1986: Phoenix Command

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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If the apogee of the military roleplaying game was Twilight 2000 in 1984, there was yet life in the genre still. Not in 1985, but in 1986, there were four military roleplaying games published. Delta Force: America Strikes Back! from Task Force Games, Eternal Soldier from Tai-Gear Simulations, Freedom Fighters from Fantasy Games Unlimited, and The Price of Freedom from West End Games were all published in 1986 and that is ignoring the paramilitary elements of the setting for 2300 AD from Game Designers’ Workshop. But in the four decades since, the straight military roleplaying game has been a rarity, and barring the return of Twilight: 2000 with Twilight 2000: Roleplaying in the World War III That Never Was from Free League Publishing, most, such as War Stories: A World War 2 RPG from Firelock Games and Alien: The Roleplaying Game from Free League Publishing, have been set in the theatres of World War 2 and Science Fiction. Of the four from 1986, perhaps the most famous—or should that be infamous?—was Phoenix Command.

Phoenix Command was published by Leading Edge Games, which had already released its first roleplaying game Rhand: Morningstar Missions, in 1984. It was designed as an accurate simulation of gunshot wounds with detailed aiming and firing rules, and authentic modern weapon data to create a simple, fast-paced game with an incredibly realistic feel. It came as a boxed set which included a forty-eight page, spiral-bound ‘Combat System Rule Book’; a twenty-six page, fully illustrated ‘Phoenix Command Modern Military Small Arms Supplement’; four double-sided Reference Cards; character sheets; and a single ten-sided die. Like many roleplaying books from Leading Edge games there was a streak of sly humour that ran through the quotations given in the extra-wide margins of the ‘Combat System Rule Book’. For example, ‘Blam. Blam. “Stop.” Blam. “Police.” Blam. Officer Axly.’ and ‘If you can’t dazzle them with style, riddle them with bullets.” Corley Norris’. The tone of that humour is set by the blurb on the back cover of the box:

“Are you tired of your current small arms combat system? Tired of inconsistencies and rules that simply don't work? If so, we invite you to conduct a short test:

Using your current small arms combat system, place the muzzle of a large caliber pistol between your character's eyes. Squeeze the trigger. Continue squeezing the trigger until he falls unconscious. Then have a friend put a band-aid over that nasty .45 caliber dent in his skull, and try not to get him shot too often in the week or two it takes to heal.

Now, using Phoenix Command, place the same pistol in the same place. Squeeze the trigger. You now have a choice: you can either roll up a new character or rush the body to a very sophisticated medical facility and discover the joys of role-playing a vegetable.

If you are nodding your head and smiling, and thinking that it would be nice to have a combat system that really works, welcome to Phoenix Command!”

This then sets out the stall for Phoenix Command. It was a highly detailed, highly accurate simulation of small arms combat designed to be used on its own, but more obvious as a replacement for the smalls combat rules that the Game Master and his players were dissatisfied with from whatever modern or military roleplaying game they were playing. There was fertile ground for this in 1986, whether it was The Morrow Project or Merc, Delta Force or The Price of Freedom, or more obviously, Twilight 2000. Essentially, just like the constituent parts of Rolemaster—Arms Law, Spell Law, Claw Law, Character Law, and Campaign Law—before it became a roleplaying game all on its own, were designed to replace the parts of the fantasy roleplaying game that a group was dissatisfied with, Phoenix Command was designed to bolt onto the modern or military roleplaying game of a group’s choice. However, unlike the various parts of Rolemaster which coalesced into a roleplaying game all of its own, Phoenix Command and its various supplements never would. Instead, stripped down versions of the rules would appear in Living Steel and the Aliens Adventure Game.

FULL REVIEW COMING SOON