#RPGThursday – Sliding into The Slide

The Slide: A Clement Sector Adventure, by John Watts, Gypsy Knights Games, 2017

I don’t usually buy adventures, but I absolutely love The Clement Sector setting for the Cepheus Engine/Traveller RPG. The Slide is an adventure that John Watts has apparently run at conventions. From the publisher’s blurb:

The race is on!

The Slide is a pirate route leading from the Winston Subsector of Clement Sector to the Peel Subsector of Ariel Sector. The route runs through the wild untamed subsectors along the trailing edge of the colonized subsectors. It is a dangerous proposition for the best of ships and crews.

Ever so often though, the pirates hold a race: The Slide Run. Who can not only beat the odds of The Slide but also the other racers? It’s a no holds barred free for all where the only rule is that whoever gets to the end first is the winner! The other crews will use subterfuge, speed, and violence to beat you!

Can you do it? Are you brave enough to attempt The Slide?

The Slide comes with instructions on how to run the race, detailed information on the systems along the route, your twelve opponents, your ship, and nine pre-generated characters. Everything you need to take your players on a grand adventure!

Start your drives. The race is about to begin.

The Slide is a meaty 103 page book that roughly divided into three parts. The first section is nine pre-generated characters and their pirate ship. Useful for conventions or one-shots, this section should not to be skipped by any Cepheus Engine GM. This is because the character descriptions are among the best I have seen in an adventure in a very long time. Each character is flawed, but not in how they were “generated,” but in how they are “human.” Every character – even the uplift – has flaws that make great adventuring hooks. Indeed, the descriptions really make the characters “come alive.”

The race is detailed in just a few pages. It only takes a few pages because there are not many details as much is left up to the GM – and the race has few rules! Twelve rivals are also provided. Each rival ship names the captain, the ship type, an occasional special ability, and a general approach (or tactic) the rival will use in the race. GMs again can find inspiration here as any rival can be dropped into adventures as a ready-made baddie (or ally?) with motives and their approach/response to conflict. Also added here are a few new thematic rules like Drinking or Taunting – always useful is a real Clement Sector adventure! Another section titled “Dirty Tricks” adds Missile Mines and rules for Sabotage.

The bulk of the book is actually composed of a gazetteer of worlds the race could move through. Many of these worlds have not been detailed in other products having been purposely left to the GM’s imagination. The Slide exemplifies how a GM can take an undetailed hex on the starmap and bring it to life.

The Slide takes advantage of a previous Gypsy Knights Games product, Skull and Crossbones: Piracy in the Clement Sector, as well as more-that-a-few Ships of the Clement Sector books. Admittedly, this can be challenging if you don’t own all the products. Fortunately, none of these products are prohibitively expensive and well worth the investment.

Recommendation: BUY for the GM!

The Slide is much more than just an adventure to run for a large group. In many ways this is a great GM sourcebook; it gives examples of characters that are not always heroes, rivals with short backstories and motivations, new rules tailored to the theme of the adventure, and examples of detailing locations. It also showcases a less heroic vision of the future. The Slide (and Skull and Crossbones) brings another vision of the future to the gaming table; a future that I believe is closer to the real roots of the Traveller RPG where an uncaring universe practically forces one to skip ship payments, take jobs of dubious (illegal?) character, and keep flying in the black just one step ahead of the (nearly inexistent) law.