Colombia D20 Review
This is a playtest review, although I only tested one adventure.
Be warned – I’m a nitpicker.
Colombia D20 is a “Real-Life Roleplaying” setting sold by Holistic Design. Because it’s Real-Life, there’s not a scrap of FX in it. From my point of view this is a very positive development.
Colombia D20 is a 118-page softcover which sells for $20 US. The art layout is by John Bridges. A few of the interior pictures are drawings by Bridges, but, true to the “Real-Life Roleplaying” brand, most of the artwork consists of pictures, many from the United States army. Many of the pictures are quite powerful, such as the pictures of the soldiers carrying a wounded comrade on page 66. Virtually all of the pictures contain “grunts” doing something. There are some real-life maps of Colombia but no maps of military bases or anything else like that in the adventure section.
There is a short table of contents and no index. To be honest, I don’t think the book actually needed an index anyway.
Chapter Zero: Prologue
The chapter begins about a quote on the drug trade, and then immediately launches into the prologue. It’s got flavor text (how many D20 Modern heroes count the number of dry socks they have?), some information on and history about the guerillas, combat and some plot! You could easily turn the prologue into an adventure on it’s own. It’s a bit short, if you ask me, but there are some longer adventures in the back to get the creative juices flowing.
This is followed by an introduction, including a bit more history on Colombia and why it makes such a great setting for Real-Life Roleplaying, and some game advice. (It even includes text you could quote if somebody wants to fly a helicopter.)
Chapter One: A Brief History of Colombia
This section goes into great detail about the geography, people, history… even exotic animals of Colombia. Even though you probably won’t be adventuring in Bogota, the capital (a bastion of sanity) it does go into a bit of detail about the city, including the effects the guerillas and paramilitaries have on the city they can’t reach. It even details the social accomplishments, such as health care. In other words, despite the stereotypes shown in most Hollywood movies, Colombia has a lot more to it than vast untamed fields of jungle interlaced with coca plantations.
It also goes into some detail about familiy (Colombians tend to have large and loyal extended families), Roman Cathaolic tradition, holidays, native people (including extinct tribes) and then it goes into history, from 1499 (when Europeans first reached Colombia) to now. There’s a lot of emphasis on the political situation and how it has evolved, which isn’t surprising considering the focus on guerillas and paramilitaries. There’s also a little info on the drug war, which is covered in more detail later.
A quick definition: guerillas refer to left wing terrorists, and paramilitaries refer to right wing terrorists. Although the circumstances of their creation and targets vary widely, both groups use similar methods – violent human rights abuses. Paramilitaries often have the tacit support of the government or military and may even act as death squads for them, in large part because the army isn't strong enough to protect the entire country.
Chapter Two: New Advanced Classes
This chapter presents five new advanced classes.
The Combat Journalist isn’t really a combatant (BAB +1/2) but instead can stand up to the rigors of imbedded reporting. It gives you a lot of skill points, d8 hp/level, a good Defense progression and decent Fortitude and Reflex saves. Most of the combat journalist’s abilities are social ones, such as bonus social feats and the ability to discern lies. One of these social abilities is called access; with it, you can get yourself attached to a combat unit or onto a crime scene. Oddly enough, there’s no check involved here; your GM either says “yes” or “no”.
It’s possible (but definitely not easy) to reach the requirements before 3rd-level (there’s no 6 rank or BAB +3 requirement, and a Strong Hero with the Creative occupation could reach the requirements for the class at 2nd-level).
The Guerilla Fighter, a combative class based on the Fast class. It gives you a good Defense value, BAB +3/4, bonuses to surviving in the wild, and the ability to make explosives from scratch. It works well for insurgent forces from around the world. I liked this one a lot.
The Hitman is a “police officer”, “messenger” and executioner for the drug lords. It is based on the Dedicated class and makes sure you use your social skills. (I don’t believe I’ve seen a Dedicated advanced class designed for combat before I got this product - D20 Future also broke that mold.) From this class you gain contacts (including the ability to trade favors with drug cartel lords), a safe house, and an improved ability to hide your gun using your Disguise skill. I’m not sure whether giving out Improved Critical at 2nd-level was such a good idea, however.
The Political Zealot is at the heart of the campaign; there’s even an example in the first adventure. He can detect spies, give fiery speeches, even convert others to his way of thinking. Most of his abilities are based on the Diplomacy skill.
The Treasure Hunter is an adventurer with two main goals in mind. The first is fairly obvious, the second is to learn more about the ancients. Of course, the travel itself is worth it. She gains numerous social abilities, incluing bonus social feats, the ability to see through con men selling fake relics and the like.
She will enjoy good hit points and a very good Defense progression, but her BAB will be +1/2 - sort of like the field scientist. The "top" ability lets you spend four action points to get out of a hairy situation - of course, you need to come up with good flavor text for that.
The treasure hunter has very easy requirements, and you can reach it as early as 2nd-level if you wanted to.
Chapter Three: New Feats and Equipment
The chapter begins with eight social feats, such as Harmless (a feat that helps you appear harmless, even if you’re not), Politially Correct Speech (it gives Intimidate bonuses in appropriate circumstances) and Techno-babble (a feat that lets you use jargon about a subject you know something about to gain Bluff bonuses – for instance “my keycard isn’t working because of [jargon] so of course you can let me through.”)
There’s a few new weapons commonly used in the region, including the very powerful (and rare) Russian AN-94 (a mastercraft rifle that inflicts no penalties when you’re using Double Tap). The AN-94 fires the second bullet so quickly that recoil from the first bullet doesn’t have any chance to affect your aim. Possible balance issues aside, I’m not sure how the gun could make it to Colombia, seeing how the Russians have barely started to use it themselves.
There are some optional rules involving armor and bullet penetration, with the intention of making the game more realistic. This also makes the game a lot deadlier (and possibly less fun), and they say this themselves.
Chapter Four: Rebel Movements
This chapter describes the typical motivations behind guerilla groups – not only does it go into detail, it goes into good detail about why a group would get started – and why so many end up doing “evil and dumb” things and lose support.
There’s information on many of the other countries in Latin America, especially relating to politics and US intervention, as well as the major guerilla and paramilitary groups in each of these countries. There’s a short expose on Che Guevara.
The history of Colombia was detailed earlier, but in this chapter they cover the Colombian guerilla and paramilitary groups in extensive detail.
Chapter Five: Roleplaying Guerillas
“If the players decide to run a revolutionary group, they should set some morally acceptable goals before starting.” No kidding. The chapter drives home the point that many …
Chapter Six: Sample City — Medilaca
Medilaca, a fictitious city in Colombia, is the setting for the advantures in the next three chapters. It’s a battleground between two groups of guerillas, two groups of paramilitaries, WESTERN oil, and then some. Pretty much anything the players can do in the town will upset or bolster one of these groups.
It is divided into six neighborhoods, each with a different flavor, including what sort of information players could get about each neighborhood with an hour or more of research. There’s no city map, however – it’s up to the GM to draw one. (I suggest a blob with some lines drawn through it, along with the important throughfares between each neighborhood.) Each neighborhood has a small number of plot hooks that may be useful to the GM; some of which don’t even involve facing off against terrorists. In addition, there are plot hooks involving the nearby native tribe, a monastery, a cave containing a new species of lice, and even for road blocks!
Some information about the town’s economy and governance, especially concerning the WESTERN oil refinery, is included in the chapter.
Chapter Seven: Introductory Adventure
This adventure is designed for 4-6 characters of 3-5th-level.
Some background on the adventure: left-wing guerillas frequently kidnap wealthy people (or those who they think are wealthy) and hold them for ransom, in line with their ideology. This time they kidnapped the husband of a woman connected to the US media. Worse, the guerilla outpost where the man is being held will soon be attacked by paramilitaries (who do have a good reason to do so). The kidnap victim will likely die in the ensuing firefight. She needs some mercenaries to break him out, and so contacts the heroes in the hopes they will do the job for her. Of course, she didn’t count on being kidnapped herself!
There’s a very quick initial hook for the players (GMs may need to flesh this out), then onto the adventure itself, which has a decent plotline. Shortly after they set out, players run into a minefield. They can go through it (dangerous), go left (dangerous - ambush), or go right (dangerous - ambush). Decisions, decisions. I love it!
I don’t want to give away too many spoilers, but I do want to point out that the rebels use very good tactics (don’t treat a treehouse as a kid’s toy), and you may want to “mix and match” some of the terrorists. (For instance, if a base has a number of guerillas who are inexperienced, and a number of experienced guerillas willing to fight to the death, why do they all have the same stats?) The guerilla leader (who is, unfortunately, unnamed) is one of those rare non-physical heroes who can still be dangerous.
On another note, the stat blocks are probably the weakest part of the adventure. None of the NPCs have a listed occupation (this is very important in D20 Modern!) and if they're not supposed to have an occupation it should say Occupation: None, but it didn't, the number of action points granted to characters follows no pattern I can discern (there’s usually too many), and the stat blocks are, in my opinion, annoyingly abbreviated. Having said that, they’re certainly useable in combat. Watch out for the generally low Wisdom scores, however (some of the villains in this chapter and the next have a Wisdom score as low as six, making them fodder for any Charismatic using the Dazzle or Taunt talent. For that matter, one of the villains in the next chapter has an Intelligence of six as well.).
And on another note, why does the Zealot have Burst Fire when he has a Wisdom of 8? You might want to edit him
I ran this one, it was quite good, the "villains" were often fragile however.
Chapter Eight: The Missing Doctor Veranda
This adventure is designed for 4-6 characters of 6-8th-level.
Some background on this adventure: Doctor Veranda, a pharmacist interested in studying rainforest plants for their medical potential, has gone missing. No one is sure which group kidnapped him, or even if he was kidnapped. The players are introduced to John Sanchez, a delightfully incompetent “adventuring bureaucrat”. His job is to arrange for the finding and possible rescue of the doctor. He can make contact with a guerilla group who may have kidnapped the doctor, and who are willing to talk to the players, provided they are willing to send a single party member, unarmed, to talk to him and his (armed) guard.
This adventure has an imaginative plot and, again, great tactics from some of the villains. I think I’ll “borrow” some tactics for any non-Colombia adventures I may run as well.
I’m not too sure I like shooting at the players with rocket launchers; some 7th-level players might not have the hit points to survive that kind of damage. Of course, it does make the guerillas more realistic, but if you worry about that, maybe you should use substitute grenade launchers for the rocket launchers.
Social skills are more important in this one – the players will be repeatedly lied to or misled by villains on all sides (there’s more than just two sides here).
Chapter Nine: Strategic Campaign
This chapter is a series of very short adventures - no stat blocks, skill DCs, etc… basically long, but very good, plot hooks. Any time you complete one of the adventures, your standing with the guerillas, paramilitaries, locals, WESTERN or government may move up or down. Actions you may have performed in the two introductory adventures may very well affect your standing in the strategic campaign. Generally speaking, you actually don’t want to annoy thet paramilitaries, since you’re trying to gain the trust of a powerful paramilitary lord - so you can evacuate him into custody or kill him. This means the players have to walk a very fine line. Because less of the work is done for GMs, more experienced GMs will find this section more useful.
It includes three linear encounters and five modular encounters. Some encounters are only triggered if you have gained favor (or fallen out of favor) with one or more of the groups; others have multiple pathways depending on who is angriest at you at the moment.
To aid in integrating the players into the campaign, they may be employed by Valiant Corp, a company which hires mercenaries to bring in war criminals. They insist you respect the Geneva Convention, however. This is very difficult to do when you are trying to make a paramilitary lord more comfortable. Valiant doesn’t provide very much interference (or aid), however, making it a very convenient organization for both the players and the GM.
Chapter Ten: Alternate Campaigns
And now for some silliness. This section features two campaigns, one of which involves time travel and the other involving the war on drugs. The reference to silliness mainly refers to the latter, which I’ll focus on because it’s so much fun.
Drug Busters!
If you’ve ever watched any campy cop shows, you will have a very good idea of what’s in this alternate campaign.
In short, the adventurers are hired to form part of the STRIKEBACK team, no matter how ridiculous the reasons for joining them to the team are. For instance, if you play an accountant, there’s room for you. You get put before the chief, who will, of course, yell at you… just like all the angry chiefs in all those campy cop shows. You get whatever pieces of equipment you want. You want a Harrier jet with fuel-air bombs? Here you go.
You are sent on a mission to infiltrate a spa where all the drug lords are gathering. They won’t notice the hoards of guns you have under the jackets you wear in the spa. (Very, very, campy.) You get saddled with a one-dimensional sidekick who may let you know that voices in his head tell him he’s actually part of a TV program called “Drug Busters!”
And now it’s time for a commercial:
“This is [random thing #1]. This is [random thing #2]. This is [random thing #1] on [random thing #2]. Any questions?”
The other adventure modules included with Drug Busters are wonderfully goofy.
High Points
Chock-full of Real-Life Roleplaying ideas!
This product is great for DMs who want to run a non-FX campaign and need some ideas – it’s crammed with them! Many of the adventure modules are very imaginative, and, despite Modern’s lack of an alignment system, it makes sure the players pay careful attention to their own moral compass, even if they’re playing guerillas.
The product also goes into very good detail about the guerillas and paramilitaries and why they act the way they do — even though they’re extremists they’re not crazy — and this makes them much more compelling villains than stock cultists or the occasional faceless corrupt government official or soldier on the other side.
Low Points
As mentioned above, I can’t say I’m too taken with the stat blocks, and the GM should pay careful attention to the balance of some encounters (including gear behind handed out – not that it’s as big a problem in D20 Modern) and gear. (The reasoning behind the AN-94 is very good, but nonetheless it’s probably not too good for the balance of the game. Hoplophiles who are big fans of realism might rake me over the coals for saying that.)
Rating
4 stars (out of 5).
