grodog's Review: Fadings Suns

Game: Fading Suns
Genre: Role-Playing Game
Creators: Bill Bridges and Andrew Greenberg
Publisher: Holistic Design, Inc.
Year Released: 1996

One of several science fiction games released or announced at Gen Con 1996, Fading Suns ranks as one of the best science fiction RPGs ever published. Fading Suns blends the medieval mindset with renaissance politics in an amalgam of faith and superscience, engineering and the occult. Set on the cusp of the 5th millennium A.D., the Known Worlds have entered a new dark age as their stars dim. Noble houses rule planets, peasants burn heretics and non-humans at the stake, and ancient jumpgates of alien manufacture are all that permit interstellar travel.

Fading Suns is partly inspired by the same religious and millennial traditions that produced The End and Rapture, and, to a lesser degree, Vampire and Werewolf (not a surprise since both authors--and a significant portion of Fading Suns' other contributors-have worked for White Wolf at some time in the past).
However, while the former games derive much of their setting and tone from apocalyptic themes and texts, Fading Suns approaches religion from a more subtle perspective. As in medieval and renaissance history, the Church is a major player throughout the universe as missionaries and the Inquisition go about their business, while rival sects within the Church debate the nature of God, Humanity, and the fading suns. Like Frank Herbert's Orange Catholic Bible from Dune and the myriad of religions from Dan Simmons' Hyperion novels, Fading Suns' Church maintains sufficient distinction from real-world religious beliefs that it falls safely within "fiction." It doesn't risk offending potential customers and simultaneously refuses to sacrifice believability (it also seems to be the first science fiction RPG to recognize that religion isn’t likely to disappear in the next thousand years).

Rooted in the tradition of the passion play rather than the standard RPG format of the heroic epic, Fading Suns emphasizes the mystery of why the stars are fading, and the sense that "history is over"--that a new and literal dark age has begun as humanity and its universe sinks into decline. (Medieval passion plays explored the suffering and death of Christ and the Catholic saints in order to reinvigorate the faith of the audience). This distinction may be more radical in scope than Ars Magica's use of the Medieval Paradigm to distinguish it from all other medieval fRPG’s. By shifting gears from the heroic epic genre to the passion play, Holistic Design severs the umbilical cord to epic fantasy that has driven and defined the roleplaying game industry since its inception, and inaugurates a new era of roleplaying exploration. Unfortunately the authors didn’t define and explore this concept to the extent that they could, and perhaps should, have done: while the passion play seems crucial to their vision of Fading Suns, I’m not sure exactly how they perceive the differences between the passion play and heroic epic, and what these differences will mean to the game. While anyone can and will run the game in whatever style they prefer, I think it's fair to ask Holistic to communicate their intent clearly, even if someone later chooses to disregard it. Despite this quibble, the idea remains compelling as well as innovative, and deserves any serious gamer's attention.

Fading Suns’ action resolution system employs target numbers based on stat plus skill combinations, seeking to roll the target number or less on 1d20. One in five rolls will be noteworthy: 19 equates to automatic failure, 20 to critical failure (a.k.a. a botch or fumble), and 1 to automatic success; if the target number is rolled exactly then the character nets a critical success. Characters thus always have at least a 10% chance of success or failure, stat or skill values notwithstanding, a nice game-balance feature. Players may also accent a character’s rolls; this will increase their chance to succeed or the quality of their success, either at the expense of the other (that is, if you want to swing for a home run, you’re more likely to strike out though when you do hit the ball it’ll fly farther, whereas if you want to be sure you get on base, then you’re not as likely to hit that grand slam).

The authors’ White Wolf influence appears most strong throughout the character creation process. Players are naturally encouraged to ponder a character’s history, station, and motivations for exploring the Known Worlds prior to generating stats. A universe full of questions, with few answers, forms a gaming environment rich with possibility, as the character types exemplify: players can select human roles from among members of noble houses to sects of clergy to Merchant League guilds as well as from among three primary alien races. Each of these options also permits a PC to belong to a minor noble house, splinter sect, lesser guild, or a local, indigenous alien species. Though less detailed than the primary selections, these "lessers" nicely broaden the number of possible character concepts within the game, a refreshing change of pace that allows room for individual creativity within an industry grown somewhat over-definitive in the wake of complete source/clan/books (though the cynic in me still acknowledges their perhaps-inevitable release in the future).

Three tiered characteristics--mind, body, and spirit--define the character within the game mechanics. Mind and body subdivide into three stats each, while spirit breaks down into four pairs of opposed characteristics (when one half of the pair increases, the maximum value for its counterpart decreases, similar to the accenting in effect). The spirit stats are particularly noteworthy, and emphasize Fading Suns’ roleplaying foci: extrovert versus introvert, passion versus calm, faith versus ego, and human versus alien. In miniature, each and every character mirrors the conflicts that drive the Fading Suns universe. The purchase of blessings/curses and benefices/afflictions (virtues and flaws respectively derived from the individual and society), skills, and any occult powers round out a PC. Blessings and the three occult powers-psychic ability, theurgy rituals, and antimony spells (the latter are not available to new player characters)-may only be purchased from a character’s pool of extra points. This limits the potential abuse of characters who might otherwise look like virtue Christmas trees since extra points must also be spent to increase characteristic, skill, and/or wyrd (similar to Storyteller’s willpower) values.

Like the characters who drive it, Fading Suns' setting is, at times, quite disturbing: as humans expanded throughout the Known Worlds and terraformed planet after planet into submission, they relocated various native, sentient species to preserves on their home planets while humanity spans their globe (reminiscent of the establishment of American Indian Reservations in the 19th century). We have not overcome our fears, prejudices, or tendencies toward discrimination in 4996 anymore than we have in 1996, and the authors feel strongly enough about the subject to issue a warning that although the game explores racism as a dramatic device--both within humanity and without--it does not condone or uphold such attitudes. This dose of social responsibility, as well as the acceptance of such mature exploration (as opposed to the trite and exploitative sexual and violent content cloaked behind other such mature warnings) further enriches roleplaying in the Fading Suns universe.

My only complaint about Fading Suns lies with the interior artwork, which often detracts from the atmosphere of the game to the point that my willing suspension of disbelief is suspended: I realize I’m just reading a book looking at some poor art that could be from just about any White Wolf supplement. The other strengths of the book, however, more than make up for whatever deficiency exists in its art (and its also entirely possible that I’m just too biased against some of the artists’ styles). A good deal of the art works well, however, especially the plastic-coated cover (a very nice touch that has already saved my copy from water and tea spills). The cover image sums up the differences between Fading Suns' jumpgates and those from Babylon 5: encrusted with faces and what might be huge eyes, the jumpgate--ornate and mysterious rather than plain and utilitarian--hints at craft that surpasses the known, and lures with the promise of what lies beyond. This simultaneously defines what distinguishes Fading Suns from many other science fiction RPG's in the market.

Fading Suns is the best new science fiction RPG released since Star Wars. It backs its brilliant setting with a simple system that neither impedes the flow of play nor compromises character depth, and pushes the roleplaying envelope further than any game since Ars Magica. Buy it, you won’t be disappointed.

This review was originally published in Pyramid #24 (March/April 1997), and appears with the permission of Steve Jackson. Copyright 1997 Steve Jackson Games.