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Machinations of the Space Princess $9.59
Average Rating:4.3 / 5
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Machinations of the Space Princess
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Machinations of the Space Princess
Publisher: Postmortem Studios
by James M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/03/2020 16:31:12

While I wasn’t expecting a one-to-one port of LotFP to sci-fi, with lazer swords and plasma crossbows and psion-elves, I was at least expecting MotSP to keep what I saw as the coolest innovations and themes of Lamentations. This included the character-sheet based encumbrance system, the strong focus on human characters, the weird and disturbing magic, and a general theme of survival horror that is the hallmark of LotFP adventures.

That is (mostly) not at all what Desborough and Phoenix created. I was expecting Saturn 3 and ALIEN and Pitch Black and the ’72 Soviet Solaris. Not really my bag beyond one-shots and the like.

But that’s not what we get. What we get is something more like Buck Godot: Zap-gun for Hire meets Barbarella meets Flash Gordon meets The Sword’s Warp Riders.

And that is totally my thing.

Now, this is not some giant stops-bullets book like Lancer. This is a “mere” 240 pages in a 6” x 8” paperback format. This is a construction-set of an RPG, very much like Star Siege or GURPS. However, unlike those two games, Machinations doesn’t really give two flips for balance. MotSP doesn’t pretend to know what your games are going to be about. Your game could be about blaster-slinging space cowboys, a team of highly skilled mercs taking on the most challenging jobs in a galaxy dominated by heartless megacorps, swashbuckling radium-cavaliers living and dying for honor and love, tomb-raiders cracking open the trapped vaults of the Elder Races, or super-powered psions staying one step ahead of the Psi-Pstasi. MotSP isn’t here to tell you how to play your game.

And so Machinations doesn’t lose much sleep in crafting a fully “balanced” experience. It’s very Old School in this respect. Sure, there are some nods towards niche protection, echoes from B/X D&D in what your character is good at and how quickly they go up levels and stuff like that. But there’s nothing stopping you from cobbling together a Frankenstein’s monster of abilities and powers.

Take, for instance, race creation. There are dozens (maybe over a hundred) options for racial characteristics you can use to build your character’s race. The list of race traits you can pick is 20 pages long and might be the longest single section in the book. They’re organized by theme, but you don’t need to stick with the theme; there’s nothing to stop you from taking the blob-creature’s ability to rip off chunks of itself and send them scurrying about as miniature versions of you, and combining that with the ammonia-based life’s slow metabolism ability and the reptile’s scales.

If you love lots of character options, this is your game. Want to craft a team of bizarre creatures who band together to bring peace to a fractious galaxy? Want the flexibility to build a tentacle monster with poor understanding of personal boundaries or a Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirl who carves said tentacle monsters up into calamari? Want the challenge of crafting the ultimate mechanical bad-ass by pushing the rules to their limit and then hurling your creations into the deadliest dungeon the GM can devise to see who emerges victorious?

Machinations can do that.

And it doesn’t stop at race-building. While there’s relatively little customization in the four classes (Killer, Specialist, Scholar, and Psion), everything else oozes with customization options. For instance, each weapon category, from Small, One-handed Close Combat Weapons to Rifles/Shotguns is further divided in what amounts to a Small, Medium, and Large category. On top of that, you can pile on the added modifications, from concealable to larger magazines to a selector for different damage types to “vicious” levels of damage. In short, there’s no list of races with pseudo-clever names like Ignians and Reptiliods, or guns like ARES Predator Mk II or AK-97. What we get instead is a fun tool kit you can use to build your own universe.

Want to build the ZF1 from Fifth Element with the net launcher, poisoned arrows, rocket, flame-thrower, and “all new ice-cube system?” Yeah, Machinations can do that, too.

As you’d expect from something built on the LotFP chassis, the mechanics are a mish-mash of stuff. We’ve got D&D 3.x’s d20-roll-higher for attacks, LotFP’s d6-roll-under for skills (of which there are many more in this game) 5e’s a-save-for-ever-stat and your choice of roll over or under for saves. Your poor dice won’t know which way to go!

And on top of that we’ve got psionics (complete with a randomly chosen “witch’s mark” that can either be a (usually pretty weird) boon or bane), a wide array of cybernetics (which can cause psychosis if you take too many), and vehicles ranging from one-person bikes up to space battleships.

What surprises is the stuff left out. Most especially, encumbrance. Not even mentioned. Ditto for logistics; ammo is managed by saving throws (you need to reload when your weapon fails its save) and most tech doesn’t appear to need recharging of any kind. The cigarette-pack standard-energy-clips of Star Frontiers are nowhere to be found here. Because it’s Desborough, we do get some rules for dealing with exposure to vacuum or radiation (that doesn’t include a mutations table), but the guidelines for generating planets are all about what sort of adventures you can have on them, rather than orbital radius or axial tilt.

The result is a rules-lite, cinematic game that you could go beer-and-pretzels with but has enough heft to it for long-term campaign style play. Don’t play it if your group isn’t united in their goals; munchkins can craft real curb-stompers from the race options while your story-gamers will devise original and shocking personalities that are mechanically incoherent.

But do play if you’re looking for something flexible and not very demanding. You can pick up all the mechanics in an afternoon and you can craft your first adventure over a lazy weekend (be sure to give yourself time to create gear and aliens and maybe a ship or two). If you and your players love sharing world-building responsibilities, you’re going to love all the options available to you. And if you instead want to keep firm control over the setting and factions, it’s easy enough to build a cheat-sheet for the players and some pre-made races and go to town.

In short, it’s as flexible as B/X and possibly even more rules-lite. Character creation isn’t as quick but offers greatly expanded variety. If you’re looking for a science-fantasy rules set to craft your own fun on, check this game out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Machinations of the Space Princess
Publisher: Postmortem Studios
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/26/2016 15:25:02

Takes OSR rules and adds some real cool "new school" ideas. If you ever wanted to play a scifi/fantasy space opera game that feels like Barbarella meets Star Crash meets Ice Pirates meets Star Wars this is the game for you. It is like a sleazy Travellers or a pulpy Stars Without Number (both of these games are good games but a little too stuffy ot bland for my tastes.) Machinations of the Space Princess would also work for Sword and Planet and even a Cyberpunk like game. Hell, one planet could be straight out of Burroughs Mars and next a dark and gritty dystopia. You can do it all. Also, the author encourages you to change and add and tinker with the system to suit your own gaming style, which is good.

Seriously, cannot say enough about it. Just check it out of you like pulpy, sleazy, sexy, campy, and/or gonzo scifi inspired by the cult classics.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Machinations of the Space Princess
Publisher: Postmortem Studios
by Tom L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/22/2015 12:03:03

A very nicely done space opera setting. I got the feel of the Big 70s sci-fi works like Barbarella and Star Wars while reading it.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Machinations of the Space Princess
Publisher: Postmortem Studios
by Timothy B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 05/12/2015 12:17:14

Written by James "Grimm" Desborough and art by Satine Phoenix this game has a really cool, sexy vibe. Firmly planted in the PG-13 area, this game does more with a nudge and wink than some games try to do with out right R material. The game is described as a game of "Kick Ass Heroes". It is. It is also a game of rogues, smugglers, free wheeling pilots, more-than human psionics and accountants. Seriously, you can hire them. But more on that later.

This game is built on Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but it takes more than a few liberties with it. Bottom line here; you can add this to any of the OSR Sci-Fi games I have been reviewing. The book itself is 244 pages which includes cover, OGL, title pages and acknowledgments. There are a few pages of "What is Roleplaying" and examples of play. Anyone reading this review though can likely skip these sections.

There is a section on the default setting, the Urlanth Matriarchy, and it's fall. Also each page has a note with some tidbit of information. Don't ignore these, there is a lot colorful commentary here. The section on Kick-Ass heroes is a good one and even though it feels like something we have read before it is worth reading again (or for the first time). MotSP is fully character focused. The empire, the aliens, the tech, that's all just backdrop to playing a Kick Ass character and having a good time. This is refreshing for an old school game and honestly for me it nudges MotSP ahead in my book.
The mechanics of building a hero are also here. This is old hat for most of us. Note: Ability score bonuses are more in-line with D&D 3.x than old-school D&D. But you could use whatever you like really. MotMP has Seven attributes. Comeliness is back. There are actually a few compelling reasons to include Comeliness and MotMP is a good game to use it.
Races are covered with the default humans and various archetypes of other races (Amoeboid, Aquatic...). Races are also divided up by Species (an actual species), Cultural (many species or one species that make up a culture) say like a planet of criminals or Exotic (something about them is very different), for example everyone is dead or a cyborg. There are a lot of of these races given and they can be combined in different ways.
Classes cover many of the basics; Experts, Killers, Psions, and Scholars. Each class has their own sub-specialties, HD, Attack Bonus and Skill Points. Psions get Psi Points and Power Points. In what seems reversed to me Psi-Points are your reserve of power to use your psionic powers and Power Points allow you to buy your Psychic Powers. I am planning to spend some time with the Psion since it is the closest thing I have seen to a witch-like character.

Skills define what a character can do. The skill system is a d6 roll under the skill points you have for a particular skill. There are some common skills that everyone can use, the Psi skills (Psions), Combat skills, Scholastic skills, and General skills (ones that anyone can learn but don't start out with).

After skills we discuss gear, which includes arms and armor. Some basic ship stats are also given. Ships can also have a number of qualities. My favorite so far is "Killer Paint Job" which makes your ship "look totally rad". Seriously it like this is the only game that remembers that fun is important! Ok, not really, but fun is in the forethought here.

Of course you are are going to get all that loot from doing what ever your kick-ass characters do, but can you afford that "killer paint job"? Better hire that previously mentioned accountant. Retainers are discussed next. How many hit die they have (space is a dangerous place) and how much they need to be paid. So do you want 10 accountants or 1 elite assassin?

There is a chapter on cybernetics and enhancements. It isn't as fully transhuman as say Stars Without Number, but it gets the job done.

Bodly Going is the chapter on space and planet exploration. It can also be called 1,001 Ways to Die in Space. I give Grim a lot of credit here. I know the guy outside of the gaming world and he is what I call a science-cheer-leader. He does not hit us over the head with hard core science in this, but he is paying enough lip service to the real thing to make this chapter fun to read. I know he could have dialed this up more, but since his goal is fun this is perfect.

Rocket's Red Glare gives us more details of spaceships. This includes a lot on combat. What I do like here is that ships are treated like characters. It is something a lot of games do so there is a real pragmatic approach to it all.

The rest of this section covers things characters can do and psionics.

A little after the half-way point we get into the Game Master's section. If the players make kick-ass characters then the game master is instructed to be a bad-ass Game Master. Additionally advice is how to keep the game fun. So everything from planetary romance, swords and planets stories, sexy (or sleazy) fun, traps, killing things and taking their stuff and more are discussed.

The book ends with an index and character and ship sheets.

There is so much here to be honest that I doubt I'd ever run out of things to do with this game. It may be more tongue-in-cheek than other sci-fi games. There are plenty of "Serious" sci-fi games that play great and are fun, but I doubt I will find one with a bigger sense of fun than this one.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Machinations of the Space Princess
Publisher: Postmortem Studios
by David O. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/04/2013 10:41:11

I was curious about how the author would approach the mechanics of old school D&D and still apply it to a modern, futuristic sensibility and I was pleasantly surprised to see it was very well done and looked very playable. Cheeky and light-hearted at its core, the game looks like fun to run and even more fun to play. Specifically the alien character creation is brilliant. There is enough detail to make it interesting and it's simple enough that you won't be upset rolling up a new character once yours has been sucked out another airlock. The spaceship rules look great! I can't wait to jump in and build a few ships. Psionics looks like a lot of fun as well. There is also a really well thought out section on running games and playing games that has some really good advice, but without being too preachy or taking itself too seriously. A sense of humour is a must for this game to be enjoyed.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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