"First thoughts on The Department" Topic

I have in my possession, after much anticipation, the Kickstarter backers' pdf of The Department.

I can't speak as to the gameplay yet, but the background material is impressive. Presented as a fragmented series of historical articles and documents from across several yet-to-pass decades, it makes the process of learning the setting more like researching a news story than reading a straight narrative. It is not just testament to the effort put in by the developers, but also their intelligence. It showcases a clearly good grasp of the workings of history, and pitches to present anxieties in society. Maybe the themes aren't revolutionary in their originality, but it's much smarter than the usual excuses to push little soldiers about the table.

Being 'retro-future America' with a throwback to fedoras, I had wondered if this would be more pulp, or the noir they were going for. It is noir. It is not fluffy and light, it is moody and deep.

I congratulate the authors.

Must. See.

Here's hoping the pdf becomes available about ten minutes after it debuts at Salute.

Highly intrigued. Roll on the pdf release!

Many thanks for the review Muerto.

All the backstory is all the work of writer Kieran Mathers and it is quite frankly, my favorite part of the book.

I'm very interested in history, and for The Department I wanted a world that the players investigated and discovered. That theme carries through all the artwork and the fluff. Kieran did a fantastic job taking this idea and creating what feels like a living, breathing future America.

Kieran actually wrote a lot more than was in the final book. We're planning on releasing all the fiction as a separate ebook in PDF and Kindle versions. That will be coming out in May.

And for all those wanting to get your hands on the PDF rules. Those will be released on Saber's Edge and Wargme Downloads on the 21st of April.

-Joe

Hi Joe,

I was wondering if there will be supplements. This is good to know. As well as extra fiction, I hope some of the artwork from the video that didn't get to the book can be included. (And, hopefully you can make posters of some of the art – I request the outside of the diner, for example.)

I do have some uncertainty regarding how to treat suspects that have not been determined to be fabricant or human.

On page 24 of the printer friendly version, we have that Suspects that are KOed" non-lethally "and brought into the station have their humanity determined while they are being booked"

and that

Human "Characters that are KOed by lethal force are considered to be dead for the purposes of interrogation back at the station" but that lethally KOed fabricants can still have their memory scanned at the station.

Now, there is the possibility that you are attacked by a suspect before you know who they are – i.e. the murderer jumping from the crowd in Mission 3 (or just good old police brutality where you decide to take the Internal Affairs consequences). If you use lethal force, can you still haul the corpse to the station to see if it was a fabricant? Or, can you scan a dead body in the field?

Also, if you use the EMP gun, it has different effects on humans and fabricants. Say you, for whatever reason, shot it at someone whose status is unknown, do you then roll to see if they are a fabricant (which in game world would be seeing how they are damaged, I suppose)?

Finally (for now), in the event that you are attacked by a major suspect and they call in their friends (again, Scenario 3, and somewhere else, I think), if they are a fabricant are their friends also fabricants automatically? Or do you scan one by one?

Apologies if these are covered somewhere and I missed them.

And, to people reading this, don't be put off at all because some rube is on TMP picking holes in the rules – these are minor quibbles in an otherwise very complete looking system.

Muerto, what are the scope of the rules? Is it strictly investigating fabricants or are there others (crime gangs/corporatations/etc)? Are there accomodations for multi-player games?

Thanks for the rundown. I just received my PDF for being a kickstarter. I haven't had a chance to read though it but it looks really comprehensive. The art is a bit simpler than I was hoping for, but it definitely looks like a good product.

Also, it's nice that a full color and print-friendly versions as well as a record sheet were included!

Muerto, what are the scope of the rules?

You investigate a 'prime suspect', of which you have a handful to choose. All but one are fabricants, the other being a human anti-fabricant terrorist. Each has their own end scenario, which you work up to by dong generic scenarios common to all.

A GM could expand on the campaign mode fairly easily I think, by making new prime suspects.

There is comment made about doing a multiplayer skirmish, but that's not really developed. The basic tools are there, as there is the option to make your character a fabricant within the campaign setting, but you would need to make some house rules, I think.

Hi Muerto,

Thanks for the comments. To answers your first question, yes we do plan on doing an expansion this year. I want to add some additional terrain (taffic zones) and an alternate campaign where players are dirty cops trying to finish their "retirement fund" before Internal Affairs gets to them!

In regards to your rules questions, suspects are human until proven fabricant. So if you are attacking an unknown suspect, you should roll them as a human until you find out otherwise. This includes the EMP blaster. Skin jobs on fabricants are varied and can include various levels of shielding, so it might not always be obvious that a suspect is a fabricant by seeing how they react to the blasters effects.

For the purpose of IAP, you will still receive the point for attacking a human unprovoked even if the suspect is later shown to be a fabricant. Internal Affairs doesn't trust you gut, and will assume you meant to attack a human.

As for scanning dead suspects, you need to roll for every apprehended and KOed suspect after the mission. The paramedics will quickly see if a suspect is a fabricant and turn them over to the DFM. These KOed fabricants can be scanned at the station for evidence. You can't scan a KO'ed suspect in the field.

And finally, each suspect needs to be scanned individually. If the murder calls his friends in Mission 3, you can scan them, but its probably better to shoot first and ask questions later. You'll find ther are a lot of cases where you won't have time to scan and just have to assume a suspect is human. you can mitigate this with the humanity warrant before the mission.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions as we will be preparing an FAQ in the next few weeks.

-Joe

link

Cheers Joe; those are good, simple solutions to all of my quibbles.

If any more questions arise I'll let you know forthwith.