Polaris - rpg my review, thoughts and overall impression fo the game.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ธ.ค. 2024
- www.polaris-rpg...
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What a thrill ! I have started to play to polaris nearly twenty years ago ( 1ed was published in 1997). The game was firstly pushed strongly by the initial publisher, before being relegated to non priority stuff when they got the rights for the french version of L5R.
At a point the author was so disenchanted by their lack of reaction that he thought to give up and was starting releasing material for free on the web. Black Book edition have done a great job to reboot the series ( the guys from B.B. have admitted being deep fan of Polaris) . I have been on the surface for a while but to see that the game now is alive an well and a that a sleek US release have been made is a kick in the ass.
About the rules, polaris always had rules that target sharp simulation (BB people have a little bit simplified and modernized the rule system) and put effort on the character development as well concerning the background, the professional experience and the capacities. After each game master can adapt it to its taste and simplify them if they prefer simpler, faster and more approximate.
The universe is powerful, rich and complex, with quite few Manichaeism and no Midi-chlorians. Every faction have its motives and the stress of survival in a very hostile universe on a human kind starting more and more to mutate and being infected by a pandemic disease that make most of the population sterile push some of the factions to pretty extreme solutions.
The polaris stay quite mysterious, it is for sure not the fact of symbiotic microbes, but more like an alternate universe ( some few people can plunge in the flux) feed with psychic energy from some human, marine mammals and coral plus others. And I also like the fact that you can communicate with the flux but the energy you try to manipulate is huge, coming from a completely different universe and that unfortunate breach between the both universe can be disastrous. I also like that the mutant that can manipulate the polaris are unknown to themselves until they are detected or revealed under a great stress ... and this universe is very stressy ... so every single one you meet can potentially (with a very low probability) be a worst that a nuclear bomb ...
So IMHO the universe is worth the try even if the rules can look complicated, you can cut inside if you prefer more role play that simulation. We don't really know what happen to our dear planet but for sure when you see the relief map the earth crust itself have been submitted to high stress and the water have risen a lot that despite coming from a little bit aged game bring us to an actual (and future) theme.
PS: I am a biologist ( molecular shifted to cellular ) and I always appreciate how Tessier manage to be plausible when dealing with biotech ( and you have quite a lot in polaris), mutation and pandemic ... it is a little bit exaggerated of course for making the story more tense but very far of being absurd
I think you've convinced me to get it. I've been on the fence about it for awhile. Thanks for tipping me lol
I’m glad to have this in my collection.
I just bought the books on Amazon for $65 and glad I did. Your review gives my already high hopes some merit. Hopefully lol
Delta Mike glad you enjoyed it. Check drivethrurpg.com there was some free content...
Fjook was here and wondering if you ever did run Polaris?
Sadly I did not!
Great video mate thank you, will definately have to get Polaris at some point, I love underwater themes.
Thanks Nimrod, glad you enjoyed it. I think its a very good game, and the books are worth it if just for the art alone.
The show you were talking about with Roy Schneider is "SeaQuest DSV". Although I guess "Sealab" is a good inspiration for a comedy session.
Man I could not remember the name of the show for the life of me! Thanks!
Mr. Mean John Polack De Nada. Always glad to help.
Your thinking of the remake from the early 2000's that they played for laughs, it was called Sealab 2021. The original cartoon from the 1970's was called Sealab 2020. It was straight up action/science fiction that tried to teach kids about our oceans. But frankly it was less preachy than the early episodes of seaQuest.
Whew, the physical books are a bit rich for my blood. But I might get the PDF version. Anything with an ocean setting is always of interest.
Well then. You've sold it to me. Thank you for making me discover this.
Xaxares awesome!
Like Metro, cool I'll have to try it.
I'm curious the order in which you apply experience in your sessions. I'm currently in the idea of distributing the XP stated in the back of book 1, but also trying to give them years in their profession as forms of experience as well. What do you think about this?
Bryan I stick with the rules as it fits the setting in this case. Buuuuut! I really like the idea of giving them years to up their professions...I might work on this as it seems like a really good idea.
I'm curious what you mean by "crunchy" exactly. Do you mean mathy? The reason I'm asking is because I'm currently hunting for a suitable RPG for our group. We have all some experience from our youth, but aren't exactly veterans in terms of having played a lot.
We appreciate simple systems that lets us focus on character development and story rather than multiplying numbers, looking up in tables during gameplay. It's fine during character creation, but we want our play to be fluid and unhindered by a complex system.
We're comfortable with games like "The One Ring" and "Tribe 8" if that helps.
Then this might not be the system for you as there is a lot of tables.. and the game play for the GM has allot of charts...A good example is looking at the GM screen it is packed with charts.
yes...character creation is VERY involved. lots of math. While not very hard, it is very involved. But at the end you will have a very detailed system.
If you want a fluid system might I suggest any of the Fantasy Flight Star Wars games as the dice mechanics are very fluid and lend themselves to story telling more than chart telling.
Or Symbaroum (of which I have a review for) which is dark fantasy and uses a D20 roll and roll = or lower than your attribute...
Hope this helps....
Mr. Mean
Thanks, man! Anything from FFG or anything Star Wars is out of the question, but I'll have a look at your Symbaroum review now :)
I think crunch should be front-loaded. Crunch during character creation and during setting up the adventure is good. Looking things up during play is bad. That's why I wrote this: sites.google.com/site/grreference/home