Anime Donjon?

[Kenway]

I just read over the DK rules and thought that it lends itself really well to anime-ish adventures.
 In particular, DK's combat system is pretty cool and alot crazier than most others.
 In less-realistic campaigns, you could allow players to actively "parry" missiles- that is, deflecting bullets and arrows back to their sources.
 And if you were doing a Dragonball Z adventure, you could "juggle" a Kamehame wave like they do on the show!

[Ron Edwards]

Actually, my own impression was that Donjon Krawl is already, for all intents and purposes, anime D&D.

Best,
Ron

editing this in, for clarity: Which is to say, I agree with Kenway.

[xiombarg]

I just read over the DK rules and thought that it lends itself really well to anime-ish adventures.

And certainly the various anime computer RPGs provide a lot of grist for Donjon, including the "cute slimes" and so on. It might be interesting trying to run an Uresia: Grave of Heaven game using the Donjon rules.

[Mike Holmes]

Or Ultima or Final Fantasy or any other CRPG. Since I first read it I've visualized it as at the very least "cartoony" if not purely Anime. Which is how Gamist D&D always struck me. I dunno, maybe it was the TV show...

Mike

[Valamir]

Interestly one of the first comments I made about the game was that it would be perfect for doing CRPGs, especially those of the console variety like Shining Force 1-3.

However, having played it now, the game is not at all limited to camp.  You could easily do full bore gothic dark fantasy with the rules without blinking an eye.  The only real sticky point for more "serious" fantasy is the wealth and provision rules which can work a little oddly.  But as long as players are willing to accept them as a short cut and accept the occassional odd result as being the price for not having to go through equipment lists they should work fine.

[Bailywolf]

Hey!  Someone bang out some quick and dirty fantasy anime donjon MECHA rules- Escaflone, Maze and all.

[Tim Denee]

Limit breaks: every time you lose a hit die, you gain a limit break die. When you have limit break dice equal to your maximum hit dice, you must perform your limit break move at the next opportunity.
Your limit break move is defined at character creation, and uses the limit break dice. Limit break moves always hit/work. For example:
Diamond blade: One attack with damage equal to all your limit break dice.
Flaming comet strike: Three attacks each with damage equal to one third your limit break dice.
Healing note: Three allies (can include yourself) heal an amount of hit dice each equal to one third your limit break dice pool.

Upon performing your limit break, you lose all the dice.

[J B Bell]

Purely a flavour note, but you might want a variant rule to encourage magic-users to be extra dramatic.

Damn.  This is the first system I've ever seen that could actually do Slayers justice.

"DRAGON SLAAAAAAAVE!!!!"

--TQuid

[Bailywolf]

Tquid:

You just joined my pantheon.  


Goodygoodygoody.  I'm all over this.

[Kenway]

Regarding magic:  maybe in times of extreme crisis, the dm might allow the pc has to spend a magic dice to gain a pool of 3 temporary words.  The dm can draw the words randomly from a dictionary or a prepared list.
 If the PC is able to use 1+ words, he is rewarded by a corresponding 1+ bonus to his damage/effect.
 Since we're sort of on the topic of Slayers, a PC could theoretically spend 2-3 dice to get a pool of 6-9(!) temporary words.  The PC could be given 30 seconds to come up with a customized speech like this:  
" Darkness beyond blackest pitch,
Deeper than the deepest night;
King of Darkness who shines
Like gold upon a sea of chaos;
I call upon thee and swear myself to thee!
Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed
By the powers you and I possess!
GIGA SLAVE!"
 Is this too system too powerful?  Listen, if a pc can reasonably make an incantation with 6 or 9 totally random words, they deserve it!

[J B Bell]

I don't think extra words are necessary, really.  The very long incantations seen in e.g. Slayers would strike me as just nice bonuses for role-playing (or if you want more rules {and who wants that??}, I suppose you could do something with extra prep-time--but isn't that the whole "magic pool gathering" bit anyway?).

I thought about this yesterday, and I think really if you want Slayers-style, all you have to do is add a variable, call it Property Damage.  The Dragon Slave spell does truly ungodly amounts of damage, but it only seems to actually slay one opponent at a time.  As a side effect, I'd say, oh, it cuts a town's ratings in about half.  You'll note that Lina Inverse & co. tend not to stay in any one place for long . . .

Oh, wait, I feel an idea coming on.  Much of Slayers of course centers around hunting for various magical McGuffins that allow more & more powerful spells.  I'd say mayhap one kind of magic item you could get would be something that either adds a new word while in use (probably cost 4 dice, like increasing an Attribute?), or that contains a spell that is restricted to a single effect.  Not sure how to work out the cost of such a thing--since it's used as a McGuffin and would be the whole object of an adventure, or even series of adventures, you wouldn't want a player to be able to find, say, the Necronomicon, with a simple Loot roll.

I suppose it should go without saying that McGuffins should be able to be taken away at the GM's pleasure.  Does DK already have a rule about "solidifying" extra-fancy items, a la Hero Wars?

And now that I've written all that, I'd say that the book with Dragon Slave in it is a container for a Spell, a kind of item, but it's Cursed--Does Massive Property Damage, halve all town's resources upon successful casting.  Sound good?

--TQuid

[Bailywolf]

Anime fantasy magic in general (and Slayers in particular) always SEEMS insanely powerful.  Try to buy something like the Dragon Slave , Spiritual Curse, or Giga Slave with points in the Hero system, and you can imagine how much these things cost when treated in a simulationsist vien... but Anime is highly styalized, and the Big Wow factor is more color than actual effect.

So here are a few (perhaps contridictory) ideas for capturing the mad-crazy Koboom! magic of Slayers:

>  Free Power Building- allows a free power building roll for every unique line in a spell's incantation.  Alternatly, simply grant extra spell dice for especialy well-incanted spells.




> Allow mages to add a Drawback or two for a big kick-up in power.  

 Indiscriminant- affects everyone and everything in the target area including the caster if exposed.  Get 2 dice of Targets free.

 Conditional- the spell fails in certain set circumstances.  These must be fairly common (sun up, attacking, speaking, etc).  Gain 2 dice of free Duration, but the spell fails automaticaly is the conditions are met.

 Draining- Gain free spell dice, but immediatly after the spell goes off, immediatly suffer an attack with dice equal to this bonus.

 Word Burn-  Take 3 bonus spell dice for each word you use in the spell and Burn.  Burned words can't be used until you are fully rested and have had a chance to look back over your magical notes/spellbooks.

 Sacrifice-  The spell eats up some valuable comodity.  Take bonus spell dice, but immediatly make a Wealth save against this same number of dice, loosing a die from you wealth if you fail.

 

>  Give 'scenes'  and setpieces their own 'hit dice' (Structure or some such).  Whenever any kind of destructive magic is used, rolls the spell dice vs these setting dice... recording damage as normal.  Reduce the scene dice to zero or below, and you've wasted the set compeltely.

> Provide for Bonus Effects- let the player describe a single 'bonus effect' for each spell die victory.  Like other facts won from victories, these should be failry narrow.  My Earth Fury Risingwins 5 victories against my enemy, so in addition to the normal damage this inflicts, I describe the following:
* The spell blows away all the trees in the area.
* The spell digs a huge pit into the ground
* My target has fallen into the pit
* The walls of the pit are very steep
* The walls are very unstable

[Valamir]

Damn those spell rules are very cool, and suitable not just for anime magic but any fantasy genre where mage power is of the massively pyrotechnic and cataclysmic variety.  How many stories have entire regions of the world that have been blasted into wasteland by a magical duel...

These would be great "advanced magic rules" right in the Core Donjon book.

The free Gather spell points for each line of the incantation is especially cool.  A more limited application which could be inserted into the game without making magic any more powerful is to simply say that the normal magic strain (i.e. casting level loss) that comes from successive gathering rolls is avoided if the player actually rights an actual line of an incantation

[Bailywolf]

Another idea:

Spells as Treasure.  

Treat special, named, unique spells as the mage equilivent of the +5 vorpol sword.  

Each Elder Spell (or whatever) gets its own description plus a chunk of Base Spell Dice.  These spells don't draw on a caster's Words, and operate outside the normal framework of 'utility magic' most krawlers use.  These things are like the Dragon Slave- special chunks of magical intalectual schrilla with their own history, set effects, and parameters.  Special treasure just for the spell-flingers.

Dragon Slave might look like this:

Name:  Dragon Slave
Bonus Dice: 6
Parameters:  Area +4
Drawbacks:  Indiscriminant (+2Area), Draining 4 (+4 spell dice)
Power Dice:  10


Power dice is a total of the spell's bonus spell dice and any fixed parameters, as well as any modifications from Drawbacks.  In this case, the power is 10 dice.  A bad ass hard spell to both find and then learn.  To find and learn Dragon Slave requires beating that big 10 dice pool with your Find Swag skill (to locate it in that horrible old LIch's library) and then Use Spells skill (to learn how to cast the thing).

But watch out when you have the thing learned!  Right off the bat, you start with 10 spell dice (6 base dice and 4 for the Draining complication)... now assume you have to whip the thing off under less than ideal conditions (6 difficulty dice at least)... even with only one victory, you have a pool of 11 spell dice... enough to nuke a town.  Just don't throw it in a donjon, or you'll bring the whole thing down...

[Bailywolf]

I just rewatched Ghost in the Shell for about the 4th time... and with Donjon still on my mind...

With some genera convention rules and less satirical elements, the core conceptuals and mechanics of Donjon would make a great universal anime system.  


Use the words for magic idea, and extand it to powers... for a primary trait, you get three powers, for a lesser one... take a Drawback, and get an extra one.

So...

Full Body Cyborg (Superleap, Supersrong, Supertough, supervision (D) Requires Repairs*)
Shoot Big Guns
Shoot Little Guns
Brain Interface
Combat Tactics


* Repairs require saves vs Wealth less the costs reduce Wealth.


or


Sec9 Special Operative
Cyborg Enhancements (Superreflexes)
Shoot Little Guns
Brain Interface
Investigation