It is with great pleasure that we go to review today farsight area of Lightfish Games.
It's a product we've been eagerly awaiting, not so much because we've been lucky enough to be able to work on it, but also because let's face it, epic sci-fi is really cool!
We had already talked about the project before when it still had to reach the Kickstarter platform and the premises that had made us taste were really interesting. Today, almost two years later, we are here, manual in hand, caught up in the inability to manage the number of ideas and adventures that are springing up in our heads with each page we read.
Basic product analysis
When we go to review such a product, we first need to understand what we have in hand.
farsight consists of a manual of over 340 pages, all in color, with a hard cover, richly illustrated, with particular attention to layout, full of tables and references that can help even new players to build their own adventures.
The game system is based on rules Evolved 5E and, within the volume, we will find everything that can be used to play. The manual, in fact, consists of two parts a call AXIOM and the other call NEXUS. The first contains all the rules and lore that players might know or, at the very least, could take advantage of a sneak peek. The second part, on the other hand, is intended for the GM with everything needed to be able to prepare a more or less short-term campaign.
Farsight Rules and Character Creation
The game uses rules similar to the 5E of D&D from which it evolves and deviates for some rules-related choices. The system, in fact, uses from d4 to d100, but in particular, observing the choices of the rules, reference is made to the d12.
Some substantial differences with the Dungeons & Dragons rules system can be seen, as mentioned earlier in one of our articles, in the choice of classes for the player. There will no longer be as many different classes as three classes from which you can then originate your characters.
As already mentioned, the creation of the character, in addition to completely following our tastes, is also very easy. In less than thirty minutes I created at least six characters, in this case looking for adventures instead of looking for an author!
The possibility of choosing one's specializations, and how to evolve one's own "creature", allows for the versatility that often characterizes Space Operas! How many times have we felt tight in the shoes of our characters? How many times have we felt too specialized in some game situations and too little present in others? This will no longer be the case with this system. Each person at the table will be able to make a difference in any action.
So, to recap: great variety in character creation, quick sheet setup, good amount of species to draw on, some with really interesting origins. In short, a few simple steps and one of the most tedious parts of the game was quickly fixed.
ALSO READ: THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE – ANALYSIS
But what can we talk about in Farsight?
This game aims, with its basic manual, to be an "empty" container for your adventures. farsight, in fact, it could lend itself to all sorts of science fiction campaigns from space opera to planetary romance. You can think of facing space pirates, exploring star systems with extinct populations where the only thing left are their technologies to be rediscovered, and much more. A famous television series indicated “the sky as the limit“, here you don't even have that limit being in space and as the “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
“Space is vast. Really vast. You would never believe how enormously incredibly frighteningly vast it is..."
So you have an interesting idea? Use it!
Tips for making the most of Farsight
Sometimes, in order to build an interesting story, it's also right to be inspired by something. As an avid devourer of books, TV series and video games, here are some "purchasing tips" to get inspired before creating your advertising campaigns. farsight. Of course, this is a list based on personal tastes and will certainly miss some key titles, so feel absolutely free to write your recommendations in the comments. As soon as I can, I will recover everything!
Video games:
Mass Effect
Starcraft
Master of Orion
Stellaris
Halo
Homeworld
TV shows:
Firefly
Farscape
Battlestar Galactica
Star Trek
The Mandalorian
Andromeda
The Expanse
Film:
Dune,
Stargate
Starship Troopers
Star Wars
The Forbidden Planet
Books:
The Songs of Hyperion
The Cycle of Foundations
Known Space Cycle
The Cycle of Ender
The Cycle of Vor
The Expanse
The Sons of Time
Comics:
Flash Gordon
Cowboy Beebop
Green Lantern
Valerian
Stories from deep space
ALSO READ: THE WRETCHED - Drifting into space
Conclusions
I was talking a few days ago with an RPG who had been playing 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons for years and had never played a science fiction game. When asked by him why he should play it, I asked him a simple question:
What's stopping you from trying it?
He mentioned that he had only ever played fantasy games and that the sci-fi world was almost unknown to him. In short, he didn't know which way to turn. We got together to make a couple of characters, he gave birth to a ship and together we created in a few simple steps a couple of star systems and a story. In the afternoon he wrote me to say that he wanted to try to convince his group and try to launch into space.
It's not just the simplicity and elegance of farsight for convincing me to support this game in any way, but just the idea behind it. The possibility of integrating it into any story, any world to discover and any science fiction story, or otherwise, to tell.
Try it, trust us. Go to their Facebook group. Give science fiction a chance!
