Coriolis The Great Dark: The Flowers of Algorab features sweeping science fiction, some assembly required
The Flowers of Algorab has big boots to fill, and it knows it. Coriolis The Great Dark set up a bleak, intriguing world focused on delving into ancient ruins afflicted by the Blight, an affliction that appears around secrets and artefacts. The Flowers of Algorab takes that premise and creates a campaign centred around the mystery of a lost ship from 500 years prior. Can it live up to the beloved elements of the original game?
Upon opening the box, the presentation is gorgeous. From maps of the solar system and ship schematics to report handouts, a deck of initiative cards and custom dice, you immediately feel thrust into the game. And that’s before you’ve even opened the 192-page campaign book.
We’d suggest a Games Master (GM) reads through the campaign quite thoroughly before attempting to run it. There are pages of NPCs and ships and some well-written descriptions of areas, each with their own reference image. It’s nerdy and it knows it, capturing the epic scale of space adventures and creating the impact that science fiction is so loved for. The rich array of characters belong to opposing factions, while ruin delving allows the trickle of intel that starts to uncover the mystery. The problem I found is the way the plot functions.
Chapter one is a self-contained adventure that sometimes feels too slow and sometimes feels too fast. It uses pre-written moments, called Escalation Events, to further the plot – think an NPC getting murdered or the players being warned off their investigation by an overwhelmingly powerful force. While these can be placed at the GM’s discretion to raise stakes, unfortunately they play out more like cutscenes in a video game, where the characters have very little agency or impact. Cutscene-style moments like this are always risky in a tabletop roleplaying game, but if they are included, they need to be dropped in alongside other side plots or used to punctuate periods of slower exploration. As it is, this decision to use cutscenes makes for a very slow start.
Everything that happens before these action scenes relies on Logic or Perception rolls, but since the information is required for the plot to progress, the rolls feel arbitrary. Once you add in those Escalation Events, the opening chapter starts to feel railroaded. And while I am a fan of non-combat-focused campaigns, this system doesn’t suit them. Real combat doesn’t show up until several sessions in, even when played at breakneck speed.
From chapter two, things become far less linear – almost to the opposite extreme. Some chapters feel more like world guides and collections of plot beats instead of actual narrative. This requires so much pre-planning and flexibility from the GM that it might actually be easier to create a freeform plot of their own. At least the story itself is riveting for those who do follow its course.
But tackling this campaign as a GM requires an understanding of what your players want from the game, and an ability to edit the campaign to fit that. A good GM might completely restructure the storyline to open with a delve, create intricate links between the player characters and the initial murder mystery victim, and turn every Escalation Event into big player moments that might result in a massive edit to the plot, but would give the players much more satisfaction.
It’s a big ask for any GM. Execute it right, and this campaign could be one your players talk about for years. Execute it wrong, and it won’t last very long at all.
Review by Arlie Pallant
Maybe
For a GM with a strong sense of storytelling, there’s a great narrative to be delved for in The Flowers of Algorab, but some may find the effort required overwhelming.
Both games share a gritty survival tone and expedition-style scavenging of a ruined world.
Category: Roleplaying Games
Designers: Kosta Kostulas, Nils Karlén, Martin Grip
Publisher: Free League Publishing
Pages: 192
Age: 14+
RRP: £43
Campaign book
Expedition booklet
Maps and handouts
10 Initiative cards
12 Equipment cards
6 Discovery cards
84 tokens
2 Ship blueprints
2 Vehicle blueprints
9 Base dice 3 Gear dice
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