I love it when RPGs get hyperspecific. This is Slipgate Chokepoint (2020), a supplement for the Stay Frosty RPG, by Andrew Walter (who also does the gnarly art, along with Ambika Kirkland) and Paul Cronin. Stay Frosty is based on the Black Hack and is clearly in love with sci-fi military action movies like Aliens, Predator, that sort of thing. Slipgate Chokepoint takes that framework and applies its own love interest: DOOM (and, to a lesser extent, Quake and other FPS videogames, but mostly DOOM).

Stay Frosty is pretty fast and furious, and Slipgate not only follows suit, but ups the ante. There’s just one type of character (the Ranger, which is basically a generic space marine). Weapons are ridiculous. Armor is color coded. There are rules for tension and special stunts and, hilariously, gibbing (Like in DOOM, when you hit something so hard it just flies apart into bloody pieces? That can happen here, to monsters and also to you). Basically, if you can think of a way to tweak 1e D&D rules in order to reflex the action and aesthetics of 90s FPS videogames, its probably already in here.

Is this a little one note? Maybe? But so is DOOM and that didn’t stop a generation of kids from playing it practically non-stop for a couple years. And if you use the (hilarious) random tables and the adventure materials in the back of this book to fuel a campaign, you’re probably creating something that is inherently more dynamic than DOOM. So, an accurate reflection and elevation of the source material. If you wanna RPG DOOM, this is for you (who’d a thunk: you can run DOOM on papers and pencils). It is WAY better than the D&D Diablo crap from the late 90s, for sure.