Lately, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for a tabletop role-playing game that tries to capture the feel of shonen action anime. By that I’m referring to stuff like Dragonball Z, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Fairy Tail, etc. The kind of shows where you can overcoming any problem by training for a few days and shouting at the top of your lungs counts as dialogue.
So, here’s some thoughts on the combat system I’ve been mentally playing around with.
This idea originally started as a joke. I was going to write an immensely silly called “Weeaboo Fighting Magic,” and everything about it would be insane. It was here that the original idea for the combat mechanic came to me.
Generally, when a fight happens in shows like this, it follows one of two forms: either it’s a total curbstomp for one side, or both sides trade the advantage for a bit to create some dramatic tension before one emerges victorious. So, to emulate that, I decided that fights in this system would work in 2-3 Rounds between 2 opponents, with a rule of Best Two Out of Three Wins.
I also wanted to capture the insane power levels that these shows eventually reach, so I went with a dice-pool system like so:
Combat Model One
Both combatants choose a Fighting Style. The rating the character has on that Fighting Style is their Dice Pool. Both characters roll a number of dice equal to their pool and add their roll up into a total. Whoever has a higher total wins the round and gets to dictate what happened during this phase of combat. Rounds will continue until one combatant has won two rounds. That combatant wins the fight.
Originally, because the game was supposed to be silly, I decided not to specify what kind of dice. Just use whatever dice you want! Roll d20’s with d6’s and d10’s! Go nuts! Eventually, I settled into standardizing it into d6’s only. Once I’d calmed down.
Because of the silly nature of the game, the Fighting Styles were originally as follows:
- Ninja Crap for swords and trickery and such
- Punching Things Really Hard for martial arts
- Crazy Acrobatic Gun-Dance-Fu for stylish gunplay
- Magical Hax for anything spellcasting related
- Gimmicky Nonsense for crazy stuff no sane person could anticipate
- Playing with Toys for playing games or using props
- Conserving the Animation Budget for somehow managing to fight while standing still
- Defending Superior Japanese Animation on the Internet for anything tech or cyber related
At some point, I decided to trim this list down and use less ridiculous names, but we’ll get to that.
The next big refinement on this combat system was changing the Fighting Styles. I hit on the idea of using an optional system for games where all the characters fought more or less the same way. I took a cue from Fate Accelerated Edition and modeled these styles after Approaches.
There would be three Tactical Styles and three Physical Styles.
Tactical Styles:
- Cunning: for tricky or clever tactics
- Rash: for rushing in fast and brutal
- Cautious: for hanging back and observing your foe before acting
Physical Styles:
- Evasive: for focusing on not getting hit
- Forceful: for focusing on powerful hits
- Quick: for focusing on quick jabs
Then there would be 5 Weapon Styles:
- Blade: for wielding weapons such as knives of swords
- Projectile: for wielding ranged weapons such as bows or guns
- Unarmed: for using nothing but your bare hands, fists, feet, and generally your body
- Magic: for enchantments and spellcasting
- Weird: for some gimmicky or bizarre method of fighting
NOTE: Thrown blades, such as kunai or shuriken, are considered to be under the Blade Style, not the Projectile Style
Each is meant to be fairly broad and cover a range of possibilities. Each Style has a maximum rating of five. I decided that Tactical and Physical Styles would also have a Rock-Paper-Scissors esque relationship to each other.
The end result?
Combat Model Two
Both combatants choose a Tactical, Physical, and Weapon Style for use during the round. Combine your Tactical and Physical Styles to form your dice pool. You roll a number of d6’s equal to your Tactical Style Rating + your Physical Style Rating. The result of each die roll is 1-6. Any die that rolls a number equal to or less than your Weapon Style Rating is a Success. The combatant with the higher number of Successes wins the Round. Best two out of three Rounds wins the combat. You may switch Styles between rounds.
Successes may be modified depending on whether a combatant has a Tactical or Physical Advantage on the other. When one combatant uses a Style that has an Advantage over another Style, the combatant who is not at Advantage subtracts one Success from their combat roll.
Tactical Styles have the following Advantages over one another (where “>” marks that the former Style has Advantage over the Latter):
Cunning > Rash > Cautious > Cunning
Physical Styles have the following Advantages over one another:
Evasive > Forceful > Quick > Evasive
It’s a lot more complicated than my original model, but still fairly simple. Here’s an example of play:
Noriko and Zen are fighting. Noriko is using her sword, while Zen is relying on magic. Therefore, Noriko will be using her Blade Style (4), while Zen will be using his Magic Style (3).
For the first Round, Noriko decides to go with a Cunning/Quick attack. Her Cunning Style is 2, while her Quick Style is 3. So her total dice pool is 5. Zen, meanwhile, goes with a Cautious/Evasive attack. His Cautious Style is 3, while his Evasive Style is also 3, so his total dice pool is 6.
Noriko rolls a 4, 1, 6, 2, 1. Since her Blade Style is 4, that means she had 4 Successes. Zen rolls a 2, 2, 3, 5, 3, 1. Since his Magic Style is 3, that means he has 5 Successes.
But wait! Noriko used a Quick Style, which has Advantage over Evasive, so Zen loses one of his Successes, bringing him down to 4. It looks like this Round is tie then, right? Not quite. Remember that Zen was also using a Cautious Style, which has Advantage against Noriko’s Cunning. So now Noriko also loses a Success, bringing her down to 3.
So the final tally is Zen’s 4 vs Noriko’s 3. Zen wins the Round. But don’t count Noriko out yet. She can change her Styles next round to something that gives her better odds, and may still pull through. Of course, she should beware that Zen may change Styles as well…
The system still needs work and refinement (not to mention actual playtesting), but I like the path I’m currently on.
Also, the working title has changed from “Weeaboo Fighting Magic” to “FSN,” or “Fighting Shonen Now.” It will probably change again at some point.
Everything Explodes 