Fading Suns 4 – Gamemaster Book is a role playing game supplement published by Ulisses Spiele for use with Fading Suns 4. This is one of three core books for the system, the other two being the Character Book and Universe Book.
The supplement is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $14.99 or in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle, and has 118 pages, with two being the front and rear covers, four being the inside covers, one the front matter and one the Table of Contents.
The Introduction explains this is one of three Core Books for Fading Suns, the others being the Universe Book and the Character Book. This book provides the special rules of play for the GM, different NPCs and a beginning drama – adventure. All three books are needed to play. There’s a list of books, TV shows, movies and comics that can provide inspiration.
Chapter 1: Drama starts with some short introductory in-world writing before looking at NPCs. There are three types; Headliners, Agents and Extras. These are given an overview here but are covered in more detail in Chapter 2. Index cards are recommended to keep track of NPCs, with a single card for each Headliner and Agent and one card serving for multiple Extras. Also, when players roll a critical miss, 1 WP goes into the adversary coffer, which the GM can use at any time to aid an NPC, though the coffer is emptied at the end of the drama. There are some details on how to gauge challenges from NPCs as characters advance.
The Troupe Coffer is how the characters are rewarded for trying to actively keep their troupe together against the forces that strive to break it apart. Wyrd points are added to the coffer for doing this. Any troupe member can draw from the coffer at any time, unless another member objects, at which point it becomes a majority vote, though the troupe leader can affect this and characters with the Inspiring perk can also have an effect. There are suggestions as to what WP can be awarded for.
Character development is a bit different to the norm. Characters do not advance individually; they advance together, as a troupe. All of the troupe’s members level up at the same time. Between full level advances, characters can have partial advances which allow them to gain one of the trait increases that they would get for a full advance. Character advancement can be set at different paces. Prosaic means that it takes five dramas to advance a full level, heroic means it takes three and meteoric means it takes one.
Following this is a section on how to run a Fading Suns game. There are several steps that provide a quickstart guide to doing this; these are first outlined then individually covered in more detail. Step 1 is gathering the troupe; in some ways, a troupe is like a traditional RPG character party, but in other ways it’s different, as it is essentially far more of a cohesive entity, as could be inferred from the previous bit covering character advancement.
Step 2 is developing the arc. This starts with the basic story, then looks at different genres of fiction. By the nature of the game, Fading Suns can easily cover a wide range of genre types, and there are a variety looked at and given overviews. Step 3 covers preparing for Opening Night, with details on scenario design, using scene cards to breakdown scenes and various genre frameworks that can be developed. Step 4 looks at how to flesh things out from that point. It also looks at the myth arc, which is the core stories of the epic, and ship-in-a-bottle stories, which are more restricted in scope and focus on character moments or unrelated adventures.
The game’s structure is then looked at. Stories break down into dramas, which are one to six sessions or acts, and epics, which are two or more interrelated dramas. It then looks at the different elements that go into a drama, and those that go into an epic. Epics may or may not have an end, or at least may not have a defined end to start with though they can still come to an end. Following this are some axioms and suggestions on playing and running games so that they are enjoyed by everyone.
Inspiration looks into sources of inspiration for dramas, including using astro-divinity cards – basically, an in-game card set similar to tarot, and indeed a tarot deck is used to represent them – and using the cards to ask questions in and out of game to drive the story. Finally, the chapter explains that this may be a science fiction game, but it’s one where the wondrous and strange are also involved; in truth, science fantasy would like be a better description.
Chapter 2: People starts with a piece of introductory in-world writing, then moves onto NPC Types. NPCs are divided into Headliners, Agents and Extras. Each of these is covered separately, with an overview as to what they are, their traits and how to roleplay them, with the card template to use and an example. Headliners are the most fully-fleshed NPCs, very similar to PCs, with the same traits. Agents are NPCs with unique skill sets that make them effective, but they have less traits than Headliners. Extras are simple NPCs with only the most relevant traits. There are card template examples of each of the three types, followed by sample NPCs in many different categories. These include creatures, monstrosities and monsters, with details on creature creation, as well as golems, which are robots.
Beyond the Borders looks at beings outside the Known Worlds. The vau and the symbiots are covered with example stats. Anunnaki Artifacts looks at things from earlier civilisations, which are gargoyles, effective against evil occult rituals, soul shards, which are psychic crystal shards, and Philosophers Stones, each of which is unique and may be very powerful. Myths and Legends looks at superstitions, and otherwise that have arisen, namely the Fading Suns phenomenon, and a heretical belief connected to it, and the Dark between the stars, an essentially evil force linked to things such as husks, void krakens and the Runedark.
Chapter 3: Places starts by explaining that places are where the drama happens. It then looks at the role place plays, which can be antagonist, gatekeeper, grace, puzzle, hell last stand, mirror and power, with descriptions of each of these. Following this is a brief look at different kinds of environments, and there are some questions that should be answered for places. It also looks at how people can get around.
Sample Setting: Hargard takes up much of the chapter. This provides a map of the planet, an overview of it, various stats relevant to it, details on the continents, the planet’s history and present conflicts.
Chapter 4: Playing the Game starts with an example of play, with a dramatis personae for the troupe’s members and the players playing them. This runs over several pages and covers the characters going through part of a drama, including different types of encounters, from combat to social.
Drama: Nightmare in Yngmark is a sample drama, or adventure, set on Hargard, which was covered in the previous chapter. This is a drama in three acts, in which the characters investigate a monster that’s loose in Yngmark.
Finally, Appendix: Tech Level gives an overview of the different tech levels, divided into Tech Level 0, TL 1-4, TL 5-6, TL 7-8 and TL 9-10, with the last being Ur-tech. A sidebar notes that more advanced technology is smart enough that it can coach a user who doesn’t have any idea what they are doing in how to use the tech.
The last page of content is NPC templates.
Fading Suns 4 – Gamemaster Book in Review
The PDF is bookmarked, though not as deeply as it could be. The Table of Contents is more thorough. Navigation could be a lot better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a variety of colour illustrations, up to about full page in size. Presentation is decent.
This is one of three core books, so naturally it doesn’t stand on its own; the other two books are needed to use it. The material in the book is a bit all over the place when it comes to content type; there are details on running games in general and Fading Suns in particular, rules for different kinds of NPCs, advice on stories, a sample setting and a sample adventure. This gives the book a less than coherent feel to it. There’s an impression that it’s material that really belongs in different supplements, not all in the same one. Fading Suns 4 – Gamemaster Book can be found by clicking here.
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