by gentleman john » Fri Aug 12, 2011 8:33 pm
I've umped and ached about this one. However, I've finally come to a decision and I have decided, what the hell. After all, the titular character's parents are Superman and Wonder Woman, the anime has aliens and mecha, and there's enough applied phlebotinum to keep Reed Richards and Tony Stark happy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a review of …
The Project A-Ko RPG
Project A-Ko was an anime series that was extremely popular in the early 1990s. It concerned itself with the adventures of three Japanese schoolgirls (Eiko, Biko and Shiko) who lived in Graviton City, a group of transvestite aliens looking for their lost princess and superpowered battles with lots of collateral damage. Somehow, Dream Pod 9 managed to get hold of the licence to produce a RPG based on the anime series.
The System
The Project A-Ko RPG was actually two games. The first game was a classic RPG using a sawn-off version of the original Silhouette rules (DP9's house system), while the second game was a card battle game similar to the Heavy Gear and Video Game fighter game sets. They both came in the same softback book. Admittedly, the card game did require some preparation with a craft knife, but it was a nice addition.
The RPG rules are very simple. Silhouette uses a dice-pool system, where the number of dice rolled is equal to the skill in an ability. Characteristics provide bonuses to the result of the rolls. The dice scores are compared to a difficulty to determine a margin-of success. Different combinations of skills and characteristics could be used depending on the situation. Want to fly a plane through a series of stunts? Use your Pilot skill and Dex characteristics. Want to wrestle the same plane to a landing after you failed the last set of rolls? Pilot skill and Strength. Simple and flexible. Project A-Ko stuck to this formula, but reduced the number of characteristics and skills available from the default Silhouette rules, helping the game to move faster.
Character generation was also simplified from the default Silhouette rules. A points-build system was used, with points split between characteristics and skills. Each character was also allocated two Schticks and a Cross. These were the Project A-Ko's versions of powers and drawbacks. A brief list was provided for both, but players were encouraged to make up their own, with responsibility for adjudicating their effects placed firmly on the referee. The list of Schticks ran to such things as Heightened Strength, Super Inventor and Flying Fists of Fury; while the list of Crosses included the classic Masculine Appearance (if you've seen the anime, you know who I mean when I refer to Mari). If a player wanted more Schticks, they had to take more Crosses to balance their characters. Gadgets and vehicles were also dealt with simply. These were treated as Schticks that gave extra powers that were only available to the gadget, with certain Crosses being mandatory.
Combat in the game was quick and not at all deadly. Characters would be knocked out, covered in bandages or just too embarrassed to hang around. Large scale weapons did whatever damage the referee thought was cool, funny or both.
The card game was designed to run alongside the RPG as an alternative, but stand-alone, combat system. Actions were determined from a hand of cards that specified modifiers and damage. The emphasis was definitely on hand-to-hand combat, with very few ranged attacks. Combat using the cards was slower than the standard system, but was definitely more visual.
The Games
Project A-Ko didn't spawn any games, but it did serve as a good introduction to the Silhouette system and the games derived from it.
On the Shelf
For a short, but glorious time.
