Minireview: Second Edition Life On Terra Nova (Heavy Gear)
The Second Edition Life On Terra Nova book is one of the “must get” books for the line. Not because it’s absolutely necessary, but because it’s just so damn useful. It’s not totally necessary because it’s “just” a compilation and a tweaked recap of both Terra Novan history and current politics; all or at least most of this info already exists in the previous books. However, there are lots of those books, and many small details (especially ones about the main metaplot) have been tweaked along the way. This book provides an excellent summary of the game world, and really… you could probably get started running a game with just this and the core rules book.
The book follows a fairly traditional format. The beginning condenses the game world history, from the early days of space flight to the current fractures interstellar war situation. Then it goes on to describe Terra Nova, one nation at a time. Naturally enough the info is a lot more condensed than that in the dedicated “region books”, but that’s the point: this is gazeteer and a summary. The end of the book contains some general notes on culture etc, some game master notes, some NPC, and usual stuff like that.
This is one of the core books of the game line. Sure, there’s a 3rd edition one which I haven’t read yet, but word has is that it’s mostly a (somewhat buggy) cut+paste of this book.
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:02 Posted in Books, Games
Tags dreampod9, heavy gear, terra nova
