Big Boss Beat ’Em Up

The city is not what it once was. As darkness falls, those that lurk in the shadows by day step out to make the city theirs. The gangs rule. Intimidation and violence are their game. They sell drugs and make millions for their bosses. Anyone who stands in their way is left battered and bruised—or worse, their blood running in the gutters. The police do what they can or just what they paid to do. They are underfunded and undermanned. They are paid to look the other way. They are paid to make it easy for the gangs. The authorities are underfunded and barely listening to the city’s inhabitants. The authorities’ search for improvement and perhaps for regeneration means they listen to the voices of the wealthy, the latest in a succession of ‘great’ developers, men and women who make great promises that only seem to add one more gleaming edifice to the city, and even if their plans come to fruition, their benefits rarely reach the average citizen, let alone anyone on the streets. For the city’s citizens, life no longer feels safe, there is no sense of a future, and if they cannot flee the confines of city, their lives are ones of despair. Behind it all lurks a powerful presence, working the levers of power and pulling the strings, perhaps sat atop one of those gleaming towers… Yet for some, this is too much. They can tolerate the situation no longer and have banded together with like-minded men and women to stand up to the gangs, to protect their neighbourhoods, and to face down the head of the criminal conspiracy that has knotted itself around the city. Can they prevent the Urban Decay?

Urban Decay is a roleplaying game of beat ’em up action inspired by classic arcade video games, movies, and comic-books. Streetfighter and Mortal Kombat, The Warriors and Big Trouble in Little China, The Old Guard and Daredevil. Published by Osprey Games and designed by the author of Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying, this is an investigation and action roleplaying game that focuses on the brawls and the martial arts, designed for short campaigns in which the Player Characters clean up the streets, take down the thugs and the mooks, punch out the gang leaders, and duke it out with lieutenants, all before confronting the big boss and putting an end to the real threat to their neighbourhood and of course, the city. This is a roleplaying game in which a story of vengeance and vigilantism is going to be told, the action played out in its bloody, bruising glory, and then its pages closed. This is not a roleplaying to play in the long term, but more as a one-off, the occasional in-between popcorn and soda mini-movie marathon as a respite from the longer, more involved campaigns.

A Player Character in Urban Decay has six attributes. These are Damage Bonus, Initiative, Move, Guts, Clash Points, and Wounds Per Row. To this are added twenty-one skills. The creation process is a nine-step process. This begins with deciding upon a concept and recording the basic stats, which includes points in all skills except guns. Urban Decay is a roleplaying game about punches, kicks, sweeps, grapples, two-by-fours, katanas, and so on, but not guns. They have a role in the game and a Player Character can start play with one, but they are not the focus of the game. This is further enforced by the fact that the Guns skill does not have an associated trait, so although the John Wick series of films are an inspiration for the roleplaying game, there is no scope for gun-fu. Once the concept and the basic stats are done, the player then chooses an Archetype, Background, Training, and a Code before customising the character with extra points, selecting some equipment, and penultimately selecting a Crew Type. Lastly, a player answers a few questions about his character to ask why he is getting involved in the story to come. So, an Archetype could be Charismatic or Skilful, a Background Law Enforcement or The Street, Training the Face or the Fighter, and a Code the Agent or the Killer. In each case, these options add bonuses to attributes, skills, and traits, the latter granting various bonuses and effects in play.

The Crew Type represents how the Player Characters work together and how they know each other. Each Crew Type, such as Fighting Stable or Thieves, offers a bonus to a particular skill for one Player Character and a general skill bonus based on the relationship between one Player Character and another. Ideally, the Crew Types are set up for four players, although adjustments can be made if there are more or fewer players.

Maja Wincenty
Archetype: Strong Background: The Street Training: The Finder
Code: The Local Crew Type: Street Squad

Damage Bonus: +1
Initiative: 10
Move: 14
Guts: 11
Clash Points: 4
Wounds Per Row: 6

Traits
Rippling Muscles: Influence for Intimidation
Word on the Street: Streetwise for finding the rumours
A Port in Every Storm: Streetwise for finding people
Home Field Advantage

Skills:
Athletics: 30%, Craft: 30%, Deception: 30%, Dodge: 45%, Drive: 35%, Endurance: 45%, First Aid: 50%, Grappling: 35%, Guns: 00%, Influence: 50%, Kicking: 40%, Mechanics: 30%, Melee Weapons: 25%, Perception: 65%, Scavenge: 60%, Stealth: 35%, Streetwise: 85%, Striking: 75%, Thievery: 30%, Thrown Weapons: 35%, Willpower: 55%

Equipment: Leather jacket (Protection 2), flashlight, mobile phone, $50

Mechanically, Urban Decay employs the Clash system, the same as in the author’s Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying. This is a percentile system in which rolls of ninety-one and above is always a failure, even though skills can be modified or even raised through advancements above one hundred percent. Rolls of doubles rolls under a skill are a critical success and rolls of double over are a fumble. Opposed rolls are handled by both parties rolling, with the participant who rolls higher and succeeds at the skill check winning. If a Player Character has a trait associated with a particular skill, then his player can roll an extra for the ‘one’s or units die. This enables a player to reroll the dice and turn fumbles into failures and successes into critical on their character’s signature skills.

Between them, the players also have access to a pool of Momentum points. These can be spent to re-roll failed checks, damage rolls, to add narrative twist to a scene, to invoke an Advanced Talent that a Player Character does not have, to prevent death occurring if a Player Character is reduced to zero wounds, and so on. The Momentum pool size is equal to the number of players plus two and resets at the start of every adventure or ‘Level’. It can be earned for rolling criticals.

For example, Maja is looking for a runaway girl. She approaches ‘End Row’ Ernie, a street corner dealer to ask if he has seen the girl. Maja’s player rolls her Streetwise skill. The result is eighty-eight. This is not only above her skill, but a fumble too. Maja’s player invokes her ‘A Port in Every Storm’ trait for her Streetwise skill and rerolls the eight on the ‘one’s die. The result is a six, so the total roll is eighty-six, a failure, but not a fumble. Maja’s presence attracts the attention ‘Endrow’ Ernie’s boss, who draws up at that moment in his car and as he climbs out of the tells her to buzz off…

If in terms of skills and skill checks, the Clash system in Urban Decay is simple and straightforward, combat by comparison, is not. Every combatant typically one main action in a combat round, often a standard type of attack, but with the addition of Clash Points, combat becomes more dynamic, more heroic. Attacks are made using the appropriate combat skill—Grappling, Kicking, Melee Weapons, Striking, or Thrown Weapons—and a successful roll means that the target has been attacked and damage will be inflicted. However, the target can spend Clash Points to turn into an exchange of blows or taunts or a Clash of wills. It then becomes an opposed roll. Clash Points can also be spent on minor actions in addition to an attacker’s main action, such as opening or closing a door, switching weapons, diving into cover, and so on. Clash Points can be spent to improve an attack, to make a Feint or Power Attack, to do a Grapple or a Sweep the Leg move with a Kick.

Maja is on the street corner, having got nowhere with ‘End Row’ Ernie, and Ernie’s boss—Dwayne—has arrived by car and wants to get her away from the corner because she is disrupting business. Dwayne also wants to teach ‘End Row’ Ernie about talking to strangers. ‘End Row’ Ernie is a Melee Mook and Dwayne a Melee Soldier. Each has an Initiative of twelve, whereas Maja has an Initiative of ten. ‘End Row’ Ernie has one Clash Point to share with his fellow Mooks—if they turn up—and as a Melee Soldier, Dwayne can have up to five. The Game Master does not rate Dwayne all that highly and gives him two, whereas Maja has four. This is the number that both will have each round to spend.

The Game Master rolls five for ‘End Row’ Ernie and Dwayne and their joint Initiative is seventeen. Maja’s player rolls six, which sets hers at sixteen. Still, Dwayne and ‘End Row’ Ernie. Dwayne acts first. He snarls at Maja and says, “We don’t like people shoving their noses where they don’t belong. We’re gonna learn you a lesson.” The Game Master spends the one Clash Point the two share to have Dwayne draw a club and then she rolls Dwayne’s Attack Line to determine the options that Dwayne will have. She rolls twenty-three and the options are ‘Savage Blow’, which will inflict damage and the target will also possibly lose Clash Points, or ‘Hack & Slash’, which lets Dwayne attack, break from cover, and then retreat. She chooses ‘Savage Blow’ and rolls forty-eight to hit, which is enough. Maja’s player decides to spend a Clash Point and turns it into a Clash. He rolls sixty-three. This is below his Striking skill and higher than the Game Master rolled, so Maja succeeds, and blocks the attack. Now it is her turn to react. Maja’s player selects ‘Strike: Perfect Strike’ as an option. It costs Maja her three remaining Clash Points, but ignores any Protection. Dwayne has no Clash Points to spend until the next round. Maja’s player rolls thirty-three—a critical. This will double damage. An unarmed strike is eight-sided die plus a six-sided die for Maja’s damage bonus. A Critical attack versus a Failure means that Maja inflicts maximum damage—fourteen points—and earns a point of Momentum, and it ignores the three points of Kevlar that Dwayne is wearing. It is a cracking blow and it almost, but not quite reduces Dwayne’s Health by half. With a look of a surprise on his face, he really felt it though…

In the long term, a Player Character can advance any skill beyond one hundred. This opens up the possibility of selecting Advanced Skill Talents. These include ‘Kip-up’ for Dodge which enables a Player Character to stand from prone as a free action for a Clash Point or ‘Skilled Fighter’ for ‘Striking’, which permanently reduces the Clash Point cost for a specific combat action, enabling it to become a signature move. There are Advanced Skill Talents for all skills except Guns and there some for Momentum use as well.

For the Game Master there is short, but solid advice on the genre, keeping the action high, having the boss gloat, and so on. In terms of tools, she has the Domination Pool, which is like the Momentum Pool, but for the bad buys. In terms of campaign design, Urban Decay is built around a series of linked districts across the city, which the Game Master seeds with plans and secrets, lieutenants in charge, and clues to the next district. This will all lead to a final showdown with the gang boss. Each district requires further design and choices, and the Game Master is given a ready list of places and people to chose from with which to populate a district, plus effects which the Player Characters can take advantage of or be hindered by. Each district has links to other districts that make them easier to travel to, but travel between district is difficult because the further a district is from home, the more unfamiliar it is. Within each Level/District, the Game Master also designs the path through it, with encounters and all of the opposition. In terms of opposition, the Game Master is given the options to design the Boss for her campaign, much in the mode of Player Characters, including an Archetype, such Rich or Mastermind; Resources including political Power or Esoteric Secrets; Fighting Style like Brazilian Jujitsu or Duellist; and Local Plan, what the Boss plans for the Crew’s neighbourhood. Then the Game Master is given to do something similar with Lieutenants, applying templates such as Alluring or Cruel to a base template, whilst Elites such as Brute, Martial Artist, and so on, all the way down to Soldiers and Elites are all standardised.

Lastly, for the Game Master, there is ‘Blood in the Streets’, a starting scenario. It is really a prelude to a full campaign, taking the heroes through the one path of a Level. It is a showcase for the roleplaying game’s mechanics and gives a chance for the players to show off their moves.

Physically, Urban Decay is very nicely presented. The artwork is excellent of anime punk and really moody painted scenes. It is also well written and easy to read.

Urban Decay is a roleplaying game about getting down and dirty in the streets and taking the fight to the gangs and the scum and working their up the chain. Battling their way through mooks and soldiers and lieutenants, all the way up to finally confronting the boss—and this can be in the players’ home city or the city of their choice. The rules allow for plenty of dynamic action as the Player Characters throw punches, sweep the feet out from under the enemy, and smack down the big boss. Urban Decay is your direct to video, gritty urban thriller that is going make enough to get not one, but multiple sequels, each time going up against a different boss—until an old one decides to come out of retirement. So, pick up Urban Decay, play a campaign, play something else, then come back for the sequel.

—oOo—

Osprey Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

A Hoard of Heresies

In 1307, the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, commonly known as the Knights Templar, were summarily attacked and arrested by French forces, on orders from King Philip IV of France with permission from Pope Clement V. It marked the beginning of the end of the order, which for two hundred years had dedicated itself to protecting Christians making their pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Its leaders would be tried for heresy, but before the arrest their arrest in Templar’s Parisian stronghold, the Enclos du Temple, they would issue one final set of orders: the last Templars were to take the secrets of the order to safety. They would be the last thirty to escape the fallen stronghold and theirs would be a perilous journey across Europe in search of sanctuary, harried all the way first by forces loyal to King Philip, and then the Inquisition. Their story and their efforts to find sanctuary, perhaps in the process discovering the true secrets of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, are told in Heirs to Heresy: The Fall of the Knights Templar, a roleplaying game published by Osprey Games.

Heirs to Heresy: Faith & Fear is the first supplement for Heirs to Heresy. That roleplaying game is essentially a toolkit to run a single type of campaign, one that tells of the Player Character Templars’ flight away from Paris to a sanctuary, whichever one that is… Heirs to Heresy: Faith & Fear is a companion volume, providing a range of support and content that adds to that toolkit, thus giving the Grand Master more options to enhance her campaign or even run a new campaign. The supplement includes the advice and warning from the core rulebook about dealing with the negative aspects of both history and the portrayal of the Knights Templar, before getting on with the new content. The first of which is three new knightly orders—the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which was concerned with protecting and ensuring the sanctity of the holy sites; the Knights Hospitaller, which operated hospitals for the benefit of pilgrims; and the Order of Saint Lazarus, Leper Knights who aid commoners who have been harmed or hurt. Each Order has two special abilities. For example, a Knight of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre has ‘First Among Equals’ and ‘Secure the Holy Spaces’. The first of these gives the knight an advantage when dealing with other orders because the Order of the Holy Sepulchre is the oldest order, has precedence, and reports directly to the Pope, whilst the second increases their Damage Reduction when defending a sacred or consecrated sites. The inclusion of these three orders open up Player Character and NPC options, and perhaps because none of the three orders have been arrested by the French King and accused of heresy, also perhaps as a more general roleplaying game involving militant orders rather than one dealing with the last actions of the free Templars.

Heirs to Heresy: Faith & Fear does include a fourth order, the Teutonic knights. They are not, though, included as a Player Character option, but as NPC villains. Several options are suggested as to why, from Teutonic Grand Master simply coveted the Templar wealth to the Teutonic Order having been corrupted by some dark influence. However, as a possible ally, a location somewhere in the Teutonic Order’s lands might become the sanctuary that the Player Characters are trying to reach and that lends itself to a campaign with a Gothic feel located in Eastern Europe.

‘Modes of Play’ gives rules for solo play or play without a Grand Master. This includes the ‘Yes/No Oracle’, a simple means of resolving player choices, and tables of Action and Theme options to inspire and prompt the player. A set of tables, based on their Health level, whether Full, Halved, or Quartered, provides random actions in combat for NPCs, whilst another provides reactions out of combat. A further set of tables enable the Grand Master to create a conspiracy and the basis of a campaign using the content in this supplement and the core rulebook.

In Heirs to Heresy, a Player Character Knight can bring his faith and commitment to bear on a situation. To reflect this, he has Faith points to spend on various effects, including adding his Faith Attribute to a single Test, damage total, or reducing incoming damage by the same, to reroll a single Test, and if they factor into a campaign, power esoterica, Gifts, and Relics. Heirs to Heresy: Faith & Fear adds an option for using Faith called ‘Acts of Faith’. These include ‘Acts of Exorcism’, ‘Acts of Foresight’, ‘Acts of Healing’, and ‘Acts of Sacrifice’, the latter enabling the Player Character to protect a fallen ally against a grave threat. All four ‘Acts of Faith’ require the expenditure of a point of Faith and a may require a Religion skill test. The converse, ‘Acts of Fear’, including ‘Acts of Deceit’, ‘Acts of Incitement’, and ‘Acts of Violence’, require Corruption points, which are gained for committing sins, to be used. It is possible for a Player Character Knight, to be corrupt and have fallen from the Grace of God, and use these ‘Acts of Fear’. However, should such a Knight become too corrupt, there will be no way back for him to the Grace of God, and he becomes an NPC under the control of the Grand Master and likely a major threat to the Player Characters.

‘Strongholds and Sieges’ adds rules for building bases, such as castles and fortifications, and then laying siege to them. These include natural caverns, towers, and new fortifications, and a stronghold has actions of its own that the players can trigger. This can be to Fortify, Repair, or Upgrade the structure, Hire an employee (such as a Blacksmith, Builder, or Priest), Rest, or spend time in Introspection. Rest grants temporary Stamina points and Introspection points to spend on advancing Faith. Strongholds have Traits of their own, such as Famous, Gnostic Monastery (which grants an esoteric benefit), Living(!), and even Religious Sanctuary. The Siege rules are an addition to the Mass Battle system and are fairly quick and dirty, the aim being to reduce the Army Strength of one side to zero. Both Attacker and Defender have a limited number of options—Assault, Resupply, Sabotage, or Starve Out for the Attacker and Fortify, Repair, Sally Forth, and Smuggle in Supplies for the Defender, but can undertake four actions per day. There is room too for Player Character actions and roleplaying too, but the rules are quick and simple.

At the core of Heirs to Heresy are the relics, one of which the Player Characters are attempting to get from Paris to sanctuary. The choice can determine certain aspects of the campaign, such as how Faith interacts with the Player Characters. The four here are the Ark of the Covenant, the Head of Saint John Baptist, the Turn Shroud, and the Spear of Longinus. For example, the Ark of the Covenant will slay the unfaithful, grant insight and Faith for a battle, and if unlocked, that is, a Player Character attunes to it, it grants further Faith. Of course, it is relatively large and so not easy to transport. Each one of these four is major Christian relic and will really affect the nature of a campaign.

As well as the relic they are charged with protecting, the Player Characters may have access to another resources, that of the Templar spy networks to be found in the cities and towns across Europe. Most obviously, they could be used to provide safehouses as the Player Characters flee from Paris, but they can also provide supplies and information, and perhaps they can actually be made greater use of if the Player Characters establish a stronghold and want monitor or weaken the forces hunting for them. There are tables too for creating NPCs and their personalities, for exploration and the weather, and a host of new enemies, mobs both supernatural and mundane, and supernatural foes such as the Basilisk, Maddening Mist, and Warlocks or Witches.

The supplement also comes with four adventures of varying length and complexity. ‘The Wolfcairn’ finds the Player Characters camping somewhere deep in the forest when they begin to be stalked by a massive wolf that is more than it seems; in ‘The Basilisk’s Den’ they visit a tavern of that name looking for a connection to the local Templar spy network and run against all manner of NPCs with their own interests; in ‘Last Stand’, the Inquisition has caught up with the Player Characters who will have to hold them off, perhaps giving one of their number to make a desperate final defence of the others; and lastly, the ‘Cursed Brothers’ interlude gives the Player Characters a chance for respite at a Templar castle, but their fellow brothers turn out to be as bad as King Philip IV of France claimed the order to be. All four scenarios are easy to run and include pointers on their set-up descriptions of locations and NPCs, and both consequences and possible complications. They are all relatively easy to drop into a campaign. Lastly, the supplement includes another three pre-generated Player Characters, one for each of the new orders given at the start of the book.

Physically, Heirs to Heresy is cleanly and simply presented. The book is easy to read and the artwork is excellent.

Heirs to Heresy: Faith & Fear is not absolutely necessary to play a campaign of Heirs to Heresy. What it does do though, is provide a range of options and rules that can be used to expand the Grand Master’s campaign. The new scenarios are the easiest to use, each one readily dropped into a campaign, whilst the rules for spy networks, sieges, and ‘Acts of Faith’ require more effort and perhaps certain situations to arise to be fully useful. Overall, Heirs to Heresy: Faith & Fear widens the number of options that the Grand Master can choose from when planning her campaign and when making it more exciting in play, so making it useful for any Heirs to Heresy: The Fall of the Knights Templar campaign.

Diesel Dystopia

The Great War is over. Tomorrow City stands as a great beacon of hope and progress over the cracked remains of California that shattered in the earthquake of 1906. Atop its spinning top-like structure, great skyscrapers soar into the air, adorned by chrome and panes of blue and green glass, gleaming in California’s seemingly endless sunshine. Diesel trams speed across the city and men and women scurry everywhere, at all times of the day as one shift ends and another begins. Above them telescreens advertise the latest fashions and products or announce news and public announcements from the Ministry of Truth. Above the city airships circle and aircraft roar as they come into land at the multi-stacked airports. Yet the skyscrapers cast long shadows and some parts of the city only snatch a sliver of natural light or never seem to catch any light at all. Ministry of Truth airships stab down between the towering buildings with great searchlights in search of criminals and troublemakers. Space is at a premium and places and spaces are used for more than the one role—sky bridges and rooftops are gardens, farms, or sports fields; balconies are meeting places or shopfronts; and the tram tunnels the last refuge of the destitute. Out on the edges of the city, men and women toil alongside robots in factories, plants, and slaughterhouses. Below the city hangs a latticework of scaffolding, ladders, and walkways that form a fringe-like shanty town that clusters around and spreads out from the lifts that run from the ground below up to the city above, delivering goods in bulks and allowing vehicle access. Underneath the city and beyond labour farms to produce the feedstuffs it demands amidst the swamps of cracked California, and beyond that lies a broken America, its landscape marked by the Grave Lands of former battlefields and craters from the radium missiles and the kaleidoscopic colours of torn reality from the Pattern bombs dropped during the Great War, home only to air pirates, isolated Herd Farms, and the unknown.

Above it all, standing tallest at the centre of Tomorrow City, is The Spindle. The one hundred storey high tower shines gold and chrome, home to the city council and the Ministries of Peace, Truth, and Science, and of course, Mother, the great thinking machine who directs the future of Tomorrow City and monitors it citizens and their well-being with the automata that carry a spark of her intellect and her will. Men and women come to Tomorrow City looking for a better future, but do not always find it, for whilst its utopia may shine under the blazing sky, the long shadows of its skyscrapers hide a dystopian hell. The Ministry of Peace, with its slogan of ‘Peace Through Force’ can be brutal in pursuit of the city’s justice, whilst ordinary men and women, unable to obtain redress from the law due to the ineffectiveness and corruption of the Badges—as the cops are known, turn to private eyes or turn vigilante, like the Green Gargoyle. The Belafonte crime family runs crime across the city, its gang untouched, whilst the ‘Pillbox Mafia’, a gang of female bank robbers, extortionists, and murders known for their distinctive hats, seems to run rampant, the Badges unable to stop them, even they exist. Revolutionaries ferment change, the Prussian Band undermines the city on behalf of foreign powers, and the Temperance League advocates for the return of Prohibition and the banning of both alcohol and serum use—the latter the alchemical drugs developed during the Great War to enhance soldiers and since adopted everywhere in the city. The Temperance League is highly militant in its aims! Worse though is the Pattern. This strange energy seeps into Tomorrow City through rips in the fabric of reality, warping and distorting people, places, and buildings. During the Great war, the metaphysicists, Oppenheimer and Einstein, developed the Pattern bombs that helped bring the war to an end, but tore the reality of the bomb sites where they were dropped apart. The Pattern corrupts some of its victims into monstrous aberrations, but others learn how to manipulate its energy and become Pattern Weavers. The year is 1984. The Great War is over. Welcome to the bright future of Tomorrow City.

Tomorrow City is a dystopian Dieselpunk roleplaying game set in an alternate past. It is published by Osprey Games, best known for roleplaying games such as Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence and Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying, and board games such as Undaunted: Normandy. It is designed by the author of Hard City: Noir Roleplaying and shares its rules and some of its tone. Inspired by films such as Brazil and Dark City, games like Bioshock and Crimson Skies, and books including 1984 and Brave New World, its genre lies somewhere between the optimism of Steampunk and the cynicism of Cyberpunk. In Tomorrow City, the Player Characters are ‘Revs’ or revolutionaries who want change in the city. They might be Trouble-shooters for a Ministry or the City Council, vigilantes and guardians, secret agents of Mother, agitators for a faction like the Ant-Robot League or the Followers of Moloch, simple mercenaries, or scavengers, traders, or explorers searching for lost artefacts and technology in the ruins left behind by the Great War.

A Player Character in Tomorrow City is defined by his Trademarks, Edges, Flaws, Advantages, Drives, Ties, and Belongings. Trademarks are broad, thematic Tags which are the most obvious interesting thing about a Player Character; Edges are specialisations or advantages; Flaws are difficulties, passions, or disadvantages; Advantages a bonus drawn from a specialisation or a piece of equipment; and Drives are a Player Character’s motivations. A Player Character has three Trademarks, one from his Background, his Descriptor, and his Occupation, three Edges, two Flaws, a single Drive, and two Ties. The Edges are listed under the Trademarks, which also provide options for Flaws. Past Trademarks include Riffraff, Skyriser, Wastelander, and Windborn; Descriptor Trademarks include Bold, Broken, Huge, and Tainted; and Occupation Trademarks include Apothecary, Crook, Gadgeteer, Muckraker, and Sky Ranger. Drives are aims such as ‘Nora Shanklin robbed my father and I got the blame. I need to prove myself innocent’ or ‘The Badges beat my brother to death. I will have my revenge on the one responsible’, and Ties can be with people and places, positive, and problematic, and ideally, they should be with other Player Characters. Lastly, a Player Character has Moxie and Grit, the former a Player Character’s luck and willpower, the latter his toughness and capacity to survive.

The creation process is a matter of making several choices, picking three Trademarks, three Edges, three Advantages, two Flaws, a Drive, and two Ties. The choices lend themselves to creating a wide range of Player Character, a lot of them drawing on the classic archetypes of Film Noir and Pulp Noir combined with elements of the Cyberpunk and Steampunk genres. Combine Skyriser, Perceptive, and Gargoyle and you have a vigilante a la Batman; Windborn, Sneaky, and Aviator and you have an Air Pirate; Riffraff, Broken, and Veteran, and you have a survivor of the Great War put back together as best the technicians and surgeons can; Drone, Charming, and Muckraker and you have a journalist wanting to break stories about life in the shadows; and Wastelander, Tainted, and Scrapper and the character is a monstrous prize fighter wanting a better life. What is missing here in terms of the Cyberpunk and Steampunk genres is anything akin to the hacker archetype, breaking into the system to extract or plant information. The Broken Trademark allows for cyborg-type characters, but this is more due to injury than choice. All of the various Trademarks provide a player with Edges, Advantages, Flaws, and some equipment to choose from.

Noah Lincoln

Trademarks

Background: Windborn (Edges: Pilot Advantage: Head for Heights)

Descriptor: Bold (Edges: Brave Advantage: Inspiring)

Occupation: Sky Ranger (Edges: Shock & Awe Advantage: Dynamic Entry)

Flaw: Risk-Taker, Show-off

Drive: Prove the air pirate, Nancy Air-Tide, is a real criminal and not a media darling

Gear: Warm Rugged Jacket, Goggles, Rope, Satchel, Flight Suit, Sky Ranger Helmet, Trench Dagger

Ties: I would stand by Cordell Yoshiro anytime, but I am sure his gambling is going to get us into trouble; Fredonia Manjulit is the love of my life and anyone who says she is a smuggler will answer to me

Cred: 3

Moxie: 3

Grit: 3

Mechanically, Tomorrow City uses a dice pool of six-sided dice, consisting of two sets of dice, Action Dice and Danger Dice, each in a different colour. To undertake an action, a player assembles the pool using Action Dice, starting with a single die, whilst the Game Master adds Danger Dice. Action Dice are drawn from a Player Character’s Trademark and an appropriate Edge, plus from any Tags from the Threat or Scene, Position, Belongings, and Help the Player Character might be receiving. Danger Dice come from Injuries and Conditions the Player Character is suffering, plus from any Tags from the Threat or Scene, Position, Belongings, and the Scale of the obstacle. Once the dice pool is assembled, the dice are rolled. Matches between the Action Dice and the Danger Dice are cancelled and the highest remaining Action Dice is counted. A six is a success, four or five a partial success, and three or less a failure. Extra results of six count as Boons and can have an Increased Effect of the success, Set Up an Ally with an extra success, can speed Extended Checks, and Add a Tag to a Scene or Threat. Botches occur when only results of one remain and can lead to Increased Danger, Inflict Serious Harm, and Extra Strikes in an Extended Check.

A Player Character may have an Advantage which allows his player to roll with Mastery. For example, ‘Head for Heights’ lets Noah Lincoln’s player roll with Mastery when Noah is working at great heights. This enables the player to reroll a single die and keep the result. A Player Character also has Moxie. This can be spent to Demonstrate Expertise and add a second Trademark to a roll, gain A Little Luck to change a single die up or down by one result on both Action Dice or Danger Dice, Take a Breath to remove a Condition, or even details to a scene with a Voice-over. Moxie is refreshed when one of a Player Character’s Flaws comes into play and makes life complicated for everyone.

The outcome of a roll is to inflict Consequences which mean that a Player Character or NPC can suffer a cost or complication, a Tag can be added or removed, whether from the Player Character, Scene, or Threat, a Threat can be added or increased to a Scene, or Harm can be inflicted. Harm can be a Condition such as Angry, Dazed, or Dishevelled, or it can be an Injury of varying severity. All of these can be used to add Action Dice and Danger Dice to the dice pool, depending on the situation. When it comes to what a Player Character might be doing, Tomorrow City does not so much provide extra rules for how investigations, chases, interrogations, dogfights, arguments, and fights work, as suggest how the rules apply and what the possible Consequences might be, whether to the Player Characters or the NPCs.

Another possible outcome is Pressure. This increases by one at any time there remains an uncancelled result of six on a Danger Die at the end of a check. Once Pressure equals a total of six, something bad happens. For example, a bunch of bad guys stumble upon the Player Characters, an alarm sounds, the villain accelerates the next stage of his plan, and so on. This can easily be tracked using a large six-sided die on the table and measures the ebb and flow of tension throughout an adventure. It can even be used to indicate that something bad has happened offscreen.

Noah Lincoln’s attempt to track the sky pirate, Nancy Air-Tide, has come to nought when he caught up in a dog fight with a flight of Stormwind Fighters. Now he is returning to Tomorrow City, his Sunbright 8, the Flirty Freda, ablaze, and trying to land at Sky Ranger Field. Already, he has had the rest of his squad bail out, and as his player says that he is about to set the controls to head away from the city, the Game Master tags Noah’s ‘Risk-Taker’ and says, “Noah knows he can bring Flirty Freda into land safely.” Noah will receive a point of Moxie since the Flaw is going to put him in danger—and he is probably going to need it! Noah’s player assembles his Action Dice. Starting with a single die, Noah’s player adds extra for the Trademark of Bold and its Edge of Brave, plus another for being at the controls of the Flirty Freda, an aircraft he knows well. This gives Noah’s player four Action Dice. Now the Game Master adds two Danger Dice because the aeroplane is on fire and another because the controls are not responding as well as they should be. Noah’s player rolls four Action Dice and three Danger Dice. The result is two, two, five, and five on the Action Dice and two, five, and five on the Danger Dice. The pairs of two and one of the fives cancel each other out on the Action Dice and the Danger Dice. This leaves a five on the Action Dice, which is a Partial Success. Since Noah has the Flaw of ‘Show-off’, his player decides to spend that Moxie awarded by the Game Master and changes the five up to a six and gives him a Success. Noah’s player narrates how he brings the Flirty Freedonia with a light touch and avoiding setting anything else on fire.

Amongst an extensive list of gear and other items, Tomorrow City also lists Serums and robots. Serums are administered via Spikers, revolver-like injectors which the user can rotate the cylinder and inject the desired Serum. Serums all give an advantage, but also cause side effects. For example, Celerity grants the Quick Reflexes tag for several minutes, but once it wears off, the user suffers the Clumsy tag for the same length of time. Others harm the user, like Nerve Block, which makes the user immune to damage for several minutes, but inflicts several points of damage. Robots are rated by their size, Grit (or toughness), and Intellect. A useful list of useful types is included alongside the quick and simple rules for their creation and there is a list of more detailed robots and automata given in the section on threats in Tomorrow City.

The Pattern in Tomorrow City is both a danger and something that Pattern Weavers can work with for various effects. The Pattern Weaver Occupations include Aberration Tracer, a bounty hunter who tracks down aberrations and dangerous Pattern users; Metaphysical Geometrist, who understands the flow of the Pattern through the city and can interact with its flow to move around in impossible ways; Symbolist, who manipulates the Pattern through symbols and signs to benefit or harm others; and Weird, who can read the Pattern as it flows around people and gives insight into their actions and status. In addition, the Pattern Weaver Trademark enables a Player Character to attempt actions such as detecting or manifesting the Pattern, summoning an Aberration, or even warping reality. In addition to the table that lists what Action and Danger Dice to add to a check, there is a list of possible consequences if the check goes wrong and a table of bystander reactions. The Great War has not long since ended and many still fear the effects of Pattern bombs, they heard the rumours about…

For both the players and the Game Master, there is an introduction to the genre with a decent bibliography as well as playing safe, whilst for the Game Master there is advice on running the various aspects of the roleplaying game. This covers the creation of missions, mysteries, and jobs, plus the handling and mastering the various aspects of the game. Fundamentally, this is to be a fan of the players and their characters, do what the fiction demands, and think cinematically. It is backed up with a solid selection of threats, from Ministry Agents and Citizens to Troublemakers and dangerous Environments, but also Automata & Robots, Experiments Gone Wrong, and Pattern Aberrations. Both Experiments Gone Wrong and Pattern Aberrations add an element of horror to the game as they are quite creepy. For example, the ‘Pain Pane’ is a flat image of a knight or biblical figure in stained glass which can hide with ease and if light is cast through it, anyone caught in the pattern of the glass is stained in colour and wracked with pain. There is also the scenario, ‘Job: Escape Plan’. This is a prison rescue mission, one Douglas Baker having been arrested for falsifying records at the Ministry of Agriculture. The thing is, he definitely is guilty, but the Game Master can tailor the faction he was working for and who hires them to get him out, to the Player Characters and their backgrounds. Several options are suggested. The scenario suggests that Player Characters can attempt to break him out of the detention centre where he is being held or from the dirigible when he is being transported to court. Either way, the scenario ends with a chase to get to the handoff point before the Badges catch up with the Player Characters. ‘Job: Escape Plan’ is short and should provide a single session’s worth of play, perhaps two, but no more. It does however, give a chance for the players to learn the rules and show off their character’s abilities.

Physically, Tomorrow City is very nicely presented and the book is tidily laid out and quite easy to read. Biagio D’Alessandro’s illustrations are excellent, really capturing the feel and tone of the genre with a wide cast of characters and varying situations. If there is anything missing from the book it is a handy rules reference at the end of the book.

Tomorrow City draws upon familiar genres—Cyberpunk, Steampunk, and Film Noir—to pull us into and want us to roleplay in a less familiar genre, Dieselpunk. It enables the players to create interesting characters and provides the Game Master with enough information to present and evoke a fascinatingly familiar yet different dystopia, but still leave her and the reader wanting more information about Tomorrow City and the wider world. (In other words, an anthology of scenarios and more source material would be very welcome.) In the meantime, Tomorrow City provides easy access to a little explored genre in roleplaying and brings its world of another future past to life.

Blue Collar Sci-Fi Horror IV

In the ecologically ravaged future, twelve billion people live on Earth in environmentally sealed kilometre high city blocks clustered around ‘lungs’, the colossal city-sized atmosphere processors located on the coasts. Many attempt to get off Earth and sign up to crew the service vessels maintaining stations, outposts, and mines in other star systems; the tugboats hauling the refineries back to Earth; the Arbiter ships as Colonial Marshals investigating crimes on behalf of the Interstellar Department of Trading; as military units preventing (or even conducting) civil unrest or hostile takeovers; as scientific survey teams; or as Deep Space Support Teams—DSSTs, or ‘Dusters’, effectively serving as troubleshooters for their employers. Last twenty-five years and you get to retire to a life of luxury. However, it is not that easy… Space travel takes time, even with the Gravity Assisted Drive, a minimum of a week per light year, meaning trips can take months with most of that time spent in LongSleep. Starships are places to work, utilitarian, but capable of protecting you from the vacuum of space, radiation, and random asteroids. Therese though are not the only dangers involved in space travel and mankind spreading beyond the Solar System...

Spending time in space has a psychological effect and has been known to send men mad. Murderously mad. A.I.s and other systems can malfunction. Outbreaks of diseases and viruses—known and unknown—can ravage colonies, starships, and space stations. Terrorist groups have their own agendas, like The Children of the Cradle, which wants to stop mankind spreading beyond Earth. There are cults too with their own aims and even corporations have their often, highly secret aims. Colonists, scientists, star crew and others report ghosts out in the black, but who believes that? Does not mean that it cannot send them mad... There is even the whisper that the Gravity Assisted Drive itself has a psychological effect on people, though no one has been able to prove and to be honest, no one wants to, especially the corporations. Of course, nobody has yet found any sign of any alien species, and certainly not any face-chomping xenomorphs. Faced with all that, it is wonder that anyone engages in any space travel, and if any starship crew run into any of this, the best they can do is survive. There are those that will do more then just survive. They will investigate. They identify the nature of the threat and they will nullify its effects—if they can. Special Operations Squads (SOS), equipped, armed, and trained to deal with dangerous situations, have been trained by the government of Earth to face these problems, even though it often means working for one of the corporations.

This is the set-up for Pressure: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying, a roleplaying game inspired by the Blue Collar Science Fiction of the nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties, such as Alien, Outland, Silent Running, and Blade Runner, plus computer games like Dead Space. Published by Osprey Games—the imprint of Osprey Publishing best known for its highly illustrated military history books—Pressure: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying is in fact a sequel to Those Dark Places: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying, in which the Player Characters are members of corporate Deep Space Support Teams—DSSTs, or ‘Dusters’. In Pressure, the Player Characters are members of the Special Operations Squads Division, knoen as SOS Operatives. If Those Dark Places is the equivalent of Alien, then Pressure is the sequel, Aliens. Notably, Pressure uses the same conceit as Those Dark Places, that the play of the roleplaying game is actually an internal training programme, a test of the potential abilities of the ‘Duster’, or in this case SOS Division operatives. This does not always have to be case, but it is what the roleplaying game defaults to, and notably, Pressure is more upfront about it. Further, in addition to being a sequel to Those Dark Places, this roleplaying game is also an expansion, both in terms of the mechanics and the setting. That said, the Game Master can run Pressure without needing to reference Those Dark Places.

An SOS Division operative is defined by his name and description, CASE File, his skills, and Pressure. His CASE File represents his actual attributes—Charisma-Agility-Strength-Education, which are rated between one and four. It should be noted that Strength works as the equivalent of a Crew Member’s Hit Points, as well as his physical presence. Where in Those Dark Places a Duster has one or two Crew Positions he is qualified for, such as Navigation Officer or Medical Officer, SOS Division operative has skills and this includes combat skills, which notably, Those Dark Places did not have. Some skills require specialist training and if a player does not invest any points in them, his SOS Division operative cannot use them. To create an SOS Division operative, a player assigns ten points to his operative’s CASE File and then three points to skills of his choice. The process is more complex than that of Those Dark Places, but only slightly so, and it is still very simple. In addition, the player is encouraged to answer a number of questions to help develop his operative.

One alternative offered instead of a standard SOS Division operative, a player can roleplay a SAM or Synthetic Automation. A SAM is not affected by Pressure, but all Charisma or Education rolls require an extra round of processing to complete. A SAM is also not fully human in appearance, with smooth features, lack of hair, and unblinking eyes. SAMs are banned from the massive HyperCities of Earth.

SOS Division Operative Rosen was recruited into the SOS Division pending a conviction for computer hacking. Despite her technical role, she has put through the routine physical training, but this has not curbed her cynical edge. She is fascinated with discovering secrets still (which is what got her into trouble in the first place) and knows that being part of SOS Division will actually give her greater access than before.

Rachel Rosen
Charisma 3 Agility 1 Strength 2 Education 4
Pressure Bonus: 6
Pressure Level: 0

Skills: Charisma/Con 1; Education/Computers 2

Mechanically, Pressure is very simple and requires no more than a six-sided die or two per player. To have his SOS Division operative undertake a task, a player rolls a six-sided die and adds the values for the appropriate Attribute and skill, or just the Attribute if the SOS Division operative does not have the skill. The target Difficulty Number is typically seven, but may be adjusted down to six if easier, or up to eight if more difficult. If the task warrants it, rolling the target number exactly counts as a partial success rather than a complete success. In that case, the player needs to roll over the target difficulty.

In the long term, the combined value of an Attribute plus Skill cannot exceed six. If all the skills of an SOS Operative reach their maximum, he is considered to have achieved Elite Team status. One element of game play preventing this that Experience Points can be be spent immediately, during play, to modify rolls. This can be rolls made by the player and rolls made by the Game Monitor—as the Game Master is known in Pressure—so that a player can improve his SOS Division operative’s chance of success at succeeding in an action or chance of failure when an NPC acts against him. This can be before or after the roll. Experience Points spent in this way are permanently lost.

As well as adding skills to the setting of Those Dark Places, what Pressure also adds is a set of combat mechanics. Combatants can undertake two actions per round, initiative is handled via an Agility roll, mêlée is handled as opposed rolls, and ranged combat as standard tests, with the number to hit being seven, increased to eight if the target is in partial cover. Attacks can be dodged using the Dodge skill, but the defending combatant can only focus on this action and loses his next action. A partial success means that he will suffer only one point of damage, a complete success means he avoids all of it. Damage is rolled on a six-sided die, but each weapon or attack type has a Damage Cap. For example, a punch or kick inflicts one point of damage, but a Gauss Pistol inflicts three. Damage is still rolled for, with a roll higher than the Damage Cap indicating that the maximum amount of damage has been inflicted. In addition, each point of damage suffered serves as a penalty, raising the Difficulty Number for all tasks. Combat is brutal, but SOS Division operatives are given BallCom Mk II body armour as protection. On a roll of five or six, this will protect the wearer against direct kinetic attacks, but not explosive or energy damage.

However, Pressure does get more complex when dealing with stress and difficult situations, or Pressure. An SOS Division operative has a Pressure Bonus, equal to his Strength and Education, and a Pressure Level, which runs from one to six. A Pressure Roll is made when an SOS Division operative is under duress or stress, and all a player has to do is roll a six-sided die and add his operative’s Pressure Bonus to beat a difficulty number of ten. Succeed and the SOS Division operative withstands the stress of the situation, but fail and his Pressure Level rises by one level. However, when an SOS Division operative’s Pressure Level rises to two, and each time it rises another level due to a failed Pressure Roll, the SOS Division operative’s player rolls a six-sided die and the result is under the current value of his Pressure Level, the SOS Division operative suffers an Episode. This requires a roll on the Episode table, the results ranging from ‘Jitters’ and losing points from a SOS Division operative’s Attributes, up through Exhausted, Rigid, Catatonia, and ‘Insane Fear’. Whenever an SOS Division operative’s player needs to make a roll on the Episode Table, the maximum result possible is limited by the SOS Division operative’s Pressure Level. So at Pressure Level 3, an SOS Division operative can only be In Shock and suffer points lost from either his Agility or Strength, but not anything worse.

One issue with Pressure Level and Episodes is that a Crew Member cannot immediately recover from either. It takes time in LongSleep or back on Earth to even begin to recover… Worse, once an SOS Division operative suffers an Episode, its effects linger, and he can suffer from it again and again until he manages to control his personal demons.

And that is almost the extent of the rules to Pressure. There is a list of equipment and of typical salaries for a range of roles, a range of NPCs, and there are rules for vehicles and vehicle combat, spaceships and space combat. Spaceships are working spaces, with only a fifth of their displacement dedicated to crew and cargo space, the rest being ship’s system. In keeping with brutality of personal combat in Pressure, the rules for spaceship combat are equally as brutal, but on a bigger scale and a greater chance of death or damage from explosions, fire, electricity, and decompression.

If Pressure expands the rules from those in Those Dark Places, it also does something of greater significance—it greatly expands the setting shared by both roleplaying games. This is delivered as part of the Officer’s Briefing that Pressure is written as, but what both this Officer’s Briefing and Pressure do is present information that the average person on Earth does not have access to. Already, SOS Division operatives are being treated as different and as being part of elite, privy to information that they cannot share. This includes what the SOS Division operatives might encounter ‘Out in the Darkness’ of the furthers reaches of space, such as dangerous terrorists and cults, rogue A.I.s, malfunctioning SAMs and bio-pets, ‘ghosts spirits’, and so on, but again, notably not aliens, bug-eyed or otherwise. In terms of the setting, Pressure provides a complete future history with a timeline from the early twenty-second century to the mid twenty-fourth century, descriptions of the four dominant corporations and other organisations (including criminal and terrorist), and information about the state of Earth, installations and stations in orbit and throughout the Solar System. It touches upon what might be found beyond in ‘Explored Space’, but leaves much of this to be developed by the Game Monitor herself.

Rounding out Pressure is a short mission, ‘The Foster Report’, intended to be played as part of the SOS Division operatives’ training in the ‘Edu-Net’. The squad responds to a distress call from research facility run by Foster Private Endeavours, reporting that it has suffered a containment failure. It is a quick and dirty affair, with advice for the Game Monitor for handling various aspects of the rules, and should offer a single session’s worth of play.

Physically, Pressure is cleanly and tidily laid out. Although it is an attractive looking book, Pressure does have an issue in being delivered as an officer’s briefing because it does not make all of the content easy to use. So for example, the rules for SOS Division operative creation is spread out over several sections where the relevant rules are explained and there is no one cheat sheet guide to operative creation. Similarly, the rules for using Experience Points to adjust rolls are listed under the general rules for Experience Points, but not mentioned in the explanation of the core rules, and the rules for using cybernetics are squirrelled away in the description of Earth and its environs. That said, Pressure, being delivered as an officer’s briefing, is written in an engaging, conversational style.

What Pressure does is take the background and setting of Those Dark Places and expand from a tightly-focused genre emulation into a full Science Fiction roleplaying game. Within the setting itself, it moves Those Dark Places from the survival horror genre to more actioned-orientated horror, where the Player Characters, or SOS Division operatives, have to investigate and confront the horror, rather than merely do their best and run away. It opens up the possibility of Pressure being run as a more general Science Fiction roleplaying game as well, and thus a wider range of plots and possible source material to adapt. Fundamentally no less brutal—even with the guns and the armour—Pressure: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying is not just Aliens to the Alien of Those Dark Places: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying, taking the action straight to the horror, but a fuller, more detailed roleplaying game whose expanded rules and setting open up a wider range of stories and adventures.

Hard City, Cold Heart

Hard City: Noir Roleplaying is a roleplaying game which takes the player into the dark, dangerous world of high streets and long shadows, of uncertainty and ambiguity, of desperation and dedication, of beguilement and betrayal, of the lonely man who would seek the truth and the many who would hide it, where ultimately any resolution will end badly. This is the world of Film Noir and hardboiled fiction, both a genre and a style, best typified by films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Double Indemnity, and the works of James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Mickey Spillane. The heroes are always cynical, often as dangerous and damned as their enemies, who might employ lowlifes and punks, but they are invariably as clever, classy, and charming as they are callous. Some, like the classic femme fatale, is ultimately all of that, often at first demure and desirable, but eventually revealed to be cunning and selfish, ready to betray not just the hero, but her co-conspirators and fellow crooks too. These play out in a city of soaring skyscrapers, between the cracks where the light of what is right and just never seems to shine, even if the cracks run all the way to the highest office.

Hard City: Noir Roleplaying is published by Osprey Games, best known for roleplaying games such as Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence and Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying, and board games such as Undaunted: Normandy. It enables the creation of Player Characters through trademarks rather than skills, enabling players to create classic archetypes of the genre, and combines this with light, dice pool mechanics designed to facilitate fast play and resolution in a grim, gritty city of America of the middle decades of the twentieth century. The result is a storytelling game in a classic genre, both black and white in its look and in the tales it tells.

A Player Character in Hard City is defined by his Trademarks, Edges, Flaws, Drives, Ties, and Belongings. Trademarks are broad, thematic Tags which are the most obvious interesting thing about a Player Character; Edges are specialisations or advantages; Flaws are difficulties, passions, or disadvantages; and Drives are a Player Character’s motivations. A Player Character has three Trademarks, one from his Past, his Present, and his Perk, five Edges, two Flaws, a single Drive, and two Ties. The Edges are listed under the Trademarks, which also provide options for Flaws. Past Trademarks include Bureaucrat, Button Man, Grifter, and Newshound; Present Trademarks include Enforcer, Finder, Infiltrator, and Performer; and Perk Trademarks include Badge, Dirty Fighter, Femme Fatale, and Weasel. Drives can be Altruistic, Debt-related, and Selfish, and Ties can be with people and places, positive, and problematic, and ideally, they should be with other Player Characters. Lastly, a Player Character has Moxie and Grit, the former a Player Character’s luck and willpower, the latter his toughness and capacity to survive.

The creation process is a matter of making several choices and the choices do lend themselves to creating some classic characters from the genre. So, the Veteran, Investigator, and Brave Trademarks could model Sam Spade; Grifter, Charmer, and Femme Fatale for Brigid O’Shaughnessy; Criminal, Finder, and Weasel for Joel Cairo; and High Society, Leader, and Huge for Caspar Gutman. It is eased by a table of flaws and a table of names, the latter including a list of regular surnames and hardboiled surnames. So, for example, an ordinary name might be Audrey Lewin or Ronald Scott, but their hardboiled versions could be Audrey Shields or Ronald Hawk.

Eudoxia Lionidze
Trademarks
Past: High Society (Edges: Educated, Charm)
Present: Infiltrator (Edges: Break & Enter, Escape)
Perk: Femme Fatale (Edges: Cunning, Strong-willed)
Flaw: Lack of Trust, Irresponsible
Drive: Pay off my brother’s gambling debts
Ties: I don’t trust Anton Powell because he gambles too much; I’m pretty sure Burt Torres knows who killed Gladys Janes
Moxie: 3
Grit: 3

Mechanically, Hard City uses a dice pool of six-sided dice, consisting of two sets of dice, Action Dice and Danger Dice, each in a different colour. To undertake an action, a player assembles the pool using Action Dice, starting with a single die, whilst the Game Master adds Danger Dice. Action Dice are drawn from a Player Character’s Trademark and an appropriate Edge, plus from any Tags from the Threat or Scene, Position, Belongings, and Help the Player Character might be receiving. Danger Dice come from Injuries and Conditions the Player Character is suffering, plus from any Tags from the Threat or Scene, Position, Belongings, and the Scale of the obstacle. Once the dice pool is assembled, the dice are rolled. Matches between the Action Dice and the Danger Dice are cancelled and the highest remaining Action Dice is counted. A six is a success, four or five a partial success, and three or less a failure. Extra results of six count as Boons and can have an Increased Effect of the success, Set Up an Ally with an extra success, can speed Extended Checks, and Add a Tag to a Scene or Threat. Botches occur when only results of one remain and can lead to Increased Danger, Inflict Serious Harm, and Extra Strikes in an Extended Check.

A Player Character also has Moxie. This can be spent to Demonstrate Expertise and add a second Trademark to a roll, gain A Little Luck to change a single die up or down by one result on both Action Dice or Danger Dice, Take a Breath to remove a Condition, or even details to a scene with a Voice-over. Moxie is refreshed when one of a Player Character’s Flaws comes into play and makes life complicated for everyone.

The outcome of a roll is to inflict Consequences which mean that a Player Character or NPC can suffer a cost or complication, a Tag can be added or removed, whether from the Player Character, Scene, or Threat, a Threat can be added or increased to a Scene, or Harm can be inflicted. Harm can be a Condition such as Angry, Dazed, or Dishevelled, or it can be an Injury of varying severity. All of these can be used to add Action Dice and Danger Dice to the dice pool, depending on the situation. When it comes to what a Player Character might be doing, Hard City does not so much provide extra rules for how investigations, chases, interrogations, arguments, and fights work, as suggest how the rules apply and what the possible Consequences might be, whether to the Player Characters or the NPCs. When it comes to actions within a turn, any shooting and fighting is done last, talking and moving first, emphasising the hard talking and words have meaning nature of the genre.

Eudoxia Lionidze has been hired to retrieve some letters that the mobster, Carlo Garcia, is using to blackmail her client. She has already managed to get the letters by attending a party at Garcia’s house and climbing over the balcony into his study from the room next door. As she exits into the hallway, bottle of champagne and glass in hand, slightly dishevelled after clambering over the balcony, she is confronted by one of Garcia’s goons, asking what she is doing there. Eudoxia is going to have to bluff her way past, and with a grin, says, “Oh I am so sorry. I just needed to lie down. Get my head straight. Too much to drink…” Eudoxia’s player creates his pool of Action Dice by starting out with a single die and adds one for her High Society Trademark since she is dressed like she should be at the party, another for her Charm, and suggests that her appearance and Belongings would earn her another die. The Game Master agrees, means that Eudoxia’s player has four Action Dice to roll. The Game Master adds two Danger Dice to the pool, including one for Goon and another for his Condition, which is Suspicious. The player rolls the dice and gets a one, five, five, and six on the Action Dice and three and five on the Danger Dice. The five on the Action Dice and the Danger Dice cancel each other out, which leaves the six from the Action Dice as the highest result, and means that the security goon believes Eudoxia, giving him the Trusting Condition. With a slight misstep of the slightly drunk, she makes her way back down to the party and her companion for the night.

In terms of progression, Hard City is about the School of Hard Knocks, and a Player Character can learn from his setbacks as much as he can his successes. Two many setbacks and a Player Character can begin the next case or investigation with lower Moxie or even a Condition even as the Player Character improves.

Hard City is set in 1946 in a large, nameless city, either by the sea or the bay. It could be Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Chicago, but its particulars are described in more than enough detail to be a playable space, covering a little of its history, its movers and shakers and troublemakers, crime, but paying particular attention to its districts, complete with Tags, place suggestions and possible story hooks.

For both the players and the Game Master, there is an introduction to the genre with a decent bibliography, whilst for the Game Master there is advice on running the various aspects of the roleplaying game. This does include avoiding the social attitudes of the period in which the genre is set, but in the main focuses on two types of Case—or scenario. These are investigations and capers, the former more complex than the latter, but the latter requiring more planning upon the Player Characters. There is also a discussion of MacGuffins and suggestions as to possible campaign frames, primarily investigative in nature, but all supported by a list of example films which exemplify their set-ups. Only the ’Wrong Time, Wrong Place’ campaign frame differs from this, which explores ordinary men and women getting caught up in bad situations, typified by Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice. This is all accompanied by a Case Generator.

The advice itself focuses on the fiction and playing to it, and on making the most out of scenes. This includes ‘Enter Late, Exit Early’ and Raymond Chandler’s famous adage that, “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.” In modelling its genre, the framing of scenes in Hard City is intended to be succinct, focused, and interesting. The players are meant to engage with this, bring their characters’ Drives and Flaws into play as much as their Trademarks, to make the lives of their characters if not difficult, then at the very least, interesting. Though ideally, difficult. As a consequence of this and the need for the players to embrace the various aspects of the genre, Hard City does demand more of its players, that they roleplay hard in every scene their characters appear in. Rounding Hard City is a pair of ready-to-play Cases—‘Engagement with Death’ is an investigation into the disappearance of a wealthy industrialist’s son, whilst ‘In at the Deep End’ is a caper in which the Player Characters must recover a piece of missing artwork. Both are classic Film Noir plots which nicely emulate the genre.

Physically, Hard City is very nicely presented. The book is tidily laid out and quite easy to read, but the best feature is the artwork. Luis F. Sanz’s illustrations are excellent, really capturing the feel and tone of the genre with a wide cast of characters and varying situations. If there is anything missing from the book it is a handy rules reference at the end of the book.

Hard City: Noir Roleplaying is a roleplaying game in which the players need to play hard and talk hard in order to bring out the best and the worst of their characters. Thematically and mechanically, it keeps everything simple by focusing on the trademark aspects of the genre and encouraging the players to bring them into play. The result is an impressively presented and clearly written storytelling roleplaying game whose look and play is designed to emulate the desperate, dangerous, and morally ambiguous tales of the Film Noir and Hardboiled genres.

Friday Filler: Village Rails

Osprey Games is primarily known for its wargames rules, such as Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City, but it also publishes board and card games and roleplaying games too. The latter includes Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence, Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying, and Heirs to Heresy: The fall of the Knights Templar, whilst the former includes titles such as Undaunted Normandy, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and Village Rails: A Game of Locomotives and Local Motives. The latter is rail-themed board game designed for two to four players aged up fourteen and over, and designed to be played in less than an hour. It has a delightfully cosy feel to it, being set in the English countryside during the Age of Steam during the thirties, forties, and fifties. Play is simple with each player only having to make a few choices and the game ends once everyone has taken twelve turns after which each player’s tableau or rail network is scored and the player with the highest score wins.

Village Rails: A Game of Locomotives and Local Motives consists of eighty Railway Cards, thirty-eight Terminus Cards, four Reference Cards and four Scoring Dials, Border Pieces, and almost fifty coins. The Border Pieces and coins are done in thick cardboard, as are the Scoring Dials, which do require some assembly. The Border Pieces are marked with the start of seven railway lines and are used to create an ‘L-shape’ into which the Railway Cards are placed as a three-by-five twelve-card grid. The Railway Cards are double-sided. On one side is Track, which depicts two single tracks running across terrain such as fields, pasture, forest, lakes, and villages. The Track side are also marked various symbols, including Barns, Farms, Halts, and Sidings. When they appear on a completed line, these will all score a player points, except for Sidings which are scored at the end of the game. On the other side of the Railway Cards are Trips, which score a player if their conditions are met. For example, ‘2 per type of feature on the line.’, ‘No Bulls on the line: 4 points’, and ‘Only straight tracks on the line: 6 points’. Terminus Cards earn a player money when played, the amount depending on the indicated features on the cards, for example, the number of tractors on the line, number of different terrain features on the line, and so on. The greater the number of features on the line, the more money a Terminus Card will earn.

At the start of the game, each player receives an ‘L-shape’ border and £5 in coins. Once the Railway Cards are shuffled, cards are drawn to form two markets—the Track Market and the Trip Market. These are two lines of cards from which a player can select a single Track card and a single Trip card respectively on his turn. The first card in each market is always free to take, but the cards further along the line and closer to the deck must be purchased, with cards closer to the deck being more expensive. This money is placed on the cards further away from the deck and if a player subsequently selects one of the cards with money on it, he receives both card and money. Each player receives three Terminus Cards which he keeps secret until played. On a turn, a player can conduct two actions. The first is to build tracks, which the player must do, the second is to plan a trip, which is optional, but can be done before or after building tracks. Planning a trip always costs money and the Trip card selected is placed next to the player’s L-shape border at the start of a line. Each line can have two Trip cards like this. When selected a Track card is placed into a player’s tableau, either next to a border or another Track card. If as a result of a Track card being placed, a railway line runs from the player’s ‘L-shape’ border to the edge of his tableau, it is considered completed and can be scored. Points are scored for the features on the line, for the bonus provided by the adjacent Trip card, and money if a Terminus card has been played. The Reference Cards help scoring easy for each player.

In Village Rails, each player is working to complete his own tableau and the game does not involve any direct interaction with each other. The interaction comes indirectly through the game’s two markets—the Track Market and the Trip Market. Here each player will be watching them for the best cards to become available, hopefully free in the case of the Track Market and cheap in the case of the Trip Market, and before another player takes them. Another reason to take a card is that it has money on it. Money will enable a player to purchase a better Track or Trip card than before another player can, or simply just buy a Trip card, and the right Trip card will score more points. What this means is that the players have to spend their money with care and take the opportunity of their Terminus cards to earn more. A player will always have three Terminus cards, so fortunately, there is always the opportunity for him to earn money when completing a line.

Placement of the Track cards also takes care and players tend to place their first Track cards at the outer corners of their L-shape and work inwards to fill in all twelve spaces in their tableaus. This is because those placed at the corners can often be completed first, scoring a player some points and potentially earning him money. It also initially gives a wider choice as to what cards a player can draw and play, but as more and more Track cards are placed, the choices begin to tighten as a player tries to balance trying to find the right Track card to add to a tableau and purchase the Trip card which will score him the most points. Throughout, a player will always be considering how he can maximise the number of points he can score and how much money he can earn. Play continues until every player has placed his twelfth Track card and the final scoring is done for the Sidings.

Physically, Village Railways is delightfully and sturdily presented. The first thing that you notice upon lifting up the rules booklet from the box is one single piece of design to the components—and not to the components of the game, but the packaging of the components that the players pull out to assemble the Scoring Dials and the Border Tiles. There is a notch in the corner where a finger can be inserted and the thick sheets of card pulled out. This only has to be done the once, but it just makes things that little bit easier. Otherwise, all of the game’s components are sturdy, appropriately cosy in theme, and easy to use, although the symbols on the Track Cards are not always easy to spot, especially on the Track Cards with a darker theme, such as the forests. The rule book itself is clearly presented and includes a good example of a single turn, and the artwork has a lovely period feel, especially the locomotive illustrations on the Trip cards.

If there is an issue with Village Railways, it is that it pitches itself as a railway game set in the English countryside where the locals are happy to allow tracks to be built by the players or railway companies, but make specific demands of them. Which sounds like the players are laying tracks, but where they go will often be dictated by intervening or vociferous busybodies or persons of note, but it is not that. It is instead, more of a puzzle game in which each player attempts to fill a grid with tracks and maximise their points. Essentially, Village Rails combines drafting from a marketplace, tile placement, and route planning and building with the almost puzzle-like element of placing Track cards and connecting railway lines in a way which every player hopes will optimise his railway network and his score. Not as light a game as it first seems, Village Rails: A Game of Locomotives and Local Motivess is simple to learn and quick to play, but it is more challenging and thoughtful than the average filler game.

Neon City Nights

He eased the collar of his coat and shook the snyth-sheet he was reading free of the rain. It was always raining in Neo-York, and the ink flowed off the front page followed by the rain. It was okay. He could read the latest news later. He just wanted to look busy whilst keeping an eye on his charges, Michael Iannelli, and his latest girl, whatever her name was. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Michael’s mother, Eleonara, supposed de facto co-boss of the Iannelli Neo-Costra crime family with her sister, Sebastiana, wanted him watched and did not want her family involved. So here he was, standing under the ever-present neon of Neo-York at a Faux-Fish Noodles Shack, getting stiffed on the fish, and wishing it was not raining. But then it was always raining in Neo-York and only rich people like Eleonara Iannelli got to see the sun. Which didn’t explain why Michael was slumming it in New Beale with his new girl, whatever her name was. Except maybe Michael was heading for Pod’s and Jerry’s for an evening of Synth Jazz, which was okay by him, because he and his keys had a gig there tonight. A bullhorn in a Jumper buzzed overhead, mostly here just to say the Neo York Police Department is always on or over the streets, and maybe make any tourists feel safe.

The Dumb-Box on his wrist buzzed. His food was on the counter—not enough fish and the noodles were stiff. It was enough to distract him before a voice chimed in his head—“Nathan. Michael is in danger.” He looked up in response his Net-Box’s warning, his AR Glasses highlighting in flashing red two figures running towards the Iannelli scion. Details scrolled alongside the highlighted figures. They were bioroids. Good ones and nobody traded in better bioroids than the Iannelli Neo-Costra crime family. Which raised a question that right now he had no time to ask. He pulled a gun. Eleonara made him carry it, so when this was all over, he hoped her family’s money had made it legit. It felt wrong in his hand, heavy and shiny in the rain. He hoped the recoil when he plugged the two bioroids running for his charge was not going to jar his fingers. He needed them for the keys at the Synth Jazz gig tonight. The rounds would not kill the bioroids. That was his deal for carrying the gun. Plus stunned, Eleonara Iannelli could get family muscle to persuade the bioroids to talk or track them. That was not part of his gig. His gig was being the coolest Synth Jazz cat in downtown New Beale for one more night…

This could be a scene from Crescendo of Violence: A Neon-Noir Roleplaying Game set in the near future of Neo York, 2093. A giant megapolis and technological marvel floating off the North American coast in world that has undergone ecological collapse and widespread flooding, tamed but only limited the overreach of the megacorporations, and seen the widespread adoption of cybernetics, Augmented Reality, and WETnet wireless energy and information networks, and granted rights to Clones and Bioroids. Neo York is a city of holographic neon and rain, of crime and corruption, of wealth and politics. Gilded mob bosses, flashy CEOs, and famous vid-stars hold sway as the masses live a life above the breadline—but not too far above it, the wealth of the richest top percent buying themselves security and the promise that the cops will look the other way. In between, there are men and women, bioroids and clones, who work in the glare of the neon rather than bask in it, down the grime and filth of the streets which the constant rain never washes away. Gangsters seeking redemption, hackers trying to reveal a truth, holo-stars with a secret to hide, the good cop in a corrupt system, the gene-modded musician trying to make it big, the suit who wants to see her corporation do some good, the ex-soldier who gets drawn into a situation he wanted to avoid… All these stories and more can be told as the Synth Jazz plays in Neo York.

Crescendo of Violence: A Neon-Noir Roleplaying Game is published by Osprey Games. It is a neo-noir—or rather a neon noir—roleplaying game which combines Casablanca with Le Samouraï, Blade Runner with Bird, and Hard Boiled with Ghost in the Shell. It incorporates elements of the cyberpunk genre too, but is not specifically about its anti-capitalist themes, the corporations having been tamed through a series of wars that prevented them from taking over nations—including the United Kingdom. Rather it is narrative roleplaying game that combines the heroic cinematic action of John Woo with the style and tone of Film Noir and hardboiled detective stories under a neon pall and to a Synth Jazz soundtrack.

A Player Character in Crescendo of Violence is defined by eight Paths—Cautious, Clever, Dramatic, Empathetic, Fast, Resolute, Sneaky, and Violent. These are rated between one and five and represent different approaches that a Player Character might take to overcoming a problem, interacting with an NPC, or taking down an opponent. He also has an Origin—Natural, Bioroid, Clone, Cyborg, or Gen-G, and a Profession—Criminal, Hacker, Holo-Star, Investigator, Musician, Suit, or Veteran. Humans start out weaker than other Origins, but have a higher Resolve and greater development potential. Bioroids are living machines which cannot improve their Paths, but instead spend Experience Points to purchase extra dice during the game. Clones are bred for one particular Path and when rolling it can reroll ones and roll a minimum number of dice for that Path. Cyborgs start play with cyberware, whilst Gen-G are genetically modified and have the greatest freedom of choice when it comes to assigning numbers to their Paths, but Cybernetics limit their Reserve. Each Profession provides increases to a Player Character’s Paths, assigns a Cred Rating, provides a choice of two Talents from a short list and a Special Ability, as well as setting three questions particular to the Profession. Lastly, the player selects a third Talent.

The process of character creation in Crescendo of Violence is not difficult or particularly lengthy. It does involve answering more than a few questions. There are the three for each of the Professions, but a player is encouraged to ask questions about his character’s background, look, how he makes his money, who he has hurt, how he feels about crime, what he feels wrong about Neo York, and so on. These of course require a fair bit of knowledge of the setting for Neo York. Some motivation comes from whatever reason the Player Character is on the ‘Out’ and has him to the fringes of society. Three options are suggested for each Profession. However, despite the Player Characters being hardboiled archetypes, Crescendo of Violence does feel as if it could do with some suggestions as to what choose if a player wants to play a particular character type. Perhaps a set of ready-to-play archetypes would have helped, not only in suggesting ideas to the players, but being ready-to-play, giving the Game Master a set of Player Characters for one-shots or convention play. At the very least, they would have served as examples of character generation, of which there is none in Crescendo of Violence.

The Talents in particular enforce the various genres blended in Crescendo of Violence. For example, Gun-Fu provides options such as Rapid Reload, Guns Akimbo (wielding two guns), Quick Draw, and Bullet Time (spend Momentum to gain extra actions), one of which can be selected each time the Gun-Fu Talent is purchased. Blind Luck allows one reroll per session per rank; Maverick forces the player to spend Reserve when he wants his character to do an action that an NPC has already told him is foolish or risky, but the Player Character starts each session with extra Reserve; and with Martial Artist, the player can select either Brutal Fury (for extra damage), Lightening Speed (gain an extra action after dropping a foe with an unarmed attack), or Flurry of Blows (attack an NPC again at a penalty and a successful first attack).

Nathan Spring
Origin: Cyborg
Profession: Musician
Cred Rating: 3d10
Special Ability: Access
Cautious 2 Clever 2 Dramatic 3 Empathetic 2 Fast 2 Resolute 2 Sneaky 2 Violent 2
Talents: Contacts, Focus, Smooth Talker
Cybernetics: Net-Box, Personal Fireaura, WETgloves, Repeltech Instrument (Rank 2)

Mechanically, Crescendo of Violence is primarily a dice pool system and will require ten ten-sided dice. In addition, though, each player requires two sets of tokens. The first set consists of a Green, a Yellow, and a Red token. These are Action tokens. The second set consists of five Momentum tokens. The core mechanic is the Test and is simple and straightforward. When a player wants his character to undertake an action, he selects the Path he wants the character to use, reflecting the approach that the character wants to take to the task. For example, if a Player Character wants to sympathise with an NPC in order to get her to open up, the appropriate Path would be Empathetic. This determines the base number of dice the player rolls, whilst any bonuses can add more dice and penalties reduce dice. The player rolls the dice against a difficulty set by the Game Master. This difficulty scale runs from one—‘Impossible to Fail’—to ten—‘Very Difficult, requires a lot of luck or a lot of skill’. If any of the dice results is equal to or greater than the difficulty, then the Player Character.

Failure can be just that, or the Game Master is free to offer a partial success. Combat consists of opposed rolls, one combatant rolling to attack, the other to avoid or to see which two of the combatants successfully attacks. Damage is then rolled and if any of the results are higher than the defendant’s Resolute Path, the defendant suffers Harm. Harm can be the loss of Momentum, the loss of the defendant’s Green or Yellow Action Token, or the defendant being knocked out of the action for the scene. Notably, a Player Character cannot die, surviving all of the heroic bloodshed until Act Three in the story when death indeed could be on the line. One action a Player Character cannot do is take cover and attack. In Crescendo of Violence, a Player Character taking cover is doing so to avoid damage. The aim here is push the Player Character to act and be heroic and be prepared to deal out the heroic violence as well as take it. Combat is designed to be fast and the outcome quick, the rules handled in under three pages, there are rules for initiative, and much is designed to be handled narratively rather than mechanically.

One obvious and immediate issue with Crescendo of Violence is Player Character competence. In a lot of cases, a Player Character is going to start play with ratings of two in his Paths, especially if a Natural Human. Talents, Cyberware, and equipment can increase the number of dice in a pool, but a player does have access to a number of resources that can put his character at an advantage and disadvantage. Fortunately, more of the former than the latter. The first are the Action Tokens. When the Green Action Token is spent, the player adds two dice to the roll, no dice when the Yellow Action Token is used, and deducts two dice when the Red Action Token is spent. A player always has an action Token to spend, representing his character’s good luck, no luck, and bad luck. However, in order to get the Green Action Token back, the player must use both of the other Action Tokens, so his character’s luck fluctuates back and forth over the course of play.

In general, Action Tokens have to be played, which will lead to fluctuating fortunes. When played, the player is expected to narrate how the Action Token gives his character the advantage if the Green Action Token or disadvantage if the Red Action Token. This can be down to luck, or it can be down to good planning—whether that of the Player Character or the NPC. However, NPCs do not have Action Tokens of their own and the Game Master only rolls for them in opposed tests, meaning that they serve as opposition narratively and mechanically throughout a story. Alternatively, the important NPCs and particularly villains, the Game Master can create them like a Player Character.

A Player Character has up to five Momentum. It is earned whenever a ten is rolled on the dice or can be purchased using Reserve. Momentum is spent on ‘Keep It Up’ to gain another action, to ‘Seize the Spotlight’ from an NPC, ‘No You Don’t’ to block the Game Master spending Momentum, to ‘Catch a Break’ and gain an Action Token back, and to use various Talents. The Game Master has her own Momentum, equal initially to the number of Player Characters and gains more whenever a player spends Momentum. In general, Momentum is intended to fuel the cinematic, gun-fu style of play at the heart of Crescendo of Violence.

A Player Character also has Reserves, again five. These have a value between one and ten, the number generated randomly by a roll of five ten-sided dice at the beginning of a session. They can be spent as a ‘Sure Gamble’ to use a Reserve’s value as a test result, ‘Second Wind’ to gain an Action Token back, ‘gain Momentum’ to gain extra Momentum, and ‘Take Cover’ to better resist damage. One problem with Reserves is that what they can do depends on their value. For example, ‘Second Wind’ gains an Action Token back, but only a Green Action Token if the value of the Reserve is nine or ten and a Yellow Action Token if the Reserve value is between five and eight. This is a bit complex for what is intended to be fast moving, action orientated game, and ideally, this should have been included on the Character Sheet for the players’ easy reference.

For example, Nathan Spring has been alerted to the two bioroids running towards Michael Iannelli. His player tells the Game Master that he wants Nathan to draw his gun and shoot both of them. The Game Master agrees, but tells the player that each bioroid will have a roll to evade, but at a penalty because they are not aware of Nathan. She also asks what Path Nathan will be using. His player suggests Fast as being the most appropriate and the Game Master agrees. In game, Nathan pulls his RemCorp Model 9 from its holster, takes aim, and fires. The RemCorp Model 9 has the Quick Draw modification, giving a bonus die on the first attack and Enhanced Targeting Array, a WETnet modification which Nathan can link to his AR glasses, to add another die. These are added to his Fast Path of two and Nathan’s player also elects to use his Green Action Token to give him six dice to roll. The bioroid are basic combat models, so as NPCs have a combat rating of four dice. This is reduced to three because they are unaware of Nathan.

Nathan’s player rolls one, four, five, six, seven, and eight. The Game Master rolls one, two, and three for the first bioroid. Nathan’s first shot hits and Nathan’s player rolls for damage, which is four dice for the pistol. The Game Master rolls four dice for the bioroid’s physical rating. Nathan’s player rolls three, five, five, and eight, but the Game Master only rolls two, three, five, and seven, which means that the bioroid takes Harm. Since Nathan is firing stun rounds, the Game Master rules that the first bioroid is down for the combat. For the second bioroid, the Game master rolls five, seven, eight, and ten, enough for the bioroid to realise that it is being attacked and evades the attack.

However, Nathan’s player decides to keep the initiative, spends a point of Momentum, and takes another action. For this attack, he has three dice to roll—two from his Fast Path and one from the Enhanced Targeting Array, whereas the second bioroid, aware that it is being attacked has its standard four dice for its combat rating. Nathan’s player chooses to play the Yellow Action Token, leaving the Red Action Token to take effect for Nathan’s next action. Nathan rolls three, six, and eight, but the Game Master rolls three, three, eight, and nine, which again is enough for the bioroid to avoid the attack. Nathan’s player looks at the situation and knows that Nathan has no immediate means to stop the bioroid, especially since he will have to use the Red Action Token on the next action. Nathan does have one other resource or rather Reserve. Rolled at the start of the session, Nathan’s Reserve includes a ten. So, Nathan’s player swaps it with the three he rolled for the attack on the second bioroid and ensures that it does not avoid his shot. There is still the matter of damage to be rolled and when all this is over, explaining it to Michael, his girlfriend, and the Neo York Police Department. That Red Action Token is going to cause Nathan trouble…

A story or scenario in Crescendo of Violence is played out in a three-act structure, plus intro and outro. It is meant to be played like a film. In the intro, the Game Master asks the players questions about their characters, such as what they have been doing since the last scenario, who their key associates are, and how they start the scenario. Each player generates his character’s Reserves and the Game Master can spend Heat that might have accrued from a previous story. Heat represents the Player Characters coming to the attention of a crime family, the Neo York Police Department or city hall, a union boss, or a megacorp. It is spent to make the life of one Player Character difficult, such as damaging his Cred Rating, throwing red tape in his way, all the way up to sending a trio of torpedoes his way to rub him out… During the story, the Player Characters can take Downtime actions, actions away from the action, but just two per session. It might be to Connect to an NPC, Earn some money, Make a Friend, Relax, engage in a Vice, or even Shop. All have their benefits, but there are limits as to when they can be done. In terms of the three-act structure, almost all of them can be conducted in the intro and the outro, the Earn Downtime action can only be done in Act I and Act II, and no Downtime actions can be conducted in Act III. This is because, obviously, the Player Characters are going to be busy confronting the villain in the big finale as doors get kicked down, bullets fly, punches are thrown, and the bodies hit the floor.

There is no scenario in Crescendo of Violence. However, there is a sample session which the Game Master can work up into a scenario. This follows the discussion of the three-act structure for the Game Master, who is also given good advice on her role and how to run the game. This includes how to run a safe game, since Crescendo of Violence obviously involves violence and adult themes.

Physically, Crescendo of Violence is breezily presented in swathes of brilliant pinks, blues, and purples. It is decently written, but it is lacking in places. The most obvious being the absence of an index or even a glossary, both of which would have been very useful. A proper scenario would have been good too, although there is one outlined in the book. Similarly sample archetypes would have been useful as well, and although the rules are not complex, they are not as well explained as they could be in places.

Crescendo of Violence transplants both the Jazz Age and the hardboiled, Film Noir genre to the future dystopia of Neo York, 2093, with its cool look, smouldering attitude, down and dirty heroes and heroines, and swinging tunes (but not, it should be noted, its social attitudes). It feels like it should have its own soundtrack. Crescendo of Violence: A Neon-Noir Roleplaying Game calls for players to really lean into its hard boiled, cool cat genre and storytelling—and if they do, the play is really going to be sharp and snappy.