| Trinity | ||||||||
| White Wolf, 320 pages | ||||||||
|
A review by Henry Harding
Some
lucky individuals have even been enhanced in Prometheus chambers and come out with gnarly psi
powers. And a good thing too because Earth is under threat of the Aberrants, mutated insane
humans who have all the gnarly powers the psions do. Still, the Aberrants aren't all
bad. After all, they did destroy France.
Trinity is finally out in a low-cost, softcover edition. It's got everything the
hardcover did (except for the hard cover, duhh!), the George Alec Effinger short story, 150
pages of high gloss colour pages detailing Trinity's milieu, chapters leading you through
character creation, combat, technology, and the absolute best... storytelling.
This is where
White Wolf excels. Not content to leave faceless, cipher-like player-characters battling no-name
extras and disposable aliens, White Wolf builds into their games the idea of personality and inner
conflict that transforms the player character into a character, effectively turning a gaming
session into a group improve with the gameskeeper orchestrating the events. Plus this edition
has a 'the plot thus far...' update for gameskeepers that contains all the gory details of the
behind-the-scenes machinations, and, best of the bonuses, a quote from the original SF Site
review of the hardcover (sadly, not done by this reviewer. Snuff, snuff).
The player characters are the psions, complex characters caught in political webs spun by
governments, corporations, and their PSI orders. Or they can be strong-chinned heroes with plenty
of bravado, thwarting evil, bug-eyed nasties. This game is flexible. Depending on the inclinations
of the gameskeeper, the adventure created could be anything from "cyberpunk to Star Wars." A creative
gameskeeper could go to both extremes in the course of play.
There is so much in this game that it's daunting. It is easier to read the rules section first, get an
idea of the way the game works and who the characters are before going to Trinity's milieu.
To go with Trinity, White Wolf is planning a number of supplements and source books. But there is
so much in this game, the background so fully realized, there's nothing more you need in order to play in
any one of a hundred different styles. Want something Alienish? Plan a campaign on one of the
colonies battling the Chromatics. Neuromancerish? Work undercover for Orgotek in the Zurich-Geneva
sprawl. Anime? Pour yourself into a Bio-organic Assault Suit, hop on a hovercycle, and let's
go baby! As usual for White Wolf, the book is gorgeous. The layout, the artwork, everything.
The cover however is designed to get the hormone-crazed teenager who loved Starship Troopers to pick up the game.
Strangely, the credits were buried back on page 313. The list is too numerous to mention, but my hat's off to all of them.
Play the future today! Trinity lets you role-play in any science fiction background easily. It's
a great game. Makes me wish we had seedless Armani loafers with the built-in stamen lifts.
Henry Harding has been gaming since he was knee high to an elf. If only someone would pry the dice out of his hands he might get started on that sequel to War and Peace he's been thinking of writing. |
|||||||
|
|
If you find any errors, typos or other stuff worth mentioning,
please send it to editor@sfsite.com.
Copyright © 1996-2008 SF Site All Rights Reserved Worldwide