Serenity Role Playing Game (Serenity) by Jamie Chambers Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Serenity Role Playing Game (Serenity)
Book Review: Excellent ruleset for a limited setting....
Summary: 4 Stars
The Serenity ruleset is actually quite sensible, although the avoidance of the d20 -- while understandable -- flattens out PC skills at the high end. It makes for easy and straightforward character creation, and the use of "Plot Points" strongly encourages cinematic play.
Unfortunately, our view of the 'Verse is limited to what we've seen in the show and film; consequently, gamemasters are somewhat expected to work within the show's framework -- Western outlaws in space -- and not step too far outside that remit.
Book Review: Plenty of fun, particularly with a good group
Summary: 4 Stars
First, any Firefly fan will absolutely love this--regardless of interest in tabletop gaming. The style of writing, the information, just about everything in here is a pleasure to simply read through. Jamie Chambers is truly a browncoat, and it shows.
Second, if you -are- into tabletop gaming, the Serenity RPG is a great setup. Bear in mind that the style is very different from the more common games like Dungeons & Dragons: less emphasis on combat and 'dungeon crawling', and greater emphasis on player and character interaction.
I ran a game as GM (gamemaster) with this setup; all of us in the group were familiar with D&D prior to playing (which thus formed our point of comparison). Here are a few main things I took from the experience:
- Combat tends to be very quick. With a good GM, this means more focus on plot. With a bad GM, this means repetitive battles.
- The game encourages players to play through their weaknesses. With a good GM, this means more interesting plot developments. With a bad GM, this means dead characters.
- The game is light on the rules. With a good GM, and a good group, this means less distraction and burdens imposed by constantly looking up rules. With a bad GM or group, this means less cohesion to the game, and possible arguments.
- The game is very light on equipment, ship builds, items, etc. I recommend borrowing ideas from another source to compensate ( Shadowrun, Fourth Edition tends to work well). The lack of equipment is the main reason it lost 1 star.
So, the Serenity RPG is a great product. And if you have a good group together, it can turn out to be a LOT of fun. And don't forget that the latest edition also has new character sheets and errata added. Enjoy the game, and keep flying. KF
Book Review: Great license, mediocre game
Summary: 2 Stars
This is a gorgeous book with lavish, full-color art, maps and stills from the "Serenity" film. In this regard, it's a fine product.
However, as a playable RPG, this product is quite lacking.
The writing adopts a 'Verse-esque tone in both the rule content and the opening chapter vignettes that is often cringe-worthy. The book is also fairly disorganized and rules often confusingly presented; expect a lot of page-flipping during initial play. On top of this, the game engine at its core is fairly pedestrian and uninspired, and the GM and player advice is about ten years out of date and actively antithetical to fun gaming. If it were 1997, this might be a passable effort. As it is, what you have is really a half-finished house engine tied to a lucrative license that it does a poor job of representing. That there's a big disclaimer on the writeup for River that states (paraphrased) "These stats do not represent River's ability as presented in the film; she has been modified to better balance with the rest of the crew" should be a red flag to anyone looking to capture the Firefly/Serenity experience with this system. (Why she's even presented as a PC, I have no idea.) I honestly find it somewhat sad that this game is selling in droves to many Browncoats whom I imagine are new to roleplaying. The hobby has progressed so far beyond what's in this game.
There's nothing that this system does that existing systems can't do as well or better. I'd suggest simply pairing your DVDs with an engine that suits your sensibilities (d20, GURPS, FATE*, Primetime Adventures, etc) rather than investing money in this product.
If you do decide to buy this, make sure to get the most current printing (4th, as of this writing), as there have been many significant corrections and rule changes incorporated, as well as an index being added. FYI, the Serenity GM's screen does not include these changes (a source of some confusion for our group).
[...]
Book Review: I am not disapointed.
Summary: 4 Stars
As a long-time roleplayer, I enjoy when something fresh and new comes into the industry. As a Sereny/Firefly fan, I always wanted a RPG adaptation of the 'verse, but feared it could be done in a wrong way, with a rules system inadequate to convey all the nuances of action and character development saw in the show, for example. Fortunately, "Serenity" both delivers something new and provides rules framework and gaming advice in a way that matches the spirit of both the series and the movie.
The most interesting thing in the rules is task resolution. Attributes are represented as a type of die - the more sides the better. They range from d4 (weakling) to d12+d4 (the too pf the top). By the same token, skills are also rated by a type of die, using the same range of Attributes. To perform an action that requires a roll, players roll the die listed for the relevant Attribute and skill, then add the results together, and see wheter they reached the set difficulty number (ranging from 3 to 31). If you beat the difficulty number by a margin of 7 or more points, you get an extraordinary success, which grants you additional benefits or an extra level of result coolness. The absence of a d20 is intentional, I think - and it is really not missed in this system. I do feel, however, that average success probability curves in this system are probably very weird, something that may be troublesome in a long campaign.
Artwork is good, mostly made of screenshots from the movie. There is some additional, original art, which ranges from acceptable to very good. Layout is clean and easy to read, and the presence of both a table of contents and a detailed index help a lot. Writting style is good, very informal and spiced with slang and chinese words now and then for flavor, but very objective and direct. Information about the 'verse is good but superficial, but generally enough for someone that saw the series or just the movie to get a feel of it and use it properly in a game. One of the book's best parts is its guide of Serenity Chinese. Very fun to read, and useful to help bringing the 'verse tone and feel into the game. How Shi Sung Chung, he?
Overall, I think the book is well worth what it costs and is a fine addition to any serious roleplayer's collection. My main complains are about the 'verse description, which is too sketchy for my tastes, some of the original artwork, which is good but somehow does not match the rest of the book's style. But even so, I liked it a lot.
Book Review: A good read and a good game
Summary: 4 Stars
A good read, regardless of if you play these sort of games or not. The prose was engaging, the system itself was refreshing and mostly intuitive. It isn't a perfect product, of course. While there are a good number of examples, a few more would have been useful (as an example, an example of what the gameplay difference is between Basic and Wound damage and how weapons effect that would have been nice). More background information would have been nice, but I can hardly fault the game for that; no, the limited amount of background information on planets, the alliance, Blue Sun, and so forth comes more from the limitations of Firefly the series and its very short (but very good) run.
Especially when combined with the fan-made material that has been put on the web, this is definitely a good game to pick up for those who like roleplaying, story telling, or narratives.