Posts Tagged ‘SLA Industries’

Or 11 Games every gamer should play before they fail their saving throw vs. death

This post was inspired by the post on Dane of War’s blog now on Geekcentricity.

In alphabetical order are eleven games that I think are really worth your time and money. These are all games that I have played on a regular basis, and have reasonable knowledge of. They cover several different genres and eras.

7th Sea – excellent Swashbuckling fun and writing a last minute review for Valkyrie got me a foot in the door of writing.

Call of Cthulhu / Delta Green – The best post gothic horror game(s).

Conspiracy X – If the X-Files had been an RPG this is the game it would have been

Deadlands (original system) – Had great fun playing this and loved its slightly quirky system.  Keeping to just ten games forced a difficult choice and this didn’t quite make it so I decided to go with 11 instead.

D&D 3.5 (Specifically Ravenloft) – My favourite incarnation of the most famous RPG ever. 2nd Edition with the annoying bits sorted out.

Hong Kong Action Theatre (1st Edition not the BESM version) – With or without the meta game elements this is a very cool martial arts Role Playing Game. It might not have had Feng Shui’s graphic design but I found it played and ran both smoother and faster which for the genre beats artwork hands down.

Over the Edge – If one game has made me think harder and longer about how RPGs should work and how settings should be put together I can’t think of one. One day I will run a game set in San Serriffe using Over the Edge.

Paranoia –The first RPG I ever played. A rarity – a comedy RPG that works.

SLA Industries – I can’t really explain it but something in SLA speaks to me – it’s probably the subtle, subversive, dark Britishness beneath its surface.

Strange Grogge (Wessex Games) – This excellent, small press, fantasy Swashbuckling game is great fun.  Plus you get both an RPG and a skirmish wargame in one book without one compromising the other because the rules are so simple.

Tunnels and Trolls – The other classic fantasy RPG.  Do I really need to say more?

Reserve: Legend of the Five Rings – This would have made the list if 7th Sea wasn’t on it already. Unfair of me really. Brilliant game and setting but I’ve made it sit on the bench.

Ursa Carrien is the first release from Nightfall Games of a pure PDF product. At 98p it’s an eight page bargain for anyone who plays SLA Industries RPG.

The Ursa Carrien are a new addition to the monstrous inhabitants of Cannibal Sector Two and the opening illustration by Dave Allsop is a stunning piece of work. After the cover page there is a one and a bit page description of the new Carrien for players and GMs. The rest of the PDF is GM only including statistics for these new creatures, the weapons they use and a BPN “Armed for Bear”.

These evolved, smarter, weapon carrying Carrien are spreading – supplanting Greater Carrien that they encounter. They will provide a new and interesting challenge for players and are an excellent addition to the game.

GM’s will find the material useful. The Ursa Carrien’s behaviour, combat style, life cycle and relations with other Cannibal Sector inhabitants are fleshed out. The BPN is well thought out and nicely focused on the Ursa Carrien. They feel located in the game universe not just a random addition. It’s good to get a chance to see how Nightfall themselves set up a straightforward BPN.

I do have a few quibbles and I’m going to go into more detail than I normally would because Jared has asked for feedback on their first PDF. The first four are all so minor that I’d not normally mention them:

• There are a couple of typos in the copy I downloaded but I’m told they’ll be fixed in an update.
• The language used risks slipping into being a little flowery at times although it doesn’t go over the edge.
• If the player information could have been kept to page 2 rather than spilling over page 3 pages 1 and 2 could be used as a double sided handout to players by GMs.
• GM’s who like everything laid out before running a BPN have a lot of the work done for them. However they may want to prepare additional material such as maps and stats before running the BPN.

The only real concern I have comes from the very high levels of production value that have gone into the design of the PDF. The use of an olive green background is great when viewed on screen but is a disadvantage when printed on a home printer. While my laser printer produces a very nice copy I can only imagine the wrinkled, wet pages my old ink jet would have produced as it chewed up two out of three colours in the colour cartridge. A more printer friendly background or a printer friendly version would be nice.

Ursa Carrien is an extremely polished, professional offering and I look forward to seeing what else Nightfall releases in the future. None of the really minor issues none of should stop SLA Industries GMs from finding the £0.98 ($1.49) from picking a copy up.

In the dim and distant past (well circa 1996), when I had my first web site on mudhole, I had some pages about SLA Industries a British, dystopian, science fiction, table top role-playing game.  Last night I revived some of those pages from back-ups.  So for the first time in quite awhile (well probably 8 or 9 years) some of my completely unofficial, fan material is back.  More to follow later.