Pyramid Review: The Dominion Tank Police Role-Playing Game and Resource Book

Pyramid Review

The Dominion Tank Police Role-Playing Game and Resource Book

Published by Guardians of Order

Written by David L. Pulver

165 pages, $19.95

Dominion is the second anime-based sourcebook for GoO's Tri-Stat System, with the Sailor Moon RPG preceding it. Much like the Sailor Moon RPG, the Dominion RPG is written with being a genre book in mind as well as allowing one to play in the world shown in the anime. However, Dominion does a better job of this than its predecessor, as it is based solely on a four-episode Original Animation Video series instead of a long-running television show.

The book begins with a brief summary of the "mecha genre" of anime, which includes any show that focuses on any kind of machine or vehicle, not just giant robots as a casual anime fan might suppose. Dominion belongs to the "mecha police" subgenre, which concerns a special police agency that has high-tech vehicles and weapons in order to handle criminals the ordinary police cannot. This is followed by a summary of the OAV series, the obligatory "What is Role-Playing" section, and a listing of other Dominion-related works. (Unfortunately, GoO's license only covers the first anime OAV, not the comics or the succeeding series.)

The next two chapters deal with character creation and the Tri-Stat mechanics. Tri-Stat is very much like a simplified GURPS, with only three basic stats (Body, Mind, and Soul, ranging from 1 to 12), a few more derived stats, and a standard . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: May 19, 2000

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