James Nicoll Reviews

Gavin Dady’s 2022 Project Bayern is a campaign for Mongoose Publishing’s TTRPG 2300 AD¹. Project Bayern details a nearly five-year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no person has gone before survey the Pleiades open star cluster, far beyond the edge of human-explored space.

But first! A word about William W. Connors’ 1988 Bayern, which was an adventure for Game Designers Workshop’s 2300 AD, which also detailed a nearly five-year mission to survey the Pleiades open star cluster, far beyond the edge of human-explored space.

The original Bayern was a saddle-stitched 52-page book. Connors’ Bayern featured a single ship, the eponymous Bayern. Most of the material provided was focused on the background for the Bayern expedition: the ship itself, its equipment, and its crew. Also, included were two encounters with particularly noteworthy phenomena (no spoilers here).

Bayern was my favourite 2300 AD scenario. Rereading it, I am struck by how short the supplement was. There was scope for a long campaign… most of which the game master would have had to invent themselves. Ah, well. That’s what the world-generation tables are for.

Gavin Dady’s Project Bayern comes in a hefty 1.6‑kilogram box. Inside, there are four booklets totaling 322 pages. There is also a poster-sized map of the Pleiades; the obverse side has ship layouts. Where Connors’ Bayern was about 30,000 words, Dady’s is more than 220,000. Dady incorporated much of Connors Bayern, but this is no mere reprint. It is a substantial expansion.

Bad news first: Project Bayern is an ambitiously-priced product: $50 USD for the PDFs and $100 USD for the box set. There are enough typos that even I noticed them. Readers familiar with James Nicoll Reviews will be aware that I rarely notice tyops. Additionally, I have seen complaints about the functionality of the PDFs in some PDF readers. I did not myself encounter these² so perhaps they were addressed in the last two years. Expensive and insufficiently proofread: a vexing combination and unfortunately something I associate with Mongoose.

On to the good:

The box is pretty and filled with useful material. Avoid my mistake and do flip the poster over. It took me the longest time to notice the ship blueprints.

Unusually for 2300 AD, the focus isn’t military but rather scientific. To quote:

It is important to remember that the Bayern is not only non-military in nature, it is totally unarmed. Thus, an adventure in which the crew was confronted with a violently hostile alien species that opened fire on them at once and would not listen to negotiations would probably be very short and somewhat frustrating for the Travellers. Bayern adventures should stress scientific problems and investigations of the unknown as their primary focus.

It’s not actually true that the Bayern is unarmed, just that it has no ship-to-ship weapons. There is a small armory on board (where the inevitably heavily-armed player-character’s weapons will be stored while the craft is underway) and of course, humans are ingenious about weaponizing ostensibly harmless tools. Some of Bayern’s tools are more easily repurposed than others.

As well, the goals may be scientific, but what the expedition encounters forces them to stray from that goal. There are scenarios featuring intentional violence, in a few cases on a considerable scale. Well, it is 2300 AD. Nevertheless, the primary focus is intended to be research^5, which is unusual.

If you’ve ever wanted to run a long-term 2300 AD campaign, this is the product for you. The major plot points, interludes, and adventures could easily fill a year’s worth of gaming. Depending on how much attention is paid to interpersonal issues, a year might be a significant underestimate. Since some of the discoveries waiting for the expedition could potentially disrupt and transform the 2300 technological base, while others have disquieting implications, there’s scope here for a post-expedition follow-up.

On a more personal, and considerably more spoilery note: [rot13 for spoilers. If you expect to play in this, do not decode]

Gur rkcnafvba nqqf gb gur ahzore bs pvivyvmngvbaf gung fhqqrayl fcehat hc (naq va znal pnfrf, qvrq) va gur fnzr fznyy ertvba bs fcnpr va gur fnzr gval zbzrag bs gvzr. Gurer qbrf abg frrz gb or nal ernfba jul fbzr znal pvivyvmngvbaf jbhyq nccrne fvzhygnarbhfyl.

Jurer gurl tb vfa’g n zlfgrel. Uvtu grpu pvivyvmngvbaf qryvtug va gheavat gurve novyvgvrf gb ncbpnylcgvp raqf. Jura gurl ner abg cebivat gurl pnaabg pb-rkvfg jvgu bgure fcrpvrf, gurl cebir gurl pnaabg rkvfg jvgu gurzfryirf. 2300 NQ frrzf gb unir snfgre, zber ivbyrag phygheny puhea guna Naqer Abegba’f FS abiryf.

Project Bayern is available directly from Mongoose Publishing (beware shipping charges), from DriveThru, and from various friendly neighborhood game stores. It was available in an affordably-priced bundle back in August and early September. Tempus fugit.

Book 1: Mission Profile

A 58-page perfect-bound booklet detailing the mission, the funding agency, the politics affecting the mission, proposed mission timeline, the justifications for the expedition (both public and private), an overview of the more exciting events the expedition will experience, and notes on the senior command staff.

The organization behind the expedition is the Astronomischen Rechen-Institut or AR‑I. It is, as one might guess, German. It’s a bit surprising that German isn’t the lingua franca on board. PCs might be better off speaking French or English³. While the expedition eschews the usual adventure-friendly staffing methods⁴, there’s a fair amount of room here for interpersonal drama.

Europe’s demographics appear to have been remarkably unchanging over the next three centuries.

Book 2: Technical Reference Manual

A 74-page perfect-bound book detailing the ships of the expedition, and the vast trove of equipment at its disposal.

The original Bayern supplement had a single ship, the Bayern. This is a recipe for marooning the explorers in a largely inhospitable region of space. Eschewing suicide missions, Dady’s AR‑I has assembled a flotilla; any survivors should be assured of a ride home. AR‑I has also provided some exciting, cutting-edge technology on which the expedition depends. Won’t it be fun to find out if it works? And to determine the mean time before failure in the field?

Book 3: Primary Mission Objectives

A 58-page perfect-bound book detailing the major plot points of the campaign. These range from mapping stars to first contact to more untoward developments.

Book 4: Secondary Mission Objectives

A 122-page perfect-bound book detailing the more minor incidents experienced during the mission.

A giant poster map showing the many decks of the Bayern on one side and a star chart of the Pleiades on the reverse.

1: Reviewed here.

2: I did notice that the PDFs were kind of pokey about loading, but once they had loaded, I didn’t run into blank pages or pages that would not open.

3: I didn’t have the patience to see if there were any command crew members with no common languages. It would be a hilarious oversight if HR stuck the expedition leader with a senior subordinate with whom communication required an interpreter.

4: Staffing the ships with abrasive incompetents, nepotism-driven filters, drawing names out of a hat… that’s the way to ensure a thrilling adventure.

5: The scientific research is handled rather abstractly, which is a bit disappointing but not something for which I can suggest an alternative.