[Orbit] Rock rock, rock-and-roll future

[Ron Edwards]

This game is way fun, both in making characters and setting up a situation. I could make up Orbit characters just to amuse myself, and the cool thing is that playing is just as good.

Don't be fooled by the big guns; they are pure cosmetics in a game best suited to on-the-road ventures, rock-and-roll gigs, drug deals, drag racing, casual sex, and a lot of attitude. See the back cover: the point is not that the lizard babe has a huge gun, the point is that she's hitch-hiking.

Here's the text from the handout I passed out.

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Dark Future, Schmark Future
This is science fiction set in the future we wanted: easy space travel, friendly and interesting alien species who can cross-breed with people and one another, and ray guns. Think Star Wars except it's way wackier and way faster, and there isn't any Evil Empire ... just the open road and your dreams. "Your parents made you, but you make your own name."

Rock and roll will never die
In the best of all possible futures, it's not about collecting credits for mercenary black ops. It's about making adolescents scream and old folks dance. You guys are touring Free Space, hoping to make enough bucks and generate enough buzz to qualify for the big shows back at the homeworlds.

The problems – well, what band is free of problems? But right now, it's specially bad, because who would have thought that the Grieving Mothers Against Rock'n'Roll Unpleasantness (GMARR) would have become the most powerful political party on Keltoth-7? And doing well here is what you're counting on to make it to the Ultimapalooza Festival on Faen, number one pleasure and entertainment planet ever.

Doing stuff
Skills and actions: roll d% to equal or under your TN (target number). Tell me how much you beat it by (e.g. rolling 22 with a TN of 30, tell me "8"). I'll usually multiply that number by something.

Criticals: if you succeed in a roll, but the value rolled is 51 or over, you have a Critical. Choose: 3X effect (e.g. damage), Gonzo Success (no damage to anyone), or Gonzo Failure (you fail). Gonzo anything means you have "Director Power" for the outcome of the action, and Gonzo Failure means you get a chance to improve the ability.

Your character, should he or she choose to accept you
Rovena, Mezh Siren – the star! Sweet, honest, and determined to bring her best to everyone. Her Siren Song is about a Starsword.

Trojan Crest, Traxxian Engineer – the one who makes the music happen. Whether he cares about it artistically is hard to believe, because he's so horrid, but without him, no band.

Sevengar'Alos, Ketrin Guild Merchant – the manager and agent. Mouthy and greedy, but 100% about the band. He'll screw over anyone but them.

Sul'Esbith Rannik, Pel'tuurian Technophage – the other star! Wild and frenzied, the complete party animal. Hope no one finds out she's from a small town on a small planet and couldn't possibly know what she's supposed to be rebelling about.

Quincy Smith, Human Wraith – specializing in security, safety, and crowd control, but really quite romantic. No one knows he's a Wraith. Did you hear me? No one knows he's a Wraith!!

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The scenario was easy and quite fun: just a gig. It began with pre-show hassles, including a crime-boss type guy roughing up the manager, the club owner getting cold feet due to fear of the GMARR demonstration, a fan bringing a pet to one of the female stars as a gift ("He needs to get his pills"), and worst of all, Esbith's parents showing up to beg their baby to give up the evil life-style, courtesy of course by GMARR.

The really important thing about player-characters are their advantages and disadvantages, so here goes.
Rovena: Good-looking, hypochondriac
Trojan: Nekkid, Ugly, Too Sexy for Your Space-suit
Alos: Charisma, Greedy, Smart-ass
Esbith: Fashion Flea, Addiction (alcohol), Good-looking
Quincy: Paranoid, Tough, Light-sensitive

The system works wonderfully for the players to make situations much, much more complicated than the GM initially presents them. I wasn't disappointed, especially since the player with Trojan did a fantastic job. "Never underestimate the power of a short naked man with a mixing board!" he cried at one point, and I am not embarassed to say that it made perfect sense. In fact, all the players seized their characters with great joy; the illustrations in the book enchanted them and they knew exactly what to do.

The climactic scene was of course the performance. Quincy had to kill Woosie the pet who of course had spit up its pill and transformed into a monstrous toothy carnivore, Trojan had to use his engineering skills to blend the incredibly disparate styles of the stars into a seamless whole, etc, etc. This game works well with many players, I think. Three were too few; Alos and Rovena were NPCs and thus a whole lot of potential relationships and zip-zip multiply-interacting wacky stuff got missed.

The system works quite well, with a minor tendency to whiff once in a while - although that's not so bad! fun-failure is possible - and perhaps a bit more quick math for effects than some people like. Damage is a bit anticlimactic: points come off ... and ... well, that's about it. On the other hand, all the gonzo mechanics stuff ("gonzo" is a mechanics term in this game) showed up to great effect. The players used them to great extent, most often for "alternative effect" and not so much for failure + improvement. I think that's partly because the characters were created to be just a hair better than starting characters and thus the players weren't too concerned with improvement. I'll be more detailed about all this in the upcoming review, but the brief version is, the game works.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Wilson]

The math involved for this system sounds a bit rough.

This'd be me: "Uh, I needed to roll 53, and I got a 17... Um, hold on..."

How often does the game generate reasons to roll? Is it very high-level conflict type stuff?

[JSDiamond]

The math involved for this system sounds a bit rough.  This'd be me: "Uh, I needed to roll 53, and I got a 17... Um, hold on..."

Hi Matt.  No prob --the system uses a little table with four brackets, each indicating a result-range, so the math easier than it sounds.  The table is printed throughout the book and it's also on the Orbit character sheet.  The system in a nut-shell can be found here: http://www.orbit-rpg.com/orbsys.html

How often does the game generate reasons to roll? Is it very high-level conflict type stuff?

Not often and a lot less than most people are used to at first.  What I've found is that players are tentative when  they realize that they aren't consciously (or unconsciously) competing with the GM.  It's weird and wonderful to watch a previous "gun-bunny" type player get into the fact thet he (or she) can narrate the result and it doesn't ever come off like munchkin-style hijacking.  Not to sound like a commercial but... as a player you never feel as though you have to get over on the GM just to maintain your position, or whatever ala' D&D, RIFTs, etc.

As far as high level conflict stuff (I'm assuming you mean combat?) it's entirely up to what the group (players and GM together) want in pursuit of having fun.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

One of the biggest changes between the older version of Orbit and this one is that people now look forward to rolling dice. The chance for a gonzo result, and the general wackiness of the recommended situations, both contribute to people wanting to see how things get twisted or go all kerflooey, as administered by the dice. It's quite different from the original game's assumption (if not intent) that role-players were mostly interested in strategic fire-fights.

Best,
Ron