An Offer You Can't Refuse
Nov. 19th, 2006 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_ytAlthough Sunday is usually the slow day at Philcon, this year it was the day when I had the most fun. Instead of going to panels, I ended up spending pretty much the whole time playing Mafia, a relatively new tabletop RP by Tony DiGerolamo. Mr. Tony D was there himself to GM and promote the game: I'd seen people playing it in the game room before. He had a number of small scenarios to run for curious players.
The players today were just myself and one other guy. Our characters were aspiring Triad members: he was a "Smart Mook," the kind of guy who scopes things out, cracks safes and handles tech stuff, and I was a "Fast Mook," who could do all the cat burglary and sleight-of-hand stuff. We both made our characters from the ground up instead of using preset ones. My character, Maggie, also ended up using her charisma more than her dexterity, and Liu - the other player - was supposed to be the smart guy, but I did a lot of the talking. We decided that our characters were in a friends-with-benefits/open relationship, mostly for business reasons. At our low level, we couldn't afford to be exclusive because of the kinds of jobs we were doing. For instance, in one scenario, I had to sleep with one of Liu's contacts to pay him back for giving us information: on a blackmail job, I had to put the moves on four guys and sleep with two of them (separately) in order to find out which one was a certain rich businessman's secret gay lover. I actually found that kind of character very fun to play, which made it somewhat less annoying that almost any female character you can play in Mafia is, as a matter of necessity, involved in the sex trade.
Mafia uses the same basic d20 system that forms the basis for D&D. However, it is also kind of Mage-like in its focus on roleplay. Mafia also has some additional stats: Respect and Wealth - the accumulation of which are the goal of the game - (police) suspicion, and flaws. Flaws are very fun, and range from physical flaws to addictions to personality quirks. Maggie, for instance, had the Conceited and Addiction: Luxury flaws. In other words, she spends an inordinate amount of time maintaining her looks and gets very pissy when someone even hints that she's anything less than gorgeous; she also has to make willpower rolls against the temptation to spend newly earned money on expensive luxuries or try to steal an extra bit of loot when it really wouldn't be a good idea.
Best of all, the basic Mafia book comes with a number of short scenarios, and Tony D publishes more online on a regular basis. So it's a good game to play for one night if you're taking a break from a longer campaign. Had I not already blown a lot of money on a Super Munchkin game, I would have bought the book. I probably will later, and then I'll introduce it to The Usual Suspects.
The players today were just myself and one other guy. Our characters were aspiring Triad members: he was a "Smart Mook," the kind of guy who scopes things out, cracks safes and handles tech stuff, and I was a "Fast Mook," who could do all the cat burglary and sleight-of-hand stuff. We both made our characters from the ground up instead of using preset ones. My character, Maggie, also ended up using her charisma more than her dexterity, and Liu - the other player - was supposed to be the smart guy, but I did a lot of the talking. We decided that our characters were in a friends-with-benefits/open relationship, mostly for business reasons. At our low level, we couldn't afford to be exclusive because of the kinds of jobs we were doing. For instance, in one scenario, I had to sleep with one of Liu's contacts to pay him back for giving us information: on a blackmail job, I had to put the moves on four guys and sleep with two of them (separately) in order to find out which one was a certain rich businessman's secret gay lover. I actually found that kind of character very fun to play, which made it somewhat less annoying that almost any female character you can play in Mafia is, as a matter of necessity, involved in the sex trade.
Mafia uses the same basic d20 system that forms the basis for D&D. However, it is also kind of Mage-like in its focus on roleplay. Mafia also has some additional stats: Respect and Wealth - the accumulation of which are the goal of the game - (police) suspicion, and flaws. Flaws are very fun, and range from physical flaws to addictions to personality quirks. Maggie, for instance, had the Conceited and Addiction: Luxury flaws. In other words, she spends an inordinate amount of time maintaining her looks and gets very pissy when someone even hints that she's anything less than gorgeous; she also has to make willpower rolls against the temptation to spend newly earned money on expensive luxuries or try to steal an extra bit of loot when it really wouldn't be a good idea.
Best of all, the basic Mafia book comes with a number of short scenarios, and Tony D publishes more online on a regular basis. So it's a good game to play for one night if you're taking a break from a longer campaign. Had I not already blown a lot of money on a Super Munchkin game, I would have bought the book. I probably will later, and then I'll introduce it to The Usual Suspects.
