Universe Section
The Jodoverse is based, as I've mentioned on Dune. Jodowrosky wisely used Frank Herbert's setting, with its diverse but distinct factions, as a jumping-off and reference point rather than as an end-goal. The authors of this book, not so much. So the Imperium is replaced by the Human Empire; the Saudakar by the Endoguard; CHOAM by StellComm; the Landsraad by the Maganats; the Bene Gesserit by the Shabda-Oud.
To this basic framework Jodowrosky grafted some more typically European/South American elements - the Techno-Pontificate (i.e. the Technopope and Techno-Priests, known as the Techno-Technos) combines elements of the Vatican and the Bene Tleilaxu. The Ekonomat is the imperial bank, the Union of Planets a primitive parliamentary system of member-worlds, and the Troglosocialiks...
The paleo-Marxist nature lover Troglosocialiks are just one example of the culturally fringe groups finding refuge among the new worlds in the domain of the Colonial Planets. They attract a steady stream of disaffected citizens who believe the universal possession doctrines of Marxism and the ideals of ecological preservation hold the key to happiness and prosperity.
With these goals in mind, the Troglosocialiks find pristine worlds to colonize, maintaining the planet's natural state wherever possible, keeping vast natural preserves in public trust for all to enjoy--much like property throughout the urban areas. They're one of the more fanatical political causes tolerated by the Human Empire.
Like any government, individual Troglosocialik enclaves are easily corrupted into new forms best serving those in power. Most play on the fundamentals of Marxism and ecology to manipulate the populace.
Paleo-Marx is back - with vengeance!
All of this is presented...a bit broad-strokes. I mean, there are paragraphs on pirates, mercenaries, terrorists, aliens, and mutants, but the whole thing is like trying to boil down the factions of Dune without describing in any detail how the various powers or factions interact; the strengths and weaknesses of the various parties are entirely a matter of narrative necessity.
There's a section on the technology, which is where the Jodoverse really goes away from Dune - because Frank Herbert wanted a universe without computers - and is much closer to Star Wars in having a variety of spacecraft (including battleships designed for combat), anti-gravity craft, faster-than-light travel and communications, robots, etc.
Robochrist wouldn't show up until many years later, in Jodowrosky's Screaming Planet.
The description of the Universe is ultimately extraordinarily superficial and unsatisfying. It doesn't really build on Jodowrosky; it doesn't even cover the general complexity of
one volume in his series, and aside from a couple specific highlights like the Troglosocialiks it's so generic and paint-by-numbers it's painful. I find myself wishing the GURPS folks had a go at this.
Also included in this section is a chapterette on building NPCs ("gamemaster characters"), which includes abbreviate stats for a number of typical NPCs. This is followed by a "Creatures" section which is a bog-standard bestiary, with creatures like the Frazzhornet, Glossglok, Kamamba, Xarmadillo, and Eodactyl.
I said eodactyl.
Don't think you're going to get a full twenty-thirty pages of weird alien critters; it's quite literally three pages and eight critters, only some of which actually appeared in the books.
Then we get "Weapons & Technology" - this is the equipment section. I had to go back to the character generation section, and despite the fact that all the equipment has costs attached, it's totally magic tea party as to what equipment you get - you don't get "Starting cash" to buy shit with, you're supposed to just pick out a reasonable selection of equipment, then get down on your knees and do whatever the GM wants you to do to get them to sign off on it. I can't imagine but that in practice most GMs would just give you a thousand kublars or something and tell you to go buy shit from the equipment section.
Costs...there's no real guideline for costs. The cost of a sword is quite literally given as "1 to 1,000 kublars." The same cost is given for
bows. By contrast, a Gauss Rifle costs 750 kublars, and various and sundry pistols are 300 kublars. I understand that the "rule of cool" was in play and they wanted a wide variety of exotic energy weapons and stuff to reflect the arsenal in the Metabarons & related comics, but balance and costs aren't really taken into any kind of consideration. Armor and cybernetics in particular are ludicrously expensive compared to pretty much anything else; you can buy a couple of robots for less than the cost of a cybernetic arm, which I don't understand. If someone told me most of this stuff was ported over directly from Star Wars, with someone crossing out "credits" and writing "kublars," I'd believe it.
Honestly, if you make them all talk like this, it's a better investment.
There's a chapterette on vehicles. Mix of flying cars, exoskeletons, trankar (somewhere between a tank and light troop transport), etc. No prices given, because for fuck's sake, they already priced all the equipment in the last chapter, what more do you want? You want prices for
everything? Fuck you! You're not going to
buy any of this shit! You're going to steal it, or declare that you start the game with it, or something.
Same goes for the
next chapterette, which is on spacecraft. Some of these look suspiciously like re-purposed X-wings and shit.
The final chapter in the Universe Section deals with
Worlds, outlining various important - hah! You think they're actually going to go into all the important planets in the Jodoverse? Fuck you! These are templates and design suggestions for building your own planets, followed by a selection of Sample Planets. The only ones I recognize as coming directly from the comics are Baggdathi and the Golden Planet, which is the seat of government of the Human Empire. (Favorite line of the write-up: "The hotels and restaurants are all top-line.")
I'd bitch about this more, but the Jodoverse was never as centered around specific planets as Dune was. Still, after such a long trudge through the rules systems, it feels like they could have spent more time and wordcount on fleshing out the actual universe. I mean, it's granted that
maps are really difficult things for space opera games, because all distance is narrative distance - you don't care if the next planet is a million kilometers away or a million lightyears away. When you watch
Star Wars you have an impression of Tatooine as a place, but no appreciation for its relation with, say, Yavin IV.
The thing is, space travel is a fundamentally different concept of distance than any other mode of transportation. It's part of the wonder of space - because it is so vast, and it holds so many possibilities, and the distances are quite literally inconceivable to most, but also because everything is constantly moving - the usual frames of reference don't apply. In a typical sandbox game, there is always an edge to the map. You could
walk to nearly any point on the surface of the Earth, given sufficient time (and possibly one of the bubble-walkers for the ocean), but in space it's points-of-light by default. Distances are so tremendous, and transportation so without context that all travel times are effectively just a narrative invention anyway.
Also, God in the Jodoverse kinda looks like Alan Moore.
That's basically it for the book. I mean, the Character Templates are in the back of the book, though I have no fucking idea why, since they'd be
much more useful near the character generation section. There's a couple pages of reference tables for equipment you're not going to buy, and the index and a blank character sheet and...that's the book.
It's a beautiful book. But it's a bit vapid. NMath pointed out that the d6 system veers even closer to the old Star Wars d6 game than I had recalled, but even given that, there's just little
there there. Most of the book is taken up with lots of beautiful art and gamemastering advice and the blatant assumption that you've read all of Jodowrosky's comics and are willing and able to mindcaulk the rest. There just isn't a distillation of his setting material, or any sort of strong narrative idea of why you as a group of player characters are going to get together and...do stuff.
Which is a relatively common problem with a
lot of RPGs, not just licensed ones. With any setting, to some extant the player characters need narrative niches to fill, and to some extant players have to bring their own ideas and motivations to the table. It is
okay for you to be a stalwart band of rebels which happens to include a wide-eyed farmgirl from a backwoods planet and a grizzled space mercenary only in it for the money; they can share a common cause while having distinct motivations. But you have to establish those causes and provide at least some sample motivations. I know we harp on this a lot, but that's because it's important.
In D&D, you're adventurers on an adventure - you may seek power, wealth, justice, excitement, political change, etc., but to do that you're adventuring. Similarly, in Shadowrun you're shadowrunners who go on shadowruns. The amoral mercenary criminal aspect is more than a little implied, since you're explicitly being paid, but it leaves room for other motivations. And in both cases, beyond being an adventurer or a shadowrunner, it has narrative niches to fill - sorcerer, decker, fighter, street samurai, monk, physical adept, bard, detective - not necessarily
roles as such, since those are largely defined by the system (pornomancer, healer, tank, lancer, face, etc.), but conceptual divisions that players can grok quickly and use to cast their own characters.
The
Metabarons RPG...doesn't quite have that. They have the templates, this is true, but the universe material is too scanty to really support the various templates or encourage their use. What
is an S-class detective? Why would you play one? What is their purpose? The book has no answers for these questions, and that's pretty much why it fails.
I will leave you with this image from Jodowrosky's film The Holy Mountain, to contemplate.
