Starship Troopers RPG

by August Hahn

Bringing alive Robert Heinlein’s classic novel, and the movies and television series that have followed, Starship Troopers RPG gives players the opportunity to experience the Bug War at first hand.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1904854850
• ISBN13: 9781904854852
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Mongoose Publishing
• Length: 256 Pages

Customer Reviews

A great start to a fantastic game universe

Published in 2005, Mongoose Publishing took the Starship Troopers genre to a new level with this roleplaying game. The game is built around the core d20 rules offered by WotC's OGL material, alhtough the game has a unique Mongoose feel about it. At over 300 full colour pages, this book doesn't disappoint in the content covered or production. The book is divided into 18 main sections, including but not limited to: Basic Training, Skills, Feats, Armoury, Combat, Psychics, Mobile Infantry, Fleet, Arachnids, Skinnies. There are also sections on the galaxy and gamemastering. The crunchy part of the book is finished off with the introductory 'Pluto Campaign'. The best parts of the game are where Mongoose has diverted away from the cannon d20 rules - such as the new system of Hit Points which makes the game far more deadly than your average d20 offering (but those of you familiar with Heinlein's novel and the completely different movie will really appreciate this change). Additionally, they have done away with the gazillions of prestige classes that d20 seems to continually spawn and opted for a far simipler range of cross-training options such as Neo-dog handler, Officer Cadet, Engineer and Sniper (to name some) - but esentially the character remains a Mobile Infantry trooper. The use of psychics in the game (as represented in the movie) is balanced and is well-thought out. Additionally, the combat system has been stream lined and runs alot smoother than a standard d20 encounter. On the down side - the Armoury and stores section was seriously lacking. Basically if it didn't appear or was mentioned in the movie, book, graphic novels, or animated TV series then it doesn't exist. While this is not a major problem for most GM's (and given the heavy military bent of the game), if a group wishes to explore the universe outside of the Mobile Infantry then they are limited as to what 'general' equipment is avaliable, meaning quite alot of work for the GM. Secondly, the 'Pluto Campaign' is not a campaign in the true sense of the word, more a collection of a dozen linked missions that a MI squad can undertake. The book constantly advises the GM to 'fill in the blanks' between these missions - which if done, would cause the missions themselves to become slightly disjointed in continuity. The final downside to this book is the artwork - which is uniformly poor. Whilst I'm no artist, it is like the art you'd find in a cheap graphic novel or badly done animation - so while the illustrations relate to the written material being discussed, there's nothing visually exciting about them. So overall, an excellent start to a a great game universe - the five stars I was originally going to give it tempered by the small complaints detailed above. The biggest problem is that Mongoose have decided to stop this game as a d20 offering and later in 2008 begin releasing the new Starship Troopers game, which uses the Traveller 2d6 system.