Kill or Be Killed (Random Violence)

Member Name: 87degrees

Product:	Random Violence
Date:	15/03/06 (147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great fun, play as long as you like, 2-10 player games

Disadvantages: violent, not good for kids, players can get knocked out early

Random Violence is a game that's part strategy, part luck. As the name might suggest, it's very violent so it's not one you'd want young children to play. You should be careful with older children to make sure they're mature enough to get the difference between playing a game and actually going out and hurting people. Adults and older teenagers can have a lot of fun playing it though. The rules sound quite complicated, but it's really simple to get the hang of.

The game is set in a near future world. The characters are a mix of Interpol agents and corporate assassins. You can play with one or several characters, trying to outwit and outfight the other players to complete the goals of a given scenario or simply to be the last one standing.

The version I’m describing is Corporate Osaka Edition.


~~~ What's in the Box ~~~
~ The Guide Book ~
The book is printed in black and white, with some nice art work and contains information on how to play. It’s worth having as a nice reference in case of disputes while playing.

~ Character Cards ~
There are ten characters. The character cards are A5 in size and have a colour picture and the character's name. Down one side is a list of values used in game playing such as Aim, Block, Health and Actions. The highest any of these numbers gets is five and the higher the number, the better the character is in that area. Some are better at shooting while others are really good for close-combat fighting (I'll explain the difference between these in the how to play section).

There is also an area for storing equipment. This is made of grey squares on the card. You can arrange things however you like, but any equipment you want your character to carry must fit in these squares. Any injuries your character sustains in the game must also fit here, which means you often have to drop equipment part-way through the game.

The different characters can carry different amounts. Alice has only three squares for equipment while Enz-O has six. The other characters have anything between those numbers.

Some characters are better than others in that they can carry more or have higher scores for combat, but things are evened out by the final thing on the character cards: the cost. Each character has an amount of money printed in the bottom right corner. At the start of the game, a budget is given for the scenario played or simply chosen by the players. You then subtract the cost of the character from this amount so if you have a better character you'll have less money to spend equipping him or her.

Example: Sanbikinoraion. Apparently the name means ‘three lions’ because he’s English, so when I play with my friends we call him that because it’s much easier to pronounce. Sanbikinoraion has Initiative, Actions, Aim and Dodge at level 4 and Health, Spot, Sneak, Strike and Block at level 3. His cost is $700. He has four squares of equipment store. He is a dual-wield character. If he has the right weapons, he can attack twice in a turn.

~ Weapons ~
These are printed on blue card and have the name of the gun and a picture. They also have some numbers. If a weapon says 'strike' followed by a number, it can be used in close combat (fighting someone on the same square as you) and that number is the weapon's strike value. Similarly, if the weapon says 'aim' and then a series of numbers it has those aim values. The first number is it's aim value when shooting someone in the next square, the second number is for shooting someone two squares away, then the third is for three squares away and so on. Some weapons only have a range of one or two squares, but there's a sniper rifle that has a range of six squares.

Most of the guns also have an ammo value. If you roll less than this number when fighting, the gun's just run out of ammo and you can't use it again until you reload.

Some weapons are area effect. That means you use them to attack a square of the playing board rather than just a person so you are attacking everyone who’s positioned in that square. I’ve managed in the past to attack three people at once with one area effect weapon. You should remember, if you use an area effect weapon in close combat you’re attacking the square you’re on yourself so you’re effectively attacking your own character.

The weapons all come with a cost. At the start of the game or between rounds, players equip there characters with weapons and other equipment but everything has a cost and you can't exceed your budget.

The weapons can be different sizes and take up different amounts of space in your equipment store. Some weapons take up a quarter of a square, others might take up a whole square or more. Generally speaking, the more powerful the weapon the more expensive it will be and the more space it will take up.

There are weapons that can be reused and some that are use once. Guns and knives are all reusable, but there are also grenades and flash bangs. Flash bangs are very useful because they stun another character, making that player miss two turns. They are very good if you're up against a character who's better than yours but the game can get dull if they're over used.

Example: The Atlanta Watson is a gun with cost $250. It has a strike value of 2 and an ammo value of 1. It’s aim values are 2, 1 and 1, meaning the aim has a value of 2 if you’re shooting someone in the next square, and 1 from two or three squares away. You can’t use it any further away than that. It takes up one square of equipment store.

~ Armour ~
If people are going to be shooting at you, it's good to have protection. Armour is printed on green card and again comes with the name, picture and cost.

Most armour adds to either your dodge or block. These are scores you use in combat to defend against someone else's attack. Armour helps you avoid injury. I try to always get a helmet because I have a tendency when playing to die of head injuries. A helmet will prevent one head injury but then it's lost.

Most armour also has a shatter value. This is simliar to the ammo value for guns. If you roll lower than this when defending in a fight, you're armour has shattered and it's now useless. Unlike guns, there's no way to restore it to usefulness.

You're not allowed to double up on armour. That is, you can't have more than one type of armour on any part of your body, so you can't where two infintry jackets or things like that, but it would be acceptable to where one infintry jacket and a helmet.

As with guns, armour can take up different amounts of space in your store. I don't usually bother with armour (except the helmet) but there are characters with bad dodge or block who would benefit from different types of armour.

Be warned: some weapons ignore armour. Occasionally you'll find yourself in a fight where armous doesn't help.

Example: An anti-stab vest has cost $150. It increases a character’s block level by 1. It has a shatter value of 1. It takes up one square of equipment store.

~ Weapon modifications ~
These are printed on purple. They're items that can be combined with a weapon to increase it's aim, or mean you can shoot from cover and not be spotted. When playing with my friends, we generally don't use these, but there are some scenarios where they come in useful.

Example: The scope costs $150 and takes up half a square of equipment store. It extends a gun’s aim by two squares, meaning you can use it to shoot from further away.

~ Other equipment ~
These are printed on grey and take up a quarter of a square of an equipment store. Mostly, these are medi-kits and ammo (both of which cost $50) which are incredibly useful to have. You shouldn't start a game without at least one of each except in very rare circumstances and I'd recommend carrying more if you have space.

There are also a few items like binoculars which add to your spot value, but it's only the medi-kits and ammos out of this selection that get used much.

~ Wounds ~
Wounds are printed on red with a name of the wound and a picture of the body part. The amount of space they take up depends on how serious the wound is.

Wounds are caused in combat during the game. They can be cured by a medi-kit. If you have a wound, you put it in your equipment store, meaning you might have to drop something else to make space. Wounds all lower your health points and when you are completely out of health, you’re character is dead. They also lower other values such as dodge and aim.

There are six different wounds, starting with minor ones like foot and hand wounds and ending with a head wound, which only two characters can survive.

Example: An arm wound takes up one square of an equipment store. It reduces health, action, aim and strike by one value each.

~ Other Items ~
There is cash which is awarded when a player wins a part or all of a round. If you play a long game, you can use money earned to reequip between rounds. Cash cards don’t need to go into the equipment store so they don’t take up any space.

There are equipment markers which are put down on the board if a character drops something from their store. Another character can land on the square with the marker on it and pick up whatever was dropped. Similarly, if a character is killed, a corpse marker is put on the board and the other players can loot the corpse by taking anything that was in that person’s equipment store when they died.

There is also a briefcase and a disc which are used in some of the scenarios.

~ Game Boards ~
There are several settings, some of which are made up of two boards, each A4 in size. You can play scenarios in a hotel lobby, labs, a container ship and an oil platform. The boards are made up of small squares with walls and cover drawn on in dark blue. You can move a character across the squares and through cover, but not through walls unless it’s a door. For example, the hotel lobby board has things like sofas drawn in for cover.

Some squares have little medi-kit symbols on them. At the start of a game, put medi-kits on these squares so the players can pick them up if they land on them. There are also coloured squares that are for the players to start on. Some of the other colours are used for putting cash on in the same way as the medi-kits. There is a red dot on one of the squares that is where a character starts with the briefcase in one of the scenarios.

In other settings, where there are two boards, they are different levels and there are stairs that let you get from one level to the other. In the container ship, there are gaps in the top floor level that you can shoot through, if you have a gun with enough range. You can also shoot up and down stairs as though the person on the other level was a square away.

~ Scenario Cards ~
These contain instructions on how to play a scenario. These include games like Capture the Disc. The aim of the game is to get to a disc and get to an exit with it, but things get violent when everyone else if after it too. Then there’s Iron Man, which can be a lot of fun if the Iron Man is a good character. One character is the Iron Man and has to escape the container ship while everyone else is trying to stop him.

Perhaps my favourite game and a good way for a large number of players and for multi-round games is Random Violence. The aim is to kill all the other characters. You get $50 for each character you kill.

If I’m playing a long game, we tend to just not bother with the scenarios and play lots of rounds of Random Violence.

~ Character Pieces ~
These are pictures and names of characters printed on card that you fold up and stand in little plastic bases. One of the down-sides of this game is that the bases for the character pieces fit on the squares of the board, but they’re big enough that if you have two or more characters on a single square they don’t really fit. The pieces don’t stand on top of each other, so it can get confusing when several are fighting each other on one square.

~ General ~
There’s also a pair of dice in the box, but there’s nothing special about them so they don’t deserve a section of their own. The artwork on the character pieces and the information booklet is very well done. There are some nice references, such as on the character card for Ellen Wo-Ping there is graphite in the background saying ‘bad wolf’ which is a Dr Who reference. There’s also ‘clownz rule’ which is apparently also a reference.


~~~ How to Play ~~~
~ Starting the Game ~
The players pick a character at random. Then the players either pick a scenario or decide on a budget for Random Violence. The players equip themselves by choosing weapons and other items from the piles up to the budget and what they can fit in their equipment stores.

The players take it turn to roll the dice and adds the score to the initiative value on their character card. Whoever gets the highest total gets to choose who places their pieces on the board first and who goes first. Some of the scenarios have a specific location, or you choose one. Whoever is going first puts his or her piece on one of the coloured dots on the board, the specific colour sometimes depending on the scenario. Once all the pieces are down, the first player gets to make the move.

~ Actions ~
Each character has a number of actions they are allowed to make in a turn. For most, this is four, but Carla Simmons only has 3 and three others have five. You can’t use more than that number of actions in a go, but you are allowed to use less. Moving one square on the board counts as one action. Moving up or down stairs and ladders from one board to another also takes an action.

Reloading a gun takes one move as well. To do this, you must have ammo in your equipment store. At this point, you take it from your store and you can use the gun again.

Healing a single wound is another action. You can’t heal multiple wounds with the same action, but you can heal one wound if you have a medi-kit in your inventory. You simply take the medi-kit and the wound from your equipment store. In team games, you can heal another character’s wounds in the same way providing you’re both on the same square.

You can pick up a single object. Like healing, it’s one action per object. If you’re on a square with a piece of equipment on it, you can spend an action and put that object into your inventory, providing you have room.

You can throw an object. This is only really used in team games. If another character is two squares or less from yours, you can give that character an object from your own equipment store.

There are some moves which don’t take up any actions: drop, swap and spot. If you need to make room, for example if you’re injured, you can drop any number of items from your equipment store. If it’s something small, like a medi-kit, you can put it directly on the board on the square you’re in. If it’s bigger, you use an equipment marker to show which square it’s dropped in.

Swapping is moving items round in your inventory. You can do this between turns as well.

Spotting is sometimes needed for combat. If another character is in cover (i.e. in a square with sofas on in the hotel lobby) you roll a dice and add the number to your character’s spot value. The other character’s player rolls and adds that number to their character’s sneak value. If your total is higher, you’ve spotted the other character. You can’t fight someone who’s in cover unless you’ve spotted them first, so it’s sometimes good to spot at the start of your go and then, if you fail, you know it’s not worth moving towards that character.

The most important action when it comes to a game of violence is of course…

~ Combat ~
There are two types of attack, aim attack and strike attack. You use strike if you are on the same square as the other player. You choose which weapon you are using to attack and roll a dice. You add the number on the dice to the weapon’s strike value and your character’s strike value. If you have any wounds that reduce strike, you subtract these. The total is your attack score. The player you’re attacking also rolls the dice and adds this to his character’s block score and any additional block that comes from armour. Again, if the character is wounded, the appropriate score is subtracted. If the attacker’s score is higher than the defender’s, then the attack was successful and the other character is wounded. If the attacking score was double or more the defender’s, then the character receives two wounds.

You roll one dice per wound and the wound depends on the score. If a one is rolled, the character receives a foot wound, but if a six is rolled, the character gets a head wound, which is almost always fatal.

Aim attacks work in exactly the same way, but using aim and dodge values instead of strike and block.

If you use an area effect weapon, everyone in the same square is attacked and must roll in the same way as if they’d been attacked individually. If you use an area effect weapon in a strike attack, you must try to block yourself and can injure yourself as well as the other players.

If you use an aim attack against a square with more than one character in, you roll the dice to see who you’re shooting. For example, if there are two characters on the square, you say that one is high numbers and one is low, then you roll the dice. For a score better than three, you attack the first character, and lower, the second one. This is a good way to attack in Random Violence if you don’t mind who you injure, but it’s not so good in team games where you might hurt your own side. In a strike attack at a square with several people on, you decide who you’re attacking.

You’re usually only allowed to attack once in a turn, but some characters can attack twice if they have the right weapons. For example, if Sanbikinoraion has two Hicks Birkdales, he can attack with each of them in the same turn. There are also weapons which allow multiple uses in the same turn.

An example of combat:
Enz-O attacks Paul Thatcher using an Atlanta Fergusson when he’s two squares away. Enz-O has an aim of 1 and the Atlanta Fergusson has an aim of 2 from that distance. Enz-O’s player rolls a 1. This is the gun’s ammo score, so the gun has run out of ammo and he’ll have to reload before shooting again. Enz-O’s total attack score is 4.

Paul Thatcher has a dodge of 2 and he doesn’t have any armour. He also rolls a 1, giving him a total dodge score of 3. This means Enz-O has injured him. Enz-O’s player rolls and gets a 3. This means Paul Thatcher now has a leg wound, which reduces each of health, action, dodge and block by 1.

~~~ Overall ~~~
As I said earlier, this isn’t a game for kids because it’s so violent, but it is good for adults or older teenagers. A single round of Random Violence with most of the characters used will take about half an hour, maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more. One of the downsides to this game is that if a player’s character is killed right at the start, they’ll have nothing to do while the others continue playing. On the other hand, there aren’t many board games that work well with ten players.

There are some board games which aren’t as good with only a couple of players, but Random Violence can be as good with two as with ten. You can play using more than one character, meaning that if one character is killed you’re still in the game. A good game to play with two players is corporate verses Interpol. One player takes all the Interpol characters, the other takes the corporate assassins and the two sides fight.

You can carry on games for ages by playing several rounds and continuing the score. You start off with everyone on the same budget but if you do well in one round you’ll earn money whereas someone who dies might have their corpse looted and need to re-supply with weapons before the next round. If you have the time, you can have on-running games that last all day.

Games are never the same, because there are different characters, different weapons to be used and always the different rolls of the dice. Luck can give some enjoyable situations. I’ve played games where two characters are left on the board and they both keep dodging each other’s attacks. Someone once threw a grenade up a ladder to a square with two people on and gave both of them double head injuries. A single roll of the dice can change the whole outcome of a game.

I’ve found it to be enormous fun. It’s not to everyone’s tastes, but it’s a game that requires some thought as well as sheer luck and can keep you occupied for hours if that’s what you’re after. If you like board games that take some strategy, I’d highly recommend it.

~~~ Getting a Copy ~~~
You can order a copy of the Corporate Osaka edition from www.randomviolence.net for £12. There’s also a special edition, but it’s really not worth the extra money. It comes in a different coloured box and has a few extra weapons. The weapons are good, including a chainsaw and a flamethrower, but the price is more than a tenor higher than the normal edition. I have a friend with this version, so we just combine gear and I have fun with his flamethrower instead of spending my own money. There is (apparently) an Extra Violence expansion pack coming soon that has more weapons in it than the special edition and shouldn’t be more than £5.

Also coming soon are Streets of Osaka and Jinga Resistance. Both of these are like the version I’ve describe, but the first is gang fighting with cheaper weapons and characters. The idea is that you have one of the Corporate Osaka characters and use your budget to hire other, cheaper characters. Resistance is an army game, so the weapons will be a lot more serious.

There are also rumours of a zombie game which works on similar principles, but has a timer so you can’t take your time over a game. In this game, if you die, you become a zombie.

You can combine different versions of the game. If you buy this and your friends like the game as well I’d suggest that instead of getting the same version as you, they wait and get one of the other versions. We combine normal and special editions and you should be able to do the same when the other versions come out.

Summary: strategy game for 2-10 players with lots of variety and ways of playing