Retrostar RPG Review

Retrostar by Barak Blackburn bills itself as "the rpg of 1970's-era sci-fi television." It's from Spectrum Games who publish other niche, genre emulation systems like Cartoon Action Hour.  I haven't had a chance to play it yet (though I plan to give it a try), but these are my thoughts on a read-through.

Its a fairly narrative game whose conception and playstyle probably owe a lot to PbtA games, though it has different mechanics. I find its player character mechanics to somewhat straddle a line between "meta" and diegetic. For instance, characters have three traits: Adventure, Though, and Drama. These could have functioned the same way and been called Physical, Mental, and Social, but I think using the terms they do puts you more in the mindset of thinking of a character's role in the imagined series, not necessarily their capabilities within the world of the show. On the other hand, characters are further defined by "descriptors" for above or below average attributes that are more in-world qualities.

Nonmechanically, characters are described with a Background supplied by the Showrunner (GM) and by Casting notes created by the player. The author of the game wrote up Buck Rogers from the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century this way:

Background: Time-displaced USAF and NASA Pilot from 1987, unofficial captain in the Earth Defense Directorate; cocky, charming, dashing, roguish, ladies’ man; perpetual flirt; attracted to Wilma, who is put off and charmed by his manly nature; frequently gets into trouble because of lack of understanding of 25th century.

Casting: Brown haired, rugged, charismatic smile, playful, wiseass, loyal to his friends.

Adventure: 1 (derring-do) 

Thought: -1 (impulsive)
Drama: 1 (magnetic personality)

SFX: 4
Feat of 1987 Machismo 1/ 2d
Laser Pistol 1/ 2d

The basic mechanics are pretty simple and again, in some ways, reminiscent of PbtA games, but not identical. Players roll at least two dice, and add the results together with results of failure, mixed failure/mixed success, or success. Descriptors, SFX, and situation modifiers alter what you roll. The absolute magnitude of the total modifier determines the number of dice rolled, whereas the valence determines whether ultimately sum the highest or lowest two dice. For example, total modifiers of -1 mean roll 3 dice and take the lowest two, whereas +1 means roll 3 and take the highest two.

To simulate the structure of 70s TV, a session or episode is broken into 5 Acts, with each Act only allowing characters 12 dice rolls. Rather than the typical "actions" (or the PbtA term "moves") Retrostar terms these Intentions. I suspect this is because they want to promote the players thinking in terms of scene resolution rather than task resolution, but it's different. An intention is about achieving a goal within a scene, so one roll might stand in for several rolls in games concerns with more granular representation of actions.

The Showrunner guidance talks a fair amount about helping players to frame intentions and how to adjudicate the results. It also talks about structuring adventures in 5 Acts.

The rest of book is focused on series creation. Retrostar defines series with 5 Dials (Thematic, Plot, Recurring, Cheese, and SFX) with describe roughly how topically socially conscious, serial, formulaic, trend-chasing, and well-budgeted the series is. In its introductory section, there's an overview of 70s sci-fi tv and the dials of a number of real TV series are given. The dial ratings are rolled against in prep to see if that element will play a part during a particular adventure. 

For its rules lite-ness, I think Retrostar will take a bit of getting used to. Its mechanics are sort of novel. Its subject matter is appealing, though, and I think it approaches it in a clever way.