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.

 

[payn]

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

I, for one, welcome this new age. I like the setting to color the rules heavily. Never been one to really appreciate generic do it all systems.

 

[Undrave]

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.

Seriously! Not everything popular needs a bespoke RPG system... And not everything that makes a good story makes a good RPG either.

 

[payn]

I, for one, love IPs getting their own RPG. Just bespoke me bro!

Seriously, though, Im cool with IPs getting their own RPGs. I dont think everything needs a crunch heavy system with dozens of supplements and setting books. Just a nice hardcover that gets the feel right and makes a good game you can jump right into. See you around space cowboys!

 

[Deset Gled]

I, for one, love IPs getting their own RPG. Just bespoke me bro!

Seriously, though, Im cool with IPs getting their own RPGs. I dont think everything needs a crunch heavy system with dozens of supplements and setting books. Just a nice hardcover that gets the feel right and makes a good game you can jump right into. See you around space cowboys!

We could get a nice hardcover without an IP without a bespoke RPG, though. Doing it as a supplement for another system could promote both the anime IP and the gaming IP. It would let people play the RPG by learning a few rules variants, rather than investing brain time into a completely new system. It could even lead to crossovers.

 

[univoxs]

We could get a nice hardcover without an IP without a bespoke RPG, though. Doing it as a supplement for another system could promote both the anime IP and the gaming IP. It would let people play the RPG by learning a few rules variants, rather than investing brain time into a completely new system. It could even lead to crossovers.

I totally agree that this approach would be better and it was how the wave of licensed RPGs worked out in the 90s. Games like BESM had a lot of books and of course d20 OGL explosion. Many of those products were not very good to be honest. The Trigun d20 book is a good example on how not to do it. The Tank police RPG is an example of a good way to do it.

 

[payn]

We could get a nice hardcover without an IP without a bespoke RPG, though. Doing it as a supplement for another system could promote both the anime IP and the gaming IP. It would let people play the RPG by learning a few rules variants, rather than investing brain time into a completely new system. It could even lead to crossovers.

Yeah, I just dont get the right feel from generic systems with IP flavoring. Also, most of these systems are likely too heavy for what I want out of CB. However, I read up on what the Hexsys system is all about and its seems like it has enough going on the be interesting, but also easy to master. Guess we will see.

 

[payn]

I totally agree that this approach would be better and it was how the wave of licensed RPGs worked out in the 90s. Games like BESM had a lot of books and of course d20 OGL explosion. Many of those products were not very good to be honest. The Trigun d20 book is a good example on how not to do it. The Tank police RPG is an example of a good way to do it.

All those D&D flavor IPs fell by the wayside for my groups. Nobody plays them anymore and want something that differentiates from D&D with the serial filed off.

 

[univoxs]

All those D&D flavor IPs fell by the wayside for my groups. Nobody plays them anymore and want something that differentiates from D&D with the serial filed off.

We liked d20 Star Wars a bit but never got another one of those d20 games off the ground. What happened back then still colors my feelings on all these IP games now but then I bought Alien and it has changed my mind a bit. I held back from buying Dune but it is so tempting as well.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

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.

Agreed; the Scum & Villainy RPG (Forged in the Dark engine) already has a bounty hunter crew playbook to cover campaigns in the vein of Cowboy Bebop, Killjoys or The Mandalorian.

 

[MarkB]

Agreed; the Scum & Villainy RPG (Forged in the Dark engine) already has a bounty hunter crew playbook to cover campaigns in the vein of Cowboy Bebop, Killjoys or The Mandalorian.

And its structure of action-packed jobs in between long stretches of downtime is a good match for the pace of the anime.