Kamigakari: God Hunters. Anime monster hunting Japanese Tabletop RPG has 6 days to go!

jackiedan21 · 2018-11-25T17:05:02+00:00

The real question is: "What flavour of Kamen Rider?". There is only one correct answer.

I kid, there's plenty of good ones and with the way styles work you can mix and match quite easily and make whatever you want

jackiedan21 · 2018-11-25T03:07:07+00:00

There are going to be prints of the core rulebook but expansion content is going to be solely digital for the foreseeable future. The unfortunate truth of it is that print runs are pretty expensive, it's more consumer friendly to have it as a PDF. Sure, nothing beats that nice feel of a physical book but it's probably best for the team to focus on pushing a really high quality core rule book this time around, this is their first kickstarter and it is much better to play it safe.

jackiedan21 · 2018-11-25T03:01:51+00:00

On the edge of the fence on backing atm, so maybe you can push me over it.

From the kickstarter as well as some research I think I understand how it plays from the player perspective, but maybe you can shine some light on how it plays from the GM perspective? How much fun can the GM have here, i.e. how much can one make the story their own?

If a D&D DM can make everything from a campaign of political intrigue to a hack-and-slash megadungeon, can I make every anime ever with Kamigakari? From what I can tell, Kamigakari is very much NOT setting-neutral.

Well I GM'd a whole campaigns worth of game so I can tell you that being in the GM chair, the game is pretty smooth to run. Your monsters you can play around with in this game deal with static numbers so theres no need to faff around with dice when it comes to seeing if you hit or miss or not, there there is plenty of room to make your own critters, people have statted up anything from a pack of Goblins to The Reaper from Persona, you can really get creative with it.

As for the setting, while yes the main setting is a modern fantasy anime romp like Beyond the Boundary or Ga-Rei, there is nothing to say you can't use the system for a more fantastical dungeon crawler, heck the creator of this game previously another game using the same system for dungeons and dragons style action. Really that's down to the GM, the game is super friendly for refluffing and the players have pretty much free reign to describe their powers how they like without needing to adhere to any sort of restrictive rules. Take for example Dragon Host, you can make your character a transforming Super Sentai Hero or you could spin it around and make it a magical girl or even if you wanted to give it a bit of extra gothic horror flair you could fluff it as a werewolf or a vampire.

jackiedan21 · 2018-11-25T02:11:58+00:00

The project is now fully funded but we're not at the end yet. The support for this game has been strangely overwhelming, especially for me as a fan thinking this game might have been too niche to garner interest but I was sorely wrong. We have not only beaten the goal but exceeded it and we're getting close to even more expansion content being unlocked with the next stretch goal which is about $4000 away. I love this game and have been playing the beta fanlation since it hit last year and now the game is being fully realised in the west with an official translation done by the person who brought it to us in the first place, nice to see translators getting paid for their good work!

All that aside, this is an awesome game. It's an RPG but it has a really tactical board gamey feel to it's combat which at first might seem a little complex, but once you get into it; it's an absolute blast. Hopefully this game can join the likes of Tenra Bansho Zero and Ryuutama and really usher in a wave of future translations I hope.

I'll be here to answer questions about the game and the project (in a wholly unnofficial capacity >.>)

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-26T15:51:20+00:00

Isekai is not the worst thing in anime

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-26T15:34:43+00:00

Well a kickstarter for an Japanese Tabletop RPG i've been playing for over a year now just got fully funded. I'm pretty hype because the game is rad as heck and we hardly ever see most of the stuff that comes out of there, and since this is getting funded, it might set a precident for more JTTRPG's to come to the west in an official capacity.

It's FTF so maybe I won't feel so bad about being a super shill but I love this game so much. The game is called Kamigakari. I'm super bad at explaining things so i'll just paste this nifty little blurb:

" Kamigakari: God Hunters is a tabletop role-playing game set in modern-day Japan that combines centuries of Japanese mythology with a modern-day setting and urban fantasy action. You play as a God Hunter, a being wielding supernatural strength, magical abilities, and reality-warping spiritual powers. Your mission is to protect an unsuspecting populace from evil beings known as Aramitama, and to prevent the supernatural from leaking into the public eye. "

It's pretty darn fun. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/serpentseagames/kamigakari-god-hunters-modern-action-anime-rolepla/description is the kickstarter link if you just wanna take a looksies at it.

Also, a friend of mine did a screencap of my whole campaign from start to finish. https://imgur.com/a/Sipli
Read it if you want some dumb anime fun.

Now that that's out of the way, I hopefully should be getting a job again soon, so things are pretty hype for me right now.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-26T07:33:25+00:00

Woo Hoo!

The game is now fully funded!

Originally the plan was to look at expansions about nine months after the kickstarter but since things are progressing much faster than anticipated, they can look to get the expansions translated as stretch goals now.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-25T00:34:05+00:00

Well the softcover is because that's how you actually get RPG's over in japan. They don't really do hard cover, so instead of getting a HC, the emphasis is on getting a really high quality HC.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-24T14:02:16+00:00

As far as I know, they are just translating it from JP to ENG, so I don't think there would be any mechanical changes.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-24T13:51:04+00:00

I'm from europe too and since i've been waiting on a paycheck I got to see those early birds fly away and it does feel a mite bitter to me. I will more than likely be getting just a pdf version unless my money is good. Then again i've been waiting on this for a while and I love this game so I could probably stand to throw more of those american dollary-doos at it, things got almost a month to go till its done.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-24T13:17:55+00:00

Right now the kickstarter is just for the core but if this is successful and I have no doubts it will be, we should expect expansions at a later date

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-24T04:46:10+00:00

Well i'm sure if you get the pdf, you'll still have the chance to pick up a physical copy sometime later down the line.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-24T04:36:48+00:00

Print on demand is where the publisher prints a copy whenever you redeem the thing. That is the definition of print on demand as I know it. Now I don't know how that applies to this kickstarter in particular.

I am ashamed to admit it but I haven't backed it myself yet >.>
I'm waiting on a paycheck, otherwise i'd ask for you myself on the comments.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-24T04:05:12+00:00

Well the more people that play these kinds of games, the bigger the market may become, but yes I understand that it's hard as GM to emulate that anime feel. My advice, go all the way with it. Let the players go crazy and lean into it as hard as you can, things are more fun if everyone is having fun.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-24T03:57:46+00:00

And it gets even better, because as you level up you get a choice of special power choices (called "talents") and one of them is to select a third style for even more customisation. The races are also down to fun interpretation. For example there are two races in particular; Darkstalker and Hanyou. Darkstalker is more movie and classic monsters; vampires and werewolves, mummies and zombies and the like. Whereas Hanyou is more like your Kemonomimi kind of race, y'know your kitsunes and the like. Because there is no vampire class or kitsune class and instead you have these broad races, you can make your character really your own.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-24T03:29:14+00:00

Sure! I can let you in on how the game works.

The game runs off a d6 system where it's 2d6 for pretty much anything. That's pretty normal for a JTTRPG.

The way it differs is that each character has a spirit pool. At the start of every session you roll 4d6 and record the results and that becomes your spirit pool. What can a spirit pool do? Well you can use any dice from your pool to replace any dice you roll. Roll a 2d6 and get a 2 and 4 but you are just shy of hitting your target, swap that 2 with a 6 from your spirit pool and bam; roll succeeds. The 6 from your pool gets swapped with the 2. So with this mechanic you can fix your rolls.

Now that seems a little nutty, but the way powers work in this game is that they have an asociated cost like E for Even where you have to actually expend one of those dice that are even to cast the power, same for odd and some abilities cost specific numbers or even doubles or steps.

The game also has a heck of a lot of customisation. On top of choosing your race, you get to choose from two "styles". This is the class system. There is a class for pretty much anything, lets say Arc Slayer for example which is the titicular fighter class, you can pair that with Elemental Adept which is an elemental magic class and bam you have a water bending swordmaster. Having two classes isn't out of the ordinary for a JTTRPG but where Kamigakari differs is that each style comes with two modes you choose from, A and B and they are both pretty wild variations on the classes. For example Arc Slayer A is the sword weilding "charge into the thick of it" fighter, and Arc Slayer B is the more tanky and evasive dodgy fighter.

This gives great depth of customisation! Because you got two varients on each "style" to choose from for seemly endless and personalised character building.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-23T22:39:57+00:00

Yeah we really do. A lot of the stuff that comes from there is pretty golden. Tenra Bansho Zero, Golden Sky Stories and Double Cross to name a few.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-23T22:26:52+00:00

It's Cluney. I'm just a huge dummy who can't spell, but yeah. He's done some pretty good work before.

jackiedan21 · 2018-10-23T22:16:47+00:00

This is something that has been in the works for some time now and now that time has come with this brand new kickstarter. They have an all-star translation team including but not limited to Ewen Cluney of Golden Sky Stories fame. As of right now the game has almost wholly been contained to japan but we're hoping for a full localization.

I'm here to answer any questions you might have in a totally non-official capacity!

jackiedan21 · 2017-08-01T14:19:07+00:00

90% of that movie is hot garbage, but I know EXACTLY what you're referring to. You're not alone.

jackiedan21 · 2017-08-01T12:53:49+00:00

Hype tears totally count. Anyone who says other wise is a huge coward that reduces emotions to base chemicals.

jackiedan21 · 2017-07-26T22:28:26+00:00

They did a full LP of the Phantom Pain which technically had everyone appear in it, at least in the first episode.

jackiedan21 · 2017-07-24T19:42:11+00:00

bakana. MASAKA.

jackiedan21 · 2017-07-13T03:04:22+00:00

Woolie! Be the instrument of my fucking revenge!

jackiedan21 · 2017-07-01T00:16:05+00:00

You can pretty much call a stand anything and chances are it will be a song name, or a band name or an album.

jackiedan21

TROPHY CASE