Minireview: Caprice Book One: Corporate Sourcebook - Business of Occupation (Heavy Gear)
The Caprice Corporate Sourcebook is the first of two books providing extra detail on life on Caprice, building up from the original Life on Caprice sourcebook. Like I noted when I talked about that book, Caprice is a pretty fascinating environment for gaming – a deep vaguely-livable trench on an otherwise inhospitable planet, foreign military occupation, resistance movements, a Blade Runner vibe… cool stuff. The sourcebook, as the name says, provides info on the corporate side of life on Caprice.
Corporations built Caprice (well, Gomorrah anyway), and they are still the main basis of society, including governance. While the earlier days of colonization saw severe misuse of corporate power and near-slavery of workers, the modern-day situation is much improved, with a semi-comfortable balance between corporate and employee needs. Of course, the CEF military occupation of the world throws a spanner in the works. Some corporations quietly support the resistance movement(s), while others quite openly support CEF and hope to see them win for good as soon as possible – because stability means profits. Balancing between these is a huge populance with equally diverse loyalties.
The book goes into the history of the planet, from the first industrial days to the high-tech, big-money “current day”. Detail is given on the six largest corporations and their very different modes of operation & goals. There are articles on corporate life in general, and the whole thing is topped off with some campaign seeds, details on equipment, some sample NPCs, and such. Together with the original “base” Caprice book and book two (which inspects the “rebel” side), you should be able to run a fairly detailed game on Caprice without too much effort. Good stuff, as usual.
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:36 Posted in Books, Games
Tags caprice, dreampod9, heavy gear
