OMG - where have you been all my life?? So good. Disco, lycra, lots of flesh on display. Weird manly rituals like jogging, dancing and moustaches. Strong, competent, gorgeous women who out perform the men.

Intro chapter is good, helps get in the mood and solidifies the idea that the 1970s-08s never went away, they just slept. Chapter two is about creating scenarios, and this is where game theory should diverge from TV plot creation. It works well, not sure how. Start with a idea for a game scenario, with a background, theme, helpers, opponents and difficulties. Then rate that for how strong each of these will be: theme, plot, recurrence, cheese, special FX. (not critical but makes sense eventually)

Chapter Three shows how we sketch out PCs traits to match those things from Chapter two - not too much detail yet. And finally each Player gets to add in the details, signature moves or sayings, quirks etc that make them stand out and yet still meet the needs of the team and the scenario.

Chapter Four - the rules The Intention system is great - how did we not do this before? The Benefits and Obstacles section is really good - these act as Advantage and Disadvantage die - GM hardly gets to roll as NPC activities are taken into account when deciding what the PLayers need to roll. The only issue i have is that PCs with more Obstacles than Benefits has an almost zero chance of succeeding (without a complication, although i like the complications). I think some sort of DM, like +1 to the die total (or minimum roll of 2 per die), is needed.

Really good 'striped down and ready' rules. Can get going in about 3 minutes. The tables are very helpful (though often a tad weird) to getting ideas for a new character. The character sheet is just tiny! Awesome i love it. Players have to act out their characters rather than read out their skill list.

The rules are just one side of one A4 page!!! The Tools of the Trade rule is brilliant. Computer nerds will understand 'instanciating'. Rather than list all the tools you have, we simply roll to see if you have it when you need it! (we have a class called tool, which we try to instantiate when we have a problem).

I did the same with skills, cargo, weapons, wealth etc. Brilliant!! (we started off with descriptors to indicate the likelihood of having what was needed for a given scenario.

The Heat system does my head in. Really need some examples (say 10 pages of well thought out examples)

The D6 complication dice is great fun, as i require players to say what they are risking when they attempt something (if there isnt any risk then why are we rolling?) And so the 'reward' is related to the 'risk'. The D20 success was a bit too random for me, so players had to work hard to get Advantage

I also use the original Space Aces to set up scenarios etc, as it has the tables to do so. And we may use that Character Sheet, filling it in as we go through the adventures.

I had bought this hoping the authors had worked out how magic could be embedded into medieval society without it feeling like modern technology (i hav that problem with steam punk) and causing modern society. (downtrodden serfs, hapless villagers, starving townsfolk)

Instead the magic users are a guild, like tanners, alchemists. Sort of squeezed between the cracks of history, without making any changes. This is good if you want low-magic games that look and feel just like historical reality - play Harn Master? - though i find that too gritty.

I had wanted it to be more like a fourth estate, with its own power base, but not too powerful, held in check by the nobility's armies and the church's faith-based powers. But not everyone with a sword works for a lord, and i would expect rogue mages just like there are witches and mercenaries. So i would also expect magic-strong areas to have better food in the country, fewer famines (ourside cities and large towns), better roads and tracks, some medicines etc. And there may be a rub - out in the wilderness there are no such luxuries, you need to do it all yourself!

so good to return to my youth. Nicely laid out and easy to play

Awesome setting! It is two years since Terra fought an alien race to a stand still, causing them to withdraw from the planets near Earth. I have stolen news articles from 1918 (spanish flu anyone??) and 1945-1950 to give more background events.

We started off with a group of salvage experts (rogues) who mostly dealt with humans, and then needed more information, so slowly started to interact with aliens - who are more than just clever dogs and cats. The aliens are good - well described and fun to run as GM. Not sure i want aliens as PCs as too hard to get right.

I am introducing many more sentient races (read clever monsters) and hazards (read monters and nasty plants) on the nearby stars for the hapless players to enjoy. I have limited Terra's tech to 10, Jump-1, so that players cannot go just anywhere, and it kind of feels like they have to 'hug the coast' :-) Anything above that (including Jump 2) is stolen tech. Players can only do J2 on a transporter ship, which has reduced their desires to be wanton criminals as they are easy to spot when waiting for a highliner to turn up. And it means that there is lots of alien tech just sitting around waiting to be acquired for Terra (hurar!!) - and boffens will pay nicely for it.

As per other reviews of mine, i am also including disco from Retro Stars, and simple characters from Space Aces.

This is good - it is fun and easy.

I am combining it with Retro Star (near future with lycra - disco). You can challenge someone to a dance off rather than shoot everyone: a bit easier on the street. :-)

The core system is great, for one or two players. So i fudged that to cater for four players. This is a problem for games that try to emulate a TV or movie. The 'travel at the speed of plot' and 'buy what the plot requires' removes the ability to plan (are we faster? can we build up our reserves?).

Secondly, the Firefly class out classes nearly every other ship, so why aren't they everywhere? This could have been made to be dependent on the crew (pilot, engineer, tactician etc). Downgrade the firefly in all respects, and have the crew bring it back up (they are nursing an old, tired, skick ship = skill roles, planning, careful maintenance and not doing crazy ivans at every opportunity).

There is a board game called Space Traders which could be used as the background scenario generator and handles ship finances. Building on the above, you can keep the ship flying, or hire a mercenary to guard your stuff?? hard choices.

Where is the magic? Average, could do better. I was surprised by the sub-ordination of magic to might - the lords are still in charge and magicians are just another guild. Not bad for a low magic genre, but it kind of feels too much like 'old europe' with some magic on the end. The thieves guild gets more collumn inches than the guild of sorcerors. And yet i expected this to show how a city in a magical realm would differ from a mundane historical one.

I got the Guide to see how the authors wove magic into a world, and it looks more like an after-market patch rather than magic being inherent in the world. As a friend said, where is the awe? water fountains without the need for aquaducts, healing gates that cure (mundane) diseases of all who enter. Where are the high level sorcerors that rule by magical fiat? the council of seers who can predict crop failures and invasions? The Sorceror's guard who know the location and health of all of their fellows. Blight resistant crops? Zero infant mortality? Equality of the sexes? Surely magic will have solved the basics: shelter, security, warmth, egality, health and food.