Review of WeG's 1986 Ghostbusters RPG (Because I have my fingers on the pulse of the RPG industry)

​Ghostbusters is one of the seminal roleplaying games of the 1980s, popular and influential, so I decided it was time to give it a read and a study.  The game fancies itself as a rules-light game, with a minimalist structure—just enough to function well and smoothly, with as few rules as possible: 

​“And when we started out with the objective of creating a roleplaying game with a one-page rule book, we knew it was an impossible and Quixotic quest.  Nonetheless we were pleasantly surprised at how much we could get out of a fairly simple system. Sure, we knew from our success with PARANOIA that folks wanted a freewheeling, improvisational structure to do some Real Roleplaying, but we also knew that Numbers, Rules, and Dice-Bouncing are fun, and we were hoping to get the best of that world without the vexatious burden of Charts and Tables, Section 4.3.13, and The Wonderful and Exciting World of Bookkeeping” (Operations Manual, p 3).

​The main element that streamlines the game’s rules is that characters and creatures don’t have any kind of hit points, which means that combat is simplified, the weapons list is simplified, and there is no need for a “monster manual” of any kind.  All of that exists as a mere matter of fiction and fall under the providence of the GM (known as the “ghostmaster” in the game).  The other main tool to streamline the rules is to put a lot of power in the GM’s hands, both in making decisions about how things work and in creating fiction to steer play, as you’ll see throughout this review.
 
Characters meanwhile are defined by four “traits”: brains, moves, muscle, and cool.  Players are given 12 points to divide among the four traits, giving each a minimum of one and a maximum of five.  Within each trait, the player can designate a “talent” that the character is especially good at.  Talent lists for each trait are provided for players to choose from, although they can make up their own at the GM’s approval.  The rank of each talent is three more than the trait with which it is associated, so a character might have 3 brains and 6 puzzle solving.
 
Talents are a neat trick at giving characters particular strengths while keeping the overall number of traits low.  Moreover, character’s particular interests and characteristics come into focus through that list of traits.  Two characters can easily enough end p with the same or similar trait points spread, but their talents can vary widely.  This feature is especially prevalent in the stats for NPCs.  For example, a “libidinous doctor” in the cast of characters section at the back of the Operations Manual has these stats:

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​Brains                    3              Use Influence                    6
Cool                       4              Ignore Innuendo              7
Moves                  5              Seduce                                 8
Muscles               3              Lift Martini                          6

​The talents go a long way to bringing a character to life in your head through a few deftly worded phrases.  A mere glance at the talents lets you know how to play this character.  The examples of talents in the game call on tropes and stereotypes, which haven’t aged well, over all, but the technology is still excellent.  Jonathan Tweet used it in Everway, Robin D. Laws uses a similar technique in Hero Wars, and many other games have picked it up as well.
 
The rank for each trait and talent are indicative of the number of d6s rolled in any test involving them.  For any challenging action, the GM determines a target number (the general guidelines given in the text are 5 for easy tasks, 10 for normal tasks, 15 for hard tasks, and 20 and up for nearly impossible tasks).  The player rolls the dice in their character’s trait pool, and if they meet or exceed the target number, they are successful.  If two characters are competing against each other or are in a direct fight, they roll their relevant traits and the highest roll wins.
 
Pretty simple.  And pretty unexciting.
 
To make it more exciting, the designers created the “ghost die,” a regular d6 with a ghost symbol where the number 6 should be.  Whenever a player rolls dice, one of them (and only one of them) must be the ghost die.  Whenever a ghost is rolled, the die’s value is zero, and the GM has permission to make a troublesome (and humorous) outcome, even if the dice pool roll overall is a success.  It’s a simple and exciting way to throw uncertainty into die rolls beyond the question of success and failure.  The ghost die is particularly suitable to the tone of the game, which is comical and even cartoonish at times, so the ghost die gives everyone at the table permission to be especially silly in their narrative descriptions.
 
The other major mechanical element of the game are “brownie points,” which take the place of experience points, hit points, and other character resources.  Characters begin play with 20 brownie points.  At the end of any scenario, the GM decides how many brownie points to reward: half as many as they spent if the characters did not accomplish the goals of the scenario, as many as they spent if they achieved the goal only, and one and a half as many as they spent if they did an especially good job.  In addition, each character has one of five personal goals (sex, soulless science, fame, serving humanity, and wealth), and if they take actions to meet those personal goals, they can get additional brownie points.  If at any time a character is desperate for brownie points, the player can reduce one of the character’s trait permanently by one rank to give that character 20 brownie points.
 
Brownie points can be spent in a number of ways.  Before a player rolls for their character to accomplish a task, they can spend brownie points on a one-for-one basis to get extra dice for that one roll.  If a character has the points, they can spend 30 points to permanently raise a trait by one rank.  Brownie points are also spent to avoid personal injury or fallout from a poorly done action.  When a character faces a tough fate or physical danger, the GM can charge the character brownie points to avoid death or permanent injury.  Is your character falling from a rooftop because of a bad roll, mark off 5 brownie points and describe how you comically make it to the ground safely.  Players are encouraged to be as comic and entertaining as possible as the rules permit the GM to return brownie points for especially entertaining narrations.
 
While characters can eventually increase their traits, the game doesn’t envision that as the main point of growth and change.  Change occurs primarily through the fiction, as the GM is encouraged to make NPC return in subsequent adventures and to make PC decisions have lasting consequences within the fiction.  The franchise’s rocky relationship with the EPA and other government regulatory bodies as well as the fiscal dangers of running a franchise.  The franchises are central to campaign play, and they exist entirely within the fiction (by which I mean there is no mechanical aspect to them, no stats, traits, or numbers of any kind).  Similarly, when the books offer solutions to broken play, those solutions are themselves anchored in the fiction.  For example, if the PCs develop a piece of scientific equipment that allows the characters to shortcut the drama of play in future adventures, the text suggests using “Crusader Koalas from Beyond Space and Time”:

​“The stubby little marsupial says, in a deep and resonant voice, ‘This device threatens the very fabric of the universe.  Your race is not sufficiently wise to use it well.  I must excise all knowledge of it from your mind and return you to your proper time and place” (Operations Manual, p. 60-61).

​There is a whole set of fictional solutions to players trying to out-clever gameplay.
 
The rulebook is a fun read as the tone matches the intended tone for the game.  That said, the particular source of a lot of the humor is cringeworthy and painful, as it is clear that the text was written in the 1980s by a set of white men.  The GM is repeatedly advised to play up characters’ accents for humor.  Every woman is a target for the PCs, especially  characters with the personal goal of “sex,” who are trying to get a date with anyone to get the extra brownie points at the session’s end.  Yes, characters roll their moves trait to score a date, and the difficulty of the target number is supposed to increase with the hotness of the woman they are targeting.  These are not a couple of misstatements in the texts, but a whole and consistent focus on things that should not be the source of humor.
 
The boxed set gives players a lot of tools to play the game, including 3 scenarios and 21 scenario seeds.  There are dozens of pre-created NPCs that can be pulled out when needed (and yes, that’s plenty more uncomfortable tropes and characterizations, so prepare yourself).  It’s a thoughtful (when the content itself is not thoughtless) set of tools designed to bring new roleplayers into the hobby, quickly getting them running and creating their own scenarios.