Diaspora
Diaspora is a roleplaying game of interstellar hard science fiction, intended, as the designers say themselves, to emulate classic, “Little Black Book” Traveller. Its engine, however, is pure FATE 3.0, the system originally published in the pulp RPG Spirit of the Century and released under the Open Game License. Diaspora is not just a SotC clone with rules for spaceships and laser guns, though. It is its own game, making major changes to FATE 3.0 and featuring several original subsystems.
While I do not think Diaspora is as revolutionary as the buzz around it suggests, it is a very good game. It uses the best parts of FATE – Aspects, the skill pyramid and the character creation system – but overhauls and streamlines SotC’s overly complex stunt system. Add the new subsystems (”minigames” as the game calls them) and the result is an interesting spin on FATE and on the subgenre of interstellar science fiction that Traveller first brought to roleplaying games. It is easy to adjust the game’s flavor, though, so anyone looking at playing a game involving starships and laser blasters ought to give Diaspora a good look.
It’s hard not to mention Traveller repeatedly when discussing Diaspora. The designers state up front that it is their primary inspiration, and they even use the same font for body copy that Traveller did. There are familiar notes: character creation that emphasizes the characters’ pasts; a certain amount of gear fetishism, although it is almost modest compared to most RPGs and star systems that are rooted in the numerical descriptions. Nevertheless, it is a very different beast, system-wise. Even though the core of FATE is skill system, just like Traveller, it tends to play second fiddle to personalities and qualities thanks to Aspects and the rich character creation system.
The place where Diaspora comes closest to outright copying Traveller is in its cluster design system. Both games describe planets using nothing more than ratings in a couple of attributes, and do not add anything I would normally describe as color. Both games leave it as an exercise for the players to turn those numbers into living, breathing, distinctive worlds. In Diaspora, players roll up each system’s Tech, Environment and Resources ratings, producing a number between 4 and −4 for each. Unlike Traveller, creating systems is a task for the entire group, not just the GM. Each player rolls up 1-3 systems and, with input from the rest of the group, injects their own imaginations into those numbers to produce short, colorful descriptions. Once these systems are tied together with “slipstreams” – wormholes – they form a cluster – a contained network of systems. The result is a setting that players can engage with without having to read an entire book. Some people, especially those allergic to the GM role, may find this off-putting, but it does ease the GM’s load and produces a setting that all of the players are invested in. In fact, this technique is begging to be adapted to other games, even those in other genres.
Like setting creation – and like Spirit of the Century – character creation is also a group activity. Characters’ pasts are described in five phases, each of which adds a paragraph or two of back-story and two Aspects – descriptive phrases which have mechanical weight during play. In SotC, the last two phases of a character’s life are pulp novels that the PC has starred or costarred in. Diaspora makes do with the less colorful idea that each character has experienced a moment of crisis, and another PC played an important role in it. Both versions are identical mechanically, but it feels less fun. Nevertheless, the result is PCs who are a group who have real ties to each other and the setting around them, not a collection of individuals waiting to meet each other at a tavern in the middle of nowhere.
Once the character’s back-story is fleshed out, players choose their characters’ skills, which must fit the “skill pyramid”; each character has one skill rated 5, two skills rated 4, three rated 3, etc. Each character also takes three stunts; special talents roughly equivalent to d20 Feats. Unlike d20 games and SotC, Diaspora does not have a crunch chapter containing a few dozen stunts. In Diaspora, all stunts fall into five categories, four of which are mechanically homogeneous, while the fifth is a catch-all for oddball ideas that do not fit the others.
The basic resolution system and the personal combat system are also largely the same as Spirit of the Century’s. Diaspora does add a Composure “damage” track that monitors the character’s morale and willpower. Each character also has a noncombat track, Wealth, which allows the system to abstract starship maintenance and financial shenanigans.
Diaspora features three other conflict resolution “mini-games” aside from personal combat, as well. Although they are quite similar to the basic combat system, the starship, platoon (small unit) and social conflict systems (I find “social combat” an off-putting label) are distinct, with their own tactics and wrinkles. Interestingly, they are all played on maps. Even the social combat system uses a spatial system to model the characters’ bonds with each other and with key ideals.
One nice touch is that each conflict system’s description ends with an exhaustive sequence of play. All of these references are also repeated in a reference section at the end of the book. There are also healthy gear and vehicle lists for the players to choose from (although the game does not use a traditional shopping for equipment system), as well as rules for designing new items when players feel it is necessary. Notably, the equipment and vehicle systems leverage FATE’s Aspects and stunts to elegantly handle equipment matters that clutter many combat systems and equipment lists with pages of fiddly special rules.
All of the conflict systems boil down to some variation of battle for favorable position, maneuver to slap unfavorable Aspects on your enemy, and then use those aspects all at once for a big bonus on a single (hopefully) knockout blow. Each system presents different positional challenges, however, and small wrinkles like electronic warfare can complicate a plan in a hurry. Aspects will have a strong effect on the fiction of a conflict as well, which also helps to keep things fresh. If you are playing any FATE-based game, Diaspora presents a good model for developing your own unique subsystems for complex conflicts and the social combat system is worth stealing outright.
There are also stripped down versions of the personal, platoon and starship combat systems that are playable as standalone “wargames.” I’m not sure that these should have been in the main rulebook – they seem like a great PDF to offer free on the publisher’s website – but the designs aren’t bad. The Diaspora wargames are not the same as traditional wargames like Squad Leader or Hammer of the Scots, though. They are built on FATE, and include Aspects, so they develop a different narrative in a different way than traditional wargames do. Ultimately, they still feel like RPG combat systems.
The play advice section – including guidelines for playing with aliens and psionics without adding more rules – is shorter than I would like. It has some nice tips and, significantly, it points readers to the play advice section from Spirit of the Century (which is freely available online in the FATE SRD), which I encourage any roleplayer to check out. SotC has some of the best advice on how to play and run an action-adventure RPG you can find. This cutting of corners rubs me the wrong way, though. Diaspora should include this material, modified to suit Diaspora’s mood and genre rather than leaving players to figure out what will work and what won’t themselves. Good play advice in the rulebook is fundamental to good modern RPGs. Pointing to an outside source for fundamental advice is not acceptable.
Physically, Diaspora is a 6″×9″ black and white hardcover, produced via the print-on-demand service Lulu. The binding seems solid, the cover is sturdy and the paper stock is a heavy matte stock. The pieces of art on the cover and the chapter lead-ins are computer-generated images that resemble bubble trails generated by particle accelerator experiments, which are surprisingly attractive and evocative. There is also a smattering of line art which is reminiscent of RPG art of the late 70s and the 80s.
The book features a very nice index, not just an alphabetized index of section headings. In an industry where indexes are rare, and good indexes are almost a myth, I would be remiss if I did not offer kudos. It allowed the writers to focus on writing an instructional text, putting the burden of reference on their index. There is a lesson here for other publishers that struggle with the instruction/reference dilemma.
The print design is also solid, probably even above average for an RPG, with one unfortunate exception. The body font – apparently Optima, homage to classic Traveller – is not very readable here. The weight of the letters in the version used is inconsistent from letter to letter, as is the space between letters in the same word. Also, Optima features varying thicknesses of lines, and at the smallish size it is set at the thinner lines almost disappear. The overall effect is quite unpleasant and made reading much harder than it should have been. For my tastes, the three fonts used in the book – Optima, Helvetica and the display font used on the cover (which I do not know) – do not work well together. Admittedly, that is largely a matter of feel, and your opinion is likely to vary from mine, but I found it distracting.
I can overlook Diaspora’s flaws, physical and otherwise, though. It takes the FATE system, probably one of the best action-adventure systems ever developed, and does a nice job of adapting it to a gritty adventure genre. The “mini-game” design – reminiscent of the Burning Wheel games and Spycraft – adds zest and variety, but unlike the other games named here, the systems are similar enough that the learning curve is kept under control. The cluster design system isn’t revolutionary, but it does deserve praise. It lets a group of players create a setting they can call their own in a couple hours, which is no mean feat. Anyone that can tolerate mechanics like Aspects (or Fudge dice) should seriously consider Diaspora for their space gaming needs.
December 4th, 2009 at 23:23
Hey thanks for this very fair and detailed review, Gerald!
December 4th, 2009 at 23:52
Very solid review, here; a good 360 degree tour of Diaspora, better than I could have done.
December 5th, 2009 at 03:18
Thanks guys. I’m glad you liked it.
December 20th, 2009 at 23:43
The other font is Skia, and there’s also a serif font (Palatino) used for examples.
I’ve noticed more print glitches in the sidebars, which are Helvetica.
I think the index is a bit sparse, but I’ve been spoiled by the HeroQuest line. (SotC’s is more extensive, too!)
I’m still reading, and looking forward to playing.