Roleplaying Dragonball style game using Basic Roleplaying? [Archive]

Kymme

2023-09-10, 01:40 PM

I'm going to be attempting to run a Dragonball style game using the Chaosium Basic Roleplaying system. I think it will work overall, but still need to work out a few things to make it feel a bit more Dragonballish, mainly working out how to do the powering up part. I am open to any suggestions on making this work well or on a different system entirely that's not super complex to learn, plus I own the Basic Roleplaying system books and not really wanting to spend money if I don't have to. Open to any and all suggestions.

I can't say much about Basic Roleplaying and its applicability for Dragon Ball, but if you're looking for ways to handle powering up, along with escalation in battles, it might be helpful to take a look at Dogs in the Vineyard. Through a funny trick of design a game about Mormon cowboys in the wild west has one of the greatest rulesets ever for handling shonen anime battles. Xefas puts it very well in her post here:

Weirdly - now, hear me out before you dismiss me - I think Dogs in the Vineyard might have the most Shounen Fighting esque conflict mechanics out there.

Specifically, the Escalation and Fallout rules are perfect. Every conflict starts out in a mild, warm-up phase. Wins and losses at this stage don't do a lot to the characters involved, they inflict very little Fallout, but they can still steer the narrative in one direction or another.

If one party doesn't like their loss in the warm-up phase, they can shout "Fine, time to get serious!" and throw in a huge fist-full of new dice that puts them back into the conflict and negates their opponent's victory. A new set of punches and parries and dodges ensues. But, fighting at this level is more risky, and inflicts more Fallout.

Then, if the loser of that phase doesn't like their outcome, they can shout "Sure, I was fighting seriously. But now- it's time to show you my true power!" and throw in another huge fist-full of dice that flings the conflict into disarray again. Fallout is super serious here, so no one is going to take it this far unless they really care about what's at stake.

And then, if the loser of the third phase doesn't like their outcome, they can go into the fourth and final phase, shout "Congratulations! No one has ever seen my true true power!" and throw one last fist-full of dice at the conflict for one final chance, risking terrible consequences for all involved.

Sure, in Dogs, these phases are Talking, Physical, Fighting, and Shooting. You talk, and then you escalate to a physical altercation, they you escalate to inflicting serious bodily harm, and then you escalate to stuffing a gun into their face, but it's the exact same thing as Warm Up, Serious, True Power, Final Form.

Oh, and Fallout? As you get beaten up, you take Fallout. Which are both lasting consequences on your character, and also the game's progression mechanic.

You progress by getting the snot beaten out of you. Winning handily gets you very little, whereas winning at near-death or even losing at near-death gets you lots of stuff. Seems very Shounen Fighting to me. Why do you think they always save the super technique for the very end?