Fuck. Gangbusters is still so good. I've reread the rules repeatedly. I've talked about it with my players. I've even started a single player Gangbusters game with one of the guys (who subsequently has only played one session in three weeks, bummer). Gangbusters may be one of the most perfectly formulated roleplaying games ever made—and I'll never get to play it for an extended period.
Why it's perfect
I. The experience system rewards archetypical play. Criminals get awarded for making money. Cops get awarded for making high profile busts. Journalists get awarded for scooping stories. This is the class-based xp on steroids. It actively encourages everyone to take the role that people took historically, as well as in all those gangster films. a) It doesn't prohibit people from playing in any other way they can imagine—but they sure as hell are gonna gravitate to a few very attractive methods of getting what their character needs. b) It essentially molds your thoughts so you are attracted to the kinds of strategies for life that people from the era where. And that's a beautiful thing.
II. It's up-front about being non-cooperative. There aren't that many non-cooperative roleplaying games out there. Gangbusters is one of them. Some people play cops, some people play criminals, and others play folks on the side. You don't have to cooperate if you don't want to. Sure, you could play a corrupt cop that lets your criminal friends get away. But you can also play a straight-arrow detective who gets the other PCs put in jail. It's all up to you, and it doesn't interfere with the game the way, say, a party of evil destructive PCs killing each other might. Because this is part of the very meat of the game.
III. It's ultra simple and yet models everything it needs to. This is a game where one of the core attributes is the ability to drive. It's got skills, it's got attribute tests... and yet it doesn't have acres of rules determining how to grapple another character. On top of that the damn thing is deadly.
IV. It can support a HUGE group of people. The more people an RPG can actively handle, the better. I want all my friends that I've ever known to play with me. I want people I barely even know to play as well. I want the world to live in my fantasy lands.
Why I will never play it for the long haul
I. It requires a large number of people. I play online, via IRC. This means that requiring a ton of people pretty much guarantees that 1-3 of them won't be online for any given session. I can't go round and chastise these folks in person. And playing online has much less of a stigma associated with missing a session.
II. Not everyone plays at the same time. Turns are taken by team. All the cops, each individual reporter, all the criminals, etc. If it's not your turn, you may be waiting upwards of 3 hours for a week's worth of actions to resolve. But you can't stop paying attention or not show up, because it might also impact you! So you not only don't get to do anything, you have to keep reading the slow IRC crawl. In person, watching other people play can be neat. Online, it works out to being boring as fuck.
III. I'm never going to have an ongoing game in person again. This is the long and short of it. I don't know enough people who'd be willing to try or play a pen and paper RPG to run anything in person anymore. Sad days.
Ruminations on fiction, roleplaying, and assorted irritants.
Showing posts with label Gangbusters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gangbusters. Show all posts
Friday, July 18, 2014
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Rules and Otherwise
When running AD&D, I've not been much for elaborating complex rules schemes. I've always felt that rulings, in the past, trump rules. However, having experienced Gangbusters for two weeks, I can now see how rules allow people to get a firm grasp on what they want their characters to do, particularly when dealing with abstract and alien concepts such as running a manor or a bootlegging business. What do these two things have in common? The players have no idea how much they're supposed to be taking in, they have no idea what "reasonable" rates look like, etc. This isn't a slight to them—they simply didn't grow up in a fantasy or Prohibition economy. The stuff is so far out of the realm of their experience that they aren't sure what constitutes good decisions. In times such as this, rules do help.
For example, Gangbusters has concrete rules that describe how much booze can be produced in a still every week, and how much that booze should go for. This is a huge boon to the criminals in my game because they need to know if they're getting a reasonable price when they sell it. Once they've determined that, they can start to make plans far in advance because they know the general status of the booze economy, as determined by the bootlegging rules.
When there are no rules to support things like this, the players have no resources to fall back on to make sure things are generally happening correctly. I know that earlier editions of D&D had more concrete domain management rules than AD&D does (ie, any) and I know that I've been designing domain management rules myself so I can present a packet of information that will allow them to function in the economy. It doesn't matter if they know that a sword is 25 gold pieces if they don't know how many gold pieces nobles regularly have to dispense. They can't decide if a job is paying a decent wage if they can't compare their wage to the jobs other mercenaries do (and the total amount that the hiring party has).
These sorts of numbers, I realize now, are important for players to have a sense of scale. Just as installing a history provides a textural background for players to latch on to, so does installing a functional economic system that they can examine. In the case of Gangbusters, these are mostly integrated with the rules. Which is good!
With that in mind, my work at fleshing out the Arunian economy (and the sub-economies of each nation and race) must continue apace.
For example, Gangbusters has concrete rules that describe how much booze can be produced in a still every week, and how much that booze should go for. This is a huge boon to the criminals in my game because they need to know if they're getting a reasonable price when they sell it. Once they've determined that, they can start to make plans far in advance because they know the general status of the booze economy, as determined by the bootlegging rules.
When there are no rules to support things like this, the players have no resources to fall back on to make sure things are generally happening correctly. I know that earlier editions of D&D had more concrete domain management rules than AD&D does (ie, any) and I know that I've been designing domain management rules myself so I can present a packet of information that will allow them to function in the economy. It doesn't matter if they know that a sword is 25 gold pieces if they don't know how many gold pieces nobles regularly have to dispense. They can't decide if a job is paying a decent wage if they can't compare their wage to the jobs other mercenaries do (and the total amount that the hiring party has).
These sorts of numbers, I realize now, are important for players to have a sense of scale. Just as installing a history provides a textural background for players to latch on to, so does installing a functional economic system that they can examine. In the case of Gangbusters, these are mostly integrated with the rules. Which is good!
With that in mind, my work at fleshing out the Arunian economy (and the sub-economies of each nation and race) must continue apace.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Additional Gangbuster's Careers: Lawyers
Some preliminary notes for adding Lawyers (and perhaps later Politicians who aren't just high level criminals :V) to Gangbusters.
CAREERS IN LAW
Lawyers
Qualifications. In order to practice law, lawyers must have no criminal convictions on their record. In addition, they must have the new skill Law. Judges may rule that characters with an Observation of 50+ may have the Law skill at character creation if they so choose. The Judge should have the character make a Luck check to see if he's been born into a family wealthy enough to pay for his schooling. If he fails this check, he cannot be a lawyer.
To become a lawyer later in the game the PC must have observation 85+ and $1,000 for law school which takes 2 years, during which time the lawyer is still his previous class.
Powers. Lawyers have the following powers:
1. They may delay or speed the acquisition of any warrant based with a successful Law check by a number of days based on their Presence score. (It's a assumed that they get word of the warrant through their channels in the legal community and then use their Presence and Legal Score to oppose its issuance). In order to discover a warrant has been issued, the Judge may make a Luck check modified by the Lawyer's Presence and Level.
2. They may legally practice Law within the state where they received their license.
Options. Independent Practitioner, Public Defender, Firm Work
Salaries. Attorneys fees are generally based on their clientele, which in turn is based on their level. Lower level lawyers will attract considerably less wealthy clients.
Independent Practitioner Salaries:
Start at $2,800 a year and end at $12,000 a year
Level 1 -- $2,800/year and $55/week
Level 2 -- $3,000/year and $58/week
Level 3 -- $3,300/year and $63/week
Level 4 -- $3,800/year and $73/week
Level 5 -- $4,000/year and $77/week
Level 6 -- $4,400/year and $85/week
Level 7 -- $6,000/year and $115/week
Level 8 -- $6,400/year and $124/week
Level 9 -- $7,000/year and $135/week
Level 10 -- $7,500/year and $144/week
Level 11 -- $8,000/year and $153/week
Level 12 -- $9,000/year and $173/week
Level 13 -- $10,000/year and $192/week
Level 14 -- $11,000/year and $212/week
Level 15 -- $12,000/year and $231/week
These salaries are dependent upon the lawyer working for the week. If they choose to do something other than work, they make no money that week. It's important to note that most lawyers will want to rent offices, which cost $30/week on top of their normal rent. These costs completely negate their income ($5 in taxes, $20 in rent, $30 in office rent) unless they supplement their income.
This income assumes that the independent practitioner does not take any criminal cases, but rather deals only with civil suits. Taking criminal cases increases the lawyer's intake by 10%, effectively canceling the effect of taxation (an extra $5/week at level 1, etc.)
Encounters. If the lawyer is open to taking criminal cases, there is a 25% chance per week (or session) that they will be given a special case. These cases are intense and deal with major issues and should be created by the judge. Criminals may feel inclined to pay the lawyer a bonus if he represents them (based on their own level and income). If the lawyer has influence within the political structure, he can sometimes be assigned as a special prosecutor for the state (a 5% chance).
Money paid (IE, the hourly rate) by criminals for special cases must be determined by the Judge and the Lawyer at the time the case is taken. Lawyers may employ PIs or even bribe the police for assistance with big cases.
Experience for lawyers
Succeeding at a special case = 2,000 xp x level of defendant (if successful defense or prosecution, depending who the lawyer represents)
Per dollar earned in reward = 1 xp
Per dollar earned working criminal cases = 1 xp
CAREERS IN LAW
Lawyers
Qualifications. In order to practice law, lawyers must have no criminal convictions on their record. In addition, they must have the new skill Law. Judges may rule that characters with an Observation of 50+ may have the Law skill at character creation if they so choose. The Judge should have the character make a Luck check to see if he's been born into a family wealthy enough to pay for his schooling. If he fails this check, he cannot be a lawyer.
To become a lawyer later in the game the PC must have observation 85+ and $1,000 for law school which takes 2 years, during which time the lawyer is still his previous class.
Powers. Lawyers have the following powers:
1. They may delay or speed the acquisition of any warrant based with a successful Law check by a number of days based on their Presence score. (It's a assumed that they get word of the warrant through their channels in the legal community and then use their Presence and Legal Score to oppose its issuance). In order to discover a warrant has been issued, the Judge may make a Luck check modified by the Lawyer's Presence and Level.
2. They may legally practice Law within the state where they received their license.
Options. Independent Practitioner, Public Defender, Firm Work
Salaries. Attorneys fees are generally based on their clientele, which in turn is based on their level. Lower level lawyers will attract considerably less wealthy clients.
Independent Practitioner Salaries:
Start at $2,800 a year and end at $12,000 a year
Level 1 -- $2,800/year and $55/week
Level 2 -- $3,000/year and $58/week
Level 3 -- $3,300/year and $63/week
Level 4 -- $3,800/year and $73/week
Level 5 -- $4,000/year and $77/week
Level 6 -- $4,400/year and $85/week
Level 7 -- $6,000/year and $115/week
Level 8 -- $6,400/year and $124/week
Level 9 -- $7,000/year and $135/week
Level 10 -- $7,500/year and $144/week
Level 11 -- $8,000/year and $153/week
Level 12 -- $9,000/year and $173/week
Level 13 -- $10,000/year and $192/week
Level 14 -- $11,000/year and $212/week
Level 15 -- $12,000/year and $231/week
These salaries are dependent upon the lawyer working for the week. If they choose to do something other than work, they make no money that week. It's important to note that most lawyers will want to rent offices, which cost $30/week on top of their normal rent. These costs completely negate their income ($5 in taxes, $20 in rent, $30 in office rent) unless they supplement their income.
This income assumes that the independent practitioner does not take any criminal cases, but rather deals only with civil suits. Taking criminal cases increases the lawyer's intake by 10%, effectively canceling the effect of taxation (an extra $5/week at level 1, etc.)
Encounters. If the lawyer is open to taking criminal cases, there is a 25% chance per week (or session) that they will be given a special case. These cases are intense and deal with major issues and should be created by the judge. Criminals may feel inclined to pay the lawyer a bonus if he represents them (based on their own level and income). If the lawyer has influence within the political structure, he can sometimes be assigned as a special prosecutor for the state (a 5% chance).
Money paid (IE, the hourly rate) by criminals for special cases must be determined by the Judge and the Lawyer at the time the case is taken. Lawyers may employ PIs or even bribe the police for assistance with big cases.
Experience for lawyers
Succeeding at a special case = 2,000 xp x level of defendant (if successful defense or prosecution, depending who the lawyer represents)
Per dollar earned in reward = 1 xp
Per dollar earned working criminal cases = 1 xp
Monday, July 1, 2013
An Elaboration of Calvert City
Last week I cut short my blogging schedule for a strange and powerful reason: the IRC group started playing Gangbusters. So instead of talking about gods and goddesses of the 10th Age (never fear, Cults and Temples of the Middle World is coming in its text format) I'm going to talk about the lords and ladies of liquor, the kings and queens of booze, the great masters of Gangland murder and exactly how that has played out.
We've never played Gangbusters before. I had never even REALLY thoroughly read the book before. I have a pdf of the thing, not a hard copy, and the OCR is quite atrocious. We were hanging around in IRC, not doing much, and someone (I believe a fella by the handle m4) commented that we should just create a D&D game for every possible combination of available people. That way, we would never be stuck with our thumbs up our asses when we wanted to play something. I said, "Hell, instead we should just play Gangbusters. It's a perfect system for not everyone being around." And I was right.
Gangbusters is like Birthright (or perhaps its more accurate to say that Birthright is like Gangbusters) in that it takes place at a more tactical level than I'm normally used to playing AD&D. When someone wants to find information in AD&D, I force them to roleplay out the encounter with the various people in the city. When someone wants to make some quick gold, they roleplay that too. Each individual instant of life that we can capture is usually expanded into an opportunity to get lost in the alien world of the fantastic. That's not the way that Gangbusters roles.
Instead, the basic unit of action is a week. Not all the players are on the same team; some people play beat cops, others Prohibition Agents, and still others play reporters or criminals look to make a quick score. At the beginning of each week, everyone says what they want to accomplish that week, and then I decide how to break that up into scenes—and whether or not that causes everyone to interact with each other. For example, if criminals rob a jeweler along the beat of some of the city cops who are PCs, I may check to see if they're around to help put a stop to it.
Why is this perfect for a mass group of people who aren't always online all at once? Well, because a lot of the time, people can say what they want to do for their week and then do it without interference from anyone else. The "teams" are very small: two criminals, for example, or two beat cops. ONE reporter. Two Prohis. This means that when they want to accomplish something, they can often jump ahead of the other players so long as they don't directly interact with them. This is perfect for the sometimes-there sometimes-not IRC group. As long as everyone shows up a few times a week, the game can go on.
Of course, I've been heavily involved in creating the setting for them to play in as well. When I took a poll of what type of city everyone was interested in (you know, East Coast-West Coast-Great Lakes sort of question) Baltimore came up almost unanimously on account of the Wire. I was prepared to make a fake Maryland city until I read that Maryland alone among all the states heavily resisted implementing Prohibition and declared itself "Wet Maryland." So instead I took my city modeled on Baltimore and plopped it down on the New Jersey coastline, north of Atlantic City.
Calvert City is a shadow of Baltimore mixed with some New York and Atlantic City. Because Baltimore has the iconic Domino's Sugar factory, I opened with an iconic factory of my own, this one slightly more industrial: The American Atlantic Copper Refining Company. The ACRC became the core of the city's detail, and I expanded out from there. With the copper company representing the political and economic backbone of Calvert City, it was easier to anticipate how the rest of the place functioned. Thanks to the Wire, I have an understanding of modern(ish) American cities as vast interconnected web of interests all playing off of one another. In fact, this understand has been the basis of my city design since I watched the show even in D&D. I'm thinking of writing another essay on what makes a city a city, since you want flavor which makes each city it's own town.
The game mostly takes place in Calvert City's 6th Ward, Little Italy, because it's easier to confine the creation of a city to a single district.
The Dramatis Personae
Agent John Farkas... a strict Prohi Agent who doesn't believe in the Prohibition per se but believes in the law.
Agent Olive DeWitt... a temperance league woman who believes strongly in the end of alcohol
Eugene "the Flash" Gordon... a heavyset newspaper man who works for the Calvert City Chronicle
Patrick Brennan... a good-hearted irish beat cop down in the 6th Ward
Sid O'Connor... another beat cop, fought in the war and is a crack shot
Seamus Finnegan... a local good ole irish lad looking to get into some trouble
Terry O'Doyle... the same, but only 15
Louie Delvecchio... a short-lived Italian "driver"
So far, here's what's happened...
January, 1920.
Week One
Eugene was told by his editor, Willie Vance, that there was something going down on Lombard Street in Little Italy. How he knew this was not exactly clear.
Meanwhile, John Farkas was dispatched by the Commissioner of the Prohibition in the city to the 6th Ward to investigate the sale of the Redbrick Brewery and Distillery as well as to make a show of force to prove that Prohibition was no joke. He went to go and get help from the Captain of Police there, and was introduced to the local Master Patrolman, Tommy O'Doyle.
Eugene went to go have a drink in Cosimo's Cafe when he saw Officer O'Connor (who had been assigned to the Lombard beat in the area) going to get himself a coffee. Both were given free coffee by a kid named Alfonse. They chatted for a while before a thin weasel-faced man came in with a pair of bodyguards and sat down. His bodyguards left, and Alfonse begged them to "eat faster" but Sid didn't catch the meaning of the plea. With his thugs outside smoking, a huge guy in a fur coat came into the Café, saw the cop, asked "Che cazzo è un poliziotto fa qui?" then drew a handgun and said to the guy in the back, "Figaro dice ciao," and shot him in the face.
Eugene snapped a series of pictures while Sid fired at the assassin, striking his shoulder before he disappeared into the kitchen.
Terry and Seamus hyped themselves up, got the help of a local Italian named Louie. The first week, they watched the routine of a local Orthodox Jewish Jeweler -- particularly how he emptied his safe on Wednesday and carried the money to the Banca Stabile through back allies. They planned to ambush him the following week.
John Farkas inquired about where the booze was gonna be, getting Tommy O'Doyle's opinion as a 40-year-veteran of the police force. He reluctantly said that the coffee and pizza shop Siciliano was probably going to be wet that night. He phone Eugene (who he had heard of through the cops) and got him down to write an article when they busted the joint—which they did, storming it and arresting an old Italian named Manzinni.
Week Two
The robbery of the Jew is undertaken. He laughs at the gunmen at first, warning them "You don't vant to be doing dis!" but eventually gives up his case. Once the three crooks start walking away, he runs out of the alley and calls a cop over, shouting "Call Moishe Edelson!"
The cops (Sid and Pat) pound after the crooks. They split up at the other end of the alley, leaving Louie with the bag of money. He's eventually chased down into a tenement building and throws the case down and turns himself in. When the cops take him in they find the concealed pistol in his pocket. He gets arraigned, and put in jail awaiting his trial. The Public Defender begs him to plead guilty and roll on his friends. He does not.
In the holding cells, a cop calls him over to the bars. "Be a mensch," he says, "and come over here. I have something for ya." When he gets near, the cop claps his hand over his neck and stabs him in the thigh, whispering "This is from Moishe Edelson, cocksucker." Louie bleeds out on the floor of his cell.
Meanwhile, Farkas and Eugene start digging, hunting for names of bosses in the neighborhood. Eugene discovers that Alfonse is an informant for Vance, and starts paying him to give HIM information. Farkas questioned Manzinni in prison, warning him that he would do everything he could to get the names of his bosses out of him. Manzinni affected not to care, saying firstly that he had led a good life, that he was better off now than he had been in Sicily, and that the Prohibition Act had no teeth. He did imply that his old boss, Danny Zambrano, had died a few months back and sold Siciliano to him. Farkas is beginning to put together a pattern with this fellow named "Figaro" and those who work against him.
Sid and Pat walk their beat as normal, but Sid is now the renowned "Hero Cop" who shot an assassin, participated in a raid on Siciliano for liquor, and helped chase down a criminal who stole from a local jeweler.
Eugene's talk with Alfonse in the Calvert City Graveyard (the kid didn't want to talk in Cosimo's, where he works as a waiter) led to him explaining why "Meester Figaro" was so mad at Liuzzi (the guy in the restaurant) and Zambrano: they had both arranged to purchase the Redbrick Brewery out from under Figaro in October of 1919, secretly swooping in to buy it when Figaro wanted it.
Week Three
Farkas spent Week Three digging into the County Records to see who owned what. He discovered that the Redbrick Brewery and Distillery (actually registered as the Rotembackstein Brauerie) was sold by one Friedrich Schultz to an Anthony Avolino Esquire in October of 1919. Furthermore, Siciliano was sold by Daniele Zambrano to Audio Manzinni for a paltry sum around the time of the mobster's death. He requested a warrant from the Commissioner to raid the Rotembackstein Distillery, and was informed that the warrant would come through on Wednesday of the following week.
Seamus broke into the abandoned Distillery that Tuesday to see what he could find. He recovered a letter from A.A.Esq. to Friedrich Schultz as well as three cases of Rotemback Whisky and spirited them back to his house. He then went and sold a case to Big Dan McShane for $73 and a shot of whisky.
At the end of the week, an ACRC copper truck skipped the curb and hit a kid on Lombard street. The driver was fried on booze. Sid and Pat responded, but Tommy O'Doyle and his younger cousin Mickey (a sergeant) arrived and warned them not to touch the truck. Fancy ACRC lawyers soon showed up and spirited the driver off.
We've never played Gangbusters before. I had never even REALLY thoroughly read the book before. I have a pdf of the thing, not a hard copy, and the OCR is quite atrocious. We were hanging around in IRC, not doing much, and someone (I believe a fella by the handle m4) commented that we should just create a D&D game for every possible combination of available people. That way, we would never be stuck with our thumbs up our asses when we wanted to play something. I said, "Hell, instead we should just play Gangbusters. It's a perfect system for not everyone being around." And I was right.
Gangbusters is like Birthright (or perhaps its more accurate to say that Birthright is like Gangbusters) in that it takes place at a more tactical level than I'm normally used to playing AD&D. When someone wants to find information in AD&D, I force them to roleplay out the encounter with the various people in the city. When someone wants to make some quick gold, they roleplay that too. Each individual instant of life that we can capture is usually expanded into an opportunity to get lost in the alien world of the fantastic. That's not the way that Gangbusters roles.
Instead, the basic unit of action is a week. Not all the players are on the same team; some people play beat cops, others Prohibition Agents, and still others play reporters or criminals look to make a quick score. At the beginning of each week, everyone says what they want to accomplish that week, and then I decide how to break that up into scenes—and whether or not that causes everyone to interact with each other. For example, if criminals rob a jeweler along the beat of some of the city cops who are PCs, I may check to see if they're around to help put a stop to it.
Why is this perfect for a mass group of people who aren't always online all at once? Well, because a lot of the time, people can say what they want to do for their week and then do it without interference from anyone else. The "teams" are very small: two criminals, for example, or two beat cops. ONE reporter. Two Prohis. This means that when they want to accomplish something, they can often jump ahead of the other players so long as they don't directly interact with them. This is perfect for the sometimes-there sometimes-not IRC group. As long as everyone shows up a few times a week, the game can go on.
Of course, I've been heavily involved in creating the setting for them to play in as well. When I took a poll of what type of city everyone was interested in (you know, East Coast-West Coast-Great Lakes sort of question) Baltimore came up almost unanimously on account of the Wire. I was prepared to make a fake Maryland city until I read that Maryland alone among all the states heavily resisted implementing Prohibition and declared itself "Wet Maryland." So instead I took my city modeled on Baltimore and plopped it down on the New Jersey coastline, north of Atlantic City.
Calvert City is a shadow of Baltimore mixed with some New York and Atlantic City. Because Baltimore has the iconic Domino's Sugar factory, I opened with an iconic factory of my own, this one slightly more industrial: The American Atlantic Copper Refining Company. The ACRC became the core of the city's detail, and I expanded out from there. With the copper company representing the political and economic backbone of Calvert City, it was easier to anticipate how the rest of the place functioned. Thanks to the Wire, I have an understanding of modern(ish) American cities as vast interconnected web of interests all playing off of one another. In fact, this understand has been the basis of my city design since I watched the show even in D&D. I'm thinking of writing another essay on what makes a city a city, since you want flavor which makes each city it's own town.
The game mostly takes place in Calvert City's 6th Ward, Little Italy, because it's easier to confine the creation of a city to a single district.
The Dramatis Personae
Agent John Farkas... a strict Prohi Agent who doesn't believe in the Prohibition per se but believes in the law.
Agent Olive DeWitt... a temperance league woman who believes strongly in the end of alcohol
Eugene "the Flash" Gordon... a heavyset newspaper man who works for the Calvert City Chronicle
Patrick Brennan... a good-hearted irish beat cop down in the 6th Ward
Sid O'Connor... another beat cop, fought in the war and is a crack shot
Seamus Finnegan... a local good ole irish lad looking to get into some trouble
Terry O'Doyle... the same, but only 15
Louie Delvecchio... a short-lived Italian "driver"
So far, here's what's happened...
January, 1920.
Week One
Eugene was told by his editor, Willie Vance, that there was something going down on Lombard Street in Little Italy. How he knew this was not exactly clear.
Meanwhile, John Farkas was dispatched by the Commissioner of the Prohibition in the city to the 6th Ward to investigate the sale of the Redbrick Brewery and Distillery as well as to make a show of force to prove that Prohibition was no joke. He went to go and get help from the Captain of Police there, and was introduced to the local Master Patrolman, Tommy O'Doyle.
Eugene went to go have a drink in Cosimo's Cafe when he saw Officer O'Connor (who had been assigned to the Lombard beat in the area) going to get himself a coffee. Both were given free coffee by a kid named Alfonse. They chatted for a while before a thin weasel-faced man came in with a pair of bodyguards and sat down. His bodyguards left, and Alfonse begged them to "eat faster" but Sid didn't catch the meaning of the plea. With his thugs outside smoking, a huge guy in a fur coat came into the Café, saw the cop, asked "Che cazzo è un poliziotto fa qui?" then drew a handgun and said to the guy in the back, "Figaro dice ciao," and shot him in the face.
Eugene snapped a series of pictures while Sid fired at the assassin, striking his shoulder before he disappeared into the kitchen.
Terry and Seamus hyped themselves up, got the help of a local Italian named Louie. The first week, they watched the routine of a local Orthodox Jewish Jeweler -- particularly how he emptied his safe on Wednesday and carried the money to the Banca Stabile through back allies. They planned to ambush him the following week.
John Farkas inquired about where the booze was gonna be, getting Tommy O'Doyle's opinion as a 40-year-veteran of the police force. He reluctantly said that the coffee and pizza shop Siciliano was probably going to be wet that night. He phone Eugene (who he had heard of through the cops) and got him down to write an article when they busted the joint—which they did, storming it and arresting an old Italian named Manzinni.
Week Two
The robbery of the Jew is undertaken. He laughs at the gunmen at first, warning them "You don't vant to be doing dis!" but eventually gives up his case. Once the three crooks start walking away, he runs out of the alley and calls a cop over, shouting "Call Moishe Edelson!"
The cops (Sid and Pat) pound after the crooks. They split up at the other end of the alley, leaving Louie with the bag of money. He's eventually chased down into a tenement building and throws the case down and turns himself in. When the cops take him in they find the concealed pistol in his pocket. He gets arraigned, and put in jail awaiting his trial. The Public Defender begs him to plead guilty and roll on his friends. He does not.
In the holding cells, a cop calls him over to the bars. "Be a mensch," he says, "and come over here. I have something for ya." When he gets near, the cop claps his hand over his neck and stabs him in the thigh, whispering "This is from Moishe Edelson, cocksucker." Louie bleeds out on the floor of his cell.
Meanwhile, Farkas and Eugene start digging, hunting for names of bosses in the neighborhood. Eugene discovers that Alfonse is an informant for Vance, and starts paying him to give HIM information. Farkas questioned Manzinni in prison, warning him that he would do everything he could to get the names of his bosses out of him. Manzinni affected not to care, saying firstly that he had led a good life, that he was better off now than he had been in Sicily, and that the Prohibition Act had no teeth. He did imply that his old boss, Danny Zambrano, had died a few months back and sold Siciliano to him. Farkas is beginning to put together a pattern with this fellow named "Figaro" and those who work against him.
Sid and Pat walk their beat as normal, but Sid is now the renowned "Hero Cop" who shot an assassin, participated in a raid on Siciliano for liquor, and helped chase down a criminal who stole from a local jeweler.
Eugene's talk with Alfonse in the Calvert City Graveyard (the kid didn't want to talk in Cosimo's, where he works as a waiter) led to him explaining why "Meester Figaro" was so mad at Liuzzi (the guy in the restaurant) and Zambrano: they had both arranged to purchase the Redbrick Brewery out from under Figaro in October of 1919, secretly swooping in to buy it when Figaro wanted it.
Week Three
Farkas spent Week Three digging into the County Records to see who owned what. He discovered that the Redbrick Brewery and Distillery (actually registered as the Rotembackstein Brauerie) was sold by one Friedrich Schultz to an Anthony Avolino Esquire in October of 1919. Furthermore, Siciliano was sold by Daniele Zambrano to Audio Manzinni for a paltry sum around the time of the mobster's death. He requested a warrant from the Commissioner to raid the Rotembackstein Distillery, and was informed that the warrant would come through on Wednesday of the following week.
Seamus broke into the abandoned Distillery that Tuesday to see what he could find. He recovered a letter from A.A.Esq. to Friedrich Schultz as well as three cases of Rotemback Whisky and spirited them back to his house. He then went and sold a case to Big Dan McShane for $73 and a shot of whisky.
At the end of the week, an ACRC copper truck skipped the curb and hit a kid on Lombard street. The driver was fried on booze. Sid and Pat responded, but Tommy O'Doyle and his younger cousin Mickey (a sergeant) arrived and warned them not to touch the truck. Fancy ACRC lawyers soon showed up and spirited the driver off.
Eugene spent week 3 expanding his contact network.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Where the hell have I been?
My players and I embarked on a grand experiment. Every single person I could lay my hands on is partaking in it.
One word: Gangbusters.
One word: Gangbusters.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Adventurers as Insiders
Last week I wrote about adventurers as outsiders and why they are almost always slotted into that category. Today we're going to talk about ways that you can avoid this and integrate your adventurers so deeply into the society of your setting that they aren't really adventurers (in the classical sense) at all anymore.
The easiest way to begin the process of tying a character into their society is through the use of backstory. I know that I have railed against too-complex backstories hundreds, if not thousands, of times before but in this case the story can serve an integral purpose. Every link created in the character's past is one that can be used to anchor them to a certain social construct. Perhaps we should look at some good examples? Here they are then!
Nobility. The most obvious of the anchoring-points in a backstory, being a member of landed nobility is a perfect way to integrate your character into society. Even second and third sons would generally have some expectations placed on their shoulders (but not too much, enough that they could detach and transform into the classic "outsider" adventurers). If you have a character who is a noble that either stands to inherit a sizable estate or has already inherited it, this will certainly give you inexorable ties to the land, the people, and the social structures of the region.
There's also a huge number of pre-built conflicts that come with being a noble. You have the politics of other houses, the royal politics of your king or overlord, and the dangers to the entire kingdom which you can become involved in.
The easiest way to begin the process of tying a character into their society is through the use of backstory. I know that I have railed against too-complex backstories hundreds, if not thousands, of times before but in this case the story can serve an integral purpose. Every link created in the character's past is one that can be used to anchor them to a certain social construct. Perhaps we should look at some good examples? Here they are then!
Nobility. The most obvious of the anchoring-points in a backstory, being a member of landed nobility is a perfect way to integrate your character into society. Even second and third sons would generally have some expectations placed on their shoulders (but not too much, enough that they could detach and transform into the classic "outsider" adventurers). If you have a character who is a noble that either stands to inherit a sizable estate or has already inherited it, this will certainly give you inexorable ties to the land, the people, and the social structures of the region.
There's also a huge number of pre-built conflicts that come with being a noble. You have the politics of other houses, the royal politics of your king or overlord, and the dangers to the entire kingdom which you can become involved in.
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