RPGADay 2023, Day 4

Most Recent Game Bought

This one’s a tough call.

The most recent RPG I bought was the most recent iteration of Lightspress Media’s DoubleZero, which I described yesterday.

I just love this game. Setting supplements for this game have spread the net to cover heists, high-roller intrigue a la Billions and Succession, the Mythic West, noir a la Chinatown or The Big Sleep, weird science fiction along the lines of Captain Scarlet and UFO, and cosy detective dramas along the lines of Private Eyes.

It’s one of the most versatile games I have ever encountered. I can use this to run tense thrillers with the pitch perfect tension of Bullet Train, traditional Yuletide stories such as Die Hard, and old fashioned espionage stories, all tuxedoes and flashy cars with ejector seats.

You don’t need to buy a setting book to jump right in, though there are several genre books available, covering dark academia a la The Cloisters and even one supplement, Piledriver, where you get to play professional wrestlers (or, if you slap a label over the title, Luchadores or Sumo rikishi).

I have never wanted to run a game of pro wrestling before in my life. This supplement will make you want to run a game of pro wrestling.

I’m hoping there will be more genre supplements for this game. There’s already a Majestic supplement where you can play amateur UFOlogists or even don the FBI suit and play The X Files. Or crank up the weird and play The Lone Gunmen.

I’m hoping for genres like “gritty TV police drama (cue Juliet Bravo or something American like The Rookie)”, “ridiculous Nineties Hollywood movie police drama (cue Robocop and Predator 2)”, “medical drama (replete with dishy doctors and somewhat breathy, yet ambitious medical interns and a Chief Medic who’s a grouch with a limp and an addiction to painkillers), but I already have imagination enough to fill in the blanks till those books come out.

Before I tie off the arteries here and close up, by the way, the third iteration of DoubleZero will be launched some time later this year. Something to look forward to.

Nurse - sutures.