Shonen Final Burst!

[Caros]

Hey En World! Long time no see!

As a result of the upcoming new Dragonball Z movie rousing me from my slumber I'm happy to announce that I am looking for players to join in a game of the recently released Shonen Final Burst.

For those of you who don't know (which is likely most if not all of you), Shonen Final Burst is a small Indie game released earlier this year that seeks to emulate many of the standard tropes of Shonen anime (Such as Dragonball, Bleach, Naruto and so forth) in the same way that Mutants and Masterminds has done for the comic book scene. In my opinion it is an absolute success at that goal, building a fundamentally sound system that allows for quick, interesting and tactical combat, while at the same time relying on Mutants and Masterminds style 'reskinning' to avoid the massive bloat that plagues systems that try and cling too close to the source material.

With all that said I am looking for a group of no less than three and no more than five players to undertake what amounts to a playtest with me. I have yet to decide on a particular setting, but given the way I am trending at the moment it would be best to describe it as... dragonball-esque. It will have a heavy focus on martial arts (preferably hand to hand but I am quite flexible in this regard), tournament fighting and adventure. If people want to keep to a specific setting I can probably be convinced, otherwise we'll go with something new but flavorful.

Characters will be started at first level, but that does not mean they are necessarily weak within the system. Shonen Final Burst uses the anime concept of Cyclical Power, the next big bad guy is always the strongest thing they've ever faced. Players actually get reset down to the starting level after each major arc, keeping minor perks to show their progress while the pinacle of power from the last arc becomes the sort of baseline of the new one (Re: Super Saiyan kids). I imagine characters to be well respected martial artists, though nowhere near the top of the world.

The basic rules for the system can be found here. Players who are interested in the setting or the rules system can contact me through PM or at my E-Mail. I'll give it a week or so to gather enough players and get everybody set up with their characters.

 

[Jemal]

Why the PM/Email instead of posting here?
And I may be interested.

 

[Caros]

Err... Because I was half asleep when I posted that.

It was more for if anyone had specific questions on the rule system, as it is understandably new to most people and the previews don't contain all the specifics for things such as character creation. =)

Glad to hear it tho!

 

[BBs]

Sign me up! Yeah!

 

[Caros]

Well that makes two, at least, theoretically.

I'll give it another couple of days to see if we can get a couple more people involved just to round things out. Sometime tomorrow or saturday I will post the basics on character creation.

 

[Jrodefeld]

You guys still doing this? This thread came up in a google search of the game, and I haven't had any luck finding any other play by post stuff for it at my usual haunts.

 

[Caros]

We are indeed!

I slightly missed my own Saturday deadline due to Easter holidays, but I'm back and with three players I think we're ready to get underway. I'll keep the invitation open to anyone else if they want to join before we start, but for now three is a good number.

Since there has been no specific requests on setting I think I will go with my initial idea, that of a time-skipped dragonball universe. The campaign will start on earth two centuries after the end of Dragonball Z. Pretty much all characters from the original series are long dead, and most of their actions have passed on into history and legend, and those legends aren't exactly accurate, with Mr. Satan still seen as the savior of the earth!

Many, many things have changed, a post modern level of technology complete with space travel etc, but one thing that remains the same is the Tenka'ichi Budōkai, The Strongest Under Heaven martial arts tournament. Why you enter is up to you, perhaps its to show off, perhaps its the 100,000,000 Zenni prize, or maybe just to test your abilities. Whatever the reason, the campaign will begin with the preliminary rounds of the tournament.

As far as the overall power scaling of the campaign, think dragonball rather than dbz, at least to start. Ki attacks are in, flying is out (for now), its more martial arts than 'zwee' fighting.

So with that out of the way, character creation!

Character creation is as per the 'level one' base rules of the game. This gives you the following:

1. Select one Archetype.

2. Distribute your Attributes. 50 points to distribute, each attribute starts at 1 point. 55 in total.

3. Combat Style. Determine which attribute attacks which defence for each of your five attributes.

4. Techniques. Select three active techniques to assign to hearts, diamonds and clubs. Select one Passive technique to assign to spades. Each technique starts at rank 1, and you have seven ranks to distribute between the remaining attributes. Max rank of 7. Remember that any technique can be reskinned. There are quite a few elemental techniques that don't make much sense in a dragonball setup, but reskinned as combat styles they can work.

5. Determine your power up and Aura. This is decided by your choice of passive and how many ranks have been put into it.

6. Signature moves. Begin with two signature moves.

7. Transformations. Begin play with one form with five stages, two forms with four stages, or three forms with three stages. Transformations this early in the campaign are less likely to be things like Super Saiyan stuff than they are to be "Weighted clothing" or "New stance". though I am open to suggestions!

8. Gimmicks. Select two gimmicks. You can only features (equip) one of the two gimmicks at a time. Once again, remember that the mechanics of the gimmick are the important part. You can reskin them as whatever you'd like.

9. Allies. You can attach two allies at the start of the game. If you guys decide to have your characters know each other you can use one another as allies, otherwise you can develop your own NPC's, masters etc. Allies can represent anything from flashbacks to practice with a master, to a cheerleader on the edge of the ring. Probably not so much the direct interference just yet. =)

10. Hobbies. You have 3 points to disperse between the hobbies that are part of your archetype. You also have 2 points to distribute among any action hobbies.

That covers most of the basics about character creation. If you have further questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer!

 

[Jemal]

So quick question..
How are we going to be doing the card system in an online game? will you be drawing everything and telling us what we have or do we all get our own decks and hope that the honor-system works?

 

[Caros]

Hmm, thought I'd included that in my post above, but upon further inspection... I did not.

I was planning on just having you use invisible caste. 1-10 is hearts, 11-20 diamonds, 21-30 clubs and 31-40 spades (the game leaves out the face cards.) re-rolling any 'cards' that you have already drawn. It'll still be somewhat of an honor system as I'll have you sblock your card draws and auras, and only look back at them after the combat.

For cards drawn from the 'community deck', which are the cards you draw as you take more damage, I'll just have you roll the d40's. Technically there should be a limit on what can be drawn from the central deck but it will be way easier to just abstract it, while not particularly impacting the gameplay.

 

[Jemal]

could get a bit complicated but I dont have any better ideas.