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Ghostbusters (role-playing game)
Encyclopedia
Ghostbusters is a comedy
role-playing game
designed by Sandy Petersen
, Lynn Willis
and Greg Stafford
and published by West End Games
in 1986. It is based on the 1984 film Ghostbusters
.
The Ghostbusters RPG won the 1986 H.G. Wells Award
for Best Roleplaying Rules. In 1999 Pyramid
magazine named Ghostbusters as one of The Millennium's Most Underrated Games. Editor Scott Haring noted that Ghostbusters was "the first-ever RPG to use the dice pool mechanic" and "the game did a great job of catching the zany feel of the movies."
as the Ghostbusters films, but in a period sometime after the first film. In the game, the original Ghostbusters have created a corporation known as Ghostbusters International, which sells Ghostbusters franchises
to individuals around the world.
Most player characters in the Ghostbusters role-playing game are franchisees who operate in cities outside the film's New York locale. The game does, however, include profiles of the original four Ghostbusters for gamers who wish to role-play the cinematic characters or have them appear as non-player characters.
While the Ghostbusters films limit the Ghostbusters to combating ectoplasmic entities such as ghosts and demons, the Ghostbusters game expands the setting to pit Ghostbusters against numerous other paranormal creatures and incidents. Ghostbusters characters may encounter creatures as diverse as vampires, extraterrestrials, and time-travelers
.
Character generation in Ghostbusters begins with a simple character point
mechanic for assigning character attributes
, which it calls Traits. Each character begins with 12 points, which the character's player assigns to the four Traits: Brains, Muscle, Moves, and Cool, giving each Trait a score between 1 and 5.
Each character must also be assigned four Talents. Talents (skills) are organized into groups based on which of the four Traits they're most associated with; each character has one Talent from each group. The character's score in each Talent is three points higher than the associated Trait. For example, one might have a Cool of four with Convince as his talent, making his dice pool on Convince rolls seven.
In some cases, certain equipment or circumstances might add additional dice to the pool. For example, one could have a Muscles of two with Brawl as his talent, for a dice pool of five. This could be further improved by picking up a wrench to use as a club in melee combat for two more dice, for a total dice pool of seven.
Most tasks in Ghostbusters are resolved by determining which Trait or (if appropriate) Talent is most relevant to the task at hand, and rolling a number of six-sided dice
equal to that Trait or Talent's score. The results of the dice rolled are added, and the sum compared to a difficulty number assigned to the task by the Ghostmaster (gamemaster
). If the player's roll equals or exceeds the difficulty number, the character succeeds at the task.
This basic dice pool
mechanic has two additional game mechanics. The first, the Ghost Die, is a special die that represents bad luck, and can cause even successful actions to have negative effects for player characters. It has the Ghostbusters logo instead of a six, and when it comes up causes some unfortunate mishap. When a ghost is rolled for a villain, the mishaps rebound in their favor or temporarily make their powers more effective.
The second mechanic, Brownie Points, represent the character's accumulated "good karma", and can be used to increase the number of dice used in a task resolution roll, or even change the effects of a roll that would have otherwise failed. The points must be spent before rolling, however-one may not spend brownie points to obtain additional dice to roll once a roll has already failed. Each character begins the game with a pool of 20 Brownie Points, which decreases as they are used in play. In the first edition Brownie Points are also lost when characters are injured. Players earn replacement points for their characters by succeeding in Ghostmaster-appointed tasks, achieving their character's personal goal (for instance, Egon's is advancing the cause of science), and as rewards for good roleplaying.
Ghostbusters task resolution system was influential on the development of other West End Games systems
. A more detailed version of the system was used in the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, and became the signature mechanic of the D6 System
. As the first known "dice pool" system it had an influence on other role-playing games, too: after producing Ars Magica
, Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein*Hagen were inspired by Ghostbusters to each design their own game based on "dice pool" resolution mechanics. Tweet produced the cult hit Over the Edge, whilst Rein*Hagen came up with the immensely successful Vampire: The Masquerade
, the system of which would go on to drive the World of Darkness
roleplaying games as well as Exalted
and many other White Wolf
games.
In 1987, Ghostbusters won the H.G. Wells Award
for "Best Roleplaying Rules of 1986." http://aagad.originsgames.com/awards/1986
In 1989, West End Games published a revised version of Ghostbusters, titled Ghostbusters International (ISBN 0-87431-223-X). The second version of the game was published both to capitalize on that year's release of the film Ghostbusters II
, and to satisfy players who requested a more detailed set of rules. (Anonymous 1989). This boxed set contained a single, 144-page rule book, six dice, and handouts. West End Games published five accessories for the Ghostbusters International rules:
As of 2006, Ghostbusters and all of its supplements are out of print.
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
designed by Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer.Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology....
, Lynn Willis
Lynn Willis
Lynn Willis is a wargame and role-playing game designer who has done work for Metagaming Concepts, Game Designers' Workshop, and Chaosium.Willis began by designing science fiction wargames for Metagaming, starting with the Godsfire in 1976. He also designed the microgames Olympica and Holy War...
and Greg Stafford
Greg Stafford
Francis Gregory Stafford , usually known as Greg Stafford, is an American game designer, publisher and shaman.-Glorantha and gaming:...
and published by West End Games
West End Games
West End Games was a company that made board, role-playing, and war games. It was founded by Daniel Scott Palter in 1974 in New York, but later moved to Honesdale, Pennsylvania...
in 1986. It is based on the 1984 film Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis and follows three eccentric parapsychologists in New York City, who start a...
.
The Ghostbusters RPG won the 1986 H.G. Wells Award
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...
for Best Roleplaying Rules. In 1999 Pyramid
Pyramid (magazine)
Pyramid is a gaming magazine, publishing articles primarily on role-playing games, but including board games, card games, and other sorts of games. It began life in 1993 as a print publication of Steve Jackson Games for its first 30 issues, though it has been published on the Internet since March...
magazine named Ghostbusters as one of The Millennium's Most Underrated Games. Editor Scott Haring noted that Ghostbusters was "the first-ever RPG to use the dice pool mechanic" and "the game did a great job of catching the zany feel of the movies."
Setting
The Ghostbusters role-playing game is set in the same fictional universeFictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
as the Ghostbusters films, but in a period sometime after the first film. In the game, the original Ghostbusters have created a corporation known as Ghostbusters International, which sells Ghostbusters franchises
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
to individuals around the world.
Most player characters in the Ghostbusters role-playing game are franchisees who operate in cities outside the film's New York locale. The game does, however, include profiles of the original four Ghostbusters for gamers who wish to role-play the cinematic characters or have them appear as non-player characters.
While the Ghostbusters films limit the Ghostbusters to combating ectoplasmic entities such as ghosts and demons, the Ghostbusters game expands the setting to pit Ghostbusters against numerous other paranormal creatures and incidents. Ghostbusters characters may encounter creatures as diverse as vampires, extraterrestrials, and time-travelers
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
.
System
Ghostbusters features an intentionally minimalist rules system. The game's main rulebook, the Operations Manual, does not include rules for subjects like movement rates and weapon ranges; it explicitly states that they are unnecessary for play.Character generation in Ghostbusters begins with a simple character point
Character point
Character points are abstract units used in some role-playing games during character creation and development.Early role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons assigned random values to a player character's attributes, while allowing each character a fixed number of skills...
mechanic for assigning character attributes
Attribute (role-playing games)
An attribute is a piece of data that describes to what extent a fictional character in a role-playing game possesses a specific natural, in-born characteristic common to all characters in the game. That piece of data is usually an abstract number or, in some cases, a set of dice...
, which it calls Traits. Each character begins with 12 points, which the character's player assigns to the four Traits: Brains, Muscle, Moves, and Cool, giving each Trait a score between 1 and 5.
Each character must also be assigned four Talents. Talents (skills) are organized into groups based on which of the four Traits they're most associated with; each character has one Talent from each group. The character's score in each Talent is three points higher than the associated Trait. For example, one might have a Cool of four with Convince as his talent, making his dice pool on Convince rolls seven.
In some cases, certain equipment or circumstances might add additional dice to the pool. For example, one could have a Muscles of two with Brawl as his talent, for a dice pool of five. This could be further improved by picking up a wrench to use as a club in melee combat for two more dice, for a total dice pool of seven.
Most tasks in Ghostbusters are resolved by determining which Trait or (if appropriate) Talent is most relevant to the task at hand, and rolling a number of six-sided dice
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
equal to that Trait or Talent's score. The results of the dice rolled are added, and the sum compared to a difficulty number assigned to the task by the Ghostmaster (gamemaster
Gamemaster
A gamemaster is a person who acts as an organizer, officiant for questions regarding rules, arbitrator, and moderator for a multiplayer game...
). If the player's roll equals or exceeds the difficulty number, the character succeeds at the task.
This basic dice pool
Dice pool
In some role-playing game systems, the dice pool is the number of dice that a player is allowed to roll when attempting to perform a certain action.-Mechanics:In most RPG systems, most non-trivial actions require dice rolls...
mechanic has two additional game mechanics. The first, the Ghost Die, is a special die that represents bad luck, and can cause even successful actions to have negative effects for player characters. It has the Ghostbusters logo instead of a six, and when it comes up causes some unfortunate mishap. When a ghost is rolled for a villain, the mishaps rebound in their favor or temporarily make their powers more effective.
The second mechanic, Brownie Points, represent the character's accumulated "good karma", and can be used to increase the number of dice used in a task resolution roll, or even change the effects of a roll that would have otherwise failed. The points must be spent before rolling, however-one may not spend brownie points to obtain additional dice to roll once a roll has already failed. Each character begins the game with a pool of 20 Brownie Points, which decreases as they are used in play. In the first edition Brownie Points are also lost when characters are injured. Players earn replacement points for their characters by succeeding in Ghostmaster-appointed tasks, achieving their character's personal goal (for instance, Egon's is advancing the cause of science), and as rewards for good roleplaying.
Ghostbusters task resolution system was influential on the development of other West End Games systems
Role-playing game system
A role-playing game system is a set of game mechanics used in a role-playing game to determine the outcome of a character's in-game actions...
. A more detailed version of the system was used in the Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, and became the signature mechanic of the D6 System
D6 System
The D6 System is a role-playing game system published by West End Games and licensees. While the system is primarily intended for pen-and-paper role-playing games, variations of the system have also been used in live action role-playing games and miniature battle games...
. As the first known "dice pool" system it had an influence on other role-playing games, too: after producing Ars Magica
Ars Magica
Ars Magica is a role-playing game set in Mythic Europe, a quasi-historical version of Europe around AD 1200 with added fantastical elements. The game revolves around wizards and their allies...
, Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein*Hagen were inspired by Ghostbusters to each design their own game based on "dice pool" resolution mechanics. Tweet produced the cult hit Over the Edge, whilst Rein*Hagen came up with the immensely successful Vampire: The Masquerade
Vampire: The Masquerade
Vampire: The Masquerade is a role-playing game. Created by Mark Rein·Hagen, it was the first of White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness role-playing games, based on the Storyteller System and centered around vampires in a modern gothic-punk world....
, the system of which would go on to drive the World of Darkness
World of Darkness
"World of Darkness" is the name given to three related but distinct fictional universes created as settings for supernatural horror themed role-playing games. It is also the name of roleplaying games in the second and third settings...
roleplaying games as well as Exalted
Exalted
Exalted is a role-playing game published by White Wolf Publishing. The game is classified as high fantasy, but may be more accurately described as "mythic fantasy", as the developer specifically avoided drawing on J. R. R. Tolkien, but rather turned to a mixture of world mythologies for inspiration...
and many other White Wolf
White Wolf
White Wolf is a publisher of role-playing games, notably the World of Darkness.White Wolf may also refer to:*White Wolf , a location in Yosemite National Park*White Wolf , a Canadian heavy metal band...
games.
History
The Ghostbusters: A Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game boxed set (ISBN 0-87431-043-1) was published in 1986. It contained a 24-page Training Manual (player handbook), a 64-page Operations Manual (GM's handbook), six dice, and various handouts. West End Games published three accessories for the original Ghostbusters rules:- Hot Rods of the Gods adventure module by Daniel Greenburg. (ISBN 0-87431-052-0)
- Scared Stiffs adventure module by John M. Ford and Bill Slavicsek. (ISBN 0-87431-062-8)
- Ghost Toasties adventure module by Scott Haring. (ISBN 0-87406-137-7)
In 1987, Ghostbusters won the H.G. Wells Award
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...
for "Best Roleplaying Rules of 1986." http://aagad.originsgames.com/awards/1986
In 1989, West End Games published a revised version of Ghostbusters, titled Ghostbusters International (ISBN 0-87431-223-X). The second version of the game was published both to capitalize on that year's release of the film Ghostbusters II
Ghostbusters II
Ghostbusters II is a 1989 science fiction comedy film produced and directed by Ivan Reitman. It is the sequel to the 1984 film Ghostbusters and follows the further adventures of a group of parapsychologists and their organization which combats paranormal activities...
, and to satisfy players who requested a more detailed set of rules. (Anonymous 1989). This boxed set contained a single, 144-page rule book, six dice, and handouts. West End Games published five accessories for the Ghostbusters International rules:
- ApoKERMIS Now! by Bill Slavicsek and Paul Balsamo. (ISBN 0-87431-201-9)
- Ghostbusters II: The Adventure by C.J. Tramontana. (ISBN 0-87431-204-3)
- Lurid Tales of Doom by Jonatha Ariadne Caspian. (ISBN 0874312035)
- Pumpkin Patch Panic by Grant Boucher. (ISBN 0-87431-202-7)
- Tobin's Spirit GuideTobin's Spirit GuideTobin's Spirit Guide often referred to simply as Tobin's is a fictional guide book from the fictional universe of the Ghostbusters franchise. It was first introduced in 1984 in the movie Ghostbusters. After its first reference in Ghostbusters it was referred to several times in other productions of...
by Kim Mohan (ISBN 0-87431-259-0)
As of 2006, Ghostbusters and all of its supplements are out of print.
Further reading
- Farstad, Errol. "The Critical Hit" Polyhedron NewzinePolyhedron (magazine)Polyhedron was a magazine which started out as the official publication of the RPGA . Publication began in the year 1981, and the target audience was players of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game...
35. (TSR, Inc.TSR, Inc.Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
, 1987). - Makransky, Barbara. "If There's Something Stange in Your Hobby Shop" Gateways Vol 2, No. 5 (Gateways Publications, Inc., August 1987).
- Rolston, Ken. "Roleplaying Reviews" DragonDragon (magazine)Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
132. (TSR, Inc.TSR, Inc.Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....
, April 1988).