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Space 1889: Science Fiction Role Playing in a More Civilized Time
Book by Chadwick, Frank
228 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
67 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 4, 2018
Space 1889 is a planetary adventure in the vein of Verne, Wells, and H. Rider Haggard. It's the 1889 that you vaguely remember from history, with a European peace and a scramble for Empire, trains and factories but only the most experimental cars. There are a few teensy differences. First, Thomas Edison invented a device in 1870 called the ether propeller, which allows travel in space. Mars, Venus, and Mercury have all been explored. Mars is populated by a decadent race in dusty cities along canals, with bands of wild nomads. Martian liftwood allows the creation of ships that can fly to an altitude where the ether propeller takes them into space. Mars is mostly dominated by the British. Venus is a swampy planet with dinosaurs, lizardmen, and efficient German plantations. Mercury has a livable river separating regions where lead vaporizes and air freezes. The setting seems ripe for adventure, with vast wildernesses to explore, principalities both human and alien to conquer, and many treasures to exploit.
The system is Ubiquity, a stat+skill dice pool where even results count as a success. There's an automatic success rule, which is good because the system seems extremely punishing. My analysis shows a decent chance of success at half your total rating, bad odds (p=0.3) one above that, poor odds (p = 0.1) two above that, and beyond that, forget about it!
I haven't yet played this game, so I do have some skepticism about the setting. There are hooks everywhere, but how do they catch? I'm not running the game, so less concerned. And as for Ubiquity, it's serviceable, but for a game based around expeditions and/or social status, could use some more mechanical heft there. Also, combat by the book involves rerolling initiative every round, which why?
The system is Ubiquity, a stat+skill dice pool where even results count as a success. There's an automatic success rule, which is good because the system seems extremely punishing. My analysis shows a decent chance of success at half your total rating, bad odds (p=0.3) one above that, poor odds (p = 0.1) two above that, and beyond that, forget about it!
I haven't yet played this game, so I do have some skepticism about the setting. There are hooks everywhere, but how do they catch? I'm not running the game, so less concerned. And as for Ubiquity, it's serviceable, but for a game based around expeditions and/or social status, could use some more mechanical heft there. Also, combat by the book involves rerolling initiative every round, which why?
August 9, 2019
I love the pulps and boy do I love airships. So when I found a game that let me play a early pulp era character and had airships built into it I was beyond words. Great game and easy mechanics to play. tons of fun exploring the solar system in a space airship. And their are several really good novels based on the game. very recommended
September 11, 2008
I have to agree almost entirely with Scott's review below -- don't get this for the game mechanics, which are fairly poor and not really worth anything if you're going to run a game with a lot of dice-rolling -- but the setting is beautifully done and the authors have really done their homework in putting together a gaslight romance-type adventure. I just have a couple of the supplements but intend to get more; everything I've seen has been very well-written and generally the illustrations and maps are top-notch as well. Anybody interested in classic Victorian/Edwardian American or British sf -- Wells, Burroughs, Haggard, Griffith, etc -- should get a kick out of this.
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September 12, 2021What books do I have in this series and why?
Back a few months ago, when I was... let's say feeling the pandemic, I decided to change things up by filling in some missing books from my RPG collection; I had a few books in the Space 1889 line and filled in most of the rest:
Space 1889 (core rules)
Soldier's Companion (miniature rules and more about armies)
Conklin's Atlas of the Worlds (sourcebook)
Tales from the Ether and More Tales from the Ether (adventure anthologies)
Beastmen, Caravans, Steppelords, and Canal Priests of Mars (adventure and sourcebooks)
No, but why?
Rereading/skimming Space 1889, a few things jump out, but overall: the premise of this game is that 19th-century colonialism has made it to the other planets, in a retro-future style (e.g., flying ships make the trips on ether; Venus is a swamp planet of dinosaurs and lizardmen; Mars is a dying planet full of warring tribes and city-states). As this is meant to emulate a certain style of American-British pulps, the adventures are usually structured around dangers to the British crown colonies or mercantile interests, with native Martians, German colonizers, and mad scientists being the main source of those dangers.
(It amuses me that the current publisher of this is the German company Ulisses Spiele, and they seem to have turned away from the "evil German" aspect of the game, and I'm sure there's nothing else problematic there.)
This is, to put it mildly, hard to imagine updating for modern -- or rather my -- sensibilities. Whenever I read something about how, say, the lizardmen are "adapting well" to the plantations on Venus, I kept thinking of Lavie Tidhar's note that steampunk is fascism for nice people. (The artwork inside didn't strike me one way or another, but the covers do feature a lot of white women in dresses being menaced by "native" figures and being protected by white men dressed either as soldiers or big game hunters.) Or to put it another way, Conklin's Atlas provides an overview of all the areas where PCs might want to adventure/explore and conquer/loot: Mars, Venus, the Moon, Africa, South America...
I asked on a gaming discussion group how one might update this to make it feel less awful, and most of the answers were to make colonialism less effective by either casting the Earthlings as refugees or by making the Martians technologically on-par rather than the dying civilization that has lost their historical powers. I might also offer a different campaign frame where the PCs were the natives that were trying to navigate the complex and potentially dangerous influx of outworlders; or maybe a game where you played it as written but rather than white Britishers, played members of the Indian Army, ostensibly part of the colonialist force but with a different view on things (or maybe an all-women group) -- or occasionally zoomed out to see what life was like for other people who colonialism has impacted. I'm sure there's a few twists you could wring out of this, but in general, this doesn't feel like a game that I'd be interested in playing straight.
(Just one thing to note that I like here: the adventure/sourcebooks really do a good job of sketching in some area and then allowing the PCs to discover and deal with all that material; in other words, there's a real focus here on gameability.)
(Also of note: I bought the original Canal Priests of Mars, which was much cut down from the original manuscript; these days you can also buy the un-cut version as a pdf.)
Back a few months ago, when I was... let's say feeling the pandemic, I decided to change things up by filling in some missing books from my RPG collection; I had a few books in the Space 1889 line and filled in most of the rest:
Space 1889 (core rules)
Soldier's Companion (miniature rules and more about armies)
Conklin's Atlas of the Worlds (sourcebook)
Tales from the Ether and More Tales from the Ether (adventure anthologies)
Beastmen, Caravans, Steppelords, and Canal Priests of Mars (adventure and sourcebooks)
No, but why?
Rereading/skimming Space 1889, a few things jump out, but overall: the premise of this game is that 19th-century colonialism has made it to the other planets, in a retro-future style (e.g., flying ships make the trips on ether; Venus is a swamp planet of dinosaurs and lizardmen; Mars is a dying planet full of warring tribes and city-states). As this is meant to emulate a certain style of American-British pulps, the adventures are usually structured around dangers to the British crown colonies or mercantile interests, with native Martians, German colonizers, and mad scientists being the main source of those dangers.
(It amuses me that the current publisher of this is the German company Ulisses Spiele, and they seem to have turned away from the "evil German" aspect of the game, and I'm sure there's nothing else problematic there.)
This is, to put it mildly, hard to imagine updating for modern -- or rather my -- sensibilities. Whenever I read something about how, say, the lizardmen are "adapting well" to the plantations on Venus, I kept thinking of Lavie Tidhar's note that steampunk is fascism for nice people. (The artwork inside didn't strike me one way or another, but the covers do feature a lot of white women in dresses being menaced by "native" figures and being protected by white men dressed either as soldiers or big game hunters.) Or to put it another way, Conklin's Atlas provides an overview of all the areas where PCs might want to adventure/explore and conquer/loot: Mars, Venus, the Moon, Africa, South America...
I asked on a gaming discussion group how one might update this to make it feel less awful, and most of the answers were to make colonialism less effective by either casting the Earthlings as refugees or by making the Martians technologically on-par rather than the dying civilization that has lost their historical powers. I might also offer a different campaign frame where the PCs were the natives that were trying to navigate the complex and potentially dangerous influx of outworlders; or maybe a game where you played it as written but rather than white Britishers, played members of the Indian Army, ostensibly part of the colonialist force but with a different view on things (or maybe an all-women group) -- or occasionally zoomed out to see what life was like for other people who colonialism has impacted. I'm sure there's a few twists you could wring out of this, but in general, this doesn't feel like a game that I'd be interested in playing straight.
(Just one thing to note that I like here: the adventure/sourcebooks really do a good job of sketching in some area and then allowing the PCs to discover and deal with all that material; in other words, there's a real focus here on gameability.)
(Also of note: I bought the original Canal Priests of Mars, which was much cut down from the original manuscript; these days you can also buy the un-cut version as a pdf.)
January 27, 2020
I love this setting. I've loved this setting since I first came across it on my dad's book shelf sometime in the late 80s. Before anybody but K.W. Jeter was using the dubious name of "steampunk," Space 1889 came along with its retro-futurist sensibilities, steeped in the tradition of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and others. Colonialism (generally focused on British Colonialism) writ large across the inner Solar system. Airships on Mars, dinosaurs on Venus, strange technologies, and a stiff upper lip. This game's setting is the very stuff of my youthful reading, and I love it.
The game itself is maybe another matter. The game mechanics keep veering into war game territory. Read a couple pages about the setting, then you're off on a bunch of complex rules about the construction, movement, and combat of flying vessels or the detailed simulation of mountain climbing. Then it's back to setting. It felt like the author couldn't decide if he was making an especially colorful miniatures game or a painfully simulationist RPG.
This weird disconnect helps to create the book's biggest problem, its organization. It jumps back and forth between rules and setting info frequently and in such a way that, as a reader, I kept losing the thread. I think this also leads to some information being repeated several times, while other information takes far too long to discover.
My personal preference would be to start the book with the setting's history, follow that up with a nice description of its 'now,' and then a clear explanation of the rules.
One day, I'm definitely going to get around to running a game of Space 1889. I may not use the GDW system, as it feels clunky and too complex. I know there have been other versions, including Savage Worlds. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. This is a setting I think could really benefit from a 'sandbox' (open world for you video game players) style of game.
One day....
The game itself is maybe another matter. The game mechanics keep veering into war game territory. Read a couple pages about the setting, then you're off on a bunch of complex rules about the construction, movement, and combat of flying vessels or the detailed simulation of mountain climbing. Then it's back to setting. It felt like the author couldn't decide if he was making an especially colorful miniatures game or a painfully simulationist RPG.
This weird disconnect helps to create the book's biggest problem, its organization. It jumps back and forth between rules and setting info frequently and in such a way that, as a reader, I kept losing the thread. I think this also leads to some information being repeated several times, while other information takes far too long to discover.
My personal preference would be to start the book with the setting's history, follow that up with a nice description of its 'now,' and then a clear explanation of the rules.
One day, I'm definitely going to get around to running a game of Space 1889. I may not use the GDW system, as it feels clunky and too complex. I know there have been other versions, including Savage Worlds. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. This is a setting I think could really benefit from a 'sandbox' (open world for you video game players) style of game.
One day....
June 6, 2019
Does this count as reading a book? The concept and settings are fascinating, while the game mechanics are clunky and you can tell they definitely come from a war game company. The airship to airship war boardgame that they suggest as a great addition to the experience are another giveaway.
The concept is that Verne, Wells and the gang were right. You have interplanetary blimp-like ships traveling between Earth, Mars and Venus. Mars and Venus are both nicely realized with the canals of Mars the earlier work of a now dying civilization and the lizard-men of Venus starting toward civilization on their swampy planet. I read the first edition but there is a later and better edition from a German remake with sourcebooks for Mercury, Venus and Mars that could prove interesting settings for most any roleplaying game.
The concept is that Verne, Wells and the gang were right. You have interplanetary blimp-like ships traveling between Earth, Mars and Venus. Mars and Venus are both nicely realized with the canals of Mars the earlier work of a now dying civilization and the lizard-men of Venus starting toward civilization on their swampy planet. I read the first edition but there is a later and better edition from a German remake with sourcebooks for Mercury, Venus and Mars that could prove interesting settings for most any roleplaying game.
August 1, 2008
The setting is incredibly rich, but the mechanics are simply terrible. That said, the Space: 1889 universe is one that could be easily converted to a better set of mechanics. It's worth the effort.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews