Pyramid Review
The Forgotten Futures CD-ROM
by Marcus L. Rowland
http://www.ffutures.demon.co.uk/
The Age of Steam is one of the ideal settings for roleplaying games, recent enough to be familiar, remote enough to be exotic, and filled with technological wonders, real and imagined. The 19th century is currently enjoying unprecedented popularity among gamers and game publishers. GURPS Castle Falkenstein, an adaptation of one of the original steam age games (the other, Space 1889, has just been republished), GURPS Steampunk, and the forthcoming FUDGE-based game Terra Incognita from Grey Ghost Games reflect this interest, as do the horror-focused GURPS Screampunk and Victorian Age: Vampire, just announced by White Wolf. Marcus L. Rowland's Forgotten Futures, just released on CD-ROM after a print version and years of availability via the Web, deserves a close look from anyone who shares this enthusiasm.
As a game, Forgotten Futures has a fairly standard, simple design, along lines familiar from other story-focused games. Characters have three characteristics -- Body, Mind, and Soul -- which respectively govern physical tasks, intellectual tasks, and activities involving empathy, social interaction, or the art. A fairly short skills list accompanies these; skills are bought up from base values determined by one or more characteristics. It would be straightforward to convert characters to any other system with a similar division -- Adventure!, Big Eyes, . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: November 23, 2001
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