Rocket Age

"I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later."

– Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars

If normal D&D can be said to draw from the pulp fantasy of Conan the Barbarian stories written by Robert E. Howard, Rocket Age answer the question on what would happen if you instead drew from pulp Science Fiction such as Edger Rice Burrough John Carter of Mars or Flash Gordon. You have space ships, jetpacks, enough guns prefixed with the word "radium" to make the Admech blush, Venus is not doing an impression of hell, chunky and clunky robots, hot alien babes in the solar system and plenty of adventure.

Rocket age exists in two different sets of mechanics. First it was built with a modification of the Vortex system designed by Cubicle 7, but it also had a set DnD 5e compatable rules released. This editor only has a copy of the rocket age 5e rules so this article will be based on that.

The Rocket Age

Unlike a lot of other D&D settings rocket age is explicitly set in an alternate history of earth. The divergent point is that in 1931 Nikolai Tesla, Einstein and Goddard, (and yes they did all technically live at the same time period) launched a space ship to mars with Armstrong of all people aboard (Though not the famous one we know) which. . .set's the whole tone for the setting. Light hearten more then a bit tongue in cheek but it does have an edge to it. The actual historical information is only five pages long, but literally anybody can take a look at the dates and put two and two together. The 1930's was not just the dawn of pulp fiction, it was also a time when colonialism by great powers was a live situation and Rocket Age does not shy from that with it outright said that the six Great Powers of earth are in active competition with even allies often working against each other and various listed plot hooks include various colonial powers.

Those great powers? The Empire of Japan, France,Germany, the Soviet Union (USSR), the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. ANYONE can rub two brain cells together and figure out that those are all the major combatants of WW2, and now your probably asking "hang on the setting is 1938, when did the goose steppers take power? . . .1933. ." WW2 Started in 1939. And the setting is explicit about this a possible plot hook for Mercury being "Secret Nazi Research base". So yes not only would it be completely in tune with the setting to punch Nazis on the moon, the game defiantly encourages you to bash a fasc.

But really you don't need to know the setting in depth. Much like the pulp fiction it is inspired by you can just pick up at any point and have adventures set across the solar system.

Playable species

As a labor of love Rocket Age went all out gives you 17 Different species to play as. So we can't go into a massive amount of detail on any of them. To go over them quickly by planet.

• Venus: Rather then being a place that rains acid, it's a hot house jungle planet.
  • Venusians An extrapolation of the 'noble savage' trope simultaneous aggressive primitive and philosophical. Like if Tarzan was also into Plato.
  • 'Lizard Monkey A sentient lizard that evolved to look like a monkey. There natural environment has all they need so they don't traditional do tools. believe everything must be named to have a soul.
• Earth:: No difference from reality aside from technology.
  • Humans
• Mars: Mars is basically the one from the John Carter books, arid, dry but with a green past and an ancient civilization that collapsed. Mars is also home to eight of the different species with most different caste of martian society.
  • Silthuri:The ruling martian caste that are split into two castes, an upper caste of politicans and nobles and a lower caste of high level bureaucrats
  • Kastari:The priests and spiritualists of mars, as a caste they are the only one to recruit form other castes but they also have there unique caste phenotype. Have innate psychic powers.
  • Maduri,: The martian warrior caste. You know the 'hot women ugly male' alien trope? Maduri are the opposite. The Females are massive tanks and the males are lithe scouts and raiders.
  • Talandri,: Martian crafts-people, they make everything and have the crunch to back that up, able to spealize in a tool to be really god at it.
  • Pilthuri: The martian traders, diplomats and administrators. So basically the Tau water caste
  • Julandri Labourer: Slave race A: bred to be dumb and strong, Ogryns would be the best to compare to. However they don't have a racial intelligence cap so you can play against type.
  • Julandri Courtesan: Slave race B: bred to be smart and pretty the Courtesans are. . .well the Courtesan and artist of martian society though still a plaything of the ruling martians.
  • Chanari: Nomadic outsiders and sometimes raiders outside the Martian caste system.
  • Robomen: Ancient robots dug out of martian soil. The Roboman have a crunch based 'three law compliment' system.
• Jupiter: Only a little different from reality except the big four moons have life and jupiter it self has floating island.,
  • Jovians: Flying people native to Jupiter it self who only recently came back hiding from the Europans.
  • Europans: that's from Europa not from Europe for the record. There basically grey aliens, grey, thin, psychic and have nasty disintegrators.
  • Ganymedians:Native to the jungle of Ganymedes Animals with plants that take up symbiotic roles in place of organs.
  • Ioites:Native to the Io, which is just as volcanic as it is in real life, but only because the Europans did and Exterminatus on it they are natural scavengers. Genetically unstable, they have multiple pages dedicated to mutations they can take.
  • Metisian: Native to the jungle moon of Metis, there size is described as "You are a medium sized ball of squiggly flesh." So basically octopuses. Were almost diven extinct by a plague and were saved by the Europans who they serve as troops.

Classes

Rocket age brings five of it's own classes, Agent, Explorer, Scientist, Scoundrel and Soldier which all do the sort of things you can expect them to. Soldiers shoot stuff, Scientist do intelligence smart stuff, Agents do spy stuff ectra. However rocket age also outright says it's acceptable to bring in other classes from other settings, so Barbarian robot man? acceptable (with GM approval of course).

A thing to note is that psychic powers, the equivalent to magic, is not something a class specialize in and instead you pick it as a racial trait with additional powers picked up whenever you could otherwise an ability score increase, though most psychic powers also passively buff one of your stats so it's not that big a loss.