I always liked Gangbusters

[pineappleleader]

I always liked Gangbusters and am very happy to find this discussion board. I have always thought it was a "hidden" classic. Very clean and mostly simple rules. Very fun to play.

I only played twice. One was a "Trouble Brewing" game that was interrupted and never restarted. The other was a pick-up "Bladerunner" game. It worked well for that, but pistols were useless for hunting androids - the tommy gun, BAR and shotgun were much better. The androids had high Ability Scores and moved at twice human speeds. That was about the only changes to the rules, the rest was role playing.

Sadly those were the only times I ever played the game. It was hard to find players. Everyone wanted to play AD&D or Top Secret.

I have always had two questions about the rules:

1. Why is Presence 1 to 10 instead of 1 to 100? That always bothered me, as it was the odd man out (so to speak).

2. I could never get the Expert Car Rules to work right. It was hard to keep track of Acceleration/Braking. The cars seemed to crash too easily and the distance between turns requirement could never be met at high speeds. I always "missed" the corner and crashed.

Were the Expert Car Rules play-tested? What is the "secret" to using them?

In closing: A very fine game. Thank You for creating it. I wish that it had gotten the recognition and support it deserved.

[rick krebs]

Thank you. Always glad to read favorable comments. And, noone wishes that Gangbusters had gotten more recognition and support than I.

Sorry, but Expert Car rules were the creation of TSR development. We always used a much simpler set of car chase rules which worked well for our playtest bunch. Let me say that when I referee a game, if someone has a problem with my adjudication of a "real life situation" there is a very brief discussion of realistic outcomes based on the roll of the dice and skill modifiers (I guess similar to Dave Arneson's saving throws based on players justification for being saved ?)

Same with Presence, we used modified percentage dice rolls. I imagine it was an effort to reconcile later game development with earlier rules where it was called Influence and various contacts were part of the game.

My focus for Bloody 20s was simple rules, quick & dirty, use skills and abilities to modify dice rolls to determine outcomes moderated by a crafty & creative Game Master (Judge).

Sorry you didn't get to finish it, but "Trouble Brewing" is an excellent module that provides a lot of the missing pieces for playing Gangbusters. I would have loved playing it with Tom Moldvay as the Judge.

I, also, would like to encourage you to run another series of games using Trouble Brewing, and modifying the rules that don't work or make sense to you and your group. Help make Gangbusters a less "hidden classic".

[graymouser]

Apr 2, 2010 11:59:49 GMT -6 pineappleleader said:

I only played twice. One was a "Trouble Brewing" game that was interrupted and never restarted. The other was a pick-up "Bladerunner" game. It worked well for that, but pistols were useless for hunting androids - the tommy gun, BAR and shotgun were much better. The androids had high Ability Scores and moved at twice human speeds. That was about the only changes to the rules, the rest was role playing.

I enjoyed Gang Busters the few times I played it as well. I have to say your "Blade Runner" game sounds very cool. I presume it was set in the 1920's-30's, too? Mind giving a little more background info on the game (i.e., how did the androids get there, was it set in the future or the game time period, etc.?)?

Thanks!

[pineappleleader]

Apr 20, 2010 20:19:22 GMT -6 graymouser said:

I enjoyed Gang Busters the few times I played it as well. I have to say your "Blade Runner" game sounds very cool. I presume it was set in the 1920's-30's, too? Mind giving a little more background info on the game (i.e., how did the androids get there, was it set in the future or the game time period, etc.?)?

Thanks!

It was a quick and dirty game that was kind of spun off the Harrison Ford movie. We didn't really bother with a background: The weather sucks and it's always raining. You are Android Hunters. There are five Androids known to be in the area. These are there files (hand players a character sheet on each android). Go "retire" them.

It was a "One Off", not a campaign. Nobody asked what year it was or why or how the androids were there. It was "We hunt androids".

The Androids ability scores were all above 80 and they walked at 10 feet/turn and ran at 30 feet/turn. They started with no weapons.

The hunters were created normally, as generic characters, and started off with handguns, but soon switched to Tommy Guns, BAR and Shotgun.

Not really enough there to make it a campaign. It was a fun way to blow off steam - once.

[castiglione]

That's interesting using Gangbusters to run a Bladerunner'esque game, especially given how the look and feel of the movie was drawn from '50's noir (not that '50's noir has any connection that I know of to the 20's and 30's but for some reason, I always connect the two in my mind, perhaps because they're both genres set in a post-war setting). What inspired you to use the Gangbusters rules-set as opposed to something else?

[pineappleleader]

Apr 23, 2010 22:04:19 GMT -6 castiglione said:

That's interesting using Gangbusters to run a Bladerunner'esque game, especially given how the look and feel of the movie was drawn from '50's noir (not that '50's noir has any connection that I know of to the 20's and 30's but for some reason, I always connect the two in my mind, perhaps because they're both genres set in a post-war setting). What inspired you to use the Gangbusters rules-set as opposed to something else?

The only rules sets available to us, at the time, were 1e AD&D, Classic Top Secret, 5e T&T or 1e Gangbusters Box Set.

Gangbusters had by far the best rules for automatic weapons and it was the only game that had the right type of city environment to play in. It also had that "hard-boiled detective" feel that Bladerunner, the film had. And everyone was tired of AD&D and dungeons and wanted to blow off some steam.

**I know Bladerunner was officially a "Sci-Fi Film". But it had that 1920's to 1950's hard-boiled detective ambiance, especially the international release that had the "voice-overs".

The only out of character part of the film was "that stupid unicorn scene" (which Ridley Scott later said was the "key" to understanding the film). I still dislike that scene and think it is the one scene that keeps Bladerunner from being a superb film. With that scene in it, the film is merely a "good" film.

The Director's Cut removes the "voice-overs" and makes that scene longer. It ruined the film, in my opinion. Another case of the creator not knowing the true value of what he had created. **

[rick krebs]

Apr 24, 2010 1:13:06 GMT -6 pineappleleader said:

Another case of the creator not knowing the true value of what he had created. **

Never do

[malchya]

I admit to being a bit of an ultra techno uber geek... I've done my own set of tables for weapons in GB. I've a table of Frontier era firearms, a table of '20s and 30's firearms and a table of (what was in 1995) modern firearms. As a firearms enthusiast and sometime collector I couldn't resist adding to the tables in the game.

[sammarlow]

malchya, would you mind posting your weapons tables?