Dojos & Dragons
From: Misfit Studios
Reviewed by: Ron W McClung
Dojos & Dragons is a new Core Roleplaying Game PDF Rulebook from Misfit Studios.
Anime with a sense of humor, Dojos and Dragons brings to the reader an anime roleplaying game of “over-the-top combat, flashy special attacks, and frantic action.” One can play in any type of anime genre using the rules. It contains a point-based character creation system, several anime-themed skills, a combat system for “high-flyin’ martial arts fights” and guidelines for creating your own anime series, or recreating your favorite one.
From the website:
“The very definition of ‘Crazy-Go-Nuts’.”
I initially had a hard time figuring out just exactly what Dojos & Dragons was because there was no introduction to the game world or anything. It simply throws you right into character generation. I figured out that it was anime related, but I had no idea that it was a generic anime system usable in any genre initially.
Content: Throwing you right into the meat of it, Dojos starts you out with a general guideline to creating an anime character. Chapter 1 – The Introduction does not do much introducing. It simply gives a little letter from the author and then a glossary of terms -there is no “What is roleplaying game?” or “What is Dojos & Dragons?” Chapter 2 outlines six easy steps to creating a Dojos & Dragons character, from Concept to Finishing Touches. Chapter 3 details the skills of the system, with a strong focus on Martial Arts. Chapter 4 – Advantages & Disadvantages takes the character to the next level, fleshing it out even further. My one complaint here is that the Advantage and Disadvantage list is too short. With only 14 Advantages and and a little over 20 disadvantages, I feel there is definitely room for more. Some are fairly broad and encompass a lot, however. Many are down right hilarious – like Compulsive Posing or Sickeningly Cute.
Chapter 5 covers the different races one can play in this game. Basically, races are advantage and disadvantage packages. So basically, you can play what you want, but these are examples of how one can play different races (a lot of WEG’s d6). The races given are Robots, Cat-girls and Vampires. Chapter 6 is Combat and will be detailed out when I review the rules. Experience and Training are covered in one page in Chapter 7 and the final chapter covers how to series (or adventures).
From the website:
“A Panda with a freakin’ Katana!”
Rules: Dojos & Dragons has a point-allocation, non-class based character generation system. It is pretty simple and straight forward with little variation for character types. Like many non-class based skills, there is nothing stopping a gun-bunny type character from having a high computer skill. Players start out with 100 character points to spend, usually. Characters have the standard six OGL-like stats – Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Wits, Charm and Spirit. Each range from 1 to as high as one can afford in character points but the table tops off at 15. Average is 5. There are secondary attributes, including Evasion, Hit Points, Initiative, Ki and Smoke Evasion.
The Skills System is fairly interesting. Until now, the reader only got a hint of what the game was about. With skills like Drinking (the ability to hold one’s liquor) and Hammerspace Manipulation (the ability to pull a weapon out of thin air, typically a hammer), this skill illustrates the fun and abject goofiness of this game. The one area that is detailed a little more is, of course, the Martial Arts skills. It supplies several styles and maneuvers for the martial artist. The book spends several pages detailing it out. Not knowing a lot about Martial Arts myself, all I can say is that it looks extensive to me.
Two unique aspects to this game are Techniques and Transformations. Both enhance attacking in their own way. Techniques are basically special attacks. Transformations are optional abilities of a character to transform into something else in combat (very anime-ish). The new form can be built like another character and bought with character points at character generation or later with experience.
The Task resolution system is basically a d10 system like White Wolf. Each individual die is compared to a difficulty and the number of successes are counted. The number of dice for skills depends on the character’s rank in the skill and base value of the skill which is usually based on an attribute. This is definitely a game about rolling a fist-full of dice. Combat is simply another skill task to roll – attack skill roll vs. opponent’s evasion score. An interesting aspect to combat is the character’s Ki Pool. It can be used defensively or offensively, depending on what the character wants to do. Most powers and abilities require Ki to use, and thus Ki can be allocated to ones Battle Aura. Or the player can allocate his points to his Ki Pool which acts to absorb damage before they start hitting Hit Points.
Combat is done in a 3-phase round – Initiatitive, Action and Resolution. Players spend Action points to perform standard actions and maneuvers. It is a fairly simple and understandable system, but nothing that I would stand up and shout about. It does capture the essence of anime-style story telling, giving the players something simple and fun to accentuate their Crazy-Go-Nuts adventuring.
Layout: There is a lot of colorful art. Almost every page has something on it. Most of it is anime-style characterizations. It is very colorful, almost to the point of distracting. For a PDF book, I probably would have cut down on the ‘business” of the layout.
In conclusion, although I can not claim to be a huge anime fan, I can see anime fans liking this game. It is simple and fun and is designed with all the elements that a crazy anime series would have. The system does not get in the way, although there does seem to be a lot of terms to handle (thus the glossary in the beginning – nice touch). If you are looking for an anime role playing game that does not take itself too seriously, this is the game for you.
For more details on Misfit Studios and their new Core Roleplaying Game PDF Rulebook“Dojos & Dragons” check them out at their website http://www.djnd.com.
Dojos & Dragons
From: Misfit Studios
Type of Game: Core Roleplaying Game PDF Rulebook
Written by: Charles Smith, Christian Hayes
Contributing Authors: Steven Trustrum
Game Design by: Charles Smith
Cover Art by: Christian Hayes
Additional Art by: Shawn Richter, JUMIPTERIMAGES
Number of Pages: 55
Game Components Included: One Core Rulebook (PDF or hard bound)
Retail Price: $ 6.40 (US) for PDF
Website: www.djnd.com
Reviewed by: Ron W McClung