This year I dabbled a bit into role playing games (RPGs). As my forthcoming accidentally already posted 2021 “By the Numbers” post shows, I acquired 20 RPG items in all the year. Six (6) of those were core rule books, but only five (5) of those were from the past year (with four of those published in the last two months of the year!). Thus, the candidates for RockyMountainNavy’s 2021 RPG of the Year are:
- ALIEN The Roleplaying Game (Year Zero, Free League, 2021)
- CEPHEUS DELUXE Science Fiction Role-Playing Game (Cepheus Engine, Stellagama Publishing, 2021)
- Clement Sector, Third Edition (Independence Games, 2021)
- HOSTILE Rulebook (Zozer Games, 2021)
- Traveller: Explorer’s Edition (Mongoose Publishing, 2021)
…and the winner is…
This one was very hard to decide. ALIEN got lots of attention this year but it just really isn’t my thing. Mongoose’s Traveller: Explorer’s Edition is more a player aid than a core book. Which leaves the Cepheus Engine (CE) games.
Cepheus Deluxe is the latest, well refined version of the CE rules. Clement Sector is an excellent space opera setting and the new Third Edition brings so much of the material together it literally has become a one-stop guide to the entire setting. The HOSTILE Rulebook is another one-stop guide but focused on a gritty sci-fi setting.
Gotta decide…
HOSTILE Rulebook
To be honest, in terms of rules there is nothing really “new” in the HOSTILE Rulebook. One could make the argument that it really is the ALIEN setting with the serial numbers (and much of the horror) filed off. What I like about the HOSTILE Rulebook is how the simple was repackaged into a very thematic setting.
Feature image courtesy https://conceptships.blogspot.com/2017/05/spaceship-art-by-rodrigo-galdino.html
Rocky Mountain Navy Gamer 