Though there have been plenty of supplements released and sold on-line for the game in PDF format, Bulletproof Screen - Game Operations Director Screen And Sourcebook is the first supplement to see actual publication and find its way onto the shelves of your local gaming store. It comes as a package containing a three-panel screen and a 32-page insert.
The front of the screen is dominated by a full-colour illustration of a gun-toting, katana-wielding hardass female ninja (Ninja-ess? Ninja-ette?) that does cheese cake reasonably tastefully. Well, at least by the standards set by the covers that have graced the output of Avalanche Press. On the back of the screen are most of the tables needed to run combat in the game. Certainly those needed for hand-to-hand combat and martial arts are given, but not all of those required for gun combat. Missing are the ammunition types and modifiers bullet calibre, nor is there anything on the screen to help with the running of the non-combat side of the game.
At to it being “bulletproof,” the Bulletproof Screen is very far from that… It uses a fairly light cardboard stock that bodes poorly for its long-term survival. One wonders why a heavier card stock could not have been used, such as the GM’s Pack published for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Also, the screen is designed to fold concertina-style, rather than having the panels fold inwards, with the result that it is not as easy to actually use as something to refer to, nor cannot it be properly used to keep a GM’s information hidden from the players.
The Sourcebook consists of a seventeen-page scenario by English writer, Megan “Mexal” Robertson and a further thirteen pages of maps. These are all very heavy on the black ink, and are of an airplane, a bedroom with a double bed, a pair of single bedrooms, a cargo boat, a garage, an automobile dealer’s lot -- a small one, a rooftop helicopter pad, a small ironworks plant, a junkyard, a newsroom, an Octagon Fighting Arena, a corner store and a Crime Scene “Outdoor.” To be honest, they feel amateurish in design and somewhat misconceived. Do we really need maps of bedrooms? And what about the rest of the house?
Megan Robertson’s scenario, “Hamburger Hell,” is the saving grace of Bulletproof Screen - Game Operations Director Screen And Sourcebook. It has the player characters hired to locate the father of a young girl who is critically ill in the ICU at the local hospital. His estranged wife tells them that he has a short fuse and upon learning that his daughter is infected with the “Eschesrichia Coli O157: H7” virus has stormed off to the fast-food restaurant where she ate the hamburger which he believes was the source. To say any more would spoil a nicely done scenario, which could have done with a little more explanation as to some of the background details. For example, few outside of the USA will know what either “USDA” or “OSHA” will stand for… Finally, it should also be pointed out that the adventure would have been served if the maps given the Sourcebook had been devoted to some of the locations in “Hamburger Hell.”
Bulletproof Screen - Game Operations Director Screen And Sourcebook is a misfire of a product, misconceived and incompletely realised. Essentially the screen is only semi-useful and the maps are both ugly and really of little use. On the plus side, the scenario is nicely done and fits the dark, gritty and grimy feel of the setting Haven: City of Violence. It could just as easily be used for other games of its ilk -- SLA Industries, Shadowrun, Millennium’s End or even the forthcoming d20 system sourcebooks from the second incarnation of Hogshead Publishing -- Crime Scene: Police Investigation and Crime Scene: The Mob. Despite the quality of “Hamburger Hell,” it still fails to deal with the oeuvre central to Haven: City of Violence, that it is a game of “EVIL VERSUS EVIL.” Attempting to find a reason to get the criminal characters (that players are supposed to create for this RPG) involved in this adventure without a lot of fudging is a problem in itself.
[One reason that I enjoyed this scenario is having worked in the food industry in a number of capacities -- serving, cleaning or washing up and in the processing. The latter having come in summers spent bagging and freezing chicken feet at a meat-processing factory. The scenario is the one reason that the 'Substance' rating for this product is given as high as it is here.]
