Spotlight on Exilium

jburneko (36)in #games • 6 years ago

Exilium is a science fiction role-playing game that first got my attention with the previous edition titled, “In Flames”. Here’s the summary: There exists a group of ascended beings called the Numina who exist on another plane of reality called Elysium. As a way of maintaining order on their own plane, the Numina come to the physical world and possess people to experience acting out their baser emotions like anger, greed, cruelty etc. This is called Dreaming.

However, crimes still get committed in Elysium and the punishment is exile. An exiled Numina is forced to inhabit a person in the physical world until they resolve their guilt. The player characters are all Exiles. The way they resolve their guilt is by working for a mysterious entity called The Envoy, a permanent representative of the Numina in the physical world.

Sometimes, while Dreaming, a Numina becomes addicted to the emotions they are feeling and refuse to leave the host body. These addicted Numina are called Shadows, and they use their host bodies to experience ever more intense forms of whatever negative emotions attracted them in the first place. Only an intense, overwhelming burst of emotion will drive the Shadow out of the host. What the Envoy wants the Exiles to do is hunt Shadows and banish them back to Elysium.

With such a clear and targeted purpose, it’s a shame this game doesn’t get more attention. I think there’s one major reason for that. On the surface, Exilium looks like a bog standard 90s RPG and a not very interesting one at that. First, it’s mechanics are based on Open D6 a fairly old and bog standard attributes and skills, roll vs a TN system. Second, over half the book is dedicated to detailing a setting called The Flame Worlds. Finally it has a GM secrets section which, these days, is a major game design sin.

However, it is a mistake to dismiss Exilium based on this surface analysis. None of these elements are constructed in the manner which turned so many 90s games into nothing more than gateways into product lines for consumption. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

The core system elements are based on the Mini Six implementation of Open D6. So, as noted, all the familiar RPG trappings of stats and skills, armor and weapons, detailed vehicle and other gear rules are all there. But the interesting question of an RPG is never, “how do I know if what I did was effective”, it’s “why did what I do matter?” With Exilium, you need only flip to the rewards section to see that question answered.

The first thing listed is the typical advancement currency per session reward. These are never particularly exciting and many games include them mostly to appease legacy assumptions about how RPGs work. The real juice starts in the second reward.

During character creation the players come up with a few sketchy memories of Elysium and just the very beginning detail of the crime they commited there. At the end of each session the GM picks one player to either expand on the description of Elysium, or add more detail their crime.

You see, at character creation, the only thing the player writes down about their crime is the verb: “I killed…”, “I stole…”, “I lied…”, and so on. Another game designed to address character guilt might start with the player writing out their crime in full, thus leaving the GM obligated to craft situations that address that crime. This can create a difficult spotlight management problem for the GM, as they try to hit all the character’s crimes as evenly as possible.

Exilium reverses that process. The game moves directly into sci-fi action and exploration, and it’s up the players to make those experiences relevant to their character. The player always has the option to expand on the memories of Elysium, if nothing in the evolving fiction has yet sparked their imagination for fleshing out their crime.

This makes the emotional relevance of play a more collaborative and evolutionary process. Play can begin as “just” an action adventure but as the details of setting, situation and character grab players’ interest, they can flag that enthusiasm by making it relevant to their character’s crime. As the GM sees what the players are, and are not, excited about they can hone in on those details of play and craft more relevant and exciting situations. The whole process turns what could be a creatively burdensome upfront brainstorming session at the beginning, into an evolving and creative engine for play.

So, the second reward turns player reflection on what has happened, into character development. The third reward is about turning character growth, into directed forward action. To understand the value of the third reward, you need to understand a mechanic called Invoking Numina.

When a character Invokes Numina their character opens themselves up to channel others of their kind into their body to aid them with a task at hand. Mechanically, this lets the player double the result of any die roll. They can only do this if they can explain how the current situation is relevant to either their memories of Elysium, or their crime. In other words, this rule only comes into play when the player can clearly state why the immediate circumstances of the fiction are of significant emotional importance to their character.

Additionally, if the player specifically tapped their crime to invoke Numina, and they roll any 6s, they remove a point from their Guilt score. The character is moving closer to redemption. Similarly, if the player rolls any 1s, they gain Dislocation points. The character is at risk of separating from their host body before resolving their guilt. This brings us concretely to the third reward: black pills.

At the end of a mission, The Envoy, gives one character a couple of black pills. These pills can heal Dislocation. The Envoy can withhold these pills if he is displeased with the characters. This ultimately means that the characters truly are prisoners, and dependent on The Envoy to sustain their very existence until they can resolve their guilt.

In these few pages Exilium lays out the entire drive chain of play. The Envoy gives the characters missions. On these missions the characters learn more about themselves and the world they come from. Invoking those memories opens the path to redemption while simultaneously risking dislocation. Finally, for a job well done, The Envoy provides the means to stave off that fate just a little longer.

So where is all of this action taking place? The second half of the book is dominated by a large setting chapter titled, “The Flame Worlds”. It describes five planets (Steel, Stone, Mist, Ocean, and Cloud) orbiting a star called Gold near the red giant Flame. There are also four moons that orbit Steel (Emerald, Sapphire, Opal, and Diamond). The moons of Steel largely house the administrators of resources gathered from the other planets: Agriculture (Steel), Mining and Manufacturing (Stone), Chemical Collection (Mist), Fuel (Ocean), and Alien Tech (Cloud). Collectively this system is governed by a body called The Fire Council whose will is enforced by a military organization called Unity.

This large chapter, however, is far from the typical encyclopedia of fictional minutia. Notably absent is any kind of timeline explaining how humanity got here, a cast of NPCs whose backstories can be consumed as microfiction and drive future metaplot, deep delves into cultural customs and traditions, or mysteries that will clearly only be elaborated upon in future publications. This is not fiction presented to be consumed, and drive sales of future publications. This is a setting built for actual play.

The chapter lays out a rock-solid immediately relevant foundation for hard sci-fi action. The key details could be mapped out on a graph, illustrating the various relationships between the setting’s major elements. Those relationships would mainly represent economic dependence and military conflict between planetary bodies and organizations run by five kinds of people: merchant nobles, military personnel, scientists, laborers, and pirates. The whole setting is basically fascist capitalism living on the edge of sustainability. (My favorite section of the setting implies that if not for all the trash shoved into the abandoned mine tunnels, the planet Stone would collapse).

The setting is a starter kit for the GM and players. From there the group will have to make it their own, adding depth and detail as their play demands. There is no “canon” setting here to be preserved and presented. It is a foundational organization of components, on which the group will construct their own version of The Flame Worlds through play.

All this applies to the so-called “Secrets” chapter as well. Like the main setting chapter there are no hidden “truths” of reality that up-end the premise of the game. There are no nefarious secret plots of critical NPCs. There is nothing here the players couldn’t read and keep on enjoying the game.

The secrets chapter is really more of a collection of advanced components. The elements presented here are better used after the players have some experience with the setting and core cycle of play. These things are large and grabby and could pull a lot of focus. For example, the chapter details a direct nemesis for The Envoy. If introduced too early, the players could assume the game is about discovering and defeating this nemesis, which isn’t the case.

Taken as a whole, Exilium is a fascinating prism of unanswered moral questions. For example, the Exiles are inhabiting bodies that are not their own. These hosts presumably had lives, relationships and obligations before the exiled Numina were placed in them. Now dependent on The Envoy, what is to become of the lives of the hosts?

The Envoy is a representative of the Numina and is in no way beholden to the best interests of humanity. What happens when taking down a Shadow means making things worse for the Flame World civilization? When an Exile leaves either through absolution, or dislocation, what do the remaining exiles and The Envoy do about the host left behind? Shadows are banished by forcing them to experience extreme doses of the emotions they crave, which may or may not involve killing their hosts. How, exactly, do you go about doing that?

And those are just the questions raised by the core conceit of the game to say nothing of the setting itself. The Flame Worlds are rife with very real, very current issues. The people of the Flame Worlds wage war over agricultural land. They exploit the resources of the planets to damaging environmental effect. Unions clash with administrators. Scientists fight not to have their knowledge used to destructive militaristic ends. Pirates fight to maintain their freedom and independence. The intersections of the more metaphysical issues of the Numina with the more grounded issues of The Flame Worlds are near endless.

Exilium clearly works best as an ongoing campaign which is probably another hurdle to achieving recognition. But I firmly believe that Exilium is worth your time, attention and play. It demonstrates that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to create a game with a focused premise and functional drive chain. You just need to identify the core components that need to be adjusted to achieve your design goals. If you want a game lets you dig in and address all the great philosophical, moral, economic and political question the best science fiction raises, this game delivers.

Exilium can be found here in both pdf and POD format: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/215176/Exilium-Core-Rules

Next Up: Pickets and Blinds by Kevin Allen Jr. If Exilium gets passed over because it blends in with so many other large setting, stats and skills games, Pickets and Blinds is exactly the opposite. It’s a game so small and unusual it easily slips out of focus in favor of other, flashier, games.

If you’ve enjoyed this article I ask that you consider doing at least one of two things: