A spur of the moment rpg...

[Demada]

I wrote this during school, for the most part, then typed it up. There are probably typoes, so if you can't stand them, don't read :). I wrote this to fill a void in my group, the void is the lack of a Dragonball Z rpg.  We played a few times with the very unclear R. Tal. game, and had a blast as far as the setting/characters went, but the rules were frusterating. So I made this. I used to like the show, kind of grew out of it (or grew tired of it), but as an RPG I still find it very fun. It's crazy and over-the-top in a good way, for me atleast. The examples I use are from DBZ, and I wrote it with that in mind, but I guess it could be used for other things.

So, without further explanation...

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A DBZ RPG

Character Creation

There are two types of characters: Supports and Warriors. Supports would be characters like Dende, Bulma, and Professor Briefs.
There are four primary attributes and two derived attributes for every character. These are Brave(Brv), Compassion(Com), Power(Pow), and Inventivsness(Inv), and Energy(Eng) and Assist(Ast).
Twenty points are distributed among the first four. Energy equals 2xPower for Supports, 5xPower for Warriors. Assist equals the total of the four attributes for Supports, 0 for Warriors.
Example Characters:

Piez is a smart saiyan who doesn't care much for humans but fights against Frieza's for revenge. He's a warrior.
Brave: 6
Compassion: 2
Power: 6
Inventiveness: 6
Energy: 25
Assist: 0

Carend is a namekian mystic who can heal with the power of his mind. He is a support.
Brave:6
Compassion: 7
Power: 2
Inventiveness: 5
Energy: 4
Assist: 20

Task Resolution

... doesn't really matter. The heroes succeed after an appropriate amount of time. The climb the cliff in a few minutes/hours, the build the spaceship in a few months. Task resolution only matters if there is conflict, which in DBZ means combat.

Combat

Combat in DBZ is about generating and using energy. A character can generate and amount of energy equal to his or her Pow in one turn. Eng is the maximum amount of energy that a character can generate and use before he or she has to rest (Atleast a nights sleep).
Spending several turns powering up at the beginning of a battle is advisable, although striking an opponent before he is finished powering up is an advisable, although risky, tactic.
The first turn of a combat is spent powering up by all participants. After that, all characters have their energy allocated in secret for that turn. No energy being allocated means they are powering up. All characters' allocation are revealed at the same time, and then their actions are resolved. Attacks go first, in order of Speed, attacks with equal speed are resolved as if they happened at the same time, and can Meet. After attacks, energy may be spent to Dodge. After Dodging, Force Fields that have had energy allocated to them power up/are created. After Force Fields, those who allocated no energy and did not spend any energy on dodging gain energy equal to their Pow.

Attacks: Attacks allocated to attacking are allocated to three things, Damage(Dam), Speed (Spd), and Penetration(Pen). Each character may have up to two Special Attacks. These may only be used once in a battle, but add energy to the attack in a set way (I.E. +2 Speed or +1 Pen +1 Dam). Both attacks may add a total of two energy.

Dodging: In order to avoid damage from an attack, you can spend energy that has been generated but not used (you can take allocated energy from actions that have not yet been resolved). Each point of energy spent negates on point of damage. The attack is dodged if all damage is avoided.

Force Fields: Energy put into Force Field adds to the users Field Strength, which will stop attacks. A character can get +1 Field Strength if they announce they have a force field, and +2 if they announce how strong it is. When hit by an attack, consult the table below.

Attack Pen<Field Strength, Pen+Dam<=Field Strength
Attack is negated
Attack Pen<Field Strength, Pen+Dam>Field Strength
Attack is negated, Field is taken down
Attack Pen>=Field Strength
Attack Penetrates shield and does Damage

Power Up: If the character allocated and used no energy this turn, they gain energy equal to their Pow.

Damage: Any Damage that gets through Force Field and Dodge is then deducted from Power. Lower Power lowers Eng (the maximum). At 0 Pow a character is incapicitated and at the mercy of their opponents (if alone). Also, if another attribute has been used to Augment the character, it also takes the damage. If any Stat is reduced to 0, the character is unable to continue, although it is not necessarily because he is harmed. It is because he has become to scared to fight on (Brave 0), has become apathetic due to his struggle (Compassion 0), or has exausted all his ideas (Inventive 0). Note that a support character assisting another character counts as augmenting, and that assisting character will take damage.

Augmenting: If a player can convince a GM that one of his other stats (Com, Brv, Inv) would play a role in a turn (and roleplays it), then that character can gain energy equal to that stat for that turn. Each Stat can only be used to Augment once per session.

Assisting: A support character can assist another character in combat. They help them using one of their Stats. Brave would be doing something brave to inspire  the character. Compassion would be giving the character moral support/cheering them on. Power would be directly assisting in the fight. Inventive would be giving a character a gadget, or aiding them with a gadget. The mechanic for assisting is as follows: The assisting character spends their Assist points to add energy to the character they are assisting for that turn. They may add up to the stat they are using in points. Assist points refresh every session. The only limit on assisting is the number of assist points.

Advancement: Whenever the character has overcome a great obstacle (Cell to Gohan, Radditz to Goku) they have the opportunity to raise one of their Stats. They must spend some in-game time doing this, however, as when Goku trained with King Kai (to raise power) or spend time with your family/friends (to raise Compassion). The stat is raised by one, and Energy/Assist adjusted.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

We seem to be having rather a rash of licensed material lately in Indie Design.

Everyone: you cannot discuss game designs based on licensed materials in this forum unless you have acquired the license already.

Posting in this forum (unlike Actual Play, for instance) is literally stating your intent to publish, and quite frankly, if you are using licensed material as your basis for the game, this is actionable by anyone who decides you're infringing on their IP.

I strongly recommend that people consider the following:

- RPG Theory for "how would you make a game based on X" or "Here's how I'd make a game based on X" posts

- Actual Play for "here's how we play our homebrew system using a setting based on X" posts

- Indie Design for "this is the game I'm intending to publish, strongly influenced by X" posts

Best,
Ron

[Demada]

Oh... I'm sorry. I need to re-read the rules (I did read them once, apparently not very well). Delete this post then (I would, but the 60 minute editing thing...).

[Ron Edwards]

Posts are never deleted at the Forge, except for accidental duplicates. We'll just let this one stand as it is, as a good lesson for anyone to learn from.

Demada, welcome! I look forward to you posting in any of the three ways I suggested.

Best,
Ron