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The Troubleshooters #1
The Troubleshooters
The Troubleshooters is an action-adventure tabletop roleplaying game set in an exciting and adventurous 1960s in the style of Franco-Belgian comics.
236 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 25, 2021
This is an interesting role-playing system that recreates the adventure stories that frequently appear in Franco-Belgian comics such as the Tintin series. The setting is bright and cheerful, and the system is simple but flexible. This is a good choice for those who would like to try something other than the typical fantasy or sci-fi genre.
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September 15, 2023How? As a fan of Tintin, this RPG based on the Franco-Belgian comics genre has been in and out of my shopping cart for a while; finally I got rid of the temptation by giving in to it.
What? It's not just Tintin -- there's references to other bandes dessinée and even some tv shows of the time like The Saint -- but that's my reference point, so:
Your characters are a group of friends and coworkers, mostly ordinary people with some extraordinary talents; and for one reason or another, you keep getting pulled into action-adventure mysteries (more on that in a moment), facing off against smugglers, spies, criminals, and ultimately an evil conspiracy called The Octopus (much more on that in a moment).
This RPG takes place in a 1960s of fantasy tourism: jets and planes can take you all around the world, but there's no conglomerates and homogenization, so your experience of Berlin will be totally different from your experience of Cairo, etc. (The gazetteer of the world includes topics like "Where you can stay" in the different cities and what tourist things you might do there.) As the book puts it, this is a world of long-distance telephone calls, but not fast food franchises.
(There is a lightly alternate history, post-WWII, where France and Japan have cooperated to land on the moon. The design reason for this is partly to make international relations less exclusively bipolar, though there is a lot of US vs. USSR here too; and also to make it OK to get historical things wrong, either accidentally or for narrative reasons.)
The system is generally "roll d100 and compare to a skill," with some fillips like "for some cases, you can switch the tens and ones rolls, turning an 82 into a 28" and "for some cases, you roll normally, but if your ones roll is below X, then it's an automatic success/failure."
Yeah, so? If you can't tell by the cover, this book is charming, and I think does a pretty good job of emulating the genre. For instance, unless you abuse the system by doing out-of-genre dumb things, your characters mostly don't die, just get knocked out cold. And if you do get captured, you get a bunch of Story Points to help you escape.
There's also some GM advice to keep the action moving: because a lot of these adventures are mysteries, I was thinking about importing the Gumshoe mechanic of "if you're in the right place with the right skill, you get the clue" -- but then I found that advice just spelled out for me in the GM's section. Because as much as a Tintin story might be a mystery, it is one with a propulsive plot. Along those lines, the book gives advice about letting characters "fail forward" with a "yes, but" structure; in the play example, they show how to do this, with a failed roll in a chase scene resulting in catching up with the bad guy, who then takes a hostage.
Also nice and narratively appropriate, each character is defined with some plot hooks to help get them into a story; and if this story latches one of your plot hooks -- say you're defined with a nemesis and the crime here shows all the hallmarks of that nemesis -- then you are one of the spotlight characters. This makes sense in a campaign play where, say, Captain Haddock may be the one with a personal stake in one story and Professor Calculus has a stake in another. The player advice is to help shine a spotlight on that spotlight character to give them more dramatic time. (There's no mechanics for this, it's just advice in the player section, if I recall correctly -- which might be easily fixed with bonuses of Story Points for throwing the plot hook character into the spotlight.)
Those are all some of the nice things about this game, which is really so nicely written and illustrated that it makes me want to play. I might make a slight tweak to character advancement: here, you roll a skill that you tried in the adventure and if you get above the skill, then you can add points to it. But that would result in characters increasing their bad skills and not their high skills; and characters like Haddock and Calculus and even Tintin don't necessarily become more well-rounded with time. I think it's more fun if your master fencing character becomes even more cartoonishly powerful with a sword.
I do have a question about how this game is oriented towards new players, with a lot of "here's how to play an RPG." Is Tintin, etc., really such a big draw that it's bringing in new players in 2020 (when this game was launched)?
The other big hesitation I have around this book -- besides playing in the '60s, which is itself a big question mark for me -- is the role of the global conspiracy, The Octopus. Again, maybe because I'm really locked into the the Tintin of it all, but that doesn't feel like the appropriate angle. Or maybe I'm just sensitive to a global conspiracy angle, especially given the sometimes antisemitic caricature of the global octopus as villain. Even discounting this discomfort, I feel like "global conspiracy/secret society" feels more Bond than Tintin. I might make due with more local secret cabals if I were running the game.
What? It's not just Tintin -- there's references to other bandes dessinée and even some tv shows of the time like The Saint -- but that's my reference point, so:
Your characters are a group of friends and coworkers, mostly ordinary people with some extraordinary talents; and for one reason or another, you keep getting pulled into action-adventure mysteries (more on that in a moment), facing off against smugglers, spies, criminals, and ultimately an evil conspiracy called The Octopus (much more on that in a moment).
This RPG takes place in a 1960s of fantasy tourism: jets and planes can take you all around the world, but there's no conglomerates and homogenization, so your experience of Berlin will be totally different from your experience of Cairo, etc. (The gazetteer of the world includes topics like "Where you can stay" in the different cities and what tourist things you might do there.) As the book puts it, this is a world of long-distance telephone calls, but not fast food franchises.
(There is a lightly alternate history, post-WWII, where France and Japan have cooperated to land on the moon. The design reason for this is partly to make international relations less exclusively bipolar, though there is a lot of US vs. USSR here too; and also to make it OK to get historical things wrong, either accidentally or for narrative reasons.)
The system is generally "roll d100 and compare to a skill," with some fillips like "for some cases, you can switch the tens and ones rolls, turning an 82 into a 28" and "for some cases, you roll normally, but if your ones roll is below X, then it's an automatic success/failure."
Yeah, so? If you can't tell by the cover, this book is charming, and I think does a pretty good job of emulating the genre. For instance, unless you abuse the system by doing out-of-genre dumb things, your characters mostly don't die, just get knocked out cold. And if you do get captured, you get a bunch of Story Points to help you escape.
There's also some GM advice to keep the action moving: because a lot of these adventures are mysteries, I was thinking about importing the Gumshoe mechanic of "if you're in the right place with the right skill, you get the clue" -- but then I found that advice just spelled out for me in the GM's section. Because as much as a Tintin story might be a mystery, it is one with a propulsive plot. Along those lines, the book gives advice about letting characters "fail forward" with a "yes, but" structure; in the play example, they show how to do this, with a failed roll in a chase scene resulting in catching up with the bad guy, who then takes a hostage.
Also nice and narratively appropriate, each character is defined with some plot hooks to help get them into a story; and if this story latches one of your plot hooks -- say you're defined with a nemesis and the crime here shows all the hallmarks of that nemesis -- then you are one of the spotlight characters. This makes sense in a campaign play where, say, Captain Haddock may be the one with a personal stake in one story and Professor Calculus has a stake in another. The player advice is to help shine a spotlight on that spotlight character to give them more dramatic time. (There's no mechanics for this, it's just advice in the player section, if I recall correctly -- which might be easily fixed with bonuses of Story Points for throwing the plot hook character into the spotlight.)
Those are all some of the nice things about this game, which is really so nicely written and illustrated that it makes me want to play. I might make a slight tweak to character advancement: here, you roll a skill that you tried in the adventure and if you get above the skill, then you can add points to it. But that would result in characters increasing their bad skills and not their high skills; and characters like Haddock and Calculus and even Tintin don't necessarily become more well-rounded with time. I think it's more fun if your master fencing character becomes even more cartoonishly powerful with a sword.
I do have a question about how this game is oriented towards new players, with a lot of "here's how to play an RPG." Is Tintin, etc., really such a big draw that it's bringing in new players in 2020 (when this game was launched)?
The other big hesitation I have around this book -- besides playing in the '60s, which is itself a big question mark for me -- is the role of the global conspiracy, The Octopus. Again, maybe because I'm really locked into the the Tintin of it all, but that doesn't feel like the appropriate angle. Or maybe I'm just sensitive to a global conspiracy angle, especially given the sometimes antisemitic caricature of the global octopus as villain. Even discounting this discomfort, I feel like "global conspiracy/secret society" feels more Bond than Tintin. I might make due with more local secret cabals if I were running the game.
December 30, 2022
One of the best laid out, designed, and written system books I've read.
Unfortunately the system and background are complex for the sake of complexity rather than to motivate a playstyle. Moreover, the book codifies the author's moral judgments in player advice and in the system itself.
For folks running the game, I would recommend looking elsewhere for good GM advice beyond the rules themselves
Unfortunately the system and background are complex for the sake of complexity rather than to motivate a playstyle. Moreover, the book codifies the author's moral judgments in player advice and in the system itself.
For folks running the game, I would recommend looking elsewhere for good GM advice beyond the rules themselves
December 30, 2023
Fan vilket spel THE TROUBLESHOOTERS är!
March 9, 2023
I’d wanted to pick up a copy of this for ages. It’s a fun, nostalgic setting for a game - 1960s French bede (comics), like Tintin, and also series one the Saint and Man from UNCLE.
Lovely production design. Clear text, illustrations very much inspired by the source comics - cute stuff. Even the 2CV on the cover is on-brand.
Modern game, with in-game currencies and trade-offs between narrative disadvantages snd story points . e.g. being captured gets you lots of points to help you escape, so players are more incentivised to surrender at times, and they have flaws that get story points for leaning into them. But it also has some quite crunchy mechanics to keep track of, and is similar but slightly different to some other systems so will need careful rereading and explaining to players. I’m still not 100% on the experience system - there seem more steps than it needs, on first look.
Has a lot of material for the GM, including a mini-sourcebook worth in settings, vehicles, etc. Has a strong line on lethality - it’s modelling sources where violence is rarely lethal, and guns get drawn to subdue or capture rather than kill. The PCs have a mandatory code against killing in cold blood. So this isn’t James Bond or Quiller.
I have some ideas for games I might run with this now. May not be a campaign, but definitely going to get this to the table. Its ethos could work for the ITC "adventurer" shows like Man in a Suitcase and The Baron, it could even be a fit for Indiana Jones -definite possibilities.
Lovely production design. Clear text, illustrations very much inspired by the source comics - cute stuff. Even the 2CV on the cover is on-brand.
Modern game, with in-game currencies and trade-offs between narrative disadvantages snd story points . e.g. being captured gets you lots of points to help you escape, so players are more incentivised to surrender at times, and they have flaws that get story points for leaning into them. But it also has some quite crunchy mechanics to keep track of, and is similar but slightly different to some other systems so will need careful rereading and explaining to players. I’m still not 100% on the experience system - there seem more steps than it needs, on first look.
Has a lot of material for the GM, including a mini-sourcebook worth in settings, vehicles, etc. Has a strong line on lethality - it’s modelling sources where violence is rarely lethal, and guns get drawn to subdue or capture rather than kill. The PCs have a mandatory code against killing in cold blood. So this isn’t James Bond or Quiller.
I have some ideas for games I might run with this now. May not be a campaign, but definitely going to get this to the table. Its ethos could work for the ITC "adventurer" shows like Man in a Suitcase and The Baron, it could even be a fit for Indiana Jones -definite possibilities.
May 17, 2025
Tenia moltes ganes de jugar a The Troubleshooters després de llegir-ne algunes recomanacions entusiastes.
He de confessar que, passat l'stendhala de l'apartat gràfic (segurament un dels jocs de rol més bonics que he vist mai), les primeres regles em van marejar una mica. I no entenia per què, ja que en teoria s'usa en algunes escoles i té un sistema dissenyat per a ser jugat molt fàcil. Però em fa la sensació que estava explicat més complicat del que en realitat és. Després de veure'n alguna partida online, resulta que les regles sí que són molt simples (en el bon sentit), però devia ser jo que no tenia el dia quan les vaig llegir.
Un cop superat aquest entrebanc, la veritat és que un joc completíssim, molt ben pensat, amb documentació per parar un tren, equilibrat i àgil, que tinc moltes ganes de portar a taula.
He de confessar que, passat l'stendhala de l'apartat gràfic (segurament un dels jocs de rol més bonics que he vist mai), les primeres regles em van marejar una mica. I no entenia per què, ja que en teoria s'usa en algunes escoles i té un sistema dissenyat per a ser jugat molt fàcil. Però em fa la sensació que estava explicat més complicat del que en realitat és. Després de veure'n alguna partida online, resulta que les regles sí que són molt simples (en el bon sentit), però devia ser jo que no tenia el dia quan les vaig llegir.
Un cop superat aquest entrebanc, la veritat és que un joc completíssim, molt ben pensat, amb documentació per parar un tren, equilibrat i àgil, que tinc moltes ganes de portar a taula.
January 10, 2022
Well, this looks like a great little Indy RPG. Reasonably easy to learn but with depth. I love that the character sheet is a passport too.
Anyway, you enter a madcap 60s almost real world setting but very much in the tone of Tintin and other similar comics and TV shows. In fact if you mix Tintin with The Monkees and throw in The Saint and Mission Impossible (TV series) you about have it. Very recommended.
Anyway, you enter a madcap 60s almost real world setting but very much in the tone of Tintin and other similar comics and TV shows. In fact if you mix Tintin with The Monkees and throw in The Saint and Mission Impossible (TV series) you about have it. Very recommended.
July 15, 2022
It seems like an interesting mechanical upgrade to a Basic Roleplaying core. However I feel it undersells it’s French/Belgian comic core
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews