A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Star Mart

Star Mart by Jospeh 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 38 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 Star Mart is the largest big box retailer in the known universe – though not stated, the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space – though their methods are less than great. They need to hire the characters to help with the opening of their newest store.

Patron has details on them.

Complications are things that can go wrong or which aren’t known.

The Reren System has details on the system where the new store is.

The Talamor Trading Post covers the locations in a competing store.

A Little Bit of Piracy has details on several pirate ships operating in the system.

Local Troubles has details on the local retail labour union who are unhappy with Star Mart’s arrival.

Supply Issues has details on supply problems, plus covers the distribution centre handling supply.

Grab and Go has details on shoplifters and on the new Star Mart.

Investigations has the potential of the Sonoran Interstellar Police investigating the Star Mart.

Star Mart Roster has stats for employees.

Customers Roster is the same but for customers.

Star Mart Security Team has stats for the security guards.

Talamor Sales and Management Roster has stats for the Talamor store NPCs.

Talamor Mercenary Roster has stats for the mercenaries employed by the competing store.

Pirate Roster covers the pirate crews.

Supply Chain Employee Roster has stats for the NPCs there.

Supply Chain Security has guard stats.

Labor Union Roster has yet more stats.

Shoplifter Roister has stats for these.

Sipol Roster has stats for the police.

Mission Completion Roster is what’s needed to be successful.

The final three pages of content are black and white maps.

Star Mart in Review

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

The supplement suffers from a common problem in this series; pages and pages of NPC stats when really only a handful of stat blocks at most for each section would have been needed. The adventure itself ventures into morally dubious territory; though dealing with pirates is one thing, the sort of force the characters are expected to use to deal with most of the other problems could easily be called excessive. This means there is a chance characters may refuse to continue. Of course, they won’t get paid and may make elements of a large corporation their enemy on doing so. Star Mart is an okay adventure and it can be found by clicking here.