SIMIAN CONQUEST (1978)

[Zenopus]

This may be of interest to some. A review on DF by extildepo of a 1978 RPG that I'd never heard of before and has never been mentioned on this board:

SIMIAN CONQUEST

www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=73069

The subtitle: "Rules for Ape Fantasy Combat and Adventure," does little to convey what this booklet really is: a direct appropriation of the "Planet of the Apes" franchise, right down to the ape-species social order of Orangutans being the elder statesmen/administrators, Chimps being the middle class and Gorillas the military/labor class. Of course, humans are below the apes and are regarded as non-sentient to be treated as chattel (and often used as subjects in experiments). There are two special classes of humans: mutants and astronauts - but more on that later.

What strikes me most about this game is the brevity of the whole thing. The text claims the game is "designed to be learned in one evening," and I believe it. This is the best example of clear and succinct writing in RPGs I've seen in a while. Of course, it helps that the POTA universe cannot be addressed directly (for obvious copyright/legal reasons) and so the text does not deal with specific characters or situations, but it does a great job of describing the milieu.

[mindcontrolsquid]

Just goes to show that you can make just about anything into an RPG. Makes me surprised that there was never a game for something like Logan's Run or Krull (Unless you count this and this).

[DungeonDevil]

An Old School simulacrum for Logan's Run would be fantastic. Writing it would be a blast, but the big problem is the lack of setting info.

[ritt]

Nov 3, 2016 23:22:49 GMT -6 DungeonDevil said:

An Old School simulacrum for Logan's Run would be fantastic. Writing it would be a blast, but the big problem is the lack of setting info.

The original novel has a lot more background on Logan's world.

It's also much bleaker... the characters are all younger (The state kills citizens at age 21) and the central theme is the tragedy and waste of children killing children.

[DungeonDevil]

I recently bought the novel (that book was hard to get my hands on!), and have yet to read it (too busy with RL junk and hassles). I very strongly suspect that the screenwriter "lifted" more concepts from the A.C. Clarke novel The City and the Stars, than from the LR novel, for whatever inexplicable reason.

[DungeonDevil]

I want to belatedly apologise for hijacking Zenopi thread. I didn't mean to steer it away from Simian Conquest. I've been dealing with serious health issues, hence the delay.