‘Outgunned’ Brings Your Favorite Action Movie To Your Game Table
Outgunned is a high-octane game of action movie tropes that will put you and your friends in the middle of it all.
What’s your favorite action movie? Anything that includes a lot of high stakes, dangerous situations, and a big-bad gunning to ruin the hero’s day. Those movies are ridiculously to fall into because they’re ridiculous, over the top pieces of escapism. They allow us to watch some of the most unnecessary special effects explosions and imagine ourselves as competent, quippy action heroes with endless luck. Outgunned is an RPG that doesn’t just let you watch these movies, but jump right in.
Outgunned
Some of the best games on the market right now are coming from smaller writers and publishers after being successfully funded on crowdsourcing websites like Kickstarter. Personally, I love this trend. The biggest few games are fine, but when you expand your search a little, you’ll find games that are unique, interesting, and lovingly crafted. And people seemed to know that Outgunned was going to be something special from the onset, because its campaign was funded in five minutes.
Outgunned is an RPG inspired by the action and heist genres. They name Die Hard, Oceans Eleven, Kingsman, John Wick, Atomic Blonde, and Hot Fuzz as examples of what they were going for. And while these are all very different movies, they also have a lot of overlap and similarities. Outgunned lives in the overlap and beyond.
Players act as a group of action heroes trying to outsmart and defeat the big-bad. And of course, your characters are always Outgunned. Will your villain and adventure be a little more James Bond or a little more Babydriver? That’s up to your GM.
Gameplay and Character Creation
Outgunned is easy to start and easy to play, but options to add detail and customization as you go. To start building your character, pick your Role (Ace, Agent, Brain, Charmer, Commando, Criminal, Fighter, Nobody, Sleuth, and Spy) as well as your trope. Stats include pretty standard TTRPG things like Brawn, Nerves, and Smooth, but there’s also Stats for Focus and Crime. For all of the crime you’ll be focusing on.
Gameplay and mechanics feel more like Yatzee than a class tabletop RPG. Players roll a bunch of d6 and aren’t looking for low or high numbers. Instead, you want to see two, three, or four of a kind of matching dice. And weirdly, this mechanic is more exciting than looking for ones or sixes. Just like rolling a double in Monopoly and earning a second roll, Outgunned takes the tiny serotonin hit of doubles and puts it in a game that’s already meant to be exciting. It’s hard to explain why, but this mechanic really does give Outgunned more of an adrenaline hit.
Along with stats, your character sheet also has conditions like ‘hurt’ and ‘nervous.’ As things happen in your adventure and your character racks up conditions, their stats become effected. And your character can gain adrenaline as stakes rise, allowing them to ‘take the spotlight’ at some point for a hail-mary when you really need it.
If you’d like to check out Outgunned for yourself, you can learn more on the Two Little Mice website.
Have you played Outgunned? What’s your favorite action, adventure, or heist movie? How do you think you would do in an action movie setting? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
