DragonBall Z Rpg

So I'm home brewing a DragonBall Z system that heavily focuses on customizable and player created abilities and transformations but I've hit a hurdle.
So far I've fleshed out the Human, Saiyan, Namekian and Frost Demon races, but I'm missing one more race that fills out the niche of having a bonus to what boils down to Dexterity and Intelligence.
Besides that, what kind of things would be looking for in a DBZ Rpg ?

Killing time until goku/gohan saves things. Alternate, Everyone is Goku

OkY i need context for your system. What's the basic mefhanic?

I want the system for Legends of the Wulin, but it has to work so that punching isn't a fifteen-hour nightmare slog.

Few techniques, but they increase in power (the Kamehameha should do basically the same thing, just better as you get more powerful)

A resource system for Ki that doesn't suck balls (like the thing Exalted does now, except not lashed to some nebulous garbage system)

Transformations? Like, being a giant ape needs to be a thing.

Enough looseness to be cool (none of that 3.5-pathfinder "track every five feet" hyper-specificity) but not so little that everything is "whatever your heart wants it to be!" (Fate. Screw Fate)

You pull that off and I'll fork over $25 for your PDF, sure

this is really good advice, good on you user

Use these guys

Yeah well I'm the asshole they're making redesign Legends of the Wulin, and I've spent ***years*** working on it, so I better have some good advice or I'm basically worthless.

>but I'm missing one more race that fills out the niche of having a bonus to what boils down to Dexterity and Intelligence.

What about Kai? King Kai had some crazy dex with his tiny planet (Chacing monkeys around all day) and being a master he had to have some decent int

or just use androids.

Its a d100% based system with 4 stats, Strength, Dexterity, Toughness and Cleverness, along with 3 derived stats, KI (which functions less like a stamina bar and more like a chance to hit with blast that slowly reduces), Reflex and Charisma

Moves and forms function on a point buy system in which you can increase certain attributes however you must balance it out with an equal amount of disadvantages
What said. Thanks
I just settled on Tuffles strangely enough, but i'm planning on working on this until my autism gives out on me, might switch them out for the Kais and add in those Futureseeing dudes and Androids later.

I wonder if the Magi-Nation CCG energy system wouldn't be a really good TTRPG framework for a DBZ system.

Magi-nation uses an energy system where your mana/casting is also your life. So a magi generates say 7 energy a turn and casts spell/creatures with that energy. As a player you need to balance your high cost cards with your life.

DBZ kinda could work the same way. Where a player has a starting Ki level, and an amount they regen each combat turn.
Say for example Goku would have a starting Ki of 9000. And regen 700 a round. And have access to abilities like Teleport (use 50 ki to move 1 space, use this ability as many times as you want per turn), or Kamahamaha (use 500 Ki to deal 2000 Ki damage). I mean the specifics of those abilites would need to be balanced and worked, but you get the idea.
And different races would have access to different abilities and different bonuses for starting and regen-ing Ki.

I dunno, sounds like you already have some sort of system started. but it's just an idea that popped into my head

Well, I've made charging up a mechanic in this system that restores a percentage of your KI as a full round action. You can even overcharge to a certain degree.
That being said I'll keep those in mind

SSGSS Golden Cell

You might want to look to this for some inspiration. Unfinished, definitely bloated, but not a terrible reference all things considered.

OK Veeky Forums real talk here.

You can totally make a dragonball RPG work but the thing is you need to understand that you DO NOT do this by using power levels or ki points or whatever.

Because that's assuming that Toriyama puts that much thought into the combat mechanics of his unverse which he doesn't and anyone who claims he does is delusional or has not actually watched DBZ since they were 13.

How combat in a DBZ game should work is like this:

Someone has "advantage". When you have "advantage" you are unstoppable. You can describe yourself pummelling all other characters and enemies like they were nothing. Until someone takes "advantage" away from you and gives it to themselves, at which point THEY'RE the ones who're curb stomping you and now you need to find a way to get advantage back because whoever has advantage for more than like, 5 or 6 rounds? Wins.

Been there, done that.
It's not perfect, but a fair bit of playtesting has gone into it.

bump
OP here. Just woke up

Okay cool, I've got questions.

What does throwing a punch look like? Are we just rolling d100's against some kind of ac or what's happening there?

A punch works like this so far.
First you role a strength check with the opponents Reflex stat (which is strength + Dextarry /4) as a malus.
You then have 3 options
Light Attack which does a D4
Medium Attack: D6
Heavy Attack:D8
If you role a multiple of 2 on a light attack, multiples of 3 on Medium and an 8 on Heavy, you can combo into another attack roll that has an increasing malus of +20% each attempt.
Now should the last hit be a Heavy attack, you may knock the opponent in any direction that travels the same value as the total amount of damage dealt in the combo. Should the opponent hit an obstacle or piece of the environment, receive a 5% increase to damage. Should the opponent be knocked into your ally, they receive a free attack of opportunity
that cannot combo. Should the opponent hit another hostile, the other opponent receives 5% of the damage dealt.

A narrative focused combat system does seem like the best choice, although maybe a tad more complex than that

He does have a point about how that is the general flow of DragonBall Fights. Maybe I should implement a battle momentum mechanic of some kind.

Hooo boy.... Okay, so how does movement work? Are we tracking people in 3 dimensions?

the issue with trying some kind of concrete scale with DB is that the powerlevels go nigh exponential

frieza was at around 1 mil, and he was hot shit- and then you get to cell/buu and it starts going into the billions. trying an actual mechanics heavy game with that is stupid

soemthing like draw/sucess/failure dice and large pools of them is the way to go- if you fight you roll the dice, depending on how many more that your opponent you get the more leeway you get narativley

saiyans get +xp for acting like idiots

I’ve run two sessions of my homebrewed DBZ rpg (named “Powerlevels”) that’s a PbtA build.
I have five stats:
>strike - for physical things
>blast - for ki things
>endure - for toughing it out
>sense - perception stat, also coming up with something on the fly
>plan - for preparedness
And I have three categories of Move: Basic, Advanced or Transformed.
>basic: attack, block, evade, parry; meant to be used for social things as well, and they’ve copped to that pretty quickly
>advanced: made at -1, All-out Attack (oraoraora), Blaster Barrage (dakkadakkadakka), Match Force (contested roll for previous two), and Charge Ki (buff your next Move)
>Transformed: made at -2, Ultimate Strike, Ultimate Blast, Ultimate Form (Stable) and Ultimate Form (Giant)
I have 6 playable races (human, Saiyan, Namekian, Demon, Ke’Anu (Hawaiian for cold, Freeza’s race), Majin), each with unique buffs.
Party is
>Whey the Ke’Anu, who is basically Veeky Forums and /pol/ incarnate (racist against Saiyans and Namekians), just graduated from the PTO Military Academy and is waiting on his promised callback from the Ginyu Force (only just found out they and the PTO power structure got wiped out by Saiyans)
>Be’Ef the Namekian, a mute trickster of sorts, enjoys fireworks, just blew up an Old Space Navy and killed the space cop sent after them
>Tatr the Saiyan, idiot savant (which is really just metagaming), doesn’t understand capsules or refrigeration
>Majin Stuu, who likes candy and is a bit one-note and rather removed
>a second Majin, can’t remember the name, but he’s really into accessorizing, just figured out how their ship’s turrets work

2D because I don't hate myself and its on an almost wargame scale.
That's the thing, I found most other DBZ rpgs to be too loose and not enough crunch.
I'm trying to hit a satisfying middle ground without having to dive deep into powerlevel autism. Its why energy attack don't run on a static bar but a percent to hit that reduces that you have to recharge, because how many times in the show have characters said "Oh no I'm too weak" but then managed to hit them with a critical beam or energy attack anyway?

I just gave up and called Freiza's race various forms of cold appliances or Frost Demons. Although I like the name you came up with.

Resource management (Ki) and risk management (Ozaru transformations, Kaioken) would add a dimension of strategy that could manifest in a satisfying way during play.

Movement and position aren't super important in DBZ... Until they suddenly are. Like Yajirobe sneak-attacking Vegeta's tail off or Krillin ducking between the broken island shards to dodge second-form Frieza on Namek. You're going to want something that isn't migraine-inducing (Z axis movement) but that still allows for elements of the battlefield to come into play.

I dont want it to be too resource heavy but I'll keep that in mind.

Bump