A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase is a role playing game written and published by Seamus Conneely. The supplement is based on Breathless and as a result is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The supplement is available as a 23-page PDF from itch.io for $4.99 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the front cover and two the front matter.
The first page of content explains that the Fleet was once a great force but the remnants are now fleeing after a cataclysmic battle with The Enemy; this sounds rather similar to the premise of The Lost Fleet novels.
It then explains that this is a science fiction game. It requires a player, the GM, although called FLEETCOM, who runs the game, 2-5 players taking the place of ships, d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s and d12s, as well as a means of recording information.
The Setting explains that this is determined by the players by asking questions to determine the origin of the Fleet, the Enemy, the objective and related questions.
The Characters explains that each player takes the role of a Ship; they could be captains, AIs or something more abstract. Each ship is named and then one of each dice is assigned to five departments; Weapons, Sensors, Navigation, Comms and Engineering, each of which has different roles. Effectively, the stats. Ships also have Supply and Damage.
Checks are done to complete a risky or important task; the relevant department is determined and a die of that size rolled. Rolling under Difficulty is a failure, at it succeeds with a cost and over is success, with the higher, the better. Difficulties and some consequences are listed.
Supply explains that this is an abstract representation of supplies and explains how it can be spent.
Modifications are changes done to a Ship that grant a die value that can be used for a check instead of the Department die. Modification die values decrease after a check, until they are removed, and each ship can only have two.
Mission Types has various different types of mission that can be undertaken, with the rewards they grant.
Progress explains how this is gained and when it reaches 10, the Fleet has reached safety.
Rest, Repair and Refit has the Fleet stop to do these but the Enemy gets closer as a result.
Enemy Presence is how close the Enemy is and how this is changed; if it reaches 5, the Enemy has arrived and the game is over.
Missions explains that these have five things; type, briefing, success tracker, difficulty rating and reward. Various missions are then detailed.
The final two pages have the FLEETCOM sheet and Ship sheet.
A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a single column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.
This is a somewhat unusual game that could be described as being a kind of wargame, though it does overlap in some ways with RPGs. At full price, this may be rather expensive, but it is a full game in a fairly small book. It is also best used for one-shots, though it does have some replayability, although more missions would help for that. A Stern Chase Is A Long Chase is a little expensive at full price and it can be found by clicking here.
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