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I just watched Blade Runner last night, so I’m in the perfect mood for something dark, alien, existential, and full of guns. Does Midway City create such an atmosphere? Has the genre been effectively transferred from film and fiction to roleplaying? My verdict is a positive maybe. While embracing the mood, I feel this game embraces a dysfunctional past even tighter. Although Film Noir is most at home in the past, it’s more an atmosphere than a time warp. Midway City plunges its characters in a juxtaposed past and future where everything “fits nicely”. It seems like all the corners have been rounded and all the wrinkles ironed out. I can’t help wondering if they rounded and ironed a little too much – making an ordinary fantasy game from the seeds of a cyclopean, faceless, and shadowy world both meaningful and meaningless
If you like Film Noir and think it might be cool to mix it with Science Fiction/Cyberpunk, then keep reading. Midway is set in the future on some other planet, however, Midway City gets its 1930’s urban America feel from an idealistic Mayor. It seems to me that the creators came up with the idea of a Tech-Noir genre set in the Untouchables era first and then came up with ideas to realistically explain it. In my opinion, this is a game and a game needs a settings. No explanation is really needed. I would have been happy with the author/designer telling me that this world is just the way it is. My mutant with cyberware is hanging out in a speakeasy and being tailed by two men in trenchcoats; I’m perfectly happy with little or no rationalizations. Rather than telling me why it’s normal, I’d rather have the game tell me why I should be feeling weird, out of place!
In Midway City everyone must live in a regulated time warp. The core rules go into detail about what this out of synch world is like. I can’t see adventures being born from the local cinema illegally showing a full color movie. On the other hand, PCs carrying high technology on the street might get a visit from the G-Men. High Tech undermines the 1930’s aesthetic and is therefore against the law.
The overarching backstory does set the stage for corrupt politicians in a space colony of socio-economic insanity. The divisions between rich and poor, powerful and powerless are perfect for creating stories between different classes of society. Us vs. Them. This is a classic staple of both Cyberpunk and Film Noir.
The core rulebook is well organized, easy to read, has some good fiction, and full of black and white art. The pictures do a good job of conveying the feel of the game, as well as, the dichotomy of juxtaposed genres. The conventional slang of the 1930’s is also thrown in frequently for atmosphere.
As in most RPGs, there’s a list of races for your character: Human, Kyrhee, Blanks, Flips, and Gazers. Character Creation seems a little convoluted for my taste. I’m more in favor of quick and easy rules that don’t get in the way of the actual roleplaying. Midway City is for gamers that like numbers and resource management in their ChaGen.
There are institutions for Game Master and Players to use: regular Police, G-Men, the Mob, the Triads, the Movement, etc. Midway City includes a lot of information on the city itself and its environment. Sometimes I thought the detail was too much or didn’t do anything for the game. Examples of this are sections on the sport of baseball and a company that makes cigarettes. I’m glad to have a detailed setting, but I can’t see myself including those items in a campaign.
PCs need motivation for getting involved in certain types of scenarios and this RPG has The Movement. “In Midway City, a number of disparate factions have formed together into one comprehensive group known as The Movement. Originally dozens of small groups, a handful of the more influential and effective factions started working together, building from rag-tag groups to a loose-knit organization dedicated to taking down the current governmental regime.” This reinforces the setting and provides a direction for character activity.
Another interesting concept is something called the Jade. “The Jade is a dimension discovered by the Kyrhee quite some time ago. So vast is the Jade that even the Kyrhee know very little about its properties and contents.” Unfortunately, this is left pretty vague. As far as I can tell, it’s a mysterious holding zone where objects or people can be kept away from prying eyes. The Jade is mentioned throughout the book, including the descriptive blurb on the back of the book. There’s mention of sucking radio waves, blood seeping into the ground, and a state where things don’t decay until they return to earth. It feels like an idea that wasn’t taken far enough. A paragraph towards the back or the book mentions the intentional formlessness of some concepts including the Jade. Future supplements will be available detailing the unrevealed parts.
The best parts of Midway City are the unexpected, alien elements thrown in with the familiar 1930’s. I would have liked to see more details on the dark weirdness of the setting and less detail on the Greek Revival architectural style of City Hall.
One last thing really struck me as odd. There are two Narrator (GM) styles and a short description of each. The first is Story-Driven which explains how stories are strong, tightly woven plots by the Narrator. The second is Rules-Driven where the “dice fall where they may” and everyone adheres to the polyhedron outcome. I simply wonder about stories driven by the players themselves. Isn’t it the character’s stories after all?
All in all, I found this to be a good roleplaying game that borders on the really cool. My definition of Film Noir is a little less old time cars and tommy guns and a little more dark, hopeless nihilism.
Midway City’s website is: www.spectrum-games.com/midwaycity
