HardNova ][: Space Opera Adventures

Game: HardNova ][: Space Opera Adventures
Publisher: Politically Incorrect Games
Series: genreDiversion
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 23rd, December 2004
Reviewer’s Rating: 8/10   [ Really good ]
Total Score: 9
Average Score: 4.50

When is HardNova 2 not HardNova 2? When it’s HardNova ][. Ha! Actually, I poke fun at typographical styling but I do have to admit the effect is quite catching. Politically Incorrect Games have really upgraded their website too. It is not just brand building, bells and whistles as we also have new extremely useful features available from the site. The point? Politically Incorrect Games are quite the wizard of the Indie Games Niche Industry and support their protects well. Sometimes the only risk in paying US $4.00 for a roleplaying game is that the publishers will fold within a year and you’ll be left with neither support nor official forums to brainstorm on and swap ideas. It’s hard to imagine that’s going to happen to PIG. There are two supplements for HardNova ][ already; the Enhancement Pack and Miniseries Alpha: The Vanguard.

The main change between HardNova II and HardNova is the change of rule system. HardNova II uses Politically Incorrect Games’ genreDiversion i system. The genreDiversion is simple but powerful – it’s one of my favourites. Total up your skill total and roll 2d6. If you equal your skill total or roll under then you’ve succeed. The benefit of rolling two dice is that you’ve a bell shaped curve; an average range. This is spiced up further with bonus or penalty dice. If you’ve a bonus dice then you roll 3d6 and pick the lowest two (making it easier to roll under) and if you’re a penalty dice you roll 3d6 and pick the highest two. If you’re lucky you may have more than one penalty or bonus die. If you’re using the advanced rules then you don’t use bonus dice at all and move on to a more precise difficulty rating system.

Two alternative systems in one product? Is this too confusing? No, I don’t think so. As each system can be accurately described in a few pages so you don’t have the horror of reading through a complex system only to discover everything you’ve read in redundant. The systems aren’t completely alternative too, there’s just one modular exchange and that’s seamless enough. No. Having a choice of systems in one product is a boon not a bane.

… and if you count the “going diceless” option in the RPG too then there are three ways the play the game.

HardNova ][ is good.

This is a game you can pick up in the morning and be saving the galaxy in the evening. Many genreDiversion games are designed for one day campaigns only, stage whispers to your usual roleplaying staple, and HardNova can be played in this way. HardNova ][ also has plenty of stamina. You can run this RPG for as long as you like. The core rules offer character advancement and even robotic character advancement rules too.

This is a science fiction game or science fantasy really as we’ve technology advanced enough to appear to be magic. There are biomechanical enhancements and even psionics in the game. For your US $4.00 you get 75 pages and that’s good value. There are succinct charts of equipment and a few pages of weaponry. There’s enough weapons and armour here to more than illustrate the level of advanced technology and to give a feel for the game but not enough to appeal to TechHeads or put crunch ambivalent readers to sleep. It is strange to see weapons without stats but you need to scoot back up to the personal combat section to check out the injury values for the different types of weapons.

There aren’t any lists of starships and spacecraft. GMs compile spaceships in an ad hoc and flexible way by looking at component prices and abilities. This may well unsettle roleplayers who are used to fatter supplements (and more costly ones too) and being guided by the hand but really is the best way to start the RPG. I wouldn’t be surprised if future supplements for HardNova ][ have more spaceship rules. This edition of HardNova has a few blank character sheets for spaceships.

The phrase “character sheets for spaceships” is fitting. Space combat is treated almost as personal combat is. Whereas player character races have stats like Fitness, Awareness, Creativity, Reasoning and Influence whereas ships have stats like Speed / Handling and Frame / Shields. The number range starts at 0 (untrained, etc) peaks at 5 for stats and hits 8 for skills.

That range of abilities is enough to produce a diverse array of alien races. In addition to putting racial caps on abilities the different races also have differing limitations and gimmicks. Gimmicks are a broad umbrella of merits and flaws, advantages and disadvantages, pros and cons. There is the human race and the Centaurian spin off from them. The Kt’sorii are an insect race, the Digronian an ape-like race and the Migado are a rather unsightly alien race made obese not by fat but by an excess of redundant organs. The Tarkosians are victim of genetic modification gone wrong and are now dependant on nano-symbiants to keep them alive. The X-ans are an entirely artificial race. In addition there’s the Ruthdii Komar a worm menace not suited for PCs.

In the HardNova ][ setting mankind heads up the United Sovereign Worlds (rather nicely abbreviated to USU due to alien language problems!). The original banding of allies in the USU was a response to the warlike and aggressive Tarkosian. The Tarkosians lost and suffered. Their entire planetary economy was geared towards war and failed to revert to trade – this made much worse by the USU refusing, initially, to trade with them. Over time the Tarkosians were accepted back into polite society and then became a full member of the USU. This set up creates a nice tension within the USU and will spin initial plot and party dynamics from the word go.

At the end of the PDF there’s a superb full colour galaxy map which shows the planets and what I presume to be stargate channels.

In addition to the core rules and summary campaign word information in HardNova ][ there are a half dozen pages of scenarios. There are four of these scenarios and you have only real scenario synopses and ideas. These scenario ideas are well worth reading as they add into the over all world/galaxy information for HardNova ][ as well as giving an insight into the style of play suggested by Politically Incorrect Games.

HardNova ][ is very playable. It’s a good RPG at good value. It’s a game that needs a confident Gamesmaster. You need someone at the helm who can take off where the PDF ends and add the living and breathing detail to the infrastructure provided by Politically Incorrect Games. If you’re a fan of original and independent RPGs then you’re likely to be a fan of HardNova ][.