I suspect that many of you are only vaguely familiar with this gem of a game out of Scotland. I picked it up way back in '93 and fell in love with it. I'm apparently smarter than the average bear because I actually figured out a good portion of the Truth eons ago before it was leaked. But I get ahead of myself trying to sprain my shoulder patting myself on the back... :keke:

So a refresher for those who didn't know about it, and for those who forgot...


SLA industries came out after the death of the Cyberpunk movement, after the release of Shadowrun, and some of those tropes are inherited. It's a dark dystopian game set in a 'far future, in a land far far away' sort of place, where the characters are Operatives for some ultramega corporation that literally owns the entire galaxy.  It is a world populated by endless rain, serial killers of the week, gladatorial combats on the ubiquitous telly, and Truth that will destroy you. There are some things that are red flags for people like the Pundit... you know the types: unkillable setting NPC's, hints of a megaplot, angst...

Only, the unkillable NPC's are distant demigods, the megaplot never surfaces. It's given to you as a more or less static thing, the entire setting evolves slowly over the course of the three setting books. I think the only real change is the addition of 'Life After Death' technology in the wake of never explained Demi-god (actually... God) activities.  

Then there is the hinted at Truth. Hinted? They use the term with incredible frequency throughout the main book, with lesser but still unsubtle hints in the few supplements. The Truth is an objective thing in this game, and throughout most of it's life, was almost impossible to get your hands on. GM's were encouraged to run with their own 'Truth'... if it mattered to them.

The Company, Nightfall Games, had a very hard time keeping this sucker afloat. They were owned at times by Wizards of the Coast and Hogshead publishing, and I believe have resurfaced as their own independent studios.  Leaving aside a few slightly dated bits of art, the game itself holds up well enough for being over a decade old.

The mechanics, however, were almost excessively simplistic, which was a point of much contention.  Roll 2d10 add skill, try to beat an ill defined target number (no guidelines for altering the target number at all, with a few penalties to the dice roll for combat and a few other situations).   They weren't bad, really, but given increasing consumer sophistication and the sheer byzantine setting wealth it definitely rang hollow and slightly slapdash.  


As for the Truth? It was leaked slowly starting around 1998 from the 'writers bible' available to freelancers, and partly because it was not written for public consumption was often poorly recieved as the lurid fiction it resembled. Some people, however, feel the Truth redeems the bleak, ultraviolent setting by giving it real meaning.




Now for the News: It's getting a true second edition. There was a second printing that can still be found on some LGS's shelves, but this is a whole new edition, and the Truth is actually going to matter.  I've taken a gander at some of the resources available on the web, and I've got some mixed feelings.

It seems to me that the second edition is going to bring in 'The Truth' and all those mysterious things about the game right to the players as part of the game structure. Where before you could either ignore it completely, or seek it out and hope your GM was either clued in or damn clever... now you get to be made a part of the real deal, behind the scenes reality war...

One thing I always liked, personally, was the way armor and guns worked. Guns (all weapons really) did a fixed amount of damage... admittedly a weakness of sorts, but did 'Damage' and 'Armor Penetration' and "Armor damage' in one easy to read statline.  Pen added to damage to punch through armor, but not for actual damage purposes, adn armor had it's own hitpoints. Some rounds couldn't punch through heavy armor, but could, after only a few shots, tear it right off of you, other ammo made neat holes in whatever it hit. If anything it was a faster cleaner version of what Battlelords pulled out of their hats a few years later.

This, apparently, is going away. In it's place is what appears to be the Dream Pod Nine damage mulitplier rule.  

Gah!

Don't get me wrong, I like DP9, but I've always thought that, aside from its relative uniqueness, the multiplying damage rule was the worst aspect of the game (other than having twenty freaking attributes! Okay, I exaggerate, but not by much...) and the sheer insanity of putting +3 to your agility for combat.... or higher depending on the iteration of the game.

I suppose in the end the real strength of this new edition's combat/damage rule will depend on the way damage is applied.  In DP9 systems, a narrow success with even powerful guns like sniper rifles could be relatively ignorable, while an insanely good combintation of attack/bad defensive rolls, could make a tossed pebble absolutely lethal to anything short of a main battle tank.  Again, I exaggerate... a little.   In the end, however, it isn't this one subsystem that will make or break the game... it's the way all those subsystems work together.

Now I just need someone to play the game with. Preferably a GM, cause I'd rather play... even knowing 'The Truth'.

One long standing weakness is that for a game about existentialist horror ( I kid, it's about big guns vs. gangs of organized serial killer 'cognates', with occasional reality bending terrorists thrown in for good measure) is that it lacked any sort of mechanics for tracking progressing insanity/knowledge of teh truth/dissillusionment with teh powers that be.

With one exception for the humanlooking, but very alien Ebon Flux weilders, who were driven progressively crazier by their more powerful kin as they learned greater levels of 'Formulae'. Sadly, no real guidance was given on why players would actually RAISE their formulae, and I couldn't find a compelling reason to use that mechanic outside of 'fucking with the powermonkeys'.

The end result, by they way, for progressive insanity? They kill ya, toss your body into The White, and you come back as a powerful undead Necanthrope.

Yeah. kinda ruins the horror of it all if you just get to come in more powerful than before for me too. Still the writing for that bit is fairly cool.

Okay, what's the Truth.  Spill it in linkage if you must.

Spoiler space - not a very good spoiler but....

























































































The truth - from memory - is that everyone and everything barring a few high level npc's are the figments of some blokes imagination in a mental unit.
(the high level NPC's are people he knows in the unit and his imaginary friend).

Apparently they're all on some drug that allows them to create a universe in their head but some dodgy government type wanted to control their universes.

Now imagine the above written so as to fill a lot more pages.  When I found it I was severely unimpressed -especially given how cool the game setting was.  It's almost as if they had two ideas, SLA and some untitled modern day conspiracy freakfest.  But whoever wrote the latter couldn't let their baby go and shoehorned it into SLA.

Personally if the new system makes more of the Truth and changes the weapon rules as Spike has claimed, I'll stick to the first ed.

Stumpydave use the '[' spoiler ']' tags around the text, just like quote tags. Works waaaaay better.

I wrote the first release in the new line (Cannibal Sector One) and was line developer for a while, though there wasn't the money or impetus to actually do any line developing at that time.

There is a new edition in the pipeline, I hope to still do some freelancing (they have another of my books in manuscript form for it anyway). I'm not entirely sure about the way its developing now but I'm sure there'll be lots of new books in the pipeline and it definately deserves a new edition.

There was quite a bit more to the Truth than that, and again, it wasn't written for public consumption, but quite a few people found the nature of the reality to covert the setting to 'sensicle' from 'ultraviolent wankfest'... so your mileage might vary.


I understand that in the new edition the players will go from being ordinary Ops to Stigmartyr soldiers on the frontlines of this War for reality. Cadaver and the House of the Black Church, the Kilneck, Root Dogs and more will actually be making an appearance on the other side...

Of course, I could be reading into things...

It all seems very "Doom Patrol", particularly the later issues of the comic.  If anyone has read both, am I right?

What a twist!

Quote from: DevPWhat a twist!

1. The Truth

http://team8.co.uk/forum/viewthread.php?tid=828

2. The free (if blurry) but FREE pdf

http://eshop.rpg.net/product_info.php?products_id=21127&

Awesome game.

Thanks for the heads up and info. I vaguely remember this from its WotC era but  only leafed through it at the time. It'd been recommended to me last year by some friends and they were thrilled about the free download. From a quick skim it looks like Necromunda meets Mythos via Transmetropolitan from Scotland.

I see it was originally made using Atari STs. The other cheaper alternative to Macs back in the day.

For those who can't wait for a second edition, we should have our Savage Worlds conversion finished within the next week or so, hopefully incorporating all the aesthetics of SLA without the horribleness of some parts of the system.

I'll post a link here when we're done.

voidstate

In the store that I work at , we've got what I think is a 2nd edition core rulebook of SLA Industries.

  Can anyone on here boil down all of the above comments in this thread to less than 3 or 4 sentences?  A 'Quick" way to describe the game and setting ?

 What would convince one of my customers to buy that book or give that setting a try ?
 Is it worth the effort to do so ?

 Is it too fucked up for most gamers?

 Or is it the type of game where they might say : "HOLy Shit! This is cool fun!"

 I've scanned the book, but have been trying to get a handle on describing it to folks.

- E.W.C.

The premise is a dark ultraviolent future where paranoia and sensationalism play the main points of the day.  Typical adventure was your group of agents going into the shit holes of society to rat out serial killers, rogue agents or other conspirators.  Best way to do this was to get the biggest damn gun you couldn and start blasting.

Quote from: KoltarIn the store that I work at , we've got what I think is a 2nd edition core rulebook of SLA Industries.

  Can anyone on here boil down all of the above comments in this thread to less than 3 or 4 sentences?  A 'Quick" way to describe the game and setting ?

 What would convince one of my customers to buy that book or give that setting a try ?
 Is it worth the effort to do so ?

 Is it too fucked up for most gamers?

 Or is it the type of game where they might say : "HOLy Shit! This is cool fun!"

 I've scanned the book, but have been trying to get a handle on describing it to folks.

- E.W.C.

You undoubtedly have the 'Second printing' which is versions 1.1. Black hardbound with a punkin' headed serial killer lounging on the front?

I gather a great deal of the coolness comes from people grokking it.  If you go 'gun crazy' ultraviolence, then you probably have the wrong game (belive it or not, given everything else) as the game is a bit deadly and clunky to really excel in that regards.  It really supports a desperate horror or depressing grind... with some ultraviolence thrown in for good measure.

From what I gather, the upcoming books will help focus that a bit more with fewer threats that you could just shoot and be done with.

That said, the current leaders of the pack are not really the people who originally did the game, but rather like Fanpro did with Fasa, were fans who bought the rights to the game they loved...so their views are the 'dominante paradigm' now.  IF I understand the forum discussions, that is.


Oh, and as for the Truth, apparently, the Truth as posted is not going to be the Truth as used for the new edition.  


One last thing I've learned recently: The Kilneck (historical uber-mercenaries/demi-gods) from the setting were the Amber Characters of the original designer's school campaign.  So, the entire SLA industries setting could be viewed as a 'Personal Shadow' of the major NPC's of the setting.   This leads to the idea of tangling with them by running SLA industries as an Amber Game....