Thousand Suns
Thousand Suns, written and designed by James Maliszewski and Richard Iorio II and published by Rogue Games, is a roleplaying game of imperial space exploration. Imperial science fiction focuses on man’s colonization of space, usually with the military as a forerunner. Interaction with alien races can be at the barrel of a pistol or through tense negotiations. Much of the fiction revolves around both discovering and surviving the unknown.
Thousand Suns does a great job of both honoring the roots of imperial sci-fi and bringing it to the table in game form. Unlike a lot of science fiction games, combat is an aspect, not the focus. The rule system is simple to learn and does a great job of giving players and gamemasters the tools to tell compelling stories. Though there is much here for traditional role-players, there also are great story-game elements that allow you greater control over your characters and the kinds of stories you want to tell.
There are so many cool aspects to the game it is impossible for me to mention them all. Instead, I will just hit what I think are a few of the high points, things that make Thousand Suns stand out from other sci-fi games.
Character creation is fairly simple and straightforward, with players dividing 25 points between the five main abilities – Body, Dexterity, Perception, Presence and Will – giving each a score of 1-12. Players then choose Traits (which can give bonuses in specific situations, such as Bony Spurs or Curious) based on their species. You also can get bonuses or penalties based on the kind of homeworld you grew up on and the kind of career package you choose, such as Pilot or Military, which also helps determine your starting skills.
The game uses the “12 degree” engine, the hallmark system of Rogue Games. Players use two 12-sided dice to make combat, social and skill challenges. Tasks, whether firing a gun, leaping between platforms or negotiating a peace treaty, are assigned a Target Number using a character’s appropriate stat or skill and any bonuses from special abilities. If you roll under, you succeed. Roll above the number and you fail.
The difference between the Target Number and your roll is called the “degree” of the roll, which determines how great of a success or terrible a failure you have achieved. A roll of 2 is considered a Dramatic Success (which gives you additional bonuses or edges in an encounter), while a roll of 24 is a Dramatic Failure (which likely means something terrible has happened). Different situations can add degree modifiers, so a Difficult task might reduce your degree of success by 2, while an Easy task will add 2. Your degree of success can mean you do more damage, finish a task faster or dazzle someone with your sparkling personality.
One of the aspects of Thousand Suns I love is how the rules for combat also work for social negotiations. Instead of taking of damage through social combat, an NPC or PC can have their attitude toward another character modified, usually made friendlier. This also means if you really screw up a roll, you could actually piss off that neutral alien, making them see you as an enemy. NPCs can use similar techniques against PCs, so you might end up trusting that fast-talking smuggler despite your better judgment.
The social system isn’t limited to charisma-based skills. A character could use Investigation to prove they are the correct person to recover an important artifact, or Bureaucracy to gain entrance to a government office. The social system gives tons of opportunities for some great roleplaying.
There also are two more story-driven aspects of the game: Hooks and Action Points. Hooks are bits of story centered around a player character, whether it be a dark family secret, a penchant for gambling or a friend who owes you a favor. Hooks can be used by the gamemaster to create storylines for the character, introduce complications or help flesh out the Thousand Suns universe.
Playing out Hooks also results in a character receiving Action Points, which can be cashed in during adventures for dramatic results. Action Points are what set the heroes (player characters) apart from everyone else. They allow players actions like dice rerolls, degree or Target Number bonuses or even a length of pipe that just happens to be near your unarmed character during a fight.
Players can generate Action Points by invoking their Hooks, often in dramatic and sometimes detrimental ways. For example, a character with “Penchant for Gambling” might challenge soldiers on a medical station to a game of dice while his buddies raid the cargo hold, or he might invoke the Hook to say he bumps into an old college buddy he once swindled in a card game.
There also are rules for creating your own planets, rules for starships and suitably sci-fi equipment lists. The main book also provides an overview of the Thousand Suns meta-setting, which actually is pretty cool and gives a really good feel of imperial science fiction.
Overall this is an excellent book and game if you are looking to run a sci-fi campaign. The system is simple to learn and run, but the setting material combined with different elements such as Hooks, Action Points and a cool social combat system give you plenty of tools to work with to create epic and satisfying storylines. This is a game that definitely will be hitting my table again and again.
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