What kind of world requires the police
to have tanks?
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| 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.
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