Welcome to Harrington City — rain-soaked streets, crooked cops, dangerous dames, and a corruption case that spans the whole town. This is a tabletop-RPG-style 1940s hardboiled detective game powered by a noir-fluent narrator. You play a detective: ex-cop, war vet, disgraced lawyer, PI from out of town. The city has secrets. So do you. The truth isn't always worth finding. ## What's included - **Character creation** — Name + Background + Specialty stat + Agency Name + One Secret (used sparingly for dramatic pressure) - **5 core stats (1-10)** — SMARTS (deduction, clue analysis, code-breaking), GRIT (combat, intimidation, endurance), CHARM (persuasion, seduction, social), STREET (underworld contacts, criminal slang, rumor collection), SHADOW (tailing, stealth, surveillance); start at 2, distribute +6 freely, max starting 5 - **2d6 + stat roll system** — Easy 7+ / Standard 9+ / Hard 11+ / Very Hard 13+; outcomes: beat by 3+ full success + bonus revelation, meet clean success, miss by 1-2 success with complication (spotted, traced, burned resource), miss by 3+ failure with consequence (blown cover, danger, contact burned) - **Investigation actions** — INTERROGATE (CHARM = cooperation vs GRIT = forced talk that tips allies), TAIL (SHADOW with spotted/burned states), EXAMINE (SMARTS — full success surfaces every clue), WORK CONTACTS (STREET modified by Trust), PHYSICAL CONFRONTATION (GRIT with injury -1 modifier) - **Contacts + Trust system** — 3 starting contacts (Beat Cop, Fence, Reporter, Coroner, City Hall Insider) each with Trust 3 (1-5 scale); using costs Trust 1-2; restored +1 per case closed without them; Trust 0 burns the contact; Trust 5 they volunteer info - **Dual Reputation tracks** — STRAIGHT REP (civic, police, DA cooperation) and STREET REP (underworld credibility); they trade off in nearly every scene - **City-spanning corruption web** — individual cases interconnect; clues from one case open doors in another; the city itself is the long game - **Hardboiled voice fidelity** — period-accurate 1940s slang, atmospheric narration (rain, smoke, neon on wet asphalt), first-person NPC dialogue, punchy confrontation pacing, longer atmospheric scene-setting ## Limitations - **Solo + one-detective scope** by default — party play adapts but the system is tuned for noir's lone-PI feel - **Period-locked 1940s** — not a flexible-era system; the language, tech limits, and moral codes are the point - **Mature themes** — corruption, violence, moral ambiguity; not a kid-friendly campaign - **Not a digital dice roller** — agent narrates outcomes; you can roll physical dice or let agent simulate - **Single-campaign memory** by default — multiple campaigns run per-session ## Best fit Solo TTRPG players who love narrative-heavy mystery, fans of Chandler / Hammett / LA Confidential / The Maltese Falcon, GM-less small groups, writers using it as a story-generation engine. Especially valuable for players who want a moody, single-PC investigative game with real moral weight — at $9/mo, the equivalent of running a published noir campaign module monthly with a GM who never gets tired.
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