An evening of Gangbusters!

Death on the docks…

What do you think when you think of gangsters?  Scar face? The Godfather? The Godfather 2? Once Upon a Time in America? The Untouchables?  Or like me do you think of Johnny Dangerously?  A hilarious film from the 80s with Michael Keaton and lots of ‘Fargin bastarges!’. 

Well as part of the Good Friend of Jackson Elias Con I got to play Gangbusters with the chief mobster being Dirk the Dice from the Grognard files.  I listen to the Grognard files (if you don’t, why not?) and over several episodes Dirk has been discussing and promoting more of us to consider playing Gangbusters.  So, when the chance came up to play at the Good Friends Con I made a like a mobster and ensured my name was going to get on the playlist by sending a picture of a horse’s head in the post to the organisers (well actually I just entered the lottery but that doesn’t sound very ‘mobstery’).

As luck would have it I was lucky (as Dirty Harry would say) and was in the game.  Back in the 80s I used to purchase Citadel and Ral Partha figures (they were never called ‘minis’ in my day) and the DnD books from Taylor and McKenna.  I remember you had to go down into a basement area for the models and gaming sections.  I do remember seeing the boxed game from TSR of Gangbusters on the shelves but ignored it as it 1) didn’t have any fantasy elements and 2) wasn’t DnD.  Little did I know how much it would cost me to purchase all those games I ignored from ebay later in my life, much to my wife’s chagrin.  Anyway, as I was saying Gangbusters never really appealed as it has no fantasy elements, and as I could play Cthulhu and play a mobster and have mythos and lots of other creepy and otherworldly stuff, my teenage mind wasn’t interested in a game without those elements.

Fast forward 30+ years and I am logging into Roll20 and a Zoom room to finally play Gangbusters!  My PC was John Kreski a Prohibition agent, and I was joined by another agent, two beat cops and a journalist.  We were a hand selected crew told to bring down Ned Flynn – a notorious Irish mobster who was running liquor in and out of the Lakeside City Docks. We had to put a stop to his illegal business and bring him and his crew down.

The Death on the Docks is more of a campaign than a one shot scenario but Dirk done a great job of giving us a taste of the game in this setting.  I don’t know whether Dirk also simplified the rules somewhat to aid gameplay, but it was pretty simple and even though none of us had played the game within the last 30 or 40 years we all played our parts with gusto.  Dirk made it clear that this was going to be high action and fast paced, and that if we didn’t have someone standing on the travel board of a 1920s car while totting a machine gun he would be disappointed!

The character sheet is pretty self-explanatory – stats, a specific skill (I was very good at stealth) and hit points.  Each PC also had some hot tips they had received and other background to help with roleplaying.  Most rolls were done via a D100 although there were a few rolls that involved 2D10 including Presence, which you could use to intimidate and get your own way or persuade, charm etc.  I liked this mechanic although it seemed quite hard to make a decent roll, most of the time it appeared that either you didn’t get your way, but the recipient was not hostile or they were a bit hostile.  My agent failed to intimidate a group of kids hanging outside a moll’s house and got a kick in the shin for his troubles, lol.

The first scene found us at a public address by the Lakeside City mayor preaching about how he was going to crack down on the mobsters ruining the lives of everyone in this great city.  Immediately the action started with a car and some masked gangsters careering down the street towards the crowd.  One of the gangsters were riding shotgun on the travel board of the car and was about to throw a bomb into the crowd.  Cue Dirk cutting the scene to two days previously.  The game I expect is meant to be played like a movie and Dirk certainly managed to achieve that with this scene cut just at the time when it was getting to a potential climax.

We found ourselves in our Captains office and done the introductions and were told we were the new squad that had to bring down Flynn and his racket and illegal businesses.

After several encounters including a femme fatale of Russian descent and our journalist falling in love with her, one agent going to the records office and discovering Flynns tax irregularities and the beat cops finding members of the Dockers Union being targeted by assassins sent by Flynn, we eventually got a tip off that a big import of Canadian liquor was coming into the docks on board the ship ‘The Irish Rose’.  We headed out to the ship and climbed up the anchor chains to get the drop on those onboard.  That was the plan, but I failed my stealth check (I mean I only had a 92% chance of success….), those on board turned out to be a rival Italian gang that had also been given the tip off.  It was a trap or a bluff to get us in the wrong place at the wrong time!  Darn those dastardly Irish mobsters and damn their boss Flynn!  The hooch onboard was actually water, but we had a great idea to pretend we had found a big stash and got the journalist to take our pictures proudly finding and destroying the ‘liquor’.  With no time stamps on the pics in those days we can use them to our advantage for promotions!  Then there is big explosion back at the docks and we head back to break into a warehouse that had come up in our investigations.  It was empty but there was a hit list of union offices and people and other evidence connecting Flynn to attempted murder, smuggling, illegal liquor distribution and generally being a bad guy.  The net was tightening on Flynn and our mission was nearing success. 

Then we switched back to the events we started with and the crowd of people and the mayor giving his speech.

The lead started flying and there was a bomb thrown by the assassin into the crowd.  Our brave journalist wacked it with his camera but fumbled, which meant it nestled neatly into my agents top pocket!  In a fit of bravery I dived onto the floor and smothered the blast, sacrificing myself for the public.  Truly a cinematic moment.  But the damage was only 20!  I had 21 hit points, I survived!  The car with the assassins had been shot up by my colleagues and was out of control and of course coming straight at me.  My next action was very risky but I managed to leap onto the bonnet of the car and hold on for dear life (with my one hit point!) while the driver tried to shake me off.  It became clear that the driver was none other than the Russian femme fatal our journalist had fallen in love with, so he dived into the car and asked her to marry him so they could run away together and live happily ever after…..my agent was having none of that so he pulled out his gun and blasted shots through the windscreen, blowing the femme fatal away.  Justice done – sort of.

We then had a neat closing scene where we had to describe how we finally caught up with Flynn.  Each PC gve a description of how they helped to bring down Flynn and then passed the scene on to the next PC to carry on the story, until finally the journalist ended up shooting Flynn in his bed.  The twist? The Russian feme fatale was still alive and we ended with the Journalist meeting her in the woods and going for further adventures….

It was a really fun evening, with not a spell or monster or in sight.  I had great fun and enjoyed thinking of dramatic ways my PC could take part in the story.  If you get the chance to play Gangbusters, do so you’ll have a great time.

Thanks to Dirk from the Grognard Files podcast for reffing, The Good Friends for the Con slot and the other players for making it a great mobster experience!

That’s all for now, and remember Parrying is for wimps!