Overview
Taking a computer game of fleet management and tactical combat and making a pen-and-paper tabletop game from it was an ambitious task, and the Modiphius team have done a great job of it. Instead of producing a super-complicated, crunchy and hyper-simulationist game, Modiphius gave Homeworld: Revelations a very character and story driven focus that cares more about good drama than strategic fidelity.
A little background
Homeworld, the computer game, came out in 2000 (yes, children, there were video games before the millennium and some of them were damn good) earning numerous awards including E3’s "Best Strategy of the Year", PC Gamer's "Game of the Year" award, IGN's "Game of the Year" award for 1999, and USA Today called it "Top Game of the Year". The original game was followed by Homeworld:Cataclysm the same year, and Homeworld 2 in 2003. Homeworld Remastered was released in 2015, and a prequel game, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, was released in 2016. Homeworld 3 is set to release next year (2024) and this month Homeworld Mobile released for iOS and Android devices.
The Homeworld games are all Real Time Strategy games where the player directed the efforts of a fleet of space (or desert) vehicles in a series of missions in a campaign that combined to tell a grand story. Thoroughly voice-acted and delivering stunning visuals, the Homeworld series combined epic storytelling with tense decision making, limited resources and tactical combat.
For me personally Homeworld has always been one of my favorite games series. The stunning visuals, music and animatic-styled cutscenes were a beautiful relief from overdone cutscenes and awkward FMV acting of the day. The galaxy-sweeping story of a long lost peoples first returning to their ancestral homeworld, then defending it from existential threats, was epic and compelling. The ‘side story’ of Homeworld: Cataclysm was especially moving in the quality of storytelling and voice acting which really sold the drama.
But Homeworld has always been a tactical/strategic story. The playthroughs are the same, and only advance when you succeed in the chain of challenging missions that make up their arcs. Many missions had only one ‘right’ solution and in many ways the story missions served as training for the player in how to best manage and maneuver their fleet.
But we’re not limited to PC simulation games anymore. Thanks to the Homeworld: Revelation tabletop roleplaying game.
The Core Rules
Homeworld: Revelations (herein to be referred to as “HW:R”) is a 2d20 game, produced by Modiphius. In the last few years, Modiphius has emerged into the industry as a game producer of note. The flexibility of their house 2d20 engine has supported RPGs for such diverse IP’s as Conan the Hyborean, Dishonored, Fallout, Star Trek Adventures, Infinity, and DUNE among others. This year (2022) Modiphius also released a 2d20 System Reference Document, opening the 2d20 system to writers to come up with their own games using this versatile system. They’ve also become publishers of a variety of non-2d20 games such as the Elite Dangerous RPG and Liminal, and wargames like Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms and Five Parsecs From Home, and many others.
I’ve written previously about 2d20, specifically my review of Star Trek Adventures, and HW:R is a pleasantly familiar riff off the ST:A ruleset. It has a wonderful emphasis on character cooperation and it’s ‘momentum and threat’ mechanics give your sessions a kind of meta narrative power that allows players and GM to influence the action beyond just rolling to hit and rolling damage. HW:R has a more developed character advancement system than ST:A does.
Character creation
HW:R characters are similar to ST:A characters with six ability scores and six broad ‘skills’, plus Talents and Focuses and ‘Truths’. Character creation is done in phases: choosing or rolling randomly for Background, Environment, Upbringing, Profession and Career events. By the end, you’ll have a character that is broadly competent with added focus on their specialties. The book assumes you’ll be playing a Kushan/Higaaran, but all the ‘races’ in the Homeworld verse are essentially human, so playing a Taiidan, Kadeshi, Turan, or even Bentusi should be easily adaptable. Options exist for in-play main character and supporting character creation. (The supporting character growth from ST:A would supplement the core HW:A rules nicely.)
One minor complaint I have is the personal equipment of the setting is remarkably pedestrian. For a sci-fi setting, the choices for personal equipment and weapons are limited and not terribly imaginative. HW:R is a more hard sci-fi setting than Star Trek, but even so I expected more energy weapons and advanced tools to use. On the plus side, there are plenty of examples of more interesting equipment and tools from related games, like Infinity, which can be ported over.
Ship combat and construction
Homeworld: Revelation treats ships like characters, which is great for story-based storytelling. It means a cinematic focus on character and ships are characters rather than focus on a map and pieces on a board. The 2d20 system handles this well. One twist from how ST:A and HW:R treat ships is that while in ST:A ships have ‘departments’ which function like Skills, Homeworld ships don’t. In ST:A, when you perform an action using a ship’s systems and technologies, the ship helps you in your test with its own dice roll using its Systems + Department scores. In contrast: in HW:R you use the ships’ Stat with your own Skill rating. HW:R ships also don’t have shields, like most ST:A ships do: Combat is dangerous and getting disabled or destroyed is easier in HW:R compared to ST:A.
There’s a wealth of ship designs from the original Homeworld computer game, both the player-controllable versions as well as the mission-only specific designs that formed crucial challenges during the campaign.
Ship creation follows two methods: first is “take an existing ship and modify it,” and second is a more detailed methodology starting with a base scale and making choices with a limited pool of points. On the one hand this is far easier than, say, 2300AD’s Aerospace Engineer’s Handbook, and the HW:R book has plenty of examples of the exotic and weird technologies of the Homeworld setting. On the other hand, this system heavily penalizes smaller ships over bigger ones by limiting the points available for customization. In my opinion the GM should just tweak things to fit their story needs and not worry about ‘point balancing’ things.
Historical and cultural infodump
The HW:R book details the extensive historical background of the Homeworld universe, and gives plenty of hooks for creating your own stories within its many-millennia old universe. One of the concerns I had when anticipating this game was ‘what are my players going to do?’ and this book does a good job of providing ideas for games set in several different timelines: from before the events of the original Homeworld Game, to events hinted at in the forthcoming Homeworld 3 game. There’s also sections describing the major ‘geography’ of the galaxy and notable locations visited in the games. These should be sufficient for inspiration for new additions in your own games.
The HW:R book contains plenty of material on the main cultures of the Homeworld games: the Kushan, the Hiigarans, the Turani, Taiidani and Bentusi, and it is made clear that there are plenty more cultures that aren’t detailed in the setting. It’s a big galaxy, after all.
There's a long section describing Kiithid society (the hero culture from the computer games), intended to give major insight and inspiration to roleplaying characters in the game. The other major cultures (Taiidan, Turanic, Kadesh, Bentusi and even the progenitors) get a thorough writeup as well.
Gamemastering and cast of characters
Finally, the “Gamemastering” and “Non-Player Characters” chapters of the core book give advice on using the specific tools for the GM that the 2d20 game engine provides. The NPC chapter gives many examples of allied, neutral and enemy characters for your games.
Pros and Cons
+ The flexible 2d20 game system. If you’ve played any other 2d20 system, HW:R will be easy to get into, even with ship combat added to the mix. Coming from Star Trek Adventures will be even easier.
+ Loads of lore, setting and background info that expand well upon the Homeworld universe.
- Initial equipment options are bland and lean, compared to many other Sci-Fi RPGs. Plenty of room to add your own ideas and those from other games, however.
+ Every ship and objective from the original Homeworld game is here with stats and background.
- Ships from Homeworld: Cataclysm, Homeworld 2 and Deserts of Kharak are absent, but can be abstracted or built using the included design framework.
+ Setting details that allow playing in multiple era’s in the Homeworld series. An ambitious GM and group could even run a ‘legacy’ series of stories where they play descendants of characters from previous games.
- I want more but this is just the first book, and maybe Modiphius will open up the RPG IP to fan-made content if they don’t publish more material themselves.
+ One could run a pseudo-wargame with this game. It wouldn’t be Star Fleet Battles, but if that’s what you want go play that.
Verdict
Homeworld: Revelations has been worth the wait. This is a slick game of character drama set in a universe of epic quests and action, back-dropped by mass spacecraft battles without overly complicated rules. There are plenty of story hooks baked into the historical and background information sections.
I give Homeworld:Revelations 5 out of 5 stars.
