REVIEW: Dog Town- Free RPG about gangsters
I’m going to start by saying this RPG is FREE! You can download it at Drivethru RPG, 1km1kt or direct from coldblooded games.
If you want the dead tree version it’s on LULU for cost price.
This is a 1970’s Gangsters and streetpunks Roleplaying game, accordingly the language and themes are for a mature audience.
I’ve been sitting on this review for a while as I really wanted to do a play test as well as a review, but alas i’ve haven’t yet had the opportunity. So I can’t hold it in any longer. I’m like an over agitated bottle of cloudy lemonade, ready to burst.
What a game! For £0.00 you get NINE professional quality e-books, including core rules, adventures and locations with maps. The Layout is easy to read with evocative street language that really brings the setting to life.
Character generation has three options. The first is the crunchy generation using an extensive skills set to get your punk “just right”. The second is to choose a character from the “20 punks” book, which has pre-made characters. But to be honest if you are incapable of creating your own character using the original rules set, even with the Excel spread sheet to guide you like lassy, Go for the lighter version of the rules “Dogtown, stripped”.
I think the author has reached his goal of recreating our favourite gangster films of yore (Scarface, Reservoir dogs etc) with an added dash of GTA.
With the influences of this game so obvious, adventures and plots are never-ending!
I think the only thing requiring a little improvement is the book covers or titles. They don’t make it clear what the book is. For example Dogtown stripped, is this 2nd edition revised or simply a rules lite version. Grenson park, The missing mafioso etc could all have a little subtitle on the cover which says “An Adventure module for Dogtown” or some such thing. 🙂
From a new readers point of view it’s a little difficult to understand which books i should be using and which books do what. Otherwise thats my only little gripe!
Having read this game I want to rob a shark, to pay my smack dealer.
Highly recommended!
I promise I will playtest it soon as I can!
Getting ready for my first GM attempt.
Ok, it’s my turn to GM. I’m really intimidated but excited too.
I’ve chosen to do star wars D6 by west end games (1st edition) as it’s a universe i have fond memories of, everyone knows and its a fairly simple rules system. Its also one of the very few books i own.
I’ve used the myriad of resources available at rancor pit. What an excellent Forum. If any of you guys want to get back into starwars D6 head over there! It’s an excellent site.
We have done most of the Character generation over Email. We are raring to go. I have gathered all my plot ideas and possible choices for my custom adventure.
I am going to rely heavily on my improvisation skills. I have no idea what choices my players are going to make! But i’m ready with a list of plot hooks, a couple of possible outcomes, some obstacles to direct them without railroading and a good list of NPCs.
The main idea is to get a good balance between Roleplay and combat. I suppose thats every GMs job. I just need to remember that it’s all about the players having fun, and not running the worst game ever played!
Wish me luck. 🙂
Call of Cthulhu, a newbies POV
Call of Cthulhu it turns out has the ability to freak me out worse than any hollywood gorefest movie. The atmosphere, the strangeness of the characters and places all have the ability to freak me out good and proper!
Why does roleplaying effect me more deeply than movies or books? Is it the fact I am “in” the game, imagining the world through your character’s eyes, using my imagination, does this bypass the normal jaded hardnose filters, thereby reducing me to a state of childish whimpering? I don’t know but this game has totally blown my perspective of what roleplaying is.
In the short game i played last night (of which we are halfway through) nothing truly wierd happened. We saw some wierd-ish things. All of which our characters explained away. But it still scared the knickers off me.
I really enjoyed this game. It was a completely unexpected hit with me. I come from a history of mini wargaming, warhammer 40ooo etc. My personal literature, movie and video game preferences are fantasy, science fiction.
I’ve never been interested in horror.
I am now!
So you thought Cyberpunk was dead?
Cyberpunk 2020 is only ten years and two months away.
Is it still fiction? I think so.
The fact is Kids aren’t super hackers, they can barely read and write. There is no Totalitarian, Dystopian world government. politicians are too inept to rule effectively in the current system never mind toppling democratic process and seizing global power. They can’t even get away with lining their own pockets without being caught.
We have no direct energy weapons, no flying cars and no crazy cool cybernetic enhancements. well not many 🙂
Secondlife -is- Netrunning, The father of cyberpunk, Neuromancer author William Gibson says so. I respectfully disagree.
Artificial intelligence has turned out to be an oxymoron. We may get to a stage of “strong AI” or general intelligence. Artificial consciousness however seems to be an impossible dream.
But the world of cyberpunk and science fiction in general still fascinates me, and many others. Take datafortress as an example. This website was updated on the 31 Oct 2009. My heart leapt for joy when i navigated to this site for the first time in years. It’s full of amazing cyberpunk content and links. I would go as far as to say its THE definitive resource.
Check out datafortress now!
To buy or not to buy?
I like books, i like the way they feel, the way they smell. Generally everything about them. RPG books are expensive. £32 for the new Pathfinder book, its a lot of game time for your money i’m sure, but for me £32 is luxuary purchase. Especially when you consider the quality of the free RPGs you can get at
Today i ordered Pathfinder core rulebook. I can’t wait! But alas we have a postal strike here in Sunny Scotland.
I have loads of free RPG stuff to work through!
Blog of a new RPGer 
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