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THE THIRD SECTOR

I really love the concept of Ian Yusem’s The Third Sector: Take a dozen different third-party Mothership adventures and weave them together into a sandbox spanning five solar systems. Hypothetically you should be able to do some light remixing, add a little connective tissue, and have a great little campaign-in-a-box showcasing the best of the best.

Unfortunately, The Third Sector really shouldn’t have been packaged as trifold module.

The limited space of the trifold format lends itself to material which is either too brief or broad. But the work required to coherently bind disparate published adventures together is, in fact, entirely in the details.

The two central pillars of The Third Sector are the sector map and the scenario hooks added to each adventure.

The sector map is attractive in a retro, 8-bit-graphics style, but curiously lacking a lot of pertinent details (e.g., the names of planets).

The scenario hooks are designed to link the adventures to each other (so, for example, you’ll find hooks in the Green Tomb that will lead you to Moonbase Blues, Alcor Station, and Echoes in the Graveyard). A minor problem here is that the section is incomplete, with some of the scenarios not receiving scenario hooks for reasons which are entirely unclear to me.

A more significant problem is that most of the scenario hooks are either unengaged (they mention a place exists, but gives no reason for the PCs to go there), non-actionable (they indicate that a place exists, but don’t tell the PCs how to find it), or both. This is likely, once again, due to the limited space, since vague references are easier to squeeze into a single sentence than meaningful, actionable information.

Probably the most interesting thing in The Third Sector is the random encounter which reads, “[Corporation] acquired [other corporation]. (Choose 2 from random adventures each time rumor rolled.”) This is an intriguing procedural method for unifying the disparate hypercorps found scattered throughout the source adventures over time.

In practice, though, that unification — and not just of  hypercorps — is exactly the sort of considered, careful, creative work that would have made The Third Sector a truly useful resource.

GRADE: F

WRATH OF GOD

Wrath of God is another example of a supplement that’s just trying to cram WAY too much into the trifold format. In this case, that includes:

• A complete skirmish system for space fighter combat.
• A hex-based Battlefield map keyed with various Locations of Interest.
• A prequel to a longer adventure called The Drain.

In this case, the result is basically incoherent. I’ve been backwards and forwards through Wrath of God and I honestly don’t have the slightest inkling of what this adventure is supposed to be.

For example, in the skirmish system includes a Skirmish Map keyed with symbols, but what these symbols mean (if they mean anything) doesn’t seem to be indicated. The Battlefield Map similarly has a bunch of symbols, although most of these seem to be related to the content keyed to these hexes… except not all such hexes are keyed. (Although some of the unkeyed hexes are referenced in other keyed hexes, which is an insanely confusing layout that I can only imagine is due to the space limitations unnecessarily imposed by the trifold format here.)

I also only have the vaguest sense of what the Battlefield Map represents. Maybe it’s a war currently being fought? Or many wars currently being fought? Or the wreckage of older wars?

There are Bogeys who will attack the PCs. But… why? And who are they, exactly? Where did they come from? Where are they going? Your guess is as good as mine.

“Okay,” I think. “This is a prequel to The Drain. So maybe I need that full adventure to understand this one.”

Unfortunately, no, that doesn’t help. Because (a) it turns out that Wrath of God doesn’t seem to actually sync up with The Drain and (b) nothing is actually explained. The PCs are seeking the 3^rd Testament, which is apparently a radio broadcast being sent from a colony called Within Wheels. What is the 3^rd Testament? No idea. Why is the colony transmitting it? No idea. How are they transmitting it? Possibly from something called the Grail. How’d the Grail get there? Stop asking questions, please.

GRADE: F

WHAT STIRS BELOW

Something has gone wrong at a geological survey station and the PCs are dispatched to (a) figure out what happened and (b) rescue as many VIPs as possible.

What Stirs Below includes a helpful What The Hell Is Going On? section:

There is an ancient power station deep below the surface. A skeleton crew of ancient aliens uses giant worms to generate energy and sustain the crew’s near-immortality. With enough power generated, this moon will depart on a 10k-year interstellar journey toward Earth… or whatever is a good fit at your table.

It’s a cool concept, which is unfortunately held back from its potential by a number of problems.

First, and probably most intractable, is that the size of the adventure doesn’t match the scope of the adventure. There’s this implication of a huge, hollowed-out moon filled with aliens preparing for some sort of multi-millennia odyssey… but a nine-room location-crawl can’t really deliver on that promise.

This kind of size/scope mismatch is not uncommon in RPG adventures, and I find that they consistently create a mixture of disappointment and confusion in players, while pushing me into a weird, dissociated fugue state between what the adventure actually is and what it’s asking me to convey.

Second, there are a number of execution issues which will leave you confused and disoriented:

• The map of the adventure has a literal ? where a room should be, and I simply can’t figure out why.
• The survey station has been destabilized by the tunnels below the station collapsing, which has created a sinkhole the PCs can use to access the alien chambers. This sinkhole is located… somewhere? The adventure never seems to specify.
• The adventure key is filled with typos. For example, Area A5 has an exit that leads to… Area A5? (I think the rooms were renumbered on the map at some point and the key wasn’t correctly updated, but I’m not 100% sure.)
• There’s an android who, Alien-style, will attempt to impede the PCs’ investigation and even “self-destruct if necessary.” But… why? No explanation is given.

Related to these issues, the PCs are instructed to determine what happened at the station, but I honestly can’t even figure that out for myself: It’s not clear what (if anything) triggered the geological collapse. It’s not clear what any of the NPCs did in the aftermath of the collapse or what the timeline of events was. It’s not even clear why the hypercorp lost contact with the NPCs and needed to send the PCs.

The end result is an adventure that’s… mostly OK. But I would probably end up completely re-keying the entire thing before I would feel comfortable running it.

GRADE: C-

THE HORROR OF TAU SIGMA 7

A routine system survey has detected the signature for the rare mineral NM-109 on Tau Sigma 7. The PCs are sent in as a survey team to confirm the presence of the mineral.

What they discover, while exploring a nearby cavern, is an alien bioplastic cyst-complex which is an untriggered hatchery for a long-extinct alien species. (It sure would be a pity if the PCs accidentally triggered the birthing process, wouldn’t it?)

In The Horror on Tau Sigma 7, D.G. Chapman delivers a creeptacular location-crawl. The excellently xandered, truly three-dimensional environment and accompanying key would be strong enough to recommend this adventure entirely on their own merits, but he also spikes the punch with several scenario-spanning elements:

• The entire complex is a living organism, and responds to the PCs’ presence and actions through an Immune Response Level that escalates and transforms the adventure.
• The complex is suffused with a strange, red liquid referred to as Lifeblood. Essential to the alien biology, it creates numerous strange effects (particularly to exposed PCs).
• Strange cave paintings can be found throughout the complex, which change and evolve as the Immune Response Level increases.

The result is fabulous. I highly recommend inviting your players to Tau Sigma 7.

GRADE: B+

CHILDREN OF EDEN

Graham T. Richardson fills Children of Eden to the gills with an astoundingly rich assortment of alien and exotic worldbuilding: The 200+ meter-tall teralith; an alien skeleton worshiped by the Children of Eden as a god. The Salvage Seal, where a gravitational anomaly yanks vessels out of hyperspace and crash lands them on a fungi-ridden planet. The corrupted Theogeny Engine, an alien terraforming ship buried near the teralith which has recently reactivated, leading to the religious belief that the teralith itself is miraculously transforming a wasteland into paradise. A ruined scientific research center trying to probe the truth of this strange terraforming.

And all of this is supported by a rich cast of characters and a disquieting mystery occluded by a hypercorp’s desire to exploit and religious zealots’ desire to believe.

It’s truly amazing just how much richly detailed and soul-searingly evocative material can be found on these two pages. It’s simply inspiring. Richardson creates a vivid world that compels you to share it with your players.

My only real complaint is that there’s so much stuff in Children of Eden that the connective tissue between all of these elements is often obscured. It can be a little unclear exactly where stuff is in relation to each other, for example, which can make it difficult to figure out how you should be presenting this rich world to the players. There are just places where I’d probably be a little happier if the implied setting was a little more explicit and, therefore, easier to access during play.

To at least some extent, though, this is just grousing over having too much of a good thing. I’ll happily draw up a map, work up a timeline of events, and jot down a revelation list to help keep things clear at the table if it means that I can visit the Children of Eden.

GRADE: B

Note: LionHearth Games provided me with a review copy of Children of Eden.