type private defunct industry role playing game publisher fate bankruptcy citation needed founded 1996 defunct august 2006 headquarters guelph ontario key people mark c. mackinnon david l. pulver jeff mackintosh adam jury jesse scoble lucien soulban products big eyes small mouth silver age sentinels tri stat system website https web.archive.org web 20160113060956 http www.guardiansorder.com guardians of order was a canadian company founded in 1996 by mark c. mackinnon in guelph ontario . the company s business output consisted of role playing games rpgs . their first game is the anime inspired big eyes small mouth . in 2006 guardians of order ceased operations due to overwhelming debt . the big eyes small mouth game used the tri stat system . the tri stat system would later be modified for use in other games and be more generally named the tri stat dx system . most of guardians of order s game use some form of the tri stat dx system . after big eyes small mouth guardians of order would go on to achieve significant success with the sailor moon role playing game and resource book . the game was built on big eyes small mouth but featured an extensive reference to the sailor moon universe . guardians of order acquired licenses and published big eyes small mouth based rpgs for a number of other anime series including dominion demon city shinjuku and tenchi muyo . after el hazard the last such game the company s strategy with licensed anime series changed and it began issuing ultimate fan guides which served the same purpose while avoiding the need to reprint the same besm based mechanics . all of these books included game statistics for characters in the series as well as extensive episode guides and character summaries . guardians of order expanded beyond anime based games when the tri stat dx system was adopted for the superhero game silver age sentinels . guardians of order later acquired the rights to publish the amber diceless roleplaying game from phage press . 1 2 guardians of order licensed the rights to produce role playing games set in existing fictional works . these include games based on the authority t kumel and a song of ice and fire . between february 14 2006 and august 1 2006 there were no official updates to the guardians of order website . there was speculation on the official forums that the company was out of business . on july 28 2006 a post to george r. r. martin s official web site announced that guardians of order was out of business . 3 in response on august 1 mark mackinnon posted confirmation that guardians of order ceased operations . 4 according to mackinnon the company had too much debt . mackinnon is attempting to place guardians of orders games with other companies and promised that existing orders would be filled . on september 9 2006 arthaus games whose titles are published by white wolf publishing announced that it has acquired the big eyes small mouth rpg . the announcement stated the company was extremely confident that a release date of january 2007 would be met and confirmed that those who pre ordered and prepaid for the book would be in good hands though it was also said that they have not taken on guardians of order s liabilities . 5 on march 7 2007 george r. r. martin wrote that he had regained control of his intellectual property rights and was all square with guardians of order . 6 as part of their settlement mr. martin received all remaining stock of the limited edition version of the rpg . no further information regarding the settlement was revealed nor the status of other creditors claims on the property . contents 1 history 2 products 2.1 original properties 2.2 licensed products 3 notes 4 external links history edit guardians of order was founded by mark c. mackinnon in 1996 . in 1998 guardians of order hired david pulver . in 1999 jeff mackintosh washired . 2000 brought liz fulda and lucien soulban . in 2002 guardians of order launched their magnum opus program licensing the company s intellectual property to third parties to create new games . by 2005 guardians of order downsized to just mark c. mackinnon . in early 2006 the company ran out of capital and closed their doors on august 1 2006 . the third edition of besm is acquired by arthaus games on september 9 2006 . products edit original properties edit big eyes small mouth guardians of order s original game had four revisions before the company went out of business with the third edition being in development and published by another company . core rules big eyes small mouth 1997 94 black and white pages . big eyes small mouth second edition 2000 280 full color pages besm d20 2003 similar to the original besm this replaced the tri stat rules with d20 system rules . besm d20 revised edition 2004 expansions big robots cool starships 1999 rules for science fiction anime inspired games especially those featuring mecha . besm game master s screen 2000 cute & fuzzy seizure monsters 2000 rules for pet monster battling style games inspired by cartoons like pok mon. also published as cute & fuzzy seizure monsters due to censorship concerns . hot rods & gun bunnies 2000 rules for modern day action adventure anime inspired games . centauri knights 2001 science fiction setting big ears small mouse 2001 system for playing small cartoon animals such as rescuers capitol critters etc. mecha d20 2003 also usable as an expansion for dungeons & dragons 3rd edition d20 modern and other d20 system games . besm dungeon 2003 additions to besm for running more fantasy oriented anime inspired games . cold hands dark hearts 2003 rules for playing supernatural monsters in a gothic horror setting . silver age sentinels 2002 superhero role playing game . based on modified besm rules using ten sided dice instead of six sided dice . tri stat dx 2003 a small generic role playing system based on besm . ex machina 2004 cyberpunk role playing game using the tri stat rules . dreaming cities 2005 urban fantasy role playing game reality storm in conjunction with hero games licensed products edit guardians of order licensed the rights to a variety of titles to convert them into role playing games . the majority were based on big eyes small mouth and licensed from anime series . the books also served as resource guides summarizing the episodes in the series and the characters . standalone rpgs sailor moon rpg and resource book 1998 dominion tank police rpg and resource book 1999 demon city shinjuku rpg and resource book 2000 tenchi muyo rpg and resource book 2000 el hazard rpg and resource book 2001 ghost dog the way of the samurai rpg and resource book 2001 based on a live action movie a game of thrones 2005 uses the d20 system and based on the a song of ice and fire novels . published in conjunction with sword and sorcery studios . the authority rpg and resource book 2004 based on a comic book . uses silver age sentinels as a base . amber diceless roleplaying game 1 2 this would have been the second published rpg based on the chronicles of amber novels . however while the rights were acquired in 2004 a new version was never published . nobilis 2002 original role playing game in which players portray abstract concepts or classes of things like time . originally published by pharos press then hogshead press . t kumel empire of the petal throne 2005 fantasy role playing based on the novels of m. a. r. barker . this would be the fourth published rpg based on t kumel . resource books requiring besm besm hellsing ultimate fan guides 1 2002 2 2003 . not a self contained rpg relied on besm . 1 covered episodes 1 6 while 2 covered 7 13 . besm hellsing d20 2003 reprinted fan guides as a single hardbound book . besm trigun d20 2004 hardbound book covered all 26 episodes of the tv series . the slayers d20 role playing game 2004 based on the besm d20 rules instead of the original besm tri stat rules . only covered the first 26 episodes . the remaining episodes were covered in later resource books besm the slayers next 2004 episodes 27 52 besm the slayers try 2004 episodes 53 78 besm revolutionary girl utena the rose collection 2004 covers episodes 1 through 13 . notes edit a b guardians of order s new year s message . archived from the original on 2007 09 28 . retrieved 2006 07 11 . a b phage press . archived from the original on 2006 07 13 . retrieved 2006 07 11 . martin george r. r. 2006 07 28 . guardians of order out of business . archived from the original on 2006 08 22 . retrieved 2006 07 29 . mackinnon marc 2006 08 01 . guardians of order announcement . archived from the original on 2007 09 28 . retrieved 2006 08 01 . arthaus acquires big eyes small mouth rpg press release . atlanta ga white wolf publishing . 2006 09 09 . archived from the original on november 9 2006 . retrieved 2006 09 09 . martin george r. r. 2007 03 07 . ice & fire role playing game . retrieved 2007 05 01 . external links edit archive of the guardians of order website at archive.org publication list on pen & paper besm 3 blog formerly goo blog retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title guardians of order & oldid 740797916 categories role playing game publishing companiescompanies established in 1996companies disestablished in 20061996 establishments in ontario2006 disestablishments in ontariohidden categories all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from august 2008 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages italiano edit links this page was last 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