Since May of last year I've been dipping my toes into game design, working alongside Jean-Luc Lariviere-Lacombe from The Dungeon's Key. I'm a member of The Dungeon's Key Discord server and Jean-Luc put out a request for play testers for a new game he was developing. I jumped at the chance and it has been one massive learning curve for me and my gaming pals.
Jean-Luc has been developing a Sci-fi Shooter RPG, emulating the ethos and styles of the movies Aliens and Starship Troopers, and pulp comics such as Tank Girl. It's a fast paced, gung-ho, paramilitary shooter where players control penal convicts who have signed on with a corporate military scheme to pay off their sentence quicker than languishing in a prison. The characters fight hordes of xenomorphs, pirates and other scabs whilst completing corporate missions to earn credits and a discount to their sentence. Characters that survive missions can spend creds to upgrade equipment, learn new skills, grow lost limbs, or pay down on their sentence.
Mechanically the game is d6 based. Players have two dice pools to use - the Action Pool (AP) and the Ammo Pool (AM). AP is used to carry out actions such as moving, seeking cover, reloading weapons, using a tool or interacting with a construct or vehicle, etc. AM is used to shoot a weapon. Players have complete agency and use both pools to progress the mission and to defend themselves against attacks. Ultimately the pools become exhausted and the characters' combat effectiveness degrades. Good decision making, resource management and successful dice rolling will win the day. Poor decisions and crap rolls lead to only one result - character death.
It's been a great privilege to work on this project. Jean-Luc and I have chewed the fat over rules, weapon types, ammo types, typefaces, whether CAPs or lowercase should be used, how to determine initiative and distance, and many other niggly observations and rulings. I've play tested the game intensively with my regular gaming group and we have had an absolute blast, literally, blowing stuff up, mowing down enemies in a hail of lead, and biting off various body bits in close quarters, no-holds barred combat. It's dirty, nasty and so much fun.
I have writing credits for one of the supporting missions, and my name on the inside cover as playtest lead. I'm very grateful to Jean-Luc for giving me the opportunity to become involved in TTRPG game design. I'm just at the beginning of my journey, and I can truthfully say that I'm a published author, as I've actually been paid for a writing gig. It's a dream come true.
Dirtbags! went to Kickstarter at the end of January this year and was successfully funded by 235 backers who raised about ten and a half thousand Canadian dollars. I went all in on the physical tier and I got my filthy mitts on the loot by mid May.
I'm so very, very chuffed with it all.
One thing I'm definitely looking forward to is attending at Tabletop Scotland on the first weekend of September this year. I'm signed up to run two sessions of Dirtbags! on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. I'm super hyped about this for a few reasons. The first is that I've not been to a convention since summer 1993, when I attended at Claymore in Edinburgh. The second is that it will be the first time I have ever hosted a game at a convention, and the first public play of Dirtbags! in Scotland.
If Dirtbags! intrigues you, please consider supporting it and introducing it at your own game table. You can purchase the core rule book from the Dungeon's Key website, if you're in the USA or Canada or at Composed Dream Games if you're in the UK or EU.
And if you're attending at Tabletop Scotland in September, don't be afraid to come along and say hello. I'll have copies of the Dirtbags! Quickstart rules to hand out to anyone who is interested.
