Dream Pod 9 (DP9)’s lineup gets so-so reviews.

Heavy Gear is a military science-fiction universe where human worlds wage war against
one another with mecha.
Jovian Chronicles follows the exploration of the solar system in the 23rd century and the
conflicts that arise between the Earth and the space colonies.
Tribe 8 is a tribal, post-apocalyptic fantasy game of horror and epic adventures.
Gear Krieg takes place in an alternate reality World War II firmly set in the pulp genre.

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9406.phtml

What is it?

Core Command is a 160-page book detailing a science fiction setting in the far FAR future and
deals with extreme science. The technology of the game details mile long space ships, cyberware
that seems like magic, moon sized star eaters, planet sized computers and hand-held weapons
that could vaporize buildings.

What is inside?

The Core Command: Players Handbook is less a player’s handbook and more an introduction to
the setting. There are no rules in the book and you will need either “Core Rules” from Dream
Pod 9 or a version of the OGL/d20 rules as Core Command is OGL compatible.

Chapter 1: The Core Command Universe

The first chapter in the book breaks down the setting. It introduces you to the main conflict in
the book, two universal superpowers fighting for the universe itself. Core is set out to keep the
universe as it is before the D’Vor eats enough stars to make the universe collapse on itself.
Players are likely to take up the roll of Core agents.

The rest of the chapter details the universe. From the evolution of planets to strange occurrences
one might encounter. The chapter gives a rough idea of what the universe is like and what to
expect on a journey but does not give any details as covering five different galaxies would take
up more than a 150-page book.

To give an example of what Core Command details there is a planet called Fractal. The planet is
actually a giant computer used by Core and believed to travel at the speed of light. The planet is
so complex that an entire society called Mi Compilers do nothing but interpret the information
from Fractal.
Chapter 2: Character Design

Players are assumed to be Core Agents so the beginning of the chapter gives a little information
on the Core Academy. It then proceeds to tell you how to make a character. A lot of the
information is repeated from “Core Rules.” There are some boxes introducing a new skill called
Quantek, using d20 classes, and suggestion on perks/flaws.

The next part of the chapter details the aliens that are associated with Core and are
recommended for Player Characters. Each alien is given a two page description complete with
picture, Core Rule stats, and OGL stats.

Humans - Your standard human race with the twist that these aren’t “Earthlings.”
Cyren - amphibious humanoids.
Sanrock - giant rock aliens.
Orb-Shakra - jellyfish creatures with a hive mentality.
Proteans - Featureless shape changing humanoids.
Dimni - Nomadic teddy bear like aliens.
Muran - Uppity, fragile humanoids.

The third part of the character design chapter details robots and AI. The section gives four types
of typical robot bodies and then goes into Hero Types. Hero Types are super robots in which
old/dying Core Agents get downloaded into.

Chapter 3: Tools of the Trade

The third chapter deals with the technology of the age. After some notes on technology in
general we get information on Quantek. Quantek is a type of technology that is built at the sub-
quantum level. Quantek has a number of uses but its most interesting is Quantek cybernetics in
which Quantek devices get inserted into the body. These devices create magic like affects
ranging from shooting energy from your hand, to creating tractor beams, force screens and
flying!

The next part deals with typical technology that might have some changes due to the
advancements in technology. We also get some new concepts of super science such as force
planes.

Of course there are weapons and armor. They include your average weapons, and high tech
version of average weapons. We also get Buster Guns which are quantek guns that fire an
enormous amount of energy for their size.

Chapter 4: Spacecraft
Spacecraft in Core Command is a big deal. These ships are huge with the smallest ship being 500
m long. The chapter begins with some general information on spacecraft design and combat
along with some interesting rules on destroying planets and stars. We then get information on
the standard ships of Core ranging from the 500 m Striker fightercraft to the 20 km long
Explorer.

Chapter 5: Threats

The bad guys of the universe get their own chapter. We get a breakdown of the threats in a
priority list. The greatest threat, The D’Vor, is a space faring race that eats stars. We then get a
break down on the weapons of the D’Vor from their 1000 km Star Devourer to cougar like
Seeker.

The next part of the chapter details the threatening alien races in the same way that the Core
alien races were detailed making it easy to play one of these creatures if a player desired. The evil
alien races are:

Kabayan - Humanoid reptilians that ride on the back of the D’Vor

Grob - Short, shark like aliens.
Kom’Sov - Insect like aliens

Chapter 6: Gamemastering Core Command

The final chapter gives general advice on how to run a game of Core Command. Such
information as ambiance, pacing, and preparing an adventure are all briefly covered. The
majority of the chapter is taken up by the adventure generator, a system of random tables that
allow you to role up an adventure.

The final part of the chapter is entitled “What Happened Before.” This is the central concept
behind Core Command. The section deals with the reason why Core was formed, why there are
so many humans in the universe, and what Fractal and the D’Vor truly are.

Round off the book with character sheets for Core Rules and OGL and an index.

What do I think of the Book?

Core Command is a mixed back of good and bad. I found the increased font size to be annoying.
The art is different from past DP9 books but remains consistent. The layout of the book is poor
with lots of white space (possibly a result of the increased font.)

The worst thing about Core Command is that it did not feel complete. There were many
questions left open especially on characters and the agency Core. There are no templates for
characters and OGL players will be surprised by the advice given in regards to classes which
suggests you use Dungeon and Dragon 3rd Edition classes. The robots appear in character
creation section but there is no rules or advice on how to use them as characters. An experience
point trait called rank is used to give Core characters access to certain tech but rank has no
meaning.

The information that was in the book was all exciting. I especially like Quantek and the large
spaceships. However, some stat blocks and information presented were confusing. An example
of this is the ships. The stat block of the Striker says it has a crew of 2. A note at the bottom of
the page says to multiply a number of items by 10, including crew. Had I not seen that note I
would still think the crew size of the striker is 2, not 20.

Core Command is more of a good genre book than a complete setting like Heavy Gear or Tribe 8.
It is a tool kit in which to create your own setting.

Who should buy this book?

Anyone who is interested in a space opera with extreme tech and larger than life situations and
wants a lot of creative freedom to fill in the blanks of a genre. If you’re interested in a deep
setting with lots of background than you may be disappointed.

Extra Stuff?

- The book’s OGL information works but the game focuses mainly on Core Rules and assumes
you have the books needed to make Core Command work under OGL.

Spoiler Alert! I have decided to include a summary of “What has Happened Before”

Millions of years ago the human race as we know it evolved into what is known as a Dreamstate
World in which the inhabitants become part of the planet in a hive dreamlike state. The humans,
now called The Tranz, sent out interstellar probes. One of the probes found another Dreamstate
World but the world wanted to be left alone. The Tranz respected the world’s wishes and left, but
this inspired the Tranz to send out thousands of probes.

The Tranz watched as the probes explored other alien cultures bringing in art, literature, and
science. This caused another evolutionary step in the Tranz. The Tranz became part of space
itself with Earth, now called Fractal, their hub. Fractal started to travel the universe.

During the travels of the Tranz they discovered another race similar to theirs called the D’Vor.
When Fractal moved into to contact them the D’Vor proceeded to attack Fractal. The attack was
awful causing permanent damage to Fractal and killing the race, The Compilers, that lived on
top of Fractal.

After the attack The Tranz discovered the plans of the D’Vor. The D’Vor was trying to make the
universe collapse so they could rebuild it in their image. They did this by eating stars. The Tranz
made it their mission to stop them but if Fractal encountered the D’Vor again it would be
destroyed. The Tranz came up with a plan to seed the universe with humans and evolving them
quickly. Millions of years later The Tranz had their army of human and other races, called Core,
to stop the D’Vor.

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9928.phtml

Review of Dream Pod 9 CORE Command Player’s Handbook (DP9-901)

CORE Command (CC) is an epic-style, space-opera, science-fiction setting

sourcebook usable with either DP9’s house system (SilCORE) or with an OGL (d20)
rulebook. There is a hardback edition as well (DP9-909) that adds material
contained in the Armory supplement (DP9-903) and purportedly corrects some of
the typos (more on that later). The book has six main sections that cover the
setting, character creation, weapons & equipment, spacecraft, threats (read: bad
guys), and gamemastering.

Generally speaking, the layout is well done and the internal art is both consistent
and of good quality, though noticeably different from DP9’s other lines. The binding
is solid, and the paper quality is good. The stock for the cover seemed a bit
substandard, however. My copy evidenced pronounced curling after only light
reading, and I treat my books well. I can only imagine what some moderate abuse
would produce. The editing throughout the book, however, is atrocious, with many
typos that should have been easily caught by even a brief editor read-through.

The first chapter, The CORE Command Universe, is really the gem of the entire
product. They lay out a setting that allows for an amazing amount of creativity from
the GM. While excellent for GMs who enjoy that sort of latitude, it may not be the
right choice for those looking for a more “plug and play” approach. It is essentially a
20-page brief introduction to what has the potential to be a very rich background if
you like high-powered space opera.

The second chapter details Character Design. This is where the differences between
the SilCORE material and the OGL information begin to stand out. The SilCORE
system is much more like GURPS in that it is a point-based character generation
system with no classes. They make an attempt to shoehorn certain concepts into
the OGL system with questionable results, likening Bards to Diplomats and so on.
However, good effort was made in this section to ensure the d20 translations were
clear and visible, even if you might not always agree with their conclusions. The
race descriptions are good and include more background for the setting, 8 races in
all for PCs. At the end of the second chapter is a section on artificial beings, with the
implication that they can be used as PCs, but the statistics for the various “shells,”
for use by AIs or “recorded heroes,” are in “creature” format. While it’s easier to
adapt those statistics into the SilCORE, point-based system, it would take some
serious work to adapt these into OGL.

Chapter 3, Tools of the Trade, provides a very brief sampling of equipment, both at
the technology level of the PCs and at lower levels that they might encounter in
their travels. It is too brief, covering very little of the toys that make science-fiction
settings shine if done correctly. As DP9 has produced a separate equipment guide
(DP9-903) and has included it in the hardbacked edition (DP9-909), I didn’t see this
as too large a problem. However, OGL statistics are lacking for many of the items.

The fourth chapter, Spacecraft, is the weakest of the book. SilCORE allows scaling,
which allows you to have the statistics for a character next to those of a starship
and having them interact in a meaningful way by multiplying one or the other by
some factor of 10. OGL does not, though they treat it as if it does. This will cause
serious confusion for OGL referees looking to use this section. Even with SilCORE, it
would have been easier to keep all the statistics for the starships in one scale for
easy comparison. For both, it’s not completely clear which statistics need scaling
and which do not. However, the statistics for both systems are easily found in
sidebar boxes, even if not necessarily easily understandable.

The fifth chapter is Threats and is a mixed bag. The bad-guy starships and vehicles
suffer from the same difficulties as Chapter Four, but the three bad-guy races are
just as well done as those for the good-guys. In fact, the entries are identical to
those for PC races, allowing you to play an evil race quite easily. I suspect, since
they are also wearing the same clothing as the good-guys, 11 total races were
generated, and only after artwork had been done did they decide to shuffle some
into the bad-guy deck. It could have also been rushed art direction.

Chapter Six, Gamemastering CORE Command, is actually an excellent resource for a

novice referee, regardless of what system one uses. However, a GM with even
moderate experience will most likely find little of interest beyond the first couple
pages of the section. The Adventure Generator may give you fond memories of the
old Flying Buffalo Central Casting books, but in practice it will only give worthwhile
ideas to new GMs.

Overall, the setting and background elements held my attention, but were
continually denigrated by distracting editing errors. I would only recommend the
book to an experienced GM who was interested in a space-opera setting AND who
could pick the gems from the chaff, and even then, I’d suggest skipping this edition
and going with the hardback.
Silhouette CORE Roleplaying Core Rules

The Silhouette CORE rules are the engine to many Dream Pod 9 games – Heavy Gear, Jovian
Chronicles, Tribe 8, Gear Krieg, and the new CORE Command. The rules bill themselves as
generic, which I suppose with work they are – but in general, they are oriented towards science
fiction gaming. I’ve been playing in a Silhouette campaign for a few months now, and thought I’d
share the good and bad points of the system with everyone.

Format

The cover is a clean, simple blue with some graphics. The interior is black & white, with good
graphic design – it’s easy to read. There’s not a lot of art, but the art that’s there (besides being
mecha-centric) is of uniformly high quality. I wouldn’t call the book pretty, but it is attractive
and functional. There’s a good quality index in the back. There are a lot of problems, however.
The softcover binding is bad; most of my gaming group’s books have disintegrated already and
there was a mass exodus to a copy shop to get them re-bound. And the editing is really, really,
tremendously poor. There are endemic misspellings (Threshold is spelled Treshold more often
than not), section references in the text are almost always wrong, and some tremendously
important information was left out – for example, the point costs of all the Perks and Flaws.
Luckily this information is on their Web site, because its omission makes the character
generation rules unusable. Even being Canadian is no excuse for editing of this quality, and in
my opinion Dream Pod 9 needs to take a hard look at their quality control before launching a
new game line.

Content

Basics

Chapter One (13 pages) covers the rules basics. It describes the core Silhouette dice mechanic,
which is a d6 die pool system. You roll a number of d6’s equal to your rank in a skill and take the
highest die; then you add a bonus or penalty from the relevant attribute and compare to the
target Threshold, the difference giving you your Margin of Success. There’s more to it, of course,
but that’s the core concept. It’s simple and fast, which is a plus, and allows some clever
implementations in several rules subsystems by being able to differentiate between “more or less
dice” which affects the consistency of your result, and the “more or less bonus” which affects the
range of outcome. There are ten attributes, Agility, Appearance, Build, Creativity, Fitness,
Influence, Knowledge, Perception, Psyche, and Willpower. Attributes have an average score of
zero; they can range from about +3 to –3 for human characters.

What you have to keep in mind in this system is that a +1 is a really large bonus. Not only does it
provide quite an advantage, but things like damage scale to Margin of Success.

Character Design

Chapter Two (21 pages) is all about character generation. It describes the attributes at length
and gives concrete examples of what, for example, a +2 Build means. There are also a good
number of derived attributes that make good use of the primaries by taking them all into
account to thwart combat min-maxers (Health is derived from Fitness, Psyche, and Willpower,
for instance). Skills and Perks and Flaws are mentioned; here’s where they left out the costs for
the latter. For some reason the actual skill, perk, and flaw descriptions are stuck in an appendix
in the back – in a smaller font and without the pleasing graphical design of the rest of the book.

The character building rules are simple and point-based – you get a number of attribute points
to spend on plusses and minuses to your attributes; plusses are more expensive than minuses
give you points. Costs scale according to squares (1 point, 4 points, 9 points, etc.). Skills are
bought out of a separate pool of skill points, costing the rank squared. This works out
surprisingly well, making higher levels increase in cost, and the point totals always seem to work
out without leaving weird numbers of points behind. Perks and flaws cost or take semi-small
point values. Skills have a “complexity” as well as a rank; we decided to totally ignore this as it’s
a little overcomplicated.

I enjoyed building a character in this system, and the gaming group came up with a fun batch of
PCs. We went overboard on the Flaws because we decided our group concept was a bunch of
semi-criminal lowlifes on the run from a powerful gangster, but the points we got from the Flaws
didn’t make us overpowered in areas (a common problem with such systems). The squaring rule
is what helped that; you really only had enough points for one or maybe two skills at 3 points,
with some supporting 2-pointers and a bunch if 1-pointers. All the perks and flaws were well
balanced, none were “free points” or super-killer abilities.

One quirk of this system is that skills cost their rank squared at chargen time, but when upping
them from XP they require the rank squared per rank – so a level 3 skill bought initially cost 9
skill points, but buying that skill form XP costs 1+4+9=15 points. So you should put as many
points as you can into fewer, higher-point skills at chargen and then round out all the 1-point
skills you end up needing with XP.

The skill list is pretty good; some skills (like Pilot) have specific areas you have to choose and
you can buy specializations. The one glaring omission was a Bluff or Fast Talk skill – they have
Seduction, Intimidate, and many other social skills (there’s even a section later on in the book
about running a “social only” game), but nothing to cover simple conning or lying. In previous
Silhouette rules this was in a bizarre place (Perform/Theatrics in Heavy Gear 2e) but at least it
was mentioned. We simply added a Fast Talk skill to compensate.

There are no sample characters in the book. This wasn’t too much of a problem since the
chargen system is easy.

Action!

Chapter 3 is 21 pages of rules, covering a surprising number of topics from basic (initiative,
wounds) to advanced (autofire, fatigue). The content here is good and has served us well; the
one critique I have is that the information here is a little too bare bones. For example, there are
no attack or defense modifiers for being prone.

Damage in combat is a flat value, multiplied by your Margin of Success. This makes the MoS
extremely important; a bad Defense roll (Defense is a skill) and a good attack roll can kill you
outright. There’s some cinematic bits (Emergency Dice, Genre Points) that can help alleviate it.
In general, in Silhouette combat, you don’t get hit much, but when you get hit it’s an experience
you can only hope to live to regret.

The only other bit our group modified was the grenade rules; these are a bit overcomplicated
and want to allow for people picking up grenades and throwing them back, that sort of thing.

Weapons and Equipment

Just kidding. There is no weapon or equipment list. This is an extremely annoying omission and
makes it much harder to play a generic Silhouette game without specifically buying one of their
world books. Just some samples with what damage from a gun or sword or whatnot would be
close to would have been a plus. Our GM had to develop a weapon and equipment list himself
from other sources. This omission is the second most obnoxious thing about the book (after the
editing). Who knows, maybe there was a weapon list and it got lost in editing.

Mechanical Design

Chapter Four (28 pages) is a mechanical design system. Well, not really a system per se, more
like a teaser for the hopefully more coherent design systems in their other games. In our
campaign we have a spaceship that’s your basic Traveller-style free trader. You would hope that
constructing and then upgrading such a ship wouldn’t be too difficult. You’d be wrong; it
requires a spreadsheet to build and is impossible to upgrade (upgrading isn’t even mentioned in
the rules). It doesn’t help that there are no sample designs to get you into the swing of things.
Mechanical Action

Chapter Five (27 pages) covers vehicle-oriented combat, clearly showing the system’s mecha-
wargame roots. The rules are good; we’ve run many a spaceship and car combat using them.

Specialized Rules

Chapter Six (23 pages) has a bunch of random rules; how to design animals and aliens,
environmental hazards, drug dependency, and a variety of outer space-related issues. There’s
also a section on “Reality Distortion Factor,” Genre Points, and a miscellany of other rules that
don’t fit anywhere else. They have a semi-effective explanation of how to run a cinematic game
included. It’s missing any real concept of “monster”, though – it would be nice to see more on
how to make horrors, freaky aliens, etc.

Gamemastering

Chapter Seven (39 pages) is a long list of GM advice, covering all sorts of basics like roll
interpretation, characters and plots, running campaigns, tactics, and a section on running games
in different genres – they pitch their own like Heavy Gear in here, but also discuss generic
fantasy, cyberpunk, horror, etc. (a page per genre).

OGL Conversion

Chapter Eight is a short (8 page) section on converting Silhouette characters to OGL, and is both
complex and incomplete. I like d20 as much as the next guy, but I’m not really sure why
someone would spend this much time converting anything from one to another; it would be
easier to build whatever you wanted from scratch.

Appendices

The appendices are where all the skills, character perks and flaws, vehicle perks and flaws, and
system perks and flaws are described in full.

Summary

I like Silhouette as a fast and easy RPG system. It’s much simpler than d20, but manages to keep
a good level of realism and differentiation between characters, which is a nice change of pace.
Making characters is enjoyable, and both personal and vehicle combat is cool. I’ve enjoyed
playing in this Silhouette campaign. The lack of example equipment, vehicles, and characters is
a glaring flaw, and the vehicle design system is practically unusable. Because I like playing in the
game so much, I give the content a 4/5, but could see someone giving it a 3/5 or even a 2/5 if the
problems affected them more. The book looks nice, but the editing and binding are awful, so I
give the presentation a 2/5.

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9837.phtml

Silhouette CORE Roleplaying Core Rules

The Silhouette CORE rules are the engine to many Dream Pod 9 games – Heavy Gear, Jovian
Chronicles, Tribe 8, Gear Krieg, and the new CORE Command. The rules bill themselves as
generic, which I suppose with work they are – but in general, they are oriented towards science
fiction gaming. I’ve been playing in a Silhouette campaign for a few months now, and thought I’d
share the good and bad points of the system with everyone.

Format

The cover is a clean, simple blue with some graphics. The interior is black & white, with good
graphic design – it’s easy to read. There’s not a lot of art, but the art that’s there (besides being
mecha-centric) is of uniformly high quality. I wouldn’t call the book pretty, but it is attractive
and functional. There’s a good quality index in the back. There are a lot of problems, however.
The softcover binding is bad; most of my gaming group’s books have disintegrated already and
there was a mass exodus to a copy shop to get them re-bound. And the editing is really, really,
tremendously poor. There are endemic misspellings (Threshold is spelled Treshold more often
than not), section references in the text are almost always wrong, and some tremendously
important information was left out – for example, the point costs of all the Perks and Flaws.
Luckily this information is on their Web site, because its omission makes the character
generation rules unusable. Even being Canadian is no excuse for editing of this quality, and in
my opinion Dream Pod 9 needs to take a hard look at their quality control before launching a
new game line.

Content

Basics

Chapter One (13 pages) covers the rules basics. It describes the core Silhouette dice mechanic,
which is a d6 die pool system. You roll a number of d6’s equal to your rank in a skill and take the
highest die; then you add a bonus or penalty from the relevant attribute and compare to the
target Threshold, the difference giving you your Margin of Success. There’s more to it, of course,
but that’s the core concept. It’s simple and fast, which is a plus, and allows some clever
implementations in several rules subsystems by being able to differentiate between “more or less
dice” which affects the consistency of your result, and the “more or less bonus” which affects the
range of outcome. There are ten attributes, Agility, Appearance, Build, Creativity, Fitness,
Influence, Knowledge, Perception, Psyche, and Willpower. Attributes have an average score of
zero; they can range from about +3 to –3 for human characters.

What you have to keep in mind in this system is that a +1 is a really large bonus. Not only does it
provide quite an advantage, but things like damage scale to Margin of Success.

Character Design

Chapter Two (21 pages) is all about character generation. It describes the attributes at length
and gives concrete examples of what, for example, a +2 Build means. There are also a good
number of derived attributes that make good use of the primaries by taking them all into
account to thwart combat min-maxers (Health is derived from Fitness, Psyche, and Willpower,
for instance). Skills and Perks and Flaws are mentioned; here’s where they left out the costs for
the latter. For some reason the actual skill, perk, and flaw descriptions are stuck in an appendix
in the back – in a smaller font and without the pleasing graphical design of the rest of the book.

The character building rules are simple and point-based – you get a number of attribute points
to spend on plusses and minuses to your attributes; plusses are more expensive than minuses
give you points. Costs scale according to squares (1 point, 4 points, 9 points, etc.). Skills are
bought out of a separate pool of skill points, costing the rank squared. This works out
surprisingly well, making higher levels increase in cost, and the point totals always seem to work
out without leaving weird numbers of points behind. Perks and flaws cost or take semi-small
point values. Skills have a “complexity” as well as a rank; we decided to totally ignore this as it’s
a little overcomplicated.

I enjoyed building a character in this system, and the gaming group came up with a fun batch of
PCs. We went overboard on the Flaws because we decided our group concept was a bunch of
semi-criminal lowlifes on the run from a powerful gangster, but the points we got from the Flaws
didn’t make us overpowered in areas (a common problem with such systems). The squaring rule
is what helped that; you really only had enough points for one or maybe two skills at 3 points,
with some supporting 2-pointers and a bunch if 1-pointers. All the perks and flaws were well
balanced, none were “free points” or super-killer abilities.

One quirk of this system is that skills cost their rank squared at chargen time, but when upping
them from XP they require the rank squared per rank – so a level 3 skill bought initially cost 9
skill points, but buying that skill form XP costs 1+4+9=15 points. So you should put as many
points as you can into fewer, higher-point skills at chargen and then round out all the 1-point
skills you end up needing with XP.
The skill list is pretty good; some skills (like Pilot) have specific areas you have to choose and
you can buy specializations. The one glaring omission was a Bluff or Fast Talk skill – they have
Seduction, Intimidate, and many other social skills (there’s even a section later on in the book
about running a “social only” game), but nothing to cover simple conning or lying. In previous
Silhouette rules this was in a bizarre place (Perform/Theatrics in Heavy Gear 2e) but at least it
was mentioned. We simply added a Fast Talk skill to compensate.

There are no sample characters in the book. This wasn’t too much of a problem since the
chargen system is easy.

Action!

Chapter 3 is 21 pages of rules, covering a surprising number of topics from basic (initiative,
wounds) to advanced (autofire, fatigue). The content here is good and has served us well; the
one critique I have is that the information here is a little too bare bones. For example, there are
no attack or defense modifiers for being prone.

Damage in combat is a flat value, multiplied by your Margin of Success. This makes the MoS
extremely important; a bad Defense roll (Defense is a skill) and a good attack roll can kill you
outright. There’s some cinematic bits (Emergency Dice, Genre Points) that can help alleviate it.
In general, in Silhouette combat, you don’t get hit much, but when you get hit it’s an experience
you can only hope to live to regret.

The only other bit our group modified was the grenade rules; these are a bit overcomplicated
and want to allow for people picking up grenades and throwing them back, that sort of thing.

Weapons and Equipment

Just kidding. There is no weapon or equipment list. This is an extremely annoying omission and
makes it much harder to play a generic Silhouette game without specifically buying one of their
world books. Just some samples with what damage from a gun or sword or whatnot would be
close to would have been a plus. Our GM had to develop a weapon and equipment list himself
from other sources. This omission is the second most obnoxious thing about the book (after the
editing). Who knows, maybe there was a weapon list and it got lost in editing.

Mechanical Design

Chapter Four (28 pages) is a mechanical design system. Well, not really a system per se, more
like a teaser for the hopefully more coherent design systems in their other games. In our
campaign we have a spaceship that’s your basic Traveller-style free trader. You would hope that
constructing and then upgrading such a ship wouldn’t be too difficult. You’d be wrong; it
requires a spreadsheet to build and is impossible to upgrade (upgrading isn’t even mentioned in
the rules). It doesn’t help that there are no sample designs to get you into the swing of things.

Mechanical Action

Chapter Five (27 pages) covers vehicle-oriented combat, clearly showing the system’s mecha-
wargame roots. The rules are good; we’ve run many a spaceship and car combat using them.

Specialized Rules

Chapter Six (23 pages) has a bunch of random rules; how to design animals and aliens,
environmental hazards, drug dependency, and a variety of outer space-related issues. There’s
also a section on “Reality Distortion Factor,” Genre Points, and a miscellany of other rules that
don’t fit anywhere else. They have a semi-effective explanation of how to run a cinematic game
included. It’s missing any real concept of “monster”, though – it would be nice to see more on
how to make horrors, freaky aliens, etc.

Gamemastering

Chapter Seven (39 pages) is a long list of GM advice, covering all sorts of basics like roll
interpretation, characters and plots, running campaigns, tactics, and a section on running games
in different genres – they pitch their own like Heavy Gear in here, but also discuss generic
fantasy, cyberpunk, horror, etc. (a page per genre).

OGL Conversion

Chapter Eight is a short (8 page) section on converting Silhouette characters to OGL, and is both
complex and incomplete. I like d20 as much as the next guy, but I’m not really sure why
someone would spend this much time converting anything from one to another; it would be
easier to build whatever you wanted from scratch.

Appendices

The appendices are where all the skills, character perks and flaws, vehicle perks and flaws, and
system perks and flaws are described in full.

Summary

I like Silhouette as a fast and easy RPG system. It’s much simpler than d20, but manages to keep
a good level of realism and differentiation between characters, which is a nice change of pace.
Making characters is enjoyable, and both personal and vehicle combat is cool. I’ve enjoyed
playing in this Silhouette campaign. The lack of example equipment, vehicles, and characters is
a glaring flaw, and the vehicle design system is practically unusable. Because I like playing in the
game so much, I give the content a 4/5, but could see someone giving it a 3/5 or even a 2/5 if the
problems affected them more. The book looks nice, but the editing and binding are awful, so I
give the presentation a 2/5.

https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/9/9411.phtml

Silhouette CORE is the core rules set for the third version of the Silhouette system, with rules
that can be used for pretty much any setting and style. Rather than taking up a hefty chunk of
the each core setting book with the same rules, Dream Pod 9 decided to release the core rules in
a separate book and devote that space in the setting books to, well, setting. The book is
perfectbound and measures in at 20 x 27cm (8 x 10.5 inches) and 224 pages. Dream Pod 9 went
for a minimalist approach for the cover, with the title, a stylized “C”, and little else over a deep
blue burnished metallic background.

Before the review proper begins, please note that any changes mentioned in this review are
relative to the first edition Silhouette rules, which are the last ones I have access to. More
specifically, I have first-edition Heavy Gear and Tribe 8, along with a smattering of sourcebooks.

Silhouette’s task resolution mechanic consists of rolling a number of six-sided dice equal to your
skill and taking the highest value (each extra six adds one to the result, so two sixes would have a
total of seven) and adding one’s attribute (natural ability) and whatever modifiers are called for
in the situation. This final result is compared to either a fixed or rolled target number,
depending on the situation. The margin of success or failure is very important in the Silhouette
game; in combat, for instance, damage is multiplied by the margin of success, and illnesses and
poisons have increasingly severe effects as the margin of failure increases. Despite being a fast
and flexible system, there were a few flaws and quirks that fans were unhappy about, and Dream
Pod 9 obviously listened to them when coming up with this edition. One of the biggest changes
in combat is to fumbling, which is no longer the near-certain death that it once was. Other
changes will be mentioned as they come up.

Character design is much the same, with ten primary attributes from which are calculated five
secondary attributes. Human minimums and maximums are now set at +/-3 rather than the +/-
5 of previous versions. The skill list is shorter by about a third and are no longer divided into
simple and complex skills. Some of the list’s shortening comes from several skills being folded
into a new skill and some of it comes from formerly separate skills being specific types of a skill,
such as Aircraft Pilot, Heavy Gear Pilot, etc. being subtypes of the new Pilot (specific) skill. A
new component for skills, called complexity, is bought separately from the skill level and
represents the breadth of knowledge that the character has with that skill. Some tasks (flying a
modern jet plane, say) require a minimum complexity in that skill. In addition, when two
characters oppose each other with the same skill, the one with the higher complexity gains a
bonus to the die roll based on the difference between the two complexities. A character with a
high skill but low complexity rating in Melee would know the basic moves very well, but
someone with a higher complexity rating would know more complex moves and be able to draw
from a wider body of knowledge and training, giving her an advantage when the two meet in
combat. Character perks and flaws are now a basic part of the system. The only two real
problems with character generation is that there are no examples and the perks and flaws are
defined at the end of the book.

Vehicle design is similar to older editions, but even more streamlined, with the same “do what
you want, as long as you can afford it” philosophy as previously. A complete set of rules allows
weapons and other systems (like ECM) to be modeled from the ground up, allowing you to come
up with pretty much any combination of abilities you want (such as a rapid-fire liquid homing
weapon that knocks vehicles about, if you’re so inclined), which is great fun. One especially nice
feature is that vehicles are now built in one of several size categories (not to be confused with the
vehicle's Size attribute), from roughly human-sized (yes, you can design a bicycle) to normal
(cars and jet planes) and several classes of really large craft (battleships, space stations, and so
on). The size categories allow designers to avoid making designs with ungainly large numbers
for armour and damage modifiers of weapons while still allowing combat between vehicles of
different size categories using simple modifiers. Size categories allow for lots of flexibility at
either end of the scale: they don’t just make designing that hollowed-out asteroid base easier,
but also let you make human-sized robot characters or design all sorts of handheld weapons for
your troops at the smaller scale. Even rapid-fire liquid homing weapons that knock people
about, if you’re so inclined. Like the character creation section, there are virtually no examples,
and perks and flaws are fully described only at the back of the book.

Combat and action tests have also been improved, though not radically rewritten, and I’ll just
cover a few of the changes here. As previously mentioned, fumbles in combat aren’t as deadly as
they were. Aimed shots to the head aren’t likely to do less damage than general shots to the
body, as they often used to. Aimed shots to other parts of the body have effects specified.
Grenades have been improved from the sometimes weird effects of previous editions. Fatigue
rules are included. Several penalties can be avoided by rolling fewer dice, making high skill
levels more desirable than in previous versions of Silhouette. If vehicles from different eras run
into each other in the game world, “tech levels” can be used to give an advantage to the more
modern vehicle, allowing the game to mimic advancing technology.

Many miscellaneous rules, found in the Specific Rules chapter and here and there throughout
the rest of the book, really shine. They’re imaginative, useful, and well thought out. Take the
addiction and dependence rules; many games don’t cover this at all, or handwave and basically
tell people to roleplay their character’s jonesing for some smack. With the Silhouette rules,
players who take an addiction flaw will have a character who’s really at the mercy of their
addiction, with severe penalties for those times they can’t indulge and the possibility of
overdosing when they do. Very nice, very scary. Other optional rules include three levels of
reality distortion, from Gritty to Adventurous (the normal level for most Dream Pod 9 games) to
Cinematic. Each level affects how die rolls are calculated, armour is damaged, and more, all
devoted to creating more of the appropriate feel. If you’d like to play a cinematic Tribe 8
campaign, you now can easily do so. Special Effects are similar to the stunts and effects in games
like Feng Shui, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Exalted. Genre points can be used to buy certain
effects in game, depending on what effects the GM allows, from the standard rerolling of die
rolls to the more amusing Blessed Unconsciousness (“...the character blacks out and is ignored
by the opponents as dead... He wakes up automatically at the end of the fight”). Many Special
Effects and Genre Points are best used in more cinematic games, but just as many are useful in
pretty much any genre. Dream Pod 9 admits that they have borrowed these ideas from other
games (there is also a “Take 10”-styled rule earlier in the book), but there’s no harm in that, and
the ideas make for a better game overall. All sorts of rules for aliens, modified humans, animals,
and various environmental hazards are also included, as well as the effect of intimidating
opponents and a Call of Cthulhu-like gnawing away of sanity. There is even a Social Game, a
brief-but-wonderful set of rules for those who want to wage a more genteel war of words,
complete with “damage” levels like “embarrassment” and “instant shame”.

I was a little confused as to whether this book was meant to be a generic rule set or not, and
decided that it isn’t. Although the back of the book states that the rules are for Dream Pod 9
games, there is a section with rules and ideas for over a dozen genres and settings, including
both Dream Pod 9’s own, like Heavy Gear and Tribe 8, and genres like “horror” and “western”.
Although the rules are flexible enough to support many different styles of play, the lack of
examples and equipment (what’s the damage modifier for a knife? x5? x10? x100?) means that
you can’t make up your own settings using just this book. If Dream Pod 9 decides to release a list
of sample equipment, weapons, and vehicles online, this could be a good generic system, but as
it is the lack of samples hamper that.

The section on GM advice is solid and a good reference, even if it’s not the most original. Still, it
has something for both novice and seasoned GMs. A short OGL section gives advice on
converting characters between Silhouette and d20, though the skill- and class-based systems
don’t fit together too smoothly. Attributes are easy enough to convert, but players will have to do
a lot of deciding how to assign levels and skill points. Some rules for converting this system to
GURPS and vice-versa could be incredibly useful. People who don’t like the perceived
complexity of GURPS, especially the insanity-inducing vehicle design rules, could use this book
with the GURPS sourcebooks, if only such conversion rules existed.
The end of the book contains descriptions of skills, perks/flaws for characters, vehicles, and
systems, a generic character sheet (though no generic vehicle sheet), glossary, and a pretty good
index.

The book does have a number of flaws. Another round of proofreading could have been used,
but it’s no worse than roleplaying books in general. The lack of examples, despite the
straightforward writing style, is frustrating. Typos sometimes come up in the few examples in
the book, which can be quite aggravating. All perks and flaws are listed at the end of the book,
making for a lot of page-flipping while designing a character or vehicle. It’s also difficult to see
where a chapter begins, as the first page of each chapter is only slightly different from most
pages. What layout and editing flaws there are in the book are definitely overshadowed by the
material in the book itself. The Silhouette rules have had their few rough edges smoothed, and a
wealth of new rules and ideas show that Dream Pod 9 has been actively thinking about and
expanding Silhouette. This book is a definite step forward for the system.

Style: 3 (Average)

Dream Pod 9 has a reputation for putting out stylish books, and this is unfortunately the
exception. A surprisingly unexciting and drab cover, annoying little tabs at the page edges
(including the top and bottom), and the use of little lines with a circle at one end and a triangle
at the other for layout gives the book the feel of something from the 80s. The art feels cramped
and is recycled from other Dream Pod 9 books, though it’s still Dream Pod 9 art (and that seems
to mean a surprisingly large proportion of bald people). Chapters start with little differentiation
or warning. The feeling that I got from the design is that the designers were putting their main
efforts and energy into the setting books. There’s nothing that’s terrible; it’s readable and pretty
well-organized, but no feast for the eyes, and the typos grate, especially with this few examples.

Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Silhouette has always been a fast, solid system, and this version improves the few real flaws that
it had. Vehicular design has been streamlined and looks even better than before, especially with
weapon and system design now possible. A host of new rules and ideas, both large and small,
improve the system remarkably. With a little work, it would be a fine generic system, too.