Originally Published in Pyramid Magazine – September 15th, 2000

In 1988 the anime feature film Makai Toshi Shinjuku was released in Japan. Based on a novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi (the Japanese SF/Horror author), Shinjuku told the story of Kyoya, a young student of the mystic combat art of Nempo.

Ten years before the film begins, Kyoya’s father (a Nempo master himself) attempted to prevent Levih Rah (a Nempo master who had turned to evil) from summoning demonic powers to conquer the Earth. He died in the attempt, but not before he disrupted Levih Rah’s spell. Instead of conquering all of humanity in a single blow, Rah is only able to summon his demonic horde to a localized area: the Shinjuku district of downtown Tokyo. A massive earthquake wreaks devastation across dozens of city blocks, and Rah begins to prepare for the day when his dreams of conquest will reach true fruition. Now, a decade later, Kyoya must venture into this modern city of the damned, and finish what his father started…

Several years after the film’s original release, Central Park Media translated it into English as Demon City Shinjuku. In America, as in Japan before it, Shinjuku quickly became a classic of both its medium and genre. And now, twelve years later, Guardians of Order has presented us with the Demon City Shinjuku Roleplaying Game and Resource Book.

Demon City Shinjuku is not the first, nor will it be the last, of GoO’s licensed anime games (it was preceded by Sailor Moon and Dominion: Tank Police, and has been followed by Tenchi Muyo!). Like these other games, Demon City Shinjuku uses the Tri-Stat System which first appeared in the critically acclaimed Big Eyes, Small Mouth.

Action resolution is handled in a fairly standard and straight-forward manner: A roll of 2d6 is modified by a difficulty and compared to the appropriate Stat or Skill. Combat uses the same basic mechanic to determine the relative effectiveness of attack and defense. Damage is determined through the combination of a secondary attribute and the weapon’s damage rating. One nice touch throughout the game are two simple flowcharts (one for combat and one for character creation) which clearly and concisely summarize the rules for easy reference during gameplay.

Character creation is based primarily on three things: Three character Stats (Body, Mind, and Soul – hence the name “Tri-Stat”), Character Attributes, and Skills. Each of these systems is point-based, with fairly broad and open-ended definitions. For example, your character might have a Level 3 in Massive Damage – allowing you increase your damage in combat by 15 points because you know precisely where to land a blow to cause the maximum possible amount of damage. However, precisely how your character knows how to land such a blow is left open-ended – they might have trained in the martial arts; or perhaps they receive mystic insight into where to place each strike.

This system is mechanically very precise while, simultaneously, modeling a wide variety of phenomena in the Demon City Shinjuku universe in a simple and easy-to-use manner. In addition, a great amount of care has been taken so that the elements of the game system will interact in exactly the manner shown in the movie – if doing X and Y in the movie allowed a character to achieve Z, then doing X and Y with the game system will also result in Z.

As impressive as the system is, though, the Demon City Shinjuku Roleplaying Game really begins to shine when we reach the second part of its title: Resource Book.

In addition to simply presenting a roleplaying game for their licensed products, Guardians of Order also present their books as generic resources for fans of the source material. In addition to creating a higher potential for the development of a crossover market of anime fans interested in purchasing the book, this also lends to the book a true depth of source material which is often lacking in licensed products. Instead of simply covering the material found in the movie, GoO has taken the next logical step of supporting the movie with a wide variety of supporting details – exactly the type of details which a GM craves when running an adventure.

While doing this, however, they have very carefully not imposed a vision of Demon City Shinjuku beyond the confines of the movie. Instead they have presented a wide-open toolbox with which a GM can create their own version of the Demon City Shinjuku universe. By doing so they don’t lock the property into their own vision of “how things are supposed to be,” instead opening it up to a multitude of visions limited only by the extent of your own imagination and desire. Want a campaign where Shinjuku was only one of many cities struck by Levih Rah’s spell? You’ll find support for it here. Want a campaign set in the years between Levih Rah’s spell and Kyoya’s success? You’ll find support for it here. Want a campaign where Kyoya failed? You’ll find support for it here. And so forth.

Moving beyond this toolbox, they have provided a wealth of real world information on Japan and Tokyo. This is, essentially, the foundation on which the movie is built – and by stripping away the surface of the movie, and revealing the pylons on which it was constructed, GoO is giving you the same firm base with which to build your own campaign.

By doing this, GoO has proven – once again – that they are capable of looking at things with the eye of a master game designer: Finding the basic elements which make up an experience, and laying them bare for you to use in the easiest fashion possible. The result is a high quality product which is, above all else, useful as a gaming resource.

So, at the end of the day, what is Demon City Shinjuku? It’s a tried and proven rule system which has been expertly adapted into a near perfect adaptation of a licensed property. It’s a property which is, in turn, rich with gaming opportunities — demons on the loose in a mystic post-Armageddon setting with gothic horror themes. It’s presented in a dynamic and open-ended fashion – remaining true to the source material, while simultaneously facilitating a diverse set of visions.

It is, in one hundred and fifty pages, a rich and worthy addition to your library of gaming experiences.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Writers: David L. Pulver (with Mark C. MacKinnon, Jeff Mackintosh, Karen A. McLarney)
Publisher: Guardians of Order
Price: $19.95
Page Count: 150
ISBN: 0-9682431-9-3
Product Code: 05-001

This review, at long last, concludes the archiving of my older reviews from Pyramid Magazine, Games Unplugged, RPGNet, and others. (One final review, of Gary Gygax’s Lejendary Adventure: Lejend Master’s Lore, unfortunately seems to have been lost to the mists of time. I know it appeared in the June 1st, 2000 Games Unplugged webzine, but I’ve somehow lost the original digital file and the published version wasn’t archived.)

It’s been interesting looking back at where both I and the RPG hobby were at the turn of the millennium. I’ve been reminded of a few old favorites and been inspired in new ways by old “friends.” But I’m also glad this particular project has reached its conclusion. It’s surprisingly time-consuming to do the archival work of reclaiming, reediting, and commenting. (Which is, of course, why it’s taken more than a decade to finish archiving all 200+ reviews.)

The artwork ranges from mediocre to terrible. The pages seem to overflow with wasted white space. There’s a lack of depth to the material. They neglected to put a price on the cover. The soy-based ink their printer used smears at the slightest provocation, leaving your fingers an inky mess. The prose occasionally slips from one tense to another – the bane of the amateur. The maps are of poor quality and reproduced in a manner which makes them nearly impossible to read. The tagline of the game is a needless, second rate rip-off of Talislanta.

It is a litany of faults which first assaults your senses as you take a look at Diomin – but if you let them cloud our judgment, you’ll be missing out on some of the golden material which is hiding underneath its somewhat rough exterior.

So, grit your teeth just a little bit, and come along with me into the world of Diomin…

COSMOLOGY

Diomin opens with a discussion of the cosmology and primal, mythological history of the book. At first glance you may feel your jaw starting to tighten even more, but I suggest you unclench: Although it firmly maintains the feel of a traditional fantasy pantheon, there’s some fascinating material here.

Basically, the creation mythos of Diomin works like this: The One looked out upon the Void and felt alone. And so he created the world, and peopled it with servants who would accompany him. The gods lived with the One in the Divine Realm. But, of course, not all would go well with his creations: Some of them discovered another realm, the Spirit Realm, and sought to understand its secrets. After long debate, the One finally yielded to their wishes and created a passage between the Divine and Spirit Realms: The Physical or Mortal Realm. What they discovered is that a spirit contains tremendous power – and some of them became addicted to that power, and consumed souls whole to grasp it. With inevitability, wars followed.

All of this gives rise to a really great pantheon: The Warriors of the Light serve the One. The Lords of Darkness serve Cedron, the Liberator. And the Children of the Vineyard serve none but themselves. Each god has a vibrant existence, with a fully developed role and presence within the greater cosmology.

What makes this work is the successful wedding of two worlds: Savage has taken the mythology surrounding Christianity, given it a couple of unique twists, and then jacked up the pantheist elements by several notches. The result is a tapestry providing a rich setting from which to build a world.

RACES

When the conflict between the Divine Children had come to an end, the Lords of Darkness withdrew beneath the earth with those who had followed them, while the Warriors of the Light stayed to tend their flock of mortal followers. In both cases, the care of the gods (whether nefarious or beneficent) reshaped some of the mortal stock into new forms.

The Arak were the original race of Diomin and the Mortal Realm. They are tall and blue-skinned, with red eyes and black hair. They are a proud, barbaric people (very Howard-esque) who look down upon the “Seconds.” Five of the Arak clans remain intact, the rest were changed by the gods:

The Gnolaum were taken to the lands of the East, where they learned strange mystic arts which extended the span of their lives and turned them into a fair and beautiful people. When their race became corrupted, those who remained loyal to the Warriors of the Light were forced to flee back across the sea to Diomin.

There are two human races on Diomin: The Tirasim and the Zeredites – their history is locked together.

Finally, there are the Gadianti – strange, cat-like creatures who were corrupted by the Lords of Darkness and now are the bane of all civilized existence.

In recent years another race has appeared, apparently not of Arak stock – although their true origins remain unknown: The Hearthrom are living statues.

What’s really nice about this is that Diomin manages to capture the feel of the traditional/Tolkienesque fantasy races used by D&D and its brethren (elves, dwarves, and halflings) without actually using those races (or pale rip-offs of them). This is a major strength for the product (which is, unfortunately, buried somewhat behind the lame derivative of Talislanta’s “Still no elves” in Diomin’s backcover text of “Elves? We don’t need no stinkin’ elves…” and “Who needs elves?”).

Indeed, it can be said that the races are the showcase on which the value of this product rests (with some major assists from the cosmology and a minor assist from the classes): They are presented with a wealth of detail, and are easily appreciated as fully developed cultures.

An unfortunate fault in an otherwise excellent section is the lack of the coverage of the half-Arak races (which are explicitly mentioned in the text) in the rules, and the lack of coverage for any of the other possible racial combinations.

CLASSES

Diomin performs some simple modifications on a couple of classes to give them a unique flavor and presence within the game world – and it works quite well. It also introduces a new class, the Shaman, which works with spirits – this is also well done.

A SECOND LITANY

It is rather unfortunate that a product which is labeled a Worldbook is, essentially, completely lacking in actual world information: Geography is not detailed. Nations are not detailed. Cities are not detailed. These are all left ciphers upon the nearly illegible maps located at the back of the book. In a book with a low page count, massive sidebars, and a layout which promiscuously wastes space as if it were going of fashion this is simply inexcusable.

For example, in one of the most insulting bits, the solar-based calendars which are used by most of the races on Diomin is explained in one sidebar. At the end of the explanation, we are told that the Arak use a lunar-based calendar. This lunar-based calendar is not described in the text – despite the fact that if you move your eyes from the page on which the solar-based calendar is detailed across to the facing page, you see a gaping, empty sidebar which, of course, could have been filled with just that detail.

Furthermore, the maps themselves – from what can be made out on them – are far too simplistic: Even if this world had been described, it would not be as impressive as the stuff from which it was getting made. The Arak have a nation. The two human races each have a nation. The Gnolaum have a nation. The Gadianti have a nation. And the Hearthrom have a nation. And the world itself is incredibly tiny: Although the maps lack a legend, you can extrapolate from a travel time given in the text and reach the conclusion that no point in the world is more than ten days distant from any other point.

And never, ever describe something in a fantasy world by saying “it’s just like the FBI” – especially when you’re wrong, and it’s not “just like the FBI.”

As I noted, all of this would be more forgivable except for the fact that the product also wastes space: Not just in layout, but in content decisions. How did the authors convince themselves that they didn’t need to include a single monster (once you’ve eliminated elves and dwarves, why would you bring in orcs and goblins?), but did need to include a 30+ page adventure in a 112 page book? An adventure which is nothing more than a “hired in a bar” yawner? An adventure which uses seven pages for random encounter tables? (Random encounter tables, note, which a more sensible lay-out could have gotten onto a single page.)

I just don’t get it.

IN CONCLUSION…

As I mentioned above, there are three areas where Diomin shines: The cosmology (primal myth and gods); the races; and the information regarding classes.

I suspect that, if it had been included, the bestiary would have been equally impressive. And it was possible that, despite the simplistic maps, the world itself could have had potential. Tragically, we don’t know if this is true or not.

However, I will give this cautious recommendation: The tool-set found in Diomin is extremely rich, and could easily serve as the foundation of a truly excellent, and uniquely different, fantasy world. But Diomin itself misses the target substantially, and squanders its potential.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you must squander it. Or waste it. Although the cover charge is a bit steep here, I would say that it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea to pick up Diomin and then using the building blocks it presents to build your own fantasy world. Or just use it to construct a “land beyond the seas” for your existing fantasy world – a region with unique flavor, utterly different than the realms with which your players are already familiar.

Give it some thought.

Writers: R. Hyrum Savage, Chad Cunningham, Christopher T. Miller
Publisher: OtherWorld Creations
Price: $19.95
Page Count: 112
ISBN: 0-9705312-0-6
Product Code: OWC1001

This review was originally written for Pyramid Magazine back in 2000, but was never published. Unlike similar reviews, however, I apparently never found a new home for this one and it has instead lurked unread and unloved on my hard drive for the past quarter century.

It’s interesting reading my critiques of the Diomin‘s shortcomings. They’re certainly true, but overall I’ve generally had a fond impression of the book whenever I’ve noticed it on my shelf. On the other hand, I’ve also never actually used it for anything. For better or worse, there’s always been a faint whiff of Fantasy Heartbreaker around Diomin for me. (But that idea of using it as a “land beyond the seas” is really intriguing.)

Originally Published in Pyramid Magazine – March 2nd, 2001

As far as I can tell, Reiner Knizia doesn’t know how to design a bad game – and Lost Cities is no exception to his exemplary track record.

Although connected to the reputed theme of the game (adventurers traveling to lost cities around the globe) in only the loosest of possible fashions, the mechanics here prove to be simple, but not simplistic: To borrow the cliché, Lost Cities is easy to learn – difficult to master.

Despite the fact that it comes with a board, Lost Cities is essentially a card game: You have five different color suits (each belonging to a different environment in which a lost city is located), with each suit containing three “investment” cards and ten cards numbered from 1 to 10. Each player receives a hand of eight cards, and play proceeds in turns – with each player either playing or discarding a card, and then drawing another card in order to replace it.

Cards are played off of the board (which has five playing areas keyed to each of the five colors), with each player playing on his or her side of the board. Cards must be played in order – with investment cards coming first, and then the numerical cards in order after that. (So, in other words, if you’ve played the red seven, you cannot go back and play the red five – you can only play the red eight, nine, or ten.) When you decide to discard a card (rather than playing), you do so into one of five discard piles (keyed to each of the colors). When you draw a card you may do so from the top of any of the discard piles, or from the top of the draw pile. The game ends when the last card is drawn from the draw pile.

You score each color separately in the following manner: Total the numerical cards, subtract 20 from the resulting total, and multiply that total (whether its positive or negative) by the number of investment cards you played plus one. If you didn’t play any cards in a color (investment or numerical), however, your score for that column is 0. Then add the totals from all five colors together.

Simple, right? Right. But in the actual practice of it, Lost Cities becomes something more than you’d expect.

For example, it’s not enough to merely play cards out in a haphazard manner: You must be aware of your ability to reach the 20-point minimum required to see a return (otherwise you’re throwing your money away). You must balance the risks and advantages of additional investment in an exploration. You must keep in mind how much time you have left in the game, and attempt to manipulate that time limit to your advantage (and your opponent’s disadvantage) through your discards and draws.

And then there is the direct player interaction through the five discard piles, which takes a difficult decision and turns it into a nerve-wracking one: You must play to your strengths, subvert your opponents, and avoid your weaknesses.

The incredibly diverse array of tactical options and strategic possibilities which result from the elegantly simple mechanics of Lost Cities is a testament to Knizia’s brilliance at game design, and the strength of this game. This is a game in which you will be asked to choose between the lesser of two evils, and forced to decide between the conservative and the risky.

In addition to being a great two-player game, Lost Cities is also a visually beautiful package (although the white “map” on the superfluous playing board comes off as far too bluish, leaving you momentarily confused the first time you look at the game board). There is little doubt that this game is well worth the cost of admission, and should prove a worthy addition to your collection of games.

Style: 5
Substance: 4

Designer: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: Rio Grande Games
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 1-892081-23-7
Production Code: 687618

Lost Cities is currently available in a 6th Edition. I haven’t seen this new edition, although I know it features new art, some revised rules, and also expansion scenarios.

As I mentioned  recently in my retrospective review of Hera & Zeus, it’s been many years since I was a regular player of two-player board games, so I haven’t revisited Lost Cities recently. But you’ll still find it on my shelf.

Ships of the Fleet, Vol. 4: Venus Fleet – a supplement for Dream Pod 9’s Jovian Chronicles game – is plagued by minor inconsistencies and errors of detail. Fortunately, it is also possessed of substantial strengths, proving itself useful for tactical and roleplaying games alike. Recommended.

Originally Published in Pyramid Magazine – August 11th, 2000

Being truly excellent is a double-edged sword: On the one hand, of course, you’re excellent – and that comes with a lot of perks. On the other hand, though, you’ve set yourself a very high standard – and a failure in the details suddenly becomes a notable offense.

Which is why I’m going to take a few moments to dwell on the failures of Ships of the Fleet, Vol. 4 – a supplement describing six Venusian ships of the line, the principles of Venusian ship design, and Venusian fleet operations. Although these failures may all be in the details, they are no less disappointing.

Why are they disappointing? Because Dream Pod 9 has excelled – with all three of their games – in providing a level of depth, breadth, and quality for their fictional worlds that almost beggars the imagination. When, for example, you not only know the broad strokes of political machination and warmongering in the solar system of the 21^st century, but also what the favorite books of the Jovian Confederation are, and how the details of shipboard life onboard a Constantinople-class vessel differ from those of a Birmingham-class – and all of this weaves together into a consummate and seamless whole – you’ve achieved something special.

You can build mighty worlds out of imaginative wonders, but the final key to the imagination lies in the details. It is there that a world will cease to be merely words on a page and, instead, become a living, breathing presence in your mind’s eye.

So, when you’ve accomplished the extraordinary task of making this happen – of bringing a world to life – it behooves you to make sure that those details continue to be consistent and believable.

Which brings us back to what makes this book disappointing.

For example, on page eight we are told that all Venusian ships are specifically made to look different from one another – part of a fleet-wide doctrine to camouflage their navy as civilian merchant vessels and, thus, hide it from the other solar powers. So why on page thirteen are we told that “these newer ships are cosmetically indistinguishable from the older ones”? And why, whenever we are shown pictures of multiple ships, these are merely cut-and-paste copies of one another (an offense made all the more notable by the fact that even the name stamped on the side of the ship has not been changed from one carbon copy to another)? And speaking of that all-too-obvious name: If you’re attempting to keep the size of your navy a secret, is it really a good idea to be printing “CVNA” (Cooperative Venusian Naval Administration) in large letters for the entire solar system to see on every single ship in your navy?

There are other examples of carelessness, as well: In the core Jovian Chronicles rulebook we were told that Venus deliberately exported only algae products and foodstuffs in order to conceal from the rest of the solar system the extent of their technical knowledge. So why is it that in this book we’re told that Venusian ships are at a particular risk from pirate attacks because their ships are almost “guaranteed” to be carrying items of value? One of the nicer elements in the book are the crew interviews – allowing you to hear first-person narratives of why shipboard life is like… but many of these interviews do not sound like Venusians, coming across as angry and egotistical rather than reserved and polite.

And so forth. There are many companies out there – companies which turn out good games – who could do these same things, and I just wouldn’t care. I probably wouldn’t even notice. But the Podsters have established a record of high quality, and I notice things in their books that I wouldn’t notice if I didn’t care so much.

Now that I’m done nitpicking the book to death, though, let’s dwell on its pleasant – and substantial – successes:

For starters, if you’re running a roleplaying campaign set onboard a Venusian ship, you should seriously consider picking up this book. The detailed ship information, interviews with crew members describing ship life, and coverage of crew structures for each type of ship, along with descriptions of shipboard procedures and naval structure are all great, hands-on material which will have immediate applicability for you.

For tactical players the most obvious application of the material in this book comes in the form of ship stats — giving you some new toys to play with. But I think that most of you will also find the information regarding Venusian deployment philosophy and tactical planning during wartime to be fascinating and useful material (although I wish there was as much detail provided for Venus as was provided for the Jovian Confederation in previous volumes).

The only problem the Ships of the Fleet books have, as a concept, is that they lack a clearly defined role for either roleplayers or tactical players. The inclusion of shipboard life and procedures makes the books potentially useful for roleplayers – but only roleplayers in campaigns with substantial time aboard ship. On the other hand, the inclusion of this material reduces the number of ships which can be covered – making the book less inclusively useful for the tactical player. Both roleplayer and tactical player receive a number of tools in these books – but it is an open question in my mind whether or not either receive enough tools to justify the price tag.

Therefore, this books comes with a reserved recommendation: If you’re a Jovian Chronicles fanatic, definitely pick it up. Otherwise, you’re only going to want this one if it has a very specific application to your campaign.

Grade: B

Writers: Wunji Lau (Writer/Designer and Lloyd Doug Jessee (Game Stats/Design)
Publisher: Dream Pod 9
Price: $20.95
Page Count: 144
ISBN: 1-896776-70-1

Originally Published June 20th, 2000

This is how you write a supplement.

Why? Well, for starters, what makes a good supplement? First off, the book should be good enough that you want to buy it – but the underlying system should have been designed well enough that you don’t need to buy it. In other words, the supplement should live up to it’s name: It should supplement the gaming process, and not be an integrally necessary piece of it.

Second, the book should contain a wealth of background information and source material. By the time I finish reading a supplement on, for example, a “guys-with-cars and girls-with-guns in a cops and robbers game”, I should know everything I ever wanted to know about cars, guns, and the men and women who use them to catch crooks and rob things.

Finally, the supplement should work by itself, but also work in synthesis with the other supplements for a game. In other words, I should be able to pick up Hot Rods and Gun Bunnies™ and be able to use the book without suddenly discovering that I also need to pick up The Complete Book of Cars and The Totally Insane Guide to Guns. At the same time, though, if I decide to pick up The Totally Insane Guide to Guns it should add to my experience using Hot Rods and Gun Bunnies™, and vice versa.

Needless to say, Hot Rods and Gun Bunnies™ (HRGB) succeeds at all of this with the fine polish of a new ‘vette and the lightning impact of Colt .457. Even though its twice as long as the core Big Eyes, Small Mouth™ (BESM) manual, at no point in time do you feel as if you actually needed to buy this book. At the same time, though, every single page is chock full of material so good that you will never regret, even for an instant, the hard earned cash you laid on the line to pick it up.

Basically the content of HRGB can be broken down into three categories: New Rules, Equipment, and Campaign Info.

NEW RULES

Character creation in the basic Tri-Stat System (on which BESM is based) is a process of seven steps. HRGB not only elaborates on how each of these seven steps can be tailored towards a campaign of high-octane action, but strategically expands the rules for maximum impact. An example of this is found in Step 4: Character Attributes – in which not only are all of the attributes in the core manual assessed as to their appropriateness in an HRGB campaign, but several attributes are specifically modified for easier use in such a campaign, and a set of brand new attributes are introduced.

But HRGB doesn’t stop there, it also goes on to insert new steps and sub-steps into the character creation process – expanding and adapting the character creation process. The most notable example of this is the presentation of a skill system for BESM (which first made its debut in the stand-alone Tri-Stat game Dominion Tank Police). This skill system is not only dynamic, it also fits almost perfectly into the overall feel and nature of the system as a whole. One would expect this type of thing to either feel like a completely tacked on addition or, alternatively, something which should have been included in the basic BESM manual to begin with. The truth is that you feel cheated neither in the skill system itself nor its lack in the core rulebook — an accomplishment that speaks highly not only of HRGB, but the Tri-Stat system as a whole.

Beyond the rules for skill resolution, the only other noteworthy addition to the basic Tri-Stat rules takes the form of a brief section describing genre combat, including a surprisingly wide array of optional rules and tweaks.

EQUIPMENT

A supplement about hot rods and gun bunnies which lacked a description of cars and firearms would, of course, be remiss. It should come as no surprise that HRGB lives up to the task admirably in Chapter 3: Boom and Vroom, tossing in bombs along with the titular autos and guns.

Not only is this section a sizable and well-researched portion of the book, it also excels at maximizing the value of everything it gives to you. By implementing a template system (so that, for example, the same set of stats covers not only an H&K MP5, but also an Ingram M10) they maximize their coverage. And all of this is backed up by rock solid research which is presented in a clear, easy-to-understand, and easy-to-use format for the GM.

This section is also a good example of the modular design to the BESM product line I was discussing earlier: In the Big Robots, Cool Starships™ supplement for BESM a complete vehicle construction system is presented for the game. Now, HRGB could have required the purchase of this separate book or – worse yet – simply reprinted the material. Instead, Guardians of Order have presented us with this entirely new template system, which is not only a better fit for the material covered by HRGB, but is also completely compatible with BRCS for those who want the added flexibility the complete VCS gives.

CAMPAIGN INFO

Between the new rules and equipment guide, HRGB has already justified its existence as a supplement – but it doesn’t stop there. Jim Crocker goes on to provide a wealth of campaign detail. This material ranges from an overview of pertinent anime titles in the genre (such as Gunsmith Cats and Riding Bean); to a breakdown of campaign styles, themes, categories and ratings (and how the rules can be tailored to each of them); to a set of character archetypes; to a stand-alone module; to (finally) an overview of firearm laws, motor vehicle laws, and bounty hunting and bail in America, Canada, and Japan (accompanied by a general description of “Law and Order in Japan” and America’s Miranda Warning).

All of this material is immediately useful and pertinently selected – there’s no deadweight to be found here, and its organized and presented in an easily referenced and accessible manner.

Of course, nothing is truly perfect – and HRGB is no exception to this truism. The book has a minor typo problem, particularly in the first few chapters. The new attributes added to HRGB have six levels (instead of the standard five of the core BESM rules) – this works, but it lends an unbalanced feel to the system. Although the new skill system is excellent (as noted above), this particular presentation of it is definitely slanted towards an HRGB campaign. Clearly this isn’t a flaw, but if you’re picking this book up solely for the skill system you should go in with the knowledge that you’re going to have to adapt it to other types of BESM campaigns.

But at the end of the day there is only one conclusion which can be reached: Guardians of Order was good to begin with, and with each new supplement they get better and better. Hot Rods and Gun Bunnies is a textbook case of “how to do it right” – and it’s well worth your time and money.

Writers: Jim Crocker, David L. Pulver
Publisher: Guardians of Order
Price: $15.95
Page Count: 124
ISBN: 1-894225-07-8