EXT. ARTIFACT RECOVERY SITE 1. NIGHT.
Three tons of stone and soil are heaped around a ten meter deep pit in the frozen wastes. Work lamps burn red against the still night and illuminate the feverish action below. Beneath an ant hive crescendo of limbs and scurrying figures in thick rubberized suits and reflective face plates glimpses of a shiny black metal structure are revealed.
The arc of plasma torches illuminates the pit briefly before a hiss fills the night and betrays outgassing argon, sending the workers scurrying up and out of the pit until the hissing ceases. A pair of workers slide back down into the pit as the rest watch on from relative safety. The pair disappear into the shiny black structure and silence stretches with the wait. One worker emerges from the structure, dragging the other and carrying a small red metal chest stylized with an insectoid carapace. Clutching the chest tightly, the swarm of workers carry the survivor out of the pit and towards a rapidly approaching bright light.
INT. CRAB DUNGEON. LIVING ROOM 3.
CRAB is strewn across a couch, asleep, the Star Fox 64 main menu music filling the room and the light of the TV flickering. The camera drifts around the couch, returning to its original position to reveal HUBRIS occupying a previously empty corner. As the zoom drifts to the corner, the music fades out and the light begins to strobe. CRAB wakes with a start and the room returns to normal. After stretching and yawning, CRAB looks into the camera.
CRAB
Well, I've been sitting on this for a bit, now is as good of a time as any.
Revealing a hidden switch near the couch's totally rad built-in coaster, CRAB presses it and plummets on the couch down a vertical shaft lit with alternating yellow and red lights. Singular frames include flashes of HUBRIS running down one of the walls. Shouting over the rushing air:
CRAB
I think this one came to my attention when doing some research into some alternative rules light systems last year and tasting TinyD6, the DRIVETHRURPG algorithm showed me a name, a picture, and started me on a journey.
Cut to the bottom of the dropshaft. A klaxon sounds and the metal plating floor slides away, revealing a pool of deep green translucent slime oozes forth a great tendril which reaches up and catches the couch, bringing it to a gentle halt before the sinking back into the pit as the klaxons sound the plating slides back in place. CRAB steps off the couch and enters a bright hallway.
INT. CRAB DUNGEON. LABORATORY KAPPA.
CRAB exits the hallway into a sterilized airlock, the number ten emblazoned over the image of a stylized turtle shell. He digs into the lockers nearby, donning a lab coat, pointed wizard's hat, and protective goggles before stepping through a sterilization chamber and entering the clean room beyond. Similarly garbed figures sans wizard hat scurry back and forth between halls strewn with crates bearing strange markings. The scientists, green-skinned and with webbed appendages nod and wave at CRAB as he makes his way through the laboratory.
CRAB
I suppose you could go back quite a ways further, to when Grandfather Crab introduced me to the unparalleled creative project that was Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. That entire game is deserving of investigations on its own, but that's the first time I can recall being introduced to the concept of Alpha Centauri, and that memory rang clear as a bell when I read the title of the subject of our investigation.
Moving through clean tiled corridors, CRAB passes many chambers secured with card readers and keypads, revealing only experiment titles labelled above the room numbers.
SLUGHEADS
REWARD SYSTEMS AND DESIGNING FOR THEM
CRAB SHACK CRAFTING
THE PURPOSE OF HISTORY
PROJECT M
ACADEMY 9.
DECAY
GLOGTROIDVANIA
A panning shot reveals similar rooms and corridors stretching out.
Looking back, CRAB pauses at the last door, alone in the corridor. The light flickers over his shoulder, revealing the outline of HUBRIS, visible only in the dark. Shivering, CRAB continues to the next door, slides an ID badge through the scanner, and enters. The door shuts revealing the room's name: CENTAURI KNIGHTS.
INT. CRAB DUNGEON. LABORATORY KAPPA. CONTAINMENT CELL 24.
A long metallic table sits in the middle of a small, bright, room. In the center is a powered off projector facing the far wall. At the far end of the table is a plate, fork, and knife. There is a wrapped brown paper package on the plate. Next to the plate is a small red metal chest stylized with an insectoid carapace, lying open. Beyond the observation glass, a group of scientists watches on, restless.
CRAB enters the room and sits in front of the plate, unwrapping the package carefully. He cuts a small corner off of it, and begins to chew. The projector hums and comes to life as CRAB chews and the presentation begins.
The collapse of the company was announced suddenly, but the cracks had begun in 2004 when freelancers began to see payments frozen. The problem worsened until 2005 when company founder, Mark MacKinnon, downsized GoO to a single employee, himself. Even then however, GoO was seeing sales increases and Mark remained optimistic for the year, though his community had doubts [3]. Ascribed to problems with the declining value of the US dollar, the company failed to keep itself solvent and finally declared bankruptcy and dissolved. Per Applecline however, "The worst problem was likely the simple fact that Guardians of Order was a rare RPG company located in Canada." [2, 325].
Regardless, the dissolution engendered a great deal of bad blood in the community, especially amongst freelancers who went unpaid (and are still unpaid for their work done for GoO). This resurfaced in 2013 when MacKinnon opened Dyskami Publishing and was met with hostility from many sources and this wound continues to attract the ire of the community at large. The company continued on to publish Absolute Power, a superhero game based on the GoO Silver Age Sentinels line, as well as most recently Anime 5E, a continuation of the Big Eyes Small Mouth line packed onto D&D 5th Edition. [2, 329][4]
CRAB
Despite the explosion at the end, the GoO games were still pretty fondly remembered by some of those who enjoyed them at the end. There was no small number of blogposts from before the collapse and even years later that did analysis on some of the more popular works and editions and I was honestly surprised by some of the names I read that were writing about the game.
The projector continues to hum as the presentation proceeds. CRAB cuts another corner, revealing it to be a piece of an obscured book, then eats it thoughtfully.
 |
| GenCon Program Book, 1997 |
GoO was founded in 1997 in Guleph Canada, first publishing the Big Eyes Small Mouth (BESM) system for a GenCon (August). According to MacKinnon, it was a modest hit with 125 copies sold and then began to penetrate the markets a bit more and gain in popularity. [5, 2] Speaking about the RPG companies coming out at the time Peter Adkison noted: "These companies were started by hardcore RPG enthusiasts- people who love RPGs. They were gamers first and businesspeople second. This isn't the sort of industry some MBA business executive out to make money dives into... And that's okay. This kind of quest needs a hero who is in it for the journey, not just the loot." [6]
CRAB
Oh, how the times do change.
Certainly at the time, MacKinnon fits this note to a T. The game got popular and GoO put out more anime titles as the years went on, including some of their bigger hits such as The Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book, and with the addition of GURPS-famous author David Pulver to the company came out even more titles such as Big Robots, Cool Starships and Hot Rods & Gun Bunnies which were supplements to the BESM 1st Edition rules and added skills and mecha/ship creation processes. There were other, more curious, licensed games specific to anime such as Dominion Tank Police and Tenchi Muyo!, with the strangest choice in my eyes being the Demon City Shinjuku book. Now, to those more savvy in the 80s/90s anime/OVA scene these are big names that can stand up to this day, but at the time of publishing the audience for these RPG books was restricted to American and Canadian anime fans (largely American) which was already a small if growing group around the turn of the century.
BESM fills a gap, as seen by MacKinnon, in the field of anime RPGs available at the time. After the first and second anime RPG booms [2, 316-319] MacKinnon found there was a lack of non-mecha inspired RPGs that could handle a variety of different genres: "I set out to fill that void by creating a system that would allow for a wide variety of character talents, skills, and oddities, but was not hidden behind a heavy assortment of charts, numbers, and complex rules." [7]
CRAB
Later editions of BESM are accused of having this very flaw, becoming more and more bloated as the editions continue. As an example, the first edition BESM comes in at a tidy 87 pages, with the second edition being 210 pages and the third edition sitting at 242 pages even after adopting a dual column style.
In this manner, BESM is an all-rounder system. It's designed in line with MacKinnon's game of choice at the time, the Amber Diceless RPG, but with added systems and procedures that reinforce the anime style. The Tri-Stat system of MacKinnon's design is on center stage here, the only stats are Mind, Body, and Soul. All actions are concluded with stat checks against these three or there associated derived stats such as Combat Value, Health, and Energy Points.
To my eyes, what really powers the roleplaying of BESM is the character attributes which function as a leveled tag-like system where certain powers or abilities and defects are chosen at certain levels which grant the ability to perform differently. The whole setup is broad enough that you can simulate most anime into this system easily and quickly. As for gripes, my personal biggest ones are the lack of specificity in these attributes as well as a tendency in supplemental materials to list the attribute name only. As the supplements came out and time goes on, there are simply too many attributes for anyone to be expected to know off the top of their head and this can lead to getting bogged down in cross referencing attributes. Others have written about their takes on the system and I encourage examining their interpretations as well. [8]
CRAB
But this isn't really about BESM. The system in its first edition works and is pretty easy to pick up and play without too much bloat or bog down. No, what we are here to taste, savor, digest, and incorporate is a product released first in 2001 and then again adapted for d20 in 2003. It was GoO's first original setting and written by David Pulver:
CRAB
David L. Pulver joined up with GoO in 1998 and began cranking out the supplements until he was able to work on this original setting on his own. Pulver comes with a pedigree of his own at the time, having written an entire series of GURPS books since the late 80's as a freelancer. This isn't his first dance with anime either, as in 1997 he published Bubblegum Crisis: Before & After, a supplement to the R. Talsorian Games RPG based on the show of the same name: Bubblegum Crisis.
And actually that timing is auspicious and you can taste some flavors of Talsorian running all throughout Centauri Knights, especially the lore. It really feels like something out of the also published in 1997-
//POWER FAULT//ERROR-CODE 0937279951
A distorted shot of Containment Cell 24 is shown, the outline of HUBRIS hovering in center frame above the projector as a dark liquid begins filling the room.
//REBOOTING SYSTEMS
Containment Cell 24's camera is restored, with nothing amiss from before the fault aside from a red smear over the observation window where one of the scientists had been observing. The remaining group does not make any indications that they notice this. Thirty-three seconds have elapsed since the previous cut.
CRAB
- Ed Northcott. Really an odd choice for this product and some of his art here feels lackluster and incongruous to the setting, especially in line with other products of the time. The general design of Centauri Knights though has some good highlights, like check out this opener.
Crisp.
Now, this sets us up for the lore dump at the beginning of the book, a classic strategy for products of this era. The book itself is only 114 pages with about a third going to lore and lore adjacent topics for the setting. The rest is all species, skills, attributes and stats etc. etc. BESM stuff.
BESM is a decent system, but I want to focus in on the setting. What can we use from it? What nuggets and ideas are buried within this artifact that can be transplanted into our modern wet and electric idea holes to grow and spore into new gems? Some of this is appreciation for the time and the product, but the ideas contained within remain valuable to us today who craft and play new game stuffs while also providing a window into the sexy post-Y2K sci-fi thoughtspace.
Let's start with the lore. As I mentioned earlier, my experience with Sid Meier's brought this title to my attention, and there are threads in the lore that keep that tie going- but more so I feel a strong undercurrent of mid 90s Kim Stanley Robinson throughout the setting. Let's start from the beginning. Again.
Let's turn back the clock to the first BESM supplement, Big Robots, Cool Starships published in 1999. Recognizing the need to integrate mecha bigger and better into BESM, GoO makes a 111 page supplement with all the mecha options you can handle. Vehicles and the like are right up Pulver's alley, filling this supplement top to bottom with procedures and such but I'm going to skip all of that and go right to the end where we talk game seeds (this is the best one):
- Pro-Siberian Russian rebels meant to relieve you seize a Japanese warship and bomb the hell out of your research station.
- Brain diving into a broken alien warship and fighting the alien AI
- Stingray shaped alien spaceships getting in an ALIEN CROSSFIRE to save Earth
- The mechs you use are called Coleopterans
- This is a read aloud line: “Max Planck exploded. I’m tracking an incoming missile from Musashi, target is...Gott in himmel!"
 |
| Dave White's art here kicks ass |
Together, the international community builds asteroid-based particle beams to power the first ships to Alpha Centauri. This whole lore section is told in multimedia snippets from different sources, painting the picture of the whole journey. It's neat, a political candidate uses the phrase "We know alien robots visited Mars — in Biblical times!" We get some transhumanist additions here, the first travelers get their brains sucked into jars for safekeeping and cryosleep. Before they arrive, a Von Neumann probe has already ID'd and set up a factory to produce their new cyborg bodies and set up a base of operations.
The Alpha Centauri system gets a full Egyptian naming convention to its core. On display we have the central and most important planet, Osiris, home of the long dead Osiran race that built the ship found on Mars. The planet is similar in size to Earth, lacks geological activity, and is totally completely dead. Nothing but sands and ash, along with a pervasive fog awaits the explorers. On inspection though, this fog is actually a cloud of inert nanomachines, purpose unknown.
Further exploring the Alpha Centauri system, the UN team finds O'Neill cylinders/asteroid habitats and breaks in. These habitats are, for the most part, bursting with native Osiran life complete with blue skies and clouds but orange, crimson, pink and grey landscapes home to the native Osiran xenofauna and xenoflora. Here, explorers find the first dead Osirans.
Humanoid and vaguely reptilian/draconian, curving horns, smooth skin, and a tail that ends in a scorpion stinger. The arranged alien dead are found with strange piercings in their skulls hosting jewels, which would eventually be known as dream jewels. For the Osirans, these allowed access to their planet-spanning computer network known as the Synthesis- built straight into that nanomachine fog called the Ghost Fog. Eventually, humans start implanting the jewels in their own heads and become Fog Witches, able to control the fog and create items and interface with Osiran technology.
On exploring the sites, the team finds that the Osirans are all dead but their robots aren't, as a scorpion like armored tank melds out of a solid wall (smart-matter Osiran tech, also usable by Fog Witches) and blows some of them up. And with all this data in hand sent back to Earth, the rush begins. Scattered all over Osiris, the explorers find hundreds of Star Tombs. Large, resilient, Osiran tombs chock full of dangerous robots and that juicy xenotech.
So, the year is now 2150, how's Alpha Centauri looking? Bad. But good for play. Pulver has created for our use a powder keg in the process of going off. Who are our big players now?
FACTIONS
 |
| Oppression is still the same in 2150 |
UNPACFOR: United Nations Protection of Alpha Centauri Force, the fascists here to stomp out resistance. These are your stock standard military troops transported from good ol' Sol and sent here to work alongside an army of robots and enforce the peace with military precision.
CENCOR: The Centauri Consortium, transtellar megacorp. The bad guys researching Osiran tech and looking to turn it to profit. Surprisingly not that detailed herein, and that's a shame. Transtellar megacorp is a label just asking for more definition as the main antagonist.
Eyes of Re/Selket: These guys both want the same thing for the most part: to be able to use Osiran technology freely and oppose the CENCOR/UNSAID plan to terraform Osiris for human occupation. These people have been adopting Osiran culture, a movement called Alexandrianism, and the more radical Eyes of Re have even started the Resurrectionist movement and began xenocloning- bringing Osrians back to life. Both groups make heavy use of xenomods, becoming more like Osirans through implants, and this helps them turn some star tombs into rebel bases.
CRAB
This is where that Kim Stanley Robinson thing comes into play. We have several ideologically opposed groups all thrown together and unable to compromise. There are plenty of smaller organizations listed out as well, including journalists. In fact, one of the recommended modes of play is as a journalist team- and that's just a beautiful idea for a campaign. Journalists running around an alien planet trying to report on fascist takedowns of rebels? Uncovering transtellar megacorp corruption and warcrimes? I dig it.
There's a great deal of gab about equipment and such in the book as well, but to suffice there's some alien tech. The coolest is the dream jewels as they give you visions of long dead Osiran domestic life and the ability to make nanofog and smart-matter do what you want. Xenopanzers (mechs) of course get some love, with most being the power armor variety and not the glorious big stompy mechs you see in-
//POWER FAULT//ERROR-CODE 0937279609
The screen is black. Lines come into focus, an inverted color scheme of the previous shot. CRAB is speaking but the only sound is a low whine. There is something thrashing against the observation window. HUBRIS appears for sixty-two seconds as the thrashing continues, eye to eye with CRAB. CRAB makes no recognition of this.
//REBOOTING SYSTEMS
Containment Cell 24 is lashed with scrapes along every surface. The observation window is bloodied and cracked. Along the projector screen, the words "AN HOUR MAY LAY IT IN DUST" is slashed. CRAB continues speaking, nearly finished consuming what is now clearly displayed as a physical copy of Centauri Knights.
CRAB
-have been more elaborate or detailed but, serves the job. Now, what's Pulver want us to do with all this?
CHARTERED ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEAM (CAT): The standard recommended start. These guys are licensed by UNSAID to go raid Osiran tombs and bring back relics for sale to officials (or illegally to Alexandrians for beaucoup bucks). You get some mechs to start with, a rotar-wing transport, and free license for tomb raiding.
FREECOPS: These are freelance police hired by CENCOR or UNSAID and have free reign to perform civil rights abuses. Sure, they can also be used for investigative work and SWAT team efforts smoking out terrorists, but the fascism is strong with this setup.
GHOST JACKALS: See CAT but make them blatantly illegal and working only with the black market.
GUERILLA CELL: Be they Eye of Re terrorists or less radical Selket trying to win popular support, these are your hidden base living safe house using rebels trying to overthrow the UNSAID and CENCOR forces and prevent the terraforming of Osiris.
NGO TEAM: Yeah this is the interesting one for me. These are your reporters, aid agency types, complete with some local muscle for guidance and bodyguards. Really vague as to what they will do, but this open ended prompt really gets the wheels spinning for me.
UNPACFOR PLATOON: Play the soldiers freshly decanted from Sol and here to put the boot to Eye of Re types. The best armed of the bunch, diverse with the international background, and mostly doing generic military tasks.
CRAB
Now, the final key to the puzzle is the Osirans. We have all these factions fighting over Osiris and its future, but, spoilers here folks, the Osirans didn't really leave. That Synthesis/Internet running on the Ghost Fog is just the outer portion of a gigantic hive mind AI the Osirans built.
Thousands of years ago, the Osirans began using the dream jewels as a way to record memories, and to circumvent death. Through the jewels, the subject can be encoded and uploaded into the Synthesis, becoming a part of the whole and living forever as digital life forms.
For the Osirans, they split into two factions- one favoring Synthesis and the other Individual Identity. Eventually, one of their super weapons got loose and a xenoplague powered by nanobots destroyed the entire Osiran species within weeks. Some survivors were still fighting and got off course, with the ship on Mars being a Synthesis ship that crashed after shooting down two Identity ships that had tried to make it for 1000BC Earth and take it over.
Those who survived built the star tombs and hijacked the ghost fog that remained to expand the Synthesis network. Right now, they're all still focused inwards, dreaming their digital eternity. But as the human presence on Osiris continues to develop and grow more violent, and as Fog Witches and CENCOR continue to brush against the dreams of the Synthesis entity, is left up to the GM to decide.
CRAB finishes the final bite and exhales in satisfaction. A large plate from the ceiling crashes to the ground.There is a flicker in the lights, and a shadow moves beyond the observation window. One of the corners of the room is suddenly dark. There are eyes looking out.
CRAB
Well, that's that. I got a bit carried away here in... well several respects, but this was an engrossing journey. There are some more interesting nuggets from the BESM line that struck me when I was doing the research for this, and maybe I'll talk about them later. For now though, it's time to close up shop and-
The room is silent. CRAB looks around carefully, the camera pans as he sweeps his eyes across the carnage. Cut back to the initial view, HUBRIS is inches in front of CRAB. The cracks on HUBRIS widen and the camera shudders.
CRAB
You! It's not time yet yo- WHO BROKE CONTAINMENT?
CRAB presses a button and a smooth flowing metallic substances coats his body as he breaks out of the observation window, revealing a scene of bloody mayhem outside as HUBRIS cracks into pieces and CRAB begins hurling discs of spinning flowing metal at it. The discs rapidly inflate wherever they strike, restricting HUBRIS in place as it breaks its outer shell, revealing the fine metal lines and red-white paint job of a humanoid mecha- M E K T O N
Damn you MEKTON, return to your cursed slumber beneath the waves and haunt me no more! It's not your time yet! Be bound once more! The Talsorian curse will not take me today!
Metal screams as MEKTON tears through through the barriers to get to CRAB. Four spider-like robots the size of sedans burst into the room behind CRAB and begin layering on more of the flowing metal, until MEKTON can no longer be seen and the sounds of screeching metal stop.
CRAB
Yet again, investing in a Tachikoma defense system has proven worth it. Get this thing contained again, I'll get to MEKTON... one day. For now though, Corneria needs me.
END TITLES
"Zombie Zombie - Rocket #9" begins to play.
The shot flashes. COMMENTARY ENABLED.
COMMENTARY
The
turn of the century RPG scene is messy and complicated, but the nature
of web archiving and the frailty of digital media makes it challenging
to get a good picture of the scene back then- if there's anything
egregiously out of place here please let me know.
I had thought about chunking this into a few posts and ended up just pulling it all together in the one. There definitely is more to be said here, but I encourage anyone interested in Centauri Knights to take a look at the setting themselves. Digging through settings I've never heard of before and finding little bits of useful tropeisms or campaign ideas is a delight, so there might be more like this in the future too.
Much of this data took a lot of digging to find, and really if not for Designers & Dragons it would have been a few more weeks before I could get this in a satisfactory state. Hiding just the right music clips took time too, but that's more fun to match. On the note of data though, I'm curious as to what the state of Blogspot archiving looks like for the RPG scene. Data archiving will be a massive problem for the future, and people looking back to study the RPG scene might start running into some pretty big problems in just getting the fundamental picture- but I'll do some research before going any further.
Zooming out from the carnage, the shot follows over CRAB's shoulder as he retraces his steps through the laboratory, launches the couch up, and returns to Living Room 3. The TV powers on: Continue?
FADE OUT
[1] See the partnership announcement here and here from GRRM. Curiously enough, as the wheels of history turned, GRRM would reacquire publishing rights from the fall of GoO and Arthaus, a subsidiary of White Wolf, would acquire assets from GoO such as BESM 3rd Edition. Another curious note for this time in history was when White Wolf was fatefully acquired by CCP in 2006, yes the EVE Online CCP, who was still figuring out monetization for the EVE Online MMORPG and began to try and produce a Vampire the Masquerade MMORPG. Fiscal issues eventually resulted in the gutting of White Wolf. [2, 44-48]
[2] Applecline, S. (2014). Designers & Dragons. A History of the Roleplaying Game Industry: The '90s. Evil Hat Publishing.
[3] Helton, C. (2005, January 3). Guardians of Order: And Then There Was One
[4] History deserves to be looked at through the lens of empathy and humanity. On 28 July 2022, MacKinnon opened an indiegogo to fund a medical operation. As a part of this funding, Dyskami Publishing auctioned several pieces of memorabilia on Ebay. One of the products was a first edition copy of BESM that MacKinnon had given to his parents. Inside was an inscription to his parents: "Mom + Dad, My first real publication! Pretty cool, eh? Thanks for all the support you have both given me over the years. I love you both Mark". The auction noted that this first edition copy had been recovered from his parents' estate after they had passed away and was now on sale. In the 31 July 2006 post announcing his company's closure, MacKinnon wrote several notes thanking those he could before saying the final goodbye from GoO, including this one: "(I would like to thank) my parents for always giving me their best wishes and telling me how proud they are of my accomplishments". Seeing these items together in my research gave me pause and I feel that I would be remiss to not record the finding here.[5] Pulver, D. L., & MacKinnon, M. C. (2002). Big Eyes, Small Mouth (Second). Guardians of Order.
[6] Peter Adkison. (2014). This Kind of Quest. In Applecline, S, Designers & Dragons. A History of the Roleplaying Game Industry: The '90s. Evil Hat Publishing.
[7] MacKinnon, M. (1997). Big Eyes Small Mouth (First). Guardians of Order.
[8] Alexander, J. (2012, November 22). Ex-rpgnet reviews—Big eyes, small mouth(1st edition). https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/20423/roleplaying-games/rpgnet-reviews-big-eyes-small-mouth-1st-edition
I really do love the format you've got going for these. Never heard of this game (though I know of BESM), so this was a fun bit of history.
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