Pyramid Review
Affiliates RPG
Published by Anglo-Canadian Games
Written by Janet Neilson with Zavada McElwain, Brian Menczynski, & Ben Yee
Illustrated by Toos Holman with Janet Neilson
Player's Guide, 124-Page Perfect Bound Book; $22
Game Master's Guide, 108-Page Perfect Bound Book; $22Affiliates, published by Anglo-Canadian Games, is a new entry in the crime genre of RPGs. Split into two books, the Player's Guide and the Game Master's Guide, this casts the characters as almost, but not quite, members of the Mafia. Rather they belong to "Smythe Affiliated," also known as the "Affiliation" or the Mafia's Mafia. Created by an expatriate Englishman in the days of Prohibition, it consists of a single family or bloodline with a very loyal cadre of specialists in criminal activity. Its role is provide other criminal organizations -- the Mafia, the Yakuza, the Triads, and others (though for historical reasons, not the Organizatsiya) -- with specialist services such as safe houses, weaponry, information, even assassination, but all without involving itself in the politics or wars of their customer base. As members of Smythe Affiliated, player characters will undertake such tasks while also protecting the Smythe family from its rivals, the Merritts. But when it comes to the job, an Affiliate's motto is, "Simple. Nasty. Effective."
The whole concept feels like a television series pitch -- "They're mafia, but not mafia, only associated with them, but they still get to do all those bad things . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: October 19, 2007
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