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Hard City: Noir Roleplaying
A roleplaying game of mystery and hardboiled action in a city that never sleeps.
I woke with a start, my mouth tasting like an old glove and my head pounding from the events of the previous evening, though I wasn't sure if it was the beating from Benny's boys or the half bottle of drugstore whiskey that had done the most damage. I lifted my eyelids like stubborn blinds to find my gaze fall on a dame with a hundred-dollar purse in one hand and a cheap bean-shooter in the other. I groaned and cursed myself for ever getting involved in this mess…
In Hard City, character creation is swift and simple, generating competent yet flawed individuals and focusing on what sets them apart as they walk the fine line between right and wrong. Fast action resolution places the emphasis on the momentum of the plot, while the sandbox setting provides evocative hooks for adventures – fight crooks, rescue the innocent, thwart blackmail plots (or start them!), or uncover corruption in the Mayor's office.
Stalk the mean streets of a world filled with two-bit thugs, hard-nosed gumshoes, intrepid reporters, gangsters, and femme fatales, all doing what they must to survive in the concrete jungle. With trouble around every corner, a secret on every lip, and a gun in every pocket, danger is never far away in the hard city.
I woke with a start, my mouth tasting like an old glove and my head pounding from the events of the previous evening, though I wasn't sure if it was the beating from Benny's boys or the half bottle of drugstore whiskey that had done the most damage. I lifted my eyelids like stubborn blinds to find my gaze fall on a dame with a hundred-dollar purse in one hand and a cheap bean-shooter in the other. I groaned and cursed myself for ever getting involved in this mess…
In Hard City, character creation is swift and simple, generating competent yet flawed individuals and focusing on what sets them apart as they walk the fine line between right and wrong. Fast action resolution places the emphasis on the momentum of the plot, while the sandbox setting provides evocative hooks for adventures – fight crooks, rescue the innocent, thwart blackmail plots (or start them!), or uncover corruption in the Mayor's office.
Stalk the mean streets of a world filled with two-bit thugs, hard-nosed gumshoes, intrepid reporters, gangsters, and femme fatales, all doing what they must to survive in the concrete jungle. With trouble around every corner, a secret on every lip, and a gun in every pocket, danger is never far away in the hard city.
160 pages, Hardcover
Published December 27, 2022
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April 27, 2023How? (a) I found it at the library and (b) it's part of Osprey's RPG line, which I am interested in -- at least as a cultural moment. Osprey -- a publisher I associate most with exhaustive investigations into what some army unit wore at some specific time, like what the WWII Vichy security troops wore (actual book: World War II Vichy French Security Troops) -- has branched out into RPGs in the last few years, which I just find _interesting_. As near as I can tell, they started with straight, historical wargames; then got into fantastical and alternative wargames (including "Dracula's America"); and now are just publishing RPG material.
What? It's a generic, '40s noir game, with a very light, narrative-first system. Which again, feels weird coming from Osprey. The system is basically: describe things with tags; if a tag pertains to a task, add a d6 to your Action Pool if it's a positive tag, or add a d6 to the Danger Pool, if it's a negative tag; roll all the dice, with Danger dice canceling out matching Action dice; and see if you get a success, partial success, failure, or botch.
There's good examples throughout, but that's basically the whole system, with no lists of equipment stats -- a tool either adds action dice or doesn't. The rest of this 155p book is some character options, some GM advice, a generic city, two very short adventures, and a list of enemies.
Yeah, so? First: I'm glad my library had this, and I have no idea who else will take it out. (I recently spoke to a guy who said he was getting into Starfinder, and when I told him I took the core book out of the library, he seemed a little surprised to hear that the library had it.)
Second, I really like this book's light system and narrative focus -- and it's clear description of how it is attempting to emulate a certain cinematic noir. So, in a fight scene, people who want to beg for their lives or make appeals go first. (Slight caveat to emulation: the book intro notes that a lot of noir work exhibit retrograde politics, and implores people to have fun and not replicate the racism, sexism, etc.)
Third, ... I hate to be a basic nerd, but what's the appeal of a straight historical AND generic noir setting? Like, if you're going to give me The City, I sort of want it to also have vampires that you need to root out with a coalition of cops and bootleggers; and if you're going to give me a straight historical city, make it LA in the '40s -- or better yet, give advice about how I can investigate the '40s of whatever city I'm in. I imagine some of the editorial decision here was simple: give me a straight historical noir, but since I want to sell to a global English-speaking marketplace (since Osprey is a British company), make a generic city so that the Brits don't complain about America-centric settings and vice versa. (Honestly, outside of US/UK, not sure how big Osprey's marketing department looks.)
What? It's a generic, '40s noir game, with a very light, narrative-first system. Which again, feels weird coming from Osprey. The system is basically: describe things with tags; if a tag pertains to a task, add a d6 to your Action Pool if it's a positive tag, or add a d6 to the Danger Pool, if it's a negative tag; roll all the dice, with Danger dice canceling out matching Action dice; and see if you get a success, partial success, failure, or botch.
There's good examples throughout, but that's basically the whole system, with no lists of equipment stats -- a tool either adds action dice or doesn't. The rest of this 155p book is some character options, some GM advice, a generic city, two very short adventures, and a list of enemies.
Yeah, so? First: I'm glad my library had this, and I have no idea who else will take it out. (I recently spoke to a guy who said he was getting into Starfinder, and when I told him I took the core book out of the library, he seemed a little surprised to hear that the library had it.)
Second, I really like this book's light system and narrative focus -- and it's clear description of how it is attempting to emulate a certain cinematic noir. So, in a fight scene, people who want to beg for their lives or make appeals go first. (Slight caveat to emulation: the book intro notes that a lot of noir work exhibit retrograde politics, and implores people to have fun and not replicate the racism, sexism, etc.)
Third, ... I hate to be a basic nerd, but what's the appeal of a straight historical AND generic noir setting? Like, if you're going to give me The City, I sort of want it to also have vampires that you need to root out with a coalition of cops and bootleggers; and if you're going to give me a straight historical city, make it LA in the '40s -- or better yet, give advice about how I can investigate the '40s of whatever city I'm in. I imagine some of the editorial decision here was simple: give me a straight historical noir, but since I want to sell to a global English-speaking marketplace (since Osprey is a British company), make a generic city so that the Brits don't complain about America-centric settings and vice versa. (Honestly, outside of US/UK, not sure how big Osprey's marketing department looks.)
Displaying 1 of 1 review