Operative Disorientation

SLA Industries is the roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism. S.L.A. Industries has its headquarters on Mort City, its rain sodden, polluted, and overly populated heart, located on the industrially stripped planet of Mort and surrounded by five Cannibal Sectors, and from here it governs the planet and the World of Progress beyond, encompassing all of known space. It is here the citizens come from far and wide to enlist in Meny to become SLA Operatives and part of the mediatised programme even as they protect SLA Industries and the World of Progress from innumerable threats from without—and some from within. SLA Operatives are the creme de la creme, whose actions caught on camera garner them sponsorship, TV deals, promotions, better missions, and the best weapons that the company can offer. Every SLA Operative is a would be star. You, however are nobody, a fuck-up in the waiting, a wannabe without the brains to realise how shit you are, thinking that you are really hot, when you are just waiting for an actual SLA Operative to slice and dice you without even thinking about it or a serial killer to add you to his kill count and his path to recognition.

This is not the subject of SLA Industries, the flagship roleplaying game from Nightfall Games, but of SLA Borg, a wholly idiotic interpretation of the setting of the World of Progress—in more senses than one—that requires an entirely different and more brutally blunt game system. That game system is Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. What this means is that SLA Borg brings the World of Progress to the Old School Renaissance, though not SLA Industries since the approach to playing both roleplaying games varies widely. Funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign, SLA Borg includes the full rules for creating very disposable anti- or non-‘heroes’, handling actions and combat, a bestiary of foes that are going to be really annoyed if the fuckwits bother them, and the means to facilitate the Broken Biscuits’ probable screwups.

SLA Borg takes the setting deep into Downtown, the home of the Broken Biscuits, the civilian housemates—so think The Young Ones believing themselves to be members of the SPG—who think they are an Operative squad. This is because in the weird architecture of their sector, the housemates have been affected by The Dream, the virulent infection that decays reality. Under the effect of The Dream and the massive influence of drugs—lots of drugs—and alcohol, the Broken Biscuits think they are doing good and daily visit the sector house to collect assignments known as BPNs or ‘Blue Print News’ files from Mr. Slayer in person. Except what is actually happening is that they scrounging ‘BPMs’ or ‘Bus Pass Missions’ off the floor under the eye of a large, black and white cat, which surprisingly looks like Mr. Slayer, and is thus therefore known as Mister Slayurrr. Then they go out, attempt to complete the BPM and so help the local community be a better place, when in actuality, the local community collectively the Broken Biscuits are useless wankers. And if they get hurt, then they can get to Mike’s Kebabs, where they can scarf down donar kebabs consisting of surprisingly aromatic meat of dubious origin doused in sauce so hot they will be glad they keep their toilet rolls in the fridge. All because the kebabs of Mike’s Kebabs are renowned for their healing properties.

Rather than creating a Biscuit from scratch, a player selects one of the housemates out of the eight included, such as Digglet, a dayglo pink Manchine who thinks he is Digger, the meanest Manchine ever; Toothy Grin, either a giant rat or someone in a giant rat suit, who thinks he is both a mascot for Big Smile Burgers and a giant rat; and Klick’s End Kenny, a glue-sniffing, cider swigging lout. Then he rolls for his Knucklehead Origin, like Asylum Escapee, Plain Ass Scuzz, and Sloppy Drunk Bum, and his Speciality, like Knives Everywhere—really everywhere, Idiot Savant, and Quest Giver, who is really good at scouring the bus terminal floor for BPMs. The Biscuit is then put through a very simple lifepath system which determines adjustments to the stats—Agility, Knowledge, Presence, Strength, and Toughness, and rolls to see if they are actually alien. If they are, they are probably either deluded—actually, more deluded—or faking it.

Mechanically, SLA Borg is quite simple. Actions and attacks require a roll of a twenty-sided die to beat a Difficulty Rating, from incredibly simple or six, all the way up to should not be possible or eighteen, with twelve being normal. Stat ratings are added as necessary. Combat typically requires a roll against a Difficulty Rating of twelve and the combat rules do cover the use of firearms as well as melee weapons. This includes simple rules for handling ammunition. Rolls of twenty are critical and rolls of one are fumbles. The mechanics are player facing, so that a player will roll for his Biscuit to attack and then roll for his Biscuit to avoid being attacked.

So what do you play in SLA Borg? It includes ideas for BPMs of all types—Mauve, Pink, Starch, Bleu, Lemon, Brown, and because Nightfall Games is a Scottish publisher, Tartan and Paisley. There are almost all sixty or so ideas contained in the BPM section. They vary in detail, a few being ready to play, most requiring some degree of preparation. There is a bestiary too and details of various drugs and alcoholic drinks. Despite this, SLA Borg is not really suited to long term play. After all, there is no means of improving a Biscuit, no means of moving up or getting out...

Physically, SLA Borg is very well-presented. The artwork is as good as to be expected for a vaguely SLA Industries-related supplement, the writing is decent, and it gets away with not needing an index with its relatively short page length.

So… SLA Borg is a dumb game. Intentionally so. It is meant to be dumb. You are playing dumb characters, doing dumb things, because they hold dumb beliefs. Yet the Biscuits in SLA Borg are more victims than they are inadvertent monsters (though they may end doing foolishly monstrous things), victims of the World of Progress, victims of the hopelessness, victims of The Dream. Ultimately, they are victims because they actually want to be better and they want to make a difference, because they know that is what a SLA Operative is meant to do in order to get famous, but none of this is attainable and their attempts to do better and be better, are doomed to failure. SLA Borg is dumbass fun, playing fuckups who are going fuck up, just for a ‘Bus Pass Mission’ or two, but at the same time, it does shine a light, from below, on just how rotten SLA Industries and the World of Progress really is.

A Murderous Miscellany

There have been times when it was very hard to find any support for SLA Industries and times when it was hard to support SLA Industries. The roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism, has had a somewhat roving publishing history, but back in 2020, when the publisher, Nightfall Games, just as it was preparing SLA Industries, Second Edition, COVID-19 struck. In response, the publisher released Ex-Mass, a PDF supplement of support that fans of the roleplaying game could play quickly and easily with relatively little preparation. This was followed up with a new series, Progress Reports, which provided further support for the World of Progress, in the form of BPNs, campaigns, threats, and more. By 2022, Nightfall Games had managed to publish SLA Industries, Second Edition and would continue to publish further Progress Reports through the COVID-19 lockdowns and beyond. Today, Nightfall Games has classified the first, Ex-Mass, as a Progress Report, and collected it into a slim volume of its own, Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five. They are each separate in the supplement, so they come complete with their editorials as they originally appeared, so they feel just a little like time capsules from a very strange time.

Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five opens with what was Ex-Mass, but is now SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Zero, a short piece which offers a Hunter Sheet, ‘Copycat Jack’, in which the Operatives are tasked with tackling a vandal, dressed like a cartoon version of Halloween Jack, who has gone from being a nuisance to a danger. The scenario is built around Halloween as a festival and event on the Contract Circuit, which is popular across the whole of Mort, and is short, but escalates in a surprising, though in both an annoying and a challenging way. Accompanying this is a short history of the battle taxi, which does feel too short, but still informative. A picture or two, would have been useful too, but it is a nice little article.

SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue One, steps up and provides the Game Master with a campaign. This is ‘The Uptown Funk’, which gets down and dirty and into the Mort’s sex trade—one of several adult themes which run throughout the supplement. Involving a private member’s club and extortion, this is as dark and seedy as you would imagine, and has a nasty sting in the tale for one Player Character. Accompanying it is ‘Family Ties’, an updated scenario that originally appeared in Role Player Independent Volume 1, Issue 12. It opens with the Player Characters working for the Department of Investigation to investigate the death of an Operative. It haphazardly (by intent) shifts into a hunt for a serial killer. The hunt is made all the more challenging by the nature of the serial killer, although it will help if one of the Operative is an Ebon. The scenario is nicely detailed and the updating has been handled well. Rounding out the issue are two NPCs, a Shaktar Operative who is not a warrior as is traditional for his people, but a medic—and one with an embarrassing secret, whilst the other is Wraithen sniper with a sense of humour. Full stats are provided and they can be used as replacement Player Characters too.

SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Two expands in size and content, focusing now on new additions for the then new second edition of SLA Industries. Here it is upon the Carrien and the Cannibals and their activities, previously explored in detail in the superb Cannibal Sector 1. First, the idea that the Carrien each might collect trinkets and keep them in boxes is weird and quirky, but ‘Sector Treasures’ shows that they do and provides tables for what might be found in their trinket boxes. Second, the Harridan is a new type of Cannibal, previously unseen, which has been penetrating Inner Downtown where it has been leading cults dedicated to Rawhead. Her description is accompanied by four BPNs that if played through, reveal more and more about the Harridan. ‘Old Meg Rattlebones’ has a folkloric feel, with children in a Downtown Sector telling tales of a hideous witch lurking at their bedroom windows at night, her entry foiled by a cat skull placed on the windowsill. Of course, the authorities have been ignoring such bedtime stories and now it is too late! There are more BPNs in ‘The BPN Cookbook’, ten hooks that the Game Master can develop into fuller missions. ‘Red Head’ is one of several pieces of dark fiction the Progress Reports and Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five that shows how bad or at least, how bleak, life on Mort is.

SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Three carries on from SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Two with the second half of ‘The BPN Cookbook’, adding a further six missions for the Game Master to develop. However, the most interesting entry here is ‘Vevaphon: The End’ which explains why the Vevaphon is no longer in SLA Industries, having been introduced in the Karma Sourcebook, published by Wizards of the Coast in 1994. This is an in-game explanation that also charts the rise of the Doppelganger Institute that developed the Vevaphon and not only its fall from grace with the failure of the programme, the efforts of SLA Industries to disavow its sponsorship of the programme and destroy all the remaining Vevaphon. It is an engaging colour piece that is backed up with a campaign seed that begins with a Hunter Sheet for a rogue Manchine and leads into revelations about the last of the reviled and sad creatures. It also enables the game Master to use the Vevaphon in her own campaign. The issue also describes The Pit, the premier, most famous and infamous, night club in Mort, open to SLA Operatives, and a detailed scenario, ‘Beyond the Wall, which needs expanding, but takes the Player Characters on what is supposed to be a milk run into Cannibal Sector 1 to provide protection for a documentary crew. Of course, it goes wrong and the Player Characters find themselves stranded and long way from the wall that separates Mort from Cannibal Sector 1. The issue comes to a close with some good NPCs, including a very pushy Soft Company salesperson, an overly helpful young ganger, and more!

SLA Industries does focus on Cannibal Sector 1, so it is good to see coverage of Cannibal Sector 2 in SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Four. However, its description of a former industrial site dedicated to provision of water to Mort is not nearly as interesting as the wealth of information and background given in Cannibal Sector 1. There is much more development required here before the Game Master can use this in her campaign, but she is helped by the addition of stats for common threats and some mission ideas. Overall, a good introduction to the area. ‘Conflict Aliens – Cyclones’ introduces one of the species that SLA Industries is in long term conflict as part of the ongoing wars and their response which would ultimately result in a bioengineered virus being unleashed upon Mort. This is the ‘Cyconaviridae’ virus, which quickly transforms the infected into an enhanced member of a collective that together methodically and quietly works to further spread the infection. It is accompanied with some scenario hooks such as having a viral outbreak amongst a Shiver outpost at a Bridgehead in Cannibal Sector 1 or an accidental outbreak in Downtown. There are no specific BPNs attached to the ideas, but the ideas are very workable if the Game Master wants to bring the horror of infection and loss of personality into her campaign. More light-hearted are ‘Making a Killing’ and ‘Cannibal Run’, although neither sound it! The former discusses the trade in BPN Coins, rewards from SLA Industries for completing missions that Operatives can purchase and if they want, subsequently sell to the thriving market of civilian collectors. It provides another revenue stream for the financially strapped Operative and adds yet more flavour to the World of Progress. The latter, ‘Cannibal Run’, makes entire sense given that one of the SLA Industries authors is a very dedicated racing fan and provides some suggestions races might be run in Cannibal Sector 1. The Game Master will need to develop them further and flesh events with more detail, but the concept is perfect for the Operative with a high Drive skill.

Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five comes to a close with SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Five. It opens on a sombre note, highlighting the sad death of Morton T. Smith, one of the earliest contributors to SLA Industries, at the age of 53. Likewise, it ends on a typically bleak note with ‘The Murder of Croaks’, the last fiction in the issue and the anthology. The issue consists of the single scenario, ‘Here Piggy, Piggy!’. This exposes the Operatives to corporate shenanigans at Bonk!, a soft company specialising in advertising. The ventilation tunnels of the Bonk! Offices have become infested Landorian Bullet Pigs and the managing director has already been attacked. The Operatives are assigned by the Department of Sanitation to clear out the contamination and present the invoice to those responsible! This is an entertainingly detailed scenario with an emphasise on interaction and investigation whose possible outcomes are explored in similar detail. This includes advice on sponsorship and the use of catchphrases in game. Overall, this is a real change of tone from the horror and combat typical of other BPNs and is a really fun scenario.

Physically, Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five is very well-presented. It needs a slight edit in places, but the artwork is as good as to be expected for a SLA Industries supplement, the writing is decent, and it gets away with not needing an index with its relatively short page length.

Even if the Game Master has the individual issues of the Progress Reports, it is still great to have them in print and all in one place in Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five. This is a great looking book that really is replete with highly gameable content as well as content that the Game Master can further develop herself. Elsewhere, ‘Vevaphon: The End’ is a terrific piece of world building that also neatly explains a change in SLA Industries, Second Edition, whilst ‘Making a Killing’ adds colour and flavour. Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five is a miscellany that every SLA Industries Game Master is genuinely going to find useful and want to have with so much playable material in its pages.

Paradoxical Penetration

Citizen, congratulations on your appointment as a WATCHER. You will be continuing the work of the whole of BASTION which since 1943 has been studying the continuing effects of THE BREACH which occurred following THE COLLISION as a result of the experiments conducted by the Ministry of Culture and Science of The Enlightened Confederacy to test the theory of Space-Time Flows, developed by Möbius-Higgs. As a WATCHER you will continue your service as a Citizen of BASTION by conducting regular mandated and moderated penetrations of THE BREACH and explore the PARADOX known to exist on the other side. Adherence to the R.A.C.E. Protocol (Research, Analyse, Collect, and Eradicate) is mandatory at all times. You will be equipped with a CLOAK to protect you from any one of the identified and unidentified alien environments known to exist in the PARADOX and a modified DISINTEGRATOR and GUTTER to protect the Citizens of BASTION and The Enlightened Confederacy from any potential emergent incursion from the PARADOX via THE BREACH. Beware that penetrations of THE BREACH for reasons yet to be determined by previous penetrations and study of THE BREACH and the PARADOX are time limited assignments. All PARADOXES are subject to MELTDOWN. Loss of a WATCHER, CLOAK, DISINTEGRATOR, GUTTER, and all samples and data collected is an impediment to the continued study of THE BREACH and the PARADOX and progress by your fellow WATCHERS, the entirety of BASTION, the Ministry of Culture and Science, and The Enlightened Confederacy. Upon return from a penetration, you will report to the WARDENS who will collect and analyse all data from the penetration, including oral, aural, physical, and emotional. Remember your loyalty and safety as a WATCHER to BASTION, the Ministry of Culture and Science, and The Enlightened Confederacy is appreciated at all times. Thank you for your service.

—oOo—

The Breach is a roleplaying game published by Need Games!, best known for the roleplaying game inspired by Japanese console roleplaying games, Fabula Ultima. It is a bleak, dystopian Science Fiction roleplaying game of exploration and survival set in Bastion, a city-sized bunker dedicated to the exploration and examination of the consequences of an experiment that went wrong decades before. The experiment connected the world via The Breach, a portal to other dimensions and planets, which the programme within the bunker sends dedicated teams through to study and collect samples. Contact with the world outside of the bunker is extremely limited and knowledge of its current status and history since the experiment and establishment of the bunker and the programme to study the other worlds and dimensions is known only to the highest echelons of the bunker. It is set some time in and inspired by the Science Fiction of the sixties and seventies, as well as range of other influences, including the television series, Chernobyl and Loki—right down to having Miss Goldie, a Miss Minutes-like figure dispense advice to the Operator, and the films, 12 Monkeys and Brazil. One other influence is the book, Roadside Picnic, though via the computer game, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. In overall terms of setting, The Breach is ahistorical as the location of The Enlightened Confederacy is never identified.

Players take the role of Watchers who are assigned to perform a series of missions through The Breach and into the Paradox, randomly generated by the Operator, as the Game Master is known. This includes the Briefing—what the mission objective is, the Paradox Danger Level—how long before it suffers meltdown, the layout of the area to be explored—six such layout maps are provided as Paradoxes frequently exhibit repeating structures, and then what is found within the layouts. Missions are intended to last a single session or so’s worth of play.

A Watcher is defined by four Approaches—Aware, Mighty, Quick, and Sneaky—which represent different means of overcoming challenges, whilst Stamina is a measure of a Watcher’s mental and physical resources. He has two Traits, which can be used to gain an Advantage or Disadvantage when facing a dangerous situation. He also has a call sign, name, a backpack, and two tools. A Watcher is protected whilst in a Paradox by a sealed suit known as a Cloak and carries a Disintegrator for ranged combat and a Gutter for close-in combat. The Cloak also collects data for the Watcher to monitor his health and external readings, which is then analysed by the Wardens when he returns to Bastion. To create a Watcher, a player assigns a d10, a d8, a d8, and a d6 to the four Approaches, and chooses his Watcher’s pronouns and the colour of his Watcher’s Cloak. Everything else is randomly determined. Throughout the process, the player is posed a number of questions which develop his Watcher.

Name: Banca
Call Sign: Supernova

APPROACHES
Aware d10 Mighty d6 Quick d8 Sneaky d8
Stamina d12

Traits: Cunning, Artistic

Disintegrator d10 (Bayonet)
Gutter d8 (Versatile)
Cloak (yellow) (Clock: 4 3 2 1)
Shield Generator d6 Motion Detector d10

Mechanically, when a Watcher faces a difficult problem or dangerous situation, a Reaction roll is required. This requires the player to select a suitable Approach and both describe how his Watcher deals with the problem or situation and what his desired objective is. The Breach uses a dice pool system with the dice being drawn from the Watcher’s Approaches, equipment or weapon, Stamina if extra effort is required, and help from another Watcher in the form of his Stamina die. All of the dice are rolled and the highest counted. A roll of six or more is a success, a roll of four or five is a success, but with consequences, and a roll of one, two, or three is a failure. Essentially then, a ‘Yes’, ‘Yes, but…’, and a ‘No’ result. A Trait can be invoked to gain an Advantage or a Disadvantage. If an Advantage, the player can reroll any dice, but if a Disadvantage, results of one, two, three, four, and five, are treated as failure.

If the result is a success, the player achieves his Watcher’s desired outcome. On failure, a complication might occur or an opportunity is lost, or the Watcher suffer a Harm or a Condition. A Watcher’s Cloak will automatically resist both Harm and a Condition, but is limited in the number of times it will do this. If a Watcher does suffer Harm, the player rolls his Watcher’s Stamina die equal to the number of points of Harm suffered and suffers the lowest and worst result on the die. This ranges from instant death or severed limb to dazed or bruised, and even nothing happens. The latter is unlikely. A Watcher can only suffer five Harm before dying.

Combat in The Breach is intended to be swift and brutal. It uses the same Reaction mechanics, but allows the Watchers to take the initiative and whatever plant, creature, and other alien species that the Watchers might encounter in a Paradox to react to the Watchers rather than always attack first. When a player rolls five or less on a Reaction roll, then the Operator can counterattack with an action by the plant, creature, or other alien species. Each enemy has its own table to roll on in terms of what attacks it can make, Traits that will grant it Advantage or Disadvantage, and a single die rolled for actions and which also serves as its Harm, being reduced one step for each point suffered.

What is important about the Reaction rolls made by the players is that any time the dice are rolled, all of those dice rolled, are stepped down. Apart from items, a die cannot be stepped down below a d4. Items either break or become exhausted. However, at this stage it means that a Watcher will fail most of the time and at best hope for a success, but with consequences. What the dice are is resources and what they represent is not so much what the Watcher can do, but both what the Watcher can do and for how long.

The other key mechanic to The Breach is the Clock. These represent the danger level of a Paradox, the lower the number of segments in the Clock, the greater the danger. It is filled up during the Operator’s turn when she rolls low on the danger die. As it fills up, the conditions in the Paradox will worsen and if it ever fills up completely, the Paradox suffers Meltdown and is destroyed along with everyone and everything in it.

Play of The Breach is to an extent procedural. It begins with the Briefing, which outlines the mission and its objectives. Movement within the Paradox is handled as pointcrawl with movement in the passages between the points, or areas to explore, played out as a montage. Within the areas, play switches back and forth between a turn when the players and their Watchers act and a turn when the Operator acts. During their turn, the players and their Watchers investigate and explore, to which the Operator will respond with answers to the players’ questions, whilst on her turn, the Operator will introduce and handle dangerous obstacles, roll the Danger Die, and so on. If the Watchers are finding a mission challenging, they can take a respite, put up a shelter and conduct actions such as long rests, repair items, analysis, and others.

Besides the six regular layouts for the Paradoxes, the Operator and exploration of the Paradoxes is supported with tables to determine their essence and keywords (essentially their theme), landmarks within an area, and twelve creatures that the Watchers might encounter. These provide some variety in terms of missions.

However, there is a limited description of Bastion, one which focuses on what the Watchers do when they return from a mission. This includes gaining Experience Points for making discoveries in a Paradox, undertaking training, maintenance, research and development, and even hit the bar. Of course, this gives room for the Operator to develop and describe the Bastion of her design in keeping with its period feel and tone. Without this information though, it renders Bastion as a nebulous place without the Operator knowing what its objectives are and to what purpose the leaders of Bastion are putting the discoveries made by the Watchers to. Of course, the Watchers are not meant to know, but that does not stop them asking questions or at least wondering. Thus, there is no greater story to tell, the play of The Breach being all about the short termism of one mission after another. The nearest that The Breach gets to the idea of playing a campaign is playing through a limited number of missions and successfully completing three quarters of them. It feels inadequate.

Physically, The Breach is a great looking book. The artwork is mysterious and has a half-glimpsed look as if viewed through a screen with a poor signal. The manuals and documentation issued by the Ministry of Culture and Science that litter the pages of The Breach are brilliant and develop the weird, near-dystopian tone of Bastion and life as a Watcher. The book is also well written and is packed with good advice for the player and the Operator.

There is a lot to like about The Breach. It has a weird desperation to it, a strangely orderly ‘do what we must to survive’ drive to it, and undertones of authoritarianism, both within Bastion and outside it. Yet whilst it handles the exploration and examination of Paradoxes well, the efforts of the Watchers never seems to have any effect beyond themselves so that they cannot affect any change or create any change to react to. If this is disheartening to the Watchers, it is equally as disheartening to the players. If so, why would the Watchers want to continue exploring the Paradoxes and why would the players want to continue playing? Ultimately The Breach feels like its should be a bigger game with bigger aims, but currently limits itself to one aspect of play without any consequences or change.

The Other OSR: Lost in the Fold

All you know is Here. There is no need to know of anywhere that is not Here. Where is Here? You know nobody who knows. It is your Home. It is your community. It gives you a function. It gives you opportunities for recreation. It gives you the chance to contribute to the Community. Everything you need and everything anyone needs, flows through The Chain. You know it works. Its pipes run everywhere and wheeze and pop and whistle and clang, but always deliver what you need when you need it. When the Community needs it. Starting every day with a morning clothing bullet to make sure everyone is dressed in fresh apparel. All of which is overseen by The Authority, the municipal administration which ensures that The Chain continues to operate, to ensure everyone is assigned to the right sleeping quarters, given the correct amount of recreation time, they contribute to the Community, and they keep a record that they do. Yet… There is the Threshold. It might be the edge or the end of Here, but nobody knows. Or at least nobody is saying. And definitely, nobody who has gone beyond the Threshold, whether deliberately or be accident, has returned to tell anyone what the Threshold is or what lies on the other side.

This is what anyone knows—including the Player Characters—of the Here, a habitat occupied by humanity, surviving on limited resources, and living on borrowed and definitely bureaucratic time. What the habitat of the Here is, is unknown. It could be a bunker, buried underground after a nuclear apocalypse, a space station orbiting Jupiter, a long-term social experiment, or at the end of the universe. Wherever and whatever it is, the scarcity of resources means that if anything went wrong, the Here would no longer be viable. It could collapse. It could be shut down. Either way, it would be ‘Lost in the Fold’, in a bureaucratic reshuffle as its last resources are reassigned.

This is the set-up for the Lost in the Fold. Published by Just Crunch Games, this is a ‘Genre Set-Up’ for Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks, which describes itself as a set of “Universal Rules for Challenge-driven Games”. It is a separate ‘Genre Set-Up’ to the two given in the core rulebook—as expanded in .GIF and For A Rainy Day—one inspired by the Post Apocalyptic dystopian Science Fiction of The Silo and Brazil, Yokohama Station and The Trial. It is a roleplaying setting of Science Fiction horror, for there is constant threat of the Habitat in which the Player Characters make their Home or themselves being ‘Lost in the Fold’ or the Player Characters being exposed to the Threshold or perhaps what might be lurking within the Threshold. Lost in the Fold includes some discussion as to that the Habitat might be, but does not decide on any one. What it does do though, is provide the means for the Player Characters to explore the Here and undertake assignments for The Authority as there are issues with The Chain and the Threshold.

A Player Character in Lost in the Fold has three Resources, here called Grit, Rote, and Wile, the equivalent of Physical, Mental, and Willpower, but here also representing the ability of a Player Character to persuade others that he is capable or knowledgeable, rather than necessarily actually being so. He also has a past, represented by a Lifepath. In Sanction, this is a Past, a Diversion, and an Influence. In Lost in the Fold, it is Communal Purpose, representing a Player Character’s place and responsibilities, a Troubling Keepsake which is his unhealthy interest secreted away instead of being returned to The Chain for recycling, and a Downtime Distraction, which is what the Player Character does to reduce stress and contribute towards the sense of community. He also has two items of gear, some base Hits, and a Pressure Track.

Renton
Physical D4 Mental D8 Willpower D6
Communal Purpose: Civil Assistant
Troubling Keepsake: Fencing
Downtime Distraction: Mediating
Abilities: Accounting, Commence, Negotiation
Pressure Track: 0
Equipment: Glow Tube, Stanly Knife
Hits: 3

One key aspect of a Player Character is the degree which he is under Pressure. It is not danger as such, but how a Player Character feels when under the scrutiny of the company he keeps and the situation that he finds himself in. It begins at zero, but when first affected, is set to a twelve-sided die. It increases whenever a non-Pressure check results in Falter or directly due to the nature of a situation, and each time it does, the die size decreases, from a twelve-sided die to a ten-sided, from a ten-sided to an eight-sided, and so on. This step down in pressure die size occurs automatically in these situations rather than a player rolling for it as if Pressure were being treated as a Resource. When something occurs that is so traumatic, such as seeing an unnatural death or an inexplicable situation, a Player Character’s Pressure is Triggered. This requires a Pressure check and when a Player Character rolls a one or two on this roll, a Falter, he will Fold. This does not mean that he disappears, but rather that he shifts in terms of his personality. For example, he may suddenly gain a sense of being Persecuted, be Belligerent, or Rash. These are only temporary, but the lower the Pressure Die, the more often he is affected. Through rest and recreation, a Player Character can improve or increase his Pressure Die.

In terms of running Lost in the Fold, the Game Moderator can use the Mission Triggers table to create assignments, such as ‘Understand/Collect’, ‘Restricted/Uncontrolled’, and ‘Damage/Safety’. In leaving the Habitat she is advised to listen to her players and take cues from their conjecture as to its nature. She is also given advice, including safety advice, on how to create Nightmares, the things that might in the Threshold or even invade the pipes of The Chain. Four sample Nightmares are included for play beyond the scenario given in the book. This is ‘Chain Reaction’. It opens with a problem. The expected and usual Chain Drop and daily arrival of the Clothing Bullet did not take place today or the day before. Dressed in what they can scavenge or have previously hidden away despite it not being socially acceptable, the Player Characters are assigned to investigate. This sends the Player Characters into an industrial space, a space in between, which could be the Threshold, the space between the walls, or even another Habitat, another Here. The scenario does not make this clear, and intentionally so. It is an exploration scenario, with the Player Characters interacting with each other and with the space they discover rather anyone else.

‘Chain Reaction’ is also self-contained in that it only shows the Player Characters on an assignment which takes them out of the Habitat, or at least, their Here. Consequently, there is insufficient contrast between this and what their life is like in the Here. So no interaction with The Authority or with the Community. The scenario is unbalanced and the Game Moderator might want to address this before she runs it.

Physically, Lost in the Fold is short and simple. The layout is clean and tidy, everything is easy to grasp, and it is very lightly illustrated.

Lost in the Fold has the feeling of Paranoia, but without its budget or all of its satire, and with the sensibility of sixties and seventies Science Fiction shot on a budget in industrial zones. It also has the feeling of promise and of having interesting ideas, but which it also does not have the budget to fully realise them. Although a short book, there are some interesting ideas in Lost in the Fold, but the low page count and a scenario that emphasises what lies beyond the experience of the Player Characters, means that those ideas remain unexplored. Lost in the Fold is an interesting ‘Genre Set-Up’ with some intriguing ideas, but no more than that, leaving the Game Moderator wishing that it had gone further in exploring its set-up.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIII] The Slasher, Issue One

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, despite the revival of the fanzine having been specifically part of the Old School Renaissance, the format has also been revived for other roleplaying games too, and sometimes in quite a clever fashion, into the bargain.

The Slasher, Issue One is a fanzine for SLA Industries, the roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism. It focuses in particular upon the elements of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, and serial killer sensationalism—the latter in particular--and does so in a particularly British style. For The Slasher, Issue One is not a gaming supplement per se, but rather an in-game publication about the culture and adulation of serial killers in the World of Progress. Its inspiration is The Digger, a long-running and very local to the city of Glasgow newspaper or magazine focusing on crime and corruption in the city. It is written though, in the style of a ‘Red Top’ tabloid newspaper, like The Sun or The Daily Mail, full of sensationalist writing and both embracing that sensationalism and condemning it at the same time, presented as exactly the sort of thing that the discerning citizen of Downtown would read. Highbrow this is not.

The front-page article of The Slasher, Issue One is utterly typical of the Red Top mentality. Titled ‘Loony Bin Lover’ it tells how teenage tearaway Debbie Roscoe, described in turn as ‘feckless’ and ‘thick-skulled’ (as in, ‘too thick to listen to sense’), is in love with the up-and-coming serial killer, Loony Bin, does not listen to the warnings of either her parents or her friends, and might even be pregnant (or ‘up the duff’) by him! The language and the tone captures the outrage at the idiocy and directionless of today’s youth in the World of Progress, whilst praising Loony Bin for his string of kills, and all done to sensationalise everything and anything. And it is this tone which pervades the whole issue, such as in ‘Nice to Mince Meat You’, in which the patrons of the soup kitchen, Helping Hand Hall, are complaining that they are being served bread and soup again, after the Elmersons Cognate took the place over and served their murder victims to said patrons in ‘pork-adjacent’ pies. Despite the source of the ingredients, the patrons really miss their meaty ‘treat’, and are thus treated as being thick in the article. Even serial killers cannot escape this kind of treatment, as in ‘The Big Uni Cheese Caper’ in which the Squeaky Barkers cognate of serial killers attempt a heist from a cheese factory in order to save on their packed lunches and it goes disastrously, foolishly wrong or in ‘Keep It In the Family’, which updates the latest doings of the Family Values’ cognate as broadcast on a Big Brother-style reality television show. In both cases, the serial killers are treated as figures of fun and foolishness.

Of course, at the same time, The Slasher, Issue One completely embraces the serial killer sensationalism of the World of Progress that places them on pedestals to be revered and lauded by the general public even as they commit bloody slaughter. In ‘Making Plans For Nigel’, Mr and Mrs Horton are literally mentally torturing their son Nigel in order to turn away from his desire to become an accountant and turn him into a serial killer which will make him famous—the serial killer equivalent of the stage mother. In ‘All the Goss’, the gossip column for The Slasher, the rumour is reported that old fan favourite—Socko (so called for the item of clothing he wears on his head)—has returned and is killing again, and that the number one serial killer, Halloween Jack, killed fifty SLA Industries employees during a Shift Block change (and more), and so on. Similarly, the authorities come in for a bit of a kicking, such as ‘Complete Balls-Up’, which details how a drunken mistake by Lieutenant Bergamot Balls, a Shiver commander, led to a murder spree by the Splash Damage Cognate and its subsequent escape, and in ‘Rotten To The Core!’ how the young scion of a notorious crime family is getting away with murder because of the family’s ties to SLA Industries.

There are also classified adverts and a letters page in The Slasher, Issue One, but what there is not is any game stats for SLA Industries. This is because the fanzine is an in-game resource that the players can read as much as the Game Master. Everything though, in the pages of the fanzine can be developed into something playable, enabling the players and their SLA Operatives to become involved in the stories that they have read about. Ideally, the Game Master will want to refer to Threat Analysis 1: Collateral for that and tailor the various serial killers whose exploits are described here to her campaign.

Physically, The Slasher, Issue One is perfect. With its big bold blocks of red and black it captures to a tee the look and feel of a tabloid newspaper and then goes one further with writing that salaciously emulates the sordid style of British Red Tops with its delight for a good punning headline. Then of course, the artwork. Again, perfect. 

The sizzling, soar away The Slasher, Issue One is a horrible product, idolising serial killers and acts of mass murder, as much as it is belittling the general populace. Yet it is horridly, fascinatingly funny because it is a satire on British newspaper journalism as much as it is on the horror to be found in SLA Industries’ World of Progress.

Community & Consequences

Deep in the water-logged, sodden neighbourhood of Mire End comes word of a crime so bad that it transcends the criminality rife throughout its streets and alleys. A crime that has the potential to arise the ire of the community which is indebted to and reliant on the ‘services’ provided by the Hohler Gang and its affiliates, which both runs crime throughout the neighbourhood and taxes everyone by collecting protection money. Mire End is notoriously poor, damp, and forgotten, left to rot by The City and the neighbouring Three Canals Metropolitan Authority, the latter possessing relative wealth and the drainage system that Mire End lacks. The crime is child slavery. Granny Nicely is rumoured to be abducting children and putting them to work, if not necessarily with the tacit support of the Hohler Gang, then at least with its leaders looking in the other direction whilst taking her protection money. If the Hohler Gang will nothing, then it falls to the Troublemakers, the community activists who want to make the streets, alleys, and homes of Mire End better for its inhabitants. This is the set-up for Nicely, Done, a short scenario for A|State, Second Edition, published by Handiwork Games.

A|State, Second Edition is a roleplaying game of community and conflict, set in The City, a metropolis of baroque, dystopian Dickensian contrasts, between rich and poor, high and low technology, law and order and crime, and so on. The Troublemakers—the Player Characters—are members of a community who banded together to form an Alliance, staking out a Corner and working to protect and improve the Corner and its surrounding community that they call home. In the process, they will travel across The City, further than any other members of their community, discover secrets, and more importantly, in returning to the Corner, bring usually unwanted attention upon themselves and their community, and accrue trouble. The Corner itself is not predefined, but created collectively during the roleplaying game’s set-up process and through play, the players and their Troublemakers can expand and upgrade its features in ways which grant them further benefits whilst also having to protect the newly added Claims.

Nicely, Done is, in fact, a very short scenario or mission for A|State, Second Edition. It is designed to be played in an hour or two and in the process, both showcase the roleplaying game’s mechanics and how the roleplaying game is played. It comes with four pre-generated Troubleshooters who make up an Alliance in Mire End. These are an Activist, a Ghostfighter, a Lostfinder, and a Sneakthief, the Ghostfighter and the Lostfinder being signature Player Character types in A|State, Second Edition. They are also paired so that the four Troubleshooters and their players can take advantage of the roleplaying game’s Trust benefits. Nicely, Done is designed to be played in three stages. In the first, the Troubleshooters will roleplay and roll to gather information, and then in the second, decide what their plan is, either assault, deception, stealth, or social. The third stage consists of playing out the mission itself. Full details of Granny Nicely’s tenement workshop and its occupants are given, including the details for her, her thugs, the leader and members of a Hohler-affiliated gang, and the Mob, with illustrations of each. There is also a really nicely done map of Granny Nicely’s tenement workshop. However, it is the Mob that is important here. This represents the reaction of the wider community to the news that Granny Nicely is abducting children and forcing them to work for her, and its anger and response is measured by a clock. Tick off all six segments of the clock and the Mob will attempt to do what the Troublemakers have failed to do, which is to rescue the children and deal with Granny Nicely, though with rotten consequences. The clock for the Mob is both a timing and a narrative mechanism, but it is not the only clock in Nicely, Done. There are two or three others which can come into play depending upon the actions of the Troublemakers.

Besides the Mission and engagement of the Troublemakers and their players, Nicely, Done suggests possible consequences and ways in which the scenario can be expanded. Here is where Nicely, Done disappoints. The conclusion consists of a single paragraph and the three possible consequences run to a line or two each. Even in a scenario as short as Nicely, Done, both conclusion and possible expansions are very short. It leaves the Game Master with a lot to do. The other issue with Nicely, Done is that it does not include the community building aspect of A|State, Second Edition, the staking of Claims to expand the Troubleshooters’ community out from their initial Claim for their Corner. However, there are new rules for involving guns and the consequences of doing so, and for Trust, Care, and Noise and Attention and their consequences.

Physically, Nicely, Done is very well presented. The artwork is excellent, the writing decent, and the map nicely done. In particular, the artwork is given space to breath, the first ten or so pages of Nicely, Done being dedicated to showcasing the artwork and introduce The City. That said, none of it is new artwork, all of it has come from the core rulebook for A|State, Second Edition.

Nicely, Done is bit of an odd product. It is too short to be a full scenario and it does not have an explanation of the Trouble Engine used in A|State, Second Edition for Nicely, Done to be considered a quick-start. It is more of a demonstration scenario for the Game Master who already knows the rules to A|State, Second Edition to run the game or a scenario which the Game Master can add to her own campaign. Ultimately, Nicely, Done is a decent little scenario, but it does leave you wanting more.

Community & Conflict

The City is one of contrasts and contradictions. Of gleaming skyscrapers from where the Trusts control every aspect of commerce and politics and governance, whilst the majority of the populace reside in crumbling, concrete tower blocks or alleyway-ridden rookeries. Of buildings without end and no city limits, yet few rarely travel beyond the confines of their community. Of the advanced technology that only the rich and powerful have access to versus the rickety, often make do devices that the masses have—the rusting machinery they have to work with in the factories, mills, workshops, and mines, the guttering, reeking fish oil lamps and flickering electrics with which they light their homes, and the dim televisions and squawking talkboxes they have for entertainment. Of the cleanliness of the rich and the churches versus the squalor of the slums and the streets. Of the humanity to be found there versus the inhumanity of the petty bylaws enforced by the authorities and the nightmares that stalk the streets—killers such as the Ticktock Man and the Iron Lady and the Shifted, strange entities barely whispered of in the darkest of corners of pubs and speakeasies. The City is divided by massive series of concentric canals, crossed mainly by skiffs due to the lack bridges, the iron for them going into the railway which clanks and groans its way around The City, policed heavily and often heavy-handedly by the Transit Militia. The City is a Dickensian nightmare filtered through the films Brazil, Delicatessen, and Dark City, where life is mean and paltry, but there are those that will stand up to the narrow-mindedness of the authorities, of the avariciousness of the Trusts, the viciousness of the gangs, and worse. They do this not for themselves, but for their corner and their community, even if it means causing trouble. This is the setting for A|State.

A|State was originally published by Contested Ground Studios in 2004 as a traditional roleplaying game that presented a fascinating setting, but unfortunately no real idea what it was about or what the players and their characters were supposed to do. A|State, Second Edition returns to the setting of The City and provides a reason to explore its dystopian dimensions as well as shifting to a more modern set of roleplaying mechanics that emphasise both player agency and its consequences. A|State, Second Edition is published by Handiwork Games and it uses the Forged in the Dark rules, first seen in Blades in the Dark, published by Evil Hat Productions in 2017. In A|State, Second Edition, the Player Characters are Troublemakers, who have banded together to form an Alliance, which seeks to protect and improve the Corner and its surrounding community that they call home. In the process, they will travel across The City, further than any other members of their community, discover secrets, and more importantly, in returning to the Corner, bring usually unwanted attention upon themselves and their community, and accrue trouble. The Corner itself is not predefined, but created collectively during the roleplaying game’s set-up process and through play, the players and their Troublemakers can expand and upgrade its features in ways which grant them further benefits whilst also having to protect the newly added Claims.

A Troublemaker in A|State has three Attributes and twelve Actions. The three Attributes are Insight, Prowess, and Resolve. These represent a Troublemaker’s ability to resist bad consequences. Each Attribute has four Action Ratings associated with it. Examine, Find, Scrounge, and Tinker for Insight; Fight, Sneak, Touch, and Wreck for Prowess; and Care, Command, Charm, and Persuade for Resolve. Action Ratings vary in value between zero and four. The value for Attributes are equal to the number of associated Action Ratings which have points in them and not the number points in the Action Ratings. A Troublemaker has an Origin, an Upbringing, and Faith; one or more special abilities; an Escape, such as Faith or Gambling, as means of relieving stress, but which can also become a Vice; and potentially one or more Trusted Allies. This is with another member of the Alliance, another Troublemaker, and must be agreed between the two Troublemakers and their players.

Troublemaker creation begins by selecting a Playbook. A|State gives seven Playbooks. These are the Stalwart, who uses politics to improve the Corner; the Dinginsmith, who uses small computing devices called dingins and other advanced technology not readily accessible to the general populace of The City; the Ghostfighter, a warrior renowned for his stealth and skill with the preternaturally sharp ceramic knives they wield and the scars from wounds closed by adhesive; the Lostfinder, revered for his ability to find things; the Mapmaker, turned to whenever an intermediary or dealmaker is required; the Sneakthief, who avoids confrontation and steals from the wealthy and the cruel; and the Stringer, citizen-journalist who feeds the constantly turning over media machine of The City. Each Playbook provides base values into two Action Ratings and a player assigns another four points. Each Playbook suggests where to assign them, but the player is free to decide. The player also selects a Special Ability, notes his Troublemaker’s special equipment, and rolls for Backing Faction, a faction in The city which supports the Troublemaker. The player though does not have to choose the standard version of each Playback, for all seven provide three alternatives and what to choose to create them. Thus, the alternatives to the Dinginsmith are the Wiretapper, who accesses The City’s communications for information; the Fulgurator, a member of the Fulgurator’s Guild and works with The City’s railway network; and the Scientist, who examines the nature of The City. Once a player has chosen his Troublemaker’s playback, he also adds Troublemaker’s Origin, Upbringing, Faith, and Escape.

Hope Botchlethorpe – Lostfinder

INSIGHT 2

Examine 0 Find 2 Scrounge 2 Tinker 0

PROWESS 0

Fight 0 Sneak 0 Touch 0 Wreck 0

RESOLVE 3

Care 1 Command 0 Charm 1 Persuade 1

Special Ability

Antiquarian

Special Item

Investigation Kit

Origin: Lower middle class, medium-sized business

Upbringing: Apprenticed

Faith: Third Church of God the Architect

Escape: Gambling

Backing Faction: Professor Pohler’s Historical Institute

Once the players have their Troublemakers and their Alliance, they work together to create the Corner their Troublemakers are protecting. This is done by choosing a spot on the map of The City and then the Crossroads, the central meeting point for the Alliance, such as the unstable waiting room of an abandoned railway station or the dusty attic of a tax records storage depot. This is placed on one of the really quite lovely local maps which will become unique to the Troublemakers’ Alliance as the game progresses. The players select a Reputation, such as Ambitious or Rough, assigns points to its own associated Action Ratings, sets its Morale and Resources values, and adds two Qualities like Bombed Out or Towering. Factions, which can be a Trust, Government, Enforcement, Media, or Criminal, and range in Tier 0 or known on the block to Tier VI or guides the whole city, and take an interest in the Corner to provide potential allies and enemies. This includes the initial Claims that the Troublemakers will want to add to their Corner. Each faction will have its Faction Record which tracks it actions and influence on the Corner as well as NPCs that the Troublemakers can have relationships with. In general, Troublemaker creation is easier than Corner creation, but together their set-up process will take a session for their own.

Mechanically, A|State is quite simple. To have a Troublemaker undertake an action, his player decides on the action’s goal and the Game Master sets its associated risk and reward. The player will roll a number of six-sided dice equal to an Action Rating. Extra dice can be added and rolled if a fellow Troublemaker helps in the action, for suffering either grief or pushing the Troublemaker, and from Special Items and Special Abilities. Pushing the Troublemaker will cause him to suffer stress, whilst grief is narrative consequence, such as collateral damage, losing an item, pushing a Trouble Clock onwards, and so on. Once the dice have been rolled, the player selects the highest value rolled. If this is a six, the action is successful; if four or five, it is successful, but either imperfect or with an added complication; and on a one to three, it fails. Essentially, the equivalent of ‘Yes’, ‘Yes, but…’, and ‘No’. Further, the players collaborate with the Game Master to determine what happens and before the roll is made have the opportunity to manipulate any reward or risk, whether due to a Special Ability, pushing the Troublemaker, or pushing the reward at a cost of a bigger risk. This has its own Risk/Reward Grid for use in play.

Primary Rewards take the form of ticks on the Progress Clock towards the Alliance’s objectives, increasing the quality of an item or tool, or altering the scale of the action. Risks typically add ticks to the Threat Clock, but other Consequences can add complications to a situation, lose opportunities, and even harm the Troublemaker. The latter is how combat works in A|State and when a Troublemaker does suffer harm, he can either block it via any armour worn (after which the armour must be repaired) or he can resist using the associated Attribute. This inflicts Stress and if the Troublemaker takes too much Stress, he can suffer a Stress Condition such as Obsessed, Reckless, or Vicious. The Stress will need to be relieved either via the Troublemaker’s Escape or his letting his guard down, but this can leave him open to further trouble. It should be noted that the use of firearms in any situation always increases the nature of the risk associated with an action.

What is not made immediately clear is that mechanically, A|State is a player-facing roleplaying game. This means that throughout, the Game Master does not roll any dice. Thus, the player will not just be rolling to see if his Troublemaker succeeds or fails, but in some cases, whether an NPC succeeds or fails.

A|State is played in three phases—downtime play, the mission phase, and mission fallout. Missions are intentionally broad, such as Broker, Confront, Deliver, or Evade, and the players will work together to determine the nature of the mission and what it requires, but only to an extent. The aim here is to get to the point where the mission becomes risky and what Troublemakers now do matters. The downtime play is a period when the Alliance can recover from a previous mission, make some coin, engage in a community project, build trust, and so on. It also allows time for personal projects or private jobs. A Troublemaker can also pursue Hidden Agendas which can come into play through the factions whose backing they enjoy, but can suffer consequences if they do not purse an assigned Hidden Agenda.

There is really very good advice for the players and the Game Master, but the advice for the players does feel slightly hidden in the rulebook. For the Game Master, the advice on running A|State is extensive, beginning with a look at using the clock to track progress in a number of different aspects of The City and the campaign. These include Goal Clocks, Threat Clocks, and more. In the long term, the Danger Clock will track new problems and difficulties that the Troublemakers will face as it generates new Troubles for them. These feed into their own Trouble Engine, which tracks how a Trouble, which might be a change in the mood at the Corner or the disappearance of a contact or friend, changes and escalates, and how the factions might react in the meantime, if the Troublemakers do nothing.

The last third of A|State is devoted to describing The City itself. It never eases up on its extremes and its brutality, such as the Deathdealers patrolling after cold snaps for the dead who have died from hypothermia or been killed because they want or have access to the cold or the mikefighters which flit and dogfight in the skies above the city, piloted by children because of their size. Short sections break down aspects of The City such as weather, travel, law and order, technology and industry, and more, all with advice on how to use each of the sections. There is a wealth of detail here for the Game Master to bring colour and flavour into her portrayal of The City and that is before a series of two-page spreads detail the numerous neighbourhoods to found across The City. These include notable powers in each neighbourhood, what everyone knows, transport links, locations, what might be known on a Corner there, and ‘Faces in the Crowd’, NPCs that the Game Master can quickly bring into play. For example, Mire End is a large crime-ridden neighbourhood actively denied help by the nearby Three Canals Authority, slowly mouldering into the ground, and known for its for dampness due to its ruined drainage system and the fact that most of the population has turned to the Hohler Gang for help and work. Its main point of access is via the ancient, creaking chain ferry from Folly Hills district and the Mire End Terminus is one of the major buildings in the district. Even the mission from the Third Church is run down and poorly funded by the bishopric, whilst some of the Hohler affiliated gangs get by like everyone else, some want to buck the situation and will do anything to do that. The ‘Faces in the Crowd’ are Dandy, Fritillery, and Hoop, a trio of urchins that the Troublemakers might run into, often found snooping about and exploring the neighbourhood, much to the despair of Father Herbert at their Third Church Children’s Home. As a consequence, they probably know more than most about what is going on in Mire End.

In addition to detailing the various neighbourhoods of The City, A|State describes its various factions, from Trusts such as Arclight which sells military technology and hires out security forces and mercenaries and governing powers like the Lay Reserves Martial of the Third Church and The Transit Militia to unions such as The Venerable Society of Lock Keepers and criminal gangs such as The Third Syndicate whose assemblies can be found almost anywhere controlling whole districts through violence. Some of the mysteries of The City are detailed too, starting with The Shift, an event which changed the city, yet no one can agree on what it was, but many are sure that enabled The Shifted, monsters liked Sixfingers and Rotting Billies, to creep into The City. Other mysteries include The Bombardment, Lost Palaces, and even The City’s Edge, but again no-one can agree on what these are and were… Instead, A|State hints at options and leaves it to the Game Master to decide, or perhaps even leave it up to the players and their Troublemakers to discover and determine—if they can or even want to… There are no stats for The Shifted as there might be in another roleplaying game, but mechanically the threat they represent is going to be more narratively based and drawn from the Risks incurred on failed dice rolls.

Physically, A|State is very well presented. The artwork throughout is excellent, always focusing on the neighbourhoods of The City and their inhabitants rather than The City as a whole. The maps for developing and marking up a Corner have an engaging architectural feel to them, whilst the adverts, such as the one for a shoe store specialising in the footwear of the recently deceased, add verisimilitude and help pull the Game Master into the world of The City. That said, it does feel as it could have been better organised for ease of use and the index is not quite as useful as it could be. What is missing is examples. There are examples throughout the roleplaying game, but it never feels as if there are enough and it never feels as if they provide enough detail to help the Game Master understand how A|State works with any ease.

The original A|State was a straightforward and easy to understand roleplaying game. A|State, Second Edition is not and from the start it is going to demand a lot from both the Game Master and her players in creating the Corner and engaging in Missions, whilst the Game Master has lot of tools and details and especially clocks to keep track of as play progresses. Forged in the Dark veterans will have no issue with either, but anyone new to it, will need a gentle ramp up into play. That said, the advice for both the Game Master and the players is very good and will definitely help the Game Master understand the game and how it is played. It is still not going to be easy though.

In shifting to the mechanics of Forged in the Dark, what A|State, Second Edition does is provide the tools and means for the players and their Troublemakers to not just explore the baroque, dystopian Dickensian contrasts of The City, but make a part it of their own and something to care about and invest in. It puts giving the players and their Troublemakers a stake in their part of The City and its future first and foremost, and provides the tools for the Game Master to help the players tell their Troublemakers’ stories and that of their Corner. A|State, Second Edition is a demanding return for a setting that showed promise, but with that return and the commitment it asks for, A|State, Second Edition brings The City to life like never before.

SLA Species I

SLA Industries Species Guide 1: Shaktar – Wraithen is a supplement for SLA Industries, the roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism. S.L.A. Industries has its headquarters on Mort City, its rain sodden, polluted, and overly populated heart, located on the industrially stripped planet of Mort and surrounded by five Cannibal Sectors, and from here it governs the planet and the World of Progress beyond, encompassing all of known space. It is here the citizens come from far and wide to enlist in Meny to become SLA Operatives and part of the mediatised programme even as they protect SLA Industries and the World of Progress from innumerable threats from without—and some from within. Some of the most loyal of citizens who serve as Operatives are the Shaktar and the Wraithen and have been part of the Operative Programme since the start and it is both of these that the subject of the species guide for SLA Industries.

SLA Industries Species Guide 1: Shaktar – Wraithen is a slim volume that divides its content equally between the two very different species. These are the honourable warriors that are the Shaktar and the hyperactive hunters that are the Wraithen. In both cases it provides details of each species, their history and home world, culture and outlook, and connection to SLA Industries. This is supported with details of some of the species indigenous to their homeworlds, arms and armour particular to their species, and new additions to the rules. These include new skill packages and Traits for use with Player Character or NPC creation as well as Feats for cinematic action, and their outlook and attitude towards the other species who typically sign up as a SLA Operatives. Beyond this, there is extra content as such as details of the Shaktar faith and of ‘The Killbox’ in Mort City, an attraction in Little Polo—the Wraithen focused entertainment district—where a five-kilometre square area underground has been turned into a killzone watched by a live audience that only one team has so survived. Plus, there are two BPN—BluePrint News files—tasks tied to the Wraithen Liberation Front, a political movement dedicated to Wraithen life to what it once was on Polo before SLA Industries arrived, and a Hunter Sheet for ‘The Copycat Killer’, which directs the Operatives to track down a serial killer who is murdering the bird-like Nephrons in the style of a Wraithen presently arrested as the perpetrators of the crimes.

There is a sense of duality which rules throughout the supplement. Most obviously in the two very species presented in its pages. The Shaktar, stoic, valorous, honourable, and always at war with something—themselves, the pitiless nature of society, or an enemy of SLA Industries, versus the Wraithen, ultra-competitive, win-at-all-costs, casually sadistic, impulsive hunters with low attention spans. Yet even within the Shaktar, there is a duality, between the ideologies of those who follow the Shining Moons and those who follow the Shadow Moons. The Shining Moon Tribes have long been allied with SLA Industries, whereas the Shadow Moon Tribes worship the White Earth. The Shaktar embrace war and conflict, but feel the need to counter this violence by paying a debt to society, by doing good works, helping others and so on. They call this ‘The Sword and the Bowl’. When a Shaktar has no purpose, such as undertaking an ordeal, pursuing an injustice, going after the Ion Pirates—Shaktar who follow the Dark Moons, he is unbalanced and tip into its counterpart, Emptiness. This is the absence of joy, faith, and compassion and the Shaktar is in danger of slipping onto the path under the Dark Moons. Dualism plays out again and again with the Shaktar, adding depth and detail, but not so with the Wraithen. They are much more straightforward and direct, having no sense of reflection like the Shaktar do, regarding the need for faith and honour as a waste of time when one could instead be winning and being the best. The focus for them and on them is on the immediacy of what they want.

In the first half of SLA Industries Species Guide 1: Shaktar – Wraithen, the focus is on the Shaktar, reptilian humanoids of The Shining Moon Tribes and the balance in the Shaktar species. The descriptions are full of details that the Game Master can use to bring their culture to life. For example, the ‘sword’ aspect of ‘The Sword and the Bowl’ is easy to fulfil with combat and violent deeds, but the ‘bowl’ requires charitable, unselfish deeds, which need to be resolved and accepted by a Shaktarian Confessor or Priest. Here then is a roleplaying opportunity that can only be made the more interesting if the Shaktar’s squadmates have to get involved too. Ordeals—grand, self-appointed quests—drive a Shaktar’s actions too, so every Player Character Shaktar should be on one or thinking about one. The Game Master can flesh out the Player Character Shaktar’s relation with the Confessor or Priest using the accompanying description of Shaktar religion, whilst the Tribal Education packages are good for Shaktar who are native to the worlds of the Shaktar Nation, though all Shaktar trace their lineage back to the eight tribes or castes. The supplement adds Language: Shaktarian and Lore: Shaktarian, though only the Progressive dialect of the Shaktarian language can be spoken outsiders, the Dawn language bing incomprehensible and unpronounceable. New equipment includes the HonourBound armour, which can only be given as a gift to those Shaktar on an ordeal and must be worn until the ordeal is complete, Ion weapons that fire positively-charged ions, S’k’-r’n blades made from the bones of personally vanquished foes, and legendary weapons—weapons, armour, and artefacts that have lost since the Conflict Era and Green and Yellow BPNs are used to recover. Shaktar starting skill packages include Gallant, Stalwart, K’th Priest, and R’tha Champion—the latter from a religious sect of warriors dedicated to the destruction of anything connected to the White Earth. Feats include Battle Lust for Body to act before Initiative is rolled for and Shadow Blood for Bravado and a Shaktar who has family members who have fallen into Emptiness or aligned with the Shadow Moon Tribes. Can he be trusted? Rules are included for Shaktar honour codes, Lineage, Acclaim, and Blessings, enabling the Game Master to bring out more Shaktar culture in play.

By comparison, the Wraithen are shallow. What the highly competitive fast-moving apex predators are not—as the supplement makes clear is ‘comedy cat people’, ‘attractive to other species’ because they are too alien with their movement and big jaws full of teeth, or indeed, savages, honourable, stupid, or actually evil. It is a warning upfront to the Game Master and player alike on how to roleplay given how alien they are. There plenty of details also what does keep their attention span, such as the ‘Hlicks’ or ‘Hunting Flicks’ which show fast-moving prey animals hunting and culminate in a bloody kill (there is the suggestion of underground Hlicks where the target is a humanoid being hunted by skilled SLA Operatives), Wraithen focused adverts, and Little Polo, the district specifically designed to cater to Wraithen. There is some background on the Wraithen homeworld of Polo, extremely cold such that Wraiten need a bio-implant to encounter the effects of the heat on Mort, but in someways the means of getting off it and into SLA Operatives training at Meny is more interesting, SLA Industry having turned the application process for young Wraithen into a game! New skill packages include the Media Darling, the Big Game Hunter, the Saboteur, the Sneak Thief, and many more. Wraithen specific hardware includes the WWD ‘Heart Stopper’ Blade, originally designed as a filleting and flensing knife, but now used as a finesse weapon, WWD ‘Monofangs’, and FEN 313 ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ Tranq Rifle, which can fire a range of drug-delivering darts. Some tranquilise the target—with or without leaving an aftertaste, and some like Kickoff, causes uncontrollable and indiscriminate aggression, so can be used to make a hunt all the more challenging. There is the comment that bored Wraithen are known to fire a dose of this into their squadmates because they simply bored… Besides a wide range of arms and armour—WWD ‘Ishmael’ Harpoon Launcher from hunting Ice Whales on Polo anyone?—there are a lot of new Feats, such as ‘Nine Lives’ for Body, with which they avoid a killing blow, but are knocked prone and stunned and ‘Me?’ for Bravado which enables a Wraithen to feign innocence by blaming someone else. New Traits include Double Jointed, Perfect Balance, and (really, really) Short attention Span. 

Physically, SLA Industries Species Guide 1: Shaktar – Wraithen is very well-presented. The artwork is as good as to be expected for a SLA Industries supplement, the writing is decent, and it gets away with not needing an index with its relatively short page length.

SLA Industries Species Guide 1: Shaktar – Wraithen is a good resource for the player and Game Master of SLA Industries alike. The player has extra background about his character and plenty of new character options to help him bring them into play, whilst the Game Master has content she can use to showcase both the Shaktar and the Wraithen and their culture and outlook in her campaign and provide species specific content for Shaktar and Wraithen Player Characters, both on their homeworlds and off.

Escape to New York

With Everyday Heroes, publisher Evil Genius Games did for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2202 what d20 Modern did for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition in 2002. That is, facilitate and handle roleplaying in the here and now, in the world we see outside our windows, on our television screens, and at the cinema. It went even further though by doing something not actually included in the rulebook. This is providing access to a number of source and scenario supplements all based upon a surprising range of films. In fact, a range of films which nobody expected to see turned into roleplaying material despite their popularity in the hobby. These consist of The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure, Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure, Highlander Cinematic Adventure, Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure, Pacific Rim Cinematic Adventure, and Total Recall Cinematic Adventure. These showcase at least, what Everyday Heroes can do and are, equally, six good reasons to play Everyday Heroes. Each entry in this Cinematic Adventure series draws on the core film it is based upon as well as extra source material, to provide background material for the setting, new options for Player Characters, advice for the Game Master, and a full-length adventure, ready to play.

Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure is the second cinematic adventure sourcebook for Everyday Heroes. It is based on the 1981 film directed by John Carpenter, in which a convicted criminal has to rescue the president of the USA from the maximum security prison that the prisoner is about to be incarcerated in and get out again in order to save the world. The prison is the whole of Manhattan Island, the convicted criminal is decorated war hero turned cynical criminal Snake Plissken, and once you go into New York Max, you never come out again. The film combines fantastic world-building, radical anti-authoritarian themes, and hard-bitten cynicism in a post-apocalyptical setting of a late seventies style New York left to fend for itself. Plus, it has to be said, a really rather good soundtrack. However, the film leaves the Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure with a problem. This is that there simply is not enough information in the film to build a world, so the authors have, for example, created a timeline that fits both the world and Snake Plissken’s background. In this, the supplement does draw upon the sequel, Escape from L.A., but that is extent to which the sequel is referenced. Thankfully.

Although the focus of the Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure is on the Manhattan of New York Max, it extrapolates a world in which successive Republican presidents intervene heavily in the Middle East, pushing the USA and the USSR into direct conflict with each other, though not a war. War is declared in 1987 when a disguised Soviet tanker explodes and unleashes the Reagent 18 nerve agent. It will kill millions, but many more are turned into psychopathic ‘crazies’ after exposure. There is no cure and when martial law is declared due to the subsequent unrest and the United States Police Force founded to deal with it, both the crazies and criminals beyond rehabilitation from across the USA are incarcerated in the newly established and blockaded New York Maximum Security Prison. This takes place a decade before the events of the film and the Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure fills in details here and there, pushing the timeline all the way to 2013 and the end of Escape from L.A. This gives plenty of room still for the Game Master add her own stories and details to the broadly drawn background.

This is supported by details of the US government, the United States Police Force (USPF), and the US military, plus two revolutionary groups—the Guiding Star Family and the National Liberation Front of America (it is the latter that triggers the events of Escape from New York), before moves on to describing New York Max. This covers everything from the levels of security around it and the economy—mostly barter, to the crazies and organisations in the prison. ‘A Number One’, of course, is The Duke, but there are numerous street gangs in the old city too. These are given thumbnail descriptions, as well as their colours and territories. Some of the gangs are more than the traditional idea of gangs—like those depicted in The Warriors—in New York. For example, the Hippies, of course, manufacture recreational drugs, the Flying Dragons are renowned as skilled tailors, the Broadway Boys promote the arts and culture, and the Nightshades have cleared parts of Central Park and its soil of Reagent 18 to grow food. There is good range and variety of gangs given here. A map of Manhattan is marked with their respective turfs along with notable locations of the island, including Broadway, the Empire State Building, and the World Trade Centre. Overall, it is not a huge amount of detail, but it is enough for the Game Master to work with and again, leaves room for her to add her own details.

The new Hero options in the Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure include a number of new Backgrounds and Professions. The former consists of Convict, Legend (such as Snake Plissken, despite the fact that everyone thinks he is dead), New York Native (like Cabbie in the film), and War Veteran (like Bob Hauk in the film), whilst the latter consists of Nightshade Druid, Drug Cook, Fixer, Gang Soldier, Prison Gladiator, and Rat Catcher. Most suggest roles, like Nightshade Druid, a member of the Nightshades gang, on New York Max or why the character is there in terms of the crimes he committed. The Revolutionary Soldier and the USPGF Soldier lend themselves to other origins and explanations for why they are involved with the prison. Three Classes are given. The are the Gutter Rat, Motorhead, and Street Warrior. The Gutter Rat is an Agile Hero who uses a mixture of tricks, charm, lies, a certain slipperiness, and vicious attacks to get what he wants. For example, he has Play the Fool to distract others and Slippery which gives Advantage on checks to escape bonds and grapples, as well as Tricks such as Gloat and Hobbling Strike. The character of Romero, the lieutenant of The Duke, would be a Gutter Rat. The Motorhead is also an Agile Hero, but modeled on the character of Cabbie—as played by Ernest Borgnine. So the Class specialises in driving and piloting, in and out of combat, and his Motor Pool abilities include Daredevil Driver, Quick Fix, and Repo Man. His suggested equipment includes Molotov Cocktails! the Street Warrior is a Strong Hero and is essentially good at fighting, but not more than that. All three Classes are quite specialised, the Street Fighter in particular, but all fit the feel of the film.

As a then alternate future, the technology of Escape from New York looks and is clunky and this is embraced in the Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure. It notes the fact that firearms are rare in New York Max and many weapons are improvised or constructed from what was available, such as crossbows and spiked clubs. One notable inclusion is the Fun Gun, tranquiliser pistols firing darts loaded with designer drugs that cause confusion and euphoria in a target. Despite the lack of petrol, vehicles feature heavily in Escape from New York, leading to the possibility of vehicular combat using the rules from Everyday Heroes. The supplement gives a list of modifications such as body spikes, oil slick devices, and spike droppers which lend themselves to Car Wars or Mad Max style combat, for which the Motorhead Class would be very useful. And course, the list of modifications includes Decorations, so yes, you too, can mount chandeliers on your 1977 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham if you want to. Which you do—and not just because they give the owner advantage on the first Charisma check in an encounter. Other equipment in the Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure includes details of Reagent 18, the Survival Pod used by President Harker to escape Airforce One, and the Vascular Explosive Shot implanted in Snake Plissken to force him to complete the mission.

The new rules are limited to adding Street Cred as a means of handling reputation and trade and the effects of Reagent 18 on the poor unfortunates who would become the crazies. For the Game Master there is advice and discussion of the themes to Escape from New York—the authoritarianism, anarchy versus freedom, street gangs, Science Fiction, and of course, New York itself. This is not in great depth, but it makes the point clear for each theme and it is supported by a series of scenario hooks and a three-act adventure. This is ‘Liberty lost’, a prequel to the film set in 1993 in which a team of five convicted criminals are about to be incarcerated onto New York Max, when they are pulled aside and given a mission which if completed successfully will grant them a presidential pardon each for their crimes. The mission is of course, against the clock. Revolutionaries of the National Liberation Front of America have infiltrated Liberty Island—the base for the USPF’s operations in maintaining the blockade of New York Max—and stolen the arming device for the nuclear bomb planted in the Statue of Liberty that is only meant to be detonated if the walls of the prison completely fail. The revolutionaries have fled on Manhattan Island and are threatening to detonate the bomb in twenty-four hours unless their demands are met. They are shot onto the island via a submarine and once on New York Max, must find their find and fight their way through crazies and gangs, assault the Empire State Building (because), and engage in a street race that is mostly to the death. It is a fairly tightly plotted scenario, but it is attempting to emulate the style of the film and it is to the sound of ticking clock, the countdown to the detonation of the nuclear bomb. The scenario makes use of the various elements and rules presented in the supplement, though only Romero from the film makes an appearance in the scenario. Thematically, the potential destruction of the Statue of Liberty illustrates the limits to which the authorities will go… There are notes too on running a shorter version of the scenario, possibly for a convention, but that would be to miss out on a lot of the fun of the action-packed adventure.

Lastly, ‘The Cast’ chapter provides stats and details of a variety of NPCs and more. They start off with the antagonists from the film including The Duke, President Harker, and Romero, though there are no stats for The Duke’s champion Slag, who is killed by Snake Plissken in a deathmatch. Although there are details for Bob Hauk, USPF commissioner and Rehme, the USPF captain, the Game Master is advised to use stats taken from the Everyday Heroes core rulebook. These are followed by the stats for various NPCs from the scenario, ‘Liberty lost’, then those from the cast of the film—Plissken, Cabbie, the Brain, and Maggie—and lastly, five pre-generated Player Characters for use with ‘Liberty lost’.

Physically, Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure is cleanly, tidily presented. Unfortunately, the sourcebook is not illustrated with images from the films and does not illustrate all of the characters from the film. Whilst the artwork instead of using photographs is serviceable enough, they are only approximations of the characters in the film.

The Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure is about as a close to a sourcebook for the film as is possible. That it is not more than this, is down to the lack of wider information and background about the setting than the fault of the authors. In fact, the authors have squeezed as much potential out of Escape from New York as they possibly could in the presenting the great world-building of the film and adding to it in order to make it gameable. This is definitely a gaming supplement for fans of Escape from New York and of eighties action and Science Fiction cinema.