S&B Classes, Races, and Professions

I have noticed that I have gotten two of the same questions regarding Sword and Backpack from people new the to the game and that style of game. The first question is;

What about all of the other classes such as the Ranger, Cleric, Warlock, Monk, etc?

In Sword and Backpack, additional classes are not needed for two reasons. The first one being is that all of these additional classes are just specializations of the core classes with different flavor and flare. The difference between a Wizard, Warlock, and Sorcerer is their origin of magic and their backgrounds. Same goes with the Fighter/Cleric/Ranger/Monk and the Rogue/Assassin/etc. This leads me into the second reason which is the different abilities of these classes. Once you start adding in all kinds of class specific abilities you start to lose the soul and the whole point of Sword and Backpack. 

What about all of the different races?

Outside of different numeric bonuses and various abilities races are about flavor, culture, and background. For Sword and Backpack, there is already a heavy stacked bonus right out of the gate so adding anything numerical would push things into the ridiculous range. Adding various abilities would also defeat the purpose of Sword and Backpack for its easy of use and story focus (the power and draw in my opinion is the great player agency and fiction). So, if your campaign wants to include races other then human, it is a fiction and flavor point. There does not need to be any mechanic benefit or detriment to being one of the many fantastical races out there. 

 

This brings me to Professions in Sword and Backpack...

I have always been a fan of giving characters motivation and things to do outside of combat, treasure hunting, dungeon delving, etc. This types of things also give them unique skill sets to solve various problems they come across. An example of this is in one of the games I was in, the character decided that she used to be a midwife and during the course of an adventure delivered some babies, tended to pregnant women, and saved some lives. Some of this led to some interesting story hooks and the party was off on a side adventure. Giving characters a profession gives them more depth and shows what their life was like before becoming an adventurer. 

Mechanically speaking, any use of skills that would fall under this profession that would require a roll would get the class bonus of +5 and the character would have a kit (various tools, a few simple supplies, etc) to help them in their profession. Simple as that. There are a lot of games that have tables of "failed professions" and there are a lot of those lists that can be found online as well. I will point you to a list of Medieval European Professions that should give you some ideas. 

Adding these professions to a Sword and Backpack game also has the bonus of creating some of the classes that are not in the game. You have a player that wants to be a holy warrior with healing skills (a Cleric)? That player should be encouraged to be a Fighter with some type of medical profession related to a Religious order. 

Review: White Lies

I have always been a huge fan of secret agent, espionage, and Noir style movies and books. This includes things like James Bond, The Maltese Falcon, Kingsmen, etc. I have had some great experiences playing these style of games on the table but system wise, everything d20 derived fell short to capture the style. So, when I heard about White Lies I was skeptical but after diving into it and running a few one shots (based on old James Bond stuff) I walked away impressed. I mean, how can you not at least be intrigued by a game that has a tagline of "A Game about doing bad things for good reasons"? Plus you know, the game is called White Lies!


For reference, White Lies is based off of White Box and as a disclaimer, I was provided with a physical copy for review purposes.

Presentation: The book presents in a softcover a5 sized book with a full color cover. When you open the book you are presented with a clean and well organized layout that is either single or double column. There is great use of the bold black and red headers as well. The art is a mix of vector and red and black silhouette styles and it makes me happy. It makes me happy because the entire book feels like a Agent manual for new recruits to a top secret black bag agency. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if it was actually written in such prose. 

Character Creation: Character creation follows usual steps in Whitebox fashion;

1. Determine Attributes (3d6 in Order, Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma)
2. Character Class (Choose between the Confiscator, Eliminator, Infiltrator, Investigator, and Transporter as long as you have 9+ in their prime Attribute requirement)
3. Outfitting (All characters begin play with a semi-automatic pistol with a spare ammo upgrade, an Operative Kit, one other gear kit of your choice, and 3d6x10 dollars to use to buy other equipment)
4. Final Touches (HP 1d6 + Con and Eliminators get +1, Armor Class Ascending/Descending 10/9, XP bonus of 5% if GM is using optional rule for higher prime attributes of 13+, you know English and one bonus language for every point of Intelligence above 10, if you are carrying less then 75 pounds of gear your movement rate is 12 squares, Base Hit Bonus is +0 and not the hit bonus from attributes and weapons.  

Resolution: White Lies uses White Box as its resolution system which is a d20 +/- Modifiers vs. a target number, armor class, etc. The attribute bonuses use the -2/+2 range and each class as a single Saving Throw score that improves with leveling. 

Crunch: Even though White Lies is based on the White Box rules system, it boasts some very thematic and impressive sub systems that are smooth and don't add any unneeded math. 

• Action Checks: Any action outside of the ones the use a d20 (such as social interactions, investigations, interrogations, driving, etc) are resolved on a roll of a d6. A result of 4+ equal a success. This roll can benefit from attribute bonuses and each class has specific "skills" that they get a bonus in. 
• Supplemental Training (optional): This is an option where characters start with a specific training and can gain me as they level up. There is a defined list of twenty five areas of training and when the player wants to make use of their area of training it acts as an Action check that does not benefit from Attribute bonuses and the classes skill bonuses but the player gets to roll 2d6 to see if any of the dice come up a success. 
• Equipment: There is a great list of equipment from your standard firearms and knives to James Bond style gadgets and vehicles. There are also upgrade lists to help make your gear very unique. This section also includes gear kits that provide a set of related gear. There are 18 different gear kits that can includes Scuba, HALO, Disguise, etc. 
• Master Villain: Steps to create the big bad.
• Mission Creation: Steps to create a mission.
• Example setting/agency/adversary organization  
• Advancement:  Advancement works off an experience system. Experience is gained form defeating enemies but the majority of the experience is gained from completing missions and getting paid from such missions. Each $10 earned counts as 1xp. This also includes if the characters break up an arms deal and keep the brief case full of cash....

Final Thoughts: As I stated before, this game really fits the genre well in tone, writing, and system. The system part surprised me because I have been disappointment with other attempts and a spy games using a d20 system. 

Where this game really sings the classes and I think classes is a misnomer because they feel more like archetypes to me. As all of the characters are secret agents but classes show what the agent specializes in. For example, the Confiscator is the cat burglar, the Eliminator is the combat specialist, Infiltrator is that agent with a ton of alternate identities etc, the Investigator is your Dick Tracy/The Shadow type, and the Transporter is your ace driver/hell on wheels. Outside of the flavor and skill bonuses, each class has unique abilities that really make them shine at their specialties and give them a unique feel. When creating a campaign, I would highly encourage the players to each pick a different class. 

Ammo is tracked but types of ammo and calibers are not defined. Players should have reloads for their characters. It is blatantly started that when a character rounds out of ammo, they are out! I actually really like this because it enforces all of the spy action movies where the agent runs out of ammo and has to use their fallen foes weapons/ammo or get creative with improvised weapons. 

In conversations with Bill Logan, he talked about that he had to make certain concessions with the game design (such as two different armor class systems, etc) to make it White Box compatible. I think the White Box system works well but I am really curious on what tweaks Bill wanted to make to the system. I view the secret agents from White Lies as larger the life, highly skilled operatives. When I ran my one shots, I had the agents base AC start at 12 (instead of 10) and gave them bonus HP. The AC makes sense for them being obscenely trained and it is very impractical for agent to wear anything heavier then light armor. 

You can find White Lies here;

• Drivethrurpg 
• DwD Studios 
• Character Sheet 

To get in the mood for White Lies, I would suggest watching the James Bond movies, Kingsmen, The Shadow, Dick Tracey, and reading whatever Noir novels you can get your hands on. 

Detroit Suck City: Episode 7

The crew continues to explore what they assume could have been one of the Star peoples bases in the hopes that they could use it to catch their breath and lick their wounds. As the crew explores the main room they discover that there is a room off to the left with a glass door. Looking through the glass they see a large storage room that has a deep layer of water on the floor. To the opposite of the water filled room there is a closed door and north of that closed door there is a short hallway that ends in a closed metal door. During the exploration of the main room, the crew notices that there are fresh tracks in the dust on the floor that might be from a cart or something along those lines. The rest of the main room is pretty boring, just molded and rotted boxes of papers.

Lladmar decides to open the closed door directly across from the water logged room as Parrot and Jiminy stand guard in the short hallway, Huey holds position by the water logged room, and Auron decides to cover Lladmar. Lladmar opens the door and it appears to be a small storage room with cabinets along the wall. As soon as Lladmar steps across the threshold loud mechanical noises to the left draw Lladmar's attention and a large metallic robot with humanoid legs and arms comes out of the wall and heads towards Lladmar. 

Lladmar reactions by leveling his AK-47 and riddling the robot with bullets as the sound of the gunfire echoes throughout. The bullets cause the robot to take a step back before he resumes is approach to Lladmar. Auron is able to squeeze in the room and take a stab at the robot which misses but distracts to robot for a moment to allow Lladmar to open fire once again. The robot then flails ineffectively against Lladmar as Auron lunges at the robot with all of his might and jams his sword deep into its chest as sparks and liquid fly out before the robot falls backwards taking Aurons sword with it.

No sooner does Auron and Lladmar take a few breaths for relief do they the hear a metallic sliding and the sound of air pressure being released as a door slides open somewhere else...

The strange heavily armored rolling metallic robotoid with multiple arms would have caught the crew off guard if Parrot and Jiminy were not standing guard. As soon as the robot rolls into the hallway Parrot springs into action and tries to jam his shield in the robots wheels but misses judges the angle in his haste and his shield goes bounces across the floor. Auron wrenches his sword from the chest of the humanoid robot and head off to help Parrot and Jiminy. 

The robotiod on wheels spins and connects with Parrot which sends him flying back and then shoots something at Jiminy which misses but creates a small crater in the wall and acrid smoke starts to spill out of the crater. Huey makes his way towards the Robotoid (being dressed in Masters of Clean clothes) and tries to order it to stop but the attempt fails. Lladmar makes sure to disconnect the head from the humanoid robot in the storage room before going to help the rest of the crew. During the chaos of combat, the door starts to close behind the Robotoid on wheels and attempts to leap through the door but bounces off of the door as the door closed faster then Jiminy's reflexes. 

The Robotoid continues to move forward into the main room and crosses paths with a charging Auron. The robotoid spins trying to strike Auron with one of its rods but misses and ends up bending it against the wall. Jiminy takes this opportunity and opens fire as Auron makes a contact with his Stun whip but Auron quickly realizes that the stun whip has no effect. 

The robotoid produces an addition arm that resembles the crews AK-47's and opens fire on the crew as Lladmar steps out of the storage closet and makes contact with his sword as Jiminy empties his last rounds at the Robotoid which then shoots at Lladmar as the Robotiod also makes contact with Auron with its paralysis rod which drops Auron but Auron musters the last amount of his strength as his muscles starts to seize and embeds his sword in the Robotoid. This gives the Lladmar the opening to take a chunk of metal off the Robotoid. Jiminy draws his pistol from his chain link fence armor and fires as Parrot and Huey open fire and rip holes in the Robotiod who then fires another odd projectile which lands on the opposite side of the room which explodes with a flash, bang, and lots of acrid smoke. This explosion knocks the entire crew except for Lladmar out. Lladmar leaps from the table and cuts a huge gash in the Robotiods body from top to wheels as the Robotiod starts moving around erratically. With the exertion, Lladmar finals falls victim to the gas and loses consciousness. 

The crew wakes up sometime later with serious hangovers as they discover the wheeled Robotiod is still twitching. On principal, Lladmar makes a point to turn it into scrap. The crew searches the newly formed scrap pile and are able to recover some grenades and a key cards the has Mu-Tech printed on it. Huey then goes back to the fallen body of the humanoid robot and only finds some containers with liquid attached to it.  

After some discussion, the crew decides to explore the water logged room before going down to the short hallway through the door the wheeled Robotiod came from. To avoid trudging through the water the crew takes the tables from the main room and creates a walkway to the far end of the water logged room to find what is in the cabinet. As they start walking across their makeshift walkway Auron notices the room is covered in a sweet smelling moss and picks some off the wall. Right before the moss touches Auron's tongue he has a change of heart and announces that no one should eat the moss. Jiminy finds an odd looking pistol in the cabinet and Huey discovers the metal box on the other side of the room is electrical controls and tests this theory by turning on and off the power to the building. 

The crew then heads down the short hallway to the sliding door where the Robotiod came from. Jiminy uses the key card and the door opens into another small hallway and at the end of it they can see a hall and some other doors to the left. Lladmar takes point and as soon as they reach the end of the hallway the witness numerous star and burst children levitating in the lotus postition...

The star children float downward to their feet and start heading towards to crew as a few of them emit bright flashes a light which blind Lladmar and Huey but Auron flashes them with the same light back. Jiminy lets forth a stream of obscenities as he yells to the crew to get back into the other room as Jiminy reaches into his bag, pulls a pin from one of his numerous cylinders that have been assumed to be grenades and throws the entire bag as far into the room with the star children as he can before Jiminy leaps through the door where the rest of the crew is waiting and closed the door. No sooner does the door close the crews hears a serious of deafening explosions as the entire building rattles, things fall of shelves, and the crew is showered with dust and light debris from the ceiling. 

After the explosions and the rattling of the building stop the crew waits for a few minutes listening at the door for any sound of movement. Jiminy slides the key card to open the door and from the crews angle, they see blackened holes in the walls, various chucks of flesh, and a red mist hanging in the air. Jiminy then shuts the door with a smile and says, "that could have been a lot worse.". 

As the crew takes a moment to relax and regroup on the safe side of the door they hear a metallic noise and the door slides open revealing another Robotiod.

Just another day in Detroit Suck City...

Background: The Last Ranger

The Last Ranger

You were once a member of five or six man team that fought against the darkness in the universe. You and your team were able to transform into different colored suits and were at your strongest when you worked together. Though the day finally came when tragedy struck and you were the only member that was able to survive and escape the final battle. 

Advanced Skills:

Synchronized Posing (3)
Big Stompy Robot Piloting (3)
Unarmed (2)
Run (1)
Climb (1)
Awareness (1)
Strength (1)

Equipment:

- Convenience Store Bento Box (2d6 Charges)
- Faded Photograph of your Team
-Bracelet/belt buckle/or other small accessory that lets you summon your colorful costume and big    stompy robot
-Armor (light) while transformed
-Melee Weapon while transformed

Special: Big Stompy Robot - You can use your accessory to summon your Big Stompy Robot. When you do this, your former teams theme song plays from nowhere, and your team and their own robots fail to arrive. You can pilot your Big Stompy Robot and deal damage as a large beast. Fighting in your robot deals catastrophic damage to your surroundings, so upstanding costumed heroes use it as a last resort. Your whole teams robots could merge together to do damage as a gargantuan beast, or maybe more, but that's not important anymore.

Note: This Background was made possible by a user on Discord by the name of  ItemMerchant. I merely provided the core idea and ItemMerchant wrote out all of the moving parts.

Review: Vol. 1 Spacejamming Freebooters

When I first discovered Troika! I went looking for live play sessions to get a feel of how the game flows and all of that jazz. The first live plays I came across were Spelljamming Troika! Here is Session 1, Session 2, Session 3, Session 4, and Session 5. The live plays did two things, the first being it made me miss the Spelljammer setting and the second thing it did is make me very curious about the Troika! backgrounds the games used. I reached out to the game master and he told me he created a whole supplement for his Troika! inspired Spelljammer game and was generous enough to provide me with a review copy. 

Presentation:The PDF opens up with a great cover page with full color art, a use with Troika! page, and an explanation page about this supplement and how to use it. Then comes the 36 backgrounds. These backgrounds are presented in a clean two column format with the various skills and equipment as bullet points.

Character Creation, Resolution, and Crunch: All of this follows the same process as in the core Troika book. There is advice that explains the players use the Troika! Astrology Skill for navigation and astrogation. The Troika! Strength skill is used for managing your ships rigging. Spacejamming Freebooters goes on to introduce a new skill called Spacejamming which governs everything else about the ship such as piloting, gunning, using a Spacejamming helm, or anything else that is not familiar to you. 

Final Thoughts: The supplement for Troika! is really well put together and the backgrounds capture the fell of Spacejammer. I am also impressed how the author avoided skill bloat by using already existing skills to cover some of the Spelljammer flare and only introducing a single new skill as a catchall for other ship related skills/technology. Not only does this make me happy, it fits with the theme and system of Troika! I would have liked to see a few pages giving a setting primer so to speak and maybe some interior art.

You can find Vol. 1 Spacejamming Freebooters on itch.io. Other Resourced regarding Spelljammer can be found on drivethrurpg.

I personally would also suggest reading some pirate themed literature like Treasure Island. I would also highly encourage you to watch Treasure Planet. These will help give you some additional flavor and feel for Spelljammer. 

Running S&B

I have talked about Sword and Backpack in depth here. As I mentioned in that post, when I first discovered it I had some difficulty grokking it due to the fact that I have never played a game like that or even been exposed to that type of story focused game. Since my writing of my own Sword and Backpack Hack, I have had a lot of experience running it and been exposed to game designers and other games that have helped me how to run Sword and Backpack more effectively. I also know some of the language may be unclear in the original game and my Breakfast Club hack so I will try to expand on things here. 

Difficulty Rating: Difficulty ratings are discussed as ranging from 1-20 (because of the d20 used). It is important to keep in mind that when an action falls into the class ability the player will get a +5 on the roll. I know from my experience it can be distracting trying to figure out Difficulty Ratings for each monster or task. There are two techniques that can be used (or mixed and matched) to make the experience run a lot more smoothly. 

1. Set the standard difficulty rating at 12. Then, if a task (or monster) is easy then subject three for a new difficulty rating of 9. If the task (or monster) is hard then add three for a new difficulty rating of 15. These numbers work well with the class bonuses and without them.
2. Designate areas of the town/map/rooms of the dungeon/etc with set Difficulty Ratings. Then everything within these areas have the same difficulty rating. This includes monsters and any other tasks that require a roll. 

Monsters: Especially coming from the classic Dungeons and Dragons experience, it is easy (and a go to) to make monsters more difficult by increasing their HP or damage output. This strategy does not work very well with Sword and Backpack. This is because increasing the Wounds can create a combat slag and increasing damage can be very deadly for the player characters. The more effective way to increase difficulty of a monster is to increase its difficulty rating. In my Breakfast Club hack there is listed suggestions for Wounds, etc.

The Wizard's Magic: I would highly suggest (it also makes it more fun and interactive. Plus it helps with immersion) for the wizards to create their own spell books and write their spells with whatever verbal and manual component they want. Then, when the wizard casts a spell the player would make the physical movements and say the magical words to enact the manual movements. Great examples of this can be found here.

Spells that deal damage should be limited to one wound and spells that hinder foes, assist the caster (or their allies), or have multiple targets should last 3-4 rounds/targets. Spells outside of combat should have a duration that makes sense for the fiction. 

Tactical Combat: Due to class bonuses, I would avoid giving out modifiers in actions except for the -3/+3 that I mentioned under Difficulty Rating in this post. During combat, I think it is import to award players for creative and smart decisions. This could be a well laid trap, having the high ground, possessing the monsters weakness or bane, etc. 

Magic Items: Once again, due to the class bonuses it is important to avoid any type of magical items that provide numerical bonuses. Plus, those types of magic items are boring. It is important to keep magic items exciting, mysterious, weird, and wondrous. An example would be a ring that allows the user to turn into a mouse or a cat. A post found at the Trollish Delver blog explains this idea really well. 

Review: Mork Borg

A doom metal album of a game. A spiked flail to the face. Light on rules, heavy everything else.

Disclaimer: A PDF and physical copy was provided to me for review purposes.

I saw this game by chance on an add in a RPG forum and I followed it throughout its entire kickstarter process and beyond. The art and everything it can, does, or should imply were my biggest draw to it. This game is produced by Free League (Fria Ligan) Publishing and I am impressed with their customer service and their general business practices.

Presentation: I received the PDF before I got the physical and as awesome as the PDF is, it does not do the physical copy any justice. The cover of the Mork Borg has black/white/red artwork that is set against a vivid yellow back drop. Not only is this eye catching, but the book itself is pleasing to the touch because it is textured! I have seen some embossed special editions from various publishers with faux leather covers but never a textured cover that is textured back, front, and on the spine. The cover also has a rubber-like texture to it. Then as I explore the interior of the book I get hit with art that looks like it was designed for heavy metal albums and beyond. The interior is a mix between black and white art and art that has the same vibrant yellow as the cover. Some of these yellow pages have white typing set against. This really keeps a strong theme going. I cannot forget to mention that is has a yellow ribbon book mark.

Character Creation: Before I go through the list of character creation, I must include here the first thing a player/GM reads before it gets into character creation.

In this world there are those who seek riches

or redemption. Some say the apocalypse is

escapable, that it may be stopped. And 

there you walk in discord and despair. One hand

holds 2d6 x 10 silver (s), the other holds a 

waterskin and d4 days worth of food. Your soul

and your silver are your own and equally easy to lose.

To begin with, you are what you own:

1. Randomize your starting equipment (There are three tables and you roll a d6, a d12, and a d12). 
2. Randomize your weapon and armor (Roll a d10 for weapons (unless you start with a scroll, then roll a d6. Roll a d4 for armor). 
3. Roll Your abilities (Roll 3d6 for each of the four abilities - Agility, Presence, Strength, and toughness. Mork Borg uses the -3/+3 attribute spread and once you have your scores you ignore the totals and just record the -3/+3 bonuses). 
4. Roll your hit points (Toughness +d8)
5. Name your character if you wish. It will not save you. 

The character creation rules above are for just playing an adventurer. There are optional character creation rules and these are as follows (these alter the steps above):

• Start by choosing or randomizing a class and follow then class instructions on rolling for equipment, weapons, silver, and armor. The classes are the Fanged Deserter, Gutter Born Scum, Esoteric Hermit, Wretched Royalty, Heretical Priest, and the Occult Herbmaster
• Roll a d20 on what the Basilisk has demanded of you
• Record Omens per class (if not using classes, each adventurer gains d2 omens)
• Roll a d20 on Terrible Traits (Optional)
• Roll a d20 on Broken Bodies (Optional)
• Roll a d20 on Broken Minds (Optional)

Resolution: All actions are resolved on a d20 +/- Attribute (and +/- others mods) vs. a Difficulty rating. The Difficulty Ratings are listed as:

6 - Incredibly Simply

8 - Routine

10 - Pretty Simple

12 - Normal

14 - Difficult

16 - Really Hard

18 - Should not be Possible

That is it and honestly, there isn't even a list of additional modifiers.

Crunch: The most rules heavy portion of Mork Borg is character creation and combat. Even spells are described in a sentence or two and there is a random spell mishap table if the casting goes wrong which is full of dark and twisted flavor. Here is the sequence of combat:

1. Roll Initiative (There are two options - Group Initiative is roll a d6 and on a 1-3 enemy goes first then on 4-6 the characters go first. Then individual initiative is Agility +d6).
2. Melee Attacks are resolved on a a successful Difficulty Rating 12 check. Melee uses Strength and ranged uses presence. The rolls are player facing as the GM doesn't roll to attack for the NPC's. For players to avoid being hit they test Agility with a Difficult Rating of 12. 
3. Resolve Damage. If an attack is successful or the character gets hit by an enemy damage is rolled (dice is based on weapon, etc). Armor provides damage reduction in the following tiers; Light -d2, Medium -d4 and +2 DR to all Agility Tests, Heavy +4 DR to all Agility Tests and +2 DR to Defense).
4. If HP reaches 0, there is a d4 broken table to roll on. 

There are also some short and sweet rules for critical hits, fumbles, and advancement or "getting better" (The GM decides when this happens and it has A CHANCE to increase hit points, attributes, and add some bonus loot).

Final Thoughts: Like the opening line suggests, this book is a SPIKED FLAIL TO THE FACE! It really does a lot of things that I like. Two of my favorites being is it does away with ability scores and just focuses on the modifier and it uses a core mechanic to resolve everything and there is no subsystems for skills, social combat, dueling, tracking, etc. I also really enjoy player facing combat rolls as it keeps the players actively engaged and allows the GM to focus on the fiction (which helps strengthen immersion).

Then we have the flavor of the setting. It is as if Sauron won and has been ruling for centuries but somewhere a long the way Sauron screwed up and set events into motion to bring the end of world (the upside to this is there are just more lost places to find riches, more horrors lurking in the dark and on the streets, and everyone is willing to do just about anything to survive or make a silver). The setting then takes that concept and puts it in a blender with death/heavy metal albums, chugs it, and finally chases it with a shot of Gothic horror. Everything in the book reinforces this idea of a doomed world from the classes to the locations and everything in between. As bonus feature the game also features a doom clock that creates calamities in the lands and helps march the world to its end. The doom clock kind of has a biblical feel with its own dark and twisted Psalms related to the 7 seals...

Before I go on, I would like to say that I think the system works really well together. Getting rid of attributes and just using the bonuses coupled with all actions are vs. a DR (or opposed) and having player facing combat makes the system sing. There are no tables to reference (as even armor is just damage reduction) for any action and character creation is the only section that could be considered table heavy - though heavy would be a stretch. All combat DR's are a 12 (abilities and some adversaries have some of these higher or lower) and then the book lists varying degrees of difficulty actions outside of combat. A game master could even streamline all of this more and state the following:

• Advantage/Disadvantage inside of combat has a +3 or -3 to the character attacking or dodging because of things like having the higher ground, flanking, and other wise ideas.
• All DR's outside of combat are set at 11. Things that are easy (either because the GM says so or the player does something clever) becomes a 8 (-3) and actions that are hard become 15 (+3). 
• Instead of rolling for how how much damage reduction comes from armor, make the damage reduction static. 1/2/3 and even maybe 4. All damage does a minimum of 1. 

Now the GM just got rid of any table references on their end and got rid of an addition die roll in combat. So now, the only die rolls in combat are to hit, to dodge if the PC's are attacked, and damage. Plus, it also allows players to have a healthy gauge of their characters abilities and the dangers that are in or can stumble into.

But if we ignore the fact that there is an RPG game within the pages, the book is an epic monument to art and the themes of heavy metal. Mork Borg is just an experience to hold and flip through. It is 100% worth getting on this merit alone.

With that being said, even though I really like the idea of the doom clock as written it really prevents any type of campaign play. If the GM is really unlucky, the world could end in a single session (if there is seven days in a single session). I wish there was a campaign mode or version of the Doom clock included in the book but it is easy to house rule (like using a d100).

The other thing I am bummed about is I wish there was more setting information included, more monsters, more locations, more prominent NPCs, and I would love a point or hexcrawl. I also wish it would have included GM advice on how to re-flavor/convert adventures/stats from other games.

Regardless, I think this is one of the best games and books to come out of the OSR scene (and I feel it really captures the soul of it) in a long time. The whole thing just feels fresh and the book itself is a work of art.

You can purchase Mork Borg at the following:

• Amazon
• Free League Publishing
• Drivethrurpg
• Exalted Funeral 
• There are copies and preorders at other various RPG related retailers 

The game also has a lot of great support. You can head over to https://morkborg.com/ and find additional classes, monsters, character sheets, a rule reference sheet, swag, and much more. They also have a system set up for people to create Mork Borg content and submit it to them as well as distribute it themselves. If the powers at be like your content enough, they will work with you on edits and layouts and even art. Then they will publish it and promote it themselves! I think this is a really great idea and I have never seen company offer this.

Oh and the spine of the book glows in the dark...

Here is a final and interesting fact...

In the 2020 Ennies, this game took Gold in Best Layout and Design.

Took Gold in Best Writing.

Took Gold in Product of the Year and Silver in Best Game.

Background: Samurai Out of Time

Samurai Out of Time

You were once from a feudal land where you enforced your Lords will with an in iron conviction and fought the monsters that lurk in the shadows. In was one of these great battles with unnatural forces where you were thrown into a distant world in a distance. It has been over fifty years since that fateful battle and you have realized two things. The first one being is the battle against the darkness and you need to protect those that can't defend themselves has never ended. The second thing being that time has left you and you do not age.

Advanced Skills:

Katana (3)

Etiquette (3)

Martial Arts (2)

Pistol (2)

Bow (1) 

Equipment:

- Katana

- Pistolet (Three Reloads)

- Ceremonial Demon Armor (heavy)

- Custom Motorcycle

Special: You do not age and are effectively immortal though you can still be killed.

Detroit Suck City: Episode 6

After the crew recovered from the Tor grenade they decide to head down the tracks towards the red light. After sometime the crew head an engine sound followed by the smell of burning fuel on the wind and the crew decides to stop their tank. After some discussion Jiminy, Parrot, and Auron leave the tank armed with AK-47s and stalk their way across the switch yard using cover to to their advantage to investigate the source of noise/burning fuel.

In did not take Jiminy, Auron, and Parrot to long to come across a massive armored train engine that had a gun turret in the front.

The tank engine slows down to switch tracks and Jiminy decides to leap into action. In a few long jumps and some fluttering of swings Jiminy leaps over the tank engine and attempts throw a grenade inside of the tank engine taking it out in one quick move but Jiminy's aim was misjudges and with a metallic clang the grenades bounces harmlessly off of the railing and vanishes somewhere into the switching yard. No sooner does Jiminy land and turn around to face his enemies that are now very aware of his presence does a person in black armor with a strange looking weapon fire a bright light at Jiminy that misses, but melts half a rail car to the right of Jiminy.

About this time Auron and Parrot catch up to the chaos and Auron decides to target the turret gunner with his AK-47 and ends up riddling the gunner with bullets and Parrot follows up the hail of bullets with a vicious mind blast that appears to leave the gunner stunned.

The rest of the crew in the Velotank hears all the commotion and decides to start moving the tank a long the direction of the noise hoping to bring it in line with the tank engine to offer cover with its big 50 caliber. 

About at the same time the back of the engine tank opens up and numerous star children pour out of the back and this causes a few seconds of distraction where Jiminy takes some shrapnel burn from the man in the black armor's weapon and the star child in the turret spins and fires some lasers at Auron that make solid contact with Auron muttering something about burning his fur. Auron is quick to respond by emptying his magazine at the star child in the turret which incidentally causes the star child's head to explode in a cloud of gore and his body flops over the gun.

As this is going on, Parrot takes a final aim at the man in black armor  (before the charging black star children make contact) and opens fire but the man in black armor seems to vanish in the hail of gunfire. The black star children collide with Jiminy, Auron, and Parrot in vicious as the Velotank gets in range and unleashes the full fury of its 50 caliber mounted gun downing the star people on top of the rail tank.

As the crew dispatched the star children they are engaged with, the rail tank fires up its engine and starts to move in an apparent retreat. Huey notices this and tells to Wilhelm to take the 50 cal and then Huey vanishes and appears holding on the edge of the rail tank. As Huey quickly takes in his surrundings he notices that the man in the black armor is driving the tank and there are two other star children in there but one of them has a white star burst on their face instead of the black star. Huey also notices the strange gun (that fired the massive energy bursts that melted metal) and teleports it to his hand but what Huey did not realize is that the gun was connected to a backpack and the connection was broken in the teleportation. The child with the star burst on his face noticed this and turned to where Huey was and shot flames from his hand which burnt Huey's clothes.

Then Auron, Jiminy, and Parrot were able to catch up to the rail tank before it built up to much speed to clime aboard. During the crews boarding maneuver the man in black armor finally turned around and reached for his energy weapon but he released it was broken and decided to swing his stun whip around defensively. This act was in vain as the crew made brutal work of the remaining star children and Parrot found an opening in the chaos, tackling the man in black armor as he wrapped his around the man in black armors throat. The man in black met his end with Parrots hand around his throat and the words "this is for the bridge...".

As their enemies lay vanquished at the crews feet, Jiminy heads over to the controls and figures out how to work them. After sometime and a few rail switches the crew hooks up the Velotank to their new rail tank, assesses and hands out their newly acquired gear, and decides to head in the direction that the star people where trying to escape in. They soon find the track leading away from the rail yard and came across what looked like a purposeful attempt to make the tracks look broken with way barred with camo nets and other materials. The crew moved these to the side and continued along their way making sure to replace the camouflaged dead end. After sometime the crew came across a cement building that looked well kept. 

The entire crew dismounted except Wilhelm who thought it would be wise to stay and man the laser cannon on the rail tank. The crew explored the surrounding area before attempting to gain access to the building. Jiminy was able to figure out how to work the keyboard and the door opened to a long dark hallway. The crew cautiously explored before the came across light shining through a metal rod iron gate with a broken keypad on the crews side and one that was glowing on the other side. There was no apparent movement or sign of enemies so Jiminy reached through the bars to try to access the keypad but touched one of the bars and got a shock. Auron being big figured the shock would not bother him as much and had Jiminy talk him through using they keypad. After a handful of shocks that had Auron looking like a giant fur ball they were able to get the gate open even though Auron almost the arm in the gate snapping open. The crew then cautiously started to explore the building...

Just another day in Detroit Suck City...

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PLAYER THOUGHTS: So, this is the first time I have ever included player thoughts in any of my play reports but I really wanted to share. My character was against engaging this rail tank and was in favor of seeing if it would pass the crew by but a sneak attack plan won out and after the grenade plan failed and I saw the type of weapons we were up against I thought it was going to be a TPK (the crew was outgunned and outnumbered most of the combat). I think we got lucky with the bad guys making some bad rolls and the players getting some really good rules (including the character Huey's use of his powers as he is still learning how to use them). The combat with the rail tank and the star children was very chaotic but fun. It ended in the character Parrot making it personal with the leader the crew encountered on the bridge. There was some really good role playing in that scene and other scenarios in this episode.

Review: Supercalla

Disclaimer: A PDF of this was provided to me for review purposes. 

Supercalla is a supplement for Troika! by Random Order Creations (you can find my review of it here). It provides 37 new backgrounds for Troika! with a baked in and implied setting. It also includes character creation rules and other tweaks to the core mechanics found in Troika!.

What is the setting you ask? It is if Judge Dredd, Mad Max, and Blade Runner had a lovechild and that child was named Supercalla! Each page and the descriptions of the backgrounds are all very evocative and reinforce this implied setting. 

  

Presentation: Supercalla is 50 pages of single column full color art and formatting that really captures the feel of an highway to hell. It also includes a great custom character sheet. It is well organized with a table of contents, character background table, and various other GM friendly tables to help out in various situations. It is written and illustrated by James V. West and his art style is just fantastic and really captures the feel of Supercalla. The setting just drips out of the images and the formatting. 

Character Creation: The character creation in Supercall slightly deviants from the one found in Troika!

1.  Determine Skill Stat: 1d3+3
2. Determine Stamina Stat: 2d6+12
3. Determine Luck: 1d6+6
4. There are certain possessions the characters start with if they are not a robot or droid and there are certain possesses robots and droids start with
5. Roll d66 to determine background

This section also states a rule I really like - the whiff rule! It states that if you roll less then 5 you can sacrifice two levels of advanced skills to bring it up to 5.

 

Resolution and Crunch: My thoughts and breakdown on Troika! and its system can be found in my review if it here.

Final Thoughts: This is really impressive all the way around. All of the art and the backgrounds are full of flavor and reinforce the implied setting - you could even run a post apocalyptic Deadlands style game as well. James V. West style of art really reminds me of Bill Willingham and Vaughn Bode which is a good thing. 

There is so much potential for campaigns, one shots, and just idea mining found in these 50 pages that makes it so impressive. 

With that being said, I wish there was more setting information that was actually written out and more art. 

You can find Supercalla on drivethrurpg in pdf and print on demand.

Always remember that regardless of where your iron horse takes you, follow the rules of the Highway!

Detroit Suck City: Episode 5

As some of the crew laughed nervously at Auron's comment to Huey they were all very cautious as they have no idea what could be lurking ahead. The crew discussed various tactics before moving forward into the the long underpass but in the end Wilhem decided to turn invisible and carry a torch to lead the way (the effectively made Wilhelm a disembodied floating ball of fire...). 

The first underpass and no shortage of heads on spikes (mostly Masters of Clean and mutated animals) they crew was able to get to the other side without incident. As the crew passed under the second overpass three large spiders dropped down form the ceiling with one dropping right into the Velotank! Wilhelm fought one with his torch and burning in multiple times (the eight legged freak was really confused with the floating fire) before it finally succumbed to its burns. As this was going on chaos ensued inside the tank as Lladmar and Jiminy where engaged in melee with a flailing and biting spider - they were trying to beat it into a pulp before they got crushed or became spider food. During the melee in the tank Parrot ended up tackling and wrestling with the third spider that was trying to join the fray inside of the tank and they ended up wrestling under the tank...

After what seemed like a never ending whirlwind of spider legs, the clang of metal, and battle cries the crew emerged victorious. As Lladmar and Jiminy web and guts covered were dragging the body of the spider out of the tank with disconnected legs, Parrot rolled crawled out from underneath the tank spitting out a chunk of spider and dusting the dirt off of his pants. Lladmar, Jiminy, and Parrot all gave each other a look that simultaneously asked, "What the hell happened to you?" and answered, "I don't want to talk about it.". They all jumped as they heard someone approaching but it was just Wilhelm carrying a broken torch that had crispy spider bits attached to it. Upon further inspection of the spiders (or what was left of them) the crew realized that they had white star burst pattern on them which meant someone was probably controlling them or they were trained.

The crew decided they needed to clear these underpasses as soon as possible and upon doing so found some tracks that vanished into the overgrown brush that branched off of the tracks they were currently on. Wilhelm was able to figure out how to switch the tracks over and they hid the Velotank in the underbrush to catch up on some sleep and regroup. They took turns taking watch and on Jiminy's watch he noticed the smell of burning fuel and loud mechanical sounds. The smell and sounds got stronger as the tracks started to vibrate when some loud machine passed the crew's hiding spot and did not notice them. 

In the morning hours as the crew started to stir they noticed bright yellow well kept vehicle (something that looked like a 1971 Ford Mustang) flying erratically around in the sky above them as the four dark figures with horribly disfigured faces appeared to be drinking and singing a long to some really strange noise. The riders did not notice the crew until Jiminy jumped up in the turret of the 50 cal and fired some rounds in the yellow cars direction. The riders then proceeded to sly more erratically as they started to throw smoke bombs in the direction of the 50 cal fire. Luckily for them Jiminy was a horrible shot and they appeared to be enjoying the game of cat and mouse until some stray bullets put holes in the riders shiny yellow car. This really pissed the riders off and they drunkenly threw a Tor grenade at the crew which missed its mark by a wide margin but when it exploded it sonically vaporized everything in a 30 meter diameter. 

This explosion left the crew exposed, knocked Jiminy 20 meters back and buried him under some trees, rocked the Velotank, deafened/stunned the rest of the crew, and the sonic boom of the blast echoed throughout the valley. 

The crew stumbles around dazed and deaf trying to dig Jiminy out of the trees as they regroup under the sky the color of sun dried yellow dog puke.

It is just another day in Detroit Suck City...

*Disclaimer: The players of Auron and Huey were unable to attend this episode.