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Expendables bills it’s self as “A complete role-playing system”. It was published by Stellar Games, who also published Nightlife, Afterwars, Ace Agents, and It Came from the LATE, LATE, LATE SHOW.

General Impression:

Expendables, like a lot of other small, independent games from the 80’s and 90’s suffers from a lack of focus. The game claims to be about firs- in explorer teams that evaluate planets for possible colonization or determining why a previous colony failed. And, at the beginning it feels like a game that should be run with a slightly humorous “Paranoia” style where the “expendable” player characters get dumped on, used, and abused by the uncaring and mostly invisible entity known only as “The Company”. There is even an R&D division that assigns dangerous and untrustworthy experimental equipment to be tested and evaluated.

The Company charges (a modest fee) for everything that the characters have or do. Training, equipment, transportation, and fines for missing important details about the planet or colony they have been sent to check out, all work to keep the characters in debt. Based on this information, it would be appropriate to hear the old country song line “I owe my soul to the company store” playing in the background.

On the other hand, once you get past the initial set-up and mission information, the tone of the game changes to be a more general “space opera” setting. The history and company information sections present a more serious game that could eventually lead to successful characters from the Explorer (E) division being transferred to the more clandestine Secret (S) division. There are hints in the company information about what the S-division does such as murder and blackmail but this is never actually presented in the rules. Is seems that the S-division is responsible for keeping things profitable for The Company. War is too expensive and kills potential customers so it’s up to S-division to fix the problems.

In appearance the book is standard black and white type with two columns per page and very little art. The art is generally poor but not usually large enough to detract the reader from the text. There are two editions, 1987 and 1990. The first edition cover is an ugly depiction of several humans and aliens in a battle. The second edition cover is a more palatable illustration of a team of humans making an initial landing on an alien planet.

Here is a detailed breakdown of the sections in the book. All of the rules presented up until section XI are written using the basic rules. Section XI adds more optional rules.

Section I, Character Creation:

After a fairly detailed two page table of contents and a single page of serviceable in-setting fiction is a single page introduction. This covers the basics of who the characters are, “The Company”, and dice conventions. The game uses only d10’s and d%.

Character creation begins by generating the 6 basic attributers (Strength, Dexterity, Brains, Charisma, Fitness, and Luck) with 4d10 roll for each. The average person in the game world has only 2d10 in each attribute. Survival points are calculated as the total of your Fitness and Luck scores. There is also an optional Psionics roll which probably should have been listed in the optional rules.

If the GM and player wish to use psionics the player can try to roll a d% less than or equal to their Luck score to gain this ability. There are 11 psionic skills that range from ESP up to Time Manipulation and each must also be rolled during character creation by rolling under the Luck skill, once for each power. To use a psionic skill the player must spend a selected number of survival points (actually causing damage to his character) and then roll that number or less on a d%. This damage can be healed just like any normal damage.

The next two pages detail the method for generating the starting scores in three classes of skills; Specialization skills, Combat skills, and Additional skills. This is done by rolling a given number of d10’s and adding them individually to a selected skill. For example, if one of the d10 skill rolls comes up as nine, you apply all nine points to one skill and can not divide them up between skills.

Specialization skills are assigned by choosing a specialty. The specialties are Engineer, Medic, Pilot, Security Specialist, Xeno-Technician, and Mission Specialist. The roles are mostly self explanatory except for the last two. The Xeno-Technician is the planetary science specialist who has a general knowledge of the earth and life sciences like chemistry, biology, archeology, etc. The Mission Specialist is a catch all that allows the player and GM to make up new specialties.

Combat skills cover most weapons from basic bow and arrow, sword, knife, etc. up to advanced plasma weapons. They also cover Vehicle and Space combat. There are 14 combat skills with the option to add more with the GM’s permission.

The final group of skills are the ‘additional’ skills. There are over 50 skills in this group that covers hobbies (yes they do have a basket weaving skill) and other more useful skills that are not part of the specialties. Some like Physics, Pressure Suit, and Tracking may be of more use than others like Taxidermy. This section is also left open for the GM to add skills.

Section II, Skill Use:

This is a one page section that gives basic rules for rolling percentile dice along with some special rules. It is a roll under system and states that 01 is always a success and 00 is always a failure. There is also a specific rule that says characters are considered competent with any skill that is at 20% or higher. Competent skills can be used for everyday tasks such as a pilot landing a shuttle on a runway with no roll required. There is also an additional rule here for the Luck attribute. Any skill can be attempted by rolling a d% less than your Luck divided by 5. Other basic rolls like a Strength or Dexterity check can also be attempted by rolling less than the associated attribute.

Section III, Combat:

Basic combat is very straight foreword. All attacks are considered to be simultaneous and all damage is applied at the end of the round. Even if you are going to do enough damage to kill your target, they still get to attack for that round. Attacks are a simple roll under you r skill and you hit. The targets armor is subtracted from the set damage of the weapon and the difference is subtracted from the Survival Points. Hard and soft cover offer additional armor points but that is the only modifier in basic combat.

The combat section also has rules for Death and Dying, Poison, Drugs, Disease and other environmental factors that can damage you. (Drowning or Starvation for example).

Vehicle and Space combat are also handled in this very simple fashion with only the addition of Maneuver Modifiers and Evasive Maneuvers. Vehicles use the same damage scale as characters while spaceships use damage and armor values multiplied by 1000. Missiles are also introduced as part of the space combat section.

Section IV, Weapons:

This section covers all of the weapons for the game from swords all the way up to space ship lasers and missiles. Each entry in this section has the size, range, damage, cost and capacity for the weapon.

There are also a few rules tucked into this area. From the write-up on grenades you learn that they have a range of strength + 20 meters and a damage radius of 5 meters. Another hidden gem is the fact that vehicle weapons do only 50 points of damage to human sized targets. (This is due to the targeting systems not being designed to hit such small targets directly, if you were wondering.)

Section V, Personal Armor:

This is a single page with 6 levels of armor from cloth (armor rating 2) up to the impressive powered armor (armor rating 20). As with the weapon section, each entry list weight and cost.

Section VI, Kits:

This section lists the Basic Survival Kit and a specific job related kit for each characters specialization. Again, all weights and cost are specified. (We must be sure to keep track of how much the players each owe The Company.)

Section VII, Vehicles:

There are 14 vehicles including simple ground transports, boats, balloons, and aircraft. In addition to the standard size, cost, etc. the descriptions in this section include Max Speed, Power, Range, Drive type, Armor Rating, and Mounting Spaces (for weapons). And, like the weapon section, there are some rules hidden here as well.

Section VIII, Space Vehicles:

This section is a good example of where the focus of the came shifts. There are listing for twenty five ships including landers, shuttles, jump ships (cargo vessels), and Yachts (passenger vessels). Most of which a poor team from E-division would never even care about or see. The write-ups follow the same format as the previous vehicle section.

Section IX, The Whole Company Catalog:

This section is impressive. It contains just about everything any character in a standard space opera campaign might need or want. And once again, it’s more than your ‘standard’ explorer characters would ever need. Entries here include everything from rope and a backpack all the way up to starship accessories like a gravitic grapple. Combined with the weapons, armor, and vehicles there are more than 300 detailed items available. This section ends with a travel and shipping cost table.

Section X, Background Information:

Section X is where the true focus of this game is revealed. It covers the history of the first and second galactic empires which are pretty standard space opera stuff. Earth was the center of the first empire but its location is lost, yadda, yadda, yadda. The second empire was a brutal military regime that allowed The Company to grow powerful enough to sponsor the rebellion that destroyed it.

The next part of this section details the structure of The Company. This is where we first learn of the separate divisions including the S-division. Unfortunately the entire entry is “Nobody knows exactly what S-division does, and people who are persistent in attempting to find out sometimes disappear without a trace.”

Also include here is the company’s (GM’s) Mission Guidelines and the Economic and Safety Guidelines. These guidelines bring us back to the original focus of the game, the expendable team.

Tacked on to the end of this section are rules for adding experimental equipment, tracking game time, and age rules for PC’s.

Section XI, Optional Rules:

These rules add things that are considered standard in most other games. Initiative, Combat modifiers, Knockdown, Stun, Variable Weapon Damage (given in a number of d10), Critical Hits, and Hit Location are all listed here in three pages. With these options the system looks a lot like a version of the [U]Basic Role Playing System[/U] from Chaosium.

Section XII, Game Master Information:

With this section, the game again moves the focus back to a full space opera setting. The fist part is some standard, competent GM advice on creating and running NPC’s , running combats, and setting the tech level that is desired. After that we get back into the setting with two extra pages that cover additional information on the topics from section X. Again, though, it is only enough to give a hint at what is going on with the rest of The Company and the rest of the empire. There are even two more whole paragraphs about the nature of S-division.

Appendix I, Planet Generation:

This section offers advice on how to create planets for your explorers to visit. There are no tables or hard facts, only a page and a half of advice.

Appendix II, Creature Generation:

Unlike the planet generation section, this section is completely table driven. The five tables here allow you to quickly roll up creatures to populate your mission planets.

Appendix III, Example of Play:

This is a competent narration that covers skill use and basic combat.

Appendix IV, Sample Scenario:

This section is a two page introductory scenario suitable as a first mission for an E team. It does not include any sample characters. There are also filled out versions of the GM Planet Data Sheet and Team Mission Data Sheet for the mission.

The book ends with blank samples of the character sheet, GM Planet Data Sheet, and Team Mission Data Sheet. The final six pages contain various quick reference tables for things like weapons and distance conversions but no index.

Final Thoughts:

I try to find something useful in every game that I take the time to read. And, even thought it is bogged down by a poorly customized old school system, Expendables has enough setting and support information to capture my imagination and make me want to run a good, old style space opera game.