The Encountered, Vol. 1
The Encountered, Vol. 1 is a sourcebook for the Alpha Omega role playing game by Mind Storm Labs. Alpha Omega takes place after a series of cataclysms: war, natural disasters, plagues and right before the impending return of two armies of super beings to Earth. To help flesh out the world of Alpha Omega, The Encountered, Vol. 1 gives Game Moderators (GMs) over 200 Tech Fiends, Spiritual Creatures, Abominations, Demons, and Freaks of Nature that can be thrown into a game to make players’ lives miserable. There are also new Factions for the players to discover and rules for GMs to create their own monsters if the 200 in the book are not enough.
The Encountered, Vol. 1 is a beautiful book, easily putting nearly ever other game on the market to shame. The book is a landscape hardcover with full color illustrations of every creature in the book, every icon of the factions, and every one of the book’s chapter pages. It could easily be a coffee table book… as long as you don’t mind having pictures of demons eating people on your coffee table. However, more than just looking good, the book provides a lot of great information GMs can use in their games.
More than anything, The Encountered, Vol. 1 does a great job of expanding on the world presented in Alpha Omega. This is no small task seeing as how the Core rulebook devotes 93 pages to describing the new world. However, over the course of the 200 plus monsters in the book, players and GMs can get a glimpse of just how dangerous the world has gotten in 2280.
The Core rulebook says that humanity has been forced to live in huge arcologies for protection against everything that’s out there. It also gives a list of some of the fiends players can expect to encounter. On the other hand, The Encountered, Vol. 1 clears up all doubt that unless you have a super powered parent or a squad of armed troops backing you up, you had best stay in your big walled city and hope nothing in the book finds you.
Why is that? One of the many things The Encountered, Vol. 1 got right is that it does not pull any punches. There are very few “weenies.” This setting doesn’t seem to have time for a lot of kobolds and rats you can slaughter mindlessly. Instead, by the fifth or sixth creature in the book, you start to realize “I don’t want to mess with that thing. Hey, I don’t mess with that thing. Wait, I don’t want to mess with any of these creatures.” There is nothing sanitized about the opponents in the book. They are evil, they will kill you, and you’d better have the bullets to stop them.
Now, if the 200 printed creatures were not enough, the book provides rules for statting up new opponents. Alpha Omega is a very crunchy system that uses several sets of statistics to define players and the bad guys they face. However, instead of an elaborate point-buy system or hard and fast rules on how to balance creatures, the rules show how to assign a Category to creature (from 1 to 10). Categories define about how powerful the creature is, what its stat range (yes range) should be for each set of stats and so on. This allows GMs to tinker with creating new creatures quickly and without a lot of record keeping.
Also, the authors undoubtedly understood they were throwing a lot at GMs because they added a section on running encounters. Perhaps that came as a result from feedback about the game, but the rules discuss in some detail how to scale combat and how to use creatures to their fullest effect in a fight. It’s good reading for Alpha Omega gaming because it talks specifically about the game. However, it’s also got good advice for any game that features combat.
Any of these reasons make The Encountered, Vol. 1 a must-have for fans of the Alpha Omega game. The creatures make the world come alive and should be more than capable of giving players some tough challenges. Also, the rules for running Encounters and creating new bad guys are fantastic resources. However, more than anything, the book is so amazing just to look through for the art. That alone is worth buying the book.
Want to learn more about the Alpha Omega?
- Atomic Array: The Encountered, Vol. 1 (Atomic Array 030)
- Game Cryer: Review by Chris Perrin
- Mind Storm Labs: The Encountered, Vol. 1 (Sample)
- Atomic Array: Episode 012: Alpha Omega
- Gamer Dome: Interview with Roger Traffler of the NWSEC
- Mad Brew Labs: AO: The Evolution of Sci-Fi Roleplaying
- Gnome Stew: Alpha Omega: How to GM this New RPG
- RPGAggression: Rudis Review: Alpha Omega
- Mind Storm Labs: Alpha Omega Core Rulebook (Sample)
Special Offer from Atomic Array: $15 off Alpha Omega when you enter the coupon code “Atomic” during purchase. Drop by Mind Storm Labs to pick up your copy today!