B/X Gangbusters

 Oh, here is a fun one. This one has a lot of heart to it. Read this intro:

This is the spirit of B/X. I love something and I want to make my own game. I am going to put the work in, despite the world working against me I am going to make this dream happen.

The "I can" is larger than the "I can't."

He even had to stop and wait. He went to conventions. He got feedback. And he has a game in print and for sale. And it happens to be a genre I love too. Hats off, amazing effort, and this to me goes beyond the simple dream of having a game, and using B/X to make a dream happen.

B/X? I Know This!

One of the beautiful things about a B/X rules set is you know how 90% of the game works before you open the book. There are probably one or two things unique to the implementation, but they are nothing that will take you months to read and figure out.

Yeah, I know, says the guy who is halfway through Rolemaster Classic and starting on Zweihander.

But B/X? I can take my gangster and have him fight a basilisk from another B/X game if I want. The AC works. The rules work. The damages are on the same scale. Things for the most part work together with very minimal effort. Needs some evil fish-people to walk out of the surf to attack a town in a moment inspired by Lovecraft? I am sure I got something in a B/X book around here that will work.

Campaign Choices

The game gives you the options of criminals, detectives, law enforcement, reporters, or strange mysteries as campaign types. It is suggested everyone play the same type of character at first, and not to have some characters play gangsters while others play beat cops. While we did that a lot in the original Gangbusters back in the day, it is easier for a group to have everyone working together and on the same team.

After a while our Gangbusters games became death-matches that rivaled Car Wars games in violence and complexity. Cops versus robbers with TNT, tommy-guns, and double-barreled gunfights leaving city blocks shattered and war zones behind them as the ultimate battle between good and evil manifested in a biblical Apocalypse of crime versus law and order.

Yeah, we were strange kids.

Class Choices

There are four classes in the B/X Gangbusters game: brutish, educated, connected, and street smart. Brutish are your tough guy "fighters" while educated are your specialist "egg heads" with skills like safecracking and accounting. We have "connected" that covers people who know people, and this seemed like a slightly odd class to me, since I feel this is more of a RP thing than a class thing. Finally "street smarts" are the rogues and thieves.

The hit dice are a little strange, I could see an educated having a d4 hit die and the street smarts having a d6. Yes, that breaks B/X and gives a thief a d6 hit points per level. I can see the argument against it, since you want "smarts" winning out over "combat," but for someone used to life on the streets I think a tougher cut is needed. Educated? Nah, they should fold like a house of cards.

Levels are limited to level 6, which is nice and caps the power level of the game and balances combat.

The choice of classes for Brutish and Street Smarts feel right, and I like Educated. I would have liked some more special powers from educated in those areas that level up, like a locksmith knowledge that levels up into safe cracking, key making and reproduction, and vault cracking. Similarly, accounting could start there, then graduate into cooking the books, check fraud, and other financial skills. Forgery could have a range of level-ups from documents to counterfeiting. Give me something to look forward to!

Connected seems like an odd choice for a class, but in a modern game I suppose having someone who knows someone is a huge advantage. They have some level-up bonuses and they can pull favors, which is cool. I would like some more level-up options here as well, instead of just giving a bonus, the levels mean you work your way up the influence ladder. At high levels, you are getting favors from the mayor and governor instead of the local ward alderman.

This system feels better than having dedicated "lawman", "reporter", and "criminal" classes, since the conflicts are between people who are essentially cut from the same cloth - just on different sides of the law.

Action!

Once you have a character, the rest of the book has specific rules for the campaign types, how to recruit a gang, run a business, be a lawman, handle an investigation, run combat, handle NPCs, and run adventures. We even have a section of B/X style "monsters" for the various NPCs in the world, and bonus points for including a certain type of close-minded and bigoted "hooded foe" in this list that can be used as the game's slow-witted orcs. Very brave choice and thank you for this bit of historical accuracy that would be endless fun to have them show up to be attacked and abused in so many ways. This is why we have TNT.

No One Can Hit a Sharp Dressed Man

There is an odd rule with the quality of clothes giving a higher AC. This felt a little artificial to me, almost like a cinematic rule where better and more expensive clothes give better AC? To be more B/X I feel just give normal clothes AC 9 and be done with it. Maybe AC 8 for heavy clothes and 7 for leather jackets - but that is pushing it and breaking the Noir narrative because this isn't the 1950's with biker gangs. Otherwise fine clothing, even a party dress, is going to be the game's plate mail. I get what they are going for, a more cinematic feel where a mafia don can walk through a hail of bullets unscathed, but it feels like it breaks B/X just a little.

If that is the case, then just give each level a +1 AC bonus and leave clothing as AC 9. Same cinematic effect, and it makes low level thugs more cannon fodder. Otherwise everyone is going to be wearing a suit and tails with a top hat, putting on the Ritz and blasting all the crooks.

This is B/X, and I can houserule. I get this feeling in more mainstream games if you houserule you somehow fall outside the mainstream. I paid a lot of money for this mainstream game! Please let's all play by the same rules! In B/X, the entire core of the game is built upon a houseruled framework and you can do anything you want - and it is encouraged since the changes we make introduce new rules and ideas (DNA) into the B/X system, and this sharing makes the game better and stronger in future iterations.

What Do I Want More Of?

I would like a few more weapons, with maybe pictures, such as bolt-action rifle, lever-action, and the like. I want pictures of the cars and vehicles, and maybe classify these on types for easier understanding, like a 2-door convertible sports coupe.

I want more of a description of that world and the eras and what may or may not be available in the 20's 30's and further on  till 1950 rolls around. Like when direct dialing started, police call boxes, one-way "calling all cars" vehicle radios versus two-way where the cars could call back, and when various laws and powers were available - like the crossing state lines thing to avoid being arrested and when that ended. Also the powers of the Prohibition Bureau and the Feds changed during this time dramatically, and those would be fun to cover.

Also some more flavor on transportation, when flights were common and how far they went, train and ship liner travel, and a table of typical travel times of major routes - like how long did it take to get from New York to London? London to Paris? San Francisco to Hong Kong? LA to New York? How much (roughly) did it cost? What were the options for passenger versus luxury travel?

What was nightlife like? Dining out? Clubs? What cities were hotspots and what was going on? How did the Great Depression affect things? What sorts of films, music, and entertainment were popular? Perhaps a simple timeline would be nice, but I know you can get that on the Internet and you risk bloating the game with too-much. But I could see this game going to a nicely-illustrated 120-page experience with more art and a lot to sink your teeth into easily. I love the era and the genre.

Oh, and add a bullwhip in the weapons lists and tell me when those certain "bad guys" start showing up. We need an endgame to this era, even though it is slightly out of scope. Perhaps not for investigation games where rival teams working for foreign powers start competing for the strange artifacts and phenomena the players find.

20's and 30's = Fantasy Genre

There is a part of me that feels the 1920s and 30s is moving into a realm where it can be considered a fantasy genre. We are so far removed from that world, it is so alien to us, and the culture and mannerisms are more of a mystery than something known by everyone. We get our information about this time from a few movies and some TV series long lost to the past.

So we have cars that rarely break 50 mph? No cell phones? The first car radios only go one way? Very little air travel? No jets? No Internet? You had to use an operator to make a phone call? There was no direct dial long distance? Police had call boxes? Criminals could flee over state, county, or international borders to avoid being arrested? The powers of the federal government in law enforcement were severely limited, and some agents were only allowed to carry guns for self defense? All radio programs were either live or someone playing a record, again, live and in a studio? No television? The newspaper is where you got the news? You could buy tommy-guns over the counter at hardware stores? Primitive fax machines existed? The telegraph was still a thing? You had to wait 6 months to get a divorce? Dinner clubs had nightly big bands that showed up to play live music?

You are kidding right? Who came up with this stuff?

Overall? B/X Gangster Time Fun

Overall I am happy with this one. There are some cinematic rules, but those are nothing that can't be easily houseruled. This is a cool sort of B/X game that creates an experience (and also has a nice list of source material) that is a labor of love to attempt to recreate that "gangster era" experience I loved. Very nicely done, and I would love to see this game continue on and expand.

B/X is cool.

It lets dreams come to life.