Streets of Bedlam Review

 

This is a book that I have been eager to see since I first heard the Kickstarter project that made it a reality.  Streets of Bedlam is a brand new setting for Savage Worlds written by Jason L Blair.  It offers a Neo-Noir setting filled with crime, corruption and violence. Savage Worlds is one of my favorite RPG systems and Jason has impressed me in the past with his excellent Little Fears.  Does this mean that Streets of Bedlam delivers like it should?

Let's take a look.

 

Streets of Bedlam is a game that knows what it wants to be and sticks to its guns. Lots of guns.  The first words of the Introduction sum it up beautifully:

Streets of Bedlam is a cinematic ultraviolent neo-noir crime setting in the vein of Sin City, Boondock Saints, Reservoir Dogs, The Godfather, Assault on Precinct 13, and numerous other dark cinematic gutshots.

Usually games and settings leave the inspirations for an appendix or some kind of "recommended reading" page.  Streets of Bedlam  puts them out there in the first sentence of the book.  It is up front and in your face about what kinds of stories take place in this city and how the game can help you create your own.  The strong sense of identity really gets me excited about a setting.  It also doesn't hurt that the five mentioned works happen to be one of my favorite comic books and four of my favorite movies.

The rest of the introduction chapter does a solid job of explaining the feeling and mood behind the game.  The details of what it means to be a cinematic, ultra-violent and neo-noir game are all explained in concise and evocative language.  There is also quick details about the when and where of Bedlam and the characters you will play.  Bedlam can be placed anywhere a major city might fit.  The characters are people who do very bad things in order to right wrongs and pursue justice (even a sick sense of justice).  Anti-heroes in the truest sense.

Setting

Now we get to the first chapter, Invisible Lines.  Within you find a detailed description of the twin cities in which the game takes place.  You have the "seen better days" city of Lamrose, a place that used to be a prosperous manufacturing city until all the industry left and the jobs went with it.  Across the river is Bedford.  This is a rich, upper class city that has strong ties to the local Catholic Church, which tries to keep everything in its corrupt grasp.  You then get short descriptions of the different districts and groups that can be found within each city.

I found this all to be a pleasant read.  The people, places and stories of the city are pulling heavily from Frank Miller's Sin City series.  The dark, run-down streets of Lamrose produce the kinds of people that would be right at home having a beer with Marv and Dwight.  You have an analogue to Sin City's Oldtown in the district of Bricktown, which features a group of vigilante "working girls and boys" that have taken the streets back from the pimps and pushers and strive to keep the streets safe enough to work their trade.  The themes of the corrupt church being the backbone behind Bedford is right out of the comic as well.  Is this a bad thing?  Not at all.  It makes for a very grim place to run the game and an easy place to find inspiration.  Track down the Sin City graphic novels or watch the movie and you have an excellent idea of what Bedlam is supposed to look and feel like.  I found the details provided here did a good job at making city come to life and offer plenty of potential adventure material.

The chapter ends with quick list of street names and restaurants by neighborhood to help a GM on the fly.  I felt this was a nice addition and adds a bit more flair.  There is also a much appreciated Slang section.  I have always found slang that is unique to a setting can really enrich the dialogue at the table and its something that I would like to see more of.  Bonus points for this.

Now lets dig into the characters and crunch.  Streets of Bedlam requires the Savage Worlds Deluxe rules in order to play.  So those of you familiar with the rules will find yourselves at home, albeit with a few new takes on things.  I'll focus on the new.

Character Creation

The big difference in character creation in Streets of Bedlam is the inclusion of character Archetypes.  This takes the usual place of Race in the Savage Worlds rules.  Since the default setting of Bedlam assumes a modern day setting, there are no races besides human and no magic to speak of.  Archetypes serve to help differentiate characters mechanically while providing a solid background for appropriate anti-hero types that are found in this kind of fiction.

Each Archetype comes with a group of Edges and Hindrances and offer optional packages to further customize each to better fit a player's ideas.  There are 15 Archetypes in total and I found each one to be well written and realized.  Each entry helped had me coming up with a few character ideas that might be fun to play.  Some of my favorites were the Badge (a cop, complete with choice of being one of the rare "good" ones and being a cop that is on the take), The Valklyrie (the vigilante prostitutes that keep the streets safe) and The Monster (the unhinged guy that takes to the streets at night to bathe the streets in bad guy blood).  The Monster is probably my favorite of the bunch as it could be used to make anything from Batman to Marv from Sin City.

Setting Rules

Every Savage Worlds setting has some specific rules that get added on to make playing it unique and Streets of Bedlam is no different.  On the menu are new skills, edges, hindrances and new additions to the Dramatic Tasks rules to reflect going through different kinds of interrogations.  All of these add to the game and help reinforce the noir setting and investigative nature of the game.  All of these new additions keep to the Savage Worlds mantra of Fast, Fun, Furious.  The rules won't get in the way.

There is also a new subsystem called Rep.  Rep comes in three varieties: Authority, Public and Underworld.  Rep works in similar ways to Charisma but is used as a bonus (or penalty) when used to try and get favors or otherwise grease the wheels in a given section of Bedlam.  The Rep does what it sets out to emulate without making anything too complicated.

My favorite new addition is the rules for Investigations.  It gives the GM a system to create a crime.  It involves drawing a hand of cards and assigning them to certain aspects of the crime.  Based on the cards drawn you can figure out how the crime went down, how well the clean up or cover up went and what the details of the escape were.  The best part is that this same system can be used  if the PC's commit crimes.

There are also new damage rules to reflect "ultra-violent" conflicts.  These mostly make it so fights are bloody and brutal but don't make the game any more lethal.  Almost a more stylized way of treating damage in Savage Worlds.

Streets of Bedlam also has a system in place for the spotlight to revolve around to different players in different stories or adventures.  The Role system allows the characters to assume the role of the Hero, Sidekick, Love Interest and various other genre appropriate character roles.  This Role can change every adventure and players can pick a new one before each session.  They allow for some different ways to spend Bennies and other minor mechanical buffs.

NPCs and Plot Point

The rest of book is devoted to a huge chapter with NPCs to inhabit your city and a Plot Point campaign and adventure seeds.  Most of the NPCs, if not all, use the names of the Kickstarter backers.  This is a neat little vanity reward in line with many of today's Kickstarter projects.  You'll even notice some industry names scattered throughout the chapter.

The Plot Point is entertaining works well to sell the feeling of the game.  No complaints there.

Overall

The easiest way to sell this game is to think of it as Sin City the RPG.  I mean this in the most flattering way possible.  Streets of Bedlam is no simple knock off.  It takes the themes and look of neo-noir and runs amok with it.  Anything borrowed is given its own spin so it stays unique in its own right while still being recognizable to the source.  This is apparent in the text as well as the art.  I have to give a shout out to the illustrator, Shawn Gaston, for creating some evocative images that pay tribute to Frank Miller's style without flat out copying it.  The art goes a long way to keep your imagination in the right place while reading through the text.

I'm glad to have Streets of Bedlam on my shelf.  It provides a very good take on gritty neo-noir investigations.  The ultra-violence rules make emulating the source material a breeze and the art is pleasure to look at.  Best of all, it looks fun as all hell.  Savage Worlds fans take notice!  This is definitely something unique and well worth checking out.