In this review, we are pleased to tell you about Corp Borg, a borg-like role-playing game by Heltung Storytelling. First of all, we want to thank the author, Pawel Kicman, for sending us a digital copy of the game.
After a fruitful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, Corp Borg is available on the Itch.io store. A digital copy of the game costs $17.99, just under 17 euros. It also includes the “curriculums” of the characters, in colour and in print-friendly versions.
Borg-like
To understand what is Corp Borg it is necessary to define what a Borg-like is. As the name suggests, these are all those games that are inspired, in mechanics and aesthetics, by the famous Mörk Borg. That is the game that has become a symbol of OSR, the Old School Reinassance which in recent years has been a protagonist of the role-playing market. Here you can find our review.
Mörk Borg, created by Johan Nohr and Pelle Nilsson for Stockholm Kartell, is a game with a frighteningly simple rulebook. Famous for its high mortality, it is designed to support a style focused on linearity and mainly on the playful aspect of RPGs. The success of this game is also due to a gothic, oppressive underlying lore; a style that has become famous for fully incorporating the stylistic features of black and doom metal. A strong theme also and above all in terms of aesthetics, made up of illustrations bordering on blasphemy and strong contrasts between bright colours.
Review of Corp Borg: Identity of a Game
Borg-likes try to take full advantage of this legacy, with mixed success. On the one hand, it is very easy to create hacks for this game, the rules of which are freely available via OGL; the simplicity of particularly simple rules makes it accessible to anyone. On the other hand, it is difficult to find a Borg-like that is up to the original: it is easy to fall into banal and personality-free recontextualizations. Often even games that simply use the rules without being able to recreate the gaming experience for which they were designed.
Corp Borg, however, succeeds perfectly. The game dynamics remain extremely faithful to the original. However, the reskin and the adaptation phase were taken care of to the point of making the game simply perfect. As specified in the credits, Corp Borg wouldn’t exist without Mörk Borg. However, this reality doesn’t stop it from being a completely standalone game.
Pawel’s brilliant idea was to transpose the themes of the original game into a completely incongruent context. Black magic, predestination, looming apocalypse and demonic infestations then enter the corporate reality of megacorporations. This combination is simply perfect: the grotesque side of the borg-like is amplified in an exhilarating way.
The Game Setting
The world of Corp Borg is not that far from ours, in some ways. A crumbling world now completely stripped of corporations, companies interested in profit to the detriment of any form of reason. A world in which success is in the hands of these entities, who administer power in a more or less veiled way. The difference lies in the fact that, to ensure they continue undisturbed, they unscrupulously use arcane energies and traffic in pacts with demons.
The end of the world is looming. the earth is dying. One only contact comes from other realities, and it is offered by demonic entities eager to devour any crumb of soul they can get their clutches on. And where inverted ziggurats and stationary singularities host company meetings and boards of directors, the characters move like simple employees.
The manual presents the five main corporations that share the dividends of the ruin of the world, each with its own area of influence. In full OSR spirit, there is a quick random demonic guild generator. Fuel, information, pharmaceuticals: no branch of the market escapes these giants. The insight joke in the Global Broadcasting Corporation, which mainly deals with entertainment, is valuable. Among its products, we find a hugely successful board game: Mork Corp.
Review of the Handbook of Corp Borg
Corp Borg looks like a 105-page manual. The content is rather streamlined, also because in Borg-like aesthetics is a fundamental element and the pages are more graphics than text. And never as in this case is the union between the two perfect. Every single page offers a series of ideas and inspirations. Every single page contains the content in a non-didactic but effective way. The result is the communication through images of the agony that should be associated with the lives of the characters.
The illustrator team has certainly done a splendid job from this point of view. He managed to fully capture the spirit of the game without imposing a too-homogeneous style on the individual illustrators. Pages with a white-on-black scratched style alternate with splash pages in fluorescent colours that almost hurt the eyes. The result manages to perfectly catapult players into the hell on earth (or rather, into the office) that their PCs will experience.
Characters
As with every borg-like, the choice for the character is not very vast, but rather rather limited. Help Desk, Salesperson, Engineer, Controller, Designer, Supplier: the typical roles that can be found in a company workforce. Fortunately, however, it is almost impossible to create two identical characters. The abilities are randomly assigned during creation, despite being strongly themed. Through Door-in-the-Face for example, the Sales Associate can tell a target to do what he asks. Or the Help Desk can indulge in searing explosions of adrenaline-filled anger.
The intent is parodic, but it is extremely effective in a bizarre yet coherent context. Equipment made of staplers, briefcases and cursed objects completes this grotesque picture. In Corp Borg, it is possible to go from the Human Resources office (which yes, they are monstrous creatures) to a demonic portal with complete ease.
Review of Corp Borg‘s Mechanics
The gaming system taken from OGL of Mork Borg lends itself perfectly to this context. A streamlined and fast game based on features alone, also in this case supported by perfect adaptation work. In fact, we find typical definitions of simple company jargon, which are often used only to impress:
- Soft Skill for the use of personality.
- Hard Skill for physical businesses.
- Flexibility for defense and avoidance.
- Integrity for resistance.
- Knowledge for using machinery and spells.
Spells which for the record are themselves highly thematic. Just think about Caffeine Descend, which imposes a terrible caffeine addiction on the target. If he fails to drink a certain amount daily, he will progressively weaken until he dies.
An action is successful when the result of 1d20, added to the most appropriate characteristic, reaches 12. The success threshold can, however, be increased or decreased by the Project Manager (the Master) depending on the needs and the context. It’s important to note that the characters always carry out the tests, whether they act against the game world or react to it. Only the rolls for the random tables are reserved for the Project Manager.
Corp Borg: Review of an Old School Game
As per tradition for a good Borg-like and games in general OSR, Corp Borg it is a very table-rich game. The equipment, the attitudes of the NPCs towards the characters, the initial wealth, and the possessions of the defeated monsters. And, a fundamental element, the element that at every start of the session risks dragging the world a little closer to its end.
As in Mork Borg, this table allows you to choose both how likely it is that one of these events will happen and which one will specifically materialize. In this case, these cataclysms will be announced by a company mailing list. Just like in Mork Borg, at the seventh manifestation of the Apocalypse the world will inexorably end; in this case, anticipated by our dismissal.
Game Tools
A handy tool accompanies everything: a bestiary, filled with corporate executives, demons and their toadies (both the one and the other). Despite disturbing abilities and alienating motivations behind their actions, these creatures are not necessarily hostile. Sometimes they can even be collaborative, or in any case, they can offer margins for negotiation. As long as you are willing to give up your soul as a bargaining chip.
The only doubt that may remain when reading the manual is what you want to play Corp Borg in practice. The idea is brilliant, but it’s not easy to imagine what a game like this could allow you to bring to the stage. Two essential elements of the game come to the rescue. Corporate Gathering is an introductory adventure, in which the characters are sent to an important annual conference to kill, neutralize and corrupt some NPCs, obviously running into a series of disturbing impediments. Corporate Gathering allows you to immediately establish the tone of the game, immediately entering the grotesque mood that characterizes it.
Even more precious, however, is the appendix for the solo game mode. A series of tables allows us to go well beyond the banal story of crossroads. This game mode allows you to create an entire adventure, outlining the consequences of each test posed and overcome. A fun pastime for those who want to try the game on their own before bringing it to the table, of course. Above all, an almost infinite source of inspiration on what bizarre adventures the sacrificial victims of the corporations can experience.
Review of Corp Borg: Conclusions
Corp Borg is a completely unconventional game. It touches on points of sarcasm and incorrectness that are rare in the gaming panorama, also for the panorama of Borg-like games. Yet it doesn’t seem to be part of that sort of competition for who can launch the biggest provocation. This game is not trivially scratching but sinks its claws to the bone.
It is certainly not advisable to bring it to a particularly sensitive gaming table or with people who have not reached a certain maturity. This is also because Corp Borg should be played lightly, but not superficially. The risk is that of completely wasting its potential, without being able to make it truly fun. Walking around the office corridors poking demon switchboard operators with a stapler should be the way to bring out the grotesque in a story. Not a fun activity in itself.
In any way, Corp Borg is a game so brilliant, in his juxtaposition of a style of play and a context that would normally be unapproachable and above all in managing to do so in a coherent and sensible way, that he deserves a place in the library of any game enthusiast OSR and dystopian.
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