As I said yesterday, Fading Suns (1996) is a hard science fiction RPG, set in a decadent and superstitious interstellar empire. It is a fairly simple D20 skill and attribute system with no classes or levels. There are broad similarities to White Wolf’s Storyteller System, which makes sense since the game was written by Andrew Greenberg and Bill Bridges, two former White Wolf staffers.
Honestly, though, we’re not here for the system. We’re here for the setting, which is fantastic. The game takes place in the far future, after humankind has found alien technology that allows for interplanetary travel (this is accomplished with Jumpgates, which were constructed by the mysterious Anunnaki, and I would bet someone who worked on Mass Effect was a Fading Suns fan). A series of technological booms and busts followed, creating a vast interstellar empire that functions in many ways on a medieval level – many sophisticated technologies, like artificial intelligence, are forbidden by the Church, for instance. There are interesting aliens, deadly politics, some Cthulhu-inspired stuff, black magic, psychic powers and more. And, of course, as the name implies, the stars are going out and the end is likely near. Its weird and dark and expansive, maybe one of the deftest combinations of disparate inspirations of the period.
Speaking of inspiration, Dune is an obvious one, the novels for substance and structure, the David Lynch film for aesthetic. White Wolf’s goth/punk aesthetic is also here, filtered through a sci-fi lens. Warhammer is another obvious one, as is Gene Wolf’s New Sun, with maybe a hint of A Canticle for Leibowitz. The game also casts a pretty long shadow – I can see flavors from it in Starcraft (1998), for instance, and I already mentioned Mass Effect.
The creation of the setting, I think, is Fading Suns’s real accomplishment. It is full of potential, and even the weirder books in the line maintain a surprising consistency of tone. It seems to me that the game is rather unfairly overlooked. Check it out if you have a chance.
