OSSR: Age of Aquarius (2nd edition)

[Longes]

So, I recently promised to make an OSSR of “Age of Aquarius”, the first Russian RPG. Might as well start.


Cover of the 2nd edition Age of Aquarius

The game has two editions: 2000 and 2011. I’m going to be doing the second edition, because the PDF I have for the first is completely ineligible, even if it disqualifies me from using "O" in "OSSR"

Let’s start with some history. The original game was written by two people for the Moscow anime club, and identified it’s genre as “Occult detective with fist-fights, shootouts and car chases”. The base mechanic was d6 dicepools, because d6 was the only type of dice you could get in Russia.

The second edition has been released in 2011, and was written by three completely different people. The default setting was moved from the 90s Moscow to 00s Moscow and the game mechanics were completely reworked. This is the edition we are going to talk about. The entire book is 304 pages long.

The book opens with a decent table of contents and a foreword by all three authors.
Chapter 1 is the introductory chapter. It’s three pages long, and has a short “What are RPGs” and the brief setting introduction. So, what’s the setting? It’s Russia, 21st century. Magic exists, but is hidden behind the Masquerade. In the USSR magic was studied by the Institute of Applied Exophysics, but with the fall of the country the Institute had lost support of the government and had to go underground. In the past magic was rare and obscure, but with the Age of Aquarius on its way, warlocks and ghosts and devil-tigers began popping out of the woodwork and someone has to deal with it. Other than the Institute, there are also private security company “DEFENDER”, who are mercenaries dedicated to fighting supernatural threats and Utopians – loose organization of people dedicated to studying occult Indiana Jones style.

I think we are off to a good start. In 7 pages we already know the default setting (modern Russia with hidden magic), the default PC activity (dealing with supernatural threats) and the default PC groups (Institute, DEFENDER and Utopians).
Next time, Chapter 2: “Green sun over Russia”. It’s an in-depth look on all of those organizations and default game styles associated with them.

[Red_Rob]

So, I recently promised to make an OSSR of “Age of Aquarius”, the first Russian RPG.

Care to go into this a little?

I'd be interested to know why Russia's first RPG didn't come out until the year 2000. Who wrote and published it and what was their background? Was this based on a home game or was the setting created whole cloth for the book?

Also it's kind of strange the writing team changed completely between editions. Some fallout at the publisher or did the original writers just lose interest?

[Longes]

So, I recently promised to make an OSSR of “Age of Aquarius”, the first Russian RPG.

Care to go into this a little?

I'd be interested to know why Russia's first RPG didn't come out until the year 2000. Who wrote and published it and what was their background? Was this based on a home game or was the setting created whole cloth for the book?

Also it's kind of strange the writing team changed completely between editions. Some fallout at the publisher or did the original writers just lose interest?

Sure.

RPGs in Russia begin around 1990s, when the western literature began heavily leaking into Russia. In 1990 a first annual LARP "Hobbit Games" took place, with 127 participants. It's still happening every year. In 2014 about 1000 participants were expected. As the name implies, it's a massive Lord of the Rings LARP set all over the middle-earth history. 2014th was set in the Second Age, with Sauron's armies planning to siege Minas-Itil.
In 1990 also came out a first Russian tabletop roleplaying game called "Enchanted Land". It was a board game with a map, scenario, miniatures and cards based on the polish version of D&D 1st edition. Then, in 1997 came out "Black Mage's Spell". It was also more of a board game than an RPG, so it doesn't count.

First edition of "Age of Aquarius" was written by two people: Evgeniy Medvedev and Vyacheslav Makarov, as a ruleset and setting expansion of the freeform game played by the members of one of the Moscow anime clubs. I couldn't find any information about those guys. They created a company called "Project "Seven"", and the game was published by Centrpoligraph - one of the biggest Russian publishing companies. Project Seven promised a bunch of expansions, but none of them came out, and in 2010 the company was abandoned. So I can only assume that they lost all interest in RPG writing.

The second edition's writers are equaly obscure. The edition was made with the old authors' blessing, but without any involvement in the project. It was published by "Igrology", which is a company that publishes various tabletop games in Russia and maintains Russian equialent of boardgamegeek.com.

[Longes]

Chapter 2: Green Sun over Russia

Chapter 2 is devoted to the PC organizations and default modes of play. All sub-chapters follow the same layout: a three-page fiction, history of organization, duties of the members, hierarchy, in-group jargon, key gameplay ideas and list of equipment you get as a member.

The first organization is the Institute of Applied Exophysics. The fiction story is not!Agent K telling a potential recruit about the Masquerade. It’s a lot of telling without showing, but I can also easily believe that a secret agent would be ranting how nowhere in the criminal code you are forbidden from selling your soul to demons, and how hard it is to convict someone for stealing money with mind control.
The Institute was created in 1920, and was an official government organization, with the 14th KGB department being their armed forces. Then, with the fall of Soviet Union the Institute lost legitimacy, and in 1990 their multidimensional headquarters were mysteriously destroyed. The only people to survive were the head accountant and two scientists, and they are running the show now. Most members are doing illegal paranormal defense and research out of patriotism, but some are in it just for the money and latest technological developments. While the institute is no longer a real organization, they still have many connections, so that is presumably, where the funding comes from.

The Institute is structured as a pyramid, with the ex-head accountant at the top, and the PC cell at the bottom. Any member of the institute has a right to recruit new members, either adding them to their own cell, or creating a lower level cell out of them.

The default game mode for the Institute PCs is occult detective. Institute members don’t have any legal status, so getting into firefights is not something you want to do. PCs are an individual cell located somewhere in Moscow, with more or less fixed area of duty, and they are expected to keep up the Masquerade, deal with any undead uprisings that happen on their turf, and also work as private detectives to get money, because funding is pretty limited (cell gets 20000$ at the moment of its creation, and some equipment, everything else you either requisition or buy on your own).

Unique Institute equipment includes “Amnesin” – injection that causes short-term memory loss, full-body armor that makes you immune to ether manipulations (magic), and a torsion beam rifle.

Institute is also notable for having a Plan for when the Masquerade breaks (we don’t know what the plan is), and two nuclear bombs they can teleport anywhere in the world on moment’s notice, and will teleport, if a catastrophic magical event happens (radiation destroys magic hard).

[Lago PARANOIA]

I... I have a pretty long list of questions. I'm not exactly sure where to start, so I'll just do five that come to the top of my head. If these are supposed to get answered later in the review then I'll just hold out for answers, but I'm already kind of at the 'what's going on?' level.

1.) What exactly is the high-concept for this game? If you were giving me a two or three-sentence review or advertising pitch, how would you describe it? For example, I would describe D&D's as 'you play as one of several adventuring errants in a fantasy kitchen sink, your life a cycle of overcoming large hordes of villains and hideouts with superpowers and loot, whereupon you use the spoils to begin the process anew until you die or you retire your characters'.

2.) What is the morality of The Institute? Right now it sounds like they're pretty shady but are ultimately benevolent, like the Men in Black or S.H.I.E.L.D.

3.) Ignore this question if it's too complicated to answer without derailing the thread: What the fuck happened between the 1st and 2nd edition? It sounds like there's a huge story waiting to be told.

4.) What's the typesetting and artwork density like? I kind of find a 3-page introduction dubious. Not because I don't feel that introductions shouldn't be 3 pages, but because the industry trend has been leaning towards introductions that are way too fucking long. Could you post a sample page or something?

5.) Could you give us a table of contents? Like with the 3-page introduction, I find it really weird that the game is directly jumping to PC organizations without at least telling us what our characters are supposed to look like.

[Longes]

I... I have a pretty long list of questions. I'm not exactly sure where to start, so I'll just do five that come to the top of my head. If these are supposed to get answered later in the review then I'll just hold out for answers, but I'm already kind of at the 'what's going on?' level.

1.) What exactly is the high-concept for this game? If you were giving me a two or three-sentence review or advertising pitch, how would you describe it? For example, I would describe D&D's as 'you play as one of several adventuring errants in a fantasy kitchen sink, your life a cycle of overcoming large hordes of villains and hideouts with superpowers and loot, whereupon you use the spoils to begin the process anew until you die or you retire your characters'.

2.) What is the morality of The Institute? Right now it sounds like they're pretty shady but are ultimately benevolent, like the Men in Black or S.H.I.E.L.D.

3.) Ignore this question if it's too complicated to answer without derailing the thread: What the fuck happened between the 1st and 2nd edition? It sounds like there's a huge story waiting to be told.

4.) What's the typesetting and artwork density like? I kind of find a 3-page introduction dubious. Not because I don't feel that introductions shouldn't be 3 pages, but because the industry trend has been leaning towards introductions that are way too fucking long. Could you post a sample page or something?

5.) Could you give us a table of contents? Like with the 3-page introduction, I find it really weird that the game is directly jumping to PC organizations without at least telling us what our characters are supposed to look like.

1.) "Magic is comming to the world, and you should do something about that". The game suggests three default modes of play. Institute PCs are generally occult detectives. They sit in their agency, and when virgins in the neighborhood go missing, they go and find the vampire, and stake him/talk him into not being an ass/arest him. DEFENDER PCs are mercenaries. When gates of hell open in the small village Kulichki, PCs go there and blow shit up. This is the action-oriented style. Utopians are adventurers. When Excalibur appears in the Baikal, Utopians go there and get the excalibur. This is the Indiana Jones style.
Notably, magic isn't comming back. It has always been around, but now there's more magic than ever, and Masquerade breaking is a real thing that can happen at any moment.

2.) Yes. Institute's goal is the protection of country and its citizens from paranormal threats by whatever means necessary.

3.) it's a mystery. Original authors promised a bunch of expansions for the first edition, but never delievered. I couldn't find any information about them, what are they doing now, and why they didn't write those expansions.

4.)

It's actually more like two pages. The third page has only half a page of real text, with the other half being taken by "This isn't real" disclaimer.
"Artwork density" - there are pictures like the one in the intro about every 4-5 pages. There is a couple of full-page or half-page pictures in the book.

5.) The chargen goes right after the organization descriptions. I disagree with you though. Look at V20. They first describe clans and sects, and then get to chargen. Here we first see organizations to which PCs will belong, and then we get to chargen. The book implied, but didn't say, that we can play as mages and psychics and anime priests. Or you can just be a muggle.

[Longes]

I suppose I should translate the table of contents. It goes like this:

Chapter 0. Foreword by the authors.
Chapter 1. Introduction. What are roleplaying games and brief overview of the game world.
Chapter 2. Game world. In-depth look at PC organizations.
Chapter 3. Chargen
Chapter 4. Game mechanics.
Chapter 5. Magic and paradigms (we'll get to that)
Chapter 6. Psychic powers. (general mechanics)
Appendix 1. Sample use for all skills and difficulty tables.
Appendix 2. Equipment
Appendix 3. Magic rituals
Appendix 4. Psychic powers. (description of specific powers)
Appendix 5. Sample NPCs.
Appendix 6. Monster Manual.
Appendix 7. Glossary.
Appendix 8. Sample adventure.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So how bad is magic as a thing in this setting? I know that there's a lot of ways that you can play how the introduction of superpowers into the world, but it ranges from:

[*]Bad, avoid at all costs: see Call of Cthulhu.
[*]Mostly bad, but you can't avoid using it so you might as well learn to deal: see D&D.
[*]Benevolent if utilized right, but rarely is: see American comics.
[*]Malevolent if utilized wrong, but rarely is except for this particular highlighted timeline: see Harry Potter.
[*]Good, the more magic the better: see ???.
[*]it doesn't really matter, the institutional problems are way bigger than the presence of absence of magic: see Shadowrun.

Also, I don't know the first thing about Russian but that typesetting... even for 2000, I don't care much for it. It looks, to be charitable as possible, extremely retro. Like something out of Runequest 1E.

The chargen goes right after the organization descriptions. I disagree with you though. Look at V20. They first describe clans and sects, and then get to chargen. Here we first see organizations to which PCs will belong, and then we get to chargen. The book implied, but didn't say, that we can play as mages and psychics and anime priests. Or you can just be a muggle.

Oh my. I'm just wondering how the hell they are going to hold to that design requirement. Well, they're using d6 dicepools so there's a chance that the system isn't going to be completely stupid. I'm waiting with bated breath.

[Longes]

Oh no, they are not using d6 dicepools. I'll talk about game mechanics when we get to the relevant chapter, but it's 2d6+modifiers.

Magic is neither good nor bad. There are mad scientists, there are satanists, there are technomages and traditional witches. With a few nuances, magic is what you make it to be.

On the institutional level, Institute, DEFENDER, Utopians and their foreign equialents are working to maintain the Masquerade for as long as they can to prevent misuse and panic from sudden revelations. But everyone in the setting knows that sooner or later the Masquerade will be blown.

[Longes]

DEFENDER
DEFENDER’s fiction story is about a bunch of trainees fighting a bunch of undead Nazis and a zombie tank. That already makes it better than the Institute’s story.

No.

Kinda like that, but manned by zombies

DEFENDER was formed in 2002, and is run by the psychic soldier nicknamed “Buran”. Buran learned about magic, decided that enough is enough, and made a mercenary team to fight anything dangerous. Officially, they are mercenaries; unofficially they hunt and destroy paranormal threats. They are bribing officials and cultivate positive relations to avoid unnecessary attention from the police. Unlike the Insitute, DEFENDER is an official paramilitary organization, which means that the members can legally carry firearms, wear uniform, and all live on a military base. Members get salary, get equipment as needed for the mission, and travel all over Russia according to mission’s demands.

DEFENDER’s default game mode is action. You go to the location, you kick ass, you come back to the base. Since PCs have an actual job, they don’t have much time for independent activities. Think Only War, and you’ll be about right. Unlike the Institute, DEFENDER has a special HR team, who are hiring new people.
All DEFENDERs get a magic dagger that can wound spirits, and can request crystals that give psychic powers, as well as enchanted armor and bullets.

Utopians
Their fictions story is about a hermetic mage summoning a demon owl, so his friends can use owl’s tail feather to build a computer display.

Utopians were ‘formed’ in 1991 when a couple of wizard buddies decided to split from the Institute to do their own, free research. They actually split in 1995. Utopians are a loose organization of people dedicated to creating better future with the returning magic. Utopians hang out with each other because they like each other, and because they like doing magical research and adventuring.

Much like the Institute, Utopians are a pyramid scheme. The headquarters are in some northern city, and all other cities have small subsidiaries manned by the PC-like groups. Unlike the Institute, Utopians follow the law only when they feel like it and can get away with it.

Utopians don’t have any supplies coming from the headquarters, except for the starting kit (which is smaller than the one Institute gets). OTOH, Utopians aren’t monitored by the headquarters, so PCs can do pretty much whatever they want.

Utopians, more than any other group, use magical devices in their daily life. The cell’s starting kit includes a courier demon summoning manual and two sonic guns.

The default game mode is adventure. PCs are expected to go hunting for artifacts, steal copies of Necronomicon from a museum, etc.

Next time: chargen.

[Longes]

Right. I forgot to mention: those three organizations are officially allied with each other, so DEFENDERs aren't going to shoot Utopians on sight and vice versa.

[DrPraetor]

So the adversaries are all monsters or isolated baddies?

There's no over-arching criminal conspiracy, devoted to summoning the Lord of Three Shadows that he may grind the world under his eternal boot-heel?

No sinister corporation, devoted to destroying the environment in order to summon themselves ever more plague bronies?

That's refreshingly un-American - I suppose we have evil magic nazis. I just have trouble seeing how a campaign for a game like this works, without sustained and organized antagonists. I suppose our Shadowrun games didn't actually try to overthrow corporate power, but we did have enemy syndicates that we fought.

[Silent Wayfarer]

I think the point is to emphasize shades of gray morality and the fact that monolithic evil doesn't need to exist when people can be petty bastards of their own accord.

I think.

[Schleiermacher]

Also I can't imagine there's anything preventing a GM from making up a conspiracy or magical supervillain to fill the sustained antagonist role for their own campaign -like how almost every long-running game of D&D I've ever been in has gone.

[Longes]

So the adversaries are all monsters or isolated baddies?

There's no over-arching criminal conspiracy, devoted to summoning the Lord of Three Shadows that he may grind the world under his eternal boot-heel?

No sinister corporation, devoted to destroying the environment in order to summon themselves ever more plague bronies?

That's refreshingly un-American - I suppose we have evil magic nazis. I just have trouble seeing how a campaign for a game like this works, without sustained and organized antagonists. I suppose our Shadowrun games didn't actually try to overthrow corporate power, but we did have enemy syndicates that we fought.

I think the format authors had in mind is "Monster of the week". You can make your own evil organization, but one is not included in the book.

"sustained" - this is easy. Magic is comming. Demons are popping up, housewives awaken with magic powers. The local bootleger suddenly makes the philosopher's stone. PCs are mostly damage control - they can't defeat all the baddies and they won't be able to keep the Masquerade going forever. But they are trying.

[Longes]

Also, I don't know the first thing about Russian but that typesetting... even for 2000, I don't care much for it. It looks, to be charitable as possible, extremely retro. Like something out of Runequest 1E.

I'm reading from the OCRd PDF, but the book is, surprisingly for 300 pages, a softcover.


You are looking at sample characters

[Longes]

Chargen
Oh man, it’s been awhile. I should probably try and finish this.

This is the chapter dedicated to character generation. We still don’t know the core mechanic, don’t know how magic, psychic powers and paradigms work, so this chapter is basically full of moonspeak.

The chapter opens with a warning that Age of Aquarius is a storytelling game, and that you should think about character’s personality rather than run a Diablo toon. The book provides a 27 point questionnaire to fill in to help you flesh out the character. The questionnaire should really be in the back, because this is a point-buy game and you can’t be a genius super athlete no matter how hard you want to.
The character generation has four parts: attributes, skills, merits (and flaws), paradigm. Paradigm is a special thing that lets you use magic and not go insane at the sight of Cthulhu, and will be discussed in one of the following chapters.

The metacurrency of the game are “bennies”, and they are used both in chargen and for future advancement. The game says that an average person is built with about 60-80 bennies, and beginning hero should have about 100-120.

There are six attributes + Luck (Edge). The attributes are: Strength, Stamina, Dexterity, Wit, Education, Willpower. Willpower is a primary social attribute, although there are some social skills in Wit and Education.
All attributes start at 2 (human average, although the game says that an average human is between 1 and 3). The maximum attribute value is 5, and you can sell your attributes down to 0 for extra bennies. Having an attribute on 5 costs 50 bennies, so like I said, no genius super athletes allowed.

Skills also run from 0 to 5, but start at 0. However, skills have a different cost based on the skill being “normal”, “hard”, “very hard”. This is based on how difficult it is to find a teacher and learn the skill, so it’s 100% bullshit. The price difference is massive – increasing a normal skill from 0 to 5 costs 15 bennies, increasing a very hard skill costs 60. Also your skills can never be more than 1 point higher than the linked attribute. The skill value of 2 represents an average specialist in the area. Also some skills can be defaulted on (i.e., used when your value is 0. There’s no penalty for defaulting), and some skills are actually a bunch of skills, like Language, Science and Magic.

There’s no hardcoded limit to the amount of merits and flaws you can pick, but Comrade Podzemelie is allowed to set one for flaws.
The last step in making a character is picking your paradigm. By default people start with Exophysicist paradigm, and can sell it down to Mundane paradigm for 10 bennies. Spoiler alert: this is an equivalent to killing yourself in chargen, but we won’t know it until we’ve read the Paradigm chapter.

Then we get the advancement rules, and they are really bad. You are not allowed to buy things fully – you can only use 1-2 bennies per session on any given skill/attribute. This means that going from Dex 4 to Dex 5, which requires 25 bennies, will take you 12 sessions. Edge can never be raised past chargen.

The chapter ends with a skill list and a merit/flaw list. I’ll only mention the interesting bits.
• Melee Combat and Brawl are Strength skills, except for using swords which is Fencing and a Dexterity skill.
• Shooting is actually five different skills – Handguns, Rifles, Sniper Rifles, Bow, Heavy Weapons.
• Survival is actually 9000 skills – each climate/area is a different skill.
• Swimming can’t be defaulted on.
• Driving has three subskills – wheeled, tracked, and water vehicles. But piloting is 9000 skills, by plane’s class.
• Sense Motive is a Very Hard skill.
• Initiative is a skill, and is a Hard skill. Most combat skills are actually Hard skills.
• Hypnosis is a mundane Very Hard skill, but no mechanics for it are given yet.

Most merits and flaws cost between -5 and 5 bennies. Some interesting ones are:
• Harmless bullets (7/10). For 10 you can never hit the unintended target on a missed shot. For 7 you can hit other PCs, but not anyone else. Nice if you want to shoot machine guns into a crowd.
• Second Wind (20). When you should be dead, you can roll a d6. If it’s under your Edge, you survive, but permanently lose a point of Edge. You must have at least Edge 4 to buy this merit.
• Evil Eye (4). Instead of spending Edge points to improve your own rolls, you spend Edge points to fuck up someone else’s roll. Probably a bad choice.
• Invalid (-10 to -20). Not having an arm or an eye is -10. Not having a leg is -20. Having a cancer or something else like that is for a master to price and give mechanics.
• Jack of All Trades (15). You can default on all skills.
• Daredevil (5). You get +1 to rolls when taking pointless rule of cool risks.
The chapter ends with a bunch of sample characters. Most sample characters have attributes between 1 and 3, and a bunch of skills at 1. The Scientist has all attributes at 1, except for Education 4 and Stamina 2.

Next time – game mechanics! Finally!
I’m going to spoil the core mechanic right now: it’s 2d6 + Attribute + Skill vs TN[0-15]. There is a twist however. One of the dice is actually -1 to -6.

[Smirnoffico]

So, I recently promised to make an OSSR of “Age of Aquarius”, the first Russian RPG.

Care to go into this a little?

I'd be interested to know why Russia's first RPG didn't come out until the year 2000. Who wrote and published it and what was their background? Was this based on a home game or was the setting created whole cloth for the book?

Every russian rpg is doomed to be first.