I found out about Gangbusters B/X version on the DriveThruRPG’s website and a Gangbusters RPG fan group on FaceBook. This genre has intrigued me ever since the original Gangbusters game had been released by TSR back in the 80’s. This new version uses a variant of the Dungeons and Dragons B/X edition so it is a D20 system. An interesting note about the photo above. Since I had purchased the PDF version of this book I planned to print out the cover just like I did with my FrontierSpace entry into the Character Creation Challenge. However my printer ran out of ink while I was printing the cover (It looked like a bad abstract painting). So I placed the book on a tablet for use in the photo.
The rules don’t state any specific method for rolling attribute scores other than rolling 3d6. So I’m going to stick with the basics and roll them in order. This resulted in the following statistics. STR: 14, INT: 10, WIS: 11, DEX: 15, CON: 9, CHA: 13. While the character had a higher DEX, I decided that my character would be in the Connected class with a primary attribute of CHA. The RAW allows me to reduce STR, INT or WIS to increase the primary attribute. I took 4 from STR and 2 from WIS (making them 10 and 9) to add 3 points to CHA.
A Connected Class is someone that has friends and associates in the right places. I selected this class as my character is going to be a private investigator tasked with helping his paying clients get their issues resolved. I wrote down the special skills (Who’s Who-Police, You Owe Me) and rolled the hit points. Yikes, it was a 2. He better be careful while at the 1st level. I wanted my character to be one of the good guys so I selected an alignment of Law Abiding. I’ve also written down the different Savings Throws (Moxie: 16, Quickness: 16, Toughness: 17, Driving: 17, Observation: 16)
I rolled the starting cash of $100 to equip the character. There wasn’t any place on the character sheet to write down the equipment, so I wrote it on the back and I considered the character done. I was now ready to introduce James (Jimmy) Dutton, Private Eye to the 1920’s world of gangsters and lawmen. His grandfather was a police officer and his father was a veteran of the great war. He grew up in Rock Junction and originally wanted to be a police officer, but couldn’t meet the physical requirements. So he trained to be a private investigator. Here is the character sheet.
Afterthoughts:
I wanted to create this character because this is a game that I could see myself playing. I noticed that the character sheet needs some changes. No place for experience points, no place for Type, Equipment, Weapons, etc. The game book also had a few minor mistakes (a box of ammo was listed with 20 bullets in one section, 30 in another) but that’s to be expected from a fan-created love letter to an older game. When I open up most RPG books, I wonder if I could write up homebrew items for the system. I was feeling it here with this game.
Additional Notes:
I found another link from a Tumblr blog that is participating in the Character Creation Challenge and added it to the site. If I am missing any, please email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com.
Coming Up Next:
I dip my toe into Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.