ETERNIUM Modern and Futuristic d20 RPG

Game: ETERNIUM Modern and Futuristic d20 RPG
Publisher: Pisces All Media
Series: d20
Reviewer: Odysseus
Review Dated: 11th, September 2004
Reviewer’s Rating: 8/10   [ Really good ]
Total Score: 186
Average Score: 8.45

ETERNIUM

Back of book blurb:

“Expanding the Golden Hero Pulp Universe Modern and Futuristic d20 Roleplaying Game

In ETERNIUM, the setting is the enemy.”

Eternium is a Golden game family RPG. It uses some of the same rules as Golden but adds way more. There is an illustrated section on weapons, and an illustrated section on vehicles with vehicles divided into space, water, road and air. There is also a real simple system for mecha – if the mecha is small and more like a suit of armor then its a Clamber, and you get one simple set of rules, if it is real big then its a Wearpuppet and gets treated like a standard vehicle only it walks instead of drives or files.

Eternium is paperback sized just like Golden so that is a big plus IMO. Also it is 276 pages of content, really packed out with stuff. Theres rules on computers, robots, professions and earnings, a complete set of basic character classes that map to the standard classes. Theres also a very cool couple pages on inheriting genes from parents or ancestors. I thought this was a great idea.

Price is $20.00 US with a discount if you are a member of the GGL, which is the free club for Golden players and GMs. I recommend everyone join that because theres a free newsletter called Opal 2 which gives you adventures, characters and stuff like that.

Like all Pisces books you get the impression that there is like 1000 pages of stuff and they had to cut it all down to fit a paperback size… some people don’t seem to like that but personally I love it because it means theres just so much stuff to get through that you’ll never need another book lesson you want to.

And my favourite part: NEGATIVE FEATS. Nothing in the whole of d20 comes close to letting you make up a cool character compared to negative feats. They are hilarious, and many of them are just cool to have even though they are disadvantageous.

Crunchwise the book has hundreds of pages of rules, 350 or more Feats and Negative Feats (I stopped counting), loads of kewl items and lots of quirky but playable new rules and kinks to make tech adventures amazing. There is also an extremely useful timeline. Shorter than in GOLDEN but same sort of idea.

I really like this book, and I usually much prefer fantasy to science fiction type stuff.