Friendship, Effort, Victory - Shonen Battle comics (Naruto, DBZ, etc.)

For a while, I've been working on and developing a Powered By The Apocalypse hack for playing Shueisha battle comics called Friendship, Effort, Victory.

It tries it best to take the elements present in the engine and have them flow together to emulate the meta-narrative of works like One Piece, Naruto and Bleach. That was the intention, at least.

I've gone through a few drafts of the work and had it looked over from a few other forums before, but never this one. I've also tried started some closed playtested and put it into open playtesting (though, arguably, it was always in open playtesting). It is currently on draft 8.

To go over some features
-It has an extensive GM's section that tries its best to help you make your games as shueisha as possible.
-A new set of basic and battle moves
-A new health, condition, tag, and tie system to help drive the kind of theme and motifs of shonen battle comics
-Rules for techniques and the rising tension of a fight
-A split playbook system with 8 Friendship (why you fight) playbooks, 9 Effort (how you fight) playbooks, and 24 options for how you advance (pick 3) in your Victory playbook

Anyway, I would love honest feedback and opinions on the work from anyone willing to give it.

You can find it here. Commenting is enabled on the document.

Very interesting how things have been split into the three different playbooks. Well, two and a half. What inspired you to do this? I like how the relationship side of things is given about the same amount of emphasis as the combat side. What inspired you to split stuff up like this?

Well, it isn't the most elegant or theory driven answer, unfortunately.

I ran a playtest and a lot of people just couldn't get their concept to work. They just felt the playbooks were too rigid or focused for the character concepts they were trying to emulate. So, I ran through a few different things, then tried this out for a go.

This is actually the first draft using this so it might be a flop. We ran a playtest of it, sure, but one one-shot isn't a lot of testing and most of that playtest was spent fixing tons of exploits that somehow missed previous tests (that happens alot).

Hell, it might turn out to be a bust of an idea. It happens, ya know? One step forward, two steps back, as they say. Only testing will tell. Speaking of which, just started the first long-term playtest of the game so hopefully that will provide a lot of feedback.

Oh, also, I started work on the ninth draft. Mostly a lot of exploit fixes. About to do the first long term playtest.

Well, it isn't the most elegant or theory driven answer, unfortunately.

I ran a playtest and a lot of people just couldn't get their concept to work. They just felt the playbooks were too rigid or focused for the character concepts they were trying to emulate. So, I ran through a few different things, then tried this out for a go.

This is actually the first draft using this so it might be a flop. We ran a playtest of it, sure, but one one-shot isn't a lot of testing and most of that playtest was spent fixing tons of exploits that somehow missed previous tests (that happens alot).

Hell, it might turn out to be a bust of an idea. It happens, ya know? One step forward, two steps back, as they say. Only testing will tell. Speaking of which, just started the first long-term playtest of the game so hopefully that will provide a lot of feedback.

Oh, also, I started work on the ninth draft. Mostly a lot of exploit fixes. About to do the first long term playtest.

Damn. Downer when things don't work out. Don't loose hope though!

I'm curious, what were the exploits? What should fellow hackers be wary of? I'd be super glad to have that feedback.

Damn. Downer when things don't work out. Don't loose hope though!

I'm curious, what were the exploits? What should fellow hackers be wary of? I'd be super glad to have that feedback.

The exploits were arguably unique to this game, but, honestly, you need to really think through how moves interact, basically. If things stack, you got to consider what else you can stack on top. If you get a bonus from one thing, can it synergize with another bonus? What is too much?

For example, one class had a way to get experience easier that stacked with another way to get it and it just kind of compounded until it got ridiculous.