Old School Cops & Robbers

Although the Old School Renaissance has been primarily driven by Dungeons & Dragons and its iterations, it has been accompanied by an interest in the other games of the period, so there have been new editions of Top Secret and Gangbusters, the latter with a Gangbusters Introductory Set and supplements such as Welcome to Rock Junction and GBM-1 Joe's Diner. Mark Hunt, the new publisher of Gangbusters has followed this with a roleplaying game which combines Old School Renaissance mechanics with roleplaying in the Roaring Twenties and Dirty Thirties. The result is Gangbusters B/X Edition.

Gangbusters B/X Edition or Gangbusters 1920s Roleplaying Adventure Game B/X Edition combines the mechanics of the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay—as seen most recently in Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy—with all of the setting elements of Gangbusters. So it is a Class and Level game with Hit Points and Armour Class set in the Jazz Age and the Desperate Decade of Prohibition, mob bosses, Tommy gun-toting thugs, flappers and floozies, speakeasies and swanky gin joints, small crimes and big crimes, ‘Scarface’ Al Capone, ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, ‘Baby Face’ Nelson, ‘Ma’ Barker, Bonnie & Clyde, Eliot Ness and the ‘Untouchables’, and J. Edgar Hoover. This is a roleplaying game of classic cops and robbers in player take the roles of cops, criminals, private detectives, and reporters in a town where crime and corruption is rife, almost everyone is looking to make it big or get lucky, crimes and cases are solved, and more.

A character in Gangbusters B/X Edition is defined by the traditional six abilities—Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. He also has a Class and Level as well as an Alignment and Description. The four Classes are Brutish, Connected, Educated, and Street Smart and each Class has six Levels, complete with ‘Titles’ for each Level! The Brutish Class is strong and can make multiple attacks against opponents of one Hit Die or less, are more intimidating, and effective when using improved weapons. The Connected Class knows people from particular fields such as City Hall, Society, Underworld, Sports, and so on, and can gain favours from them. The Educated Class are intelligent and knowledgeable in a particular area of expertise, such as Accounting, Forensic Analysis, Gun Smithing, Safe Cracking, and so on, and also has two Vocations. The Street Smart Class has great Dexterity and has abilities like Nimble Fingers, Move Silently, Hide, and Word on the Street. Of the four Classes, the Brutish is most like the Fighter of Dungeons & Dragons, whilst the Street Smart is like the Thief, but also encompasses the grifter and the con man. 

There are a couple of oddities in the Class designs. So the Educated Class receives two Vocations, but what exactly a Vocation is, is never explained in Gangbusters B/X Edition. The Street Smart has Thief-like abilities, but does not gain access to a skill like Safe Cracking.  Alignment in Gangbusters B/X Edition is suitably updated to reflect the period—so Law Abiding, Neutrality, or Dishonest. Character description options include Assimilated, Blue Blood, City Slicker, Hoodlum, and so on.

Our example character is Dudás ‘Slim’ Henrik, an immigrant from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire who came to America following the end of the Great War. He is looking to make his way in the new country and if the incentive was right might look the other way. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army during the war and is trained to use a rifle. It has been several years since he used one though. Currently he works as an accountant for a number of neighbourhood businesses.

Dudás ‘Slim’ Henrik
First level Educated (Smart)
Alignment: Neutral
Description: Immigrant
Armour Class: 5
Hit Points: 2
THAC0: 19

Strength 13 (+1, +1 Open Doors)
Intelligence 14 (Literate & Eloquent)
Wisdom 09 
Dexterity 12 
Constitution 09 
Charisma 08 (-1, Max. Retainers: 7, Morale: 10)

Languages: English, Hungarian
Area of Expertise: Accounting
Vocations: ???
Equipment: $100

Unfortunately, Gangbusters B/X Edition is rather muddled in terms of its mechanics. Now of course, Gangbusters B/X Edition is an Old School Renaissance design and there need not possess a unified mechanic, a one roll for everything, but includes several different ones for different types of actions. So for the Special Abilities of the Educated and Street Smart Classes, a player rolls a six-sided die and succeeds if he rolls three or more. If a one or two is rolled, the character fails or succeeds, but is spotted in doing so. For any action not covered elsewhere, Gangbusters B/X Edition calls for an Ability check, which presumably is to roll under the player character’s value for the appropriate Ability. Unfortunately the rules do not state this, but instead have the player roll under a number assigned by the Judge, modified by +4 or -4 depending on the difficulty.

Then there is combat. Combat in Gangbusters B/X Edition works much like Basic Dungeons & Dragons B/X of 1981, but allows for unarmed combat and the use of firearms and their capacity for burst and spray fire, firing both barrels, and rates of fire. As you would expect, the player or Judge has to roll a twenty-sided die and roll high to beat an Armour Class. That Armour Class though, is descending not ascending, from ‘9’ to ‘-3’ and thus each character has a THAC0 rating. One difference between Basic Dungeons & Dragons B/X and Gangbusters B/X Edition is the lack of armour. This is, of course, to be expected, given the historical time period, but Gangbusters B/X Edition suggests that the better or the fancier the clothing worn, the higher the Armour Class bonus, so Armour Class 7 for poor quality clothing, Armour Class 5 for typical clothing, and Armour Class 3 for luxury or thick clothing.

Lastly, there are the rules for Saving Throws. These work as you would expect in Dungeons & Dragons, but like Alignment have been updated to Moxie, Quickness, Toughness, Driving, and Observation. Moxie covers grit and willpower, Quickness covers reaction speed and agility, Toughness covers endurance and durability, Driving covers all non-combat vehicle actions, and Observation covers spotting and searching for things. Like all Saving throws, these are modified by a character’s Ability modifiers. Altogether, this feels like a clash of mechanics rather than something that is easy to learn and easy to play, but while the rules and mechanics are easy enough, they do feel as if they could be easier.

In terms of what the Judge—as the referee is sometimes known in Gangbusters B/X Edition—can run, Gangbusters B/X Edition suggests several campaign types. These are Criminal, Detective, Law Enforcement, Reporter, and Strange Mysteries. Of these, Detective refers to a campaign involving Private Detectives a la Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, whilst Strange Mysteries pushes Gangbusters B/X Edition into the realms of horror, cosmic horror, and the Pulp superheroes of the nineteen thirties. Of all the campaign concepts in Gangbusters B/X Edition, Strange Mysteries is the least supported, although Gangbusters B/X Edition does offer the option of player characters being masked crime fighters in addition to their standard Classes. Each masked crime fighter receives a random Mysterious Power, such as Bolt of Power or Obscuring Mist, but will have more if any ability has a value of eighteen. Each Mysterious Power can only be once a day. The great advantage of Strange Mysteries campaign is that it is compatible with a lot of Basic Dungeons & Dragons B/X and similar content, so that monsters can easily be imported and various scenarios might work too if the Judge picks carefully.

The other campaign options are covered by their own chapters. So for a Criminal campaign, ‘PART 3: Piece of the Action’ covers criminal activities including bootlegging and racketeering, running a gang, as well as running a normal business, whilst ‘PART 5: Investigations’ covers enquiries made into crimes and mysteries which comes about as part of ‘PART 3: Piece of the Action’. Once the police and the judiciary gets involved, then ‘PART 6: The Long Arm of the Law’ comes into play and explains arrests, plea bargains, bail, trials, witnesses, and law enforcement resources. For the Judge, scattered amongst this there is a list of adversaries and advice on handling encounters, as well as an introduction to the U.S.A. of the period and to the publisher’s default setting of Rock Junction, a steeltown in the Midwest some sixty miles from the Lakefront City of Gangbusters, as well as advice on building adventures and running the game.

What Gangbusters B/X Edition does not include is advice on running long term campaigns. Now this is in part due to the fact that player characters can only achieve six Levels and so the roleplaying game is not designed for long term play. It is really also only designed for two broad campaign types, ones in which the player characters are the criminals and one in which they are not. This is because it is hard to bring the character types together and not have an adversarial relationship.

Physically, Gangbusters B/X Edition is nicely illustrated with lots of period black and white artwork. Now whilst Gangbusters B/X Edition has been proofread, it has not been edited and it very much shows. When it counts, the phrasing of the roleplaying game’s many core rules is often just odd enough to wonder what exactly the author intended, and terms get used interchangeably, such Judge, Referee, Game Master, and so on. Worse, the organisation of the book can be best described as shambolic or scattershot. Now each of the individual sections is self-contained and complete, but ordered in random fashion. So ‘PART 3: Piece of the Action’ which covers criminal activities comes before ‘PART 4: Acting as Judge’, followed by ‘PART 5: Investigations’, ‘PART 6: Long Arm of the Law’, and so on. Lastly, ‘PART 9: Combat’ comes right at the end of the book. There is just no logic to this pattern.

As a toolkit to run an Old School cops and robbers game, Gangbusters B/X Edition could have been easier to use and it could have been easier to read. In spite of this, there is no denying its scrappy charm and there is no denying that Gangbusters 1920s Roleplaying Adventure Game B/X Edition gives a Judge everything she needs to run an Old School Renaissance cops and robbers game—just not necessarily in the right order. 

Scant Treatment

For a great many, Dungeons & Dragons was their first RPG, but as popular as the game proved to be, this did not stop publisher, TSR, Inc., from diversifying and looking for potential success with other genres. This resulted in games such as Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Marvel Super Heroes, and GANGBUSTERS, which in the case of the latter three, were designed as much to be introductions to the hobby as much as they were to new genres. The Old School Renaissance has plundered many of these titles, sometimes over and over, so that there are innumerable interpretations of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as versions of Marvel Super Heroes in the form of FASERIP and continued support for Star Frontiers. With continued support for these three RPGs, it would seem that GANGBUSTERS continues to be TSR’s unloved title, but in 2015, after twenty-five years since the last release for it, GANGBUSTERS is getting some love and support again.

Originally published in 1982, GANGBUSTERS: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure Game is an RPG set during Prohibition Era America in Lakefront City, a setting roughly based on the Chicago of the period. It has the players take the roles of crooks, gangsters, reporters, cops, private eyes, and FBI agents and depending upon the scenario and campaign, fighting crime, taking a piece of the action, getting the big scoop—and earning Experience Points for it. Beyond the core boxed set, the RPG was supported by six releases, five of them scenarios and then the misnamed third edition in 1990. Then in 2015, Mark Hunt revisited the setting and the system with a brand new release, GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and has since led to the release of GangBusters-The Blue Book Detective Agency Beginner Game, a new and introductory edition of the game that focuses on playing private investigators. This, together with a new and expanded edition of GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and Welcome to Rock Junction, formed the basis for the Gangbusters Limited Edition Box BEGINNER GAME. Of course, for professional reasons, Reviews from R’lyeh cannot review any of the aforementioned books or indeed the boxed set, but it can review other releases from Mark Hunt for GANGBUSTERS and his Rock Junction setting, beginning with GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend. He has since followed it up with several supplements, of which GBE-1 Doctors' Orders is the second.

This supplement describes a location, that of The Men’s Doctor, a clinic in Lakefront City run by Doctor Moses Levon. The obvious use of such a location in a game like GANGBUSTERS is somewhere where the player characters can go to get fixed, typically after a fight, and this is a service that Doctor Levon offers. He charges of course—$20 per gunshot wound, but he also provides another important and legitimate service. He sells alcohol. For during Prohibition, the U.S. Treasury Department authorised physicians to write prescriptions for medicinal alcohol, typically a pint per prescription. Which meant that you could get alcohol whilst avoiding both having to associate with crooks or the chance that the alcohol you just bought was ‘bathtub gin’, notorious for its ability to poison or even kill you. Prescriptions for alcohol are not cheap, but it was an easy method of acquiring booze if you had ailment that the doctor thought could be treated with it, such as cancer, indigestion and depression. Of course, it was also a regular source of income for any doctor willing to write out the prescriptions—and in the case of GBE-1 Doctors' Orders, Doctor Levon certainly is.

GBE-1 Doctors' Orders details the owner and staff of The Men’s Doctor, although only two of the four receive any real attention. Even so, both feel underwritten and there are implications and questions left unaddressed with both. For example, Doctor Levon is described as being “ a German in his heart and left after the war with one purpose to get rich in America.” With a first name like Moses and you left wondering at the exact meaning here. Neither the clinic’s nurse nor secretary are detailed beyond their mere stats and that is a shame, since there is certainly room for it. In addition—and unlike GBM-1 Joe’s Diner—GBM-1 Doctors’ Orders is light on ideas. There are a couple of hooks, but no scenario seeds.

Available as a 1.6 MB, six-page PDF, GBE-1 Doctors’ Orders physically feels as rough and unedited as the earlier GBM-1 Joe’s Diner. There is also the matter of the supplement’s title, should it refer to one doctor rather than multiple? The use of period photographs is now more or less a trademark for the line and adds a nice sense of the era. Similarly, the addition of a blank prescription adds a degree of verisimilitude to the affair.

Again, as with GBM-1 Joe’s Diner, it is easy to drop GBE-1 Doctors’ Orders into a GANGBUSTERS campaign or indeed any campaign set within the Prohibition Era. Yet unlike GBM-1 Joe’s Diner, this supplement lacks charm and a sense of engagement, both of which did a great deal to assuage its rough and ready production values. Without either, the production values of GBE-1 Doctors’ Orders are more obvious and thus much more of a distraction. Underdeveloped and underwritten, GBE-1 Doctors’ Orders is a disappointment after the engaging pleasure of GBM-1 Joe’s Diner.

Not Quite Out of the Gate

For a great many, Dungeons & Dragons was their first RPG, but as popular as the game proved to be, this did not stop publisher, TSR, Inc., from diversifying and looking for potential success with other genres. This resulted in games such as Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Marvel Super Heroes, and GANGBUSTERS, which in the case of the latter three, were designed as much to be introductions to the hobby as much as they were to new genres. The Old School Renaissance has plundered many of these titles, sometimes over and over, so that there are innumerable interpretations of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as versions of Marvel Super Heroes in the form of FASERIP and continued support for Star Frontiers. With continued support for these three RPGs, it would seem that GANGBUSTERS and Top Secret continus to be TSR’s unloved title, but in 2015, after twenty-five years since the last release for it, GANGBUSTERS is getting some love and support again.

Originally published in 1982, GANGBUSTERS: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure Game is an RPG set during Prohibition Era America in Lakefront City, a setting roughly based on the Chicago of the period. It has the players take the roles of crooks, gangsters, reporters, cops, private eyes, and FBI agents and depending upon the scenario and campaign, fighting crime, taking a piece of the action, getting the big scoop—and earning Experience Points for it. Beyond the core boxed set, the RPG was supported by six releases, five of them scenarios and then the misnamed third edition in 1990. Then in 2015, Mark Huntrevisited the setting and the system with a brand new release, GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and has since led to the release of GangBusters: The Blue Book Detective Agency Beginner Game, a new and introductory edition of the game that focuses on playing private investigators. This, together with a new and expanded edition of GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and Welcome to Rock Junction, formed the basis for the Gangbusters Limited Edition Box BEGINNER GAME. Of course, for professional reasons, Reviews from R’lyeh cannot review any of the aforementioned books or indeed the boxed set, but it can review other releases from Mark Hunt for GANGBUSTERS and his Rock Junction setting, beginning with GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend.

Written for use with Second Level characters, GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend describes a location and its staff, that of Vickers’ Race Track, a dog track owned and run by dog enthusiast, Margaret Vickers. Other notable characters include a rich young investor with a penchant for putting money on the dogs, plus his staff; a rich old lady whose dog—and the key to her lockbox on his collar—have gone missing, plus the private eye hired to find the animal; and a vet and his faithful companion. A number of punters that might be found at the Vickers Dog Track are also listed, though they are little more than stats. One NPC, the reporter Kit Baker, reappears from GBM-1 Joe’s Diner.

Unfortunately, neither the dog track or its operation are described beyond cursory details. Nor is there a map of the dog track and its facilities. All of which will be a problem from anyone who is unfamiliar with such places in the here and now, let alone in the Prohibition Era. What this means is that the Judge—as the Game Master in GANGBUSTERS is known—will have to do a fair amount of research of his own if he wants to get the most out of GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend. Further, there is not the wealth of detail and scenario ideas and hooks to be found in GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend as there was in GBM-1 Joe’s Diner—both the original version and the new version, again leaving the Judge with more to do.

What GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend does do is add rules for dogs in GANGBUSTERS. Whatever the size of dog—small, medium, or large—they all share the same stats as humans do in the game, but with Driving being replaced with the new Loyalty stat. This is a measure of a canine’s devotion to its master and how well it will obey his orders, whether that is running away or staying with him, or simply learning tricks. This enables a Judge to create dog companion for his NPCs as much as the players create them for their characters. They can also spend Experience Points to increase a dog’s Loyalty. These rules are supported by the inclusion of the Veterinary Medicine skill.

In terms of presentation, GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend is disappointing. It does not feel as it has been edited at all and this detracts greatly from the supplement as does the inconsistent layout. As with other supplements for GANGBUSTERS from Mark Hunt, GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend does benefit from the use of period photographs, but this cannot wholly address its presentation problems.

There is plenty of potential in GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend. After all, a dog track should be rife with dramatic tension—gambling, fixing races, stick ups and punch ups, money laundering, and much, much more, but none of this is brought out in the supplement. It should tell us what goes on at the track and what should go on at the track, but it never does. Whilst a better, cleaner layout would do much to make this a more professional supplement, it would not be enough to bring out the full potential of the underdeveloped and underwhelming location. Simply, GBE-2 Man’s Best Friend should be brimming with potential and possibilities, but sadly it falters long before it reaches the finishing line.

Hacking the Big One

Mark Hunt is probably best known for bringing another TSR, Inc. title, GangBusters – 1920’s Adventure Roleplaying Game back to the hobby after an absence of twenty-five years. This began with the release of GBM1 Joe’s Diner and has since led to the release of GangBusters-The Blue Book Detective Agency Beginner Game, a new and introductory edition of the game that focuses on playing private investigators. This, together with a new and expanded edition of GBM-1 Joe’s Diner and Welcome to Rock Junction, formed the basis for the Gangbusters Limited Edition Box BEGINNER GAME. Of course, for professional reasons, Reviews from R’lyeh cannot review any of the aforementioned books or indeed the boxed set, but it can review the author’s World War 2 RPG, The Front.

The first book available for this is The Front Field Manual. Available as a PDF from the usual vendors as well as in print from lulu.com, The Front is a quick and dirty treatment of World War 2 that brings the biggest conflict of the twentieth century to the Old School Renaissance. As much as it is based in the Old School Renaissance, it draws upon more modern approaches to game play and design for its mechanics, as did the more recent The Black Hack, in being player facing.

The Front gives four Classes—Combat, Intelligence, Leadership, and Reconnaissance. A soldier with Combat Training can recover Hit Points (once per hour), make multiple attacks against opponents of lower Hit Dice, and sunder a piece of equipment to avoid damage. With Intelligence Training a soldier has the Advantage with written languages, processing prisoners, and captured documents, whilst through Logistics can locate a desired piece of equipment on the black market. With Leadership Training, a soldier has the Advantage when performing leadership challenges, providing training, and tactics, and through ‘Lead by Example’, have his men fight to the death for him. A Soldier with Reconnaissance Training has the Advantage when attacking from behind and inflicts more damage as well as having the Advantage when listening, picking locks, sneaking, and so on. In addition, each of the Classes can swap out a standard weapon for something more specialised. For example, a soldier with Intelligence Training can take a Thompson Submachine Gun instead of a pistol (though this does look like a mistake—perhaps it should have been instead of a rifle?).

One thing that The Front does address in creating a character is asking what a solider did before he enlisted or was drafted. This is a simple matter of rolling a twenty-sided die and consulting the appropriate table. The result is an occupation, from Unemployed and Plumber to Dilettante and Scientist, which when it applies to the game, the soldier has an Advantage.

Name: Harold R. Schultz Rank: Technician, Fourth Grade
Level 1 Intelligence Training 
Before the war I was a Lawyer
Strength 06 Dexterity 10 Intelligence 15
Awareness 16 Constitution 08 Charisma 11

Hit Points: 08

I have the Advantage with
written languages, processing prisoners, and captured documents, and finding a desired piece of equipment on the black market.

Equipment
Thompson Submachine Gun
Colt M1911 .45 automatic pistol

Mechanically, The Front is very simple. Whenever a soldier wants to take an action that requires a die roll, his player rolls a twenty-sided die and attempts an attribute test against the appropriate attribute. For example, if he needs to spot an ambush, then he must make an Awareness test. The Front is also player facing, meaning that the players make all of the dice rolls rather than the GM. So for example, in combat, a soldier would make Dexterity test not only to shoot his rifle at a target, but also to avoid the incoming blast from an enemy flamethrower. If a soldier has an Advantage on any roll, two twenty-sided dice are rolled and the best result used. Having the Disadvantage works the same way, but the worst result is kept. For example, if Harold Schulz needs to get some information out of a prisoner, he has the Advantage when he makes his Charisma test.

Combat itself is understandably deadly. There are rules for the different types of weapon available, from pistols and grenades to flamethrowers and machine guns, and of course, not only do they do a lot of damage, a soldier does not have a lot of Hit Points. These start out equal to the soldier’s Constitution and in a Gritty game, they do not rise as the soldier gains Levels. The Hollywood option allows for some Hit Points to be gained at each Level. In actuality, Hit Points in The Front represent the amount of damage a soldier may suffer before he is classed as being ‘Out of Action’ and cannot act. Only after an engagement is over will a soldier know if he survived by rolling on an ‘Outcome’ table. This may result in the soldier being KIA or MIA, disfigured, crippled, shell shocked, and so on.

In terms of character progression, The Front has just ten Levels. After that, a soldier is rotated out of combat or promoted away from the front. Only a relatively few Experience Points, for example, five to go from Level One to Level Two, are needed to go up in Level. At each new Level, a soldier can request new equipment, test each attribute to see if it increases in value—these have to be fail rather than succeed to gain the increase, and at Levels Three and Six, assign permanent Advantage to one of his attributes.

The Front not only discusses the nature of campaigns set during World War 2, but also offers campaign ideas. These include playing as partisans, as members of a resistance organisation, and of course, as part of an elite unit. More interesting though, is the campaign idea involving minor or ethnic nationalities. None of these campaign ideas is explored in any great depth, but The Front: Field Manual is a relatively short rulebook. That said, the discussion of the involvement of minorities in the conflict is a welcome one as it is not often addressed in World War 2 set RPGs. Lastly, the option is given to allow the war to go ‘weird’ and essentially have the Nazis unleash Dungeons & Dragons style monsters on the Allies. Again, it is a quick and dirty treatment and other RPGs, notably Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Weird Wars: Weird War 2 and Modiphius Entertainment’s Achtung! Cthulhu have presented this very familiar idea in more depth and detail.

Physically, The Front: Field Manual is illustrated with a range of suitable photographs. The writing and the layout though, feels rather rushed and is perhaps a bit scrappy in places. If there is an issue with the content, it is twofold. First, it is written with an obviously American slant, but that is no surprise given the nationality of the author and the nationality of the bulk of the audience for this RPG. Second, that perhaps the four given Classes do not quite offer enough variety. Perhaps, the Medic and Engineer Classes would have been reasonable inclusions too?

The Front is essentially The Big One Hack—the ‘Big One’ being the nickname for World War 2. Despite its relatively low number of pages, it packs quite a lot in without getting bogged down in details. Above all, The Front is quick and dirty, but has a suitably deadly feel that reflects the dangers of the fight.

Gangbusting back!

For a great many, Dungeons & Dragons was their first RPG, but as popular as the game proved to be, this did not stop publisher, TSR, Inc., from diversifying and looking for potential success with other genres. This resulted in games such as Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Marvel Super Heroes, and GANGBUSTERS, which in the case of the latter three, were designed as much to be introductions to the hobby as much as they were to new genres. The Old School Renaissance has plundered many of these titles, sometimes over and over, so that there are innumerable interpretations of Dungeons & Dragons, as well as versions of Marvel Super Heroes in the form of FASERIP and continued support for Star Frontiers. With continued support for these three RPGs, it would seem that GANGBUSTERS continues to be TSR’s unloved title, but in 2015, after twenty-five years since the last release for it, GANGBUSTERS is getting some love and support again.

Originally published in 1982, GANGBUSTERS: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure Game is an RPG set during Prohibition Era America in Lakefront City, a setting roughly based on the Chicago of the period. It has the players take the roles of crooks, gangsters, reporters, cops, private eyes, and FBI agents and depending upon the scenario and campaign, fighting crime, taking a piece of the action, getting the big scoop--and earning Experience Points for it. Beyond the core boxed set, the RPG was supported by six releases, five of them scenarios and then the misnamed third edition in 1990. Then in 2015, Mark Hunt revisited the setting and the system with a brand new release, GBM-1 Joe’s Diner.

Designed to be used with First Level characters, GBM-1 Joe’s Diner is a seventeen-page 3.52 MB PDF that describes a location in Lakefront City and the NPCs to be found there before providing the Judge with some situations that the player characters can get involved in. The location is the eponymous diner, a place where the player characters can drop by, get to know the locals and the regulars, and then perhaps get pulled into an adventure or two. The diner’s location is given as a busy one across the street from a railway station and some warehouses, and given the number of dockworkers that appear in the area, not far from the docks, giving it plenty of footfall and thus customers of a diverse ethnicity. The establishment itself is not described, the presumption being that both Judge—as the Game Master in GANGBUSTERS is described—and his players will be familiar with such establishments, the supplement instead focusing upon its owner and its staff, each of them receiving a thumbnail portrait and description.

A number of the diner’s customers are accorded a similar treatment whilst others form the basis for certain scenarios and situations. There are opportunities to make some money, whether through honest investment or through simple theft; a murder to prevent (or perhaps carry out!); and rumours aplenty to follow up on. Two scenarios are given in some detail, but there are plenty of one line hooks scattered throughout the supplement. Getting the player characters involved in any one of these scenarios or hooks is relatively easy, but several suggestions are given. A cop might be introduced to Joe’s Diner whilst a veteran cop shows him his new beat; a gang might move into the district looking to stake out its territory in a Ward relatively free of gang activity; law enforcement could be looking to crack down on criminal activities; and perhaps a reporter might just be looking for a good story. These suggest possible campaign types, but of course, there is nothing to stop an ambitious Judge letting the players create the characters they want and rather than run a party of characters, run a game in which they have their own aims with their paths crossing occasionally—perhaps at Joe’s Diner—and sometimes even be at odds with each other.

GBM-1 Joe’s Diner is a first product and it shows. The editing and formatting is inconsistent and rough around the edges. Nevertheless, the supplement is an easy enough read and really benefits from a well-used selection of period photographs to illustrate the various NPCs and possible locations. 

GBM-1 Joe’s Diner does not have to be used with GANGBUSTERS, something of problem given that the game has long been out of print. The fact that it just lists the game stats for its various NPCs and that these are essentially percentages means that the game is easy to use with any RPG that uses percentiles as its mechanics, for example, Call of Cthulhu. Then again, the setting is simple enough and the Prohibition Era familiar enough that almost any set of rules could be used to create cops and robbers, gangsters and G-Men, private eyes and reporters would work in this milieu and in this setting. Similarly, it would be just as easy to move the location of Joe’s Diner to wherever the Judge is running his campaign.

GBM-1 Joe’s Diner is published under the banner of ‘From the Case Files of the Blue Book Detective Agency’, though that location is itself not detailed in the supplement. Perhaps it might be at a later date, should the author collect other ‘Case Files’ into the one supplement? As rough and ready as GBM-1 Joe’s Diner is, there is no denying the charm of the piece and the able support it gives to the Judge. GBM-1 Joe’s Diner marks the addition of GANGBUSTERS to the fold of the Old School Renaissance and a very welcome addition it is too.