An Offer They Can’t Refuse by Joseph Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with Cepheus Engine. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 28 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three pages are the front matter and three the Open Gaming License.
The opening paragraphs explain that Casurlar has recently been discovered to have human inhabitants, though it isn’t known how they got there. Their technological level is comparatively low, but they are very cap-able at imitating others. The characters are hired to transport a cargo to the planet.
Game Master Note explains that this is in the Frontiers of Space setting.
Complications lists a lot of these. The cargo is being shipped to a gangster and the planet is full of such, thanks to a merchant ship lending copies of old James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart films; the locals have modelled themselves on the gangsters in those films. The gangsters have no intention of paying.
The Delivery explains how the delivery goes down, with stats for some gangsters.
Recovery of the Cargo is what happens if the cargo is stolen.
Selling the Cargo is on attempting to sell the cargo once recovered; again, treachery is a problem.
Key to Casurlar City describes various locations in this gangster-infested city, with a random encounter table and stats for various NPCs.
Finally, there is a map of the planet and the city.
An Offer They Can’t Refuse in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough that these would have been useful. Navigation is poor. The text maintains a single column format and some errors were noticed, the most notable being on the front cover, which states this is an OSRIC adventure when it is for Cepheus Engine. Bar the maps, the only illustrations are on the covers. Unfortunately, the city map doesn’t come in a player-friendly version. Presentation is okay.
This adventure is essentially a 1920s gangster plot but set in a futuristic setting. The enemies faced look like movie gangsters, act like movie gangsters and use the same weapons; not surprising, as they were all inspired by movie gangsters. The adventure does feel like the author really wanted to do a gangster adventure but was a bit limited by the setting. Much of the supplement is taken up by the description of the city. An Offer They Can’t Refuse is perhaps a bit different and it can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply