SLA Industries

SLA Industries is, to be honest, a very viable contestant for "Best Game Evar!!11!!!(TM)". Probably my favourite interperatation of Cyber-Punk and a game that is severely underated and , as far as i know, still, after its 2000 re-print, completely unsupported. But still, one must soldier on musn't one?

For hose that don't know SLA Industries is a roleplaying game first published in 1993 by Nightfall Games in Glasgow. The game combines concepts inspired by a range of song lyrics, aesthetics and ideas from the Industrial music scene, cyberpunk fiction, Anime (most notably, to my mind atleast, Akira), and the growing cultural obsession with the media (such as 24 hour news services) in order to create an ultra-dystopian far-flung future in which the 99.9% of the known universe is either directly owned by, or indirectly controlled by, the eponymous SLA Industries corporation. It is also noted as having a distinctive flavour due to the influences of the Glasgow / Scottish upbringing of the writers, as opposed to the more pure Americana influences of other games written around this period.All of which combines to make a game composed of pure fucking win (yes the expletive is neccessary, its just that cool).

Some setting info....(lifted from wikipedia)

The SLA (pron. "Slay") Industries corporation itself was run by a weakly godlike creature called "Mr. Slayer", whose upper management team included a number of other creatures like himself, such as "Intruder", "Senti" and "Preceptor Teeth". The corporation was headquartered on "Mort City", a densely populated city-sprawl larger than Eurasia and surrounded by the urban ruins of the "Cannibal Sectors", all located on a vast planet (also called "Mort") that had been stripped of its natural resources to the point that the ecology had been utterly destroyed. SLA Industries controlled an undefined but vast number of planets in pursuit of Mr Slayer's mysterious grand plan, the "World of Progress". Much of the setting was surreally disturbing, and tended to provoke as many questions as it answered.

Players took the role of freelance employees of SLA Industries living in Mort City, taking care of odd jobs assigned to them by the corporation. These jobs usually involved keeping the peace -- everything from hunting down serial killers, clearing out monsters from the sewers under the city and foiling terrorists to bodyguarding celebrities, quashing riots, assassinating irritating civilians and generally making sure the public toed the line. Appearance and style were emphasized in the game world as much as combat ability, because everything was televised, and a character's television ratings were often more important to her career than her abilities. Later expansions to the game also let players play as celebrity gladiators called Contract Killers. As a roleplaying experience, the game tended to be predisposed towards splatterpunk horror, noir, dark satire, and/or gunbunny high action. However the byzantine political nature of the setting along with detailed environment allowed for more thriller and politics based campaigns should the players wish it.

Anyway i hope this give you some idead of the inherent aceness of the game. Onward to character creation:

Character concept.

I jotted this down as: Human, Stealthy, Paranoid, Mentalist Imagine Jason Bourne mixed with that sniper from saving private ryan, doing blade runner. In action he is quite one dimensional, only really being good at one thing, but he does it really well.

Stats and such-like

In SLA you are given 300 points to spend across charactercreation including Characteristics, Skills and Advantages/Disadvantages.

Characteristics

Human base characteristics are 5 across the board an it costs 5 points to raise them by one and by th same value, if i wished to decrease a stat by one from the baseline of 5 i would gain 5 points so my stats of:

STR 8 (+15)
DEX 10 (+25)
DIA 10 (+25)
CONC 5 (+0)
CHA 5 (+0)
COOL 4 (-5)

Would cost (15+25+25-5) 60Pts.

Also derived from these are:

PHYS 9 (STR+DEX/2)
KNOW 8 (DIA+CONC)

There is also a Flux score, but a the character is human, it is, and will remain, 0.

After this is completed, it is onwards, with my remaining 240Pts. to skills. These are devided into Groups based upon the main stats above, and thats how i'll list th one's i've purchased.

Skills re paid for in a one point per rank cumulative system, this means to buy rank 3 in a skill, the player must buy Rank 1 + Rank 2 + Rank 3 = 6Pts. As shown below:

Skill Rank 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10
Base Cost  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10
Cum. Cost  1  3  6 10 15 21 28 36 45  55

As noted before, this guy is a bit of a one trick pony. Hence the high amount of Dex based skills.

STR Skills

Blade-1-H Rank 4

DEX Skills

Martial arts Rank 5
Forgery, Manual Rank 5
Slight Rank 5
Sneaking Rank 9
Hide Rank 8
Pistol Rank 7
Drive Motorcycle Rank 6

(Ok so he's a bit overdone, but thats th way i like to play them, its almost Min/Maxing....but not quite)

PHYS Skills

Climb Rank 5
Acrobatics Rank 5

DIA Skills

Computer use Rank 4
Tracking Rank 4
Torture Rank 5
Lock Picking Rank 4
Intinidation Rank 5

KNOW Skills

Literacy Rank 3

Secondary Skills

Video Games Rank 1
Artistic Ability Rank 3

As you can see i've sorta stuck as close as possible to the old Jason Bourne idea, he's ok in a fight, but better at avoiding them....but he's shit with anything that isn't pistol. But they have to have a major flaw somewhere i suppose.

Advantages/Disadvantages

This is where i get the chance to flesh out his paranoid schitzo psychology. Tough being all assassiny and such has improved his Vision to Rank 3 I have reduced his Speech Rank -1 not only to compensate, i see him as someone who has great difficulty interracting with others. He also sufferst from Illness:Migrains Rank -4 which has ledto his Drug Addiction Rank -3 (Most notably to pain killers) which has, even with the Uni's he's pulled in from some of the more damgerous BPN's he's been involved with, left him with Debt Rank -3 Which has meant tht he best Housing he can afford is a shitty (Rank -6) Bedsit in pper Downtown, whilst most other operatives are living it up near the spire. His general demeanour, and strangeness have let him with a Bad Reputaion Rank -3 even in down town.

Its not all bad though he does have his beloved SLA motorbike (heavy) (Vehicle Rank Rank 6) and his pet Goldfish George (Dependant Rank 1 (pet))

So, thats all the 300 points spent, at this point i chose a training package (training packages are the feild in which the operative specialises, i chose the Kick Murder Squad who do SLA's dirty, under-hand assassineering. This gave me bonus ranks to:

Hide (DEX)
Sneaking (DEX)
Martial Arts (DEX)
Climb (PHYS)
Acrobtics (PHYS)
Unarmed Combat (STR)

These bonus ranks have already been added to the above. Next thing to do is buy equipment nd armour and such, and we'll be done.

Like the others doing this challenge, i'm not going to bother buying equipment. So, here, lifted straight from th SLA core book is what all player charactrs start with:

Headset communicator, Klippo Lighter, Pen, FEN 603 (see hrdware) and two clips of ammunition, a Blue Print News file case, an S.C.L (Security Cleance level) Card, a Finance card or Finance chip, a Package card and Badge, a Departmental Authorisation card, two ts of clothes, one set of footwear, an operative organizer, a SLA Badge, a Weapons Maintenance kit, minor personal effects and a packet of contraceptives.

That is in addition to the 1500 credits that you are given to spend.

So all that is left to do is name him, Dave Halbrooke, Human, Scout, SCL 10a. And wish him good luck on his next big BPN. Watch out for the pigs matey. :)