#kadungganan

[spectercrums]

Finally got around to designing the first Kadungganan I ever played in a Gubat Banwa oneshot called DARK UPON PEARLSLIGHT. A Lunar Prince who was assassinated but brought back to life by someone's selflessness, he will make sure that sacrifice was not in vain.

[anyonghalimaw]

gubat banwa makes me feel so normal and not insane <- said thru gritted teeth

[theresattrpgforthat]

hi! have you seen the TTRPGS for Palestine bundle yet? and do you have any recommendations from it

https://tiltify.com/@jesthehuman/ttrpgs-for-palestine

THEME: TTRPGS for Palestine

The TTRPGs for Palestine Bundle is going from April 12 to May 7, so there's not much time left to get it, but here's some recommendations of some really awesome games that you can find in it.

Gubat Banwa, by makapatag.

GUBAT BANWA is a Martial Arts Tactics and War Drama Tabletop RPG where you play as martial artists poised to change the world: Kadungganan: the cavalry, the wandering swordsmen, the tide turners, the knights-errant, the ones to call in darkest night in a world inspired and centering Southeast Asian folklore.

Witness, grand warriors, honorable gallants that trudge and toil under kings and haloes. Witness, KADUNGGANAN, that refulgent name. That blasted name: WITNESS NOW. The end of days is upon us: and the new world MUST BE BORN. Bear your blades, incant your magicks. Cut open your tomorrow from the womb of violence. Inscribe your name upon the very akasha of this world. 

Gubat Banwa is designed for fans of 4th edition D&D, with in-depth character abilities that make you feel both unique and powerful, in a colourful and flavourful world full of vibrant cultures and clashing conflicts. The game uses an action economy with different action options carrying different weights, which also reminds me quite a bit of Lancer. If you want a game that pushes you to strategize with your friends and weigh your advancement options carefully, you want Gubat Banwa.

Gun & Slinger, by Nevyn Holmes.

GUN&SLINGER is an RPG geared for short, episodic sessions about a weapon and a wanderer. A Maestro and two players (Gun and Slinger) set out into a dead planet mutated by a god's forgotten child and hunt strange bounties, investigate the world and unlock hidden powers. During play, they seek to learn the nature of what’s hunting the Slinger, figure out why the Gun is sentient and discover how the world died.

This game is specifically for three players, using the rules of Go Fish as a resolution system. Gun & Slinger is all about using your resources to the best of their ability, and your resources might exist on your character sheet, but they also exist as cards in your hand.

What really intrigues me is the lore that’s baked into your character sheets. One of you is a wanderer in a twisted world, tempted by strange powers that guarantee to change you into a monster. One of you is a sentient magical gun, borne by that wanderer and designed to deliver death and pain.

Gun & Slinger has expansions included, allowing you to instead play as a wanderer possessed by a demon, a mech and a pilot fused as one, or someone who bears a cursed sword. I think the fact that it requires a small table and the fact that the characters’ lives are tied together makes this a high-stakes, terribly intimate game.

Apocalypse Frame, by Binary Star Games.

In a ruined and terraformed world where most of humanity is under the yoke of a brutal regime, the former workers of a once-remote factory - now known as The Collective - have risen up to create a future of freedom from oppression. You are an Ace - a highly skilled pilot referred from a Division in The Collective and assigned a humanoid combat vehicle known as a Frame. You and your Strike Team of fellow Aces must take on The Collective’s greatest threats, ensure its survival, and carve a path for its continued success.

Apocalypse Frame takes mechs and fits them into the LUMEN system, which centres competency as well as fast but effective rounds of combat. The game includes a variety of different threats, allowing you to tailor your campaign to your group’s tastes, and the tailoring doesn’t stop there. You choose both a division that your character belongs to, and then one of three mechs within that division, allowing players to share similar fighting styles but differ in weapons. You can also modify your basic frame, adding general modular systems alongside systems and armaments that can come with your mech, making character creation and progression exciting for folks who love tweaking and tailoring to their heart’s content.

If you’re a fan of Armored Core or Battletech, you’ll want to check out Apocalypse Frame.

Here, There Be Monsters!, by wendi yu.

No matter what they tell you, there’s still weirdness and wonder everywhere. You just have to know where to look. At the edges and cracks of ‘normal’ life we exist, we persist, and we resist: the monsters, the magicians, the anomalies, the freaks, and the outcasts. We gather in the shadows, trying our best to live our lives in a world that, when it doesn’t exactly fear or hate us, doesn't even believe in our existence.

here, there, be monsters! is a rules-lite response to monster-hunting media from the monsters' point of view. It's both a love letter and a middle finger to stuff like Hellboy (and the BPRD), the SCP Foundation, the Men in Black, the World of Darkness games and the Urban Fantasy genre in general. It is an explicitly queer, antifascist and anti-capitalist game about the monstrous and the weird, in any flavor you want, not as something to be feared, but to be cherished and protected.

Here, There, Be Monsters is a love-letter to anyone who has been made to feel monstrous, as well as an homage to media such as Hellboy, the SCP Foundation, and Men in Black. It’s urban fantasy meets organized power structures, and as the monsters, you’re here to burn those structures down.

This game uses descriptive tags to slap onto your characters to represent what they can do. You can choose from a number of different monster character backgrounds to give you guidance towards, and there’s plenty of monsters both in the base game and in the game jam wendi ran back in 2022. If you want a game of power, anti-capitalism, and punching up, this is the game for you.

Pale Dot, by Devin Nelson.

Pale Dot is a collaborative storytelling game for 2-5 players about a crew of non-human cosmonauts leaving their planet to explore a strange solar system, finding threads to unravel the unknown along the way. It is fantastical, surreal, and perhaps very unlike humanity’s own ventures in space exploration. Though one thing is universal: leaving home is terrifying, dangerous, humbling, and a catalyst for changing one’s perspective. 

Pale Dot is a GM-less game where players work together to create an alien setting and subsequently envelop it in cosmic mystery, embodying cosmonauts called Dustlings, as well as one of 5 different settings. During their journey they will be able to travel to 24 different locations within their solar system, each with several prompts for improvisational scenes. Each player will also have to manage the integrity of their cosmonaut and their shared ship while avoiding space's many perils.

The cover for Pale Dot gripped me the first time I saw it; a tiny creature in an astronaut suit, looking up in fear at something in the sky, as vegetation blooms inside their helmet. You play as the Dustlings, non-human but sentient species exploring the Cosmos, a strange, horrifying and wonderful universe that changes those who venture into it.

Mechanically, Pale Dot uses a GM-less structure similar to Dream Askew, but there feels to be a much bigger emphasis on the setting your cosmonauts explore, rather than the cosmonauts themselves. Your characters are assembled traits, drives and equipment, almost all of which can be expended to cause or solve problems. Each player is also responsible for at least one setting element, such as The Cosmic Wilderness, The Wondrous Endeavour, or The Omnipresent Danger. As you visit locations, different elements will be prompted to influence the scene, while your cosmonauts try to navigate the scene and try to finish the mission. If you want a game that is collaborative and evocative, I definitely recommend Pale Dot.

Fractal Romance, by Ostrichmonkey Games.

A never ending abstract landscape of rhythm and soft glamour. Wander the halls, rooms, and chambers. Encounter strange Denizens and get to know them better; befriend them, fall in love, just chill. Try and fill out your own blurred edges. Fractal Romance is a tabletop role playing hangout. You will pick up a character to play and explore the Fractal Palace, generating its infinite sprawl and the Denizens that inhabit it, as you play.

Fractal Romance is all about searching; for something you need, something you want, or even for who you are. It feels rather surreal, perhaps like a dream dimension that you are moving through. The game uses a deck of cards to generate rooms, as well as the denizens of this gigantic, dream-like palace. This game uses rather simplistic playbooks, each asking you to choose three descriptive words, and then uses cards to fuel your character’s actions: you have things you can always do, things that cost a card to do, and things that you must do in order to draw another card.

If what you want out of a game is a chill time with friends, moving from one vibe to another, and generating emotional stories for your characters, you might want to check out Fractal Romance.

Himbos of Myth and Mettle, by huge boar.

You are big. Big arms, big tits, big thighs, big brai- you're big where it matters. In addition to a heaving, throbbing body, glistening lightly with a thin sheen of pleasantly fragrant perspirant, you have one singular unifying trait  - come hell or high water, you are going to help.

Himbos of Myth & Mettle is a high fantasy, high camp role playing game of epic proportions (of body), for 2-5 players, one of whom will act as Game Guide.  The rules center around a simple roll under mechanic and prioritize narrative flair and cinematic descriptions. Himbos is inspired by many classic fantasy properties (and could be considered OSR adjacent) , but leans towards a more garish, salacious and queer (gay or odd, pick your fighter) style of play. It is designed with comedy and flamboyance in mind, but is not without it deeper and darker touches. It's definitely not grimdark, but there will probably be blood. Think classic fantasy pulp in style, but contemporary sensibilities, modern rules-lite mechanics, and a player philosophy centred in helping, kindness and being fucking hot.

I’ve heard rave reviews for Himbos, and I think the idea of leading an entire group of well-meaning but possibly over-ambitious adventurers is a great set-up for a game full of laughs. Himbos is very much designed for a light-hearted evening of fun, flirting, and fucking up (but in the best way).

Other Games from the Bundle I've Recommended:

Space Taxi, and Creation Myths, by GothHoblin.

Caltrop Core, by Titanomachy.

Souvenirs, by Rémi Töötätä.

Thunder in Our Hearts, by Marn. S.

Eldritch Courts of Some Repute, by AlanofAllTrades.

[kathanglangit]

Gubat Banwa is FULLY FUNDED!

In less than A DAY, we've hit our goal of $40,000! Thank you all so much! Your continued support made this massive achievement for SEA representation in TTRPGs possible. 🔥🔥

Revel in glory, Kadungganan! This victory belongs to us all!

The campaign will continue to run for the next 29 days. There are a few stretch goals still waiting up ahead, so if any of these catch your interest, do continue to spread the word about the project.

The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter was fully funded in 1 day! (But we've still got some neat surprises in the stretch goals...) Check them out here:

We cannot overstate how deeply we appreciate your support, it truly means the world to this small team from the Philippines. Now, let us see this campaign through to the end of the far horizons, shields abreast and blades gleaming and heads held high with pride.

Until glory!

[tagamantra]

cross disciplinary training in gubat banwa

so, GUBAT BANWA is a big martial arts game of esoteric martial arts. of beatdown and bone breaking. bakbakan at suntukan, pangamot ug pagdaug. it focuses on martial arts and the culture that surrounds that. during ancient seasian times (the main foundation for this game), formal categorized schools didn't exist: participating in your culture was you learning its martial arts, or a random hermit in the sea cave could teach you a secret martial art, or your family could have its own secret martial art, etc. etc.

so martial arts classes (in gubat banwa they're called Disciplines) are expressions of culture and tradition. from a mechanical side, I knew I wanted to make Gubat Banwa a multiclassing-first game, a la Lancer, for multiple reasons

I like multiclassing, I almost always multiclass

You get access to more of the game and the game's lore (much of Gubat Banwa's lore is in the disciplines)

You get to write a plurality of classes that deal with a plurality of playstyles

It makes writing Disciplines easier--they become small packages of power instead of the long Narrative Playbooks that they are a la D&D 4e's classes. this also makes making Disciplines easier as you don't have to write one for a 12 Level long progression

it creates a more emergent character progression (a Mangangayaw learning Sword Saint techniques for example might be a raider who raided a Virbanwenyo settlement and got the resident martial artist to teach him a thing or two, or it could be that they started picking up how Virbanwenyo Penitents fought)

however, Disciplines were more than just classes, they're also martial arts in their own right. So as I deepened my understanding with the Martial Arts I also found further justifications for multiclassing [which we like to call crosstraining]). these are from my and GB's Art Director Dylan's experiences from Filipino Martial Arts:

to become a true grandmaster is to learn or observe a large variety of styles (see: Johnny Chiuten, Anciong Bacon, etc.)

most real grandmasters that began their own FMA schools are those that studied and learned techniques from a wide variety of martial arts (Anciong Bacon knew Boxing and Dumog, for example. Johnny Chiuten knew multiple Chinese Martial Arts and trained in Balintawak and Lapunti, GM Filemon Caburnay learned both the arts of blacksmithing and of multiple arnis styles as he traveled across Visayas and Mindanao, and learned Kung Fu from Johnny Chiuten, before going down the path of perfecting his own fighting style that became Lapunti Arnis de Abanico)

even my own master in Lapunti who started with Lapunti was exposed to other Arnis and Martial Art styles so he was able to build his own style around it, and was able to contribute his own moves into modern Lapunti. i can see a bit of Chinese Martial Art influence in his movements now, a bunch of balintawak progression

very often if you're a student of violence, you will be learning multiple combat arts both out of necessity and out of love for movement. a balintawak warrior might have their movements augmented with jiujitsu training, a lapunti could benefit from learning sikaran, etc. etc.

kadungganan are meant to be nascent grandmasters, especially those that reach legend 12, so this is the main justification for the multiclassing instead of just having 1 martial art that you perfect. in real life this doesn't really happen, especially if you want to perfect your own fighting style. the assemblage of multiple techniques from 12 Legends worth of progression is there to facilitate the fantasy of a Kadungganan perfecting their martial art style, like the grandmasters of old

i knew since the earliest stages of gubat banwa that i wasn't going to compromise the multiclassing aspect, i just find it very serendipitous that crosstraining fits so well into the martial arts fantasy. it makes me pretty satisfied and happy, and i'm glad i didn't bend to internal talking and thinking about making a "pure discipline" progression possible

[ostermad-blog]

Gubat banwa good game.

After traveling to the nearby Isylaberde and getting beaten up by the Obispo in charge there, my kadungganan returned to their home (the Green Isle) for some downtime. The whole session was downtime actions and some drama bubbling over from character creation - the door guard who hates one of the kadungganan (a flippant sword poet who's big on talking and small on being considerate) learned that the local datu ships them and another kadungganan due to that second kadungganan's Feast downtime action. They understandably started commissioning fanfic to garner the datu's favor, which got around and now people are looking at them funny and sniggering.

The besotted son of the obispo the war band just lost to? It joined the revenge raid on the Green Isle and voluntarily stayed behind/surrendered to be near the object of its affections. Said kadungganan learned it was imprisoned, went to get the guards to make its stay uncomfortable and terrible, the guards pushed back, and in the ensuing argument, the guard discovers that this kadungganan was the person the prisoner had been writing love poems to, nonstop since arriving in custody. The kadungganan needed to stop anyone else from hearing about this, so she beat the poor fellow up in a hallway.

The local datu, wanting to keep the pow for ramsom purposes, decides keeping it in custody is risking a rescue raid by the obispo and releases said pow into the kadungganan's custody, and sends them on a long journey into the wilderness while the datu gets the ransom worked out.

Oh, and also that kadungganan's brother (heir to the Dawneater Crown) is coming to chase a lead on the murderer of another kadungganan:s father (that is another member of the war band). The murderer had decided to confess to the brother, but had to leave a letter instead, since the warband was getting shipped off on this long trek. And the kadungganan whose father was murdered? Burns the letter so the brother never reads it.

This game absolutely fucks.

[sepulchretide]

Last night I had a dream about Gubat Banwa, where I was my character ingame, and it was being narrated by a GM.

You face the leader of the brigands, the village burning behind you. They were thieves of life and fate, and they would only know blood & death at you and your fellow Kadungganan's hands.

Your bodies meet in a flurry of limbs and staggering fury as your conflict drags you both from the bank of the river into its rushing depths. You manage to overtake the leader in your death-roil, dunking him beneath the water, firmly placing your foot against his throat while your arms keep the rest of his body constrained.

Despite his intense efforts, they grow weaker by the second as you perform the crocodile's rites, the dragon's way of drowning. His lungs fill with mud and water, and eventually he goes still.

Perhaps this was not the death he was expecting, but it was one he deserved when he told you the people of this village were to be slaves.

[ghostofacrow]

Crow plays Gubat Banwa Pt 2: The first Violence

I'll have to write this one in two parts because I briefly want to go over my setup, but I don't have time for the battle itself today, especially because I'm sure it'll take longer since I still don't know what I'm doing.

So here it is! The moon is bright tonight, watching over the Kadungganan trying to escape the forest's demon infestation. Unfortunately, they have been cornered by a riverbend - the bridge leading back to the coast has been destroyed, so now the only way out is for these three strangers to beat back the demon hoard advancing on them.

I don't normally like using Tabletop Simulator for roleplaying games - the physics can be a bit wonky and it's really bad for sheet management, but it was the easiest way I could think of to make 3D terrain. The rulebook suggests using colors for terrain height, which is very good (and actually how I do it normally for other games) but having a map in actual 3D, even if it's digital, does look pretty nice.

It helps that I'm playing alone, so sharing sheets isn't nearly as important, and that we're still at legend 0, so there isn't that much information I even need to have at hand. I also realized at this point that all the discipline information you need for a legend 0 character is contained on one page, which is very handy. So I just had to import that single page per character and their prowesses.

I probably should have at least given the drawings a flat color tint so they're easier to tell apart but I didn't think of that until later. The balancing advice in the book suggests to use the number of Kadungganan + 2 as a base, which would be 5 in this case. I settled on six - I didn't know what enemies to use so I just picked the first one in each style and added the demon warrior from the demon's unique units. This also means they're pretty easy to color coordinate since the styles already have associated colors, except for the extra demon warrior

Behold, the meeple I stole from a different game gruesome visage of the terrifying demon warrior. Finally I looked through all of the status effects I was actually going to need and made little tokens for them, and added a bowl of go pieces to use for counting things. That's the setup done so far, I think. I probably missed something, but I'll see that when the time comes. There was one other reason I decided to use tabletop simulator for this, and it's that the design feels (and I mean this as a compliment) boardgamey. The abilities generally have straightforward effects, and status effects are a binary affair - either you are poisoned, or you're not, so they're easy to track with tokens, and most of the abilities have straight forward effects like "push the enemy 1 tile" or "if the enemy is aflame, deal 1d4 extra damage". These secondary effects have no saving throw-like mechanic either, unless the enemy evades the attack outright or is immune to the effect, it's going to happen, which should make most of the effects here very easy to track visually. Last last pregame observation - I notice while writing this that demons are immune to aflame and resistant to fire attacks and uuuhm

This makes the Baril Witch situation even worse then I was worried about initially because it makes half of their abilities and their thunderbolt gain condition either not work or very bad. It's not that big of a deal since I'm playing every character, but if this was a normal game with one character per person, I'd be a bit disappointed as Nasirakna's player. It happens, not everyone is good in every fight, but that does mean I'll have to vary up the enemy factions going forward.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm back a day later, time to actually start now! Everything below this is a play by play of the first resound of combat - the next post after this one will be the after action report, if you want to skip to my general observations (this part is might be annoying to read and hard to understand, I honestly can't tell). I already rolled the divination dice when I did the setup earlier and got 1, 5, 8, 7 - the odds outnumber the evens, so the enemies go first. I'll keep the victory and defeat conditions simple for this one, the Kadungganan win if they defeat all enemies and loose if all three of them get defeated.

For some reason, the figures clip into the tiles, but only on some of the tiles. I don't know why this happens other then tabletop simulators janky physics but I also don't care. Everything is set up now, the enemy sentinel moves first.

The enemy types have these tables to determine what they do on their turn if you play without a GM/Umalagad, here's the one from the Demon Guard, the enemy sentinel (the blue enemy on the map here):

This is the first time I've seen pseudo-AI like this in a tactics ttrpg and I'm honestly a bit skeptical of how well it's going to work, but the idea is so good that I really hope I'm wrong here and it functions well. One of the benefits of this being a tabletop game is that, if you roll something silly here, you can always just ignore it and do something that makes more sense or is more fun, and the rulebook is open about this too.

I got a 6 so Rush + Shield Charge + Inflict Violence and it turns out I am proven wrong immediately because this is a solid turn (I'll put the exact riff breakdowns in the alt text)

Yes the wide open token is a door, this is because I couldn't think of something less stupid looking yesterday.

Nasirakna gets to deal 1d4 (4) Damage to the Guard from her Overwatch Aura ("While you have Thunderbolts, you have an Overwatch Aura 3. Any enemy that moves into or leaves a tile in this aura you may deal d4 DMG against, once per enemy per Riff.")

Dranreb goes next and moves around the enemy like this, allowing him to flank and ram into them from the side using his "Shield Charge" Inflict Violence, pushing the enemy one tile away and moving after them.

I get to roll 2 violence dice and pick the highest one because of the flanking here, and I got a 1 and 2, which is a dogshit result, but very useful here for demonstration purposes. The damage of my attack here is 2 (from the die) + 3 (Dranreb's Ferocity) and this gets reduced by 5 (the Demon Guard's Parry). 2+3-5 is normally 0, but damage can't fall below 1, this means the secondary effect (pushing the enemy) still happens anyway. The secondary effects are only avoided if the enemy dodges the attack completely, which usually only happens if you roll a 1. For reasons that you can probably figure out by looking at the map here, the push is more important to me in this situation then the actual damage. I really appreciate the lack of a saving throw-like mechanic here, non-damaging effects like applying poison or moving the enemies around is what you need for combos or to set up cool plays by your friends, so just letting them happen avoids a lot of frustration. You also gain a thunderbolt if your attack gets evaded or deals minimum damage, so being one point off from snakeeyes was maybe ... good? actually?? in this specific situation.

Dranreb has 1 more Beat left, and originally I was going to use his Shield Bash Inflict Violence, which also pushes the target 1 tile (and would push the enemy into the river here) and would give Dranreb d6 Block. Unfortunately, its violence die is a d6 and because this would be my second attack in this riff, I'd have to make it at 2 demerit - roll 3d6 keep the lowest one. If I land a 1 on ANY of the 3d6 here, it means the attack fails, and that's a bigger risk then I'm willing to take. Thankfully, Shove (push an adjacent fighter 1 tile) is also a basic technique that everyone has access to and doesn't require to roll anything, so I can just push the enemy into the river anyway.

Goodbye. The Guard has jump 1, so he can only move one terrain height up at a time, which means they can't get back up here and has to walk all the way around. They also take 2d6 (4+4) damage from the fall. Really fun and cool move! In retrospect, it would have been smarter to move the enemy to the tile below Haraw to make pushing them off like this slightly harder, but I genuinely didn't think about that until I started planning Dranreb's turn. The decision to combine to hit and damage rolls into one removes a lot of the more annoying randomness in tabletop games (well, in D&D and its children specifically), but I don't know how I feel about attacks with lower damage potential also having a higher chance to miss completely, especially when the attack is already at demerit. It's only a difference of about 12% at 2 demerit between d6s and d8s, which isn't that much, but worth keeping in mind if you're attacking more then once. The demon Raider (a Lancer) is going to go next and I got Rush + Inflict Violence + Rush on the Gambit table. This is pretty straight forward so I'm not going to break it down in detail, they're just going to move in and attack Haraw, who is the closest to them, and then retreat back up the hill. Nothing too complicated except

Rolling the maximum value on a melee attack means it combos and gets rolled again and added together. They also gain an extra 1d6 bonus damage to their next attack after rushing their full speed, which puts us at a whopping 8+4+1+FER(7) = 20(!) damage. Haraw's PAR is 3 so that's 17. This early and she's already at 9/30 POS.

Haraw is also going to go next and she's still taunted by the Guard that fell into the river, which means all her attacks against enemies other then the Guard suffer demerit. Thankfully, she has other options!

Not an attack, so it doesn't count towards the number of attacks per Riff, and nothing to roll here. Dropping the raider enemy into the river is going to be less effective - their jump is 2, so they could get back up easily and wouldn't take fall damage. But the map does have a dangerous terrain spike growth, so I'm going to knock him in there instead. The description for dangerous terrain says that it deals 2 damage every time you enter it. I'm not sure if multiple connected tiles of the same type of dangerous terrain count as entering it once, or if it means every tile you enter, but I'm interpreting it as the latter because it works in my favor here it makes more sense to me that continuing to move through a spiky undergrowth would keep dealing damage repeatedly.

The Corpseflower Curse is the most interesting part - its violence die is a d4, which means the chance to miss is pretty high, especially since Haraw is still taunted by the Guard and has demerit from it. But sliding the enemy down into the bramble first means Haraw is at a higher elevation now, her ranged attacks gain merit against this demon. So at least I'm rolling the d4 normally, get a 3, and put down the field. Flower Balyans gain a thunderbolt from putting down one of the flower fields, which I immediately spend on

...and end her riff. Ending a riff cleanses Wide Open too, and I'm just noticing now that I didn't remove it from Dranreb after his riff. The annoying thing about writing this down as it's happening is that I'm immortalising all the small mistakes I normally wouldn't catch or quietly fix later. The enemy Witch goes next, rushes (through the dangerous terrain) and dazes Dranreb and Nasirakna. Daze gives all of your attacks demerit and all attacks against you merit, but this could have been worse.

Nasirakna is up next and uhm. She doesn't have a lot of options here due to the enemies all being resistant to Fire and immune to the Aflame status effect

They're weak to Soul at least but that still means the ideal strategy is to get into a high position and snipe repeatedly. He's going to spend 1 beat to climb up into the tree next to him, and then use Bala Osuwang on the Raider - the height advantage nullifies the demerit from dazed. Aaand I rolled a 1. The next attack would be at 2 demerit, but at least I can spend 1 thunderbolt on Joss Reloads (see above) so my chance to hit looks slightly less bad....aaaaand I got another 1. This does at least mean I get the thunderbolt back and can use Joss Reloads again to gain 1 Merit for their next riff. I was really hoping I might be able to finish the Raider off but it wasn't meant to be.

The enemy archer gets into a tree of their own and shoots at Dranreb twice (and unlike some fighters here, hits both times). The Warrior Demon rushes twice, taking 8 damage from the dangerous terrain, and attacks Haraw, which is enough to defeat her, and also inflicts bleeding. This doesn't mean she's out of the battle, she's just debuffed until she recovered, Kadungganan don't risk death until they get 5 wounds, and you get one every time you take damage while at 0 POS. Getting knocked out and having to sit on the sidelines for half the fight sucks ass, so I appreciate not making characters drop unconscious. They only get 2 beats so their action economy is still being taxed, but they still get to do stuff, which is the important part.

I might have bitten more off more then I can chew with the enemies here, but what I've played so far already looks really promising. The random enemy behavior works surprisingly well, and the player abilities are very fun, but if I want to finish this battle in a reasonable amount of time, I'll have to stop writing down every move. The next post is going to be a highlight reel and my overall thoughts on how this battle went. It's not looking good!

[bipedalseal]

acciddentally typed “gubat banana” instead of “gubat banwa” and. sudden mental image of kadungganan fighting with turon at bananaq

[tagapagsalaysay]

playing gubat banwa rn and Honesylt how fun i might make ihs kadungganan

[yoshicolonoscopyfootageofficial]

Did my first solo session of Gubat Banwa today. It went well I think I got in a fight with some Virbanwans and made a friend in a Datu. This is the stuff I wrote as a prelude to all that.

My kadungganan is Sakra Salot, daughter of artists who would frequently wander the jungles to gather lac bugs to be turned into dye, as well as their resins from trees. One day, she was out gathering during a raid from a nearby Virbanwan settlement, and taken captive. The bugs she had gathered presented her with an odd salvation, encasing her and staining her skin, for her to be reborn as a Mambabarang, a pestilential witch. With her new power, she tore her way out of the war camp she was held in and ran for the hills, afraid to face her family after her rebirth

[spectercrums]

I'm running a game of Gubat Banwa and one of my players, @shishibro, didn't have unique art of their Kadungganan, Hakim, so I took it upon myself to design him!

[dragonkid11]

Gubat Banwa by Makapatag is a Southeast Asian fantasy martial arts Role-Playing Game, inspired by the refulgent cultures of Southeast Asia. Raise your spears, KADUNGGANAN, you elite warrior-braves and asura-knights who travel The Sword Isles to prove their conviction and dictate the fate of the world. Revel in larger-than-life war drama like in Asian Dramas, ballistic tactical martial arts grid gameplay in the vein of Lancer or Final Fantasy Tactics, and find glory beyond heaven. Wield the Thunderbolt of Liberation! Rejoice! In the Glory of Combat!

[theresattrpgforthat]

my girlfriend really wants a game that is "crunchy" about how you build a whole character, ie. having "mechanics" for the fantasy of said characters. an example would be spheres for pathfinder or 5e. we're just looking for other ideas! we both love pbta and we both love 5e, but sometimes you want to chew on the system a little.

THEME: Mechanically Dense Characters

Alright, so let’s see what I can recommend that I haven’t recommended a lot yet. I’m going to try and approach this with a few different genres, as well as a few different systems. There will also be links to related rec posts at the end!

Into the Black, by Monkey’s Paw Games.

INTO THE BLACK is a sci-fi roleplaying game where one or more players take on the role of Management and presents a futuristic universe of corporate oppression and class warfare, while others take on the role of Freelancers and create characters to struggle and survive in that universe. Players must navigate and explore a strange and wondrous galaxy while deeply indebted to an interstellar corporation. Life among the stars, then, is about treading the razor's edge of struggling for survival and finding joy and love where one can.

Into the Black is built on the Into the Odd rules system, created by Chris McDowell. This places it into the OSR family of games. Now, OSR games are typically pretty lethal at low levels, and Into the Black is no different, but I know that 5E has the same kind of problem, to the point that many people will skip first level altogether.

In Into the Black, your character starts with an occupation, a background, randomly rolled abilities, and some gear. Once you advance to your first level, you take one of two classes, and customize from there. Technicians learn new occupations while Specialists take on new Kinesis Abilities, which are paranormal abilities that fit the space setting. You’ll chew through characters pretty quickly here, but I think that finding a character that does survive past the first few levels might be akin to a Nuzlocke run in a Pokemon game - you care a lot about the person who survives past a certain point, and your investment will help you generate this character’s thoughts, feelings and reactions in the game.

Gubat Banwa, by Makapatag.

GUBAT BANWA is a Martial Arts Tactics and War Drama Tabletop RPG where you play as martial artists poised to change the world: Kadungganan: the cavalry, the wandering swordsmen, the tide turners, the knights-errant, the ones to call in darkest night in a world inspired and centering Southeast Asian folklore.

Witness, grand warriors, honorable gallants that trudge and toil under kings and haloes. Witness, KADUNGGANAN, that refulgent name. That blasted name: WITNESS NOW. The end of days is upon us: and the new world MUST BE BORN. Bear your blades, incant your magicks. Cut open your tomorrow from the womb of violence. Inscribe your name upon the very akasha of this world. 

There are plenty of mechanics to immerse yourself in when it comes to the Kadungganan of Gubat Banwa. You have a homeland, a social class, defining life events, a profession, a religion, and a specialization. These choices give you pieces of your backstory, but they also give you skills. You’ll also choose a Discipline, a martial art that your character is currently practising, which defines your character’s philosophy and the way they carry themself into battle. Various cultures have collections of different disciplines, with each flavour receiving special abilities, as well as thematic advice on how they present themselves in battle. If you like games that give you extremely cool abilities and badass weaponry, and tie everything in your character to integral pieces of the setting, then Gubat Banwa is for you.

Neon Nights, by EfanGamez.

In Jeriko City, everybody wants to be somebody. Who do you wanna be?

Neon Nights is a cyberpunk/dystopian tabletop RPG set on Earth after a nuclear war devastated the entire planet. After hundreds of years of thousands of people roaming the desolate, irradiated Great Wastes, megacities emerged from the dust of deserts. Where there was once crumbling roads and dancing dust devils now stand skyscrapers towering over hundreds of thousands of roaming pedestrians walking the streets of Jeriko City, located on the East Coast of the once powerful United States of America.

Neon Nights uses a point-buy system to increase parts of your character sheet as you like, which gives you a lot of flexibility when cobbling together a concept. You use points to increase traits, which seem to affect your rolls, perks, which are special abilities used in specific situations, and World Stats, which determine how your character is seen by the rest of the world. How famous are you? How feared? How much respect are you granted? At character creation this may be a guide for the GM as to how your character is received by different elements of society. And these arenas will change depending on what you do in the game. You’ll also choose Occupations which give you pre-determined modifiers and skills that make your character unique. Finally, there’s your gear! Biotech, consumables, and weapons all give your character tools to use in whatever situations you find yourselves in.

Mutants in the Now, by Julian Kay.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, they ruled the streets, kick-flipping off of villainous faces and slipping into the shadows. Then, they vanished from the world of tabletop gaming.

But they’re back. And ready to KICK BUTT.

Mutants in the Now is a retromodern retake on the mutant animal role-playing games long past and left behind by licensing. Mutants fight to survive, thrive, and make the world better for themselves and humanity.

If you want unlimited options, Mutants in the Now has options. Over 130 animal species and over 200 mutation traits are in the basic book, along with fourteen combat styles, psionic powers, and detailed rules about combat, allies, villains, and more. You can roll randomly for your animal, and spend points to improve them via mutations, combat styles etc.

There’s a lot of pieces that you can look at and then generate a backstory based off of the character you’ve created, and the setting is high action, Saturday-morning-cartoon in theme, but the details are up to your play group. If you like limitless possibilities for character creation, you should check out Mutants in the Now (and it’s expansion, Mutants in the Next!)

Other Posts To Check Out

All The Dice

Branching Out From D&D

Character Customization

Echoes of D&D

Tactical Combat

Rules-Lite Systems with Classes

[kathanglangit]

The First Blade: Balaraw - Winged Dagger

I realize I haven't been explicit about it on here yet (mostly because I'm not the best at keeping all my social media profiles up to date), but I am involved in the development of a Tabletop Roleplaying Game It's called Gubat Banwa- a TTRPG based around tactical grid combat, contemplative war drama, and high-flying martial arts, all of which taking place in an unapologetically Southeast Asian-inspired fantasy setting, developed by @makapatag with art direction by @villain-returns. Initially I developed the script that is used in the gamebook and diegetically in the setting- called Kasuratan- but I'll talk about that elsewhere.

With the Kickstarter launch imminent, I thought I'd do a bunch of Twitter X threads on a bunch of weapons I've drawn for the game counting down the final week before the launch. Then I thought: "Why aren't I posting these on tumblr also, at least I wouldn't lose my mind over character counts over here"- so here we are. These were supposed to be posted as Swordtember drawings, but then the KS launch got moved to October. Most of these blades are of Philippine make, since that is where my knowledge-base is and what I'm comfortable enough to share knowledge about. I thought it'd be nice to share a bit of blade knowledge from some of the cultures that inspired the setting. Without further ado, let us begin with the BALARAW.

Also known as a "winged dagger", it is characterized by its unique shape, consisting of a short leaf-shaped blade driven with the tang out into a hilt with two distinct protrusions, creating three prongs on the back with the tang included.

(Photos from an exhibit at The Met)

They may be held at the hilt like a regular knife, or they may be held in a manner not too dissimilar from how our neighbors in Southeast Asia hold keris. One may imagine it like a "push dagger" for lack of other reference points. It might be likened to the katar as well, in some sense.

(Sketches by the Gubat Banwa Art Director himself) Nowadays, the blade is frequently attributed to the People of the Upstream- the Mandaya group of peoples- though they would have seen much wider use in their day, likely also spanning across what is now the Visayas region of the Philippines.

(Modern rendition by Panday Keiven Tolentino of Itak Mindoro, Photo by Ramon H. Bathan) Something I've noticed from looking at Philippine blades all the time is that symmetrical, double-edged blades like these are rare, here. Blades that lend themselves more to stabbing than anything else aren't very prevalent either, and blades that do not- at first glance- appear to be made with tool use/foliage clearing/farmwork in mind don't make up the majority of specimens. The balaraw is unique in several different respects, and any self-respecting warrior Kadungganan of Gubat Banwa's Sword Isles would do well to mind its bite. The weapon makes an appearance in Gubat Banwa in the hands of the Beast Hunter- one of the many Disciplines ("character classes") whose techniques your character can learn in-game.

The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 7 days! Check it out here:

We'd appreciate any and all help in getting the word out. Support an independent TTRPG made by a team from the global south, looking to make waves through a fantasy setting where the Southeast Asian inspirations takes center stage!

[tagamantra]

Blades to the stars Kadungganan! 

I see your interest in Gubat Banwa. Don't know where to start? Try the free Quickstart over on the itch! Includes the basic rules, pregenerated Kadungganan, and the starting adventure SHATTER THE STEEL!

Need more? Let not the flame in your eyes be quenched by satisfaction! Leap into the most premium version of Gubat Banwa with the KS!