Sanctions the horror sci-fi ttrpg

Sanctions is making its way to your gaming tables

Few physical copies of the Sanctions horror cyberpunk ttrpg by Liam Thompson

Sanctions is interesting horror science fiction tabletop roleplaying-game, that will be published as glossy book very soon. It's already available as a PDF file. It's main creator Liam Thompson was so kind that he sent me some work file material and printable DI card file to print and use when playing live or tabletop rpg, or just using it as a cool prop in roleplaying conventions. 

This article is a simple (p)review of the material of Sanctions and it's based on the early draft file that Liam sent me, and on the public information the publisher has on their site. I wrote this after quick skim thru and reading stuff from here and there. So basically, this is my first feel to Sanctions rpg material, after tasting it. 

Because the simple "First I was Jee Wiz. Then I was srlz. Then I was WTF. And now I'm OO WEE <3", depicting my first reaction of the Sanctions, wouldn't really tell You anything, I promise You to try my best to use more words than that.

Sanctions is a roleplaying game that has been already published as a PDF and now its making its way as a forth-coming glossy print work  from PurpleCrayonGames which is a new indie publisher. With my own words: PurpleCrayonGames seem to want to make cool and simple games for their own pleasure (and luckily, for our pleasure, too) and release the games on low price. Gotta admit it, that I already dig it.

The book has everything, what You need for starting to play: a system, a setting, a history, cool comics that bring info and create atmosphere, awesome cyberpunk horror art, some gaming tips, lots of adventure seeds, full adventure and a world to jump in to with your friends. You may need few regular six-sided dices, if You're not using a app or tool for the dice rolls. But besides that, the book really provides everything that You need for fast and furious action thrilled cyber-punking that gives You the chills, the frights and the thrills.

Sanctions has its own simple game engine or rpg system, what ever You want to call it. It is simple, a bit innovative and intuitive, and fast to grip and grab, and fast to use. The gaming system is called Core-6 and it uses normal 6-sided dies. It says, it's fast and easy and that's not just a  sale pitch, because it actually really is very easy to grasp, fast to learn. And I'm preeeeetty sure, it will be easy to use in the gaming table.  The game is skill based, and there's tons of skills to choose from, so not really anything new under the Sun. But what it does, it does well and it's fast to learn, so at least to me, that is always a good thing. Well done is always well done, and it should be appreciated. I do. Don't know the rest, yet.

I totally love the art in the gaming book. I dig the pictures, art collages and mosaics, and comics. They really bring the gaming world to life. People who have seen loads and lots of cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic and grim future movies, comics and such, feel like coming home. At least, I did. I like the looks and the feel in the game.

I like the small short stories that evoke feelings, memories and bring the gut feeling to the table. It's pulpy, it's even clumsy and very kitsch, but I didn't expect any Tolstoy or even Bukowski to be found from the lines of grim horror genre game. If it does what it's made for, it works just fine. And if You would ask, it's good enough and occasionally and partly: more than good enough. The layout backups the both the textual and the visual art well.

So it looks good and feels good and it has pretty good short stories to bring the vibes... And it also has pretty awesome insides: history and its own world setting.  I like the game World's timeline. I especially like how the timelines starts in 1920's and not really close to our modern world. This really is an alternative world and the alternative future. People live either behind the wall kept out of the sight of the rich or kept behind the walls safe. Rich can have luxuries and have parties, but they really have to be afraid of the mutiny of the poor masses. And the poor masses fight for their lives, scavenging and just getting through every day life. Either way, the world is quite ugly and more than a bit scary.

The World is not just divided in the poor and in the rich. Living sections are divided in NoGo, LowSec, MidSec and HiSec. Apparently, crime is everywhere, no matter where You go or where You decide to live, or end up living. So, the world is hard and harsh to the best, and to the rest, it's quite unbearable living. Living in Storage Locker isn't abnormal in Sanctions. In Sanctions, it's just what people do.

Sanctions ID-Card

The Sanctions definitely shares few similarities with SLA Industries game settings, but to be honest, it doesn't bug me at all. Gotta say that the SLA Industries has more comic book style, more cartoonish, more polished and more comical style, where Sanctions is more like cynical, hardboiled motherfucker who doesn't like to play with things. It grinds 'em. It's dark and grim and dim and there's no hope for the bright future. Instead of that there's whole lotta ugly deeds that must be done (and dirty cheap, I might add), even they send You shivers through your backbone.

If the characters in SLA Industries are highly trained special forces and cool agents, in Sanctions, the player characters are more like hired muscle: thugs and mugs doing things for money. Or some kind of guerilla group. And the things that they do, vary: the Sanctions can, eg. search and rescue, bodyguard and escort, do espionage and hacking, and so on. So basically player characters earn their living working as Rent-A-COPs who also do emergency response duties. In other words: work as hired guns and bughunters in dark dystopian future.

Instead of being something epicly cool and all mighty, in Sanctions the characters are opportunistic sh*tworkers, mere mortals, and quite often: simply cannon fodder. So there's life's at risk, high stakes even when low pay, unfair hierarchy, double-crossings and it's obvious that many things will go wrong fuc*ing sh*t up in the cruel, nihilistic and other-worldly future of the Sanctions.

The characters work as professional bughunters, bounty hunters, troubleshooters and such, so the players are encouraged to really get armor to their characters. I really like the attitude of the Sanctions. Bullets kill and You are not safe just by looking cool and deadly. You gotta make it safe for You in the dirty violent world. If not, kaboom, You're monster meat (read; dead and in pieces)!

Of course there's feeeew forces to recon with, out in the streets. You know, You wouldn't have a need to wear real steady armor plates on Ya, if there wouldn't be any reason for that. Because the times are hard, the punishments are hard, too. And Oh Boy, how they remind me the good old 2000 AD stuff, especially in the Judge Dredd comics and in the Judge Dredd rpg from the '80's, that happens to be one of my all time favourite roleplaying games.

There's some deadly skagsies on da streets

Because it's not the most common cyberpunk setting,  there's also other-worldly beings, conspiracies behind the curtains, and pure chaos of not knowing who is in charge of anything. Yesh, it's the cyberpunk horror setting, and especially, the cyberpunk body horror. There's body modification experimenting going on, and it apparently goes sour more often than it works. Which is quite the contrary, what is shown to the big masses. So people get the modifications and may end up being despised mutants that are outclassed from the ripples of the society. Also going insane after losing your humanity, happens apparently, pretty often. Nice world to live in, isn't it?

The game setting mixes elements of Judge Dredd & Bladerunner worlds, the writings of Kafka and Barker, bringing us the Lovecraftian nightmarish visions of the World that has gone mad without it noticing itself. No one really knows how things are and no one really cares. People just try to survive with the agony and the true horrors of screwed-up society. Or more like, something that tries to resemble a decent society, but achieves to be just an ugly distorted claustrofobic mess.

There's already more stuff coming from the World of the Sanctions

I like how the game encourages, or even forces, the playing groups to make the world as their own unique place of excitement, discomfort (for the characters, not for the players), horror, and action. The game gives examples how to play it, and I especially like it how Sanctions can be played in multiple styles, even as a skirmish battle with miniatures and terrain.  So basically, this game is what You make out of it.

If You are looking for a simple easy to use game mechanics with dark dystopian  world setting, where characters can work both hired guns and medics. And if You especially like playing a bughunter characters in the claustrophobic dark nightmarish future, this really is a game for You. To me it already is, as it is, and the final product obviously is going to be even better.

I like back to basics games with simple and functioning mechanics. I especially dig simple indie games that don't even try to be anything fancy and Ooh La De Daa stuff.

I mean, why to try to invent the wheel again, when You can simply make the wheel simpler and stronger, paint it black as night, put some studs and spikes to it, and then You're already ready to roll. To me, Sanctions, basically does just that. And I like it.

Even as a early draft, the pdf file is better than quite many of the indie sci-fi roleplaying games I've seen.  There's soooo many far worse modern rpg games, floating around. 
The case is just, as it is: it needs few more things to flesh it more to make it better and to stand out shining, in the grim science fiction bughunting genre.
Now the game is interesting and very promising and it is good, but not yet anything brain-blowingly awesomeness. Well, the most of the role playing game products lack that anyways, so it ain't really a big minus. 
Especially when the finished product shall have (so I've been told by the game creator Liam Thompson) more fiction, example characters, more detail on the bio punk side of the things, I feel that it's safe to say: Sanctions shall rise above.

To sum this all up, I shall say that by reading the 80 pages early stages draft pdf file, I got pretty excited. This really looks and feels promising. Interesting combination of dirty battered, overcrowded places like in the District 9 movie and in the comic novels of Enki Bilal. There's quite similar surreal danger like in the Over the Edge or in the Conspiration X, lurking in the insides of the Sanctions. Other small not-so-well-known games that come in my mind are, eg. Bughunters rpg by TSR, Paranoia rpg from '80's, Deadlands: Hell On Earth, Laserburn miniature game (which can be used as battle rpg also), and Traveller 2300 AD with the Earth/Cybernetics Supplement. The mechanics are good indie game quality: easy and fast, but there's also some crunch but not that much, it would slow the gaming down. So, all in all: good game that is very promising.

I'll may get back to Sanctions, after reading it few times and maybe played it a bit. Thanx for Liam Thompson and the PurpleCrayonGames for sending me the draft file as PDF, and other useful stuff. Thanx also for answering me and commenting me on FB and on Messenger. Thanx for the viewers and readers for reading this. Feel free sharing, linking and commenting it. Good Horroring for Folks! Wishes Krisse Tuominen, blogger, published game designer, journalist, musician, poet, and helluva rpg entusiastic.