The wind is blowing through the open windows of your Fiero whipping your hair around as Money for Nothingpounds out of the car’s sound system. It’s a great afternoon in Southern California, when your pager goes off. Cruising down the 5 you clip the beeper off your belt to see “911-99”—kiss, kiss. Cathy. The day is about to go radical. You swing over to catch the next exit to find a payphone. Steve must have found our something about the smugglers.-----
Magnum Vice: Fury Force by Alan Bahr of Gallant Knight Games (website) is a minimalist ruleset for “Totally Awesome ’80s Roleplaying.” Based on the action, adventure, and crime shows of the 1970s and 1980s, you can be like one of your favorite television or movie heroes. I received a copy from the author for review purposes.
Setting
Magnum Vice: Fury Force isn’t focused as much on the place, as the when. This was when pagers (beepers) were everywhere and being cool was king. Styles were across the board, you could dress any way you wanted and fit in somewhere from preppies to rockers to surfers. Your clique was the important one and you only spent time with the others you were pulling detention with.
Because it is based on a time period, you’re gaming adventures can take place anywhere in the world. Shows like the A-Team and MacGyver took us everywhere. Others kept our heroes in one location, usually someplace exotic like Florida or Hawaii, while all the problems came to them.
Mechanics
Alan Bahr has demonstrated in other games his ability to create a role-playing game (RPG) in minimalist fashion. Magnum Vice: Fury Force continues that same successful pattern. Here we have a game that is quick to learn and easy to play. All you need to get started, besides the book, are some six-sided dice and pen and paper.
Characters are based on the archetypical heroes of the period. During creation you can choose a backstory or generate one by rolling two dice. Then select one of the six hero archetypes and three “Totally Rad ’80s Skills.” Again, these can also be determined randomly by using 3 dice. Each character also has an Archetype Power for total awesomeness, starting stamina, and equipment. After that, players choose three traits. All that’s left is choosing your personal tagline and a theme song.
Magnum Vice: Fury Force is narrative driven with rolls being made for Tests. Tests are events the game master (GM) determines can influence the outcome of the adventure. Normally two dice are rolled and if either lands on five or six, you succeed (if you are familiar with Tiny d6 rules, you’ve got this one). There are ways the pool of dice can increase to three or be reduced to one, or to tighten or relax the success range. Of course, any time the GM feels the roleplaying supplies enough for the story, they can determine no test is needed.
Players can earn “Awesome Action Points” they can use to help them during play. These are points earned by using your Totally Rad ‘80s Skills, or saying your tagline at a relevant point in the game. And, let’s not forget your theme song.
Every player, including the GM, chooses a theme song for their character. To help create the proper environment of the shows we remember (some only by rerun, but some of us watched them as they first aired), initiative is done by shuffling the character theme songs on a player and letting it decide whose turn it is. Yes, you can be like your favorite (old-time) movie and be chasing down the bad guy while your song plays.
Book
Magnum Vice: Fury Force is a 44 page collection of, like, radical information for playing. It even has a section covering the use of magic if you want to include it into your game or scenario. There is enough here to get a group started the same night you introduce the game to them.
Artwork introduces the game and each of the archetypes. The collection is fun and fits with the theme of the game. With a quick glance you understand what the characters are about. Overall
If you are looking for fun based on the over-the-top action sequences, Magnum Vice: Fury Forceshould be part of your gaming library.
Creating adventures can be easily done by taking notes while watching a show (TV or movie) from the time period. It is narrative based so you don’t have to work up a lot of mechanics to get the adventure to the table. Of course, most gamers will never follow the script you’ve created, so an outline of major events works great.
The genre is easy to introduce. Just about everyone has seen a summer blockbuster movie based where the action heroes race to save the day. Or, like me grew up knowing Kit, Crockett and Tubbs, Magnum, or Kelly, Kris, and Sabrina would be there to make things right.
If you have a comment, suggestion, or critique please leave a comment here or send an email to guildmastergaming@gmail.com.
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