Warning: This game contains violence, swearing and lots of criminality.
Dog Town is a realistic role playing game set in a New York city ghetto in the mid to late 1970's, inspired by films like "Donnie Brasco," "Goodfellas," "Shaft," and "Carlito's Way." It's about attitude and swaggering machismo, about being a "bad ass" like gangsters portrayed on the big screen. There are no heroes trying to save the world from evil forces, just at best anti-heroes trying to profit from it. There is no magic or special powers to save the character, and no supernatural creatures to need saving from. In Dog Town it is the people that are the animals and your own dark destructive motives you have to be careful of. Life is often short and brutal, starting and ending in the gutter. That's just the way it is.
It contains 9 detailed and colored neighborhood maps, 10 flexible criminal types from lowly runners to feared enforcers and enough talents, flaws, vices and influence ratings to make any character interesting. The engine powering the game is Cold Blooded Games' own Split System and covers in detail car chases, break ins, investigations, and over 20 illegal rackets from gun running to pimping. Combat is covered in the gore-packed Thug life and Shootouts chapters featuring four styles of unarmed combat, hitting first, using broken bottles, and all out homicidal attacks. Lastly the Director's Chair provides the Games Master with the tools and hooks to create an appalling vivid gangster masterpiece. This game can be played as a traditional 3 to 5 player game, but is ideally suited to a 1 to 2 player set up.
Warning: This book contains violence swearing and lots of criminality.
A 97-page supplement for Dog Town, this book features over 40 crimes and their inner workings, their profits and their dangers. From hijacking and home invasion to arson and sports betting, how real gangsters committed the crime and avoided the time. Includes also a catalog of tools every criminal needs when on the make and take, from skeleton keys to police scanners, as well as the criminal tips to stay well clear of bars and bullets.
In Sounds of the Street there is a comprehensive lexicon of street slang and criminal terms from the 1970s. Narcotics is a chapter devoted to drug dealing detailing distribution methods, markets, sales techniques, effects, doses, weights and prices. Criminal Gangs is a rundown of some of the more prominent criminal organizations to be found in Dog Town. Lastly the year 1977 is explored, "Saturday Night Fever," the Son of Sam killings, Reggie Jackson in the World Series, the large scale riots that raged through New York after the city wide blackout of July 13th.
Although a supplement for the Dog Town crime game, this book is a useful resource for any modern crime game.
Thomas Ormenti is missing. To bad ! you say, except that he is the son of powerful Gurino Family Capo "Florida" Phil Ormenti and it is your crew that gets a call to help find him. The rewards for locating him could be substantial, the consequences of failure or refusal potentially fatal. Whatever the outcome dealing with the Mafia and its politics is never easy.
The Missing Mafioso is an adventure ideally suited to a small crew of punk or gangster criminals from the Central and Westside neighborhoods of Pennington, St. Lukes, Winter Hill, Jefferson Heights and East Water. Though with a little work it could be adapted for play by criminals situated in other neighborhoods.
