Ohoy Kadungganan, the Siyak speaks!

Welcome to the 3rd Playtest of GUBAT BANWA 1E! This showcases the following major edits: A Short Change in Layout, Alignments, Revamps to the Combat System, and Rules to Facilitate Solo Play! Playtest 3 is still missing a few content things: notably The Sword Isles chapter which is to facilitate solo sandbox play as well as sandbox traditional play. But once that is done, that is all of Gubat Banwa 1e!

Layout Changes

I went around and cleaned up layout a bit more so that it can be more easily grokked and followed. More importantly, this particular PDF doesn't have an Umalagad Chapter: instead it has a Divination Chapter that can be used by both Umalagad and players playing solo (or GM-less) to run a game!

Natures Have Been Replaced With Alignments!

Geomantic Alignments are the "context of the Trichiliocosm at the time of your birth and the person you choose to become". It is a mix of Western Astrology, Thai Zodiac and Daoist Medicine. You mix together 3 Different Alignments (there are five: Fire, Water, Metal, Air, and Earth) to create a unique character. One is your Heart Alignment (who you are, and how you love), one is your Sword Alignment (how you approach situations) and the last is your Shield Alignment (how you react to things happening to you). 

This change was made purely because I felt Natures were too prescriptive in such a genre-moulding game such as Gubat Banwa. It needs something that was more diegetic or within the fiction, rather than a prescriptive character narrative arc. In this way, one focuses on the Kadungganan as they are, and not as who they are supposed to be.

Combat Revamps

Keeping in mind most of the major playtesting data I received during Playtest 2, I set about to fixing a lot of the problems and did a deep dive of alternative skirmish wargames for inspiration, as well as board games. During this time, I was also working around a way to make combat runnable for solo play. This necessitated some revamps which for the most part are fundamentally the same. Here is a short list of the major changes.

• Dice Pools: Most things are now resolved through the use of the Violence Cast, which is a pool of d10s and d8s, d10s are Attack Teeth and d8s are Defense Teeth. They are made in such a way so that they can be rolled in a single pool. 6+ on Attack Teeth are Hits, while 6+ on Defense Teeth are Defends. Defends cancel out Hits. Each Hit reduces the target by 1 HP. The game spirals out from there!
• Martial Abilities: Now featuring the return of combat stats that can be used to customize your character! Your Discipline no longer dictates almost everything about your character.
• Lower Numbers: In internal playtests I've had to lower the numbers. This has led to a lot less math in general, and thus an easier to grok gamefeel. 
• Streamlining Discipline Techniques: Techniques are now known as Masteries, of which you can equip up to 8, and each one has a Passive and an Active Aspect! Techniques in the old version were too bloated, so this has been a way to make things infinitely easier to track.
• Enemy AI: Enemies have been revamped from the ground up. Each of them now has an AI, or a Gambit, that dictates both their initiative and what they do on their turn. This Gambit is perfect for solo or GM-less group play. When an Umalagad is in the fray, they can choose to control the enemies, potentially leading to more dynamic fights!

Rules To Facilitate Solo Play

There are now rules to facilitate solo play. However, the resources needed for solo play is not yet done, mostly the sandbox of The Sword Isles. However, there are divinations (oracles) that will let you play out games that you need! Incoming soon is a quickstart that can be played solo or more.

Solo Play is also potentially a great mechanic tutorial period as well as an Umalagad Training guide. More importantly, the game is written so that going form Solo into Group Play or Traditional Play is seamless, inspired by the likes of Ironsworn and Scarlet Heroes. Check it out!

A Note on Audience

The introductory page of Playtest 3 now has a particular note for intended audiences. It is important that people understand and read it. And so I will rewrite it here:

This game is written by me, a Filipino living in the Philippines, largely for other Filipinos and SEAsians as well. But it is written in English not only for it to be accessible to other Filipinos, but also to be able to reach a wider audience. Especially those that don’t know much about Southeast Asian cultures. Let’s get two very important things clear: this game centers us and this game’s setting is not Southeast Asia. This game is explicitly written with us in mind, us being Filipinos and other Southeast Asian people. 
Thus, it centers us. 
The “default” is a broad-nosed, five foot tall, genderless brown person. (Or better yet, remove the notion of a default.) It centers our experiences, our ideals. Our traditions, our weird cakes, our weird smells. It’s about us. If you go into this game expecting it to be about you then you will not get it. You are welcome to play our roles: that is what an RPG is, after all. But be respectful, because even we respect ourselves. Treat us like people.
Secondly, this game is not Southeast Asia. It is not just Precolonial Philippines. It is its own fantasy setting. It is a Postclassic Fantasy intensely inspired by the refulgent and diluvial cultures and stories of Southeast Asia. 
It is explictly a mythic reconstruction of a grand Southeast Asia of Hindu-Buddhist Empires, Islam Sultanates, and indigenous kingdoms and communities. A work of pure love for something that has been forced away from us. I am Pilipinhon, which means much of the writing is influenced by Philippines, but much of my research into Precolonial Philippines has been the joyful eradication of the “Filipino” identity to find a more whole and complete view of Southeast Asia, where our differences don’t divide us but unite, where the waters don’t separate but connect. With that said, I hope you will enjoy this deep dive and fantastical reconstruction of Southeast Asia, as one connected intrinsically to the rest of Asia, and as such, it becomes a deep dive into the interplay of human diversity, and a festival of human expression and nature. 
Gubat Banwa is about us. We revel in who we are. 
Everyone is welcome to the feast.

Attain Glory by Conviction, Healing by Violence, and Revel in Love and Lightning.