The COWBOY BEBOP RPG Is Coming Next Year

Mana Project Studio and Don't Panic Games will be bringing Cowboy Bebop the Roleplaying Game to Kickstarter in 2022 in English, French, and Italian.

Paris, October 11, 2021. For Immediate Release.

Mana Project Studio and Don’t Panic Games, in partnership with Sunrise, are proud to introduce to you Cowboy Bebop, the Role-Playing Game: the official tabletop role-playing game of one of the most beloved anime of all time!

Cowboy Bebop, directed by Shinchiro Watanabe, is one of the most famous anime series of all time. Broadcast in 1998 in Japan and all over the world in the following years, it has had a cult following so great to this day that the live-action remake will be one of Netflix’s major launches worldwide in November 2021.

In Cowboy Bebop: The Role-Playing Game, players will live through their own stories of bounty hunters in space, in a jazzy universe blending Western, Film Noir, and buddy cop movies, accompanied by one of the best anime soundtracks in history.

The game will be designed by the award-winning Italian authors Fumble, who won the prestigious Italian Game of the Year award in 2020 for Not The End. It will reach Kickstarter in 2022 and hopefully hit shelves by the end of the year. Its initial launch will feature English, French and Italian languages.

“As a pioneer of Japanese animation in Europe and an early role-player, I have always dreamed of living adventures in the universes of famous anime. We are overjoyed that Sunrise, with whom we have worked for many years, has entrusted us with making this first experience possible.” comments Cedric Littardi, founder of Don’t Panic Games.

“Cowboy Bebop is part of those anime that made up our cultural background. As fans of the anime, we are thrilled to be able to work on this project, a unique opportunity to design on both the themes of CBB and its strong visual identity. Our goal is to share our passion for Cowboy Bebop with you with this game!” says Michele Paroli, founder and lead designer of Mana Project Studio.

A leaflet presentation will be available exclusively during the Essen SPIEL game fair next week at the Don’t Panic Games booth 2D116.

 

[Ace]

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[Ace]

On the one hand, this sounds really cool. Love the anime; it's a classic.

On the other hand, I don't really get it. The worldbuilding of CB is great, but it doesn't feel like it needs a custom RPG to play in it. And there's not a ton of source material to work with. Maybe it'll be a good way to build the franchise a bit (a la WEG era Star Wars, I suppose)? I'm hoping the goals of the RPG become more clear as we get more info.

You have a good point there. There already is in essence a Cowboy Bebop RPG anyway called Bounty Head Bebop . Its a d20 variant with a ton of supplements and slightly odd world (psi among other things) It didn't click as much as you might expect

I guess this game will have the advantage of the official imprimatur and art work which should help. Still I'll probably see ya next year Space Cowboys.

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[MarkB]

You have a good point there. There already is in essence a Cowboy Bebop RPG anyway called Bounty Head Bebop . Its a d20 variant with a ton of supplements and slightly odd world (psi among other things) It didn't click as much as you might expect

There's also Scum & Villainy, which specifically supports creating a crew of Bounty Hunters, though its setting is a bit different. It could be readily adapted to the Cowboy Bebop setting, but it'd take some legwork to set up a system map and write up a variety of factions based on what's in the anime.

 

[payn]

I downloaded the quickstart for Not the End from Mana Project games. The system is called Hexsys. I'll describe as best I can but I didnt read all 62 pages! Character sheet is a honeycomb of hexes. You start by deciding what your characters is known as. I assume in CB it would be bounty hunter, outlaw, gansters, etc. The next ring are traits that describe the character like, tough, smart, etc.. Then, a ring of abilities such as martial arts, lock picking, etc..

The GM is called a narrator. The narrator and actor/hero set up scenes co-operatively and determine a test. There is a level of danger and expertise that forms a pool of chits, tokens, etc... You toss them in an opaque container and draw. One color is a success, and the other is a danger. I didnt get into how to determine results and what not.

It seems very episodic in nature and reminds me of Fiasco meets Monster of the Week. I could see this working real well for CB as an RPG.

 

[Mercador]

What about Coriolis ? Or even Starfinder ? I would love a good setting book on the Cowboy Bebop for the fluff but as a TTRPG system? I guess even Cyberpunk Red could be used.

 

[payn]

I think I'd rather have something pulpy and rules lite for CB myself.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

I'm always a Fate Core shill and this seems like a prime setting for it. Rules light, narrative heavy. Maybe even with Caroline & Tuesday as a Fate Accelerated sister game.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I backed a kickstarter project called Orbital Blue.

It gave me a similar vibe and I always felt that the genre of Cowboy Bebop would be excellent for RPGs. Even now I'd probably go with Orbital Blue, as others mentioned, the genre is interesting but I feel like Cowboy Bebop itself doesn't have much meat on the bone for a full RPG setting.

Also, I'm pretty positive we're about to enter (or have already entered) several years of known IPs coming to TTRPG.

 

[univoxs]

I have run a Cowboy Bebop game in the past. We started with the Bounty Head Bebeop rules and they didn't work for us. nWoD is a good system you can do anything with so we remade characters and finished out the campaign with those rules and some added stuff from Wold of Darkness Mirrors that has some Sci Fi stuff in it.

This setting is one of my favorite SciFi settings. While it is clearly just Cowboys in space it can take itself quite seriously and I am a fan of lower tech settings where gravity matters and there are not blaster laser guns. There is just enough weird in the world to keep you on your toes though. I wonder if there will be rules that cover some of the near psionic abilities possessed by a select few in the show.

 

[payn]

I wonder if there will be rules that cover some of the near psionic abilities possessed by a select few in the show.

Im guessing the closest you'll get to psionic rules is just listing it as a character trait/ability to use in the narrative. You set up your test token pool based on situations that the ability makes sense to use narratively.