Dragon Ball Parallels

Follow for lots of information about the Dragon Ball inspired tabletop roleplaying game!

[dbparallels]

Hope that you're being well! Every week I access here to see if you i've release the new playtest package! I'm very anxious to playtest it with my friends!

I feel bad about letting this ask go unanswered for so long, but that is partly due to the issues I'm having. Dragon Ball Parallels is being made by one person: me. Because I have a lot of commitments and responsibilities in life, I don't get much opportunity to work on it, and when I need to cut something out of my schedule, DBP is one of the first things to go. It's unfortunate, but it's how it is.

Nobody's more disappointed with my lack of progress than I am, I promise you that. But I am only just one human being and I don't have the luxury (or the capacity) to devote my working week to something that's not going to help me survive this capitalistic rat race from hell.

All that aside, I have recently made some good steps towards getting a playtest ready. It didn't help that I had to tear up a few first drafts and rework some of the base mechanics from scratch multiple times. Good game design is an awkward, complicated, messy process that only really turns into something polished at the last possible instant.

Thank you for following, and sorry again that I haven't given much in the way of updates. I'll try to do better in 2023.

[dbparallels]

Where I can find the latest version of your game?

The game is still in development right now! However, I am working on a playtest package.

[dbparallels]

Hello there! I've been dying to run a PBTA Dragon Ball game for my group. We've played another version of DB Parallels floating around, but after stumbling into your tumblr I've been wondering whether there are any playtest materials or notes you'd be willing to share? I love your ideas on the power levels mechanics, stats and overall keeping the Dragon Ball spirit intact. Will you be continuing your work on DB Parallels at any point in the future? We certainly hope you will!

As a fan game made by one single person, this project is understandably not getting enough work done on it while a global pandemic (and more) is absolutely cratering literally everything I am trying to do, including survive.

I still like the project, I still want to do the project, I just don't quite have the stability to dedicate much time to it right now.

Thank you for the kind words, I can only hope that I manage to live up to them.

[dbparallels]

You’re on your way to another world to battle with an alien tyrant for the sake of your friends. Your spaceship arrives in one month.

A tournament is happening, all comers against the seemingly unstoppable monster who’s promised to destroy the planet should he win. One week to prepare.

The message from the future told of death and destruction at the hands of evil unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Just three years until everything changes.

What do you do with that time?

You train.

In Dragon Ball, training has always been important, from those first days carrying milk all the way to pushing the limits of the possible in other dimensions. It’s all about putting the hard work in to surpass the villain.

When you’re playing DBP, training is how you advance your character. There’s no experience points to collect, so no need to grind on random battles or bookkeep how many punches you’ve thrown. You simply get stronger when you knuckle down and decide to be.

(Keeping in mind that the villain isn’t always going to wait for you to finish doing a few million push-ups.)

Training is something you play out like any other part of the game. It has its own particular moves and rules for you to use. Your character choices can affect the way your training moves work, too. Characters that share a relationship will get more out of training with each other, for instance, and Namekians do well with meditation-based training.

Additionally, where you train has meaning. While you can always gain a benefit from training regardless of where you are, additional complications like increased gravity or time compression can assist in making it all the better. You can also encounter masters at certain training grounds, who can share knowledge of their best techniques with you... as long as you are worthy of their guidance!

[dbparallels]

As mentioned before, villains in Dragon Ball Parallels are measured relative to the heroes. There is no point in having a villain who isn’t a threat, after all. Enemies that were once the major villains can still return as minor ones, losing access to some (or all) of their specific moves.

This makes things easier in terms of design. There’s no reason to try and have numbers that somehow can encompass both Raditz and Beerus, it’s all about context. The villain is a threat to the heroes as they are now: growing stronger is about facing bigger, badder villains.

But villains, and their respective story arcs, are still sorted by their scope and their size. This is to lend a helping hand to Narrators, so they can build a campaign for their heroes that starts small and escalates to dizzying heights.

Think about the Freeza Saga: the heroes travelling to a distant planet, encountering an invading army and a terrifying tyrant with unimaginable strength who threatens the entire galaxy with his evil desires. In DBP, this would be called Cosmic: a saga that goes beyond the limits of Earth.

Now, “Cosmic” doesn’t imply scale, only scope. It’s about where the action takes place. Nothing says that once you go into space you have to stay there! In fact the next big saga, the Androids, takes place completely on Earth. Remember: the scale is always relative!

(This does mean that, if you so desired, you could start out with your heroes facing off against Buu and working their way up to the true ultimate power in the universe: Raditz.)

As well as scope, a saga also has size. This is a general estimate of how long it might take to complete. That means taking into account every complication that stands between the heroes on their route to planting a fist squarely in the final villain’s smug face. Alternating the size of your sagas can create a fun pace that breaks up lengthier stories with shorter ones.

I’m still figuring out the exact words I want to use. But that’s all part of the design process!

[dbparallels]

The wonders of divergent timelines, aka “why is Chiaotzu swole?”

Part of making the game has been providing options for both creating your own characters, and for playing the characters from the show. Being able to play as Goku or Vegeta is important, not just to see how the original sagas would play out under different circumstances, but also because playing as an existing character is a good first step for those new to tabletop gaming.

Each character will have a custom playbook that offers a path of development: when they should gain new transformations, new techniques, and so on. But this doesn’t just mean Goku and Vegeta. It doesn’t mean all the saiyan characters plus Krillin and Piccolo.

It means everyone.

All the characters who started off as fighters but fell to the wayside, or died and never came back, or both? They’re not only in as playable options, but I’ve been piecing together their paths to keep them on the same level as the main cast. That means new techniques, but keeping with their established fighting styles and, most importantly, themed puns.

If you wanted to see Yamcha and Tien keep pace with the legendary super saiyans, those options are on the table. If you wondered what would happen if Raditz had a redemption arc, I’ve got suggestions for you. If you ever wanted to see Chiaotzu as an unstoppable psychic juggernaut, then you’re exactly as weird as I am and I’m happy about that.

As I make progress on the game, I’ll show off a few.

[dbparallels]

The super-powered martial arts techniques of Dragon Ball are possibly the most iconic part of the series, so it’s always been an important part of DBP that I do them justice.

But at the same time, nobody wants to read a list of several thousand techniques that only differ to each other through the most minor variations. I know for a fact I don’t want to write a list like that. Still, I’d like to make sure that everyone who plays DBP is going to be able to use their favourite techniques, and have those techniques feel right.

My solution has been to break down all the techniques into some broad base categories. The exact categories are still in flux right now, as is the nature of design, but they will include beams, projectiles, and transformations.

Each technique will belong to a base category, with modifiers attached. These modifiers are called tags. Tags are used a lot in PBTA games to give narrative and mechanical effects to player options.

So for example, a projectile technique could have the tag Scatter, which makes it spread out over a wide area. This is a “positive” tag and increases the minimum required power level for you to use the technique.

There are negative tags, too, which introduce a flaw to the technique but lower the minimum required power level. The projectile technique could have the Destructive tag, which makes it deal an excessive amount of damage to the surrounding environment.

Sound familiar?

The game will still come with a short list of techniques from the show, such as the Kamehameha, along with some new techniques of my own design. But for players, creating or recreating techniques should be as simple as picking and choosing the right tags.

There will be more on techniques as I continue to develop the system!

[dbparallels]

In Depth: Sparking

Under some circumstances, the game will tell you that your next roll will be Sparking. This is a special bonus, different to the usual +1s you may get during play, and usually handed out as a reward for doing something cool.

When you make a roll while Sparking, you roll three dice instead of the usual two.

Here we’ve rolled a 4, a 2, and a 5. But before we add up the total, we separate out the lowest value result. In this case, the two.

Then we discard it and use the remaining two dice for the result.

A Sparking roll is more likely to give larger results, and so they are given out when your character’s drives are challenged, like a spark that ignites their inner passions – hence the name.

Usually this means in response to dramatic, emotional moments. Your friends are being threatened, a startling revelation occurs, things of that nature. It represents that little extra oomph you get when you’re invested.

Sparking rolls are not going to be common, but they won’t be incredibly rare either. It depends on how you play your character, as there’s no reward without a little risk first.

[dbparallels]

Dragon Ball is a story with a protagonist and a supporting cast. With only a handful of exceptions, every storyline resolves with the protagonist Goku defeating the major villain single-handedly while everyone else gets to watch.

You might see why this isn't a good model for a roleplaying game meant to be played by groups of people.

In order to fix this problem, I’ve used several methods. Firstly, I’ve made sure that the game hinges upon working together. This includes powerful villains that outmatch any single player character, teams made up of villains of equal strengths, and combination techniques. Not to mention character progression requiring training, which is always better when done as a group!

Secondly, the available techniques and abilities for player characters is wider. In the source material, the side characters don't get enough time in the spotlight to properly develop the necessary skills to keep up with Goku and the other saiyans. This is because it would disrupt the pace of the story, so it's not really a fault. But for DBP, I've had to be creative to fill in the gaps.

This means that the game does include quite a bit of original content, but only by necessity. It's all heavily inspired by the source material, and I've done my best to make it feel like it fits the aesthetic and the tone of Dragon Ball.

Innate character abilities that already exist, such as the namekian capacity for regeneration and healing, have been given more scope so that they can match the power of the mighty super saiyan. Other abilities have been added in, like the oni having a powerful magic weapon and magic powers, based on side characters like Annin and King Yemma, as well as actual mythology.

(By the way, you can play as an oni.)

The techniques in DBP will still allow you to fire off as many kamehamehas and other energy beams as you like, but I've tried to emphasize the more unique and tactical moves present in the series. One beam is much like another, but other techniques can create interesting situations in play.

Techniques that restrain, protect, enhance, or otherwise do more than just raw damage have been given just as much priority as the big blasts and beams. Again, I've had to do a little original content to round out the list somewhat, but it should all feel just as much like DBZ.

[dbparallels]

In Depth: Damage

Receiving and dealing damage is an important part of any game that revolves around combat. The mechanics behind hitting and getting hit have to be suited to the tone and the aesthetics of the game. For instance, a game that’s supposed to play out like a Hollywood action blockbuster should not have the same damage mechanics as one that’s high-stakes survival horror.

In Dragon Ball Parallels, damage received by player characters is a cumulative value. What this means is that, instead of starting at a high number and subtracting damage taken until you reach zero, you begin at zero and every hit pushes you further up the scale.

This is because the idea is not to think of your character being at “low health” but instead just being at “high damage”. True to the spirit of shonen characters getting to be their most powerful the more they are beaten up, a player character’s damage will provide bonuses in exchange for the danger of being closer to death.

With any attack, you do not need to roll for damage. While it can be fun to throw a handful of dice for this purpose in other games, it does not mesh well with the PBTA framework. Imagine rolling well for an attack and then only rolling the absolute minimum for damage!

So each attack in DBP will always deal one hit, regardless of the power behind it, so long as it equals or outmatches the current power level of the enemy being hit.

Only player characters have their own damage track. How the enemy deals with taking a hit depends on their role: a minion, being small fry, will probably be instantly taken out. A villain, on the other hand, could react with a special move of their own.

A villain’s special moves function like the player character’s damage track. The Narrator can choose to use one of the special moves as a reaction to the villain taking the hit. But if they do use a special move, then that move must be checked off. If all the special moves have been checked off, then the villain has only one option left: to die.

This way, villains will be able to showcase their biggest and flashiest moves throughout the course of a fight. Every transformation and planet-killing deathball has to be used before they can be finished off once and for all! Or at least until they come back again...

[dbparallels]

Exploring the bonds between characters is something that PBTA games and Dragon Ball have in common. Friendships, rivalries, families, and the relationship between master and student: all of these are present in Dragon Ball Parallels.

Each relationship in DBP is a double-sided one, shared between two characters. Even more complex situations can be reduced down to multiple instances of these pairings. Most importantly, these relationships give characters newfound inner strength.

Rivals, for instance, spur each other on to greater heights while training and fighting together. Characters will gain ferocious power should their family or friends be harmed, like when Gohan protected his father.

Relationships in DBP can grow over time, or change due to circumstances. Rivals can become friends, and friends can become family. Understanding how your characters feel about each other is a part of the game that's just as important as the energy beams and transformations.

[dbparallels]

Why “Parallels”?

Alternate timelines have been a big part of Dragon Ball ever since Trunks first showed his jean jacket to the world. Fans love to think about what might have happened, speculate on the possibilities, and this fan right here is no exception.

The flexibility of a tabletop game, as opposed to a videogame, is the ability to tell your own stories. Suddenly all those what-if scenarios could be played out with you and your friends, and so that’s been a key part of my design goals for the game ever since its inception.

The finished game will include suggested launching-off points for your own divergent timelines, totally new alternate universes, and more besides. You’ll be free to play it however you want, in whatever timeline you want.

[dbparallels]

Let’s take a look at one of the basic moves from Dragon Ball Parallels:

RISK IT ALL

When you deal with an incoming powerful attack, roll +Guts. On a 7+, pick one:

You redirect the attack with your bare hands to somewhere else, at the cost of increasing the destruction countdown by one.

Someone or something else who would have taken damage from the attack doesn’t take damage, at the cost of you taking the damage instead.

You evade the attack entirely with speed or by using a technique, at the cost of losing 1 Power.

On a 10+, you do not have to pay the cost.

We’ll begin by breaking it down, bit by bit.

The first thing to look at is the trigger for the move. Unlike games where you declare what ability you’re using and then narrate what happens, PBTA games have you narrate what happens first, and then determine what ability you’re using based on that.

So if the Narrator says that a villain is throwing a massive ball of energy, your reaction to it may well be to deal with that incoming powerful attack. So you would be using this move. As you play DBP and get used to the flow of the game, knowing when you’re using a move (and what the move is) will become second nature.

Next is the roll and its results. This move wants you to roll with Guts, because tackling a powerful attack takes guts, either in terms of stamina or stupidity.

If a move doesn’t specify what happens on a failed roll (a result of six or less) then that means it’s up to the Narrator to decide the consequences. It could be as simple as taking damage from being hit by the attack, or perhaps fumbling it and putting someone else in danger.

On this move, a successful roll (seven or higher) gives you a choice on how you’re dealing with the attack. It’s a success whichever way, this just lets you pick the cost to pay. You may need to deflect the attack into the surrounding landscape, take the damage yourself to keep others safe, or sacrifice some of your power level.

With a result of 10 or higher, though, you don’t have to pay that cost for this move. That’s because a 7–9 is a partial success, and a 10+ is a total success.

In play this means that dealing with a villain’s attacks requires a measure of strategy. Increasing the destruction around you could have dire consequences if you’re in a small area, and sometimes there are innocents who must be protected no matter the consequences.

[dbparallels]

In Dragon Ball Z, a power level is a way for the villains to underestimate the heroes. They put on their scouter, read off a number they consider to be low, and then while they’re laughing and boasting about how much stronger they are, the hero powers up and proceeds to wipe the floor with the villain.

Trying to make power levels function like a character level, or any other measure of skill and strength, is a fruitless endeavour. Dragon Ball Parallels instead works on the idea of “floating scale” for heroes and villains. What that means is any villain, from Raditz to Kid Buu, can be represented in the same way: as a credible threat to the heroes as they are right now.

A power level in DBP is a scale from 0 to 7 that rises and falls throughout the course of a fight. It represents how much power a player character is unleashing, starting small and rising as things get more dramatic. You can think of it like a meter in a fighting game, the higher it is the more devastating your attacks become.

Villains get power levels too, except a villain’s power level works like armor. They will be immune to damage if the player character making the attack is at a lower power level. As the fight goes on, and the villain undergoes transformations or other dramatic changes, the power levels will rise until only a full-power attack will be capable of finally taking the villain out once and for all.

This way, the end to every fight is guaranteed to be a totally spectacular finale to remember!

[dbparallels]

Each character in Dragon Ball Parallels has an array of five vital statistics, and by no coincidence they spell out F∙I∙G∙H∙T!

Each of these stats is more about the character’s general attitudes, rather than a raw measurement of physical ability. Every character in DBP is a fighter, so they are all about as strong, as fast, and as tough as each other.

Focus is all about mental resolve and determination. The ability to aim true despite chaos around you. Keen senses and staying calm under pressure. Android characters start with +1 in Focus. Insight is wisdom, self-reflection, and putting knowledge into practice. Being perceptive about not just the world around you, but also yourself. Namekian characters start with +1 in Insight. Guts is about having the stamina (or the lack of foresight) to engage in feats of daring. Putting yourself in harm’s way in order to defend your friends, or to show you can keep up with everyone else. Earthling characters start with +1 in Guts. Heart is supporting others, being there for them, and opening yourself up to the power of friendship and teamwork. It’s about having the courage and the positivity to face what the world throws your way. Majin characters start with +1 in Heart. Temper concerns gratuitous displays of passion and emotion. A quickness to anger, losing control, or just plain putting everything you’ve got into what you do. Saiyan characters start with +1 in Temper.

When you create a character, you pick one of these stats as your source of strength, meaning it is what you roll with when using martial arts techniques. For instance, if your character is one who likes precision techniques and executing a strategy perfectly, think about making Focus your source of strength.

[dbparallels]

What you need to know first: Powered by the Apocalypse

If you’ve never heard of a Powered by the Apocalypse game before, here’s a quick summary of what that means.

Much like videogames can use the same engine (like the Unreal Engine) for things like graphical rendering and physics, tabletop games can do something similar for how you go about rolling the dice and making your character.

Powered by the Apocalypse (PBTA) gained its name because it started with a game called Apocalypse World. Since then it has been behind a lot of exceptional games, some of which you may have heard about through actual play podcasts.

Dragon Ball Parallels uses the PBTA system (with modifications) as its base because of the engine’s strong capacity for cinematic action. There’s no need to fret about precise range increments or hit point totals. That sort of thing doesn’t suit the world of Dragon Ball anyway.

[dbparallels]

Presenting a Powered by the Apocalypse game system based off the worldwide phenomenon that is Dragon Ball!

Make your own martial arts hero, or play as one of your favorite characters.

Battle against classic villains direct from the shows and movies, along with all-new threats.

Easy-to-learn rules not only keep the action flowing, but allow you to create your own villains and storylines with ease.

Relationships come to the front, letting you explore the bonds between friends, family, rivals, and even lovers.

This game is still in development but you can follow this tumblr for updates on its progress, explanations of the system, showcases of the new villains and locations, and more!