A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Retribution

Retribution by Joseph Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with Cepheus Engine. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

The supplement is available as a 22 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.

The opening paragraphs explain that the Sonora sector has become unstable recently – the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space, though this isn’t stated – and the Olonsean Empire and Jorum Family have been conquering weaker and unaligned worlds, often using nuclear bombardment from space. The characters are hired to recover an Olonsean general’s daughter captured by rebels who are threatening to kill her if the empire doesn’t withdraw.

Patron gives details on the person hiring the characters.

General Uq’ood gives details on the general.

Kat’ols gives details on the daughter.

The Rebel Commander has stats for the commander, whose death is part of the mission.

Complications are things that can go wrong.

Key to the Rebel Base covers the various locations.

Fighter Squadron has details on the fighters used to patrol the area.

The Bio-Toxin has a dangerous compound that may be accidentally released during a firefight.

Random Encounters has encounters for inside the base and outside patrols.

Guard Roster has NPC stats.

Mechanics and Engineers has more NPC stats.

Other Personnel has yet more stats.

Scientists has even more stats.

Mission Completion Objectives are what the characters need to succeed.

The final page of content has a map of the base.

Retribution in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that they would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a single column format and some minor errors were noticed. Bar the map and covers, there are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.

This does suffer from a common problem; far too many NPCs detailed individually, when a single stat, or maybe a couple, for each category would have been more than adequate. There’s no need to know personal details about enemy mooks. As far as the adventure goes, this is potentially very dangerous, both inside and outside the base. There are a lot of armed people around. Other than that, this is a fairly straightforward, albeit difficult, mission. Retribution can be found by clicking here.