Vice Squad

Eighties Police Adventures
Retro (crime)
Politically Incorrect Games
2003
Complexity: 3

Vice Squad is a game based on dumb exciting police movies and shows of the 1980s—think Beverly Hills Cop or Miami Vice… or Cop Rock if you like singing— intended for short low-prep games. It’s also another one of those fairly minimal reskins of a publisher’s house system, which we have recently seen can be a lazily-made half-assed mess. But maybe this time it’ll be different.


Character Creation: 3/5
Characters’ primary attribute are generated by d6 roll or point buy, secondary stats are then derived and skills bought, Characters also gain five ‘clichés’—one in each of five categories—that grant an additional bonus. It’s all fairly simple but doesn’t really offer that many options; however, the options that are provided are all extremely well tailored to the game’s genre. The skills are all ones that would likely be used in a police action story, and all the skills you would reasonably need. The clichés are pretty much all great, fun, and genre appropriate. Things like never running out of handgun ammunition, making cars explode with a single gunshot, being able to find a clue missed by CSI, or getting a search warrant in 15 minutes. Basically everything they provide you is appropriate, useful, and fun.

Mechanics: 3/5
I’ve already reviewed the genreDiversion system thoroughly in my review of Ghost Stories, so I’m going to be a little more concise here.
“Basic task rolls” just involve rolling two d6 with a target or equal to or under an attribute plus skill value. Modifiers take the form of adding dice to the roll and taking only the two lowest—for a bonus—or highest—for a penalty—dice. There are also “advanced talk rolls” which are “optional,” but once again the rest of the rules are written assuming you’re using. Advanced task rolls add difficulty levels requiring the roll to be under the target value by a specified value. Once again it’s something that I don’t have an issue with functionally, just with the way it’s implemented. According to the rules, you subtract your roll from target to determine your ‘margin’ then reference a the margin and difficulty on a table to determine the outcome. Which is functionally identical to adding the difficulty modifier to the roll result, and saying margins of 4 or greater are a critical success—although at least this game has the same values in the rules and on the table. Overall it’s pretty basic, but it’s supposed to be.

Writing: 1/3 [−]
Overall the rules are fairly well-written and do a good job explaining the rules, except when specifying that the difficulty of ranged attacks is based on the weapon’s range, but never specifically mentioned how the range affects the difficulty. There is also at least one glaring error, specifically it is stated that ranged attacks can me made while moving “but with 2 on the task roll.” Now I have no idea what that means, if I had to guess I’d say you add 2 to the roll result, but as previously stated, that is not how difficulty modifiers work in this game. It could also be reasoned that it’s a penalty of 2 on the roll, but it’s not written in that format. Which brings me to my biggest issue—as it was with Ghost Stories—the unusual decision to make up little symbols to represent bonus/penalty dice and changes in difficulty instead of just, like, saying those things. Which means that when one of those little symbols gets left out we’re left with a 2 with no context.

Presentation: 3/5
The game rules are presented twice, one in landscape format for easy on-screen reading and again in portrait format for printing, and if you follow this blog then you know I like me some  landscape format for easy on-screen reading. Of course having two versions means the format isn’t really optimized for either and for the most part sections just start and end wherever instead of being formatted per page.

Content: 2/3 [•]
As previously stated, the content is a little on the light side, but does manage to be sufficient by being highly appropriate. Perhaps most importantly, they include full rules for car chases, which alternatively can—and should—be used for boat chases. There are also pre-generated characters and four scenarios provided, making it a more or less complete package for a few nights of relaxed gaming. But overall, it does look like something made by somebody who knows what they’re doing and the stylistic elements, while minimal, definitely add to the overall presentation.

Final Remarks
Vice Cops is basically the opposite of Exosuit A-OK, a simple game using a “house system” that actually put forth the effort to tailor the rules to the specific experience. It’s not a deep, complex experience, but neither is the source material

Base Points: 9
Character Creation: 3/5, Mechanics: 3/5, Presentation: 3/5
Adjustments: −1
Setting: N/A, Writing: −1 Content: +0

Overall Score: 53% (8/15 Points)
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