If you are bewildered by the array of potential offered by I Love the Corps RPG and are not sure quite where to start, this work contain three full adventures jam-packed with science-fiction military action horror to keep your group busy for quite a while! They are distinctly different, so you might like to try them all to taste the scope of the game or pick the one closest to the sort of game that you and your group prefer, perhaps using that to start off your own campaign. Given the differences between them, each comes with pre-generated characters suited to the demands of the adventure in question.
The adventures involve Peacekeepers contending with dark forces behind organised riots, Intelligence Operatives investigating a mysterious lone city on an unexplored planet and a crack Black Ops team with no idea where they are. Each one highlights different aspects of the game from high action gorefests to low action investigation, but all provide opportunities for combat and more peaceful interaction and present moral ambiquities, gruelling decisions and a fair bit of mind-bending horror. Each one is made up of three chapters starting with Personnel Files, where you'll find the pre-generated characters and information on the squad and how they fit into the adventure, along with notes on how to utilise your own characters if preferred. Next, Command Directives gives an overview of the plot and how it might play out, along with ideas for further adventures should this one appeal. Finally, Field Report provides information on specific locations complete with maps, details of suitable hosile forces to drop in, and suggestions for how to utilise game mechanics.
The first adventure, Psychosis, involves Peacekeepers dealing with a riot and starts off by explaining where Peacekeepers fit in to the Marine tabloe of organisation. After detailed character sheets for the pre-gens, including notes on how they view each other and slightly disconcerting mugshots that show (I think) male and female versions of the same character simultaneously (they're composite left- and right-side different images), supposedly to allow the player to choose the gender of the character - given that the ruleset makes no distinctions, you can play male or female as you please - we get on to the mission itself, which involves a planet called Emerald that has only recently joined the Colonial Dominion, not - it is rumoured - by the choice of the citizens living there. There's plenty of background (some of which is not known to anyone except the GM) as well as an exposition of events and likely outcomes. There's quite a lot to take in but everything you'll need is there.
Next, the second adventure is Vultures. This time the squad is Military Intelligence, and this is a very psychological adventure with each pre-gen character having secrets of their own as well as the ones they've been sent to uncover. They have just finished their Military Intelligence training and this is to be their first mission: investigating a mysterious city on what is supposed to be an uninhabited planet that's beeing assessed for its suitability for colonisation. The adventure itself actually opens with those final training exercises to help you bring over the feeling of a squad that has trained long and hard together before they go into the field for real. All is revealed in the background notes, and boy, are the party in for a surprise!
The final adventure is Until The Last Bullet Flies involving a black ops squad so secret that even they themselves don't know how much of what they think they know and remember is true! This can lead to some startling personal discoveries during the course of the adventure. Indeed the entire mission is about perceptions of reality and it makes for a truly mind-bending experience. This is one of the times I hate reviewing, I'd have loved to have played this adventure, but now I've read it!
Any of the adventures can be run as a one-off, but most have scope for further adventures (the second one might be a bit problematic) if you like the situation and the characters provided. They give a good idea of the wide range of plotlines and campaigns that you can run with I Love the Corps as well as providing three exciting missions to run with your group.
Return to Mission Dossier page.
Reviewed: 20 February 2018
