definitely "role" as opposed to "roll". The only thing that feels a little too light are guidelines and rules for World Creation and Starship Construction. Admittedly, I bring my Traveller expectations to this game, so I was looking for a little more depth in these sections; at least on par with the detail and options made available for Characters. The good news is that some of this should be remedied very soon by Rogue Games' follow-up books, "Pilot's Guide to the Core Worlds" and "Fighting Ships of the Thousand Suns". They should flesh out the details a little deeper. Nevertheless, what's there now is enough, so I don't want to imply that "Thousand Suns" isn't a complete game.

A few small criticisms I must mention. The book really needed better reference sections. The Table of Contents is chapter titles only, and there is no Index. Also, the editing should have been a little tighter. Section and Topic headers are hard to distinguish, and there are a small number of typos and omissions that require an errata. Fortunately, Rogue Games seems to be doing a bang-up job building an online user community around the game, so these things are being addressed as well.

All in all, a great game with even greater potential. I've purchased both the PDF and a hardcopy, and I'm already hard at work building my own Meta Setting. Can't wait to see what comes next!

An RPG Resource Review:

If you thrill to the galaxy-spanning adventures of the likes of the Lensmen, then this is a ruleset worth considering. Sweeping empires, exploration and intrigue, it's all here. The Introduction describes the variety of science-fiction that inspired the game, and the themes that are important: the sense of wonder, rather than cynicism or grim realism. It's also designed to be flexible and modular, so you can pick and choose what works for you without running the risk of breaking the ruleset. Benevolent empire or corrupt republic? Notes of relevance to one type of setting or another are separated out so you can determine which to use.

Next comes an overview of the core mechanic for the game, called 12°. In this, whatever you are attempting, roll equal to or under a 'target number' on 2d12 to succeed. The target number is based on two appropriate abilities or skills that your character has, with the application of modifiers if needed. Nice and straightforward: the art being, of course, in selecting the abilities, skills and modifiers to use! Delving further the system allows for opposed tasks and dramatic successes/failures. And the name of the system? Well, the degree of your success can be very important!

Then we get down to Chapter 2: Character Creation. A point-build system is used, starting with a core 25 points to spend on abilities. Then you choose a species, a homeworld and 3 levels of career - each providing bonus points to spend on skills and abilities. Hence a flexible system in which it is possible to play whatever you have in mind. Sample species are provided, but with detail on how they have been built so you can come up with your own or adapt ones from your favourite novel or film. The examples are spledidly exotic: sentient palm trees, tri-laterally symetrical arrogant arthropod-like beings... each with sufficient background detail that they could be role-played effectively. Your choice of homeworld gives you a 'package' that reflects the sort of civilisation in which you were raised. Disappointingly, exotics such as high or low gravity worlds, atmospheric variations or asteroid habitats are not covered - it would be easy enough to add them, and they can provide useful background skills for spacefarers. Then a range of career packages - available as novice, veteran or advanced - give you your professional skills from whatever you have been doing before beginning the game. You get three levels, so can specialise in one profession or have breadth rather than depth. There's quite a range described, and each has sufficient options to allow for customisation. To round things off, you need to choose 5 'hooks' which can be characteristics, associations, people or events from your past that are significant to you. One comes from your species, one from your homeworld and the rest from your career choices. As well as helping you breathe life into your character, you can use them to advantage during adventures by calling on one to allow use of an Action Point to twist things in your favour.

Chapter 3 covers Skills, Hooks and Psionics. Basically it goes into skills and the way they work in the game in detail. There's more about the actual game mechanics as well as detailed descriptions of the skills available, and ways in which you can specialise once you reach a high enough level in each skill. There is a further discourse on choosing and using hooks, and an explanation of how psionics are acquired and how they work in the game... and there is a whole bunch of specific abilities you can learn.

Next is Chapter 4: Action. Despite the Asimov quote "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" (the whole book is littered with aposite quotes from science fiction) that heads the chapter, it is all about combat and how to run it using the 12° ruleset. Combat leads, not surprisingly, to injury... as well as diseases, poisons and other such nasties as radiation and the effects of vacuum on the unprotected. It rounds off with the mechanics of social interaction, although role-playing rather than game mechanics work best here.

And now, the all-important sf toys - Chapter 5: Technology, Equipment and Starships. Armour (including the all-important space suit) and weapons start us off, with exotic computer kit, biosculpting, chemicals of all sorts and more intriguing technology to follow. Breathe underwater, see through solid walls, even deflect projectiles... get the right gear and you can!

Starships are also covered, along with the Dillingham Drive which make interstellar travel possible. Entry into the D-space it uses can only be accomplished at a jump point, and the time there seems to bear little relationship to how far you travel: it all sounds a bit confused. You cannot engage in combat while in D-space, but you certainly can in normal space and the rules for starship combat come next... followed by brief details of the types of ships available.

Chapter 6 looks at Setting Design. This starts at the planet level. Naturally, you may just want to design worlds as you see fit, but there are tables to roll on if you want random planets or need something to start you thinking. From individual worlds, you can then move on to designing sectors. Hmm. One planet per sun? Or just add the other components of the system as you wish - asteroid belts, gas giants, little hot or cold rocky worlds... Anyway, a sector is not an astronomical area but a group of worlds connected by jump points. So start with a world, and then put in a second. Roll a d12 and the result is the number of weeks it takes to travel between the two. Yes, weeks! Nice communication delays, arrive before the news of whatever mischief you have got up to does.

Next, there's a lot of detail on designing species. Although again you can design according to an idea you have (or inspiration from fiction), a point-base system is suggested, especially for those who are keen to maintain 'game balance' between the species that may be used as characters. The system of advantages and disadvantages can be used for both intelligent and unintelligent creatures, but the main focus is the classic idea of aliens - whether the intent is to meet them or actually be them.

The discussion then moves on to wider societal issues which the universe-builder needs to consider. Key points include the benefits and disadvantages of a governmental system (of whatever sort) which covers many worlds that it takes weeks to travel between. How well can it hold together? However authoritarian, there has to be some measure of delgation and autonomy as you cannot micromanage a world that you cannot communicate with in less than months! How did it all start? Is there some ancient and now extinct race that had - or at least, appears to have had - the answers to life, the universe and everything? Who, of course, left cryptic clues for the curious to find. The chapter rounds off with a brief note on experience points, how to award them and how to spend them to improve a character. Usually, they are spent to increase abilities or skills, but if you want more action points you need to provide more hooks - which must make sense according to the character's adventures so far.

Finally, Chapter 7 covers the Meta-Setting. Realising that while what you are reading is a toolkit for building your own universe to adventure in not everyone has the time or inclination to create the whole thing from scratch, here is presented the broad outline for a ready-made setting. It's loose enough for you to tweak it to suit your own ideas, comprehensive to use straight out of the box if time is limited and you'd rather spend it writing adventures. The key thing is that it is all intended as a backdrop to the most important people in the universe: the player-characters. Naturally, they probably are not the most important people in known space, but they are as far as your game is concerned! There is a timeline showing how we got to 'now' with various important dates like first contact and the invention of the D-drive, loose enough for you to insert critical moments of your own. The core precepts of the current 'empire' are there, modify as you please, change the style of government as needed - here it is a confederation of member worlds, but an alternate that is a true empire is also there if you prefer. Plenty of scope for politics and intrigue - which may be important to your stories, or something that goes on in the background. Loads of institutions and organisations and ideas to chew on. And then a pre-designed sector to start you off.

The book ends with a reading list, a character sheet and some 'starship cards' which can come in handy especially when engaging in combat.

So there you have it, a toolkit for all those galaxy-spanning adventures you always wanted to have, designed in such a way that you can play it straight off or stamp your own ideas on what makes a truly epic imperial SF setting, or be inspired by something you've read or seen and mix that in. Infinitely customisable, with the spirit of high adventure in interstellar space that the authors set out to achieve.

I agree with the simplicity of the rules that other reviewers praised. However I find that the spaceship department is severely lacking in detail and also I have been unable to find a spaceship creation system I was so fond of with the original Traveller (at least in its Diseños Orbitales Deluxe Spanish Edition).

However it is reasonable priced and I would encourage its authors to add to what looks like a very promising game.

Thousand Suns reminds me of the original Traveller Little Black Books - simple rules and a basic metasetting to play in. However, in today's world of indie e-publishing many make a claim of simplicity and rich settings. Thousand Suns actually delivers! The game uses a core system called 12 Degrees. The core mechanic is 2d12 +/- modifiers. Simple. Character generation is a point buy system. Simple. In combat you roll 2d12 and must beat a Target Number (with modifiers). Simple. The equipment list is just extensive enough to get you started but not overwhelming. Starships and starship combat (at least for smaller ships) is included but there are no starship design rules (to come in a later supplement?). Though you can't design a starship you can design aliens and other worlds. There are also no robots and no genetic engineering (but that plays into the background...). The background detailed enough to convey the depth of thought the author has given to this universe, but not defined to the point that the players are stuck in a setting. Indeed, after broad sweeping historical accounts, Thousand Suns actually give the GM options as to what background you want to play. Thousand Suns is not perfect. Others have talked about the border and wasted ink. I actually find the two-pages landscape presentation better for my onscreen reads of the book. I wish there was more artwork/drawings in the equipment section. I yearn for a starship design system. But in the end, I don't hold these (minor) points against Thousand Suns. I like this simple setting. I like these simple rules. With the simplicity I have control of the setting and don't get bogged down by mechanics. My group can PLAY and ENJOY and in the end that is the most important metric!

A truly impressive science-fiction rpg which stands well apart from the pack, largely for the intentional and intelligent simplicity of its rules.

At a time when most SF games seem to be massive catalogues of rules, supplements, and niche-appeal setting detail, Thousand Suns takes a page from classic rpg design, and delivers a simple, smart, and aggressively streamlined all-in-one rules set designed to be transparent -- that is, to be easily understood and easily adapted to the specific needs of the gamemaster and the players.

I've tried repeatedly over the last couple of days to put together a review of reasonable length for Thousand Suns, explaining why I think it's such a worthy product -- particularly for time-pressured GMs and players who'd rather spend their few game hours together actually playing a good SF game, rather than wrangling over yet another endless set of game rules.

The problem is, all my earlier review drafts ended up being novel-length epics, talking about every single cool design decision in nerd-painful detail.

So, I'll try one last time to cut things short -- but if you've read my other reviews, you know I can promise nothing …

WHAT'S REALLY GOOD?

Thousand Suns has possibly the fastest, most painless SF character generation system I've ever seen. The way it handles skills as plug-and-play stackable "packages", based on player choices, particularly impressed me.

Most skill-based games become a huge time-sink during character (or NPC) generation, as newbie players painstakingly hand-pick every last skill point while asking repeatedly, "Is this a skill I'll need?". Not Thousand Suns.

Players make choices based on their character concept, and plug in skill packages based on their homeworld type, and which SF career archetype(s) their character history includes. Ten minutes or less, and a character's skills can be ready to play.

As I mentioned above, Thousand Suns is relentlessly streamlined and transparent throughout. If you don't like the idea of customizable plug-and-play skill packages -- or you don't want to be bothered with archetypal character classes -- you can treat it all like one big point-buy system.

It will take more time, but it's not hard to do, and the rules spell out how it all works very plainly. If you simply want to add new skill packages, or make the existing ones even more varied, you can do that too.

The character-generation system is indicative of the design ethic of the rest of the game: it's designed to cut every last inch of deadweight from the rules, while also putting full control over how the rules work into the hands of the players and the GM.

Instead of burying you in a rule for every game situation, Thousand Suns intentionally shows you exactly how it does what it does, so that you can make up your own additional rules, if and when you need them.

WHAT ELSE IS GOOD?

• Thousand Suns is actually issued under the WotC Open Game License (just like Mutants and Masterminds, et al), and even though it doesn't use d20 (it uses a pair of d12s, actually) the game does retain the one dice mechanic familiar to most gamers; namely: "Roll the dice, add the relevant plusses, subtract the relevant minuses, and see if you can hit the target number".

In other words, even if your gaming group is shy of anything that isn't branded d20, Thousand Suns shouldn't be a tough sell. The stripped-down rules, and the familiar central dice mechanic should keep them feeling safe.

• Psionic powers are optional, depending on the GMs campaign, but the example powers listed are divided into "power" and "super-powered" categories to make it easier for GMs to know at a glance what each power might bring to the setting.

• Equipment with no set "Progress Level" or "Tech Level" arbitrarily assigned. Obviously, certain tech will be more advanced than other tech, but it's your decision as Gamemaster as to where, and when, each piece of tech exists (or doesn't exist) in your campaign.

If you want slug-thrower weapons and FTL drives to co-exist, a la "Firefly", then that's your choice as GM. Thousand Suns provides the tech examples (adapted largely from the Future SRD), but it's left up to you to decide where, when, how, or if, any technology should appear in your game.

The tech-gadget build rules from d20 Future also make an appearance.

• No Wealth Checks! It's a currency-based game!

• No mapping or figures required for ground combat. Taking a cue from original Classic Traveller, all you need to know at the beginning of a firefight is the general range between opponents (Long, Medium, Short, or Point Blank), and from there it's all dice rolls and situational modifiers.

You certainly can play on a map or a grid easily enough, but you're not required to do so. It keeps the battles fast and fluid, and makes those sudden, unexpected outbreaks of violence players always seem to stumble into a lot easier to handle on the fly.

• Armor stops damage. You get hit for thirty points damage, and your armor has a value of 20? You take ten points damage. Gotta love the obvious.

• Starship combat is abstract, and ultra-simple, and it works.

No maps, counters, or miniatures are required (although you certainly can use them).

Starships have a basic set of statistics, very stripped down from the Future SRD: Offensive Modifier; Defensive Modifier; Hull, Move, Turn, Crew, Cost, Weapons, and Damage Control.. These stats fit on the printable "ship cards" provided with Thousand Suns -- but, honestly, the stats could just as easily be written on a 3x5 index card, or a piece of scrap paper.

The card also serves as the physical indicator of the starship on the tabletop, Two d12s of different colors are set on or beside the card to represent the Z axis -- up and down, respectively -- thus making the 2D space battlefield effectively 3D. Starship combat movement is measured in "spans", and once a starship moves more than 12 spans in any direction, it has successfully fled the battlefield.

Player character skills modify starship-combat related rolls, of course, and it all plays fast and smooth -- and very much like the ground-based game.

Several archetypal starship types are provided, from single-person fighters, all the way up to 160-person Strike Cruisers. All the example starship types and weapons are adapted and streamlined from the Future SRD.

• World creation is all about providing a setting for the gameplay.

Thousand Suns is probably the first space SF rpg I've seen in years that doesn't try to model star system creation. And you know what? That's perfectly fine with me.

There's a metric tonne of SF rpg material out there which will do the cosmological stuff for you, with varying degrees of scientific accuracy, if you want it.

Hell, NBOS software makes a great little program called AstroSynthesis available right here on RPGNow, which will crank out more astrophysical data at the click of a mouse than most GMs will ever use or need..

Thousand Suns leaves the stellar-scale details to you. As usual, the game hones in on what you need most to run the game; namely, an interesting, identifiable place to play

Worlds in Thousand Suns are categorized more in terms of function, than astrometrics. What type of world is it? Agricultural? A Colony? Commercial? Is it generally Terrestrial (Earth-like) or not? If not, then what? What's the predominant terrain? The climate? The atmosphere? The population? The society?

Thousand Suns answers the questions players will ask with broad descriptive categories, as opposed to raw scientific data. Worlds can be generated with a series of random chart rolls, and these do cross-modify to some extent, but even the rules make clear that some "impossible" results may occur. Most GMs will likely choose from each category whatever result best serves their adventure plans, and save the random rolls for characteristics which don't impact the gameplay.

ANYTHING ELSE?

• Oddly, robots don't figure very prominently. There are a couple of example NPC robot examples (a security and a combat robot), but players who want to play as robots are advised to make up an appropriately customized Species under the rules, and simply treat it as a machine life-form

• Hardcore gearheads, and fans of the eternally oxymoronic "hard SF" probably won't like Thousand Suns, for its dogged commitment to an uncluttered, generalist rules system, but make no mistake --this is not a "space fantasy" game, a la Star Wars (although you could fairly easily make it into something like that, if you so chose).

It is, as I insinuated way back at the beginning of this review, an rpg which harks back to a lost style of game design, where the rules are intended as a means to enable the desires and designs of the gamemaster and the players, not to dictate them.

Thousand Suns presumes you have your own ideas for how you want to play the game, and seeks to help you realize them, instead of saying, "No, you have to buy all the canon supplements we put out, and play it only our way".

• Where does Thousand Suns fail? Not very often, and not very severely, in my opinion.

The stock art cover is so generic -- especially when shrunk down to postage-stamp size on the RPGNow website -- that I almost passed it by until I recognized game designer James Maliszewski's name on the credits.

The PDF version uses a horizontal (landscape) 11x8.5 layout, effectively putting two pages on each PDF page. I can only imagine that this was done to keep the PDF page-count down -- thus keeping the selling price to an affordable $10 US.

The interior layout is black-and-white, and yet the pages all have a border graphic which could well eat up an extra ink printing in black-and-white might normally save. As of this writing, no "printer friendly" version of the PDF was available.

That said, the document fonts and layout look very good. Interior artist Dani Kaulakis is not the flashiest illustrator I've seen, but has a knack for isolating the defining mood, and key point of interest, in every scene portrayed.

All in all, I have to rate Thousand Suns a 5 out of 5 stars. It has its minor problems, but the strength of its intelligent, streamlined appproach to SF gaming far outweighs any flaws.

My hope is that people seeking a less rules-burdened SF rpg will take a serious look at Thousand Suns, realize just how good it truly is, and give it a try.

Thank you to anyone who actually spent their allotted lifespan with me, reading this far. We're like family now, kid. Now, go buy the book and make yer old man -- and yourself -- happy!