Spotlight - Leverage RPG - Setting(s)

We're back today with more on our continuing Leverage RPG spotlight.  Today's topic is going to be about the setting that is used in the Leverage RPG and related topics.

If you watch the show, or have seen the game, you probably understand that the Leverage RPG is set in our world, in present day.  It is a game which focuses on the evil corporations that cause harm to innocent civilians.  It is very much a world based on reality.  You know what the world is like right?  Using that as a basis, you really already understand all that there is to the basics of what you would call the "setting" for the Leverage RPG.  Your characters are all very wealthy and money is unlikely to be a problem for you (since you could always just steal as much as you need anyway) so you're never limited in your jobs to just one locale.  You should feel free, with the game, to go globe-trotting.  Head around the world and pull of Jobs in exotic locales.

If you aren't up on world cultures and history, or don't know your geography, bust out your laptop, head over to wikipedia and you can get as much information about the real world as you want.  Pretty easy huh?  No need for extensive setting books because this modern RPG is pretty much as real as it gets.

Well... at least that is what the Cortex Plus rules say...

But, like a few people that have posted in the comments of this spotlight, the rules are pretty open when it comes to the world of the game.  This RPG is one of those games that falls between Rules Heavy and Rules Lite and the system is free-form enough that it could be pretty easily adapted to just about any time-period based setting you could think of.

Let's say for example, that you want to play Leverage, but you want to do it in the future.  Great.  Your hacker is going to be very, very happy.  The rules system allows for that nicely.  Because of the way that the rules system handles things like Equipment i.e. Assets, you're not likely to have any problems adjusting the way these Assets are handled in a different time period, such as the future.  It's a very, very easy process. Someone in the previous comments remarked that the TV show was a lot like the Shadowrun RPG except that the technology was all dumbed down. I would say that you could run the Leverage RPG, in the Shadowrun Setting, very nicely, without having to deal with all the heavy duty number crunching that a game like Shadowrun comes along with.

However, let's not just go to the future with this, let's take a look at the past as well.  If you're like me, and enjoy playing Fantasy RPG's (we all do) than you're likely in for a treat with the Leverage RPG.  I could see this game as being very fantasy friendly.  It wouldn't be too hard to redefine the hacker roll into some type of magic user then simply play the game from there.  Your team of fantasy con-artists will be your fantasy world's robin hoods as they steal from rich, evil Necromancers, and give those gold pieces off to the people that need them more.

I give the Leverage RPG some major points for putting together a game system that is capable of doing all these different things with setting changes.

Wait... I haven't talked about the system yet... OK! You caught me!! I haven't talked about the system yet.  Stay tuned tomorrow and I'll be right on it.  Got some episodes of Leverage to watch and then you'll get your system post.

    

Spotlight - Leverage RPG - What is Leverage?

OK, let's define Leverage shall we.

Leverage
S: (n) leverage, purchase (the mechanical advantage gained by being in a position to use a lever)
S: (n) leverage (strategic advantage; power to act effectively) "relatively small groups can sometimes exert immense political leverage"
S: (n) leverage, leveraging (investing with borrowed money as a way to amplify potential gains (at the risk of greater losses))

Thank you Google for helping us out with that.

The show, and the RPG, are a play on words. If you've seen the show, or played the RPG, you probably know why.

Leverage is about Con Men (and women) who join together to do their thiefly duties and steal lots of cool stuff.  Sometimes its money, sometimes its artwork, sometimes its horses... (no really, watch the show).  Leverage is kind of like watching Oceans 11, but with only 5 people, and they do it for an hour every week.  Some of the "Jobs" are rediculously over the top and involve the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars.  In fact, the first episode of the TV show has the characters making off with so much money that they could all immidiately retire from a life of crime, settle down somewhere, and enjoy the good life... but, none of them would be satisfied with that.

The show's underlying premise is not only are these people Thieves, but they are also Robin Hood's.  It is kind of hard to say which one of them would actually be Robin Hood (I mean you could make the clear argument that Nathan Ford, the mastermind behind the group, is their leader, but... not sure about that... I like me some Christian Kane for that part... ).  Every character in the show has his or her own specially defined role.  Let's go down the list:  Smart Character - the Mastermind, Nathan Ford; Strong Character - the Hitter, played by Christian Kane; the Hacker, Hardeman; the super flexible, but super crazy burglar - the Thief, Parker; and the charismatic - Grifter, Sophie.

The Leverage RPG is an RPG simulation of the Leverage TV Show.  The Players take the role of one of the Leverage TV Show characters (or make up their own) and play through a variety of Jobs, adventures, if you will, which the Fixer (GM) leads them through.  The game is based on the Cortex Plus rules system and leans toward the story-telling side of RPG's rather than the Tactical Combat Side.  If there was a scale of RPG's with OSR at one end and D&D 4e at the other, the Leverage RPG would be much closer to the OSR side of that diagram.

Next time, in our Leverage spotlight, I'll get into some more detail regarding the Cortex Plus system, how character creation works, and also talk a little bit about how I think you can apply the rules set to run games that exist in a non-"let's go kill everything and steal the loot" kind of world.  Using this rules set, you'll be stealing much more loot, but you won't even have to wash your sword afterward.

    

Spotlight - Leverage RPG - Kickoff

It has been a really long time coming, but I am finally going to kick off of my Leverage RPG Review this week.  Earlier this year, Margaret Weis Productions, was nice enough to send me a review copy of the Leverage RPG when I had showed interest in reviewing their Smallville RPG.  I was quite intimidated at first.  At the time I received the copy of the book, the only thing about Leverage that I knew was that it was a show on TNT about thieves and it starred the dude who played Lindsey McDonald on Angel (we love our Christian Kane).  I wasn't really prepared to read and review Leverage until I actually got to see the show!  The Smallville RPG turned out to be a great product, if reviewed as an RPG Simulation for the Smallville TV Show.

One of the things that I didn't like so much about the Smallville RPG was that I thought it didn't do a perfect job of simulating the "Superhero" genre for me, since that was something I presumed the review should be based on, but after some discussion with the developers, and learning that they really tried to based the game as closely to the show as possible, the design decisions became much clearer to me. That really strengthened my opinion that I would be pretty much out of line to review this RPG without having some understanding of the source material.

But, now, everything has changed! I have finally gotten a chance to watch season one of the show, and will be watching season 2 very soon.  I actually enjoyed Leverage a lot more than I thought I would and I have gotten pretty much hooked.  I am very happy to learn that the show will be airing its fourth season in June of this year, which means lots more DVD box sets coming to me out here in Japan, eventually...  To make a long story very short, I have finally gotten a chance to give the Leverage RPG a good read and I'll be going through it, with my usual RPG spotlight format over the course of the next week.  I hope you all stay tuned for  it!