Thoughts on Ashen Stars

{That's your game, that is}

We've played a handful of sessions of Ashen Stars and overall I think it's a bit of a donkey. Now, on first sight this seems like an insult, as many people use the term pejoratively, but I happen to like donkeys. In fact they are my second favourite animal, but that's not to say that Ashen Stars is my second favourite RPG, no sir. I should probably get away from this slightly peculiar metaphor and get to looking at the game itself.

The Good Donkey Bits

The setting is well-presented and maintains a logical consistency in play. It's sufficiently different so that you feel like you're playing something you haven't tried before. The background is interesting and provided enough material for a group to make the setting their own, without having to absorb a huge mass of canonical 'facts'. This has been a barrier to several RPGs I've read over the years and I'm glad to see that Pelgrane Press avoided this design faux pas.

The aliens are interesting and make you want to play one, rather than a stock human. Again, there is a goodly amount of background information on each species, but not so much as to overwhelm the player and remove all creativity when portraying one of these guys. As with the setting, there is ample space for a group to personalise the alien races. 

The central theme of altruism versus self-interest really comes through in play and is hard-coded into the system design, by ensuring there is a load of cool stuff for players to hanker after; be that cyberware upgrades or modifications to their ship; balanced against relatively small pay-cheques for contracts. Players often want to do the right thing, but sometimes have to do the thing that nets most money and may be morally dubious.

Having each PC take specific roles on board the ship and on planets creates a great dynamic whereby everyone gets a chance to shine and take charge, depending on the situation. This is something I really liked with the LUG Star Trek RPG, and Ashen Stars does the same thing.

The Bad Donkey Bits

I really am beginning to despise the GUMSHOE system. The more I experience it, the more I believe it smells of tinkle. I've now experienced it as a player and as a GM, with the latter experience further informing my view and confirming the suspicions I had as a player.  Put simply, the system is deeply poor at facilitating physical conflict of any kind. Now, I'm not some hoary old tabletop dude who demands painstakingly detailed rules for combat and the like, but I do want a system that doesn't devolve into 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' as soon as guns are drawn. This problem has the secondary effect of making the more warrior-like alien races a tad redundant. A player choosing such a character is saying to the GM, "I'd like some opportunities for scrapping, please." If the system won't permit this to happen in a satisfying manner, the GM is likely to want to avoid such opportunities arising, thus leading to much frustration for the player and a considerable reduction in his enjoyment of the game. Both these things happened at our table.

The manner in which GUMSHOE runs investigative scenarios is really nothing more than a set of advisory notes on running such games. It would have been better to produce a pamphlet along the lines of 'Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering', rather than designing a whole system for such play. Picking up core clues, which drive the narrative forward, is automatic in GUMSHOE games. Other clues can be gained by rolling or spending points, but are not necessary to solve the mystery. Therefore, what is happening is an unfolding narrative/collaboratively told story, which is good fun but is it, strictly speaking, a game? I don't believe it is. Furthermore, I believe that a GUMSHOE scenario could be played without recourse to a rule-set, by simply revealing the story to the players as they gather the core clues, leading them from one scene to the next. This happened at our table in what eventually turned out to be our final session of Ashen Stars.

Rescuing the Donkey

I will certainly return to the universe of Ashen Stars, but it will not be in the company of GUMSHOE. My thoughts at this point revolve around using Traveller to power any future games in this setting. It's an elegantly simple system and the militaristic focus of character generation is congruent with the war-torn setting of Ashen Stars' Bleed.

For now though, the TNC is heading to the Dying Earth.