Are there any specifically Japanese-flavored superhero games? Something that lets you play power rangers, magical girls, monster tamers, mech pilots and so on in the same team? How well do other superhero games model these genres?
Double Cross (//www.ver-blue-amusement.com) is capable of this, though it's less of an RPG flavoured with Japanese superhero archetypes and more of a genuine Japanese superhero RPG that can include those archetypes.
For a fantasy RPG (which also happens to be Japanese) with those archetypes, Tenra Bansho Zero (http://www.tenra-rpg.com/) is worth looking into as well.
you may want to look into a few of the anime themed ones although i have never read any of those so they may well be ill suited for combat focused games.
BESM was surprisingly capable of handling superheroes. I never used it on that power level personally (all I did was generic, Lodoss War-style fantasy) but fellow BESM-philes swear on it.
BESM characters are built (point buy) from "attributes" (= feats, special abilities) that are effects-based, eg "Massive Damage" buys a fighting style/skill/ability that dishes out more damage than a typical attack, and it's the player's job to define source - is it a magical ray or bolt, or a holy sword, or a secret kung fu kick? All "attributes" come in 6 levels, with the highest levels firmly in super territory.
The beauty of BESM was that it was possible to "nest" attributes in others. You could buy the attribute "Own A Big Mecha" for 4 points and received 20 points for building the mecha stats and capabilities from the same attribute list as your character. So you could give the mecha the ability "Massive Damage" instead. The term "mecha" was just a placeholder, it could be any kind of vehicle, from Kaneda's motor bike to Iron Man's armor to the Millennium Falcon.
Spells were built in the same fashion.
I turned my back on BESM because I found it too crunchy on the GM side. Monster stats were as complex as character stats (as they were built, you guessed it, using the same rules) and I didn't need to know that green slimes had the defect "Cannot Talk" that gave them 2 build points for more attributes - especially when monsters could be built from any number of points the GM deemed fit.
I never tried OVA but from a read-through it seems like a more freeform spiritual successor of BESM.
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;826453Monster stats were as complex as character stats (as they were built, you guessed it, using the same rules)
for me thats a plus i dont know what the rest of the gm crunch is like but i am a huge fan of monsters that use the same rules as characters (in the sense of how they are built they dont need to have as many points or whatever), i wont abandon a game just because of separated monsters but its a pretty huge tick in the cons category that could easily push something from good to bad in my eyes
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;826453BESM was surprisingly capable of handling superheroes. I never used it on that power level personally (all I did was generic, Lodoss War-style fantasy) but fellow BESM-philes swear on it.
BESM characters are built (point buy) from "attributes" (= feats, special abilities) that are effects-based, eg "Massive Damage" buys a fighting style/skill/ability that dishes out more damage than a typical attack, and it's the player's job to define source - is it a magical ray or bolt, or a holy sword, or a secret kung fu kick? All "attributes" come in 6 levels, with the highest levels firmly in super territory.
The beauty of BESM was that it was possible to "nest" attributes in others. You could buy the attribute "Own A Big Mecha" for 4 points and received 20 points for building the mecha stats and capabilities from the same attribute list as your character. So you could give the mecha the ability "Massive Damage" instead. The term "mecha" was just a placeholder, it could be any kind of vehicle, from Kaneda's motor bike to Iron Man's armor to the Millennium Falcon.
Spells were built in the same fashion.
I turned my back on BESM because I found it too crunchy on the GM side. Monster stats were as complex as character stats (as they were built, you guessed it, using the same rules) and I didn't need to know that green slimes had the defect "Cannot Talk" that gave them 2 build points for more attributes - especially when monsters could be built from any number of points the GM deemed fit.
I never tried OVA but from a read-through it seems like a more freeform spiritual successor of BESM.
I first came across this system when I saw the Tenchi Muyo RPG in a hobby shop back when I was in high school.
I've always wanted to play this one.
If I recall correctly, OVA have all the type of character you described in the sample PG section. I never played it. It appears to be quite rules light, with easy character creation.
Online there's a game called Tokyo heroes sentai that claim to be all about magical girl, power rangers and giant robot. But I think it looks like it's incomplete, forgotten, and quite metagamey-narrativistic.
Besm is quite similar to many classics super rpg, and I think most classic supers rpg can do Manga superheroes quite well.
Rifts Japan combined with Heroes Unlimited could give you what you want, but maybe in a roundabout way. You might have to use the Conversion Book One for some of the superpowers as well. Might not be worth the investment, but there's some cool stuff in there.
You're looking for one of the editions of BESM.
Although, I personally don't think it handles mecha worth a damn.
Robotech by Palladium Books allows you to play a Veritech pilot. Even if it is no longer published, Macross II by the same publisher, allows you to play a Valkyrie pilot.
I think thses games are out of print but they are also mecha oriented : Heavy Gear and Mekton.
There is also an (out of print) Bubblegum Crisis RPG.
There was a RPG magazine in Brazil back in the day and the people who wrote it also wrote a sentai RPG (sentai TV shows were huge in Brazil back in the 1980s. Go figure) called Defensores de Tóquio (literally, "Defenders of Tokyo"). I never did check it out because the magazine was crap and I figured the game would be crap too, but still, there it is.
Black Tokyo, if all the PCs don't mind being Hentai victims.
a game I just got a copy of via being a backer on kickstarter is Valor. it enables you to design your own special attacks and defenses via a number of options.
I'll second BESM and Double Cross. Especially as BESM went on to be the foundation for the Supers RPGs Silver Age Sentinels and The Authority (covering Warren Ellis's run on the series).
I will also add that Mutants and Masterminds had a Mecha and Magic book to cover the more anime feel aspects of the supers genre.
There was a Dragonball Z RPG that had 3 books from R. Talsorian, which was a lot of fun.
and for a more freeform style, I was in a group that was using the Over the Edge RPG for an anything goes Ranma 1/2 -esque game.
Quote from: CRKrueger;826526Black Tokyo, if all the PCs don't mind being Hentai victims.
damit i spent ages trying to come up with a black tokyo joke that fit and you just came right out and made it still funny with a joke that only half worked
im jealous
FWIW I would recommend OVA over BESM. However, I would recommend "your favourite generic system" over either of those as neither has any real anime flavour embedded in it.
you know my favorite Japanese superhero was not even an anime hero
big man japan was a good movie (stupid stupid ending aside)
BESM as others have mentioned does the baser job pretty darn well.
Rifts does it too if you are ok with some heavy editing to get the job done.
Probably one of the better ones that can do Japanese super heroes is actually Mekton Zeta. The system scales well from the ubiquitous Tokatsu style Metal Hero stories up to the giant robot stage. Magical weapons can be recreated with Zeta Plus even. A really versatile system. People have even recreated Transformers with it.
Quote from: The Butcher;826497There was a RPG magazine in Brazil back in the day and the people who wrote it also wrote a sentai RPG (sentai TV shows were huge in Brazil back in the 1980s. Go figure) called Defensores de Tóquio (literally, "Defenders of Tokyo"). I never did check it out because the magazine was crap and I figured the game would be crap too, but still, there it is.
There are a few Uruguayan gamers living here in Montevideo now that were originally from the frontier area with Brazil, they grew up reading in spanish and portuguese (and not really speaking either!). Several of them swear by how awesome Defensores de Toquio was.
Quote from: RPGPundit;827048There are a few Uruguayan gamers living here in Montevideo now that were originally from the frontier area with Brazil, they grew up reading in spanish and portuguese (and not really speaking either!). Several of them swear by how awesome Defensores de Toquio was.
Really? Now there's a surprise.
Did they play any other Brazilian RPGs?
HERO could handle this as well.
While it doesn't have mechs this setting is pretty close:
http://surbrook.devermore.net/worldbooks/kazei5/kazei5.html
Quote from: RPGPundit;827048There are a few Uruguayan gamers living here in Montevideo now that were originally from the frontier area with Brazil, they grew up reading in spanish and portuguese (and not really speaking either!). Several of them swear by how awesome Defensores de Toquio was.
What about the Brazilian RPG Quest? Seems like it has lots of support?
Quote from: The Butcher;827077Really? Now there's a surprise.
Did they play any other Brazilian RPGs?
Yes, a few others. I've heard of "Tormenta" and something similar to "3D&T" or something like that?
Also, you can tell the Uruguayan gamers that come from the north (aside from their weird "portuniol" dialect) because they're the only GURPS fans in the country. GURPS was apparently really huge in Brazil (don't know if it still is), whereas it was never huge in the Spanish-speaking countries (something to do with a portuguese translation of GURPS having been one of the first big games readily available in Brazil, I believe).
3D&T is the third edition of Defensores de Tóquio.
Tormenta was a fantasy RPG from the same authors, later statted up for d20/3.5e.
As for GURPS, correct on both counts: one of the first Portuguese-language RPG (barring the 1985 or 1986 Red Box translation from Portugal, nearly mythically hard to find in Brazil) and absolutely huge back in the day. Steve Jackson was a guest of honor in a couple of cons in the early 90s in Rio.
It's certainly got its diehard fans, but it's not as often seen out there in the wild. But then again, what is? I haven't attended a RPG meet-up in a while, but when I see the announcements and planned games, I get the impression that it's eay, way down from the early 1990s.
Quote from: The Butcher;827570Steve Jackson was a guest of honor in a couple of cons in the early 90s in Rio.
I remember reading the rumor or claim that those conventions were absolutely huge (as in: Gen Con proportions).
Is that true?
Big, yeah — the 1990s were the South American "fad" period for RPGs, much like the 1980s in the Anglosphere — but I don't think they were Gen Con big.
Quote from: The Butcher;8275703D&T is the third edition of Defensores de Tóquio.
Tormenta was a fantasy RPG from the same authors, later statted up for d20/3.5e.
As for GURPS, correct on both counts: one of the first Portuguese-language RPG (barring the 1985 or 1986 Red Box translation from Portugal, nearly mythically hard to find in Brazil) and absolutely huge back in the day. Steve Jackson was a guest of honor in a couple of cons in the early 90s in Rio.
It's certainly got its diehard fans, but it's not as often seen out there in the wild. But then again, what is? I haven't attended a RPG meet-up in a while, but when I see the announcements and planned games, I get the impression that it's eay, way down from the early 1990s.
i just acquired a freshly translated character background table for 3d&t
Quote from: The Butcher;8275703D&T is the third edition of Defensores de Tóquio.
Tormenta was a fantasy RPG from the same authors, later statted up for d20/3.5e.
Yes, Tormenta is another one that's very popular with the northerners.