Interview with Random Wizard

This weekend I did an email interview with the Random Wizard blog on my gaming experiences.

GangBusters on other Blogs

GangBusters in lions den

B20s historical background material

It is amazing the access to historical information for GangBusters that is easily available on the Web

Organized crime in ...        Index insert any year from 20's & 30s


St Valentine's Day massacre, Feb. 1929

Kansas City massacre, June 1933

Egans Rats, early 20's St Louis

Johnny Torrio

Al Capone, "Scarface"

The Purple Gang

"Bloody 20th Ward"

"Gangster Sites"

Joe Saltis

John Dillinger

"Dingbat" Oberta

Frank McErlane

Baby Face Nelson

Gangster Molls including Kiss of Death Girl

Machine Gun Jack McGurn

 The Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld. ; Herbert Asbury; New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 1940

The Dry and Lawless Years by John H Lyle; 1960; Prentice Hall, Inc

Barbarians in our Midst by Virgil Peterson

The Long Thirst: Prohibition in America by Thomas McCaffey; 1975; WW Norton & Company

Weapons Combat for B20s Designer's Notes #3A

Just 2 words here: "Bio One". Jim Muscala's "must have" 12 page rules set. That would be my base rules for any realistic gun fights. We used them for the majority of playtesting and also for Boot Hill games.

To me this TSR published rules book is the most under appreciated document that was ever published by TSR.

I certainly hope this document isn't lost to the Hasbro locked game vault. That would be a major loss.

Designer's Notes #3

When there were only a couple gamers around the store (Gamer's Guild), I let folks roll up some new characters using the various charts in the  Original rules . I always liked how "Traveller" provided rules for character generation and backstories. I had even started to do my own rules for D&D character generation and backgrounds, but I was never happy with them. But, it seemed a good approach to introduce players to a new game. It was easy as they were rolling, to provide them some commentary (snarky optional) on their characters and help flesh out their personalities. Nicknames came easy. Tatooes and scars were given backgrounds. Even a rival might be revealed or groundwork layed for future problems.  Before you knew it, there were lots of laughs and enough players to start up a "street adventure". Usually, the focus of these nights were unscripted and involved their first day in (if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere) or first day back in (for those who spent time in prison) Lakefront City.

Designer's Notes #2 A

                                                      Click on images to enlarge.

Designer's Notes #2

Contacts, expanded to Street and/or Political Contacts in later versions of Bloody 20s were a very important part of play in the Bloody 20s.

Contacts were the highest rewards for the players. They were exchangeable, sometimes reusable "get out of jail free" cards, or just about anything a creative player could devise. The only limits were that the Judge was the final authority on how far a player could go in using their Contact. If Luck checks were a form of "saving throw", using a contact was dependent on how well the player justified their desired effort to the Judge and/or their fellow players. Contacts were also transferable between players. Wasn't it Vito Corleone's refusal to provide the use of his political contacts that resulted in his being shot in "The Godfather" ? Or, they could be used to attempt to block another player's use of a contact. There's a guaranteed way to start a series of ingame vendettas.

Why not try and incorporate Street & Political contacts into your GangBusters game ?