Charlie Foxtrot
Charlie Foxtrot is a military sci-fi adventure supplement for Battlelords of the 23rd Century, written by Anthony Oliveira, David Soruco, and Kurt Willis and published by 23rd Century Productions.
By Aaron T. Huss
Learn more about Charlie Foxtrot here
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Charlie Foxtrot is a collection of standalone scenarios for Battlelords of the 23rd Century. That’s really just the 1,000ft. view as it’s really a GM toolkit that provides example scenarios for how to run the game with different types of character groups (mercenaries, pirates, spies, etc.) and some new locales to explore. Funded through Kickstarter, it shows an invigoration of Battlelords under new “management” and the desire to keep the game alive, bring in new players, and give new GMs the tools they need to be successful. It also contains a group of player characters for each scenario (i.e. a completely different group of PCs for each scenario) to get you gaming quickly, run one-shot scenarios to feel-out what type of game you’d like to run, or even bring them to a convention to introduce new players to the game. The veteran gaming group might not get as much out of it, other than some new adversaries, but ultimately the book is geared toward bringing new players to the game.
Charlie Foxtrot includes 6 standalone scenarios (the description says 5 but I swear it is actually 6) with the newbie in mind. You can use them as a starting point for a much larger adventure or launch the PCs into a campaign. Each scenario is tailored toward a specific group of PCs to demonstrate how the game can be changed up to play different types of adventures and campaigns. To go along with the scenarios, it also includes a planetary atlas with short descriptions of each locale and plenty of new antagonists sprinkled throughout. The scenarios are designed for a merc team, espionage team, a couple teams of randoms, soldiers, and a pirate team. The book is beautifully illustrated and even contains a bit of short stories here and there. To make things easier, it even includes character sheets to make it easy to introduce to new players.
Overall, Charlie Foxtrot is a great addition to Battlelords. The scenarios are well written and interesting, but ultimately it’s the utility use of the book that makes it valuable. If your players are new to the game or looking to try a different type of game, you can run these different scenarios and find out what type they enjoy the most. Then launch into an adventure or campaign with that type of team design in mind. It has the potential to make your long-term games that much more enjoyable as everyone knows it will be the type of game they enjoy without creating characters, getting started, and having to do it all over again because it’s not the type of adventure or campaign experience you were hoping for. It’s like getting a really good preview before committing yourselves for the next year or two (or more)!
