Convict Conscript Combat

It should be no surprise that the future is a corporate future despite our aspirations. So, governments and agencies might do all the scouting and exploration, but the corporations have the money to invest and they expect a return on that investment. In the Corealis System, the conglomerate known as the Corporate Echelon is attempting to squeeze as much profit from the system and that includes protecting their facilities, let alone the colonies. There are reports of bug infestations and scab pirates attacking ships and outposts. In response the Corporate Echelon has instructed its Military Foundation to find a cheap solution to the problem. The result is the Rehabilitation Incentive Program (R.I.P.), a programme of enforced conscription from the Corporate Echelon’s private prisons. Convicts are given basic training and sent off on relentless tours of duty. They will eradicate bug infestations, assault pirate bases and spaceships, conduct salvage missions, run supply missions, and more, but no matter the type and nature of the mission, the Convicts, known as ‘Dirtbags’, are expendable. However, if a Dirtbag survives long enough, there is the promise of freedom and reintegration.

This is the set-up for Dirtbags! A Sci-Fi Shooter RPG, published by The Dungeon’s Key following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Inspired by films such as Starship Troopers, Tank Girl, and Aliens, plus The Dirty Dozen and an unhealthy dose of the Borderlands video game franchise, it is a satire on corporate greed and capitalism and deals with a lot of mature themes. The dystopian satire starts with the look of the rulebook, which is heavily graffitied in a running commentary upon service in the Rehabilitation Incentive Program, the Convict Conscripts sticking two fingers up in punk attitude at the corporate commanders and masters.

To create a Convict Conscript, a player divides five points across three abilities—Bones, Cunning, and Nerves, rolls for his Convict Conscript’s Pardonable Offence and the Fallout, and then selects a role assignment, loadout, and trait. The Convict Conscript’s upbringing, personality trait, and appearance can all be rolled for. Each Convict Conscript also receives a fifty-credit signing bonus. The roles are Ape (Infantryman), Pill (Combat Medic), Tech (Combat Engineer), Hen (Reconnaissance), and Muscle Head (Support Gunner). Each provides three options in terms of Loadouts and Traits. Both the Pardonable Offence and the Fallout provide an extra bonus. In addition to his loadout, a Convict Conscript wears a Prisoner Identification Collar, which of course, is fitted with a small amount of explosives which can be detonated remotely, as a deterrent against escape attempts.

Name: Louise Kincy (MD)
Bones 1 Cunning 2 Nerves 2
Pardonable Offence: Medical Malpractice (75 years)
Fallout: High-Strung (No breathers in combat)
Role Assignment: Pill
Traits: Field Surgeon
Upbringing: Water Carrier in the circuit city sweatshops
Personality Trait: Petty
Appearance: Old World Prosthetic Hand
Loadout: 350-SI Service Pistol (three magazines), Surgery Kit, Juice Box Energisers (two), Tourniquet (one)

Mechanically, Dirtbags! uses a dice pool system. In fact, it uses three dice pools. These are Action, Ammunition, and Reserve. The Action pool is based on the Convict Conscript’s abilities. It is the number of dice that a player can assign to any one action. Using six-sided dice, any result of a four, five, or six is a success, although this range will increase or decrease depending upon if the Convict Conscript has Advantage, Disadvantage, or Severe Disadvantage. Any failed results go into the Convict Conscript’s Reserve where they cannot be used. Various traits will restore dice from the Reserve to the Action pool, but the primary means is to ‘Take a Breather’. Out of combat, this takes fifteen minutes, but in combat, it takes a whole turn in which the Convict Conscript can nothing else. A critical success, a roll of two sixes on an action will also restore a single die from the Reserve to the Action pool.

The number of actions that a Convict Conscript can undertake in a round is determined by his Ability values. For example, a Convict Conscript with a Bones of two has two physical actions in a round. So, his player might describe his actions in cleaning out a bug nest as first throwing a grenade at the hole out of which a bug swarm has erupted and then charging to its lip. Whilst a Convict Conscript with Cunning of two operating a drone might send it to hover over the hole and then scan for movement. In either case, the Convict Conscript’s player needs to roll a success for each action. Notably, none of the actions involve shooting or attacking. This is a free action. Nor does a player roll to hit. Instead, he rolls the Ammunition pool for his Convict Conscript’s weapon. The Convict Conscript can fire as many times as he wants. The only limits are the ammunition capacity of the weapon and its firing mode. Firing at targets beyond a weapon’s range reduces the number of Ammunition dice the player rolls. Every success is a hit, but if two ones are rolled, it means that the weapon has jammed. All dice rolled from Ammunition pool go into the Reserve pool and can only be refreshed when the Convict Conscript takes a turn to reload.

When hit, a Convict Conscript can defend using his Action pool or his Ammunition pool and every success negates a hit. Armour negates hits and can be destroyed. Damage is inflicted per location and if a hit location suffers two more points of damage, it is bleeding and will suffer more damage loss. Limbs can be ruined and amputated; if the torso is reduced to zero Hit Points, the Convict Conscript cannot ‘Take a Breather’, but can talk and still take free actions like shooting; and if a Convict Conscript’s Hit Points in his head are reduced to zero, he is dead. In addition to possible access to a Pill or Combat Medic, every Convict Conscript carries at least one ‘Muscular Intravenous Liquid Koka’ (M.I.L.K.) Energiser in his Prisoner Identification Collar. This can be automatically injected to negate hits of damage, ignore Ability limits, gain advantage on the Convict Conscript’s next roll, reroll any number of dice with disadvantage, and spend a success to gain an extra action. However, consume too many Energisers and a Convict Conscript can suffer an emotional outburst, such as hyperventilating, suffering a nervous breakdown, fleeing, and so on. Similarly, witnessing another Convict Conscript’s death, suffering an amputated limb, and other dire situation may also result in an emotional outburst. An emotional outburst is resisted with a Nerves roll.

Mechanically, Dirtbags! is simple and it does give a player plenty of freedom in terms of how and what his Convict Conscript does. Primarily this is because it removes the need to declare an attack as action and have it happen automatically if the player declares it. All the player has to do is roll for the effect. It means that the player can focus on his Convict Conscript moving and taking other actions. The limits are his Ability values and the size of his Action pool and the flow of the play is going to be from action to rest and back again from running and gunning and hiding and ducking to needing to ‘Take a Breather’ and back again. The Action pool and the Ammunition pool are both resources that need relatively careful handling.

Dirtbags! A Sci-Fi Shooter RPG is played out as a series of tours of duty, each of which consists of several operations, the number randomly determined reflecting the difficulty of a campaign. Effectively, length of play determines the campaign difficulty. A completed operation reduces a Convict Conscript’s sentence by five years and for every twenty years his sentence is reduced, he can improve an ability, take a Retinal Curriculum Projector course which grants a trait, or take a trait from his role. Between tours of duty, a Convict Conscript can take Shore Leave, which may be a relaxing time or it may leave the Convict Conscript without an internal organ, which reduces his torso’s Hit Points. The Convict Conscripts also have access to a wide range of military surplus that they can purchase and in return they can sell their military surplus and salvage. A sample mission, ‘Occam’s Razor’, a training mission that goes to hell with a bug invasion!

Dirtbags! A Sci-Fi Shooter RPG does not feel quite complete. There is background to the setting, but no advice for the Game Marshal and it could have done with a random mission generator at the very least. There is content sufficient to inspire the Game Marshal, but such a table would have been useful. It also does not address what happens if a Convict Conscript manages to reduce his sentence to zero, which is possible, but difficult after ten to fifteen operations. Whomever has amended the training manual that is Dirtbags! A Sci-Fi Shooter RPG calls it a return to slavery. The Corporate Echelon states that the Rehabilitation Incentive Program has an eighty percent success rate. One option here might be to look at Gangs of Titan City, a roleplaying game of criminal gangs and life in a spire city, as to what happens next, but otherwise, the Game Marshal is left to decide what happens next.

Physically, Dirtbags! A Sci-Fi Shooter RPG is a scrawling mess of a book and intentionally so. It is all punk attitude verses corporate bullshit and sometimes that does get in the way of what is relatively simple, straightforward roleplaying game. The example of play is actually the easiest and quickest means of learning the roleplaying game’s rules. The artwork is decent though.

Dirtbags! A Sci-Fi Shooter RPG has the potential to be manically chaotic fun, throwing it as it does a disparate, desperate group of poorly trained conscripts into one dangerous mission after another, whilst the Game Marshal throws every military movie cliché into the mix. It would be interesting to see what happens if the Convict Conscripts are actually rehabilitated, but that will have to wait for a supplement or another roleplaying game. In the meantime, the Dirtbags have one last chance to prove they are not scum in a light, but surprisingly detailed military Science Fiction shooter.

The Other OSR: Kavlov’s Sanctuary

It is over a thousand years since the great wizard, Kavlov, drew upon his magics to bind and imprison Balthazar, a three-eyed demon of Uzran, in the Halls of Dread below the Dreaded Hills. It is said that he sacrificed himself to ensure that the demon would never again walk the mortal realm and spread his influence, for he was not seen again. This is not the case, for Kavlov not only drew upon his mighty magics to bind the demon in place, but he also bound himself to ensure that they did not fail. Yet failing they are and as the wizard’s power fades, so do the bindings that hold the demon in place. As they weaken, so the influence of Balthazar has spread once again, and many a diverse a group of men and monsters have found their way to the Dreaded Hills and there settled within the network of caves that thread out down the hill under which the demon’s bindings lie. Dread creatures and monstrous men are abroad in the forests and hills nearby, threatening both those unwise to be travelling through the region and the nearby village of Sanctuary, the latter noted as haven for the bereaved, its guilds and temples dedicated to ensuring that the deceased are accorded a proper burial. As darkness begins to spread and seep into the hearts of men, what will the Player Characters do? Strike a blow for the safety of all concerned and prevent those that still worship the demon from freeing him of his shackles or do they side with the demon and work to free him and so unleash his dark desires upon the world once again?

This is the set-up for K-1 Kavlov’s Sanctuary, a scenario and sandcrawl for use with 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. Published by The Dungeon’s Key following a successful Kickstarter campaign, K-1 Kavlov’s Sanctuary may well be written for use with Mörk Borg (there is also a version written for use with Necrotic Gnome’s Old School Essentials, the retroclone based on the 1980-81 version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons), but what it is inspired by, is a classic module for Basic Dungeons & Dragons. This is B2, Keep on the Borderlands, which presented a frontier base of operations—the keep of the title—from which the Player Characters could operate and the Caves of Chaos, the series of caves and caverns in which all manner of humanoid tribes could be found in service to the forces of evil. The inspiration then, provides for a base of operations, in this case, the settlement of Sanctuary, a wilderness area packed with danger, and a big threat, in this case, the caves under the Dreaded Hills, a set of thirteen mini-dungeons. K-1 Kavlov’s Sanctuary, though, manages to provide not just more than this, but ultimately and effectively less than this.

The book begins with seven Classes for Mörk Borg. These are the Flesh Weaver, which uses a bone needle and bloody sinew to alter the flesh of himself and others; the Blood Baron, who must drink the blood of others to retain his virility; the Degenerate Cannibal, whose own body is nutritious and restores Hit Points, but must eat the raw meat of other humanoids to sustain himself; the Mycotic Fiend, which grows on the body of its host and never needs to eat or drink; the Skinned Bastard, a former child abductee who can invade the dreams of others and whose toughened scar-tissue skin is resilient to damage from magical and physical sources; the Disgraced Court Alchemist, whose surprisingly continued royal patronage gives him advantage in gaining reagents and who is accompanied by a foul smelling, but loyal aide; and a Roach God Emissary, an undying servant to the deity who is sent spells each day by his god, each one scrawled on the wings of its cockroach servants. Bar the Disgraced Court Alchemist, there is a grotesque, even gruesome, quality to all of these Classes, all befitting Mörk Borg. Further, they lend themselves to a play style in which the Player Characters are freaks and monsters and do want Balthazar to be freed.

The given base of operations for the Player Characters is the village of Sanctuary, dominated by its guilds dedicated to mortuary services. They include the Grave Diggers’ Guild, Coffin Makers’ Guild, Embalmers’ Guild, and the Undertakers’ Guild. There is also the chapel, under which the devil (?) Balthazar is bound. The stones of the chapel weep the blood of the demon/devil, which is collected in a cistern underneath the chapel's basement and used in rituals or added to meals for the dying. The head of the chapel, the Master of Rituals leads the town, whilst his deputy, the Deacon, has been corrupted by Balthazar and is leading his acolytes in freeing the demon. The village also has tenement blocks, a general store, a traders, a bake shop, a textiles shop, and a merchant bank, and almost none of it is presented in a way that makes it come to life or engage the interest. What is potentially of interest is one NPC who is a werewolf, one who heads the chapel and the village, and one who is his deputy who is working against him. None of them are named and none of them are given suggestions as to what they might do over the course of the scenario or in response to the Player Characters’ actions. Further and putting aside the fact that the facilities feel more suited to an urban area than a rustic one, all of these facilities in the village are only protected by guards at a watchtower. There are no walls around the village so it feels as if Sanctuary could be overrun and raised to the ground at any minute, but the real problem is simply that the village does not feel lived in and none of its inhabitants feel like real people.

There are more interesting elements in the wilderness, like the Fey who lurk in the Deadwoods and instead of killing their victims, flay them and wear their skins. This is the source of Skinned Bastards Class earlier in the book, potentially setting up an interesting plot hook for a Skinned Bastard Player Character. Yet nothing is developed from this and there is no explanation of why the Fey do this. In comparison, the Bog Witch is more developed and thus more interesting, a crone who lives deep in a swamp and will sell interesting wares, such as a Wand of Health that costs one hundred dirty fingernails or a Potion of Verities which forces the imbiber to answer all questions truthfully for ten minutes and costs four flagons of wine and a bunch of spices. These wares are engagingly inventive and the Bog Witch will also ask potential purchasers for help in searching for her missing albino children. Yet again, the author fails to follow through in setting something interesting up as the entry for the Bog Witch does not tell the Game Master where those children might be found.

The thirteen dungeons range from a ‘Dwarfling Cave’ and the ‘Cannibals’ Den’ to the ‘Wight’s Crypt’ and the ‘Halls of the Dead’. Most are just four pages long and all have their maps repeated on each two-page spread for ease of reference. There are some entertaining dungeons amongst this devil’s dozen. For example, the ‘Gorgon Temple’ has an Egyptian-themed, sepulchral feel, whilst the ‘Hobgoblin Arena’ adds a little excitement in the form of gladiatorial games. Yet all of the dungeons appear to exist in a vacuum. There are connections between some of them, but they are very few and far between, and none of the occupants ever appear to interact with the occupants of another dungeon, and certainly never go outside since none of the occupants appear on any of the encounter tables. Further, none of the dungeons have explanations as to what they are, what their occupants are, and what those occupants do before the actual descriptions begin. Instead, K-1 Kavlov’s Sanctuary commits the cardinal sin of ‘Read to find out’ rather than telling the Game Master what she actually needs to know upfront. Even then, when she does find out, it is unlikely to make sense. For example, the ‘Wight’s Crypt’ has no Wights, but is instead full of Vampires and the ‘Cyclops’ lair’ is not just home to a Cyclops, but a gang of feral children who serve him. Why are they there and why do they not just run away? The Dreaded Hills even have ‘Leper Colony’ and a ‘Laboratory’, both places of butchery and torture rather of healing or study, recurring themes which run throughout many of the dungeons.

Physically, everything in K-1 Kavlov’s Sanctuary designed to help the Game Master just gets in the way. Both of the area maps in the scenario are designed to, and do, look like those of B2, Keep on the Borderlands. This is not a problem with the ‘Wilderness Map’, given a two-page spread, but the map of the Dreaded Hills, designed to look like the map of the Caves of Chaos from B2, Keep on the Borderlands, is laughably too small. It represents an area approximately 570 by 460 feet, is marked with entrances and caves of thirteen such cave complexes in that area, and is then fitted onto a single digest size page. It looks vaguely pretty, but is unreadable. What should they do to counteract that? Perhaps include excerpts of this map to use with each dungeon? Well, no, that would have been too obvious. Instead, each mini-dungeon has its own map, redrawn and done in white on muted colours to the blandest effect possible. The maps of each dungeon are functional and utterly lacking in terms of inspiration or style. Then there is the writing. It aims to be concise and to the point, but all too often it leaves the Game Master without any real idea as to what is going on. Over and over, the Game Master is forced to ‘Read to find out’ to get an idea of what is actually going on.

K-1 Kavlov’s Sanctuary is overambitious, but underdeveloped and underwhelming. It attempts to bring the sensibilities of Mörk Borg to classic Basic Dungeons & Dragons-style play and classic Basic Dungeons & Dragons-style play to Mörk Borg. Although it succeeds tonally in bringing the sensibilities of Mörk Borg to classic Basic Dungeons & Dragons-style play, often overly so with its scenes of torture and other gruesomeness, it fails in too many other ways. It simply does not provide enough context and set things up sufficiently to enable the Game Master to run it effectively and engage her players and their characters with any ease, too many things are left unexplained, and tonally, it really only works if the Player Characters are working to release the demon rather than keep him bound under the earth—especially if the players decide to roleplay the new Classes included at the front of the book. Ultimately, K-1 Kavlov’s Sanctuary promises much, but fails to deliver fully and effectively on that promise.