BREAK!! is now available on Indie Press Revolution!

We are excited to announce that BREAK!! is now available at Indie Press Revolution in addition to our own store! Grab it here! 

 

START is live on Kickstarter

Finally, our first adventure is here...

...well, it's live on Kickstarter. 

While we designed BREAK!! to be easy-to-learn and foster a DIY approach to the game, the one thing many said would be helpful is a proper starting adventure. So that's what we've been working on. 

And (as we've now sold out of Special Edition) we thought we'd also print up some more of those, this time with some new variant art.

Check out our new Kickstarter here!

The new Kickstarter includes:

• A tutorial adventure, where you and your table can learn the game in a simple 'one-shot' mission.
• A 'Proper' adventure, filled with quirky characters and locations.
• A series of 'one-page' adventure sites, factions, and new monsters for you to create your own longer running saga.
• There are also some small rules additions that give your PCs a 'team ability', new playable species, and more.
• In addition to this, we've created also created a fancy GM screen for quick reference.
  

Thanks all your interest and support in BREAK!! 


❤️ ⚔️ Grey + Rey

Another link to the new Kickstarter so you don't have to scroll up!

 

The new adventure

The new special edition

The GM screen

BREAK!! x Animon Story crossover adventure: BREAK!! POINT (Bonus Download)

 

The BREAK!! x Animon Story crossover is now available for download!

You can grab it here! 

BREAK!! POINT is a short scenario that has animon trainers investigating some strange happenings in the Dunia Region! What is Team Steele doing there? Are those strange new creatures some sort of animon? Why is that lady blue!? Investigate these questions and more in this exciting adventure!

Also included are brand new illustrations from Grey Wizard, and rules for converting BREAK!! characters and adversaries into Animon Story ones if you want to keep the adventure going. 

Our mailing list and some fanmade BREAK!! resources

Hey everyone, we have a bonus entry today. I wrote a bit about our plans for the new year, and I just wanted to add some more to that.

First up, we are going to try and start using our mailing list more often to not only send updates on START but also to (eventually) announce some fun bonuses we want to make available for download at the store. If you did join our mailing list, make sure to double check your spam folders and marks us as "not spam" so you can catch all our future e-mails.

Secondly, I wanted to shine a light on some neat resources that fans of the game have made: 

Nboughton has created a fantastic BREAK!! character sheet app  that allows you to make character and adversary sheets. You can also export them as Json files. The adversary sheet also has a particularly useful additional function that allows you to turn them into PNGs for easy reference.

Studio Quagg's BREAK!! resources is home to a big project called the Helical Expeditions, which will eventually include a short adventure for every region of Outer World. There are also other standalone short adventures, some home-brewed species, a link to the big page of custom adversaries from the BREAK!! discord and a set of rules for skyship races.

Haon-Yan World has a variety of notes for a custom BREAK!! setting, including a very fleshed out Bestiary with some great, ready-to-use adversaries to peruse.

Finally, Grim is working on a dedicated adversary creator. While very much a work in progress, it is shaping up to be a very useful tool. 

These and even more great projects and resources can be found and discussed at our official discord server, so please feel free to join us there! I try to be active there as well, and talk about whatever I happen to be working on at the moment.

Anyway, thanks for reading. See you all next week with your regularly scheduled freebie!

BREAK!! x Animon Story

 

In case you missed it, BREAK!! will be having a crossover with Animon Story, a tabletop rpg inspired by various things in the monster buddy genre. It's for their new Legend's Wake kickstarter - read more about it here! We're big fans of the original Animon Story release, so this is a very exciting team up for us.

I don't want to give too much away just yet, but this will include some BREAK!! style mechanics as well as something that ties in with Outer World itself. It'll be great!

Ennies Update and Freebie: Varubali, the Wicked Guardian (Adversary)

BREAK!! has been nominated for 2 Awards

First things first! If you would like to vote for BREAK!! for an Ennie award, the links to our nominated categories are below:

1. Best Family Game: https://t.co/GkO5ngfsAd

2. Best Layout & Design: https://t.co/6vjjijYkbM

Thank you for your support! Now onto the freebie....

 

It's been a busy week so I've cleaned up one of the adversaries I made for this stream from long ago!

He's based of a very frightening (well, for 10 year old me) boss from Breath of Fire II. I thought it would be fun for people to have an example of a Bright Aligned monster that was frightening and mean. Enjoy!

 

VARUBALI

The Wicked Guardian

Introduction

• A divine beast created to oversee the eternal suffering of a disgraced god, Varubali guards a temple located on a remote island in the Galvanus Archipelago. Cruel to the extreme, he refuses to allow anyone to attend to his long suffering charge - even though their punishment has spanned aeons at this point.

• Varubali is an armored, crawling creature with sword-like claws and a bladed tail. His physical presence and aura are so intense that it strikes unnatural fear in those less powerful than him.

Menace Level

• Mega-Boss

Rank

• 8

Type

• Celestial Order, Divine Beast

Size

• Massive

Allegiance

• 3 (Bright Aligned)

Home Region/Habitat

• The Temple of the Poisoned God, located on a small Island close to the City of Portia.

Aptitudes (Trait: Deadly, Overwhelming, Graceless (+2 Might, +2 Aura, -3 Deftness)

Primary Aptitudes: Might, Grit, Aura

Secondary Aptitudes: Deftness, Insight

• Might [15]

• Deftness [7]

• Grit [11]

• Insight [10]

• Aura [13]

Combat Values (As a Mega-Boss Varubali has Atk Value equal to his Rank)

• Hearts [6]

• Attack [+8]

• Speed [Normal]

• Defense Rating [14]

Abilities

Divine Behemoth (Species, Advanced)

Large even for a Divine Beast, Varubali towers over even the largest of folk and most other monsters. He relishes this advantage.

• Varubali is Massive (Per Page 434 of the BREAK!! Rulebook)

• Sweep Attack: Bladed Tail strikes as an Arc Weapon.

• Crush Attack: Claws strike as a Mighty Weapon.

• Varubali’s armored body has a Natural Defense of 16 like Heavy Amor (This is reduced to 14 due to massive size) and grants them an additional Heart.

Fearsome Aura (Standard, Magic, Light)

Perceiving Varubali and hearing his echoing voice fills the heart with dread and a feeling that it is against the will of the divine to oppose him.

• Anyone Encountering Varubali incurs an a Contest between his Aura against their Grit, if the Target Fails, they are inflicted with the Terrified status Ailment

• This Ability does not work against individuals who are equal to Varubali’s Rank or higher.

Retributive Claw (Legendary)

To strike Varubali is to defy his divinely ordained task, and prompts him to swift, furious retribution.

• Varubali may attack any individuals who successfully strikes him in melee. This may be a Sweep or a Strike, per his Massive Size.

• These Attacks are in addition to any actions Varubali takes in the round.

Breath of Frost and Flame (Advanced, Magic, Light)

Gifted access to a summer’s gale and a winter’s wind by his divine creator, Varubali can call forth either in a torrent of fire or ice that can decimate those who dare oppose him.

• Varubali may spew a breath weapon with an Attack Roll up to two Areas away. This Attack hits the entire Area and does 2 Hearts of Damage to anyone successfully hit.

• This Breath Weapon may do Flame or Frost damage as Varubali wishes.

• Once used, Varubali cannot use this Ability for 2 more Turns.

Lightning Blast (Advanced, Magic, Light)

When truly pressed, the divine behemoth may draw from the power of his long banished creator to strike down a foe with thunderous fury.

• Varubali may target an individual up to 3 Areas away with a burst of holy lightning. This requires a successful Attack Roll and does 3 Hearts of Damage on a hit. 

• This Ability may only be used once a fight.

Communication Methods

• Varubali can communicate and comprehend Low Speech and Bright Speech, but only greatly prefers the latter.

Tactics

• Varubali is a vicious combatant. If anyone afflicted with the Terrified ailment by his aura doesn’t run, he’ll try to pick them off first. He will open battles with his breath weapon when possible, hoping to weaken the enemy as a group and then draw them in to wear them down with his retributive strikes. If he can identify a particularly powerful opponent (or one that annoys him) he’ll target them with his lightning attack in hopes of finishing them off quickly.

Yield

Frost-Flame Amethyst

A purplish jewel can be removed from Varubali’s skull by someone with the proper Ability to do so. It switches from being almost too hot or too cold to touch, and it feels like some great energy swirls within it. It may be used as a crafting additive, bestowing the following Ability upon a weapon it’s forged into.

• Attack: The wielder of this weapon may choose to do Frost or Flame damage with an attack. This choice is made before the attack itself is made.

1 Slot, 50 Coins

Miscellaneous

• Indicators - Bodies that have been charred or frozen solid, a low rumbling sound, two glowing eyes with a gem between in the distance.

• Roleplaying Notes - Varubali revels in his duty and insists upon it in spite of the fact that the Divine Ruler who created him for the task is long gone. Some theorize he simply cannot envision any other life for himself due to his nature as a Divine Beast, but Varubali himself would insist that was nonsense. For all his wickedness, Varubali will not attack anyone not attempting to enter the Temple of the Poisoned God - in fact, he’ll engage in polite conversation with them if they don’t retreat from his presence. Similarly, he has no interest in pursuing those that flee him, lest they draw him away from his task.

• Customization  - Varubali could be used to represent a type of temple guardian rather than a singular entity. Other versions may do variant types of damage, inflict Status AIlments with their breath weapon, or have some other sort of divine gift.

Random Encounter Reaction

• Varubali is a singular entity, and should not be encountered randomly.

Variants and Related Entries

• Varubali could be given an ability that gave him Synthetic qualities rather than Divine/Infernal ones, and used to represent a sort of automated war machine.

The Temple of the Poisoned God

A gloomy structure surrounded by mournful statues wrapped with overgrown vegetation, this shrine’s single entrance is protected by Varubali. Within is a surprisingly labyrinthine structure with an immortal who suffers in eternal agony thanks to the curse of a long banished Divine Ruler. It is said that this god can grant one access to one to the vault of treasures dating back to the 2nd Aeon, but to access that would not only mean defeating Varubali, but also finding some way to lift the curse…

 

Our very first supplement, and thoughts on playing in the moment

First things first, since the book is shipping and even in some people's hands at this very moment, we're able to announce our very first supplement - START!

Sign up for launch notifications here!

As noted it will include a tutorial/beginner style scenario with lots of ways to take it apart and customize if you're a more experienced GM who wants to give it a spin, as well as a bunch of fun new rules a brand new playable species!

For the main entry though, I wanted to talk about one of the goals I had with BREAK!!'s rules: playing in the moment.

What I mean buy this is that I wanted BREAK!! to draw players into the fiction of the world and reward that investment in it somehow. This pops up in a lot of different ways. One is how many Abilities are framed in a relatively open-ended way. While the result and fiction around these are straightforward, there is a bit of legroom in how they can be used and applied in a variety of situations. I'm a big fan of characters getting a lot of tools in their metaphorical toolbelt, rather than just growing in one specific way, so the hope here is that players pick the Abilities that appeal to them the most and then try to use them as often as possible by approaching situations from a variety of different angles.

Similarly, the risk/reward nature of Stunts is meant to encourage players to go big and flashy, but it also works best when players are paying attention to the small details of the combat they are in. 

However, I want to focus on the Contests procedure here, as it's one of the more utilized facets of BREAK!!'s system.

To put things as simply as possible (as I assume most readers of the blog have looked over the rules, and know this already) Contests are used to figure out which individuals come out on top in an exchange that isn't one trying to attack the other. These call for both sides to make a Check, and then has a list of ways to decide who won. This list seems pretty long at first, with several parts to it, but the truth is each of these are often mutually exclusive. If one side passes their check, and the other fails, that first side wins and you don't need to consult it any further. The same goes if both succeed, but one had a special success and the other didn't. Once you've got that in your head, these contests will progress pretty quickly.

What I want to point out is one of the main ways I think players will win contests: having a Bonus on the roll. While some Abilities grant these in specific situations, they are most often given when a player levies one of their Purviews or tries to use the situation at hand to their advantage. In this way, being invested in what's going on will really reward players - while bonuses seem small, they are always significant and just that bit of extra attention can mean the difference between victory or defeat.

These kind of things are why so many aspects of play are framed as a conversation between the group. Not only will the players and GM help each other with concrete things like rules and procedures, but they can also feed each other ideas, remind each other of the little background details that might help, or even make helpful suggestions. This back and forth is one of the places I have the most fun when it comes to tabletop RPGs, so it was naturally something I really wanted to focus on with BREAK!!'s rules. There is always risks here of these conversations stalling out or falling into the same patterns (BREAK!!'s Diminishing Returns rule is one way I tried to prevent that) but ultimately I believe in the fun, friendly people in our hobby enough to trust in it.

BREAK!! RPG Non-commercial license

Hey everyone, we wanted to share a few guidelines for fan-content since the BREAK!! Core Rules Beta has been available for a while, and we’ve been posting ‘Option Menu’ on our blog to help you customize and create for the game. People have already done some amazing things and have asked for guidance on what is acceptable to publish. 

We developed the BREAK!! RPG Non-commercial license with this in mind. We tried to be as clear as possible; hopefully it doesn’t sound too strict as a result! We want you to be able to create with confidence, but also protect our 10 year investment in developing the game. 

Please note, these terms are subject to refinement (we’re doing our best here but still learning!)

Also, though it's probably obvious, it should be said that these guidelines are for things you want to share/publish widely, not things created for your own personal use

In addition, we are working on a Commercial License for VTT support and a third party publishing. We aim to release this once all our kickstarter commitments have been delivered, so please stay tuned for that.

BREAK!! RPG Non-commercial license

1. You can freely use BREAK!!’s game terms in your creation, but NOT the definitions, artwork, or logos.
   
   Free fan-creations (such as new adversaries, setting ideas, adventures, custom character options and rules, digital tools, fan art) are fine to share as long as they DON’T include text or art copied, in part or whole, from the Core Rules or other official BREAK!! sources (such as the blog, content previews, or press images).
   
   It IS okay to include game terms by name in your work (including rule procedures, existing adversaries, abilities, locations, etc) for reference. For example: “Battle Princess”, "Heart's Blade", “Negotiation”, “Skelemen”, “Wistful Dark”.
   
   In addition, the character sheet in the back of the book is free to reproduce and use as well.
   
   We don’t want your content to negate the need to buy our game, or exceed the legal concept of ‘fair use/fair dealing’.
   
   
   
2. You cannot make a claim against us for any similarity to your fan creation that may appear in our future works.
   
   Unfortunately, we aren’t going to be able to monitor or read every fan project. If something we publish down the line unintentionally contains similarities to a creation made under this license, the creator accepts that they cannot make a copyright claim against us.
   
   We don’t want your creation to impact what we can develop for BREAK!! in the future.
   
   
   
3. Please be responsible
   
   We do not endorse using BREAK!! as a platform to do something egregious like spreading hate speech or to facilitate personal attacks. In addition, we request you be mindful when tackling sensitive issues.
   
   We don’t want to hinder creativity, but also don’t want fan content to negatively affect the perception of our game or its players.
   
   
   
4.  Mark your work as unofficial.
   
   Please label your work as a fan creation! This makes sure that people know your work is distinct from ours.
   
   If your creation is more formally presented than a blog post, for example in a zine or pdf download, do NOT use the game’s logo AND include this text disclaimer in your work:
   
   “[Product Name] is an independent product published under BREAK!! RPG’s Non-Commercial License and is not affiliated with BREAK!!’s creators or publishers.
   
   This is to protect us from any infringement claims or offense that might be contained in unofficial works,

            

Thank you!

Actual play videos and podcasts are cool and we’d love to see them! And of course, It’s fine to show/quote the rules during the natural course of play.

Thanks again for all your support and creativity so far, it's truly inspiring. Make cool things, have fun, and we hope you continue enjoying BREAK!!

Kickstarter Completion and our next steps!

Earlier this week our kickstarter ended. BREAK!! was funded and then some, to say the least! The outpouring of enthusiasm and the fact that so many people are excited to play our game has left both of us feeling extremely grateful. Thanks again to those of you who've been following BREAK!! for a while now and to those who only found out about us recently. We can't wait to get the game into your hands.

If you missed out don't worry! We now have a pre-order button!

Speaking of which, we're in the process of proofreading and editing now. Once that's done, a preview PDF will go out to kickstarter backers for a feedback period - and after that's done, we can send out a finalized PDF. From there, it's off to the printers for physical fulfillment. In the meantime, we'll probably look into making the PDF up for sale in other outlets as well.

With crowdfunding more or less behind us, this blog will shift a bit in focus - once the rules are available in some form for people, this place will become a spot for announcements as well as free material for the game. We have several entries on how to tweak and customize BREAK!! for your home games planned for once the preview PDF is out, for example. And once the full game is out we plan on releasing zine style supplements and freebies for as long as we are able.

So keep an eye on this blog for all the latest, and thank you again for all your support!

BREAK!! Kickstarter - Final Days!

Thanks for bearing with the marketing blitz everyone - from here on out, the blog will return to it's normal gameable self. But, before we go- 

We are in the home stretch!

Author Reynaldo plays Radia Senki and talks about the game's influences!

BREAK!! Announcement

 

It's open!

Announcement for a Questionnaire Stream!

I (Reynaldo) will be streaming on my Twitch channel at the end of this month (3/31/23) from around 8:00-9:00 PM EST in anticipation for the launch of our kickstarter sometime in April! 

I'd like to answer your questions about BREAK!! on stream if possible, so please leave them here in the comments or the social media threads where this is posted. I'll try to answer as many as I can. It will be posted on youtube for watching later as well, so don't worry about missing it if you can't make the time.

The link to my twitch is below in case you need it. Hope to see you there!

https://www.twitch.tv/naldodrinan

Kickstarter Pre-Launch!

Finally! The news you've all been waiting for!
Break!! pre-launch page is live on kickstarter

Well, perhaps not the news, but the news that that news is coming. We're finally here - BREAK!!'s kickstarter is nearing it's launch date and you can use the link to watch for it.

It's exciting enough as is, but I want to leave everyone with a few other things to look forward too:

• The Web Page will be getting updated soon with new info
• We have some fun ideas for stretch goals and the physical book itself
• BREAK!! is already 90% done - we hope to be able to deliver a sort of beta or Ver 0.9 version of the PDF to backers when the kickstarter ends, not just for feedback for the final version but so we can get the game into people's hands ASAP

Anyway, welcome to any new comers and thank you to anyone whose stuck around with us, waiting for this. We really appreciate it!