In their short history Portuguese publishers Games Omnivorous have delighted us with a steady stream of releases that have combined an unfussy attitude to play, a love of the strange and some of the best product and graphic design in the business right now. Whilst most of those from  Mausritter and 17th Century Minimalist to Vaults of Vaarn, have all been at least OSR adjacent their latest game, The Job, veers off in an entirely different and unexpected direction.

Penned by the company’s founder, Andre Novoa, The Job is a slim book, just 48 pages -most of which are given over to Gontijo’s excellent art and design- that focuses on the pulling off of sensational heists and cleaves much closer to a kind of party/parlour game than it does, say, Old School Essentials.

Essentially how The Job works is that one player, the referee, provides the others, the crew, with a brief, a short document detailing a target, let’s say a priceless diamond d20, a location, a budget for buying whatever nonsense they think might help and a list of six complications that they will need to be overcome.

The referee then sits back, pours themself a scotch on the rocks, drops the needle onto the already cued up Lalo Schifrin LP and relaxes whilst the crew figure out how they're going to tackle this heist. This plan should consist of a series of 12 vignettes that, if successful, sees them make off into the sunset, possibly on a speedboat but definitely accompanied by a stirring orchestral refrain.

Plan in place, the game then moves on to its next phase. Here the crew must actually work through each of the scene’s they came up with the referee demanding rolls whenever their plan runs headlong into one of the predetermined complications.

At this point the game takes a cue from Epidiah Ravachol’s Dread with its looming Jenga tower as The Job’s core mechanic is a simple yet effectively nerve jangling one. When you need to do something risky you roll two dice, and if you don't succeed you have to start building a tower stack of d6s.

Now, that might sound easy at first but when that first dice tower eventually collapses, you must start a second, only this time you have to add 2 dice with each failure. When that one topples you move onto your third and final stack which, if you've been paying attention you'll have already guessed, grows by three dice with each misstep.

In my experience it’s around eight dice in that things start to get a little shaky, especially if you’ve been getting in the mood yourself with an Old Fashioned or two. Whilst the first stack rises at a fairly leisurely pace, things escalate fast and by the time you’re nearing the end of a mission there’s a good chance you’re just one failed roll and an unsteady hand away from disaster. 

Playable in around 2 to 3 hours, and with a notable absence of orcs, it’s the kind of game that you could easily introduce to friends otherwise allergic to RPGs. Whilst for those who are already converts Novoa provides several suggestions for incorporating The Job into your regular RPG sessions.

Knowing Games Omnivorous’s penchant for deluxe products I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see this re-released as a box set with all manner of props and handouts, for now though it’s more than enough to just enjoy this surprising, little diamond of a game as it is.

Writer: Andre Novoa
Graphic design: Guilherme Gontijo
Published by Games Omnivorous

This feature originally appeared in Wyrd Science Vol.1, Issue 6 (August '24)

Share this article
The link has been copied!