[PnP RPG] The Core
Posted: 2003-04-29 03:37pm
It is time.
Today, from deep inside the bowels of Dream Pod 9, located somewhere in the hallowed lands of Canada, something stirs. Within days, it will be in gaming stores across North America.
What is coming will rock the gaming world to the Core.
Okay, so I'm being melodramatic, but I'm happy to see it finally coming out after having waited so long. Core Command should be yet another fun and tantalizing setting (as per usual for DP9, the bastards), but this time the primary draw for me will be the updated Core Silhouette rules.
Over the next year or so, DP9 is re-releasing all of their product lines (Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Tribe 8, and Gear Krieg) around the new Core Silhouette rules. Rather than have a rulebook for each system combined with setting information, the Core Silhouette rulebook will contain all the information needed to play the games, thus reducing the overall costs of the setting books while allowing them to put more good stuff in place of the rules. Basically, from the way I understand it (and to put it into perspective for you D&D players out there), the Core Silhouette rulebook is like the rules section from the PHB, the DMG, and the Monster/badguy book. The Player's handbooks are like the setting books (Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, etc.) plus character creation guides and tools. Not the best description, but it's servicable.
Silhouette has been, ever since I discovered it, my favorite tabletop gaming system. I'm a total Silhouette whore, and a major Dream Pod 9 evangelist. The rules are elegant and robust. Combat is quick and dirty (both in game and in resolution), and running it is a dream. Combat is scalable, and you use the same basic rules for combat between two characters on the RPG scale as you do for the tactical ground combat scale, as you do for the air combat scale, as you do for the space combat scale.
But I pimp.
Silhouette, of course, is not perfect, but then what system is? They all have flaws, they all have oversights, inadequate representation, or what have you. Loopholes exist, munchkins, powergamers, and rules lawyers will exist no matter what set of rules you use, or even if you use no rules at all. Still, by and large, Silhouette is still the best-formed system I've seen, and now I can only see it getting better.
There are, of course, the inevitable downsides. Core Silhouette (otherwise known as Silhouette v2.0) still won't be perfect. The first printings are bound to have some typographical errors and need some errata, that's par for the course. I'll probably wind up getting two copies of the main rules, the one I pick up as soon as I see it on my local gaming store's shelf, and the one I'll pick up a few months down the line when everything that need fixin' gets it.
Anyway, I expect to have a copy of the rulebook in my hands by this weekend if at all possible, and I'll come back then to let you all know how it turned out (well, those of you that care, anyway). Until then, if anyone is curious about Silhouette, or why I love it so much, feel free to ask any questions you have in this thread.
Oh, and one more thing, before I forget: Core Silhouette (and all Dream Pod 9's product lines) will be fully D20 compatable, so you can convert characters back and forth between D20 rules and Silhouette. In fact, for all of you mech-heads out there who just happen to like D20, check out Dream Pod 9's D20 Mecha Compendium.
Even if you hate Silhouette Rules (but why would you?), you can still check out the settings and play them with D20 rules. Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy, Epic Space Fantasy, Giant Robots and Sweet Space Fleets, Alternative History World War 2 with a health overdose of superscience, and of course you've hear me preach about it before, but Heavy Gear still kicks copious amounts of ass.
Today, from deep inside the bowels of Dream Pod 9, located somewhere in the hallowed lands of Canada, something stirs. Within days, it will be in gaming stores across North America.
What is coming will rock the gaming world to the Core.
Okay, so I'm being melodramatic, but I'm happy to see it finally coming out after having waited so long. Core Command should be yet another fun and tantalizing setting (as per usual for DP9, the bastards), but this time the primary draw for me will be the updated Core Silhouette rules.
Over the next year or so, DP9 is re-releasing all of their product lines (Heavy Gear, Jovian Chronicles, Tribe 8, and Gear Krieg) around the new Core Silhouette rules. Rather than have a rulebook for each system combined with setting information, the Core Silhouette rulebook will contain all the information needed to play the games, thus reducing the overall costs of the setting books while allowing them to put more good stuff in place of the rules. Basically, from the way I understand it (and to put it into perspective for you D&D players out there), the Core Silhouette rulebook is like the rules section from the PHB, the DMG, and the Monster/badguy book. The Player's handbooks are like the setting books (Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, etc.) plus character creation guides and tools. Not the best description, but it's servicable.
Silhouette has been, ever since I discovered it, my favorite tabletop gaming system. I'm a total Silhouette whore, and a major Dream Pod 9 evangelist. The rules are elegant and robust. Combat is quick and dirty (both in game and in resolution), and running it is a dream. Combat is scalable, and you use the same basic rules for combat between two characters on the RPG scale as you do for the tactical ground combat scale, as you do for the air combat scale, as you do for the space combat scale.
But I pimp.
Silhouette, of course, is not perfect, but then what system is? They all have flaws, they all have oversights, inadequate representation, or what have you. Loopholes exist, munchkins, powergamers, and rules lawyers will exist no matter what set of rules you use, or even if you use no rules at all. Still, by and large, Silhouette is still the best-formed system I've seen, and now I can only see it getting better.
There are, of course, the inevitable downsides. Core Silhouette (otherwise known as Silhouette v2.0) still won't be perfect. The first printings are bound to have some typographical errors and need some errata, that's par for the course. I'll probably wind up getting two copies of the main rules, the one I pick up as soon as I see it on my local gaming store's shelf, and the one I'll pick up a few months down the line when everything that need fixin' gets it.
Anyway, I expect to have a copy of the rulebook in my hands by this weekend if at all possible, and I'll come back then to let you all know how it turned out (well, those of you that care, anyway). Until then, if anyone is curious about Silhouette, or why I love it so much, feel free to ask any questions you have in this thread.
Oh, and one more thing, before I forget: Core Silhouette (and all Dream Pod 9's product lines) will be fully D20 compatable, so you can convert characters back and forth between D20 rules and Silhouette. In fact, for all of you mech-heads out there who just happen to like D20, check out Dream Pod 9's D20 Mecha Compendium.
Even if you hate Silhouette Rules (but why would you?), you can still check out the settings and play them with D20 rules. Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy, Epic Space Fantasy, Giant Robots and Sweet Space Fleets, Alternative History World War 2 with a health overdose of superscience, and of course you've hear me preach about it before, but Heavy Gear still kicks copious amounts of ass.