Blast From The Past: Dominion Tank Police

What kind of world requires the police to have tanks?

This is the actual book cover, FYI

When it comes to anime and manga, Masamune Shiro is one of my favorite creators. Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed, and even Dominion Tank Police are some of my favorites. I enjoy his style and his inclusion of high concepts and social issues in his works. After I discovered Ghost in the Shell, I read and watched the original OAV of Appleseed. Next, I started tracking down some of his other works. Having seen it mentioned, I watched Dominion Tank Police. And it was... Interesting. Big guns, sexual innuendo, and tanks driving down city streets. But, the setting of Dominion is a little deeper than you might think...

Dominion Tank Police is a product of its time. During the 1980's, the world was dealing with two issues that found their way into the setting: increasing violent crime and pollution. If you look past the tits and ass, as well as the massive explosions, you can see these elements there. And that's why this is an interesting setting of an RPG.

Dominion Tank Police uses the Big Eyes, Small Mouth or Tri-Stat system, so I won't be delving too much into the basics of the system (you can read this for the basics). However, Dominion Tank Police was one of the first Tri-Stat game to introduce skills to the system. It also combines the original rules and the mecha creation rules into on simple package. And, like the Sailor Moon RPG and Resource Book before it, it contains glossy color pages with images from the original OVA series. As with all of Resource Books, there's stats for all of the major characters and items, but there's only a few in this one. Part of that is because there's only a handful of real characters in the OVA and partly because they just rolled a lot of them into the “typical member” profiles. I guess they had to save space? Or maybe they didn't want to go too far from the original source material? I don't know.

When it comes to the information presented in the book, they do a decent job of keeping things informative without taking up too much space. There's a brief overview the world of Dominion Tank Police, their organization, the enemies seen in the series, and other minor characters. After that, they offer some examples of what people could play (one example used is a member of the Osaka Air Police) and some sample adventures.

Building characters is fairly simple and most of it is taken straight from the BESM core book, as well as parts from Cool Robots, Big Starships. The rules for building a mecha are also taken from CRBS, but are much more focused on how to build tanks and air vehicles, with much of the really odd mecha stuff left out. As with all BESM systems, making a character is fairly quick and easy (especially if you abuse the system) but making a mecha takes much longer. Thankfully, if you want to just play a Dominion game, you make sure the players have enough mecha points between them and assign them a basic tank.

While skills do complicate things, they're not too hard to figure out. Since you really don't need them, I've found it best to min/max them and be done with it. The reason for this is that each level in a skill provides a bonus to a stat roll that involves the skill. Shooting a gun, piloting a tank, hacking a computer mainframe, and so on. Since most skills aren't required to preform actions, you might as well focus your character on what you want to be really good at and leave it at that. They're helpful for defining your character, because they're not like skills in other games. In most other games, you need the skill to be able to do something with it, suffering a hefty penalty at best, and are simply unable to use it at all.

While the game does allow you the freedom to create any sort of character, I've always gotten the vibe that they wanted you to play a member of the Tank Police. Which I do understand, to a point. I believe part of it is because the police were the main characters of the series, not just the OVA, but the manga as well (which I would suggest giving a read, there's two things of it and I'm not 100% they're in the same exact setting, but the funny little cameos the artist put in are fantastic). While the Buaku Gang are given some screen time, they're mostly there as a foil for the “good guys.” That said, what I really do like about the series and manga is that there's no real good guys in it. Sure, the police are there to stop criminals but they really don't seem to care about the destruction they cause in the process. And while Buaku is a dirty thief, he has a very sad backstory. Even the sex kitten Puma Sisters aren't just eye candy, they also have a reason for being in the gang. If you did a bit, there's a lot of layers of moral complexity that I appreciate and I feel that the game didn't quite want to get into it.

There's too adventures in the game, one for the police and one for a gang of criminals. While the game does talk about the Red Commandos, I think they're suppose to be bad guys for either side. And while that's cool, it would have been nice to try to propose using them for characters as well.

If I were to run a campaign of this now (speaking to you from mid 2020, a very explosive year), I could easily use the game to showcase some political commentary, as the creator clearly intended, just a bit more modern. Imagine, if you will, a game set after the show. Crime rates are dropping, but the Tank Police still exist. The force has to figure out how to keep their funding or they'll be disbanded. Sure, you can have some action here and there, but you can dig deeper. What if the players find out that the new crime boss they've been doing after is actually the head of the Tank Police? He's been committing crimes and stealing to justify keeping the Tank Police funded. Where do they side on this situation? Or, what if in the process of chasing a criminal, the players drive through a house and totally destroy it? You could have a series of sessions where each player has to be taken aside and their character gives testimony to an NPC. The other players don't know exactly what the player said, and then when they're interviewed, the NPC twists everything around to get someone to admit fault. You could take it all the way to a court case and the characters have to give testimony. If they get caught lying, it would mean their jobs.

Just because something starts out fun and lighthearted doesn't mean you don't have to play it exactly that way. If you take a deeper look at a game like this, there's a very strong undercurrent of politics to be explored. Which, having read a lot of his stuff, Masamune Shiro clearly intended it to have.

Okay, let's go back to some more fun stuff. Let's say you don't want to play Tank Police. That's fair. You could play just regular SWAT and have to call the Tank Police for backup. You could totally play up the rivalry between these two groups. Or you could play a group that pilots the police helicopter, trying to relay information. And maybe opening up with a minigun. This is Tank Police, after all...

Or you could make a group of hardened criminals looking to take the #1 Most Wanted spot from Buaku and his gang.

If you're a fan of the old series, I can't recommend this book enough. It's a great read for someone who enjoys it. If you're not a fan, but the idea of playing a satirical game of cops with tanks, check it out. Watch the old OVA and see what you think.

Mastering The Game: Gatekeeping and your game

NOTE: I wrote this a while back and wasn't sure if I should post it or not. Given the events of the last few weeks, I thought it was even more relevant. So, here we go...

Today, I'm going to go on a bit of a rant. I apologize in advance.

Lately, I've been watching some videos about gatekeeping in table top gaming. And I'm a little bit angry. Okay, more than a little bit angry. But, I'm going to tell you about my gaming experience through the years before I get to the topic at hand.

When I first started gaming, way back in the mid-90's in middle school, I played with a bunch of white guys. Now, part of that is because I'm from the whitest city. No joke. Of course, that's because of racism in the past. Something that I have no control over. As I grew older, I came to understand that and I understood what it was and what it meant. There was institutionalized racism in the city. Make no mistake about that. There's no getting around that and that shaped my world view when I was younger, but I've tried to understand that's not right and to be better than those who came before me.

Ahem. Back to my point. I was a nerd in school. I was one of those fat, white kids. I even had braces and glasses. Thankfully, I didn't have bad acne. Just imagine being that in school in the 90's. It wasn't fun. I've got stories that would curl your toes. So, for me, RPGs were kind of a safe haven. I could be strong and powerful, I could save the day, I could get the girl and live happily ever after. It was a place to escape the harshness of my reality. And, for many of the people I gamed with, they were in the same boat. We were nerds. We were outcasts. We were the people that nobody liked. Hell, I didn't even like some of them and they felt the same way about me.

When I entered high school, which was a much different environment than middle school, and probably saved my life, I linked up with a new group of nerds. We had fun and played games. And we weren't total social outcasts. In fact, our group started to grow over the years. The more interesting thing was that we weren't all dudes. Sure, we were mostly dudes, but we had some girls in our group, too. The big game, which I didn't join until the last year or two of high school, was run by one of our teachers. When I started, we had only a few of us who played, maybe five total. As the group started to expand (I think we had a dozen players by the end), we ended up with a fair share of female players. I want to say that a third of the group was female. Some of those were girlfriends of players. But, and my memory might be rose tinted, we didn't make a big deal out of it. They were part of the group. They might have been teased a bit for not knowing the rules at first, but I don't think it was because they were female. It was something all newbies had to deal with. I do admit that at that time, I did have a bit of a problem with girl gamers. Because I was bitter and angry and not in the right place mentally. However, I did know these girls and had to take a step back. I realized that I was wrong and corrected my behavior. I was by no means perfect, but I did change.

After high school, some of us kept playing as that DM went back to school had had some life changes. Our group was the DM and six players. Two of which were female. One I had known since high school and another I didn't know too well. I believe the her and her boyfriend were coworkers of the DM. Anyway, it wasn't that big of a deal that we had ladies in the group. They played and we all had fun. I do have to say that one of them (who was a friend for many years) was, for several years, wasn't that good at the game and only really played one character. But, she had a chance to grow and develop, and became a solid player. And you know what? We all started out like that. I had a type for many years (usually an anti-hero) that I would play in every game. And most of the people I started playing with had their own character they would play, just with a different face. It's how most people start out, doing the one thing they know or seem to enjoy the most.

Which brings me to my point today: Gatekeeping (don't ask me why, I just needed to get to the topic at hand). Don't bullshit yourself, it does exist. It might not exist in your game, with your group, but it does exist. I've seen it. Anything that's insular or not popular develops a “group think” and tends towards the homogeneous. For many nerds of my vintage, and older, we were told we were going to hell, we were bullied, we weren't allowed in polite society. So, we retreated to our little worlds. Not just role playing games, but video games, card games, and miniature games (to name just gaming things) became our fortresses. These were we found safety and comfort. Where we could have fun and live out our fantasies. And, when you're an “Other” it's easy to be turned against “Others” that aren't you. Toxic masculinity develops because when you can't get a date, it's easier to blame the girls rather than looking at your own faults. Plus, you can't avoid the culture you're living in, even if you're not truly part of it, so you manifest it in different ways. You might not be a six foot tall blonde, blue eyed barbarian, but you can play one in a game. I could go on, but I'll spare you.

I can understand, for some younger gamer that might be stumbling across this, they might not be able to relate. The world has changed over the last 30 years. Nerds are popular and big money (these two things are linked, in case you didn't notice) these days. Nerd things, once the haven of straight white male outcasts, is now very popular with people of every race, religion, color, nation, sexuality, gender, and so on. There are groups composed of all different folks, no matter where you go.

And there's going to be people who can't accept that. There's things that go around about how “girls weren't interest in D&D until it became popular, fucking hipster bitches.” Yeah, I've seen that. And I can understand why people say that. I don't agree with it, but I do understand it. There's a difference. When I see that or hear someone say it, I respond with something like “Are you sure? Did you ever ask the girls if they wanted to play?” And there's usually silence in response. I think many people would have played D&D and the like had they been offered the chance. And, thanks to the massive upswing in popularity of RPGs, they now feel like they have the chance.

How does this relate to running the game? Simple: If someone asks if they can play, don't disqualify them just because they're female. Or non-white. Or look like the guys who used to beat you up in high school. Now, I'm not saying that you have to let anyone and everyone join your game. Ask them questions, get a feel for them as a person. If they're totally new to RPGs, let them in if you're up for that. Personally, I can't play in games with newbies. I end up stomping all over them, verbally, and trying to take charge. Because I know what I'm doing. And that isn't fair to them, so I don't play with newbies. However, as a DM or GM, I'm much more forgiving. I can help them with stuff without being overbearing. I can sometimes jump in and be like “I don't think that's a good idea because...” And the dynamic is different. As a player, you're there for YOUR fun. When you're running the game, you're there for EVERYONE'S fun, not just your own. Does that make sense?

I don't say no to people who don't look like me. I've played with, and run games for, a whole bunch of different people over the years. Men, women, gay, straight, bi, white, brown, whatever. It doesn't make a difference to me. And it shouldn't matter to you, either. If role playing is important and fun for you, you should do your best to share that experience with others, especially those who haven't had the chance before. Don't call people “normies.” Just stop that shit. People are people. Players are players. New, old, long in the tooth, it shouldn't matter. If your players are saying stuff because someone is different, you shut that shit down hard and fast. If your players don't want to play with newbies, ask them to give them a chance. Don't let your older, more experienced players rag on the new ones. Try to get them to help them along. Nicely.

Pretty much, I don't care who you love, what you look like, what your sex is nor what your gender is, or who or what you worship. I just want to have a good time. If what I think is a good time and what you think a good time is, then you're welcome to join my table. It's that simple.

Let's Review: Last Days - Zombie Apocalypse

What is it?:

Last Days: Zombie Apocalypse is a 30mm post apocalyptic skirmish game published by Osprey Games. It is designed for two players each running a gang of survivors and trying to avoid or eliminate zombies.

The setting:

The setting of Last Days is intentionally left vague and up to the people playing. I don't know if people think it's good or bad, but I think it's nice. Especially since you're probably going to be playing with a nerd bag who wants to argue about the “reality” of zombies. Yes, I can be that nerd bag...

Personally, I'm going with the World War Z (novel, not film) version of the zombies when I'm designing groups.

The system:

The system is a very simple one, requiring only one (sometimes two) d6s. Models have several stats which are used for combat, mostly. I'll get into the other stuff in a bit.

Models can engage in ranged combat and melee combat, rolling to “meet or beat” either a number or the enemy roll. Damage is also rolled, with stats adding to it. There is a bit of math required when it comes to taking damage. One stat a model has is Endurance. When a model takes damage, you divide the damage by the Endurance and then take that much actual damage. I have to say that I'm not a fan of this because I am terrible at math and this is going to screw me up more than anything else. A minor complaint, sure, but I still wanted to express it.

When it comes to building your group of survivors, you first pick your leader and their “morality.” You choose between Selfless, Trained, and Selfish, with the point cost and complexity of changes increasing with each one. The morality of your Leader effects what kinds of survivors you can take, as they also have these moralities (there's also Neutral survivors). For the most part, you can take up to 50% Neutral and 25% from another morality, with the rest coming from your Leader's morality.

This is important, as most of the smart folks and healers are Selfless. Police and military are (of course) Trained. Gang members and cronies are Selfish, as are survivalists. If you want to go gun heavy and elite, your best bet is Trained. If you want to have a balanced force, Selfless is the way to go. If you want a horde to fight the zombies, as well as be the bad guy in some scenarios, then you're a Selfish bastard.

As you're buying your group, you need to equip them. You only get to have a few really good guns (unless you're Trained) and a few other pieces of equipment. Since you only get so many points, you have to be very careful with what you pick.

One other thing you need to do is pick your Refuge. Now, they want you to do it after you pick your leader, but I find it's best to do after you've figured out your group. As the refuge can only hold so many models, you should probably know how many you want to take before you pick it. In addition to the model limit, each refuge gives you some things for campaigns. We'll get to those.

When it comes to playing the game, you have several sequences. Now, there's a few interesting things here. In most skirmish games I've played, each model moves, shoots, fights, etc and then you move to the next model. Having each phase handle each model the way they have it set up is new to me. One thing that is familiar is that there's alternating model activation.

The first one is where the zombies get to turn up and act. You see, zombies aren't controlled by one player, they're there to screw both players up. They go after whoever is closer, so you can have the other player make the rolls when one is trying to chomp on your face. One thing is that zombies are pretty scary and may make it so you're going to be stuck trying to fight them off than run away.

Next, you get to preform your basic actions. Moving, climbing, running, etc. You can also ready a run to pop off when someone gets close.

Then you have the shooting phase. Now, when you roll initiative, you get to choose it you want to move and fight first or if you want to shoot first. If you're rolling with a lot of guns, you probably want to be shooting first. Because shooting is usually very effective in the zombie apocalypse... However, if a model or a zombie was able to lock you in close combat, you're going to be doing that and not shoot. Shooting also makes noise that has a chance to attract zombies to you.

Then you get to the fighting. This is where the other guy gets to go first, from that initiative roll earlier. They pick a fight, do their rolls, and then the other player picks a fight and does all their stuff. This continues until the fights are done.

The game ends when one group has been eliminated, all the Salvage tokens have been picked up, or one group breaks and runs. There's no turn limit, but the longer you play, the more zombies you'll have to deal with. While they cap it at 20 zombies, that's a lot of zombies.

And that's pretty much it for the basics.

Now, there's only six missions and some of them require special terrain. These missions are pretty basic; fighting the other player, looting, defending your refuge, etc. Since you randomly roll these, it's going to get old really quick. Plus, the game is centered around the campaigns, so you'll want to keep playing to get the good gear.

Want a chainsaw? Better hope you get it in Salvage. Lusting for a minigun? Hope you roll well. Armor, gun sights, better weapons and guns, and a lot of other things are locked away behind campaigns and salvage and random rolls. As you might imagine, I'm not exactly happy about this. In a mission, if one player breaks, the other player collects all of the Salvage tokens left on the board. So, if you have a series of bad games, you're going to fall way behind the other player. It looks okay, but I always get concerned when there's large disparities between the winners and losers of games in campaigns. I'm not a huge fan of seeing a bunch of gear I'd really like to use... But, I have to hope and pray that I get the One Lucky Roll that gives it to me. Yeah, no thanks. I'm fine with having to pay out the ass for some really good stuff, but having it locked behind a wall is just teasing me. Might as well have not included it, I think. The worst part is that some of these are classic zombie killing weapons. I don't know what the thought process was here. Honestly, this should have been left for the expansion set.

Is it worth it?:

Yes.

However... I do think that $30 is a lot to ask for what you get. Yes, it is a hardbound book and very high quality. But, there's not a lot to it. If there were more missions, maybe some sample groups you could just pick up and use, or really just ANYTHING more, I wouldn't be saying this.

All of that said, the PDF is probably your best option for a new copy. While I do have issues with the game, it's probably one of the best, well balanced (in terms of how the game plays) Bring Your Own Minis game involving zombies. If you've got the minis, you'll get a lot of use for it.

Setting Showcase: Urban Arcana

Name: Urban Arcana

Produced By: Wizards of the Coast

System: d20 Modern

Genre(s): Urban Fantasy (duh)

If you remember my review of the D20 Modern core book, you might remember my mention of this campaign setting. And you might also remember how I mentioned that it got it's own source book. Well, this is it. Let's get started.

The basic set-up is that magic exists, monster exist, and there's also sorts of techno-magic, but the average person isn't really aware of it. Because of The Shadow. Yes, that's the word they picked. What is the Shadow? Well, it's partly a veil that keeps the monsters and magic hidden from normal humans. It's also the border between our world and the world where the monsters and magic comes from.

This world, the one full of elves, magic, Beholders, and so on seems to be Greyhawk, which was the main D&D setting at the time, but they did keep it rather vague. You see, when something comes through the Shadow, their memories get a bit fuzzy. They still know who they are, that they're not native to this world, and will be able to work some of their magic (if they have any), but that's about it. Some can recall names of the gods they revered, others can recall bits and pieces of the societies they left behind. They don't give you too much detail, as they felt you would want to make it “your world” and they also said that the game wasn't about “armed marines going into the magical world.” That also means that going through the Shadow is a one way trip.

When it comes to keeping the magical stuff hidden, they use that good old stand by of “people see what they want to see.” For example, there's a very powerful Mindflayer that pops up. To most people, he appears to have a very large beard that might seem to move. If you're In The Know, you get to see him in all his horrific glory. Assuming you can see past his illusion, that is. For most other races, it's easier. Dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, and those kinds of folk can pass pretty easily for human. So can orcs and goblins. Oh, and don't forget about the Drow. They really want you to know there's Drow in this game. So much so that they put three of them on the cover. Don't get me wrong, I like that cover. It's just that there's a lot of Drow in the art.

Since d20 Modern was an almost direct port of the d20 system of D&D 3.5, creating characters get a little wonky. In the core book, everyone was human, so you got the extra skill point and feat, and didn't have favored classes. Well, they had to change everything back, as well as deal with ECL or Effective Character Level, since most races you can imagine are covered in this book. Not just the ones from the PHB, but a lot of the iconic races from the Monster Manual. Drow (as I've mentioned), orcs, Gnolls, Trolls, and so on. There's actually a really good picture of members of these races like a police line-up holding up their ECL on a card, which is great for quick reference.

In order to help convert many of the D&D classes, there's a lot of Advanced and Prestige classes to smooth over the transition. Of course, magic in this world isn't nearly as powerful as it was in the other world, so the characters won't be as powerful. Another interesting thing is that the world of Urban Arcana is very closely tied to the Plane of Shadow, so a fair amount of the spells and magic are related to that than anything else. You might not be able to throw around as many fireballs, but you'll probably be a lot more stealthy.

Speaking of magic, the list of magic items in this game is fantastic. Eldritch cellphones, Bumper of the Ram, Chain Saw of the Psycho, Decoder Ring, Camera of Soul Stealing, and Universal ID are some of my favorites. There's a more than you'd think and they do give guidelines for converting others from D&D. I would have love to have seen a whole book of the weird and wacky things they could have come up with. There were some third party supplements that came out, but they were mostly science fantasy or knock-off ShadowRun stuff. Now do you see what I was mentioning the whole “Shadow” thing?

There's also guidelines for converting more monsters from D&D, mostly dealing with the missing spells, in addition to the list they already have in both the core d20 Modern book and this one. And don't forget about the Menace Manual, which I'll probably cover in another article. There are several interesting and unique monsters in here, but my favorite is probably the Living Dumpster. If I ever get to run a game of this, that one WILL turn up...

There's a few reasons why I really like this book, but the setting isn't one of them. I have to admit that I'm really (really, really, REALLY) tired of the “hidden world” stuff we see in Urban Fantasy. I feel like it's tired and worn out. What I really wanted to do, and did run a brief game of using this, was something like Bright. But actually good. And not based on a fantasy world advanced to the modern age. I do like having the “well, there's a bunch of fantasy things in the world now” kind of like ShadowRun but without the cyberpunk elements. I honestly would have also loved a thing where you DID have marines invading a fantasy world. Like Gate, but again, actually good. I'll get around to writing that novel. Eventually.

No, I keep this book around partly for the art. While there is some Christopher Shy (who I do not enjoy), there's several pictures in here that just knock in out of the park for me. When they blend the magical and normal in just the right way, I love it. That mash-up just works for me.

There's also a random table for adventure ideas, just like in D&D, but very much more in line with this world. A skyscraper made out of bone appears in the middle of a city, in what was a vacant lot. That sounds like a good adventure. There's also a lot of maps for locations and rules and tables for making your own city. If you ignore the magical stuff, you could use it for any setting.

Maybe some day I'll play this game the way it was meant to be played. Or revisit my own version of the game. Or maybe I'll make my own version of ShadowRun. Or something else entirely. Time will tell.

If you've read this and you liked the sound of it, go out there and find yourself a copy. If nothing else, it can give you ideas for your own settings and campaigns. Just... Good luck finding it.