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CORE Command Player's Handbook Deluxe Edition
 
$39.95 $11.99
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CORE Command Player\'s Handbook Deluxe Edition
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CORE Command Player's Handbook Deluxe Edition
Publisher: Dream Pod 9
by Constantine T.
Date Added: 06/29/2005 17:40:35

The CC Players Handbook Deluxe Edition is nothing more than the original Players Handbook plus the Armory supplement literally cut and pasted into one of the chapters. Despite the few months between the release of the original CC corebook and the Deluxe version, no attempt was made to include corrections, clarifications or errata in the Deluxe version (despite the fact that the updated SilCore Deluxe rulebook did get that treatement) The only thing going for it is that it's cheaper than buying the softback corebook and the Armory supplement.

As such, CC Deluxe does absolutely nothing to address any of the issues and problems from the original CC book. All it does is give you a load more guns and a few ships.

CC is an ultra high-tech space opera background. Unfortunately, it's the barest framework of one. There are several major problems with it:

  • very scant information about the background itself in the book. You have five galaxies here, and barely any info on anything at all. There's a tiny history section, a bit about the main races, a few anomalies, and that's pretty much it.

  • the tech is "big" for the sake of it, and badly thought out as a result. For example, you can fire a handgun that is connected by wormhole to your ship's zero point energy reactor. By all rights, firing this means that half the planet you're on should explode. The implications and consequences of the technology are also mostly not thought out at all, and the setting itself is for the most part not even there at all. There are no maps (beyond an overview of all five galaxies), nothing to support any small scale play (which is what players are going to be doing), no thought at all for the implication of teh extremely fast FTL tech on society, not even any mentions of societies at all other than the fact that there is the CORE alliance, and the rest of the galaxies are fiefdoms and kingdoms that come and go)... in short, there is nowhere near enough material here to run a decently fleshed out universe IMO.

  • Appallingly bad editing. really, the worst I've ever had the misfortune to see. In fact, I'd be surprised if this book was even shown to an editor at all. Typos and spelling mistakes about, and some sentences don't even make sense. The fact that this was not even remotely corrected in the Deluxe version is pretty appalling.

  • Pretty much all of the ship stats are wrong, apparently (as in, they don't conform to the SilCore system rules, guns on them are ineffective against their intended targets etc). Again, these were not corrected in the Deluxe version.

  • Inconsistent character design. You have an alien race of jellyfish that get around in robot bodies, but they use the normal silcore character design. And then you have "recorded heroes" who are AIs/uploads with robot bodies, but they're designed using the vehicle design system? (which in itself is very poorly suited for such a task)? That's just bad game design. There are other sloppy design decisions in the book too (like Quantek powers, which basically are just an excuse for characters to have obscenely powerful tech grafted into their bodies to allow them to do anything they want, again designed as vehicle parts).

The only good things about this game are the art (very nice line art. And the ship designs are very cool) and the general concept (a war against a race of sentient world destroying ships called the D'Vor, with an interesting twist in the back of the book). Unfortunately the book is extremely poorly executed - I get the impression that the initial idea was something that was scribbled on the back of an envelope that was hastily padded out to fill a few dozen instead - and very badly produced.

This game desperately needs to be scrapped and a second edition made, done with proper care and detail this time. It is the literal nadir of DP9's publications and IMO ranks as one of the most unprofessionally produced products ever produced by a major company.



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