Sample file WRITTEN BY LINE DEVELOPING BY COVER ARTWORK BY Stephen Kenson, Mark C. MacKinnon, Jesse Scoble, Lucien Soulban Bob McLeod (illustration) Jeff Mackintosh, Jesse Scoble Liquid! (colouring) EDITING BY ADDITIONAL WRITING BY Meredith Katz, Mark C. MacKinnon, INTERIOR ILLUSTRATIONS BY David L. Pulver, Lucien Soulban Jeff Mackintosh, Karen A. McLarney, Storn Cook, Jeff Mackintosh, Ed Northcott, Jesse Scoble Chris Steward, Barry Winston ART DIRECTION AND GRAPHIC PRODUCTION BY Jeff Mackintosh ADDITIONAL EDITING BY INTERIOR COLOURING BY Soraya Elbard, Matthew Hancock, Jeff Mackintosh TRI-STAT SYSTEM™ DESIGNED BY Matthew Keeley Mark C. MacKinnon ADDITIONAL COLOURING BY Ed Northcott PLAYTESTERS Clark Barrett, Bryan Blalock, Kevin Brennan, John Clark, Leno Colluci, Rod Currie, Dan Davenport, Brian Dorion, Jim Eperson, John Fiala, Ryan Fisk, Ariana Fisch, Andrew Fix, Peter Flanagan, Brook Freeman, James Gardner, Viktor Haag, DarrellSample Hiebert, Richard Iorio file II, Anthony Jackson, Alex Johnston, John Karakash, Tim Keating, Matthew Keeley, Tina Klien-Lebink, Eileen Krause, Johnathan Lang, Ian Lim, Charlie Luce, James Maliszewski, JM Mann, Joshua Marquart, John McMullen, Theodore Miller, Richard Miyares, James Nicoll, Ed Northcott, Bowden Palmer, Louis Pappamichiel, Anthony Ragan, Tony Rainwater, Craig E. Ransom, Cynthia Reep, Patrick Riley, Brian Rogers, Rowdy Scarlett, Sidhain, Catherine Spainhour, Richard Spainhour, Mark Stansfield, Chris Steward, William H. Stoddard, Devinder Thiara, Rich Tomasso, Chad Underkoffler SPECIAL THANK YOU TO Sandy Antunes, Dan Barclay, Phillippe Boulle, Danny Budge, Ryan Dancey, David Golden, Roxanna Kamal, Matthew Keeley, Bryan Kowalski, Joshua Mosquiera, Alpha Montemayor, Pyramid Magazine, Dominic Papineau, Andy Ransom, RPG.net, Joe Saul, Andy Scoble, Richard Spainhour, Devinder Thiara, Mike Webb, Laurie Wiseberg, John Zinzer © 2003 GUARDIANS OF ORDER, INC. All Rights Reserved. GUARDIANS OF ORDER, TRI-STAT SYSTEM, and SILVER AGE SENTINELS are trademarks of GUARDIANS OF ORDER, INC. Version 1.0 — April 2004 All right reserved under international law. No part of this book may be reproduced in part or in whole, in any form or by any means, without permission from the publisher, except for personal copies of the character sheet, or brief quotes for use in reviews. The mention of, or reference to, any company or product in these pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright concerned. All elements of this game are fictional and intended for entertainment purposes only. GUARDIANS OF ORDER, INC. P.O. Box 25016 370 Stone Road Guelph, Ontario CANADA N1G 4T4 Phone: (519) 821-7174 Fax: (519) 821-7635 [email protected] ISBN 1-894525-44-2 http://www.guardiansorder.com Production Number 13-002 HISTORY OF CHARACTER GAME PLAYING GMING WORLD CAMPAIGN GEOPOLITICAL ADVENTURE MAJOR COMICS CREATION MECHANICS GADGETS SUPERHEROES SUPERHEROES BUILDING INTRODUCTION OVERVIEW EMPIRE CITY SEEDS PERSONNA LIBERTY FOREWORD JUSTICE You hold in your hands the product of well over a thousand man-hours of work and Guardians Of Order’s most ambitious game release in our five-year history. We believe that Silver Age Sentinels marks a pinnacle achievement for superhero role-playing, SECURITY representing the best in writing, design, innovation, and creativity. More than just a superhero RPG, the D10 Tri-Stat System is an ideal universal game engine for any genre, setting, and time period. Its only limits are the ones you impose upon it in your own campaign. PEACE Since the D6 version of Tri-Stat hit the market in 1997 in Big Eyes, Small Mouth, gamers have used our system for a wide range of campaigns: science fiction, fantasy, cyberpunk, space opera, espionage, horror, comedy, and ... superheroes. While many players found the narrow dice result range of BESM perfect for their superhero campaigns, others felt that two six-sided dice could not adequately model the broad power levels found in comic books. We believed that substituting in ten-sided dice (thus increasing the range of task resolution results) and expanding the power options available to characters would lay the foundation for the creation of the perfect superhero RPG. With so much passion in the office towards comic books and heroic ideals, the many months of development required for a complete Tri-Stat revision and the creation of the Empire City setting would truly be a labour of love. The question many industry colleagues have asked us is “What makes you so sure your game will succeed when so many superhero RPGs have failed in the past?” The answer, we believe, is twofold. First, many of the previous games featured a mechanics system that was tied too intricately to the world setting. A superhero RPG must provide for the entire milieu of comic book power levels and diversity, from the skilled street vigilante to the powerful spandex hero to the overwhelming galactic entity. An RPG that only allows characters to exist within a fraction of that spectrum will naturally only appeal to a select group of role- players. One of our primary goals for Silver Age Sentinels was the inclusion of rules and guidelines to accommodate any character imaginable. By giving players what they demanded — a scalable and easy-to-learn game system — we could give the game a chance to succeed in the marketplace. The second reason role-players may not have embraced some of the other games is that the designers forgot to include the “hero” in superhero. The heroic ideals prevalent in the Silver Age of comics — duty, honour, responsibility, charity, hope, nobility, spirit, and others — are an integral part of Silver Age Sentinels (as reflected in the title). Our instinct told us that fans of the superhero genre didn’t want to play angst-ridden, corrupted, battle-weary, tainted, morally deficient, jaded, or flawed characters in capes and masks. They wanted to play heroes.Sample Perhaps the Sentinel file said it best: “Liberty. Justice. Security. Peace. These are the four pillars of a better world; a land of hope, freedom, and truth, where life is not a burden to endure but a joy to experience. There are threats you cannot conquer, tragedies you cannot avoid, and sins you cannot punish. We are here to help. We will support you when you stumble, keep watch when you sleep, and help you achieve the unreachable. We will show you how to touch Paradise. We are The Guard, and you are safe on our watch.” Enough talk. It’s time to save the world.... Mark C. MacKinnon June 2002 I WANT TO GET STARTED RIGHT NOW! Anxious to put a character together and get a feel for the system as soon as possible? Follow these four steps: 1. Turn to page 322 and randomly generate one of 150 different starting characters. 2. Read the “Stripped to the Core” designer’s note on page 172. 3. Read the example of combat on page 136. 4. Select one or more of the NPCs on page 329 as adversaries. PAGE 2 You arrive at the Empire City Bank where the NPCs are in the middle of a robbery. What do you do? HISTORY OF CHARACTER GAME PLAYING GMING WORLD CAMPAIGN GEOPOLITICAL ADVENTURE MAJOR COMICS CREATION MECHANICS GADGETS SUPERHEROES SUPERHEROES BUILDING INTRODUCTION OVERVIEW EMPIRE CITY SEEDS PERSONNA LIBERTY TABLE OF CONTENTS 171 CHAPTER 6: GMING SUPERHEROES 172 Stripped to the Core: The Heart of D10 Tri-Stat JUSTICE 5CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 174 Game Mastering Superheroes 6 Introduction to Heroism 101 174 Game Mastering Basics 6 History of Comics 174 Designing Adventures SECURITY 15 Silver Age: Being on the Same Page 180 Keeping the Players Interested 16 Role-Playing the Mantle of Heroism 181 Handling the Rules 17 What is a Role-Playing Game 182 Troubleshooting PEACE 18 Example of Play? 184 Creating a Campaign 19 CHAPTER 2: CHARACTER CREATION 189 Game Mastering Techniques 20 Step 1: GM Discussion 191 Sources of Inspiration 21 Step 2: Character Outline 192 Technology and Gaming: A Changing Landscape 23 Step 3: Assign Stats 193 Convention Gaming 24 Step 4: Character Attributes 196 Contributions and Bonus Points 82 Step 5: Select Skills 197 Moving Beyond D10 Tri-Stat 90 Step 6: Character Defects 198 Advice Summary for the GM 102 Step 7: Derived Values 199 CHAPTER 7: WORLD BUILDING 103 Step 8: Background Points 200 World Building 105 CHAPTER 3: GAME MECHANICS 208 Bring on the Bad Guys: Creating Villains 106 Introduction 212 Simulating the Comics 107 The Passage of Time 217 DAYONTHEJOB, PART I 107 Taking Action 219 CHAPTER 8: CAMPAIGN INTRODUCTION 108 Dice and Dice Rolls 220 Introduction & History 114 Combat Flowchart 241 Timeline 115 Combat 243 CHAPTER 9: GEOPOLITICAL OVERVIEW 115 Initiative 115 Character Action 244 The History of Metahuman Law in the USA 122 Non-Combat Actions 246 The World Today 123 Defense 247 Africa 124 Damage 248 Asia 131 Mind Combat Sample250 fileCentral/South America 132 Recovery 252 Europe 132 Using Powers in Combat 254 North America 136 Example of Combat 256 Pacific Islands & Australia 138 Character Advancement 258 Thule 138 Destroying Buildings 260 Personalities at Ascension Institute 138 Blowing Up Worlds 260 Egide Ubiquiste 263 DAY ON THE JOB, PART II 139 CHAPTER 4: WEAPONS & VEHICLES 140 Breaking Objects 265 CHAPTER 10: EMPIRE CITY 141 Personal Weapons 267 Manhattan Island, or “The City” 143 Customizing Firearms 289 CHAPTER 11: MAJOR PERSONAE 145 Types of Ammunition 313 DAY ON THE JOB, PART III 146 Grenades and Explosives 315 CHAPTER 12: ADVENTURE SEEDS 146 Vehicles 320 DAYONTHEJOB, PART IV 149 Customizing Vehicles 322 APPENDIX: RANDOM CHARACTER CREATION 153 Body Armour and Protective Devices 326 APPENDIX: GLOSSARY 155 CHAPTER 5: PLAYING SUPERHEROES 328 APPENDIX: ANIMAL STATS 156 Superhero Gaming 329 APPENDIX: METRIC CONVERSIONS 156 Secret Origins: Creating a Hero PAGE 330 APPENDIX: CONVERTING BESM TO SILVER AGE SENTINELS 163 Great Power, Great Responsibility: Being a Hero 3 331 APPENDIX: LEGAL INFORMATION 165 United We Stand: Superhero Teams 169 Advice Summary for Players 332 INDEX 336 CHARACTER SHEET Sample file Sample file INTRODUCTION.