Can Index Card RPG do Sin City?

#1

I have wanted to run a Sin City RPG for a long, long time and haven’t been able to find the right ruleset that sings to me for this. Can Index Card RPG do such a noir-inspired, hard-boiled setting? I think I saw there was a Vigilante City conversion to Index Card RPG and that might be the ticket for something like this. I own the Vigilante City OGL version.

Any opinions out there on my quest?

#2

ICRPG can literally run anything. In our time with it, we have run 1930s pulp, Robotech, Aliens, modern warfare, Vietnam, spy thriller, dwarves in space, horror, cyberpunk, mystery, super heroes, pirates, cowboys, you name it.

When the base mechanic is as simple as making a roll using the appropriate stat bonus and beating a target number, you literally can run anything. I see no roadblocks to running Sun City at all.

#3

Effort and Timers will be helpful.
Effort for: Locked doors / searching rooms / trying to talk to stripper at work etc…
before Timer ends and: cops arrive / the papers burn / friendly npc betrayal etc…

#4

ICRPG works great for noir-style games, I think. The high deadliness of combat, the simple weapon system, low hitpoints, and non-super characters fit a noir setting very well. (I don’t really know about neo-noir, but for more classic noir style I would definitely not go for a superhero setting like Vigilante City as a basis.)

I’m new to the system but I already ran a noir/mystery one-shot that worked very well. (I also made film-noir style target cards that you can find in the forum.)

A few keywords for the way I ran it: no classes, no life-form bonus (all just normal humans), players could put 8 points in their stats with a granularity of +2; effort as written in the rules; hardly any loot except straight-forward weapons and some personal items that gave small additional stat bonuses.

Have some dark fun!

#5

Because of its tight core mechanics and effortless hackability, ICRPG is the closest I’ve come in many decades of gaming to finding a truly universal RPG engine. Sin City pulp/noir would be a cinch to hack.

I would start with Master Edition rules and then look to several popular resources to borrow what you need;

  • Custom Classes—Assuming everyone is (mostly) human, I’d look to capture all the gritty archetypes in Sin City as about six (6) custom character “types,” e.g., Idealist AKA Boy Scout (Dwight, Hartigan, Lucille), Crooked Cop (Jackie Boy), Mercenary (Marv, Miho), Femme Fatale/Homme Fatal (Gail, Goldie, Wendy, the Salesman), Psycho (Kevin, Roark Jr.), and Mastermind (Senator Roark). Compose three starting abilities, three loot items, about a half dozen milestones, and three mastery abilities all within theme for each type, and you are set @KaneDriscol has a superb video on custom classes for your inspiration.
  • Adrenaline, Grit, Sanity, and Luck Mechanics—Personally, I’d port Adrenaline, Grit, and Madness rules directly from @JDH’s superb post-apoc toolkit The Waste Is Not Kind, but there are Grit and Surge dice mechanics from Altered State to consider, as well as more abbreviated forms of luck and sanity usage, such as the rules I used in my cosmic horror setting, the Cthulhack, or the even simpler rules Hank penned for Beneath the Door. These mechanics allow you to codify all that intense neo-noir drama for which Miller is famous.
  • Gun Rules—It’s not Sin City if bullets aren’t flying, and I personally think the “guns as spells” manifestations of firearms in popular supplements like Altered State and Bearcats don’t quite capture the gritty tone of the inevitable gunplay mayhem in a Sin City-style adventure. The wonderful paranormal investigation supplement Black Light has some simple, inspiring gun rules and stats for you to port straight into Sin City. I hacked my own more comprehensive gunplay mechanics for even more realism and universality, and I think they make guns very lethal and very dramatic to employ tactically.
  • A Map—Cartographic resources for the layout of Miller’s Basin City are kind of hard to come by, but from the lore we know it includes the Docks, the Projects, the Pits, Old Town, and Sacred Oaks. Presumably, there is also some central Downtown area. Take a look at Alfheim in the Worlds section of Master Edition and garner inspiration from Hank’s method of making each location unique through its environmental features and mechanics.

Good luck…

#6

To your point about loot, I think more narrative based loot, like a locket with your lost sweat-heart’s picture, or your grandfather’s wristwatch from the war would make great loot items for such a setting.

#7

These are all fantastic suggestions! Wow!

Thank you all so much!

#8

Great point! Thanks!

#9

This was so helpful! I cant wait to dive into some of these resources!