Prohibition & Powers

The set-up for Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is really simple. It is the 1920s. It is the USA. Prohibition is in full swing and under the terms of the Volstead Act, the sale of alcohol is outlawed. Which means there is money to be made from making the stuff in illegal stills or smuggling it across the border from Canada. Which means criminals are getting rich from making people happy and officials and cops are topping up their pensions by looking the other way. However, not every cop or bureau agent is on the take. Some want to enforce the law and are brave enough to do it. Some even have the power to back it up, not just with a sense of fairness and justice and a Smith & Wesson .38 Special Model 1899 Military and Police Hand Ejector, but the ability to fly or create a stream of acid or pick up things up with their hair or manipulate probability or control small objects. Used at the right time and in the right fashion, any one of these abilities can help the law bust criminal activities or arrest a crook. However, the life of a law enforcement Caper—as these powered individuals are known—is not that easy, because just as a would-be Caper is drawn to uphold the law, another Caper is drawn to break it. There are Capers protecting gangs and syndicates, running numbers games, cooking the books, bootlegging, and bringing the number one prohibited substance into the country—alcohol.

Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is published by Nedburger Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is a super-powered roleplaying set in a Jazz Age, but not a Jazz Age that we would fully recognise. Capers are a known and recognised phenomenon, appearing in newspapers and news reports, many stories being of a sensationalist nature, whilst the Department of Justice has established a Registry of Abnormal Persons and begun tracking their locations and activities. Currently, registration is voluntary. Capers may face religious intolerance and there are doctors and hospitals who will not treat them, but the US Army is actively recruiting them and the media loves them! Elsewhere, Carla ‘Lucky’ Luciano is the right-hand-woman to New York Boss Arnold Rothstein and Al Capone’s mentor is Giada Torrio, and a broader range of ethnicities and genders are accepted at all levels of society. It is thus ahistorical, rather than truly historical and more representative of modern sensibilities. As is the feel of the roleplaying game and its look, is more akin to a cartoon show. A cartoon show that can be told from two different angles. One is with the cast of Capers as members of law enforcement and the other is with the cast of Capers as members of a criminal gang or organisation. In that, it shares some resemblance with the set-up in TSR, Inc.’s Gangbusters: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure. However, as a super-powered roleplaying game, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is very much a ‘Street Level’ campaign and very much not a ‘Four Colour’ setting. Essentially, this is not a traditional cowl and capes style of superhero roleplaying game, but a setting more akin to the masked adventurers style of the following decade of the thirties—and that is even if the Caper wears a costume at all. All of which is detailed in a simple, easy to grasp introduction that explains its situation within a few pages.

A Player Character in Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is either an Exceptional or an actual Caper. There are also Regulars, but these are normal people and so not what a player will be typically roleplaying. An Exceptional will not have full superpowers, but will instead have Perks, such as ‘Lucky’, ‘Power-Resistant’, or ‘Speciality Skill’. There are only nine Perks given in the roleplaying game, as compared to the thirty-nine major and minor powers. What an Exceptional makes up for in terms of a limited choice of Perks is having a wider choice of general abilities, whereas a Caper will have a limited choice of general abilities and more powers. Beyond a concept, such as gangster, enforcer, bounty hunter, journalist, or federal agent, a Player Character has three Anchors. Consisting of Identity, Virtue, and Vice, these define who the Player Character is, and by roleplaying them, provide a means of the Player Character regaining Moxie. He also has six Traits—Charisma, Agility, Perception, Expertise, Resilience, and Strength—which are rated between one and three for Regulars, but can go as high as four or five for Capers. Each Trait has an associated Defence value, which is sets how difficult it is for an opponent to overcome a Player Character. He will have between three and five skills, and if a Caper either one or two Minor Powers or one Major Power, whilst if an Exceptional, a combination of either Perks or Trem-Gear. The latter consists of devices, weapons, and suits powered by the previously unknown radioactive element called Trembium, which is also found in the blood of Capers. It is possible to be injected with Trembium and temporarily gain powers, but similarly, it is possible to be injected with Anti-Trembium and Powers be temporarily negated. This sets up some interesting story possibilities, whilst the quick guide Trem-Gear in the book, with careful adjudication upon the part of the Game Master, might lend itself to some possible gadgeteering.

In general, skills are fairly broad, so Conveyances covers all vehicles, Sciences all of the sciences, and so on. How they are used varies though, depending on what a Player Character wants to do. To perform an impressive driving feat, for example, a bootlegger reverse, a player might combine his character’s Charisma Trait with his Conveyances skill, whilst attempting to drive into a narrow alley at high speed would use Agility and Conveyances instead. Notably, there is no Gambling skill or Performance skill, so the Game Master and player will need to work together to get skill and Trait combinations that work.

In comparison, Perks and Powers in Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties are much narrower in scope. Perks tend to provide better protection against an Exceptional’s powers than a Regular has. Minor Powers are more tightly focused and flashier in their use, and include Acid Stream, Body Armour, Concussion Beam, Dimensional Manipulation, Force Field, Mental Shield, and more. Major Powers are broader and include Dimension Step, Elasticity, Invisibility, Mimic, Speedster, and many enhancement to Traits, like Super Expertise or Super Strength. Some Powers are simply active all the time, whilst others require a Power Check to activate. Many also provide a range of different effects or Boosts. For example, the Speedster Major Power has the Chaperone Boost, the Damage Boost, the Lightning Boost, the Speed Boost, the Water Walk Boost, and the Whirlwind Boost. When creating his character, a player selects one of these Boosts as the standard effect for that Power. He can still do the others, but they are not as easy for him to do.

Creating an Exceptional or a Caper is a matter of making choices and assigning a few points to the Player Character’s Traits. The only random element is determining his Anchors—done by drawing cards from an ordinary deck of playing cards, but even this does not need to be done randomly.

Our example Caper is Arabella Bellange. She is a former magician’s assistant who graduated to stage magician when the magician had an unfortunate accident that meant he could not perform for a few months. Not Arabella’s doing, but rather he was unlucky and she was lucky. It seems that life goes that way for Arabella. She looks good on stage or when doing close-up tricks, but things just seem to go her way—and that includes the cards. Which suits her fine. She wants fame and money and she has the ambition to drive her into crime if she met the right person. She might come out of whatever they do smelling of roses, but her friend might not be so lucky…

Name: Arabella Bellange
Type: Caper
Identity: Leader
Virtue: Moderate
Vice: Vain

Body 9 Mind 9 Hits 14
Speed 30’
Level 1

TRAITS
Charisma 3 (Defence 10) Agility 2 (Defence 9) Perception 2 (Defence 9)
Expertise 2 (Defence 9) Resilience 2 (Defence 9) Strength 1 (Defence 8)

SKILLS
Deception, Insight, Sciences, Sleight of Hand

POWER
Minor – Probability Manipulation (Rank 1)
Minor – Hypnosis (Rank 1)

Mechanically, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties uses decks of ordinary playing cards and every player needs to have a deck of his own. Whenever a player wants his character to act, he flips over a card. The value of the card, its suit, and its colour determines the outcome and specific effects from the desired action. The value of the card determines if the action is a success or a failure, ranging from a Task Difficulty of Routine or four to Incredible or Ace. The Task Difficulty is set by the Game Master and kept secret until the Player Character succeeds or fails. The suit of the card will determine the degree of the success or failure, with Spades cards being the best and Clubs cards being the worst. So, if the value of the card indicates the action is successful and its suit is Spades, it is a ‘Success with a Boon’, but a ‘Success with a Complication’ if the suit is Clubs. Conversely, if the value of the card indicates the action is a failure and its suit is Spades, it is a ‘Failure with a Motivation’, but a ‘Botch’ if the suit is Clubs. The ‘Failure with a Motivation’ result means that the Player Character is pushed to try again and receive a point of Moxie to use on his next action. Drawing an Ace means that the Player Character succeeds with a Boon, or two, if the Ace of Spades. Drawing the red Joker will end the player’s turn and means the Player Character suffers a botch, but the black Joker means the Player Character succeeds with a boon and can take another action.

This is drawing just the one card, but a player can draw more. His Caper or Exceptional has a Card Count equal to the Trait being used. If using an appropriate skill, the Card Count will increase by one and if the Game Master grants Advantage on the action, it increases by one again. (Conversely, having Disadvantage on an action will decrease it by one and if the card Count is reduced to zero, the action cannot be attempted.) Each extra card flipped after the first replaces the previous card, the aim being to draw the best card possible, effectively turning every action into a gamble! A player’s deck is typically reshuffled after the end of a fight or significant scene.

For most actions, a player will determine the Card Count from a Trait or a combination of a Trait and an appropriate Skill if his character has one. For a Power Check, when a player wants his character to use a Power, the Card Count is equal to the Rank of the Power.

In addition, a Player Character has access to Moxie. It can be spent to increase the Card Count on an action, reduce incoming damage, gain a Boon, shape the narrative, take an extra action related to a Trait, recall a card (which must be a card used in current action rather than a previous one), reshuffle the deck immediately, and to have an Exceptional or a Caper commit an act of self-sacrifice, meaning that he takes damage from an attack rather than a colleague or NPC. Moxie is gained at the end of significant encounters, a player roleplaying his character’s Anchors—such as staying true to a Virtue or suffering a complication due to a Vice, or his character doing something cool or entertaining.

For example, Arabella Bellange is playing a high stakes Poker game. If she wins, she gets top billing at the speakeasy where she has been performing. If she loses, she has to work for the owner, Domenic ‘Peanuts’ Conigliaro, in the speakeasy for free for a year. Arabella wants to play this as straight possible, since she does not want to suffer any slight to her reputation that an accusation of cheating would cause, so is counting the cards and working the odds rather than resorting to deception. This will use her Expertise Trait, which gives her a base Card Count of two. Her Sciences skill will increase this by one to a total of three. The Game Master sets the Task Difficulty at Challenging or ten.

Arabella’s player turns over the top card of her deck. The card is a three of Hearts. This is not good enough to beat Arabella’s boss’ hand, so her player draws a second card, the nine of Spades, followed by the seven of Spades. Again, not enough. Arabella’s player decides to spend some Moxie. First to increase her Card Count by one. This means she can draw another card, but she spends a second to reshuffle her deck. Then she uses Probability Manipulation Power and its Control Boost to look at the top three cards of her deck and rearrange them. The cards are the ten of Diamonds, the eight of Clubs, and the Ace of Hearts in that order. Now the ten of Diamonds is enough to win the Poker game, but the Ace of Hearts is a surefire win and it grants Arabella a boon. She moves this to the top of her deck and with her last card drawn because of her increased Card Count draws the Ace of Hearts. Arabella’s boon is not only top billing at the speakeasy, but a better clothing allowance because a girl has to look her best… The Game Master agrees to this, but also because this ties in with her Vice of Vanity, awards her a point of Moxie.

Combat in Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties uses the same mechanic. Each participant will make an Agility/Sense Reaction Check to determine his place in the Initiative order, whilst Agility/Guns or Agility/Ranged Weapons are used for ranged attacks and Strength/Fisticuffs or Strength/Melee Weapons are used for melee combat. In either case, the Target Difficulty for the attacker is equal to the Defence value of the defender’s Body value. The amount of damage inflicted is determined by the Suit and Colour of the card used for the attack, Black and Spades inflicting the most damage. Damage typically ranges between one and six points, but can be higher, as the weapon used will modify this. If a Player Character’s Hits are reduced to zero, he is either temporarily removed from the story or dead, player’s choice. If a player chooses to have his character die, then he gets one final turn in which he can use all of his Moxie to affect the narrative. Similarly, if a character reduces an enemy to zero Hits, his player get to decide whether he is merely knocked unconscious or is killed.

An important or unexpected fight can be preceded by a standoff, in which the participants stare each other out and attempt to assess the abilities of their would-be opponents. Played out over three rounds, it can gain a Player Character the initiative and more cards to play on the resulting action check. Other actions include assessing an opponent, intimidating him, or using a Power to boost the Player Character.

Overall, there is pleasing depth to game play, with players not just aiming to draw cards of a value sufficient to overcome a challenge or inflict damage, but also of the right colour and suit to get a more beneficial outcome. Although a player will mainly be relying upon better Card Counts to increase the possibility of drawing better cards, the use of Moxie allows for some limited manipulation of the cards , hopefully, towards a better outcome.

In terms of setting, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties provides a short section of goods and services that noticeably includes prices for speakeasies, breweries, casinos, and hotels for gangster Exceptionals and Capers who want something to invest their ill-gotten gains in, as well as thirteen different Backdrops in which the Game Master can set her campaign. These are the big cities of the USA, notorious for their criminal underworlds during the era of Prohibition. Atlantic City, Chicago, and New York have several pages devoted to them each, covering recent history and the current state in the city, notable organisations and places, and people of note. Plus, stats are provided for the latter as well as a map of the city and story hooks for both law enforcement and gangster campaigns. The others, including Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, and Miami, only receive a page each, so will require some development upon the part of the Game Master to bring into play, especially if she wants to base her campaign in any one of them. The main three though, are very playable location write-ups ready for a campaign.

Similarly, law enforcement is given a broad overview before the Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties delves into a toolbox containing all manner of strange elements to bring into play. These include a selection of alternative earths, like ‘Capek’s Earth’ where automata have become part of everyday society; ‘Flipside’ where anyone from Principal Earth occupies the mind of their counterpart on this openly violent world where Al Capone is already dead; and ‘Madworld’, where the Central Powers used Capers to slaughter thousands in France, Capers in the USA are hated, hunted, and outlawed. These are all given the same degree of detail as the Backdrops of Atlantic City, Chicago, and New York, and together expand the storytelling possibilities of a campaign set in the world of Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties. There is a lot here that the Game Master can play around with in combining classic superhero style stories and elements with the cop with powers versus robbers powers nature of the setting. There is even Stone Island Beach, a secure island prison off the coast of New York for Capers, much like The Raft from the Marvel Universe.

All of this supported with advice for the Game Master on how to run the game, allow scope for player agency and input, adjudicate the rules, design adventures and encounters, and even on how to give animals powers and set up ‘events’ in which more people—either around the world or in one city—suddenly become Capers and explore the consequences that ensue. It is good solid advice, but there is a certain brevity to it. What it does not do is look at long term play in any of the roleplaying game’s three genres—law enforcement, crime, or superheroes—and the differences between them. What does a campaign look like? After all, a law enforcement campaign is going to be different from a criminal enterprise gang. The first is all about investigating criminal empires and tearing them down, whilst the second is all about building criminal empires up and preventing them from being torn down. The bibliography will provide some inspiration, as will familiarity with the genres, but this is definitely where the Game Master wanting to run a longer game of Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters could have done with more help and advice.

Physically, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties is neatly, cleanly presented. The artwork has a cartoon style, and there is a short, but engaging cartoon strip in the middle of the book.

Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties has a setting that is actually unique and sounds cool—superheroes and supervillains in the Roaring Twenties fighting for law and order or crime and corruption. The addition of superpowers is the game changer, of course, both in terms of the setting and play, but the various abilities feel suitably low key and never like they are going to overwhelm the setting or the storytelling. This is helped by the fact that the card-based mechanics always make the game play feel as if the players and their characters are pushing their luck and gambling on the outcome. If underdeveloped with regard to long term play, Capers: A Super-Powered Game of Gangsters in the Roaring Twenties offers a breezy, fast-paced, and intriguingly different combination of genres in a familiar setting.

1982: Gangbusters

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.

—oOo—

Gangbusters: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure was published by TSR, Inc. in 1982, the same year that the publisher also released Star Frontiers. It is set during the era of Prohibition, during the twenties and early thirties, when the manufacture and sale of alcohol was banned and criminals, gangs, and the Mafia stepped up to ensure that the American public still got a ready supply of whisky and gin it wanted, so making them incredibly wealthy on both bootlegging whisky and a lot of other criminal activities. Into this age of corruption, criminality, and swaggering gangsters step local law enforcement, FBI agents, and Prohibition agents determined to stop the criminals and gangsters making money, arrest them, and send them to jail, as meanwhile the criminals and gangsters attempt to outwit the law and their rivals, and private investigators look into crimes and mysteries for their clients that law enforcement are too busy to deal with and local reporters dig deep into stories to make a big splash on the front page. In Gangbusters, the players take on the roles of Criminals, FBI Agents, Newspaper Reporters, Police Officers, Private Investigators, and Prohibition Agents, often with different objectives that oppose each other. In a sense, Gangbusters takes the players back to the explanation commonly given at the start of roleplaying games, that a roleplaying game is like playing ‘cops & robbers’ when you were a child, and actually lets the players roleplay ‘cops & robbers’.

There had, of course, been crime-related roleplaying games set during the Jazz Age of the twenties and the Desperate Decade of the thirties before, most notably the Gangster! RPG from Fantasy Games Unlimited and even TSR, Inc. had published one in the pages of Dragon magazine. This was ‘Crimefighters’, which appeared in Dragon Issue 47 (March 1981). Similar roleplaying games such as Daredevils, also from Fantasy Games Unlimited and also published in 1982, and Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, published Blade, a division of Flying Buffalo, Inc., the following year, all touched upon the genre, but Gangbusters focused solely upon crime and law enforcement during the period. Lawrence Schick, rated Gangbusters as the ‘Top Mystery/Crime System’ roleplaying game in his 1991 Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games.

Although Gangbusters is a historical game, and draws heavily on both the history of the period and on the films which depict that history, it does veer into the ahistorical terms of setting. Rather than the city of Chicago, which would have been the obvious choice, it provides Lakefront City as a setting. Located on the shores of Lake Michigan, this is a sort of generic version of the city, perfectly playable, but not necessarily authentic. Whilst the ‘Rogue’s Gallery’ in Appendix Three of the Gangbusters rulebook does provide full stats for Al Capone—along with innumerable notorious gangsters and mobsters and upstanding members of the law, Lakefront City even has its own version of ‘Scarface’ in the form of Al Tolino! To the younger player of Gangbusters, this might not be an issue, but for the more historically minded player, it might be. Rick Krebs, co-designer of Gangbusters, addressed this issue in response to James Maliszewski’s review of the roleplaying game, saying, “With eGG and BB eager to have a background in their childhood city (if you thought Gary’s detail on ancient weapons was exacting, so was his interest in unions and the Chicago ward system), TSR's marketing research leaned toward the original fictional approach.” 

Gangbusters was first published as a boxed set—the later second edition, mislabelled as a “New 3rd Edition”, was published in 1990. (More recently, Mark Hunt has revisited Gangbusters beginning with Joe’s Diner and the Old School Renaissance-style Gangbusters 1920s Roleplaying Adventure Game B/X). Inside the box is the sixty-four-page rulebook, a sixteen-page scenario, a large, thirty-five by twenty-two-inch double-sided full-colour map, a sheet of counters, and two twenty-sided percentile dice, complete with white crayon to fill in the numbers. The scenario, ‘“Mad Dog” Johnny Drake’, includes a wraparound card cover with a ward map of Lakefront City in full colour on the front and a black and white ward map marked with major transport routes on the inside. The large map depicted Downtown Lakefront City in vibrantly coloured detail on the one side and gave a series of floorplans on the other.

Gangbusters followed the format of Star Frontiers in presenting the basic rules, standard rules, and then optional expert rules. However, Star Frontiers only got as far as providing the Basic Game Rules and the Expanded Game Rules. It would take the release of the Knight Hawks boxed supplement for it to achieve anything in the way of sophistication. In Gangbusters, that sophistication is there right from the start. The basic rules are designed to handle fistfights, gunfights, car chases and car crashes, typically with the players divided between two factions—criminal and law enforcement—and playing out robberies, raids, car chases, and re-enactments of historical incidents. This is done without the need for a Judge—as the Game Master is called in Gangbusters—and played out on the map of Downtown Lakefront City, essentially like a single character wargame. In the basic game, the Player Characters are lightly defined, but the standard rules add more detail, as does campaign play. In this, the events of a campaign are primarily player driven and plotted out from one week to the next. So, the criminal Player Character might plan and attempt to carry out the robbery of a jewellery store; a local police officer would patrol the streets and deal with any crime he comes across; the FBI agent might go under surveillance to identify a particular criminal; a local reporter decides to investigate the spate of local robberies, and so on. Where these plot lines interact is where Gangbusters comes alive, the Player Characters forming alliances or working together, or in the case of crime versus the law, against each other, the Judge adjudicating this as necessary. Certainly, this style of play would lend itself to would have been a ‘Play By Post’ method of handling the planning before the action of anything played out around the table and on the map.

Yet despite this sophistication in terms of play, the crime versus the law aspect puts player against player and that can be a problem in play. Then if a criminal Player Character is sent to jail, or even depending upon the nature of his crimes, executed—the Judge is advised to let the Player Character suffer the consequences if roleplayed unwisely—what happens then? There are rules for parole and even jury tampering, but what then? The obvious response would have been to focus campaigns on one side of the law or the other, rather than splitting them, but there is no doubting the storytelling and roleplaying potential in Gangbusters’ campaign mode. Gangbusters is problematic in three other aspects of the setting. First is ethnicity. The default in the roleplaying game is ‘Assimilated’, but several others are acknowledged as options. The second is the immorality of playing a criminal and conducting acts of criminality. The third is gender, which is not addressed in terms of what roles could be taken. Of course, Gangbusters was published in 1982 and TSR, Inc. would doubtless have wanted to avoid any controversy associated with these aspects of the roleplaying game, especially at a time when the moral panic against Dungeons & Dragons was in full swing, and given the fact that it was written for players aged twelve and up, so it is understandable that these subjects are avoided. (The irony here is that Gangbusters was seen as an acceptable roleplaying game by some because you could play law enforcement characters and it was thus morally upright, whereas despite the fact that the Player Characters were typically fighting the demons and devils in it, the fact that it had demons and devils in it, made Dungeons & Dragons an immoral, unwholesome, and unchristian game.)

In the Basic Rules for Gangbusters, a Player Character has four attributes—Muscle, Agility, Observation, and Presence, plus Luck, Hit Points, Driving, and Punching. Muscle, Agility, Observation, Luck, and Driving are all percentile values, Presence ranges between one and ten, and Punching between one and five. Punching is the amount of damage inflicted when a character punches another. To create a character, a player rolls percentile dice for Muscle, Agility, and Observation, and adjusts the result to give a result of between twenty-six and one hundred; rolls a ten-sided for Presence and adjusts it to give a result between three and ten; and rolls percentile dice and halves the result for the character’s Luck. The other factors are derived from these scores.

Jack Gallagher
Muscle 55 Agility 71 Observation 64 Presence 5 Luck 36
Hit Points 18 
Driving 68 Punching 3

At this point, Jack Gallagher as a basic character is ready to play the roleplaying game’s basic rules, which cover the base mechanic—a percentile roll versus an attribute, plus modifiers, and roll under, then fistfights, including whether the combatants want to fight dirty or fight fair, gunfights, and car chases. Luck is rolled either to avoid immediate death and typically leaves the Player Character mortally wounded, or to succeed at an action not covered by the attributes. Damage consists of wounds or bruises, gunshots and weapons inflicting the former, fists the latter. If a Player Character suffers more wounds and bruises than half his Hit Points, his Muscle, Agility, Observation, and movement are penalised, and he needs to get to a doctor. The basic rules include templates for things like line of sight, rules for automatic gunfire from Thompson Submachine Guns and Browning Automatic Rifles, and so on. The rules are supported by some excellent and lengthy examples of play and prepare the player to roleplay through the scenario, ‘“Mad Dog” Johnny Drake’.

So far so basic, but Gangbusters gets into its stride with its campaign rules. These begin with adding small details to the Player Character—age, height and weight, ethnic background, rules for age and taxes (!), and character advancement. Gangbusters is not a Class and Level roleplaying game, but it is a Level roleplaying game. As a Player Character earns Experience Points, he acquires Levels, and each Level grants his player a pool of ‘X.P. to Spend’, which can be used to improve attributes, buy skills, and improve already known skills. So, for example, at Second Level, a player has 10,000 X.P., 20,000 X.P. to spend at Third Level, and so on, to spend on improvements to his character. It costs between 2,000 and 5,000 X.P. to improve attributes and 20,000 X.P. to improve Presence! New skills range in cost between 5,000 X.P. and 100,000 X.P.

Thirty-five skills are listed and detailed, ranging from Auto Theft, Fingerprinting, and Lockpicking to Jeweller, Art Forgery, and Counterfeiting. Some are exclusive to particular careers. Each skill is a percentile value whose initial value is determined in the same way as Muscle, Agility, and Observation. When a Player Character is created for the campaign, in addition to a few extra details, he also receives one skill free as long as it costs 5,000 X.P. This list includes Auto Theft, Fingerprinting, Lockpicking, Photography, Pickpocketing, Public Speaking, Shadowing, Stealth, Wiretapping.

In addition to acquiring ‘X.P. to Spend’ at each new Level, a Player Character might also acquire a new Rank. So, a Rookie Local Police Officer is likely to be promoted to a Patrolman and then a Patrolman to a Master Patrolman, but equally, could remain a Patrolman for several Levels without being promoted.

Jack Gallagher
Ethnicity: Irish American Age: 25 
Height: 5’ 9” Weight: 155 lbs.
Features: Brown hair and eyes, crooked nose
Muscle 55 Agility 71 Observation 64 Presence 5 Luck 36
Hit Points 18
Driving 68 Punching 3
Skill: Auto Theft 89%

Rather than Classes, Gangbusters has Careers. These fall into four categories—Law Enforcement, Private Investigation, Newspaper Reporting, and Crime. Law Enforcement includes the Federal Bureau of Prohibition, Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.), and local city police department; Private Investigation covers Private Investigators; Newspaper Reporting the News Reporter; and Crime either Independent  Criminals, Gang members, and members of  Organized Crime Syndicates. In each case, Gangbusters goes into quite a lot of detail explaining what a member of each Career is allowed to do and can do. For example, the Prohibition Agent can make arrests for violations of the National Prohibition Act; can obtain warrants and conduct searches for evidence of violations of the National Prohibition Act; can destroy or confiscate any property (other than buildings or real estate) used to violate the National Prohibition Act; close down for one year any building used as a speakeasy; and can carry any type of gun. There are notes too on the organisation of the Federal Bureau of Prohibition, salaries, possibility of being corrupt, possible encounters, and notes on how to roleplay a Prohibition Agent. It does this for each of the careers, for example, how a Private Investigator picks up special cases, which are rare, and how a News Reporter gets major stories and scoops. The Crime careers covers a wide array of activities, including armed robbery, burglary, murder, bootlegging, running speakeasies, the Numbers racket, loansharking, bookmaking, corruption and more, all in fantastically playable detail. This whole section is richly researched and supports both a campaign where the Player Characters are investigating crime and one where they are committing it. Further, this wealth of detail is not just important because of the story and plot potential it suggests, but mechanically, the Player Characters will be rewarded for it. They earn Experience Points by engaging in and completing activities directly related to their Careers. Thus, a member of Law Enforcement will earn Experience Points for arresting a felon, when the felon arrested is convicted, for the recovery of stolen property, and more; the News Reporter for scooping the competition, providing information that leads to the arrest and conviction of any criminal, and so on; whilst the Criminal earns it for making money! This engagingly enforces a Player Character role with a direct reward and is nicely thematic.

Further rules cover the creation of, and interaction with, NPCs. This includes persuasion, loyalty, bribery, and the like. In fact, persuasion is not what you think, but rather the use of physical violence in an attempt to change an NPC’s reaction. There are rules too for public opinion and heat, newspaper campaigns, bank loans, and even explosives, and of course, what happens when a crook or gangster is arrested. This goes all the way up to plea bargaining and trials, jury tampering, sentences, and more. The advice for the Judge is kept short, just a few pages, but does give suggestions on how to prepare and start a campaign, and then how to make the game more fun, maintain flow of play and game balance, improvise, and encourage roleplaying. It is only two pages, but given that the rulebook for Gangbusters is just sixty-four pages, that is not too bad. In addition, there also ‘Optional Expert Rules’ for gunfights, fistfights, and car chases, which add both detail and complications. They do make combat much harder, but also much, much deadlier. Finally, the appendices provide price lists and stats for both generic NPCs and members of both the criminal classes and members of law enforcement. The former includes Bonnie Barker and Clyde Barrow, John Dillinger, and Charles Luciano, whilst for the latter, all of the Untouchables, starting with Elliot Ness, are all listed, including stats. Oddly, the appendix does not include a bibliography, which would have been useful for a historical game like Gangbusters.

The scenario, ‘“Mad Dog” Johnny Drake’, is a short, solo-style adventure that is designed to be played by four players, but without a Judge. It includes an FBI Agent and three local detectives, all pre-generated Player Characters, who are attempting to find the notorious bank robber, ‘Mad Dog’ Johnny Drake. It is intended to be played out on the poster map and sees the Player Characters staking out and investigating a local speakeasy before they get their man. The scenario is quite nicely detailed and atmospheric, but the format means that there is not much of the way of player agency. Either the players agree to a particular course of action and follow it through, or the scenario does not work. Nevertheless, it showcases the rules and there are opportunities for car chases and both shootouts and brawls along the way. If perhaps there is a downside to the inclusion of ‘“Mad Dog” Johnny Drake’, it is that there is no starting point provided in Gangbusters for the type of campaign it was meant to do.

Physically, Gangbusters: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure feels a bit rushed and cramped in places, but then it has a lot of information it has to pack into a relatively scant few pages. The illustrations are decent and it is clear that Jim Holloway is having a lot of fun drawing in a different genre. The core rules do lack a table of contents, but does have an index, and on the back of the book is a reference table for the rules. Pleasingly, there are a lot of examples of play throughout the book which help showcase how the game is played, although not quite how multiple players and characters are supposed to be handled by the Judge. Notably, it includes a foreword from Robert Howell, the grandson of Louise Howell, one of the Untouchables. This adds a touch of authenticity to the whole affair. The maps are decently done on heavy stock paper, whilst the counters are rather bland.

–oOo–

Gangbusters: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure was reviewed by Ken Rolston in the ‘Reviews’ department of Different Worlds Issue 29 (June 1983). He identified that, “…[T]he model of the “party of adventurers” that has been established in science fiction, fantasy, and superhero gaming is inappropriate for much of the action of Gangbusters; private detectives have always been solitary figures (who would think of the Thin Man or Sam Spade in a party of FRP characters?) and if players variously choose FBI agent, newspaper reporter, and criminal roles, it is hard to see these divergent character types will be able to cooperate in a game session. At the very least, the Gangbusters campaign will have a very different style of play from a typical FRP campaign.” before concluding, “Gangbusters is nonetheless a worthwhile purchase, if only as a model of good game design.”

–oOo–

Although mechanically simple, Gangbusters shows a surprising degree of sophistication in terms of its treatment of its subject matter and its campaign set-up, with multiple Player Character types, often not playing together directly, but simply in the same district, and often at odds with each other. However, it is not a campaign set-up that the roleplaying game fully supports or follows through on in terms of advice or help. It represents a radical change from the traditional campaign style and calls for a brave Judge to attempt to run it. This would certainly have been the case in 1982 when Gangbusters was published. The likelihood though, is that a gaming group is going to concentrate on campaigns or scenarios where there is one type of character, typically law enforcement or criminal, and these would be easier to run, but alternatively the Judge could run a more montage style of campaign where different aspects of the setting and different stories are told through different Player Characters. That though, would be an ambitious prospect for any Judge and her players.

Gangbusters: 1920’s Role-Playing Adventure is a fantastic treatment of its genre and its history, packing a wealth of information and detail into what is a relatively short rulebook and making it both accessible and readable. For a roleplaying game from 1982 and TSR, Inc. Gangbusters combines simplicity with a surprising sophistication and maturity of design.

The King is Dead, Long Roleplay the King!

From Castles & Crusades, OSRIC, and Labyrinth Lord to Swords & Wizardry, Left Buried: Cryptdigger’s Guide to Survival, and Classic Fantasy: Dungeoneering Adventures, d100 Style!, there is a retroclone to fit your desired style and tone of Old School fantasy roleplaying. So the question is, why bother with The King of Dungeons, a retroclone of a retrovlone? Published and written by Baz Stevens of Grand Scheme Publishing—co-host of the UK podcast, The Smart Party—following a successful Kickstarter campaign, The King of Dungeons uses the Archmage Engine, also used in 13th Age Glorantha, and first seen in Pelgrane Press’ 13th Age. Since 13th Age draws from both Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition for its mechanics, thus making The King of Dungeons a retroclone of a retroclone. What The King of Dungeons uses though, is a streamlined version of the Archmage Engine, to essentially present the Basic Dungeons & Dragons equivalent of 13th Age—but that is not the selling point of The King of Dungeons. No, the selling point of The King of Dungeons is that it corporatises the dungeon bash.

Before that though, it turns dungeoneering and adventuring a la Dungeons & Dragons-style into a profession. Then it has those professions join a Guild (rather than be in a party), which sets up a Guild house, perhaps with staff or a library or an alchemist’s lab or… And Guilds are recognised entities which can lobby for Charters—or missions—which typically involve going down dungeons. This recognition is due to the political influence of The Adventuring Party, a group of adventurers who retired, went political cross-national and cross planar, helped unionise the Guilds and in return for granting each Guild a licence, had them sign up to the Adventurer’s Code. These bylaws govern Guild activity, such as ‘The Law of Unity’, which states that may never split the party, and ‘The Law of Vengeance’, which states that no member of the Adventuring Party—and all Guild members are also members of the Adventuring Party—can willingly or by omission cause the death of another member of the Adventuring. Which means that rival Guilds cannot fight each other, although they may feud or compete for Charters, though what happens down a dungeon... 

Within a Guild, adventurers do not Level up, so much as get promoted until such times as they are wealthy enough to take on other adventurers and train them up. Then perhaps, those newly recruited professionals can go off and undertake Charters assigned by one of the senior adventurers. In other words, once a player character has got to the point where he cannot adventure, his player can start refereeing Charters for the new junior adventurers, as can the other players with senior adventurers.

As written, this feels more like the set-up for an American television series about a law firm, with junior associates being given minor cases to litigate or take to court, their continued success leading to them getting promoted to senior associates and on track to become partners in the law firm. Of course, instead of taking on cases and fighting them out in court, in The King of Dungeons, the Guild is taking on Charters and fighting them out in dungeons, successful completion of Charters means that in due course the adventurers will be promoted, take on bigger Charters, start bringing in Charters to the Guild rather than clients coming to them, begin hiring junior adventurers who will be assigned Charters of their own, and so on.

If there is one American television series that The King of Dungeons felt like in reading this, it was The Good Wife. And low and behold, when turning to the section for the ‘King of Dungeons’—as the Game Master is known—it is the exact television series that the author has based the structure of the roleplaying game on. Yet, the author goes even further in applying that structure. Not just in the set-up of modelling a Guild upon a law firm, but also in the types of play and agendas. So where in a series like The Good Wife, there are scenes dedicated to court, to the case, and to the law firm, in The King of Dungeons, there scenes, or time, dedicated to combat, to the adventure, and to the Guild. Then in The Good Wife, there are plots dealing with the case, the cast, and the law firm, in The King of Dungeons, there are agendas, specifically, Charter agendas, adventurer agendas, and Guild agendas. A Charter agenda might last a session (episode) or two, an adventurer agenda several sessions (episodes), and a Guild agenda a whole campaign (season).

Guilds then are The King of Dungeon’s innovation. In play, a Guild is set up at the same time as adventurer creation. The players choose or roll for the type—military, thieves, dilettantes, preservers, missionaries, and band—and then concept, Guild house, and pub, the latter the drinking hole where the Guild meets up to unwind and hold a post mortem on its just finished Charter and conduct assessments and appraisals on it adventurers. They also roll or choose the Guild’s Speciality, but together decide on its Alignment.

Our sample Guild is Roister Doister Boys, made up of third or fourth offspring of local nobles who have turned to adventuring rather do whatever it is that their parents want them to do. Not get married, not take up a commission in the army, or join the church. They had tried blackmail and robbery and assassination, not all together, but individually, and unlike adventuring professionally, there is less of a chance of their being arrested and executed if they were instead a legally sanctioned Guild. Plus if they can make some money along the way, what better way to stick it to their parents (and pay for their drinks).

Roister Doister Boys 
Type: Band
Concept: Gang
Guild House: Back of a Pub
Pub: The Marquis Club
Speciality: Exploration
Alignment: Pater’s a duke, you know?

The Guild will also be given its own character sheet, complete with stats like an adventurer, which come into play when the adventurers want to act like a group rather than as individuals. Examples include chases, diplomacy, investigation, and so on. Lastly, a Guild should ideally have one of each of the six Classes in The King of Dungeons as an adventurer. If they lack any one of them, then all rolls made with the stat associated with the missing Class are made at a disadvantage. So for example, if a Guild lacked a Rogue, whose associated stat is Dexterity, then all Guild stealth checks or rolls to climb a tower would be at a disadvantage. 

An Adventurer in The King of Dungeons is defined by his Culture, Class, stats and their associated tell, alignment, expertise, and lifestyle. Culture is the equivalent of Race in other roleplaying games, the six given being Draconic, Dwarf, Elf, Goblin, Human, and Infernal. These can be the classic fantasy interpretations of such races, but a table is included which can provide a twist to each Culture should a player want to create a different interpretation. The six Classes in The King of Dungeons are Warrior, Rogue, Priest, Mage, Scholar, and Commander. The first four of these are the classic Classes of the Old School Renaissance, but the Scholar brings knowledge and insight to the completion of Charters, including both research in the library and the field, whilst the Commander brings leadership and management skills to both the completion of Charters and Guild operation. The King of Dungeons uses the classic six attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, instead of being on the three to eighteen scale, each is measured between zero and five, essentially the stats’ bonuses rather than the stat values themselves. The best two and the worst two stats have tells, phrases that make adventurers stand out from each other. Again, Alignments are not the classic Alignments of the Old School Renaissance, but beliefs in concepts like civilisation, magic, thievery, and so on, as well as the gods. There are also three dark paths in terms of Alignment—Diabolic, (un)Death, and Villainy. For NPCs only, of course (unless that is how your adventurer or Guild swings…). Lastly, every adventurer has expertise in five areas. Three of these are already decided in a player’s choice of Culture, Class, and Alignment, but the player is free to select the last two, ideally inspired by the adventurer’s backstory. Lastly, an adventurer’s wealth is reflected in his Coin, Kit, and Lifestyle. One of these the adventurer will have the advantage with, another the disadvantage with.

Creating an adventurer is a matter of choosing or rolling—if there is a table to roll on—all of these elements, and then selecting the various abilities from the chosen Class. So Warriors get Talents like Heavy Metal, which reduces damage taken by half once per combat, or Power Attack, adding extra damage to an attack once per combat. They also get Exploits, Like Brace For It, which when triggered by any missed attack, means that until a Warrior attacks again, any critical attack is taken as a normal attack instead, or Make ‘Em Flinch, which on any natural even miss, lets the Warrior inflict damage equal to his Charisma. Every Class has Talents of its own, Rogues get Schemes as well as greater weapon damage because they are trained killers; Priests make Prayers, either to Take Confession and cast on one recipient, or to Deliver a Sermon to affect more recipients, but to lesser effect; and Mages get minor spells or Tricks to cast as well as a full range of spells to choose from. Scholars have Theorems and Insights to give advice to and support their Guild, typically delivered in a rambling monologue. Many Theorems and Insights have ongoing effects which need to be maintained with a successful Save and an extra effect when brought to a finale or Exclamation. For example, the Theory of Skirmishing needs to be maintained with a Save, requires a Charisma-based attack to be successful against several targets, inflicts 5d6 plus Charisma damage, and as long as the Scholar continues making a successful attack from turn to turn, continues inflicting damage. If the Save is failed or the Scholar decides to end the Theorem, the attack is made one last time, but on a miss, it inflicts half damage. Lastly, Commanders have Commands which require Command Points, and Tactics which do not. So with the Command, Try Again, which costs two Command Points, an ally is given the advantage on an attack and if a twenty is rolled on the attack, the Commander gains a Command Point. Whereas, the Tactical Strike Tactic can be done at will, and grants an ally a free attack with the Commander’s Charisma as a damage bonus, but requires a Save to reuse.

Otinaar Dreched
Culture: Draconic (Hunted to the brink of extinction by Dwarves)
Alignment: Civilisation
Class: Scholar Level: One

Hit Points: 30
Recoveries: d8

Defences
Fortitude 14 Reflex 14 Will 14

Strength +0 (Emaciated with work and worry)
Dexterity +2
Constitution +5 (Wiry for his frame)
Intelligence +3
Wisdom +4 (Assured in his knowledge)
Charisma +1 (Scholarly shabbiness)

Expertise: Guerilla Fighter, Tomb Delver

Wealth
Coin, Kit (Advantage), Lifestyle (Disadvantage)

Equipment
Clippers, scale wax, mirror, map, heavy breathable clothing, laden with stuff, scroll tubes of notes and maps, astrolabe.

Like other Archmage Engine roleplaying games, The King of Dungeons is limited to just ten Levels. Once an adventurer has reached Tenth Level, he is eligible for retirement. And just like other Archmage Engine roleplaying games, the Levels in The King of Dungeons are broken int0 three tiers—Adventurer (First to Third Level), Conqueror (Fourth to Seventh Level), and King (Eighth to Tenth Level), each tier determining numerous factors throughout the game. So the effects of Class abilities, the value of adventurers’ Expertise dice, standard skill targets, how many dice rolled for damage, and so on. Unlike 13th Age and other Archmage Engine roleplaying games, The King of Dungeons does not use the ‘One Unique Thing’ which separates every player character from every other.

Mechanically though, the core of The King of Dungeons is still the d20 System. So rolls of one are fumbles and twenty are fumbles and situations where an adventurer has the advantage or disadvantage, two twenty-sided dice are rolled, the best result being kept when he has the advantage, the worst when he is at a disadvantage. After this, there are a lot of tweaks. So fumbles also earn the Guild Bonds, which can then be spent to gain Advantage in a roll and all Saves are rolled on an six-sided die—a standard Save being four or more, Easy two or more, and Hard just six. Instead of skills or Backgrounds as in 13th Age, an Adventurer has areas of Expertise, drawn from his Culture, Class, and Alignment as his two Expertise skills, represented by a die type rolled and added to any die roll. The die type rises from Tier to Tier, as do the standard Target Numbers—fifteen at Adventurer, twenty at Conqueror, and so on.

There are further tweaks to combat. Initiative rolls are made against an opponent’s Initiative rating. Fail and the opponent acts before the Adventurer, succeed and the Adventurer acts first. Initiative rolls are made each round, but in the first round, they are made using Wisdom, the second they are made using Dexterity, the third and subsequent rounds using Constitution. This is model the effects of fighting over several rounds as the combatants become increasingly tired by their efforts. Melee attack rolls are made against an opponent’s Fortitude, missile attacks against an opponent’s Reflex, and most spell attacks against an opponent’s Will. Damage is dealt out in six-sided dice—or eight-sided dice for Rogues because they are vicious killers—the number rolled increasing as an Adventurer is promoted. Of course, The King of Dungeons being an Archmage Engine roleplaying game means that it uses the Escalation die, the six-sided die which sits in front of the King of Dungeons and goes up by plus one each round after the second, the players adding it to their adventurers’ attack rolls as it rises. And as with other Archmage Engine roleplaying games, many of the various abilities of The King of Dungeons’ Classes are keyed to the state of the Escalation die.

For the King of Dungeons, the Dungeon Master, there is advice on running the game, setting up agendas and charters, creating monsters, and bringing both the authorities and rival Guilds. Overall, it is good advice, but the section on Charters feels undeveloped, almost as if the author is writing around the subject rather than about it. The concept is that the King of Dungeons can take any dungeon adventure and either use all of it or particular excerpts from it as a Charter, but the advice on how to do that could have been stronger and more helpful. Of course, the designer knows how to do this, but not every new King of Dungeons will be because a Charter is different. If there is anything missing from The King of Dungeons it is a sample Charter.

What is interesting about The King of Dungeons is that it is not about setting, but about structure. Indeed, there is no setting given, but together, adventurer Professionalism and Guilds provide both reason and framework. Reason to go down dungeons and undertake missions and for freelancers such as adventurers to exist and framework to explain adventurer promotion and to give something upon which to hang the larger story or campaign. Of course, it is a light framework, one that does not quite hold together when too closely looked at, but that does not prevent it from working.

Physically, The King of Dungeons is a decent book. It is illustrated with a range of character illustrations and maps which are not always as sharply presented as they could. The book does feel as it could have been better organised in places and sometimes as if the author is writing around the subject rather than about it. Another issue is that perhaps the core concepts could have been more strongly presented, especially about the corporatisation and the running of a campaign of The King of Dungeons as television series.

There is a pleasing simplicity to many of the changes made to the mechanics by The King of Dungeons. So the new Save mechanic, the variable Expertise rolls, the Initiative rules, and so on, are understandable, and even logical, changes. Changing to them is another matter since in many cases players are used to playing a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game in a certain way. This is not say that making the change is insurmountable—far from it—but it does require an adjustment. As does having different values to roll against when making an attack, but for all that, there is a complexity to The King of Dungeons, one that it cannot escape given its use of the Archemage Engine. This complexity lies in the different, often asymmetrical abilities for the six Classes in The King of Dungeons, and as much as they bring interesting tactical options to play, there is not a pick up and play quality to them. There is a learning curve here… Nevertheless, the designer should be praised for simplifying the mechanics around the abilities, if not the abilities themselves. 

The King of Dungeons is not amazing, but it is clever. Its set-up of the Guilds and the interactions around them are undeniably rife with story and roleplaying potential as much as the Charters—or dungeons—are rife with action potential. This is the selling point to The King of Dungeons and what sets it apart from other retroclones.