Classic Review by Crothian
This was a tough review. I have had this PDF sitting on my desk for a few months I think and I have opened it read parts and then put it away. It was not that I did not like the material or the genre that made me look away and review other books. It was that this is a three hundred setting heavy science fiction game. There is a lot of information in this mammoth book and it is just not that easy to sit down and review something this big as a PDF.
The PDF as I have said is three hundred pages long. There are a lot of things in it. And this brings us to the first problem I had with the book, no book marks. A PDF of this size has to have book marks. It is just too big on its own and book marks would allow it to more easily be used on the screen at the gaming table. If not used that way people usually print the PDFs out. And this is the second problem. Each page has a background that really eats up ink. On smaller products it is not so much a big deal but on a three hundred page PDF it really makes a large difference. The images are like the tentacle beast on the cover of the book and are good to help set a feel for the setting. Hopefully, the publisher will be able to place book marks in and have a background free PDF option to be printed. Those two changes will really make this book much easier to use. The art in the book is not that great. It does the job of showcasing the pieces that need it but nothing in here is impressive looking.
Central Space is a complex but well thought out Sci Fi setting. It uses d20 rules but the strength is in the writing. There are parts that remind me a bit of Babylon 5 and Call of Cthulhu at times though the central parts of the setting are their own. It starts off with a nice six page glossary as the setting has plenty of new races and words that need defined. Just these pages of terms really give on the idea of the depth of this setting. The setting information is over thirty pages. And it reads like a lot more. A lot is going on here. There are invaders from another dimension, creatures that take over people’s bodies like puppet masters and really alter the way the Earth is going to be like, and many other items. Some of these things are familiar and similar to other science fiction movies and books I have read. But I am not criticizing the book for that familiarity. I think it does a nice job of having and showing a lot of things going on in the next few centuries and then it starts up this setting with a nice set of established history.
There are ten races in the book nine of which are new alien types and the tenth being the all too familiar human. There is a lot more setting information here but I was most impressed with the mechanics that is presented here. There are racial levels for some of the races here. I like the mechanic and was pleased to see it included and done well here.
There are new classes in here designed for this setting. I like that they go up to twenty fifth level and the prestige classes a era nice mix of ten and five level classes. The classes are nice and fitting for the science fiction setting. They are the usual ones for the typical archetypes as are the prestige classes. The one true original thought deals with the idea of Spirit. Different classes get a different amount and they can be used for a catch all of luck mental abilities and abilities that defy logic. It is interesting way to allow for things to happen with the characters and give them a little more control of the cool abilities they might want to have.
One problem I did find with the setting was there is so much here it is a little tough to determine what the players characters are going to do. I would have loved to seen a page or two that had a few sample adventure and campaign ideas and what type of races and classes would be most appropriate for that. There is psionics, cybernetics, the high levels of technology, a thing called Nim that is a little confusing, and also the spirit abilities. So, this setting has plenty of neat and interesting options but I think a little help in focusing it all together would be great in the main setting book.
Overall I found this an interesting setting. It has a lot of things so it can be run as is or one can just borrow things from it for Star Wars, Babylon 5, or other science fiction d20 games and OGL games. There will of course be some translations as the games are not exactly the same but in the end the work can be worth it. This book is a big three hundred pages and read a lot bigger then that.
