Crime game set in 1970's new york ...Opinions

[Solly Brown]

A lack of respect can be fatal and it usually is with me. I tell dem one time; no no that ain't true, sometimes I don't even fucking tell em nuthin. But anyways dey should fucking well know not to cross dat line wid me, period, ya know what I'm saying yer.
Take dis jerk off that tried to beat me out of my spot at the Six, what da fuck was he thinking putting dose muscleheads onta me. Didn't he see inta my cold blues, and know, and know dat he'd better whack me out there and then, if he wanted to live long enough, ta spend any of dat cool cash he was making.
Dragged outside and roughed up in front of all dose people, but no sweat I've had plenty of beatings in my lifetime; its when they mess up a real nice suit dat I get pissed.
I even let it go a couple of nights, and dat' s good for me let me tell ya. But on the Saturday Mr. Chico, coke dealer got his.
I waited in a job car that sported a set of boosted plates, a couple of cars down, from his I will have to say top draw Maserati Ghibli. Slouched low like a juvenile on a G.T.A., I checked the .32 Browning I had brought along for the hit. Loaded and racked, I screwed in the lathe made silencer, that I got from a key maker at "Tools OF The Trade", and watched the 3 am crowd pour outta the club.
Flash fucker walked to the car counting bills, eyes on the green and not on the street. As he was getting in I was getting out, fast walk, drivers side window, smile on my face no fucking clue on his. Phut, phut, phut, broken glass and a blood sprayed interior. I admire my handiwork, and put another two to be sures in the back of the head. Then away, all casual like I was just out walking the dog.
Drive away slow, dump the gun in the Davidson River for a clean profession hit. No one knew I did it, but if ya know what I mean everybody kinda did. And dat should make dealing wid the next hard on, a walk in the park.

Dog Town aims to be a funky, edgy and authentic crime rpg set in the seedy and violent underbelly 1970's New York(Disco, Afos, muscle cars, cocaine, ghettos, graffiti and the .44 calibre killer). It attempts to be the bastard child of Grand Theft Auto and role playing taking inspiration from cinema, with cool films such as Donnie Brasco, Good fellas, Super Fly, Taxi Driver andCarlito'sWay as it's influences. Crime biographies like "Pimp" and "Murder Machine" also weigh in heavily having been researched for the detailed mechanics of crime.

The player or players of the game assume the role of recently released career criminals (Punks, Gangsters or Anti Heroes) who have 90 days to steal, deal and rip off $100,000 dollars to buy in on a boat rental business that an ex-con buddy of theirs is running in the Florida Keys.

The game is non linear and largely player driven with the player having to use his contacts and initiative to make scores avoid getting busted by the Five O and whacked out by the competition or even ya own criminal associates.

It can also be played as a traditional plot driven adventure or as a resource management game where time is spent organizing rackets such loan sharking, drug dealing, labor union extortion, card games and prostitution.  

The book uses it's own system called the Split System which is basically a ratio worked out on a 1d20 with the median being 10vs.10.So for instance a batting violence of 9 matched against a protection of 7 would get a 8 vs. 12 split on the 1d20. The player using the violence would need to rollover 8 or over to to get a hit, because the difference in abilities of 2 has altered the split to that degee. It gets more complicated than that but thats the gist.    

It's a 400+page book and I aim to have it out by November as a POD and PDF.

Do you think there will be much interest I a game like this.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Welcome, Solly!

One thing no one is going to be able to tell you is how much interest there is or how well the game will do financially. We've got a lot of information to help you make canny publishing decisions, but that's best in the Publishing forum.

But here's the good news - I betcha I'm not the only fan of King Suckerman (the novel by George Pelecanos) around. And yeah, I think you're combining a genre and a general approach to game design that will work nicely together.

I strongly recommend running a search here at the Forge for Criminal Element and reading all the threads that come up about it. It contains many insights for anyone who's interested in role-playing "perps as protagonists."

Your Split System sounds extremely similar to the Hero System, except that it uses a d20 (flat line) instead of 3d6 (bell-curved line) - and that, to me, indicates that you might face a high Whiff Factor during play. Which is to say, missing a lot.

If you're interested in seeing my take on the single most powerful and effective expression of this sort of resolution system, then I recommend Pocket Universe, which is available through RPGNow.

Best,
Ron

[Solly Brown]

Thanks for the imput on the system I never thought the basic premise behind it would be original as it is such a simple idea. I haven't played hero though so I didn't know if I was duplicating anything.

I have beefed it out and taken it out in different directions (or so I hope)but that is not my prime intention with the game.    

I personally don't like systems where you either fail or succeed all the time. I use a resticted scale so that for the most part there will only be up to a ten variance in abilities between Protagonists. This creates with a deadly combat system hopefully a knife edge mode of play.