Adventures in the 4th Dimension

Art by Jim Holloway

TRAVEL to any place, any time, in this universe and beyond!

FIGHT in the midst of any battle, and change the outcome yourself!

SEE the greatest people in history. . . Caesar, Cleopatra, Leonardo — whomever you desire to meet!

JOIN THE RANKS OF THE TIME CORPS,

AND YOU CAN BE THE MASTER OF TIME!

So reads some of the copy on the bottom of the TIMEMASTER Role Playing Game boxed set.  Other copy includes a listing of contents:  “64-page TIMEMASTER™ Travelers’ Manual, 32-page Guide to the Continuum, 16-page exciting adventure, 140 colorful counters printed on both sides, 3 durable ten-sided dice, and 1 large, full-color map.”

Looking at the components in reverse order, the map is 20.5" × 27" and displays one-inch hexes.  One side is colored and the hexes are numbered.  This side is rather versatile; the scale is variable as are the features.  There are three keys that can be used:  an elevation key where the different colors indicate various elevations, a terrain key where colors indicate terrain features, and a second terrain key where the same colors indicate a different set of terrain features.  The other side is black and white and represents a location from the introductory adventure.  On this side, each hex represents five feet.

The dice are indeed durable and come in a patriotic assortment of red, white, and blue.

The counter sheet contains sixteen 'colorful' counters.  These are shown below.  The remaining 124 counters are colorful only in the sense that blue is a color.  The reverse side is printed in black and white.

With regard to the adventure, “exciting” is open to interpretation.  While the booklet is sixteen pages, four of them are devoted to describing the eight pre-generated characters.  Also, the last page is meant to be cut apart to represent trenches on the color map.  (The adventure, “Red Ace High,” takes place during World War I.)

Among other topics, the Guide to the Continuum devotes 3 – 4 pages to each of six settings:

• Athens:  5th Century B.C.
• Rome:  61 B.C. – 37 A.D.
• Angevin England:  1154 – 1216
• Tudor England:  1509 – 1603
• Napoleonic France:  1804 – 1815
• France, 1940 – 1944

The Travelers’ Manual contains ten chapters:

• The Game (4 pages)
• Welcome to the Corps (4 pages)
• Characters (7 pages)
• Basic Action (14 pages)
• Heavy Weapons (6 pages)
• Battles (4 pages)
• Skills (10 pages)
• Paranormal Talents (4 pages)
• Tools of the Trade (2 pages)
• The People You Meet (4 pages)

Pacesetter was established by TSR veterans in January 1984.  By the end of that year, Pacesetter had published Chill, Star Ace, and Timemaster ; three role-playing games that share a common system.  While the 'Original Design Concept' is credited to Gali Sanchez and Garry Spiegle, the 'Design' of Timemaster is attributed to Mark Acres; 'Additional Design and Development' is ascribed to Andria Hayday and Carl Smith.  In Space Gamer #75 (July/August 1985), Smith discussed some of the design philosophy behind Pacesetter's role-playing games:

     Our games are aimed at a wide audience.  Many roleplaying games either consciously or unconsciously parallel the demographics of D&D.  In addition to expanding our demographics, we wanted to include greater use of investigation and interaction in roleplaying, positive ethnic role models, and emphasize plot-oriented adventures.  We chose game themes which were fun and which filled market positions that were largely empty or at worst, inadequately filled.
     Pacesetter games emphasize using wits and not just brawn.  In fact, player characters who act rashly without thinking often run afoul of the law.  Too many games ignore skills and devices which prove useful in a gamer's hands such as impersonation, modelling, acting, and forgery.  Often games dwell on skills which are strictly male and combat-oriented.

Although aiming “at a wide audience” and having a professed desire to provide “positive ethnic role models,” all of the settings described in the Guide to the Continuum are nonetheless European.

Smith continued:

     Some Pacesetter systems appear too clean to the casual observer.  A game should have simple and elegant mechanics.  After all, more complex is not necessarily better.  Some gamers equate massive charts and tables with a detailed game system.  We achieve detail through multiple use of some charts and tables.  It is more difficult to design an economical game system which allows the referee to handle many situations with one set of mechanics than it is to design a score of different tables which handle as many different actions.  Games with too many tables often reflect that the designer did not work on the problem long enough to boil it down.

The fundamental mechanic for the Pacesetter system is a check.  “Checks are percent rolls that determine how an action turns out,” according to Chapter One of the Travelers’ Manual, “when the outcome is in doubt.”  A general check offers a binary outcome, either success or failure.  If the result of the roll is equal to or less than an established score, the character succeeds.  A specific check offers a range of success outcomes.  If the result of the roll is equal to or less than a target value, the amount of the difference is referenced on the Action Table is consulted.  There are five possible grades of success for combat checks and four possible levels with regard to skill or ability checks.  These 'grades' or 'levels' are identified by letter codes as shown below.

With regard to Timemaster, Smith stated:

     Timemaster is a different kind of roleplaying game appealing to the gamer who likes more reality with his particular fantasy.  In general, the player who enjoys historical fiction or wargames also enjoys Timemaster.  It is a game of historical as well as speculative fiction aimed at a different segment of the science-fiction audience than Star Ace...
     In addition to the investigative parts of a Timemaster adventure, many scenarios include a mass combat where a player character can affect the outcome of a battle.  To facilitate mass battles, Timemaster counters [that do not represent individual characters] have movement and identification factors printed on them...

Each of the settings included in the Guide to the Continuum has a 'military summary' of mass combat rules.

Timemaster is currently a property of Goblinoid Games.  Hardcopy rules are available as a print-on-demand product and most of the original assortment of Timemaster publications are available in digital format.

Join The Galactic Task Force...Or The Galactic Legions

With Dungeons & Dragons, TSR started and fomented the fantasy role-playing game phenomenon and during the early years of the hobby, it was the pre-eminent RPG publisher.  It was only natural that TSR would leverage its status to promote a science fiction / space adventure role-playing game.  TSR released its effort, Star Frontiers, in the summer of 1982.  After 1985, TSR published no more Star Frontiers supplements.  Granted, the game still has its fans, but its published lifespan was only 3½ years.  This is not a long-term success considering the amount of support TSR could employ (if only in terms of marketing and distribution).

William A. Barton (who would – among other accomplishments – co-author GURPS Space) wrote a review in The Space Gamer #60 wherein we learn the original name of Star Frontiers was to be Alien Worlds.  A hint of this is captured in the game's subtitle, “Exciting Adventure on Alien Worlds.”

Lawrence Schick in his Heroic Worlds states, “In 1982 TSR waded into the pool with Star Frontiers, a game that had unfortunately been crippled in development by too much committee design.”  Schick was one of the original designers (along with David “Zeb” Cook), so his insight is cogent.  Schick continues, “The systems were originally designed for players aged 14 and up, then heavily redesigned (without play-testing) for younger players, resulting in some very muddled rules.”  (Star Frontiers was marketed as a game for “ages 10 and up.”)  Schick does not list Star Frontiers among Heroic Worlds' Top Five Science Fiction: Space Adventure Systems recommendations.

Dragon #65 includes an article (“Blastoff!”) that offers a first look at Star Frontiers :

The STAR FRONTIERS™ game project was ambitious from the start. The problems that appear when designing three complete and detailed alien cultures, a huge frontier area, futuristic equipment and weapons, and the game rules that make all these elements work together, were impossible to predict and not easy to overcome. But the difficulties were resolved, and the result is a game that lets players enter a truly wide-open space society and explore, wander, fight, trade, or adventure through it in the best science-fiction tradition.

Article author Steve Winter was also credited as the editor of Star Frontiers and he provides more detail about the game's development:

          Design work on the game started in the summer of 1979.  Dave Cook and Lawrence Schick, full-time designers for TSR Hobbies, were assigned to the project.  Their goal was to create a wide-open science fiction role-playing game with a solid scientific base.  TSR wanted a game that would satisfy fans of hardcore science fiction, and still be easy to play.  Dave and Lawrence started by designing a character-generation system and simple rules for movement and combat.  Then they started playtesting, adding and revising.
          The game grew and changed for two years, until it was finally submitted for review in the summer of 1981.  During those two years, TSR Hobbies grew tremendously.  The company had discovered that its games appealed to a much broader audience than wargamers and fantasy fans alone.  D&D® and AD&D™ games, for instance, were selling to people who had never played a wargame or a role-playing game before.  In order to tap this huge market, TSR decided to restructure the STAR FRONTIERS game so it would appeal to people who had never seen this type of game.
          This decision meant most of the game needed to be rewritten and reorganized so persons with no gaming experience could buy it, take it home and play it without learning a lot of rules.  The number and types of dice in the game were changed, the maps and counters were added, and many realistic but complex rules were sacrificed for playability.  In general, there was an overall softening of the game’s “hard core.”

Additionally...

          In order to meet the game’s scheduled release date, this revision work was split up among different members of TSR’s product development staff.   The project was completed in time for its scheduled release at the GEN CON® XV game convention.

Making Star Frontiers an introductory game and crafting it for a younger audience was a sensible if not necessary choice; splitting up revision development and foregoing playtesting, less so.

Winter claims, “The rule book includes detailed guidelines for creating adventures, alien planets and the plants, animals, and intelligent creatures that live on them.”  However, this is not entirely true; no rules for creating alien planets were included.  Zeb Cook would eventually provide planet creation rules in the final issue of Arēs (Spring 1984).  Also missing from the initial set are “rules for spaceship design [and] combat.”  Winter admits that these things are a “very important aspect of science fiction.”  However, according to Winter, “We didn’t want to insert a weak set of starship rules, or raise the price of the first set by increasing the size of the rule book.”  This is eminently reasonable.  An in-game rationale is that “most starships in the Frontier are owned by large corporations, planetary governments or starship travel companies.”  Therefore, player characters will not own starships.  (A separate set of starship rules, Knight Hawks, was published in 1983.)

The setting of Star Frontiers is “a region of space called the Frontier Sector.”  (Perhaps the game should have been titled Star Frontier.)  According to the basic game rules, this sector is...“Near the center of a great spiral galaxy, where suns are much closer together than Earth's sun and its neighbors.”  According to Winter, the volume of the frontier is “1,500 cubic light-years [and] contains 38 star systems.”  Although Winter says “cubic,” the map of the frontier is 34 light years × 44 light years, which is 1,496 square light years.  The distances among the various populated systems (i.e., the “established travel routes”) suggest they are all on the same plane.  Therefore, the setting is effectively outer space in two dimensions.  Did TSR think that three dimensional space would be too difficult to represent for their target demographic?  This 'simplicity' of space is one of the problems I had with the setting.

Players could choose among four races for their characters, including “a Human race...not identical to the Humans of Earth, but they were not very different, either.”  Basic D&D allowed for four player character races, so a variety of four races for Star Frontiers is tenable.  Fortunately, the non-human races are neither anthropomorphic animals nor humans with merely cosmetic differences.  They are alien, but sufficiently compatible with one another.  Separate from the player races, the Sathar are “an evil race of worm-like aliens” about which very little is known.  We are told they “should be NPCs only.”  Yet, on the Racial Reaction Modifiers table, Sathar are listed as a player character race.

Given that the player races have fought a war against the Sathar in the Frontier, it seems unlikely that the United Planetary Federation would have left any systems in the sector unexplored.  However, Winter says, “Only 17 of [the 38] systems have been explored and colonized when the game starts.”  This is another of the problems I had with the setting.

It is unclear if the home systems of the player races are represented on the Frontier map.  I assumed as much because (1) each race exclusively controls at least one system near the edge of the map and (2) no “established travel routes”  are indicated that would lead to systems off of the map.  Assuming that the home systems are along the edges of the map, why would the races engage in exploration only toward one another and not in an omni-directional fashion?  This is yet another of my concerns.

“With the frontier as its background,” Winter tells us, “the action in a STAR FRONTIERS game focuses on exploring new worlds, discovering alien secrets or unearthing ancient cultures.”  Contrary to Winter's notion of “a truly wide-open space society,” the setting of Star Frontiers is constrained compared to the vast environments to be found in competing products like Traveller and Space Opera.  This is another deficiency of the game.

Instead of having an abbreviated frontier, perhaps interstellar travel could have been accomplished via star-gates linking systems to one another.  In this way, the physical position and proximity of star systems would be irrelevant, only relative positions within the star-gate 'network' would matter.  No star maps would be required and the extent of 'known space' could be limited or expanded as needed for any given campaign.

The Outworlds

Art by Jeff Dee

According to the Introduction of the Space Opera rules, “...we have been most fortunate in procuring several copies of the Interstellar Survey Service's Sector Star Atlases which are standard issue to all spacecraft entering given sectors of the galaxy.”  Actually, they're called Star Sector Atlases and are indicated as such in the product listings on the inside back cover.  Almost all of the Star Sector Atlases are numbered; for instance, the complete title of the first atlas is Star Sector Atlas 1:  The Terran Sector.  In Space Opera parlance, a sector represents a cubic volume of space 100-200 light years to a side.  The rules helpfully explain, “space is very definitely three dimensional...”  Very definitely.

The only unnumbered Star Sector Atlas is titled The Outworlds.  It is unnumbered because it “is not from the same game universe” as the default Space Opera setting.  However, even the numbered atlases can be inconsistent with one another since they are derived from different campaigns and thus reflect different interpretations of the setting.  In any event, The Outworlds sector “can be added on to an existing campaign, or be used as the starting point for a new one.”  Also, “The worlds and alien races in this sector can also be used on their own; simply ignore any references to other Outworlds.”

Supposedly, “The sector is 150 LY on a side.”  However, there are two planets that are 171 light years apart on the z-axis (or “the vertical dimension” as the rules state).  At least, that's what I gather from “–78 BISTHUM” and “+93 MANO.”  The Bisthum system is home to Outpost 8.  Outposts are defined as “Planets that are being investigated and prepared for colonization” and civilization is represented by “Generally an E StarPort, a few pre-fabricated huts, and a team of lonely researchers.”  The Mano system contains the planet Goshlookout where “semi-intelligent animals” plague the colonists.

     The first beasts were six legged dinosaur-like creatures who were heavily armored and armed.  Later types grew wings, prehensile trunks, shooting spines, and other deadly weapons.  The worst beast ability is the almost total resistance to poisons and biological weapons...Each beast will have one unusual ability, such as resistance to lasers or stunners.

The Outworlds was written by Stefan Jones, who has a variety of RPG credits that span decades, including Port o' Call.  Interestingly, his first writing credit was a (capsule) review of Space Opera in The Space Gamer #33 (November 1980).  (For Trillion Credit Squadron, he is listed as one of three people having “Useful Suggestions,” so I don't think that counts.)  Was he already working on The Outworlds (1981 copyright) when he submitted that review?  Jones also wrote the Space Opera adventures Vault of the Ni'er Queyon (1982) and
Operation Peregrine (1983).

In the atlas, information about each planet of interest is conveyed through two documents provided under the auspices of the United Federation of Planets.  (Really?  They couldn't go with the Federation of United Planets or the Combined Federation of Planets?)  The two documents are:  Form 217/DIS.8JE from the Department of Interstellar Survey and Form 550/CS.6MV from the Contacts Service.

Blank Survey Evaluation Form

Example Contacts Service Form:  Alkast

“Technological Level” appears at the top of the Contacts Service form, right next to the planet's name.  Whereas weapons and various items of equipment are assigned Tech Levels, what 'Tech Level' means with regard to a society is not expressly established.  Tech Levels range from one to ten but “Tech/7” is the standard level for galactic civilization.  Tech Levels correlate to “Type of Government.”  For instance, Anarchy results in a Tech Level range of 1 – 4; Representative Democracy offers 4 – 10.

Societal Strength also ranges from one to ten; a score of one “signifies a collapsing society” while ten “signifies a very strong society, highly resilient to sudden changes because of the sheer determination of the people and the social institutions to survive and adapt.”  Societal Strength is based on Social Organization.  A Caste Society has a 2  – 5 range; a Communist Society has a 1 – 7 range.

The Xeno-Acceptance Factor (shown as 'Xeno Acceptance Index' on the form) “is the percentage chance that a member of the culture will be prejudiced in his dealings with an 'alien' not demonstrably of his race and general cultural background and beliefs.”  Isn't that the opposite of acceptance?  Regardless, the lower the Societal Strength of a culture, the greater the chance of prejudice.

None of the Outworld planets have a listed Bureaucracy Level.  This is just as well since this concept is not defined in the rules.  Support Index refers to the portion “of the population which will support the present governmental system in a 'crunch'...”  Loyalty Index is the “chance that a given individual citizen will be loyal to the present system.”  Repression Index indicates the “percentage of the population 'repressed' by various discriminatory measures under the present social and/or political system.”  Corruption Index is the “chance that a given government official will accept a 'bribe' or 'gift' or 'token of appreciation'...”  Law Level ranges from one to twenty and is mainly concerned with weapon restrictions; the greater the level, the stronger the restrictions.

The Trade Acceptance Index is “the percentage chance that a trader will find a ready market for his goods on the planet.”  The rules inform us, “The index does not assure a sale, but it makes an attempt possible once per week that an offer comes up.”

Among the nine new alien races described in the The Outworlds there is what humans call the CULT; sometimes spelled with all capitals, sometime with only an initial capital.  An illustration of a CULT member is presented at the beginning of the post.

     The minds of the entire species are linked together by a sort of mechanical telepathy, using communicators implanted within the brain of each individual.  The CULT lives in space craft or on (or in) asteroid bases...They have five strong tentacles and a bulbous central body, all encased in a segmented exoskeleton... Cult walk on three of their tentacles at a time, leaving two free for manipulative functions.  The thick shell is usually light gray in color, the skin in [sic] dark red or purple.
     Behavior patterns of the Cult are very erratic...Trade missions sometimes dump valuable goods on the StarPort landing field and leave without collecting payment.  These abberations [sic] are thought to be due to malfunctions in the computer and communications equipment of the Cult mass-mind network.

Another Outworld race is referred to by humans as Greenstar Demons (or 'Green Star Demons' as the atlas also calls them).  How the Demons refer to themselves is unknown, as is their homeworld.  This race occasionally...

     ...raids the Outworlds and is believed to be the cause of many ship disappearances.  The Demons get their name from their bodily appearance, and from a mysterious force field they use that seals off systems they are raiding.  This force field has the side effect of causing the primary of the system to glow bright green...
     The Demons are xenophobic and highly intelligent monsters.  They take intelligent beings for use as food animals, slaves and other horrid purposes.  Demon ships shoot on sight, trying to disable and board any ship they come across.

Before leaving the Outworlds, we owe it to ourselves to address the spice mines of Kessex.  (That's Kessex – not Kessel – OK?  Call off the lawyers.)  In “deep underground spice caverns,” slaves gather fungoids.  “Luxury Goods (Spice Products)” are the major exports of Kessel Kessex; however, neither the value of such products nor their use is indicated.  Kessex is in the Rant system (the companion star is is Rave).  The only system within twelve parsecs is Kherm, containing the planet Agar.  The Lazkee Corporation 'owns' Agar, an ocean world where an “algae-like plant...is processed and converted into edible foodstuffs for shipment to other worlds.”  This is an important distinction; the market for inedible foodstuffs is negligible.

Inspiration: Kung Fu 2100

In a routine raid, the CloneMaster's secret police picked up a prisoner and brought him in for questioning by their master.  They didn't know their captive was a fully trained Terminator, captured only by sleep gas.  As the CloneMaster walks into the room, the prisoner suddenly shatters his handcuffs and explodes into action...

In a comment to a post earlier this month, Ed “Anonymous” Green suggested that I look at Kung Fu 2100 as a possible source of inspration for a role-playing game campaign.  I knew of the game and I found the premise interesting; however, I despaired of ever obtaining a copy.  Well, it turns out that the game originally appeared in The Space Gamer #30 and the Neutral Good people at Steve Jackson Games have made TSG periodicals available for download (for reasonable prices).  Huzzah!  A PDF is not the same as the actual game, but that doesn't matter for our purposes.

With regard to inspiration, it is interesting to note how Kung Fu 2100 came into being.  It seems that the magazine's publishers receive some unsolicited art pieces from Mitch O'Connell, who eventually became the world's best artist, apparently.  One of the drawings depicted a martial arts battle in a laboratory which The Space Gamer used to create a contest.  Participants were to submit original game ideas inspired by the picture.  The winning entry was submitted by B. Dennis Sustare.  This happened in 1980, after Sustare had co-created (along with Scott Robinson) Bunnies & Burrows, but before the publication of Swordbearer.  Aside from being printed in the magazine, Kung Fu 2100 was good enough for Jackson to publish as a stand-alone game.  Denis Loubet was responsible for the art (other than O'Connell's cover) in both magazine and box versions.  While he may not be the world's best artist, Loubet is never a disappointment (to me, at least).

So, in the world of Kung Fu 2100, “cloning” was perfected in 2006.  Such cloning included rapid maturation of the clone as well as the ability to 'program' clones with the memory and experience of pre-existing people.  Cloning was expensive, but the privileged few who could afford it became effectively immortal.  This “caused worldwide social disruption” and, as a result, “much of civilization collapsed.”  Eventually the CloneMasters (as they came to be known) restored order – of an oppressive nature.  The general population was prohibited from using machines and engines; ownership of metal was not allowed.

          By the year 2100, the world was fragmented into individual fiefdoms, each controlled by a CloneMaster from his personal fortress.  Within this citadel was all he needed to grow and program his clones – letting him live forever in luxury.  Attended by guards, servants, and his computer technicians, snug in his haven, a CloneMaster need to give little thought to the Dark Ages beyond his walls.  Any organized revolt would be quickly dealt with by the CloneMaster's own secret police or by the armed forces maintained co-operatively by groups of CloneMasters.

Among the unprivileged, “a secret cult” was formed – the Society of Thanatos – the purpose of which was to bring lasting death to the CloneMasters.  To this end, members were trained from childhood to attain “the human limit in strength, stamina, unarmed combat, and immunity to pain.”  They could do things like punch through metal doors and dodge bullets.  Members of the Society were known as Terminators.  (Kung Fu 2100 was released in 1980, a few years before James Cameron's film would appropriate that word.)  Not all students were completely successful in their training and some were not able to endure “strict Terminator discipline.”  While not as adept as actual Terminators, these drop-outs nonetheless possessed formidable abilities.  Often, they would become Janizaries – guards in the employ of the CloneMasters.  Janizaries were pejoratively known as “Jellies.”

The sub-title of the game is “The Assault on the CloneMaster.”  In the course of the game, Terminators access a CloneMaster fortress in an attempt to kill the resident CloneMaster.  However, the Terminators must also destroy the cloning equipment or else the CloneMaster will survive as a clone.

Terminators eschew the use of weapons, but Jellies frequently employ them.  Otherwise, there are various martial arts abilities that Terminators and Jellies may possess:  Iron Fist, Lightning Foot, Body of Mist, Mountain Heart, and Monkey Soul.  Yes, Monkey Soul.  How awesome is that?  The game handles martial arts combat in an interesting fashion.  For each fight involving Terminators and/or Jellies, opposing players secretly select which abilities their Terminators/Jellies will use in the form of “tactics counters.”  Players alternate playing counters and effects are resolved based on which abilities are played (e.g., Monkey Soul offers total protection against Lightning Foot).  By taking damage, Terminators/Jellies lose abilities; this limits their tactical options in future fights.

In terms of role-playing games, Kung Fu 2100 was adapted as a GURPS scenario, but I think it could serve as the basis of a campaign setting.  Although they engage in cooperative endeavors, in Kung Fu 2100 each CloneMaster has his own fortress.  I can appreciate the need to personally supervise how one's clones are handled, but wouldn't there be CloneMaster families instead of individuals in each fortress?  This would suggest an ever growing CloneMaster population or caste; however, resource limitations would preclude a population beyond a certain size.  (In his first novel, To Live Forever, Jack Vance postulated a similar situation.)  Let's say that the CloneMasters have cooperatively agreed to a maximum number of immortals; a Technicians' Guild ensures that this number is not exceeded.  If all of a CloneMaster's clones and 'memory banks' are destroyed by Terminators (or some other mishap), there is an opening for a new CloneMaster.  This allows for all sorts of Vancian (if not Machiavellian) politics.

Regardless, despite the fortress/fiefdom social structure, there has to be an industry to manufacture and maintain cloning technology as well as other technology mentioned in the game, such as helicopters and sleep gas.  There must also be an educational system to ensure a sufficient number and quality of technicians to operate all of this technology.  In short, there must be population centers to house and cultivate castes that fall between the CloneMasters and the medieval peasants.  Given these considerations, I doubt that it would be effective to rely upon a truly medieval caste of farmers.  Although not to the extent of 'the Dark Ages,' the lower rungs of a CloneMaster civilization could still be severely oppressed and technologically limited so as to justify the Society of Thanatos.  Of course, there would be people – let's call them tribes – who exist in the 'wilderness,' presumably beneath the notice of the CloneMasters.  All in all, Kung Fu 2100 provides bounteous material and speculation for role-playing opportunities.

Got Monkey Soul?