16 replies to this topic

[Ayre el KaBeer]

Go for broke people.

[knave]

Hmmm... hard to pick one... Terre Verde is probably done the best, but SF probably has the most useful info plot wise.

[madcat82]

My personal preferences is Aurora Australis and Terra Verde...

[Finbar]

Gee...Wonder which one I'll vote for ...

That said, AA is interesting for the insight into the Legions, and America: Offline for its insight into the FSA...

FR

[Ayre el KaBeer]

After a day of contemplation I chose Stellar Frontier, great info, plothooks, and fleshes out the space combat rules.

[Ayre el KaBeer]

Anyone else have a favorite?

EDIT: Curse my gramar!

[Archer21]

I'd have to say America Offline and Stellar Frontiers...out of the two, America Offline would be top pick.

[harlequin]

::teleport2 stellar frontiers... but i'm biased... ::teleport2

[ezekiel]

Hey Harle!  ::smiley5

I vote for Luna Rising 'cause its got a nice purple cover...

K, Actually for the info on Luna, the orbital stations and that bit about roleplaying visions.

[SeattleSven]

Had to give my vote to Terra Verde, though Stellar Frontiers comes in a very close second.

[Terra Prime]

This is a tough one for me... I love SF for the porting rules... but I also love America Offline... in the end I'll have to go with Stellar Frontier for it's adding to plot as well as giving us some new worlds to play with.

[Blue Thunder]

Luna Rising.  Personally I found most of Aurora Australis and America Offline to be...boring.  Luna Rising made Luna exciting and interesting, enough that you'd be dumb not to base a campaign there.  Also, the ISRA is presented with more flexibility and allegiance options than any other order, and the clairsentient powers are far more interesting than anything else the other order books offered.

How strange that I think the first order book is the best.

[Sprocket]

It'd have to be Stellar Frontiers AFA I'm concerned. She may not be all that savvy in politics, but I've always loved the way that Atwan effectively slipped the Doyen's leash, what with opening relations with Eden & all.    That was wonderful icing; and the sheer amount of plot hooks, new worlds & Upeo material made for excellent cake to go with it.  

[madcat82]

Hmm, a curious thing that, that Aurora Australis and Shattered Europe got so few votes. What, if I might ask, amkes them less interesting than Stellar Frontier and the rest?

[Sprocket]

You mean, something deeper than "different folks like different things"?  

AFA my own preferences, the whole "humans living off-Earth" theme was a big draw; I liked seeing how new societies/cultures had a chance to develop in ways different from 22nd century Terra - or failed to, as is the case with much (but not all) of Luna. Luna Rising had a good-sized dose of that, while Stellar Frontiers had it in spades.  

Trinity-Era Earth has just gotten too old & worn out for my tastes, it seems. It's kind of like how Ron Perlman's character in Alien: Resurrection put it:

"Earth. What a s***hole."

The tantalizing little hints of Nova Age-related material in those two books didn't hurt either.  

[Blue Thunder]

To put it bluntly, there just wasn't much of anything that was interesting or exciting in them, from a gameplay POV.  The books are meant to give players and Storytellers fun stuff to add to a game, but some of the order books were just plain boring at parts.  Aurora Australis devotes a few pages to discussing the political parties and governmental system of Australia...that's nice and all, by why spend so much time explaining something will likely never come up in a game?

Sometimes, the order books forget that they're science fiction roleplaying supplements.  Stellar Frontier and Luna Rising benefit from non-Earth settings, but they were also chock full of interesting things of their own (Olympus base begs to be explored by characters).  Terra Verde and Asia Ascendant also did a good job of making Sudamerica and Asia interesting enough to visit.

It also has to do with how the orders are presented.  The ISRA is suitable for any kind of character you can dream up...there's Al Alif, Qadiyya, the Hajj, The Ductrans, etc.  You just don't get options like that with any of the other orders.  The ISRA has twice as many Allegiance options as the other orders (at least).  You'd think a megacorp like Orgotek would give you more than four corporate options, and you'd think there'd be more to the Aesculapians than simply being an order of doctors.

I guess it should also be pointed out that clairsentience and teleportation are the two most popular Aptitudes.  That probably has a big effect.

[Alistaire]

The biggest problem for me in choosing was separating "What is your favorite order book?" from "What is your favorite order?"    So thinking about it, I had the same kinda thoughts as BT there about LR and SF, being the sci-fi buff that I am. It's also hard, because for whatever "flaws" we might find in the books, you have to admit that they were all pretty well done. I could say that I liked AuAu least because it focused too much on military stuff, but for people that want a military campaign it'd be great. Just think Stargate: SG1 (where the only part I didn't like about it was that it was American soldiers running around. I mostly liked Daniel Jackson.   )

In the end I did pick LR because it made the moon so interesting. I mean, despite few people choosing ShEu, I found that there were many places there that were interesting too, far more than dull ol' FSA. AsAs just didn't get the work it deserved, so it's main point was advancing the plot. Plus cybernetics is always cool. Oh, and the Mental Landscapes thing rocked! We had a hell of an adventure in a chief antagonist's mind, and also an interesting look at the minds and hearts of each of the characters! So I guess AsAs just got close second in my books (NPI). And I guess that I just haven't looked at SF much yet, since our game hasn't gotten far enough to use much of that stuff.