Streets of Bedlam takes a lot of inspiration from cinematic sources. After playing the game, you’ll see how characters in your favorite movies can easily translate to Monsters, Dogfaces, Troubles, and other Streets of Bedlam archetypes. But aside from the character types and locations common to neo-noir and crime films, I’ve also ported over another common cinematic device: Roles.

Roles in Streets of Bedlam allow your character to spend Bennies in order to perform major (sometimes plot-altering) actions that you’re allowed to do simply because you’re the Hero, Sidekick, Love Interest, Plot Twist, or a Supporting Character in the story. These actions range from courageous feats of derring-do to sudden-but-inevitable betrayals to putting yourself in harm’s way in order to give the Hero focus (and a nice bonus).

Roles are optional but they’re also a lot of fun. As an independent system, you can lift them from Streets of Bedlam and drop them into any Savage Worlds setting—or any setting or system at all, if you like! For more details, check out the Streets of Bedlam corebook when it comes out in April. In the meantime, be sure to back the game to get some Kickstarter-exclusive perks and even put yourself in the game!

(Please note that the rules above are currently in playtest and subject to change.)

Two cities make up the area colloquially known as Bedlam: Bedford and Lamrose. A man-made river splits the two cities with the richer half, the one that quickly overcame its poorer neighbor, residing on the northwestern banks. You don’t have to walk far into Bedford to witness the influence Catholicism has on the city. While many different faiths practice and preach within the city limits, Catholicism is the big dog and the massive building christened St. Leonard Holy Cathedral is the kennel.

Bedford is a planned city. While Lamrose grew organically from humble means, Bedford is the product of purposeful investment from some of the most powerful developers, both foreign and domestic. This accounts not only for the number of right angles in the city grid but its continued affluence as well.

Planned cities tend to serve overt purposes. Vegas, for example, was built as a playground in the desert (and some say as a way for the mafia to wash their money). Bedford too was built with a purpose. While it may be hard to believe now, Bedford was envisioned (and sold to investors) as a religious oasis. St. Leonard Holy Cathedral was to be the epicenter of the Lord’s presence in America. The big question is why Bedford was built near Lamrose. You see, in Lamrose’s heyday, it was a city on the rise with a fair bit of blue-collar money in its pockets. Sold as a sister-city to Bedford, the cynical board overseeing the new city’s construction saw in Lamrose an established base full of uneducated people in need of some good old-fashioned churching.

So Bedford found a home. The area folks call Big Church is the northeast corner of the city, near the top of the Artifice River, and it is a sight to behold. A large cross, the image of the martyred savior etched into its face, shines like the sun from the massive dome atop St. Leonard Holy Cathedral. If G*d didn’t see Bedford before its construction, he certainly can now. The entire area, for blocks to the west and south, is home to the diocese, religious-oriented and -affiliated businesses, and homes reserved for the church’s star members, including the gated community of Daniel’s Reach (home to Cardinal Stratford and his compound).

As Bedford grew under the guiding hand of competent management, its sister-city slid further and further down the economic scale. Industry left Lamrose and took its paychecks with it. Half of Lamrose fled to greener pastures—those who could anyway—while the rest remained and suffered for it. Rigged election after rigged election, the seats of power were filled by folks prescribed by those pulling the strings. Lamrose, falling into grievous debt, reached out its hand to Bedford for salvation. Lamrose surrendered its independent governance and incorporated into Bedford at the height of the Reagan years giving birth to modern Bedlam.

But even Bedford’s deep coffers were unable to save Lamrose. Irreparably marred by gross mismanagement and a rising crime rate, Lamrose was soon discarded by its new master. As Lamrose’s reputation had begun to sully Bedford’s own good name, the city councilfolks devised a way to plausibly disassociate themselves from their sister-city. As a joint project between the two, the Artifice River was constructed, dividing the cities in an effort to stem Lamrose’s criminal influence from infecting the Rich City.

And all of this was overseen by the heads of Big Church whose primary duty is not the shepherding of Bedlam’s flock but protecting its own assets. Some may shake their head at such an assertion but that priority has served them, and Bedford, well. Big Church has kept the city afloat during some tough stretches. In recent times though, Big Church’s grip has become strained as poor public perception of the Catholic Church and a rise in grassroots fundamentalism has shifted attention to smaller conclaves of believers. Initially dismissed as “fringe worshipers” and “abberations,” Big Church must now come to term with a vocal minority who are being heard more and more. Well, they’re screaming more and more anyway.

Still, Big Church is mighty and not currently in threat of going anywhere. And it retains far more influence in the direction and management of Bedlam than anyone in the city center would care to admit. With the recent passing of Bishop Robinson, and his successor yet to be named, well, it’s hard to say what the future has in store for Big Church. Even harder to say what Big Church has in store for the future of Bedlam.

Cops got it rough in Bedlam—no two ways about it. Seems even the good ones go bad eventually. You could say the turn is a matter of time, or opportunity, or maybe it’s just the product of exhaustion. You can’t swim against a torrent of shit forever. Hell, some cops dive under immediately. Sad truth is there’s good money doing that. And respect. And power. That’s how promotions are earned, how you get a seat next to the Mayor at the annual banquet. Other cops fight the good fight, as long as they can, until they see they’re going nowhere and buckle. All it takes is a gentle nudge sometimes. Still, some cops unwittingly step into servitude. Maybe they make a mistake that needs covered up by someone in power or get into the kind of trouble only a person of means can correct. Debt is one of the worst things in Bedlam. The badge is not a shield against all attackers.

Some cops though, they stick to the straight and narrow. Change the system from within? That’s not how a door gets knocked down. You put on your big boots and you kick that wood until it splinters. You do that, you best be careful. You never know whose door you’re cracking open there or what you might see on the other side. Carrying a badge in Bedlam means you have to make some hard choices. First one: How honest can you afford to be?

Two cities make up the area colloquially known as Bedlam: Bedford and Lamrose. A man-made river splits the two cities with the poorer half, the one that was eventually assumed by its richer cousin, residing on the southeastern banks. Lamrose began as a city of the future, built on the burgeoning steel industry and automotive possibilities that withered on the vine before all the jobs were shipped off to countries with more lax labor laws and a cheaper workforce. The collapse of its economic infrastructure left Lamrose vulnerable to predatory development, causing much of it to fall into decline. Those who remember might compare the darker parts of Lamrose to the Times Square of the 70s and 80s or the less desirable areas of modern Detroit.

But the heyday of Lamrose is not entirely forgotten. Fossils of failed reconstruction can be unearthed throughout the city’s many districts but the oldest remnants are found in the part of the city that existed before the city: the nine square blocks known as Bricktown.

The district gets its name primarily from its brick-paved streets but also the many red- and brown-faced buildings that stand in its heart. Bricktown was built on the remains of the original settlement and predates the districts of the outgrowth by over a century. The land beneath the bricks didn’t see development before a group of industrious entrepreneurs realized it fell in line with other manufacturing centers in the area, providing them with an eager, pre-existing workforce. So Bricktown grew, and Lamrose from it, until a city proper sprung from its seeds. Incorporated in the 1930s, Lamrose was formally founded with the district now known as Bricktown serving as a Philadelphia to the new city center’s District of Columbia. Lamrose attracted a lot of development, laying down a bedrock of industry that served the area well for decades to come. By the time the Summer of Love rolled around, Lamrose was fulfilling its promise as a city of the future.

Bricktown initially survived gentrification due to a half-hearted attempted to treat the original city site as a sort-of landmark but eventually it became too far left behind for any nominal amount of investment to pay off. From a budgetary standpoint, it made more sense to let Bricktown decay while funneling cashflow to the parts of the city that look good from the waterfront and on postcards (whatever amount of cashflow was left after filling the pockets of the city councilfolk and crooked contractors, that is).

As the district was left to its devices, the local criminal enterprises looking for a base of operations moved into the mostly-ignored area of Bricktown. As years passed, more and more vice moved in growing this once-unassuming square of post-war architecture into a thriving den of iniquity. Prostitution and the drug trade became Bricktown’s primary contributions to local economy which allowed criminal mini-empires to rise and infect all of Lamrose.

While the municipal leaders were profiting off Lamrose and quietly selling off its assets (which led to its eventual assumption by Bedford), the denizens of the districts were coming to terms with the fact they were on their own. The majority of the citizenry felt helpless, seeing it as easier to pack up and move away than try to fix their home city’s issues from within, leaving pockets for more infection to root and fester.

But a certain portion of the population didn’t move and refused to surrender: the working girls (and boys) of Bricktown. As police patrolling and protection dwindled, unscrupulous men forcefully took over the district’s sex trade—beating and doping the workers into submission while strongarming every last drop of profit. The world’s oldest profession quickly twisted into the world’s second oldest crime, leaving the professionals to look out for themselves.

Which they did.

While the woman called Queenie is generally regarded as the instigator of this revolution, nothing would have changed if the call to arms hadn’t been answered by a group. The working girls (and boys) of Bricktown rose up and beat back the pushers and pimps who had kept them down for so long. A war raged on the streets and many were left broken and beaten in its wake. The bodies were never recovered by either side. When the dust settled and the blood congealed, the working girls (and boys) stood victorious over their oppressors.

But Queenie knew it was only a matter of time before the pushers and pimps regrouped, stronger than ever. So she set about training her army, turning this gang of streetgirls and funboys into a band of vigilantes called Valkyries. Along with this honing of skills came a broadening of focus. The Valkyries quickly expanded their protected land to include all the districts of Lamrose. Slowly, but steadily, they are turning the tide of corruption in the Poor City. While Bricktown is a far shot from an amusement park, it is a safer area to ply one’s trade than it had been ten years prior.

Bricktown is Valkyrie HQ, where Queenie and her select cadre run the show. Though few question her, Queenie is not a dictator. The simple fact is she usually knows best and all but the greenest recruits know better than to refute her orders without having a damned good counter-argument.

The criminals in Bedlam don’t talk to nobody. Except you. You’ve got ins with the major families, the syndicates, even a couple with the white-collar crooks. You’ve got a mainline to the dirt other people need, and those other people? They pay you well for what you know. But you’re aiming a gun with two barrels, pal. All that intel you’re scrounging is a bullseye on a bulletproof vest, you understand. That’s why you only move in circles that protect you, talk to people you trust.

The criminals in Bedlam don’t talk to nobody. But you, you don’t talk to nobody. What you know is your ticket to better things. Those connections you’ve made are worth more than gold. Well, wait, how much gold we talking about? It’ll have to be a lot because the names you’ve heard, the faces you’ve scanned, the deals you’ve seen go down, are worth good money. And if a potential buyer isn’t willing or able to pony up your asking price, you’ll find somebody who will. Cuz, pal, on these streets, there’s always someone willing to pay more.

The third full week of Streets of Bedlam comes to a close in fine style.

Here’s what’s been going on the past week:

Kickstarter
The Kickstarter hit 200% funded this week! We’re less than $1.7k away from the $8k milestone! Hitting that unlocks a fifth standalone adventure “Eli Mendoza is a Dead Man” for the first supplement. This will change Four-Story Drop into Five-Story Drop!

Reveals
This week on the site, we looked at the REGENT archetype as well as the Kickstarter-exclusive TROUBLE. Next week, I’ll post two new Character Types/Archetypes including the Kickstarter-exclusive Archetype SAWBONES which you unlocked for all $10+ backers when the pledges hit the $5k milestone.

I also talked a bit about the game’s Interrogation rules. Next week, I’ll dive into my main cinematic contribution to the Savage Worlds system: Roles.

Interview/Press
Jodi Black from Beautiful Brains Books & Games gave me the honor of being a guest host on this past Thursday’s online chat. I talked about Streets of Bedlam, Little Fears, Kickstarter, and much more. It was great to sit down with everybody and I’d love to do it again. If you missed it, you can read the transcript when it goes live (I’ll post a link!).

The guys at the Out of Character podcast over at PulpGamer.com shined a light on the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter. Thanks, guys!

Tyson from Apathy Games had some very nice things to say about the Streets of Bedlam Kickstarter. Thanks, Tyson!

The thread over at Pinnacle’s official SW Licensees forum is going strong. The Savage World community is a great group of folks. I encourage you to stop by and join the discussion.

Be sure to follow the official @StreetsOfBedlam Twitter account for early previews of what’s to come.

Thanks, everybody, for another great week!

Sometimes, in Bedlam, the only people who talk are the ones you wish would just shut up. And the people you want to talk are locked up tight with no signs of budging. That’s when you have to bust out the tools and get to work. Time to interrogate.

You have two options when it comes to persuasive extraction: break the subject’s spirit or break his body. With the former, it’s about getting into his head, weakening him emotionally, and finding out what strings you need to snip to get him to sing. With the latter, it’s about pain. Deep-down and to the bone. The kind of pain that scars your soul. A good interrogator knows which is a subject’s weakness and goes right for it. Others have to dig around a while or try them both.

While Streets of Bedlam introduces some new systems to Savage Worlds, I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel if I didn’t have to. I knew I wanted to spotlight investigation and interrogation in the rules so I looked for systems already in Savage Worlds that might handle those. In a film, when some guy is strapped to a chair, duct tape over his eyes, sweating under a bare-bulb lamp while some heavy hovers over a car battery with a sadistic grin on his face, that’s a pretty dramatic moment. So to replicate those types of moments in Streets of Bedlam, I decided to use a system Savage Worlds already had: Dramatic Tasks. But I wanted to tailor it a bit, so instead of needing five successes in five rounds, the interrogator needs a number of successes equal to or greater than the subject’s Spirit (if the interrogator is playing mind games) or his Vigor (if the interrogator is going the physical route). If successful, information comes out. If he’s very successful, it may even be the right information.

Thing is, the subject is dealt in as well so while the interrogator is looking for weaknesses, the subject’s probably planning something of his own. What matters here is not who succeeds best but who succeeds first.

(Please note that the rules above are currently in playtest and subject to change. Full, final rules will appear in the Streets of Bedlam corebook, due out April 2012.)

Trouble. You’re either in it or causing it. It’s not that you necessarily mean to. Half the time, it finds you. At least, that’s your take on it. Trouble comes in ages young and old, sizes big and small, male and female alike. How it shakes down is folks are attracted to you, your looks, your style, that hint of innocence on your face. Some people just aren’t alive unless they’re saving somebody. You’re not a pretty princess, some damsel-in-distress, but you’ll play the role. For a moment, you give their life purpose, you fill some hole in their sad existence. Sometimes you’re the center of their universe and sometimes you’re their dirty little secret. Sometimes you’re both. All that is fine by you.

You focus on yourself because you’re the only one who really cares about you. The adoration others heap on you is nice but it’s fleeting. Either you’ll get bored or they’ll get distracted. Sure, you’re in the prime spot now, but every time you wake, you’re one day older. You know you’ll have to use what you have while you can to get what you need. You’re not into tying yourself down though you’ll take the benefits while they’re offered. Every relationship is an affair, every friendship is fleeting, and every connection you make will ultimately end in heartbreak. You’re just making sure it’s you who delivers the bad news. Nobody’s breaking your heart, that’s for sure.

* The TROUBLE character option is one of the two Kickstarter-exclusive Archetypes given to backers who pledge $60 or more as a special thank-you for their support!

People want to be controlled. They need it. Left to their own devices, people will seek someone to tell them what to do. Sure, they’ll run around like headless chicks for a while, grinding and sweating and giving themselves over to their base impulses, but once the fun of freedom fades, they will look around at their meaningless existence and cry out, “What should I do?” That is, after all, how gods were invented.

In Bedlam, that’s what regents are: gods. Gods of commerce, gods of industry, gods of the people. Those who give and those who take away. Regents made Bedford just like regents broke Lamrose. Those who excel within the boundaries you draw are rewarded. Those who reach beyond their pens must be put into place. The question for regents isn’t “How should I use my power?” It’s “Who will stop me from doing what I want?” As someone who wields the power, you have to decide the devil you serve. You can fall in line with those who cannot see beyond the ivory towers or change the beast from within. When you’re a regent, very few can or will call you out for your decisions. But beware, oh beware, those who do.

Crime is an everyday part of Streets of Bedlam. The city is filled with folks who commit it, those who are victims of it, and bystanders who look the other way. Of course, there are also people who have to stick their heads right into the lion’s mouth—which is probably what you’ll end up doing when you play it. Some of these people are professionals, Badges for instance, but anybody can get dragged into an investigation, especially when something personal is involved somehow.

Instead of making investigations a simple roll in Streets of Bedlam, I wanted to give important crime scenes and criminal trails some heft, to make the process of figuring out a crime as engaging, and with as much dramatic back and forth, as combat. In books and movies, a well-done investigation adds emotional heft to the story. Through it, we learn about the criminal, the victim, the investigator, and how they all fit together.

Using the Savage Worlds system as the core, I wanted to give players new options so they can adjust the granularity of the game for their group, to tweak the focus to better fit the types of stories you might tell with Streets of Bedlam. While an investigation could be resolved by a single die roll, some investigations are more important, and have more to say, than a simple “I know who did it.” That’s where Streets of Bedlam‘s Investigation rules come into play.

When it comes to a crime scene, especially the scene of a murder, two sides come into conflict: the criminal and the investigator. Those two are the forces butting heads and this is where the good drama comes from.

As with combat encounters, crime scenes in Streets of Bedlam are set up beforehand by the game master*. The GM determines the criminals Intent, constructs a list of important clues, a list of secondary clues, and then rolls to see how successful the criminal was at fulfilling his Intent. Success and failure on this roll modifies the difficulty for whoever later comes along to investigate. These details are recorded on a brief Crime Sheet.

A criminal’s Intent is either to leave Zero Evidence or Set a Stage. When the criminal is attempting to leave Zero Evidence, he is trying to remove anything that could implicate him. When a criminal tries to Set a Stage, he is delivering a message which may be trying to point the finger at someone else (a frame job) or tell a story (as is often the case with serial killers). So the GM notes the criminal’s Intent and marks the level of success on the Crime Sheet.

(If the GM desires an even more granular level of investigation, she can roll for Intent for every major clue or “stage setting” as well.)

Throughout the examination of the crime scene, the investigator’s actions will be helped or hindered by the success of the criminal. Clues will be revealed through this back-and-forth where the player characters will have to butt heads with actions that took place minutes, hours, days, possible years beforehand. Time, area, and weather are among the other modifiers that could come into play—either against the investigator or against the perpetrator. A rainy day could wash away key evidence but it could also provide a nice wet patch to capture the criminal’s bootprint.

Failing to find the clues doesn’t dead end the investigation though. Instead, it may end up leading you somewhere else, along the wrong trail, but, hey, sometimes it’s not important that the person responsible is taken down—just that someone is.

This system will be detailed completely** in the Streets of Bedlam corebook but I wanted to give you all a look into the thought process behind the game. I hope this preview piqued your interest for what’s in store. Come back next week for a look at the game’s take on information extraction with a breakdown of the new Interrogation rules.

*Also as with combat encounters, the corebook will include sample crime scenes for impromptu investigations.

**As it’s still in playtest, some details may also change prior to release.