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Download Character sheet (in pdf form) here

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Designers Notes

Pax Terra is an on-the-shelf ware game, something I created a few years ago but am not actively following up at the moment due to other commitments.

Notes about the game: I like Pax Terra, but it worries me. The subject matter is something that could be easily misinterpreted. Please take this game in the spirit it was intended (Watching E! news followed by reading the poetry of Wilfred Owen will probably get you part way there).

There is a mistake in the armoured vehicle section - I claim to only list two vehicles, but then go on to list 4 of them. These extra vehicles were from an abortive Pax Terra add on called Pax War. Pax War was very, very munchkin in concept - It took the whole concept of the moral and ethical dilemmas of Pax Terra and replaced them with - 'wouldn't it be cool to bulldoze alien villages with M1A1's'.

Also experimented with, but never implemented, was the idea of playing multiple characters in a game. This took the form of:
1) Creating a couple of characters before a game. If one was killed then the other would join in as a replacement.
2) Creating a game character and a petty bureaucrat character. Before the game the players in the guise of petty bureaucrats would plan the mission, from logistics to determining acceptable mission goals. The kicker with this would be that it is in the best interests of the bureaucrats to siphon funds to themselves, under resource missions, supply cheaper substandard equipment and generally give to themselves rather than their game character (who can always be replaced). This would hopefully create a situation where players had to survive a badly planned mission that, they and their team mates are partially responsible for.

Influences: · Becoming sick of the overly optimistic, and simplistic, Federation of Planets, Prime Directive view of sci-fi. · A series of sci-fi stories by Harry Turtledove, notably 'The Path Not Taken'. The themes regarding humanity starting on a new reign of imperialism as well as the horrifying thought that we may be the cleverest critters out there.

" It's dark, somewhere out there is a 6ft tall insectiod armed with a sub-machine gun. It wants to kill you cause you represent everything that has disrupted and destroyed its life. You want to kill it cause it's endangering human life, disrupting national policy and ... well cause it's a disgustingly weird alien that deserves it."

Pax Terra is a dark futuristic Roleplaying Game set in a time when aliens have granted us the gift of interstellar travel. Imagine galactic life is teeming. And there are thousands of worlds we can colonize. Imagine contacting alien life. And we are technically and numerically superior.

Pax Terra is set about 50 to 100 years in the future. Technological progress has slowed somewhat as humanity directs its energy into conquering the cosmos. Human states battle amongst themselves crushing technologically inferior alien races into the ground. Imperialism has started anew, the sad thing about it starting again is we should know better. But no-one seems to care. Most alien races don't stand a chance against us.

In traditional roleplaying brave heroes will bust their way into a dungeon, hack to death a heap of evil misshapen creatures and take all their stuff. In Pax Terra a group of Conflict Resolution Specialists, upholding their morale obligation to protect potential human victims, will upon contact with identified hostile elements engineer a kinetic solution that will ensure permanent negation of any threat posed. They will then set about offsetting any mission expenditure costs by retrieving items of value from said hostile elements.

It's not about what you do - It's how you say it. Put a nice spin on it and Mr. and Ms. New Colonist will be able to sleep well at night, knowing they are safe. Knowing they are not responsible.