These days my roleplaying game (RPG) intake is almost totally electronic (with a few notable exceptions). This week two Kickstarter fulfillments arrived, and both are positively criminal.
Scoundrels of Brixton – SD1: Under a Hard Sun, A Sci-Fi Setting of Crime and Conflict (Jeffrey Jones – Creator, Adam Kovac – Writer, Thatohora – Artist; RPG Ramblings)
Scoundrels of Brixton runs on my favored Cepheus Engine rules. The Scum & Villainy and Firefly setting feel is strong with this one:
WELCOME TO BRIXTON
Brixton is a star system in the far future, overrun with shady governments, corrupt corporations and gangsters who prey on downtrodden inhabitants. Scoundrels of Brixton is a science fiction role-playing game supplement for referees seeking to inject crime and mayhem into their campaigns. An ideal environment for player characters who behave like space-going miscreants.
Using the Cepheus Engine, Scoundrels of Brixton can be inserted into almost any sci-fi setting. Rich in lore, maps, and non-player characters, volume one contains the resources for referees to develop adventures on Sky City, the planet Deluvia, and the other worlds throughout the system. There’s no shortage of action in Brixton, where even scoundrels keep one hand on their gun, and the other on their wallet.
Scoundrels of Brixton, Table of Contents
Scoundrels of Brixton is 44 pages and all setting. There are a few tailored tables to help with character creation but there really are no new “rules” in here—get your copy of Cepheus Engine and GO!
Cosa Nostra – Cortex Prime Spotlights Volume 3 (Joseph Blomquist, Direwolf)
As much as I railed on Cam Banks for being very late on delivery of Cortex Prime, the support after Direwolf took over the product line has been fantastic. I especially am enjoying the Cortex Prime Spotlights series. Spotlights are short settings (38 pages in this case) that show the Cortex Prime rules used in many different ways. This one is The Godfather meets Cortex Prime:
Cosa Nostra focuses on organized crime in the late 1920’s to early 1930’s of Prohibition Era New York City and its environs. These are the bloody years leading up to the Castellammarese War, where legendary figures of crime found their stories and created the modern Mafia.
The player characters (PCs) start out as a small gang of local thugs like Luciano and Lansky did after Lucky left the Five Points Gang. So do some jobs. Make a name for yourselves.
But remember: there’s a code among the made men in the Mafia. If you’re just a bloodthirsty thug, you get targeted and killed the moment you aren’t useful. The Mafia calls itself Cosa Nostra for a reason. In English, it’s Our Thing. Our Own. To be a part of a crew, to be trusted to become a powerful Family, you have to show the honor—the omerta—that other criminals lack. So go out, forge your Family, and we’ll follow your stories next. Capisce?
Cosa Nostra, p. 3
In game terms, Cosa Nostra is described as:
Genres and Tropes (p. 4)
Cosa Nostra presents a romanticized, but historically rooted glimpse of the Mafia in the 1920s and 1930s. Concepts of honor and tradition mingle with sacrifice and hunger for power. This setting explores crime, inter-Family dynamics, and finding the opportunities in tragedy. At every turn, PCs must make life-or-death decisions, choosing one aspect of their life over another.
…
Rules and Variants (p. 5)
Cosa Nostra uses roles (CPGH page 58) with specialties (CPGH page 59) and SFX (CPGH page 61). PCs have signature assets (CPGH page 64) and drives, which are a mod of values (CPGH page 60).
To emulate the balancing act of power and sacrifice, each PC has three types of distinctions (CPGH page 50) representing their neighborhood, their crew, and their connection to the Family. These distinctions take stress (CPGH page 39) and can be shaken (CPGH page 42). There are related resources (CPGH page 56) that can be sacrificed to prevent a PC from being stressed out.
Advancement happens with session records and callbacks (CPGH page 82), in addition to a mod for group advancement called promotion. Opposition is made up of a doom pool (CPGH page 32) and various types of GMCs (CPGH page 114).
Cosa Nostra
I really appreciate the authors motives for writing this Spotlight. I’m not sure all will accept this worldview but I find it interesting:
Despite how dark this Spotlight’s themes can be, Cosa Nostra is about love, primarily my love for my grandfather and the stories he told me when I was young.
My grandfather was second-generation Sicilian, coming of age in the early thirties. He grew up in Brooklyn, working on cars, causing trouble, and raising hell. By his early teens, he was driving and running errands for local suits to make ends meet. Suits, he called them, but my grandmother always corrected him: They were gangsters. And his errands were moving booze from the ports to the speakeasies or chauffeuring the suits around. He was just “the kid” to them, so they kept him out of the worst situations and they kept his pockets full.
The Mafia wars of the Prohibition Era were the core of all my grandfather’s tales, the guys he met, the language they used, the legends and horrors they created. Growing up in my grandfather’s house, these stories filled my dreams. I learned about Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, Al Capone, and my favorite—Lucky Luciano. I got to hear stories about Murder Inc., how Luciano rose to power in the Castellammarese War (though my grandpa called it the Bad Old Times), the Night of the Sicilian Vespers, the rise of the Commission, and the fall of the Luciano family into the Genovese and eventually Gotti regimes. When I was older, we compared what really happened to the plots of the movies we loved: The Godfather series (duh), The Stone Killer, Mobsters, Goodfellas, and my grandfather’s favorite, My Blue Heaven.
With Cosa Nostra, I want to share the history as I’ve learned it both at my grandfather’s knee and in my own studies as an adult. It may be full of monsters, but even the worst, the most terrible criminals, are the stuff of legends we tell to our children and grandchildren.
Cosa Nostra, p. 3
So, it looks like a rewatch of The Godfather or Godfather II is in order. Or maybe My Blue Heaven?
Feature image courtesy mistertoaster12 on DeviantArt
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