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Intrépides |
| 2021-09-23 |
Intrépides
Intrépides is the transposition of Gallant & Bold to a SF setting. Could that be John Grümph's Stars Without Number? Could that qualify John Grümph as the french Kevin Crawford? Why not, both are proposing a core inspired by the Great Ancient, and both are proposing random tables to quickly flesh out locations, factions, NPCs, etc.
John Grümph has a few advantages.
First of all he is an author and an illustrator too, he can set the tone in his creation, while Kevin Crawford purchased art feels distant from the actual text.
Second, John Grümph comes second, he has seen what Kevin Crawford did, keeping a core (while refining it slightly at each iteration) and providing settings as set of random tables for maximal sandbox enjoyment. John Grümph made an elogious 2011 review of Stars Without Number on the french game catalog The Grog:
In conclusion, Stars Without Number is an indispensible SF game if you are looking for a polymorphous game that will let you run varied modules or if you are looking for a game helper for any other SF game...
(In John's review there is admiration for the faction mini-game that Kevin Crawford proposes. There is not much approaching that system in John's work, but he probably wants to provide simpler fun to the top of his tables).
Third, John Grümph is French, while Kevin Crawford is North-American. Coming from a country where middle-ages actually happened is an advantage. Also having the "american culture" as a second or third culture is a plus in the end. Your inspiration engine is exotic, un-mainstream, xéno.
Granted, all in all, John Grümph loses because, with only Gallant & Bold translated to English, his market share is tiny. But it doesn't matter, both authors have the freedom to explore at will and they seem to crave creative energy, not fame.
(Interestingly, at one point, John Grümph wanted to translate Stars Without Number to French for John Doe Editions but they gave up on the project).
You might want to tell me that John Grümph has only released two settings on top of his Gallant engine: Gallant & Bold, and Intrépides and that is not yet at the level of Sine Nomine which aligns SWN, Godbound, Scarlet Heroes, Spears of the Dawn, Wolves of God, Worlds Without Number, etc. But recently John Grümph released an adaptation of Gallant & Bold to a post-apocalyptic near-future, it's free and it's named Refuge 17. The texts are by John Grümph but the illustrations are by Léo Rousset, a young illustrator that John mentored for a few months. Given that John Grümph has a wide experience working alone and also working in teams, I would not be surprised if, at some point, declinations of Galland & Bold in very different settings do come up.
I'll write about Intrépides another day, or just about its Ouranid Ghosts which are very inspiring.
(By the way, if you understand French, the three hours interview of John Grümph on the "Vieux Geeks" channel is full of excellent learning).
