Discuss Dragon Ball Z Role-Playing Game...worth while to pursue?

[Guest Agent]

Over the years a friend and I have always wanted to participate in a worthwhile Dragon Ball Z based RPG. We really haven't found any...and therefore got the idea to create our own set in the Dragon Ball Z world with a new twist. Created characters. new stories, sagas, moves, races, the works. A good portion of the work has been done, and as he is taking the trip to my house this coming weekend, we intend to work more on the project. What I (and I'm sure him as well) would appreciate would be any and all feedback, advice, criticisms, etc to the outline of the RPG as given below.

Note - Some information is subject to change.

[CENTER][U][COLOR=Navy]introduction[/COLOR][/U][/CENTER]

The year is 200 F.C., two-hundred years after the death of the Z Warriors at the hands of an unknown force. Two-hundred long years that have allowed the stories and adventures of Earth's mightiest warriors to sink into mythology - a mockery of their heroic tales have been scribed into children's books, actions figures, and bedtime stories.

Without the Z Warriors around, Earth has become relatively peaceful, with the exception of the rigors of daily life. A single company has gained total control of Earth's population, acting as a unified government under the heading of Freedom Corp. While there has been little devastation seen on Earth, there has always been little troublesome actions taken by Freedom Corp. that have received little more than a glance - freedom of speech; limited, privacy; invaded... and there was always the dubious ways Freedom Corp. "acquired" other planets.

Every thing comes to a boiling point as a nuclear reactor on an island melts down and the citizens of the island are trapped with no aid in sight. Freedom Corp. waits idley by as thousands of lives are lost. Later on they would make a broadcast attempting to explain their seemingly apathetic stance on the horrors that took place.

Meanwhile, an old man can take no more. He's not what he use to be, but he can no longer hide in the shadows letting his nightmares control him. He knows the truth and now it is time for others to know as well. Freedom Corp's broadcast is interrupted and the image is replaced by the old man, back turned to the camera and elderly voice shaking as he spins a horrible tale about Freedom Corp being a monstrousity. He gives his name as Kamesennin Roshi and calls forth a revolution before the signal cuts out.

A word is given by the Freedom Corp spokesman, swearing that the rioter would be located and arrested. He never did mention the travesty on that small island...

[CENTER][U][COLOR=Navy]sagas and story elements[/COLOR][/U][/CENTER]

Sagas will be all new stories lasting usually two months in length with a huge story battle at the end of the saga. In between sagas will be Budokai tournaments with rewards. Sagas will depend upon the actions of players and the winners of the previous saga. Which brings me to the next subject..

[CENTER][U][COLOR=Navy]factions[/COLOR][/U][/CENTER]

Two factions - The Militia or Freedom Corp. They can be looked at as good and evil, or simply two affiliations with different motivations. Essentially, it depends on how your character will see the world.

[CENTER][U][COLOR=Navy]races[/COLOR][/U][/CENTER]

Familiar races include: Half-Saiyans, Humans, Androids as playable characters. Half-Saiyans have always known there was something different about them but have only recently been "awoken" due to Kamesennin Roshi.

Freedom Corp. has an immense hate for Half-Saiyans and therefore Half-Saiyans can only join The Militia. To be fair, Androids are produced by Freedom Corp and can therefore only join Freedom Corp.

*New Races*

Quick rundown:

Gargons - Grey-skinned, humanoid race with rough skin and a past reminiscent of the ancient Romans.

Laderans - Blue-skinned, humanoid race considered a "sister race" of the Namekians. They share the same abilities as their sister race.

Apollans - Orange-skinned, humanoid race that have worshipped the sun for centuries. After being conquered by Freedom Corp, Apollans are no longer allowed to openly practice their religion.

Sauron - Green-skinned, humanoid race that have evolved from lizard-like creatures on their planet. Some in fact still have scaley, reptilian-like skin. They have a shady background and reputation for being thieves, cage fighters, etc.

Every race will have different starting stats and unique abilities. All races will also have a transformation in some way or another, so do not believe that Half-Saiyans will be "broken" because of a Super Saiyan transformation.

Oh, and heh, as far as every race being a bipedal humanoid...well, that's because for character pictures I'll need to recolor the skin/hair/eyes depending on what you ask them to be and it'd be hard to find multiple characters in creation that would fit a giant reptile monster. Therefore, they are all humanoids and I can recolor them to match their race. The only exception is Androids who can be just about anything in appearance.

[CENTER][U][COLOR=Navy]martial arts styles[/COLOR][/U][/CENTER]

We are all aware that Krillin and Goku trained under Roshi and such. Well, in this Role Playing Game, there will be different Martial Arts Styles with different senseis. Every style will have different moves and a different strategy to them. You will be able to learn moves taught by Senseis that are *not* affiliated with a single style - these people, anybody can learn from.

This is a way parallels an idea from the Dragon Ball Z CCG/TCG if anybody is familiar with it. If not, don't worry. It's merely a way to make sure everyone gets to customize their characters and have interesting fights. We will be in charge of creating stat sheets that determine, based on your stats, how much damage your attacks do. Now, I should probably get onto the...

[CENTER][U][COLOR=Navy]interactive battle system[/COLOR][/U][/CENTER]

Currently, this is still being worked on. What we do know is that it will be semi-complex, which I know a lot of people are not into. It requires strategy, planning, and what some people fear the most...chat room battling with dice. As a person who has done chat room battling in the past and both simming and dice...I promise this is to be less messy, considering there will be a concrete system to determine health, ki, and stamina. Therefore there shall be no cheating, or "moding".

The damages all depend on your stats. Currently, the stats are HP, Strength, Endurance, and KI Strength with a possible addition of Dexterity. There will also be KI and Stamina that you use to pay for your attacks, but that amount is set and does not change when you gain more Power Level.

Some moves will have certain effects such as stunning your opponent. While it may sound complex, in reality it will be no more complex than learning how to play a strategy-based video game or collectible card game and we are around to help.

[CENTER][U][COLOR=Navy]other means of interaction[/COLOR][/U][/CENTER]

Spars (friendly fights with members of your own affiliation) and battles (fights to the death with members of opposing factions) are ways to gain Power Level, but there are other ways.

Each week you will be granted a certain amount of Actions. You can spend the actions on sparring, battling, and the following:

TRAINING - We understand that sometimes people want to be lazy for a week..or two weeks...etc, at a time. Sometimes you don't feel like constantly playing. Therefore we have "Training", which is simply an e-mail to the webmasters saying you wish your character to train for "X" amount of days, where X can be any number up to your total number of allowed actions for that week. Training will grant you less Power Level than sparring or battling, but it's better than nothing.

STORIES - This *is* an RPG afterall. There will be a message board where you can submit stories of your character's daily life. Create a personal story with your character. Co-write with others. Participate in the wide world of the RPG. There will be a limit to word count and how many times per week you can do this to be fair to people who are not heavily into story writing, but it will be a great option and should provide a high level of interaction amongst members.

[CENTER][U][COLOR=Navy]character customizability[/COLOR][/U][/CENTER]

I hope it should be obvious that one thing we strived for was making everybody feel like an individual and unique. That is why we are working hard on new material, new moves, and etc. On top of that, we are taking a page from fantasy games and adding in two things to help make your character unique:

Custom Finishers - You will be able to design a finisher, name, damage type, and description. The damage for all finishers will be set to the same thing to be fair, but the finisher will be yours only to use.

Custom Item/Technique - Every character should have a story. Something that makes them stand out. To help you in this, you will be able to choose either an item or technique that is unique to your character and choose what stat you wish them to effect. I will give you two examples:

Ex. 1 - [Insert Character Name] trained with a tribe in the Amazon. Upon completing their training, they handed him a Sacred Bandana blessed in holy water. According to legend, the Sacred Bandana grant good health to the wearer.

You could have this item effect your character's Endurance stat.

Ex. 2 - For your character picture, you are using Mortal Kombat's Goro. Hopefully you have your own reason for the creature's extra pair of arms, but regardless, you want to make the extra arms effect your character in battle.

You can call it "Four Arms" and use it as a custom technique/skill and have it effect your character's Attack stat.


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Within this post I have discussed most of the details of the Dragon Ball Z RPG and as I said, any feedback at all would be greatly appreciated. We want to know the level of interest that is out there and if there is anything potential future members would prefer we change about how we are handling the RPG. Thank you.

[Guest Zionel]

I really like this idea, Usually Dragon Ball Rpgs are just spoofs of the series, instead of creating your own adventure. Keeping with the original story of the series and such. I read it and it seems like it has a high chance of working. Few Questions:

1. Where would this take place.
2. How would battles go if it takes place on a board.
3. When would this take place.
4. How would battles be deicded. Die rolls?

I am saving other comments and suggestions after you respond with answers.

BTW: Contact me Via aim msn or Yahoo I am
AIM: Iromulator1
Yahoo: Iromulator
Msn: [email]Zionel@Rebirth.com[/email]
Cya

[Guest Agent]

Thanks for the compliments. You hit the nail on the head about what which direction we were trying to steer the RPG in. I'm more than happy to answer anybody's questions, so keep them rolling.

1) The RPG takes place on Earth for the opening sagas. Eventually, there will be space travel to the home planets of the other races. As far as cities and such, on the website there will be a link that says "Earth" and descriptions of a few key cities that people can reference in Role Plays and such, and where battles can take place.

2) The battles take place in chatrooms. The message boards are used to post your stories. If, let's say, in your story your character is in a battle, there will be no need for chat room battling. Just like in any story, write it as realistically as you can. You won't gain experience from the battle itself, but we do award experience for writing stories since we consider it participating in the RPG. The stories with be a maximum of 2 per week with a 500 word maximum (any words over that number won't count to the amount of experience we award you, but you can go over it just for fun).

3) GT never happened, therefore this takes place on an alternate timeline after Buu Saga. We don't have a number of years assigned exactly to how long after Buu Saga takes place, but it is about 200 years after the Z Warriors are killed (in our RPG's story). On the timeline, we are at 200 F.C.

4) The battles are decided by dice rolls. The rolls determine if your attack hits or misses, but on the website everybody will have a character sheet of the moves they have learned and how much damage it does. For instance, on their website they may have a move that says "Physical attack doing 9 damage. Costs 1 Stamina Point". If the attack hits, your opponent loses 9 HP. Very similar to fantasy RPGs.

I hope that answers your questions and if not, I'll try to explain better next time around. We also have graphics, one of a template of the character bio page so you can see what that would look like. The other is a screenshot of the website which is a WIP.

[Lionheart]

i agree, this sounds like a great RPG.

[Heartless Me]

Not only do i agree to this RPG and am eager to join it... I also have the perfect website to perform the chatroom battles on. they even have a built in die roller. PM me for the details or locate me on yahoo(anime_islands) or aim(paradox wish).

[Guest Agent]

I should probably update this post. We've made a lot of progress. Hopefully, the start date is not far off.

Thanks to those who have replied in this particular topic. I am glad to hear of the interest level. In fact, we have approximately six people (not including the two GMs) ready to sign up and more who have said maybe and would like to see the site first.

To Heartless Me: The chat battles can actually take place in any chat room that enables dice rolling (AOL, AIM), but I'd like to see what it is you're referring to. If I see you on AIM, I'll be sure to IM you.

For any questions, I can be contacted via e-mail or Instant Message at hewearscrimson(@aol.com).

[Guest rja4874]

dear agent,
a few years ago i played in an rpg called dragonball xx. it was headed up by a guy named [email]sephy15349@aol.com[/email]. he had the site with all the info about the game and also had a forum like this one. it was a multi player email(on the forum) type of fan fiction.
when i played, i had a number of characters under the email of [email]ree4874@aol.com[/email]. i also created a number of the "original races" for people to play as. it was really fun. i was still living with my parents and still in high school.
the sephy guy would level up each character's power level according to the race's stats, depending on the type of story they had written. (if they meditated or had a near death experience, nameks or saiyans for example).
i havent played in years and i dont know if it still even exists. if yours is good i would like to join after i see the site.

good luck
rja