The core rulebook has a lot of ground to cover and some sections seem a bit…scant on detail. Character creation options are presented nearly in abstract. The Players Companion (1997) provides narrative grounding and tons of player options, to the point that I would say you need this if you want to play.

The first section of the book is a blessing and I wish more faction-heavy TTRPGs would take cues from it. Every major character type – noble, merchant, alien, priest, etc. – gets a one page description of a generic day in their generic life. Reading through this section gives you way more insight into the world of Fading Suns than all the histories and genealogies of the core rules.

The book then details the many potential professions and allegiances, and their impact on player characters who embrace them. Again, all interesting, all contributing to the world building, all helpful to the players.

Then the book gets to aliens and blows it. In the core book, alien races are portrayed as generally remote, often hostile and, when it comes down to it, beside the point in a game that is essentially about humanity’s fumbling end among the stars. I guess folks thought the game needed more aliens, though, so we’ve got bird people and fish people and intelligent horses (yup, just horses that are smart), monkey people, weird bug people, weird lizard people and, well, you get the picture. None of them are particularly interesting. All of them seem…out of place.  

Nice Brom cover, though.