Capers

Super Powered in the Roaring 20's

It's the 1920s Prohibition era in the United States. Alcohol is illegal. Organized crime grows at an unprecedented rate as gangsters get rich selling hooch to a thirsty populace. Law enforcement struggles to keep up with an understaffed and underfunded Bureau of Prohibition.

In the CAPERS tabletop roleplaying game, you portray a character with extraordinary abilities in the Roaring Twenties. As a gangster, you seek to exploit the law and get rich off of alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and racketeering. You join up with other players to collectively seek your fortunes in the vice-riddled, booze-soaked casinos and speakeasies of the Jazz Age.

Alternatively, you and the other players can portray members of law enforcement seeking to bring these criminals to justice.

The setting features some prominent, historical Prohibition Era characters but also a variety of gender-swaps and race-flips to make the game about more than mostly Italian and Irish guys. A slew of unique, fictional NPCs of all types have been created to give every player something to latch onto when exploring the game world. 

CAPERS is a game of action, adventure, virtue, and vice in a world coming into its own. It’s a world of theft, fraud, subterfuge, and espionage. Your character will risk their life to find their place in this world, regardless of which side of the law they fall on. 

Game Mechanics

When playing CAPERS, each player (and the GM) uses their own deck of standard, poker-style playing cards (52 suit cards plus 2 jokers) to determine if a character succeeds at difficult tasks.

The pip value of the card you flip (2, 3, and so on, up to ace high) determines success versus failure. The card’s suit determines the DEGREE of success or failure, starting at clubs (the worst) and going alphabetically upward to spades (the best). You’ll be able to flip multiple cards based on your character’s capability. You might flip the king of clubs, certainly a success with a king, but just barely a success with clubs.

Do you settle for barely successful or flip another card, hoping for a better result? Each flip is a gamble, risking failure.

What's Inside

• Full rules featuring the CAPERS Core game system. 
• Setting info describing the world of CAPERS and presence of super-powered individuals. 
• 40 super-powers, each with a variety of sub-abilities and boosts. 
• Optional rules for players' characters, including super-science, powered gear, and rules for playing non-powered, exceptional characters. 
• Expanded setting information on three major hotbeds of Prohibition activity -- Atlantic City, New York City, and Chicago.
• Additional information on ten other cities in the game world. 
• GM guidelines and advice. 
• A wide variety of NPCs, both super-powered and not.
• A GM Toolbox chapter filled with ways to introduce comic book tropes -- such as alternate Earths, super-prisons, and more -- into your CAPERS game. 

160 page, 8.5 x 11 inch, full color, hardcover book w/ two bookmark ribbons and headbands

Includes access to digital version