[RPG]: Dawning Star: Operation Quick Launch, reviewed by matthijs (4/4)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11400.phtml

Matthijs Holter's Summary:

\"Operation Quick Launch\" is a SF campaign setting for D20 Modern. It's a model of usefulness and versatility within its chosen mode.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Scoundrel]

The book is written by an American company for an American audience. So, of course it's going to have an American bias. Just as I'd expect a book written in Russia, for a Russian audience to have a Russian bias. or an English book, or a German book.

American audiences are nine times out of ten going to want to play in a democratic-style government for their SF, because it lends a degree of familiarity. For most Americans (myself included) our form of gevernment is the BEST form of gevernment, no matter how flawed it is. So we project that into our SF.

What, would you have liked to see a theocracy? Or a communist government? Fascism? You make a complaint based on personal bias, but you seem to not want to display that bias.

In the setting, does it make mention that Americans are the first ones to explore the planet?

[Davies]

Originally Posted by Scoundrel

For most Americans (myself included) our form of gevernment is the BEST form of gevernment, no matter how flawed it is. So we project that into our SF.

... which of course explains the Third Imperium of Traveller, the Galactic Empires of Herbert and Asimov, the dozen or so monarchies that David Weber has set up, etc. ...

Chris Davies.

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Thanks for the review. I'm particularly pleased to see the viewpoint of an admitted non-d20 gamer.

On the issue of American bias: We certainly wrote OQL with an American slant. I also will confess that we did this for commercial reasons. However, I think such it's a perfectly reasonable extrapolation from the origin story. We try to highlight (and in retrospect, I don't think we did a good enough job of doing so) that the Dawning Star (i.e., the ship), in particular, had a higher concentration of Americans aboard. With a majority of Americans on board, it should be no surprise that the first two organized sports leagues on Eos are baseball and American footbal, etc. We do reference some of the other settlements that are a bit more culturally diverse.

We also left open the possibility of doing book regarding the other ships in the fleet, and these ships would necessarily have a different concentration ethnicities and nationalities. For example, we do reference one of the science ships (focusing on psionic research, natch) is principally French. I have a secret dream to do a book about one of the military evacuation ships that's half-Chinese and half-American and see what fun comes up when they're stranded on the other side of the galaxy in enemy vaasi territory.

[matthijs]

Originally Posted by Scoundrel

You make a complaint based on personal bias, but you seem to not want to display that bias.

I'm Norwegian. As such, I'm part of a large, non-US market that buys and uses American products.

The American bias is not a huge point in my review. I mention it in part because other games have done things differently; notably, 2300AD, which is one of the classics.

WRT forms of government, I'm not going to go into a political discussion here.