Space Cowboys are cool. Since the release of Cowboy Bebop, and followed up with spiritual cousins Firefly, Serenity, The Mandalorian, and The Expanse (at least the TV series) — people getting by with existential issues in space has given us some of the best sci-fi TV ever.
So I was pretty excited a year or two ago when the Cowboy Bebop roleplaying game rolled up on Kickstarter from a little company out of Italy (and if it’s not Sweden, most of the really good stuff is coming out of Italy, right now). I got the PDF in a few months back and perused it and was…underwhelmed. I held off of any kind of review, though, until I had the physical product. I’ve noticed, of late, that when I read the PDF of a game, I don’t always get what I’m looking at. Something about the screen (usually an iPad) and my periodic astigmatism makes it a pain to read for long periods of time; and the inability to quickly index back and forth means I don’t always get a clear picture of mechanics if they are quirky (as is the case here) or badly written (pretty much trying to find rules in any Modiphius product. Seriously — editors and a good index, guys.)
Well, I’ve go the book and GM screen in and it’s time to give a first impression. I’m not going to call this a review until I’ve run the game. I get the impression a lot of my issue with the game comes down to verbiage and not how the game would actually run. More on that in a minute.
The physical book is very well done. The paper and binding quality is easily on par with most stuff on the market. It’s chock full of official artwork and screencaps. The layout is double column and in a very readable typeface. It was written in Italian and translated to English, and the translation is top notch, with only a few spots when a better word choice might have been appropriate. It’s edited well — I caught no typos or layout issues. The book runs 272 pages — about normal for an RPG corebook. The GM screen is on solid cardstock with a wraparound on the front of the crew of Bebop, and the basics for running the game on the back. And I do mean the basics. As screens go, I found this one lacking a lot.
Allora, onto the meat. The system is a d6 die pool based on the approach you want to take to solving a problem, what “tab” you are in, and whether or not your approach is narratively appropriate to the story. To explain: the session is essentially split into what most of us would understand as “acts”, like in a play or show; they call them tabs. I should have a look through the Italian version to see if they use act there. You get a die for the first act, 2 for the second, and 3 for the third; the difficulty of tasks also increases. Roll the dice and beat the target number. Simple there.
How you approach the task is important. The approaches are essentially “attributes” — rock is trying to act under pressure; dance is more related to a combo of dexterity and stamina; blues deals with spirituality or self-awareness…wisdom, if you will; tango is a charisma-based approach; jazz is smarts, skill, improvisation. The music-based nomenclature is appropriate to the source material, but could be confusing as hell to those who might be looking for a more traditional set of attributes for their character. I will admit I really liked the idea on first read, changed my mind on the second reading and thought it overly subjective, but now I’m leaning a bit back to my initial impression. I can see, however, this will be a point of failure for the game group at first.
Another aspect of the system is the use of “clocks”. This is the number of successes needed to pull off a objective. There are multiple ways to bust up these clocks — 4, 6, 8, etc. Hell, you could do a 1 or 2, I suppose. There can be a few of these running coterminously; you could have an investigation clock looking for your bounty, and have a threat clock pop up due to a fight scene. You need to succeed at one or more of these for the act you are in. The GM or Big Shot — in keeping with the in-show TV program alerting bounty hunters to marks — can also have clocks running for the opposition. If they get the clock cleared first, that’s a failure.
There are hits and shocks as “damage”. Hits are the successes of the players; shocks are the GM’s game currency and can be spent to increase difficulties later. Shocks are gained when the players roll a 1 or based on the something in the act. You absorb these by taking a wound on your approach. Two wounds and you can’t use the approach for the rest of the session. You can also clear a shock by marking a “bullet” — this is a clock of sorts where you get six bullets before something in your past comes up to haunt you. There are examples of play in the book that help with all of this, but on first read it was confusing as hell. I think if the GM can come to grips with how this works (or just ditch it for a number of successes must be accrued by a certain number of tests) the game will run smoothly. But there will be a learning curve for the GM. The players will have an easier time of it once they get past the approaches idea.
Each of the approaches also gets a trait that, if the player can weave it into their description of what they’re doing, aids in the die pool. This can be things like a personal description, a piece gear, clothing, etc. You have a key memory and a “groove” — a basic schtick you can use in play.
The group gets to choose a “mothership” — their base of operations — and a personal vehicle, either a small spacecraft like Spike Spiegel’s Swordfish, or the like.
The rest of the book is a guide to the Bebop universe — the criminal factions, corporations, and other players in the solar system. There’s source material on the gate system that allows the characters to get around space, the various worlds and asteroids, and an episode guide that is, I think, too long. I would have liked a bit more background material, but they stayed very faithful to the anime. (I may be in the minority, but I rather liked how the live action series buffed out some of the universe.)
So…is it worth it? I honestly don’t want to say, yet, but would prefer to kick the tires on it and see how it plays. That said, if you are a Cowboy Bebop fan and want to support officially licensed material for it, or you are a completist that wants to have all the hot steamy jazz you can get…go for it.
Contrasting Cowboy Bebop is Orbital Blues — a “…game of sad space cowboys, your crew of desperate and downtrodden outlaws do what they can to make ends meet. They travel across a music-infused space-western universe filled with retro-future technology, plagued by heartbreak and the haunting shadow of the blues.” This rolled up as a Kickstarter a few months back for Afterburner, a new expansion to the original book. Since the original was included in one of the bundles for a reasonably price, I jumped on it, as I was still as bit on the fence about Cowboy Bebop. Soul Muppet Publishing is out of Nottingham and publishes a number of rules-lite games.
Right now, I only have the PDF for Orbital Blues, but the layout allows for easy reading. It’s filled with retro artwork, a clean layout that looks like the print book is probably on the size of the 5×7″ Fate books. The typeface is clean — Helvetica Neue, I’m guessing — and sized well. We’ll see how the physical book looks when I get it.
Orbital Blues is a rules-lite system trying to do a lot of the same things that Cowboy Bebop is doing, but without a lot of the chaff, which you can see in its 108 pages. The characters have three stats: Muscle, Grit, and Savvy — easy enough to intuit what they do: physical stuff, willpower stuff, and smarts/skills stuff. Stats run from -1 to +2 and get added to a 2d6 roll when something happens that requires an ability check. If you have some form of advantage (“The Upper Hand”), you get an extra die and drop the lowest; when disadvantaged (“Against All Odds”) roll three dice and drop the highest. Beat the target number…which is always an 8. If it’s harder than usual, it’s “against all odds”, and when easier “the upper hand”. Gear can also provide bonuses. Dead simple.
A note on mechanics: if this sounds a lot like Traveler, I agree, except the main mechanic is also used for combat, so that isn’t more complicated than a normal task — something that does crop up in other rules-lite systems. A target of 8+ on two dice is about 41.6% to succeed. That seems pretty low. Admittedly, the 3d6 of “the Upper Hand” should mitigate that with about a 68ish%. (Keep in mind, I’m really not a mathematician — so be kind, numbers people!)
You have health for physical injuries, and Blues for a rating of psychic impact of things happening to you or what you have done. Get enough blues, you will accrue a “trouble” — something karmic this way comes. You start with a trouble and a gambit — a schtick you can use. For every two troubles, you get a new gambit.
Like Cowboy Bebop, you choose your ship and gear and get rolling. Ships and vehicles have three stats, as well, and take damage directly to the stat. Once they’re at zero, the ship is either dead, dead in the water, or blind.
The rest of the book is given to 40 pages of example NPCs, bad guy groups, and vehicles. The last 50 pages or so outline one particular star system, Sutler, is great detail with locations, groups, NPCs, etc. The Orbital Blues setting is interstellar, not interplanetary like Bebop, and is an excellent jumping off point for crafting one’s own setting.
At $20 or so, is it worth it? I’m willing to jump on this one untested and say yes, if you are looking for a space RPG that’s lightweight, has room for expansion, and you’re on a budget.
So…which one is better for Cowboy Bebop? I honestly, at this point, don’t have an opinion, but if I had to guess, most folks will be more happy with the simplicity of Orbital Blues. We’ll see how some testplay on CB goes, then I’ll revisit this.
The Black Campbell 