For fans of Cyberpunk 2077, today's the day Johnny Silverhand nukes Arasaka tower and kicks off the Time of The Red

The Dragon Ball Z TTRPG -- Yes, an Official One Does Exist

Before I go into the game itself, I want to talk about the creator of the franchise.

Yesterday, the world learned of the loss of the great Akira Toriyama. He was so incredibly influential to so many of us, and like many others, I was absolutely gutted by the tragic news. He was far too young.

Dragon Ball was a big part of my life growing up, and it's what helped me create bonds with so many people who became good friends. Other people online have written poetically about how much each of his series and creations have touched their hearts, and I don't know that I can do the same justice. I'm not wordy like that.

I grew up during the start of the NES era so I knew about Dragon Quest, but at the time I had no idea that the iconic character and monster designs were thanks to him. When the SNES came out and Chrono Trigger was released, I immediately recognized the style of art. Dragon Quest VIII is still my favourite, if only because it's cool to see the characters go pseudo-super saiyan. In 1995, the original dub of Dragon Ball hit airways here, and a few months later Dragon Ball Z was released. It was surreal to watch kid Goku and adult Goku every week, simultaneously. Seeing the flying nimbus, but not seeing the Power Pole, and not knowing who Piccolo or Krillin were, but recognizing Master Roshi and Bulma, and finding out Goku was an alien the whole time. It was jarring at times, but seeing references to each series like the Kamehameha Wave and capsules, helped. Then there were all the Budokai games for PS2. I practically broke my dual-shock controllers trying to win those beam battles.

This is going to get long, so I'll put a separation bar here.

When the internet finally came out publicly and schools had access, I looked up Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, discovered what anime was, learned of Akira Toriyama and how he had a comedy series called Dr. Slump, that the Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z anime were considered separate stories, but the manga kept it as Dragon Ball, etc.

Heck, when the cards came out, I was one of the first people to buy Ani-Mayhem's DBZ set.

What's really great to see is people discovering the Dragon Ball manga for the first time, hearing their thoughts on YouTube videos (namely Merphy and TotallyNotMark), and how original and groundbreaking the fight choreography is compared to others series, and how much his style has influenced current day shounen manga. And that doesn't even include how Team Four Star and DBZA has influenced people.

But, let's get into the rest of this post.

When the TTRPG came out in 1999, DBZ was such a phenomenon that our local bookstore was having trouble keeping it in stock. My gaming group ended up having to pre-pay for a copy of the TTPRG. DBZ: The Anime Adventure Game from R. Talsorian Games was a little rough around the edges when it came to balance, and how powering up worked compared to the series, especially when that system was revised in the Frieza saga book. Still, it was nothing any of us had experienced before. Up until that point, we had done AD&D, Rifts, Toon, Shadowrun, and Marvel Super Heroes.

The person who usually ran the games, ended up being the GM and we did two campaigns. I had an absolute blast. Unfortunately, I was kind of alone in that. The TTRPG doesn't leave a lot for social interaction, which a number of our players preferred doing. This is closer to a war game. As such, we never played the game system again after the two campaigns. In fact, we never even finished the second one. I still picked up all three books as they came out though, and the GM from that group still has his original Saiyan Saga book.

The first thing that made me happy, as I didn't have nearly the dice collection I do now, was all you needed were 6-sided dice. That made my life so much easier, and for the Shadowrun players, they had tubs of d6 ready to use.

When it came to the contents of the book, what I really enjoyed was seeing all the power levels, and the character art.

These power levels updated with each book, and the lore and special abilities would also update.

If you kept the game to Dragon Ball levels, you felt that you could keep the campaign going for a very long time. The character sheet was extremely simple, and there were tips on what you could build a campaign around, as well as basic suggestions on trying to keep the "main character" complex to a minimum. The Star Wars RPG systems have a similar concept where the GM is told that either everyone's a Jedi, or no one's a Jedi. Same thing for ewoks since they were so limited for weapon proficiencies (they literally could never learn how to use tech, ever, which I find ridiculous). Basically, for Dragon Ball, namekians should look at fushions to power up, or everyone should be a saiyan or half-saiyan, especially if you're bringing in the super saiyan transformation. Otherwise, no saiyans in the game at all. This way everyone stays about the same level and can't be a spotlight hog while everyone else is forced to sit back and watch the game instead of participate.

If you'd like to read a full review of it, you can check one out here. Barnabas did a great write-up.

Personally, I find it kind of wild that there's literally zero stats for dinosaurs or other prehistoric animals. Where's the T-Rex and sabertooth tiger? This feels like a massive oversight given that people live alongside dinosaurs and other extinct-in-our-world beasts.

Overall, it was original in what it tried to accomplish, and I appreciate that. We've since seen other game systems that can replicate this fairly well. I prefer BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth), and any edition works, but I know others really enjoy doing DBZ using FATE, which I can see working. I've seen people try to pull off DBZ characters using 3.5e, Pathfinder 1e and 2e, and 5e, but you'd need to homebrew your own class from the ground up, and it likely wouldn't be balanced. At best, you could maybe get something close with a 20th level character.

If you find a copy somewhere, I definitely recommend it for a one-shot, if nothing else. Maybe you can run it at a convention. I'm considering doing that. It'd be a nice send off. And this year's convention is dinosaur themed, so maybe I'll have the mission be to teach a dinosaur how to ride a ball.

In closing, I'm so grateful to Akira Toriyama for giving us the stories and designs that he did. I can not convey in words just how important the Dragon Ball franchise was for my friends and I to even have met one another, and then Chrono Trigger brought us even closer and we'd go to one friend's house every lunch (he lived across the street from school) and we'd watch him play because we were so immersed in the story and with the characters...

So much respect and admiration for him. Akira Toriyama, thank you for everything. In Eiichiro Oda (One Piece mangaka)'s words: "I wish that heaven is as jolly of a world as the one you imagined and drew."

Asian Representation in Cyberpunk 2077

For a long while, I have this idea floating about writing what Cyberpunk 2077 did about Asian representation. This long overdue but similarly complex topic that was an unintended follow up to my previous post about my argument against Orientalism in Cyberpunk 2077. In that post, I tried to write as concisely as I can but I realized that I did not articulate further using the game itself which leads to some persistent confusion and casual assumptions about the game.

As a disclaimer, I am not defending orientalism or even war crimes while discussing about Cyberpunk 2077. I am not endorsing only negative portrayals of Asian people nor defending the problematic western stereotypes of Asians in the media history. We could have a civilized discussion over this entire matter because lucky for all of you, I am fluent enough in English that I could use my own voice for this. Every words that I wrote in this series; about the topics I explored, about myself, my lived experiences, my history, my opinions and my criticism are all solely my own. I think I am uniquely qualified to talk about many aspects of this topic but I like to think I am not immune to criticism and neither was the Cyberpunk 2077 game itself. What I generally hope was my writings would help, inform, educate and hopefully clarify some of the contentious takes directed towards me, CD Projekt RED, R. Talsorian Games and the video game; Cyberpunk 2077. There was simply no perfect Asian representation that could encompass all of the wealth of diversity. We couldn't perfectly portray everything either in academia, in media, in writing, non-fiction or even fictional works either by Asians or non-Asians. Asia is the largest continent on earth. Asian people are richly diverse, complex and sometimes described to many people across various ethnicities and nationalities. All we could in representation works was to attempt, to explore, to criticize and to create more and better works as an honor to ourselves and to our people. We all have our own stories to share and our interpretations. There was so many things that I could write about Asians in Cyberpunk franchise but I intend to fully explore again that was more than just the controversial Arasaka family or the Tyger Claws. I want to talk about the Asian aesthetics of Night City and many Asian characters in the game and including Cyberpunk Edgerunners' Lucyna Kushinada and Cyberpunk 2077 : No Coincidence's Aya and because of the impending release of Phantom Liberty, I am looking forward to explore Song So-mi @ Songbird. (Especially with the OST release, I know that CDPR used traditional Korean performance Pansori as Songbird's musical leitmotif and I'm so excited to explore that once I played the expansion) But for starters;

Not all Asians are East Asians

I wished I didn't have to write that down but I realized it was something that a lot of online discourses in English seemed to center itself either by non-Asians or East Asian diaspora in Western countries. It was most apparent within these published articles : Orientalism, Cyberpunk 2077, and Yellow Peril in Science Fiction and How Cyberpunk 2077 Resurrects the 1980s’ “Japan Panic” which were very hyperfixated on Arasaka and the Tyger Claws. Another element that I noticed from these articles and by their writers, they both neglect the fact that not every diasporic Asian portrayed in Cyberpunk 20777 are East Asians. Not every Asians are Japanese or Chinese or Korean.

I am not East Asian.

I am Southeast Asian.

My V was a Malay woman like me. Someone who was flawed, imperfect and maybe portrayed many sides that was very unbecoming to the image of a Malay Muslim woman. I created this Tumblr blog mainly to share my own CorpoV. She was my own OC that I was simply obsessed with. Cyberpunk 2077 remained to be the only game that truly allowed me to craft a genuine Southeast Asian woman protagonist with her personal history that was almost relevant to me on personal level.

However, V could be anyone of any races or ethnicity. She could also be Japanese, Korean or Chinese because the game have localization with those languages. In the game, V can love sushi, drink tea, burn incense and work for a fictional Imperial Japanese company. After all, Cyberpunk 2077 is a roleplaying game . But did you know who else was also a Southeast Asian in Cyberpunk 2077?

Aha... think I don't notice the casual disrespect towards our glorious living legendary Pinoy rockerboy ever? My next post will be all about Kerry Eurodyne.

We will discuss Kerry in the TTRPG, what he become in Cyberpunk 2077, his complicated history, his character analysis, his traditional Batok tattoos, his relationships to Johnny Silverhand, their band Samurai and other Filipino representation within Cyberpunk 2077 game. However, I have to admit that my own exposure to my dear neighbouring Philippines was genuinely abysmal. I live in West Malaysia and unlike my Sabahan and Sarawakian friends, I am not exposed enough to the Phillipines. Personally, I won't claim I am an expertabout Filipino people, culture and heritage (and if you are from Phillipines, feel free to DM me, please) but I hope to do justice about our beloved rockerboy in the way he truly deserved. Didn't just make music on that boat. Busted my ass servin' drinks, waitin' tables. Free time, I-I composed till my fingers bled. - Kerry Eurodyne "Boat Song"

New Release Cyberpunk RED - Danger Gal Dossier R. Talsorian Games, Inc.

They're more than just cat ears and cute pink guns. In the Dark Future, data is power, and no one owns more data than Danger Gal, Night City's premiere investigation and security NeoCorp.

Cover of V.Max, the Anime and Manga Journal, Volume 2, Number 3, 1995. Cover artwork by Schulhof Tam, background art by Tony de Grosso. Scanned from my personal collection.

The canon queer character of the day is:

Kerry Eurodyne from the Cyberpunk series, who is bisexual.

My Cyberpunk Red Rockerboy Uriel, enjoying some nightclub downtime

Immortal Impact in Cyberpunk

Digging into the potential effects of rejuvenation treatment in #Cyberpunk went deep and explains a lot! #TTRPG

I made a Tiktok the other day where I dipped into the frightening reality of Cyberpunk’s burgeoning population of functionally immortal corporate aristocracy. This got me thinking more about it, and its potential ramifications and how we might already be seeing them in the franchise on the tabletop, in the anime, and in the video game. So, let’s dive into some speculative territory about the…

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This is the much anticipated and slightly contentious Cyberpunk Red (2020), the fourth or so iteration of the RPG ballsy enough to take the name of a whole genre for itself.

I think it does a pretty good job of earning that name — just about every facet of every sort of cyberpunk (and a LOT of variants have cropped up in forty or so years) has some sort of representation in the world of Night City (and, yea, its a city, but so dense and varied that it may as well be a whole world). The most common complaints I see about the game focus in on the art. I like the art! I think it does a good job of selling the mood and building the world.

The core of the system is fast and simple — roll a D10, add in modifier, beat the GM’s number to succeed. Easy! It doesn’t stay so easy, though. MY main complaint is that the more you dig into the game, the more discrete subsystems you encounter. A lot of it is optional, but some of it isn’t and it leaks into the core experience. It isn’t so pronounced as say, the complexity of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4E, but it feels more complex than it needed to be. The complexity does add depth, which is nice, but I’d be a little daunted bringing this to the table.

Which is a shame, because it fixes one of my biggest reservations about the original iterations of Cyberpunk: the callous live fast die faster ethos. That 80s style-over-substance stuff is in there, but there is also a lot more attention given to taking care of and defending folks in need. The old games didn’t care about people or changing the world, Red does, and lays down lots of suggestions, both explicit and implicit, on how to do it in play. I really dig that.

Kerry Eurodyne

I'm off the leash, I'm off the leash, / I break your chains, so hard to breathe. / I'll raise your violence, now I'm off the leash, / won't play your game, you won't know peace!

On Tour 2079

[ref below the cut]

Cyberpunk Red Roles explained through Gifs

Rockerboy

Solo

Netrunner

Techie

Medtech

Media

Exec

Lawman

Fixer

Nomad

So... The Witcher has a TTRPG??

So, The Witcher TTRPG is going on hiatus... which would upset me, if it wasn't for the fact that I only learned about its existence literally 5 years after its announcement. Anyways, unfortunately for The Witcher and TTRPG fans who are aware of the TTRPG's existence, Comic Book announced on the 27th of August, 2023, that the TTRPG's development has been put on hiatus until The Witcher 4 is released. This was first announced at Gen Con 2023, and later also announced via R. Talsorian Games' blog, on the 21st of August. It is a shame, but it is nice to see that unlike the director of the TV series, R. Talsorian Games and CD Projekt Red are actually interested in keeping things lore accurate.

If you're like me, having just learnt about its existence, R. Talsorian does have a quick-start guide or 'Easy Mode', as they put it. You can download it for free via the link on their website, and it's free! If you have the money to spare, there is the Core Rulebook available for $24.99 USD, and the Lords and Lands expansion for $8 USD. If you're more of a visual learner, R Talsorian Games published a playlist of videos explaining the rules and gameplay of the entire system on YouTube. If you'd like to see an actual session being run, you can watch the full 2-hour playthrough that IGN did here.

From a glance at the pregenerated character sheets, and from the first 30 minutes of the Witcher TTRPG playthrough, the system runs pretty similarly to D&D. It's set in a fantasy setting, you've got racial abilities, skills and also something similar to an armour class. The main differences is the dice system (you only need d10s and d6s), the inclusion of the Witcher as a race, the combat system, inclusion of critical wounds and the fumbling system (aka when you roll a nat 1). The inclusion of Critical Wounds definitely makes damage and getting hurt a lot more dangerous, since it's not as simple as getting someone to heal you and moving on with your day. It's a ruthless system, and the creators of the TRPG definitely intended for it be to so. Quite fitting for the Witcher, with how it's advertised as a "dark and dangerous world".

Lorewise, the Witcher TRPG is pretty friendly to people unfamiliar with Witcher, and according to the easy mode guide, the Core Rulebook has a full rundown of the history of the Witcher world. Even someone like me with little to no knowledge of the Witcher understood some of it pretty quickly once the GM for the IGN game gave the rundown of the Witcher world. Of course, I know it's not that simple, and I welcome anyone who's more familiar with Witcher lore to give a more thorough explanation of it.

I guess, putting aside the dumpster fire that the TV series is becoming (Henry Cavill as Geralt will be missed), at least the video games seem to be good? I have to admit, I only started watching the TV series recently and looking up The Witcher's video game series to be caught up on the lore and other specifics of it. I'm just a casual TTRPG fan running a TTRPG blog that's based around finding out about all sorts of TTRPGs aside from D&D. Learning about the TRPG's existence has certainly piqued my interest in the video game lore!

The Witcher 4's development is still pretty under wraps by CD Projekt Red. However, considering how the mainline games have been released about 4 years apart, it should have been released 4 years ago? But delays in production do happen, so I reckon it should be a year or two until 'Project Sirius' is released. While that is happening, I think I'll take the time and catch myself up on the video games series.

Look. Maximum Mike Pondsmith, I love your games, but my little brain can’t keep up with all of this. Well, I guess it’s like that old saying. “Born to play Mekton Zeta, cursed to not really feel like rereading the rule book.”

New Release Cyberpunk RED - Interface RED Volume 3 R. Talsorian Games, Inc.

Night City's voracious, Choomba! It needs more places, more people, more things. More! More! More! It's never satisfied and we know you aren't either. Your campaigns can always use a little something extra to push it right over the Edge.

That's what Interface RED is all about. In this second volume, you'll find a collection of short articles custom-crafted to improve your Cyberpunk RED experience. We've featured many of these articles on our website as free DLC for you to download to your data storage device of choice but this is the first time we've collected them into a single book! Plus, we've thrown in a new, exclusive article. The time has come to shed your meat and go full chrome!