Ohoy, Kadungganan!

0.8 arrives. "WE ARE LIGHTNING" is a major overhaul and realigning of Gubat Banwa's design goals and game design in general. I hope you will enjoy it, and I will lay out the most obvious changes here on this devlog. It's been an exciting time for Gubat Banwa, and getting the PDF out to you guys will help when it comes to playtesting and hammering out any kinks in the new system. As always, expect hotfixes as typos and such come up!

In relation to a twitter thread I wrote a while back, after getting to run 0.7 revisions, I realized that I could take Gubat Banwa a bit further, especially now that I’ve basically regressed into a roll over d20 design paradigm. After playing around a bit with the mechanics and playing some Stella Deus and Astral Chain, I became enamored with how a game could get you to be so attached to a single character for a long period of time.

Also because I realized that the stat system was jank, after the Discord pointed out that thing with the Defenses.

Thus, I decided that, while we keep the tactical grid format, the game itself could use the spice of character action games. In essence, what we’ll be stealing from stylish action games are the following:

• Emergent Combat. A set of relatively simple tools, when applied to interesting situations, can make combat more interesting than it is. 
• A Ranking System. Stunting returns, as from Karanduun, but in a similar “bank your style dice” kind of system, wherein entertaining the ancestors with your violent deeds can give you bonus dice. This carries over for the entire session. Thus, style dice you gain from combat can be used in social situations down the line.

In this way, I’m applying all the things I learned from Maharlika, Karanduun, and all the earlier versions of Gubat Banwa.

From Manggugubat to Kadungganan

Head up, Kadungganan. Let your pudong flow, let your bahag sway in the wind. Player Characters are now no longer called just manggugubat (the term itself still exists as a lingua franca term for warrior across the isles), but now are called Kadungganan. Kadungganan is the term for elite warrior-braves. Those that have blood in their hands, or have impressed a Datu. Kadungganan are inherently freedmen, being able to choose who they will work for. They are the cream of the crop, those that lead other manggugubat into the fray. The first ones in and the last ones out.

New Rule: The Buwaya Rule

Otherwise known as the Crocodile Rule. It is simple: whenever you do something exceedingly risky, describe something in a cool way, or perform something in an impressive way to all of the players in the table, gain 1 Favor. Favor is a shared resource across all the players, starting 0 at the start of the session and going away by the end of the session. You can spend Favor to add dice to your dice rolls, or expend them to power certain Discipline Techniques.

The reasoning for this addition is twofold: to encourage describing and not repeating actions, as well as to make combat feel a bit more lively, as you can even trigger this for Defenses. This is inspired by the idea of the Style Meter in DMC, but the mechanic itself is borrowed from a past game: Karanduun.

Casting The Crocodile's Teeth

The Core Rolling System has changed. Now instead of rolling 4 + Skill d4s, you instead roll a CORE VIRTUE + SKILL + any Banes and Boons in d8s. There are a couple of reasonings for this change: one is that d8s roll better than d4s (while still looking like Teeth). The second is that the entire system follows on this paradigm of Core Virtue + Skill. Skills for the most part are changed.

Core Virtues

Core Virtues represent innate capacities of your Kadungganan and how good they are in certain approaches. Face corresponds to social ability, Body corresponds to physical prowess, and Soul corresponds to spiritual strength and vigor. There is a fourth Core Virtue, which does not ascend in the same way as others, known as Violence, which measures the Kadungganan's ability to inflict Violence. You begin with a number of Core Virtues, and you add these with a Skill or a Subvirtue when you roll.

Subvirtues

Subvirtues are the new name for the Violent Values, or the Combat Stats. You can raise them every time you finish a Venture.

Tactical Martial Violence

The new tagline for Gubat Banwa is tactical martial arts and war drama. This is because the tactical combat portion of the game has been upended and updated. In a quick word... no more d20 rolling, all rolls are done with d8 dice pools, combat is phase-based, with a Player Phase and a Enemy Phase, you only get 2 Actions on your own Phase and 2 Actions outside of your Phase. In the games I've run with this combat system, there has been more freedom of expression when it comes to combat. Not just in the player's side, but in the enemies' side as well. Creative MAs can perform really rad combinations and attacks with the freedom given to them by the phase combat system. 

Having only 2 Reactions at a time forces Players to pay attention even outside of their Phase, since actions can be interrupted and reactions can be spent. This makes for a livelier combat, and one that I feel completes or fulfill Gubat Banwa's stylish tactical martial arts fiction.

Spells are inspired now by how Exalted handled it. In play, it feels half like Final Fantasy Tactics casting (the spell doesn't go off immediately usually), half like playing a walking Classical Philippine artillery.

The inspirations for this combat change are RWBY, DMC, Fire Emblem, Bayonetta, Stella Deus, Hades, and XCOM. In RPGs: Lancer, D&D4e, 13th Age, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Exalted, and Anima Prime.

Disciplines

Disciplines are the new names for Professions. I use them to separate them from feeling like "jobs" and more like "combat styles" or "martial arts" or "jobs perverted to become murdering machines". They have a more visceral feel to them, and definitely contributes to the Martial Arts fiction.

Disciplines now have tighter discipline mechanics attached to their Discipline Features. More importantly, Discipline Techniques can now be learned in a non-linear manner, with you getting to choose what Techniques you want to learn from any Discipline of your choice. Build-making has expanded a lot more before, while a Discipline's laser focus on fulfilling a single role can still help you realize and identify your role in the battlefield.

Additionally, Damage is a single value now, tied to your Disciplines. Weapons don't have damage ratings, they all use your Discipline's damage!

Check out your Disciplines!

Mang-Aawit Side Changes

Not much, many of the old Mang-Aawit songs sing the same. The changes come with the Foe building and the like, but that should be easy to adapt. I've consciously made the new changes with the adage "Kadungganan are playing a Character Action Strategy MMO while the Mang-Aawit is playing a particularly hardcore game of FFT, Fire Emblem, or XCOM". I think this holds true in this game's iteration, especially with the changes to combat.

A new Foe Rank has been introduced as well: the Rival, who have x2 Mettle but importantly have Wounds like Kadungganan would (normal Foes don't get Wounds and are incapacitated immediately when brought to 0 Mettle). This lets them be recurring characters, and their effects can be more powerful than normal.

A new addition as well is Miss Triggers, which can be attached either to a Foe or a battle itself. This one is easy enough to think of on the fly: when a Kadungganan misses an attack against a Foe, the Mang-aawit can choose to spend the Miss Trigger. This is usually battlefield changing effects, such as zone changes, falling roofs making terrain and cover, reinforcements arriving, and so on.

That's it for now, I think. I hope you enjoy the changes. Please do join the Discord to give feedback! There's some games being run there as well if you want to join in!

Seize heaven's thunderclaps, Kadungganan!