Epic Roleplay – Gangs

Fellow German blogger Rackhir’s gang generator along with Games Workshop’s announcement of Necromunda Roleplaying resulted in me thinking about gang creation in Epic Roleplay.

A look at gangs in (early-ish – and later as well) Warhammer 40,000 places them firmly in the tradition of 80ies/ 90ies fictional gangs defined by a central gimmick. No matter whether Confrontation, Space Marine, or Necromunda 1995 (or its later incaranations), gangs sport super dominant signatures – abilities, armarments, approaches – that clearly set them apart from one another – there is no mistaking a brat gang from a tech gang or an Escher for an Orlock. (Though one might cite Devil’s Marauders as an obvious exception.)

Accordingly, this aspect of gang signatures is the focus for Epic Roleplay.

A gang has a signature career (Scum) and D6-2 additional signatures. Each signature is determined by rolling D100 on the table below. A signature can be a career, a skill, a talent, or a piece of wargear.

Whenever during character creation or advancement, a gang character would randomly determine an element (career, skill, talent, or wargear) for which the gang has a signature, instead they may choose to roll a D6: If the result is equal to or lower than the character’s Rank, they receive their gang’s signature instead of randomly determining the appropriate element.

Newly created gang characters also receive Forbidden Lore (local: gang territory) and Language (group ciphers: gang signs) as additional starting skills, as well as Ambassador (Gang) as an additional starting talent.

Gangers can be recruited to the warband in Crews of two stands (Break Point: 1) for 50 points per Crew. There rules are as for antagonist gangers. Additionally, when recruiting a new Crew, roll a D6 for each stand – on a roll of 5, the stand is treated as if three (and thus more than half) of its members possessed one randomly determined signature of their gang, a roll of 6 is treated the same as a 5 and a second roll is made. A stand can benefit only once from each signature.

A gang’s headquarters can be treated as a base (D6: 1 – small; 2-4 mid-size; 5-6 large) and contains D3-1 facilities.