Shounen anime inspired this Powered by the Apocalypse tabletop RPG
Don your plot armour.
An upcoming roleplaying game called My Friends are My Strength takes its inspirations from shounen anime.
The tabletop RPG enables game masters and players to experience their own anime-style storylines, from characters battling in martial arts tournaments to pirates using special abilities to fight against a tyrannical government. Inspired by shounen anime – a genre of Japanese animation that includes that likes of classics like Dragon Ball Z and more modern series such as My Hero Academia – My Friends are My Strength is a roleplaying game that embraces all its tropes and provides its players with a playground to create and interact with various shounen characters.
My Friends are My Strength uses the Powered by the Apocalypse system utilised by various other tabletop roleplaying games such as the Root RPG, Avatar Legends and World Wide Wrestling. The roleplaying game system sees players rolling a pool of d6 dice whenever their character attempts to use either a unique move or shared move. Moves in PbtA refer to various specific actions that characters can attempt, some of which all characters can try to do and others that are more unique to specific playbooks. (Or character archetypes.) Rolling above a 10 in PbtA results in a complete success, whereas rolling above a seven is a mixed success and under a seven leads to failure.
The characters in My Friends are My Strength will be using their various shounen-inspired abilities to overcome whatever obstacles or threats are thrown their way. Every character in the tabletop RPG will have a power that’s unique to them, which will come with its own resulting drawback. Whilst PbtA usually has its players using playbooks to create their characters, My Friends are My Strength simply enables players to choose from a collection of different moves. Player characters in My Friends are My Strength also come with three uses of plot armour – a term used to describe the sometimes inexplicable ways that certain characters survive otherwise deadly encounters – and can use the bonds they have with other players in times of need.
My Friends are my Strength was created by Jess Appleton, with this being the designer’s debut tabletop roleplaying game.
A free in-development version of My Friends are My Strength is currently available to download from Itch.io, with a Kickstarter campaign for the full version of the upcoming tabletop RPG set to launch sometime soon. Pledge amounts and estimated delivery dates are yet to be confirmed.