I
started reading back over the rules for miniature game system by Joseph
Dragovich called, The Department, and its related sister rules set, Ghosts
of Hefei. I didn’t back the Kickstarter
for The Department, although I regret that now, but I did back the
Kickstarter for Ghosts of Hefei after buying a PDF of The Department
from Effigy Miniatures, which is now defunct, but you can still buy a PDF copy from Sabersedge.com. I also got one set of
the 15mm figures for The Department (six in total), but I can only seem
to find four of them right now.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that they will be remade (here is to hoping
that they are remade.) As of now, I have
the PDF of the Ghosts of Hefei rules, but I am still waiting on the
figures (according to the last update, all of the figures have now been cast and now the books and T-shirts are off to the printers to be made).
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| The 15mm figures for 'The Department' |
Both
game systems are set in the same setting, but in different parts of the world
and different objects using the same game mechanics, Goalsystem, which was designed by Scott Pyle. The games are designed to be totally
independent of each other, or to be used together, so one does not need to have
a copy of The Department to play Ghosts of Hefei. The
Goalsystem is a fairly simple system. Basically you roll the number of d6 dice
that you have in a skill, or damage from a weapon, etc., and look for a 4+
which counts for ‘goals’ or successes, with a ‘6’ equaling two ‘goals’. Actually, it might be worth it to make your
own set of dice with 3x0, 2x1, 1x2 on the faces if you were to play a lot
of Goalsystem games
for ease in counting ‘goals'.
The
Department is the most interesting of the two games in my opinion
because its subject matter, primarily, and that it was designed to be a solo
game that can handle up to four players as a cooperative game. The background of the game
is in future USA were Fabricants, or androids, are being used, or acting on their own programs, for legal and illegal activities. The Fabricants don’t have the same equal rights as
humans, much like in the movie, Blade Runner (1982). Matter of fact, the
design of this game is very heavily under the influence of the movie, Blade
Runner. The player(s) are police detectives
for the Dept. of Fabricant Management, sort of a cross between the FBI and the Blade
Runner’s bounty hunters. What is
really nice is that the game can easily be transferred into different time
periods with some minor modifications to do any detective style miniature game.
In The
Department, there are several scenarios and a campaign system. I really like how the scenarios and campaign are set up, besides the fact that they are meant to be played on a 2'x2' area for 15mm figures. First is that you create your primary
characters, the protagonists for your stories. You start off with 100 character
points, but you are limited to 50 points per character. So you will have at least two characters, but
you could have more if you spend fewer points on your characters’
abilities. But I don’t think you want to go over four
characters as it appears that characters with less than 25 points will be extremely weak.
Next,
you start off with a budget to use through the entire campaign. This is not like Warhammer where you
buy all of your goodies at the beginning and have them show up every time in
every game. This is because at the end
of each scenario, most of the stuff goes away and it can’t be used in the next
scenario as part of the campaign! Also,
if any time your budget reaches 0, the campaign ends automatically as a
failure if you have not successful defeated the primary suspect. So, you really have to learn
how to husband your budget and make it last throughout the entire campaign. But no fear, because as the campaign
progresses, you can request more budget resources based on evidence
gathered. This reminds me a lot
of the another classic Sci-Fi movie, THX 1138 (1971), (Also it is George
Lucas’ first movie!) In the movie the police almost have to end their pursue
of Robert Duvall’s and Donald Pleasence’s characters several times, only to
have their budget increased because they committed another crime, allowing them
to continue on trying to catch them. If
you have never seen this movie, rent it.
In
the scenarios, the characters can gather certain types of evidence to build a
case. There are five types of evidence,
Person, Place, Physical, Electronic, and Financial. Some are harder to get than others, with
Person being the most easy to get. Plus
certain scenarios can not be played until the characters have gathered enough
of the right types of evidence first. As you
gather evidence, you can also get certain items to assist your characters in
the next game, maybe with a little loss of your budget too, like Arrest
Warrants.
But
how do you keep players from being gun happy thugs and think every encounter
should end like the final scenes of Bonnie & Clyde (1967)? Now this is the best part of the game in my
opinion, there is a system for Internal Affairs investigations that can
range from a reprimand, to a temporary suspension (i.e., the character can’t be
used in some number of future games), to getting fired and removed from the
campaign. During the course of the game,
if the characters do something undesirable, like shooting at a suspect in crowd
(for every shot!), he gains Internal Affair Points (IAP). At the end of the game, you roll the number
of IAPs earned in the course of the game with the same number of dice looking for ‘goals’, but these ‘goals’ you don’t want. Depending on the number of ‘goals’, it will
determined the punishment of the character.
But you can also gain IAPs for in-between games actions, like
interrogating a prisoner too hard (yes, there are rules for this too!)
Ghosts
of Hefei, as mentioned above, is set in the same setting as The
Department, but it has a different objective. This game takes place in Hefei, China, a
large industrial city that makes fabricants.
In this game, the players are competing against each other in a more
traditional type of game. The players
build a gang of criminals whom job is to steal fabricants through hacking and
other means and build their power on the streets. In this campaign system, your gang can either
win by eliminating all of the other gangs (players), gather enough wealth to go
legit, or gain enough reputation that you can rule city hall.
In Ghosts,
the player must choose one type of gang to be from, but other players can also
pick the same type as a rival faction.
The gangs available are the following:
Iranians, Russians, Tong, and Yakuza.
There is an option to play the police too, but it only suggested if you
have two or more players running gangs for the campaign.
Like The Department, there is a set number of character points
and resource points to build your characters, the rest of the gang, and
outfitting them. But in Ghosts,
you have more character points so you can easy get five or six characters for
your gang, plus some standard thugs. The
author pretty much state that your gang needs at least one character that is a hacker
to take control of fabricants.
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Also
in Ghosts, there are cyber implant rules. As the game system is the same as The
Department, you can easily transfer the cyber implants and hacking rules to
your The Department campaign and play something more in line of the Ghost
in the Shell animated series or even Cowboy Bebop rather than Blade Runner.
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| Some lovely 15mm Sci-Fi civilian vehicles from Darkest Star Games. They also have some great not-Tachikomas for a "Ghost in the Shell" games |
While
I have yet to actually play a game of either game, just from reading the rules,
they are a fairly solid system. I think
the only thing that would improve them would be have vehicle rules as there are
none. One other set of rules I think that are missing for a proper noir type game are for Femme Fatales. With both of those rules, I could even turn the system into a James Bond like campaign!
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| It is not Noir without a sexy Femme Fatale! |
Cheers,
Sapper
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| "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe..." Roy Batty |
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