The introduction sets the scene both for the 'Major Malfuctions' series and this particular adventure. In the future world of Hot Chicks the Roleplaying Game there have been a lot of technological advances, particularly in areas of computing and cybernetics, but they can go wrong - often spectacularly so. This is the story of one such malfunction, concerning a severely-wounded (dead, really) soldier who was given a more-or-less complete cyborg body. To cut costs, they didn't bother with minor details like a sense of taste or smell or touch or, well, genetalia. Poor fellow went insane, and ran amok. Pity he was a psy-ops specialist, as he's now using those skills to cause terror and confusion at home rather than amidst his nation's enemies.

The next part goes into more detail about the former soldier, Thomas Cooper, and how he has responded to what has happened to him. Suffice to say, in various unpleasant ways. A word of warning here: I do not intend to go into detail in this review, but the adventure notes are quite explicit in both words and pictures as to what he does. If you are the slightest bit squeamish, you might prefer another adventure: and if you are the game master, consider who you'll run it with carefully.

So, Cooper has built an underground lair, stealing a large amounnt of construction materials to do so, stocked it with various items... and then local prostitutes start to disappear. It's up to the characters to find out what's going on and to deal with it - local law enforcement are not that concerned - without themselves attracting Cooper's attention. That would be a Bad Thing.

Adventure outlined, there are several pages of drawings of scantily-clad ladies - presumably the prostitutes in question. They don't contribute much - a couple of pictures would have sufficed - but make passable eye-candy for the average adolescent male. Technically, they are quite skilful computer-generated images which could probably have used some more iterations in the rendering to improve textures. There are also several good images of the cyborg himself, followed by some 'action shots' of his interactions with the prostitutes. Anatomically and mechanically they leave something to be desired, but you get the general idea. If you find even simulated nudity unacceptable, don't go here.

The product ends with character sheets for the 2 prostitutes and Thomas Cooper. In terms of details necessary for actually running the adventure, you will need to put in some work, but as an illustrated adventure idea - rather than a full-blown scenario - it works well, provided you are comfortable with the subject matter.

Return to Major Malfunctions # 1: Rogue Cyborg page.

Reviewed: 18 February 2009