RockyMountainNavy #RPG Item of the Year for 2018

This is a bonus posting in my series of 2018 “of the Year” posts. This one covers role-playing game (RPG) items. The regular posts cover boardgames, wargames, game expansions, and the last is my Game of the Year. Candidate RPG items are taken from those published and which I acquired in 2018.

My candidates for the RockyMountainNavy RPG Item of the Year in 2018 are:

• 21 Organizations 2nd Edition, Gypsy Knights Games.
• Anderson & Felix Optional Components Guide, Gypsy Knights Games.
• Cepheus Light: Old-School Rules-Light 2D6-Based Sci-Fi Role-Playing Game, Stellagama Publishing.
• Cybernetics for the Cepheus Engine (Free Supplement #2), Stellagama Publishing.
• Hercules Class Heavy Freighter, Gypsy Knights Games.
• HOSTILE Technical Manual, Zozer Games.
• Manhunters: Bounty Hunters in the Clement Sector, Gypsy Knights Games.
• T5 Gazelle-Class Close Escort, Far Future Enterprise/GDW.
• Trauma Surgery Rules for the Cepheus Engine (Free Supplement #1), Stellagama Publishing.
• Unmerciful Frontier: The CCA Sourcebook, Gypsy Knights Games.
• Uranium Fever: Asteroid Mining Rules for the Cepheus Engine, Stellagama Publishing.
• Wendy’s Guide to the Fleets of the Colonies, Gypsy Knights Games.

…and the winner is…

First, a little backstory. In 2018 I lost my RPG-mojo. I used to play around with my Classic Traveller, Cepheus Engine, Traveller 5, The Clement Sector setting, and other Alternate Traveller Universes (Orbital: 2100, HOSTILE, These Stars Are Ours!) all the time. This year I hardly touched them. Even the RockyMountainNavy Boys, lovers of Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars (especially Edge of the Empire) had all-but-stopped messing around with the books. The last major RPG System book I bought was Genesys. My Kickstarter for Cortex Prime: A Multi-Genre Modular Roleplaying Game is “only” about a year overdue.

At one point this year I backed a Kickstarter for a RPG setting that seemed right up my alley. It featured “tense space fighter combat, swaggering pilots, and interplanetary adventure!” However, after reading the preview version I dropped my pledge in disgust because I wanted a GAME, not a political statement. It was part of a trend I see in many parts of the RPG industry and it turns me off. Now, I’m not naive, nor do I desire to avoid the “issues” but I deal with them enough elsewhere and I just don’t want them in my RPG. I want to play RPGs for a bit of escapism, not political activism. It was yet another nail in the coffin of my RPG enthusiasm.

Then I read Alegis Downport’s Cepheus Light Three-Format Review. I liked what I read. I bought a copy for myself. I read though it in one sitting.

Now my RPG-mojo is back!

Omer Golan-Joel and Josh Peters have reignited my interest in RPGs. To use some Traveller 5 definitions, I tend to be a Casual Player (travel, explore, interact, negotiate, combat, etc.) with a heavy dose of world building and System Engineer (explore the universe in detail) thrown in. With Cepheus Light I can get back to making adventures for myself and the RockyMountainNavy Boys. Indeed, using Cepheus Light I may just try to make my own RPG setting based on the wargame Talon from GMT Games.

Feature image from tedlindsey.com. Go look at their work; it’s excellent!