Since it's not sponsored, send this to dropout. Those guys would give you a free membership for this, so you can catch up on a very entertaining RPG show.
by the end of the series it got to a point where the PCs basically could not fail due to all the abilities and the excess of turbo tokens, which may not be appealing for every table. but for a silly cartoon action game its great fun, and kind of incentivizes you to try the absolute most bonkers things possible. im def gonna run this with my folks
Haha yeah! That sounds about right for this theme. Just learned from another comment that, in a different series, they used a similar system but when you reach d20 and blow up, you reset the die type and gain a permanent buff of some kind. Sounds more sustainable. Thanks a lot for commenting! :)
Unfortunately I live under a rock and haven't seen it yet, but I'd you get tokens from failing then it definitely fits the vibe. The lower who fails the entire first 10 minutes of the movie only to become Jason borne by the end is generally the core of most 90s movies especially if it's kids or teens. Although the idea of resetting at 20 but with a buff does sound cool, like how sometimes the hero or protagonist fails at something silly even though we just saw them fighting ninjas with ease. Definitely a game for hype and silly fun. Might play with my little cousins when I see them for Christmas, better start planning now.
@@T1J you could just make a rule that says “you need to blow up a skill 3 times to upgrade it to the next level” and that would slow down the power progression a bit. Maybe also limit the amount of d20s the players can have. (3 maybe)
NOTE TO DYSLEXICS: There is little to no bowling in this game. Avoid disappointment like me, and find another, bowling-themed RPG if that's what you're looking for.
4:15 In the new season of Magic & Misfits, they introduced a mechanic where you reset your die type when you blow up a D20 but you gain a permanent buff
@@BobWorldBuilderI think it’s more accurate to say that you get a magical boon (since the magic die is the only one this happens with) that can be kept permanently or that can be broken to release that item and gain 10 tokens instantly. Makes for fun story elements where they have to decide what boon they’re willing to burn to push for that last bit on an important roll.
Hey! I watched the season on D20 and read the rules, so I can answer some of those questions. You can only go up in the dice, not down. It is crazy and with some luck, you can get to a d20 in the first sesion, but this game is for short campaigns. Kids on Bikes does have explosions, but you re roll the same dice value, the innovation of Never Stop Blowing up is the escalation. To heal you need to be patched up by someone competent. This is mostly narrative, like going to a hospital, getting aid from a friend nurse, raiding a vet clinic and patching yourself. If I remember correctly, you get to full health after that, but I guess you could house rule it as only healing a level of injury.
Also, for the group abilities, the whole party chime in to pay the cost, and the first level, every person in the party chose one ability, it doesn't have to be the same but everyone should get one, and after you pay the whole suit, the whole party gets all of the abilities of that suit.
Also the turbo tokens are the same thing as adversity tokens from KoB. You fail a roll, you get a token that can become a +1 to a later roll. Same thing with the prepared action, or it's aTleast similar. If you aren't making a snap decision in KoB you can take a flat number on a check instead of a roll
God I love Dimension 20, and all their antics and settings. Even their D&D stuff feels unique and fresh because of how Brennan handles the worlds and has house rules. Plus, as improv comedians, they play off each other so well. Love seeing D20, Dropout, and this system getting more attention.
after watching that season, I made up my own, even simpler, version of this for my family to play for halloween. I only kept the start-at-a-d4 and blow up. no abilities at all lol. we’ve tried d&d but it was a little complicated for my mom who has never played ttrpgs at all. but this? it was awesome. I said ‘if you hit the highest number in that skill, you level up. and it will become like plot armor in a horror movie by the end of this’ and it made sense and we had a great one hour little one shot where they had 6 characters die but my moms character became the main character and stopped the villain. it was the best gaming night we’ve ever had. some day we might graduate to adding in abilities, but for now we will stick to ‘tell me what you want to do, i’ll tell you what to roll and how hard it is’ and no extra fluff
This game is best for short campaigns, somewhere around 10 sessions. A one-shot can be fun but it’s best when you can get all the players to a point where it’s basically impossible to fail. One or two sessions of that and an epic final conflict is peak entertainment. I’ve already used this system a couple of times and my group loves it.
@ I’d call your campaigns incomplete. Based on what you’re saying, it sounds like you haven’t finished one yet. Is that right? 10 sessions would be short for most groups, particularly if a group does a lot of RP. My standard is 20-25 sessions(one per week), which can add up to 6-8 months after accounting for skipped sessions. If it’s a long campaign I count time rather than sessions. Long campaigns can last one or more years. For Never Stop Blowing Up, someone published a google doc of all the rules they could ascertain from watching the show. I used that until Dimension 20 released the official. I had a close-knit group play at my house 2-3 nights a week, we were addicted. We’re finally taking a break after two “short” campaigns.
@@BobWorldBuilder oh man, you should absolutely make time for that movie It's a riot, think Reno 911 jokes and humor in a Kung Fu movie. And the best part is how they made it they green screened.. like 1 or 2 new characters into an existing fantasy Kung Fu movie from the... 80's So all the original characters are dubbed using footage from the original movie
I was so happy when you shouted out EZD6. It's one of my favorite games, and I was thinking the same thing- the exploding dice and metacurrencies are similar enough that I want to try this.
If you were keeping with the theme of the system, I could imagine a "Santa Jail Break" after a "grandma got run over by a reindeer" type of background. Jailbreak, High speed bonkers chase, and getting him to the sleigh before it takes off without him on Christmas eve... could be fun.
i saw someone on tumblr talking about running nsbu for a christmas game, and they mentioned they added a tenth skill which was "merry" or "cheer" for particularly festive actions, kind of like mismag's magic die! it seemed like a fun addition for the holiday vibe!
I was inspired by this to make my own system "borrowing" all the best bits of game systems to make a fast paced game that's perfect for my group. I'm surprised I never really thought of doing it before. It's so easy to make a modular game like that and this is also a great mechanic for a no-prep one-shot. Just let players have one universal skill that starts at d4. No matter what they do, they use that skill. Kind of like Honey Heist.
This. If the players cobble together 10 tokens for a suite, each player can choose a single ability from the suite. Note, players aren't required to choose the same exact ability, there can be mixing and matching. If the players then later spend the 8 token difference to get the whole suite, everyone gets all three
Looks great. The only thing I would add is to let the players come up with the name of the movie you're playing at the start to get an idea of the story.
That's an awesome idea! Definitely would help unify the theme even more. Someone just commented about a kung fu (inspired) movie, so I'm feeling like this game could capture a real variety of action flicks as long as everyone is on the same page... and maybe rename one or two skills for these different subgenres.
If that's the kind of zero-prep shenanigans you're into, I recommend You Awaken in a Strange Place by Jacob Andrews! It starts off with one player (silently) coming up with a genre, another coming up with a location, and another with an adjective. This forms the basis on which you quickly throw together a character and their skills, and five minutes later the game starts. For example, a oneshot I GMd ended up being a Noir Detective on Succulent Jupiter, and another was a Zombie Horror in the Fairytale Circus. It's great fun and really easy
10 tokens allows everyone in the party to pick one ability from group of abilities. 18 tokens gives every party member every ability from the group of abilities.
One of my sons and I share a subscription to Dropout and were waiting for this. As soon as it dropped he converted it for our casual zombie game he is running and I brought it in for a one shot for the whole family on thanksgiving. 😄
To add on to what people have mostly already said: in the show, they got to pretty high levels of dice by the end of the show. The main thing being that the show was 10 2-hour episodes, coming in to a 20ish hour campaign. Not super long in my experience. I could knock that out with a few longer Sundays. So it's not designed to do a long-form campaign, and that's fine!
As an "old guy" who's been role-playing since the early 90s and familiar with a lot of the systems that came out in the 80s, this is a weird mix of "oh, good job guys, you've figured out things we knew a long time ago," combined with "but the super-simple nature is a very strong 2010s vibe, taking a strong position in the Gamist/Simulationist/Narrativist debtate" that leads me to the conclusion that D&D / D20 rules have clearly become massively dominant since I last took a look at what rules existed on game shelves. Exploding dice and "buff points" for failing rolls are both mechanics from the 80s. Better skill = bigger die size are mechanics from the 90s. Nothing in here is new. But the authors have taking all these building blocks, and packaged them up in a cool and easy-to-use way, and that's awesome. I'd not want to play this game routinely, I'm much too Simulationist for that, but as a one-off "palate cleansing aperitif" between campaigns of something heavier, or as a con game, this be a lot of fun. I'd handle the skills inflation fairly simply: each story is a movie, in 3 or 4 acts, with a definite ending - a good ending if the players succeed, a bad ending if they screw up, but either way an ending. The next story is a *new movie* and we need to watch our heroes climb the action-intesification-arc all over again - and so the skills will have all reset. I'd have to do some testing to decide about the abilities, but the *skills* would start over at d4 during each story, because that's how anaction movie *works*.
Bro...I'm not even five seconds into the video and I've come to this sudden and massive realization...I LOVE your content, dude. Seriously, you and Prof. DM are the two RPG content creators who I immediately click on your videos when I see a new upload. You do great work man, for real. Thank you for the information and the entertainment...I'm actually gonna go watch the video now.
The group abilities are 10 tokens from the group for each player to pick one ability each from the suite. The full suite for everyone is then unlocked if the group spends 8 more.
For a more campaign oriented game there is Feng Shui (and also Hing Kong Action Theatre) which are both a bit more detailed but focused on 80s action movies type games. Feng Shui also has a great background world and in world rationale for why PCs have such crazy skills & survivability compared to normal folks.
I've seen dice for attributes, I've seen exploding dice, what makes this really neat is that the explosion sticks for the session, naturally giving a curve to the game each time like a movie
I've seen some complaints that the exploding upgrade mechanic is untenable in long-term games, but I think that critique really misses the point of the mechanic; the mechanic is telling you that this is a system for short games. You shouldn't be running a year-long campaign or writing out a ton of lore, you should sit down and roll some dice for 4-8 sessions, wrap it up, then try another new thing.
I think this is great for one-shots. I'll probably use it for my Christmas themed adventure. I don't think it's balanced well enough for ongoing campaigns or players who like game balance and fairness. But you're right EZd6 is an awesome game. It's ideal for using similar mechanics in a more effective way.
@@BobWorldBuilder "Self-Destruct" is actually an apt description. And it does seem intentionally built for nothing more than a few games at most, which if you like quick and simple, is probably not an issue.
I was just thinking last night to put together a super-futuristic cyberpunk underground arena short campaign ran really rules lite and I'd been super wanting to run this system since watching the show after it came out, thank you for letting me know the final system finally released! I'll be retooling it to the setting and running it ASAP. VERY excited.
The season slowly devolves into a fever dream as players are rolling over 💯 on some checks. Narratively it’s like the video tape that they are trapped in is physically breaking apart in the vcr.
Kids on brooms doesn't have blowing up but does follow the dice for stats idea Kobold press has their gunpowder weapon system which kind of reminds me of this
6:52. I don't remember a "Blow up" mechanic, but I do remember that your ability is associated with the size of a die. Difference is, KOB really likes keeping your dice separate, kind of like treating each die like an inherent part of your character.
It seems like you'd need a way to temper the skill gain for long-term campaigns - like blowing up a skill roll gives you an xp in that skill, and once you have a number of xp equal to the die size, it goes up (and xp resets).
Yeah totally. Someone else commented that, in a different series, they used a system where you reset the die after reaching d20, but gain a buff for that skill.
I don't think that the system was designed for long campaigns. If the core concept is "action movie", they normally are short stories packed with a lot of action and hence the need to improve quickly to do more crazy things... But yes, with some adjustments it can work for longer games, I definitely would use a kind of "achievement" progression were you improve the dice depending on the new wilder things attempted by the players
i like the ideas around this system because it looks very much like Savage worlds light, making TTRPG's more accessible and varied is a godsend and this project does that perfectly.
This sounds like a really fun game! It reminds me (in spirit) of a 90s RPG named Tales of the Floating Vagabond. In that game, your character had "shticks" that resembled goofy skills/feats/abilities. For example, the Erol Flynn Effect caused there always to be something for the character to swing into a room on. The Rambo Effect caused the character to never run out of ammo. Of the weapons, there was literally a "BFG" (Big F'ing Gun). Games like these can be so fun.
Sounds fun and reminds me a tiny little bit of the Wushu RPG by Daniel Bayn, which has a similarly simple rules approach and has your dice pool blow up the more interesting and ridiculous descriptions you add to your actions. :)
Yeah the thing that makes heroes powerful is actually the turbo tokens. The thing about exploding die games like Kids On... and this one are that they are really swingy. Sure, you might have got your stunt up to a d20, but there's still a "1" on that die. ;) Oh and the Kids On systems involve exploding dice, but not as crazy as Blowin Up. If you roll a d4 and get 4, you then roll a d4 again and add it, and that can explode also. But you don't increase your die type in that skill just by rolling the max on that die.
Unless there's also an advantage or reroll mechanism, you can always still roll a 1, which keeps things interesting, as would a subtle (or not so suble) ramping up of the difficulty (and awesomeness) of the attempted actions. Ah... turbo tokens... It wouldn't feel as broken if the TTs only effected the immediate action instead of allowing you to force permanent blowups... but... For crazy action-movie one-shots, this completely works. The protagonists get better at what they do until the climactic final battle. I'm not sure how this would go for a long-form campaign.
My favorite thing about this system is that they've said, on the show, that it's based on "Murph's Terrible Dice Game", a game by one of the Intrepid Heroes where you just roll each of the dice in succession and reset if you don't roll the highest value. There's about a one in three million chance of winning.
Haha 😆 That is a thing? I made a gambling game called Hydra for a campaign setting of mine that used something similar. Haha no such thing as an original idea I see. 😅
I literally just bought Kids on Bikes last week to use as a system for some narrative anthology style interconnected short fun campaigns. Adding this into that mix!
It makes so much sense that a bunch of actors and improv specialists would have a system like this. In improv, no, is a bad word. It’s yes and. Which is why they have so much fun playing and their shows are engaging. More games need to have a yes and style of play.
To bring you up to speed on how absurd 1980’s action was (admittedly these are TV shows): - Airwolf flew into space - Knightrider drive through an active lava flow. 😂🤣😁😆
The thing about D20 is that most adventures span 6-12 sessions, with typically half of those being combat-focused. Most characters aren’t in more than 1-2 adventures and each character has a fairly dramatic arc, so rapid advancement is a good thing. This systems sounds ideally suited to that, but probably isn’t ideal for long-running campaigns.
A thing from the show that didn't make it into the system, that I'm a little sad about but I get why it was cut, is that they had it so that each group suite of abilities got cheaper when they moved up a die type without buying it. So, the d6 suite would become 8 for individuals and 16 for group if everybody got up to a d8 in a skill, dropping by 2 for each die level they reached above the die level needed for that suite without buying it. I felt this gave a fun sense of progression, so if they blew up a lot, but didn't fail much that session, they could make up for not affording the suites right away. But the trade-off is that you seem to keep Turbo Tokens between sessions in the released system, in the show their Turbo Tokens reset at the start of each new episode.
some of these contain direct references to actual Dimension 20 moments. the fact that a nat 20 can allow you to become the GM is a reference to the fact Brennan likes doing a comedic "rage quit" in response to unreasonably apt and lucky rolls, which is usually followed by one of the more chaotic players jumping into the scene and jokingly being GM. the thing is not once has Brennan actually canonified what happened during those moments. it's super fun.
i didnt know they released it already. brennan said they wanted to release it and the nbsu series was kinda like the final playtest. im so bringing this to my group since most of us are d20 nerds and loved the series. also yes. the series is truly insane, backed by brennan's mentality for the season of "agree to everything, no matter how crazy it is" and the actual genius use of turbo tokens. the players min maxed, yes, but more min maxed fun and to better get away with fantastical stunts. there was a loophole that was in the playtest that basically gave them infinite turbo tokens but i have to see if they fixed that. brennan said he would. thanks for covering this game. i hope it gets more people into ttprgs besides dnd and also convert more people to the dimension 20 fandom :D
Tbh blowing up is a brilliant way to get a decreasing advancement rate over time with minimal rules crunch and bookkeeping. Also i think group suited work as when everyone levels up a skill in a session they can either spend 10 tokens to get an ability for 1 pc or 18 for the whole group.
I might be missing something since I got really busy midway through the season so I've only seen the first few episodes, but I think it was 10 tokens (across the whole group) to unlock individual abilities for the group. Also the 10 tokens for one ability could be used as a deposit on the 18 tokens for the entire suite. I think the system's designed for short form campaigns - Of the sort they tend to play on Dimension 20 (at least outside of the seasons connecting to their main campaign setting), and have relatively short sessions for (2 hour sessions compared to the 3-4 most home/online games I've been involved in have run for). In that context, and 9 stats, I don't think the lack of ability to go back down on the ladder, particularly with the tone of OTT action movies. But I'm only about halfway through the campaign, I just haven't found time to watch much AP stuff lately. If I were running something in this system, I'd probably be aiming for 4-6 sessions, if not one shots, rather than anything long term with it. I don't know if I _would_ run something in it, just because it's not quite my genre, but I love that they published it. I've played a couple of sessions of Kids on Bikes this year (as a solo campaign), dice can explode in KoB, but they explode in a more standard way - you roll the same die type again, and add the numbers together, keep going until you don't roll max or you succeed (meaning you can't get a better success via exploding dice), and it doesn't level up your skill. I think there's also a turbo token equivalent which is more similar to how they operate in NSBU (except you can't spend it for group abilities at the end of sessions). Exploding dice also exist in Savage Worlds, as do bennies but bennies in that game aren't gained from failure and are for rerolls rather than +1s (and also to 'soak wounds') (I think. I have neither played nor read Savage Worlds, I've just watched a couple of APs using it - S1 of Me Myself and Die; and the Deadlands season of Oxventure)
I'm planning on running one of these in the next couple of weeks. I want a slightly longer game than their single season arc, though, so I'm gonna be modifying things a bit. Like the blowing up won't move up to the next die until three blowups (not successive), and charging a bit more for the in between episode skill purchases.
If any of you here are into over the top action, you really need to check out Outgunned. It is such a fantastic game and for some reason not as much talked about as it should. When D20 did the trailer my first thought was "Oh they are going to use Outgunnend" que dissapointment. Still, this is small and 4 pages and good enough. But as you say a bit on the goofy side.
Boom! I love all of Bob World Builder videos. Are you doing a video on all the rpgs you tried/played this year? Thanks for sharing and caring. Pretty sure a guy I work with has neck snapper. He twists his head violently and it cracks. It is very scary.
I'm yet to playtest my idea - but consider this homebrew way to slow-down the rapid 'level-up' of PC ability (if that's what you want): In order for the party to obtain 'Group Suite' abilities - they each need to have *banked* the required level of a skill. For example - if they want a d10 Group Suite ability, then *each* PC needs to have a *banked* d10-attainment. To elaborate - when a PC rolls max, & would normally get to go up a die-level in a skill, the player can choose to instead *BANK* that higher die for future contribution to a 'Group Suite' purchase, and therefore in this case they *remain on their original* skill-level. This simple added mechanic could perhaps be tracked with a 'Bomb' token, or perhaps a checkbox on the PC sheet. Now let's go FUBAR some stuff!
My thought is to distinguish a natural crit (highest die value) versus a dirty crit (via adding tokens). Only natural crits level up the skill, but the dirty crit still let's you reroll the same die.
Suite Abilities are party level ups. The entire group needs to obtain the same threshold to purchase suites, and it is reduced for a group buyout. There's likely a deliberation needed in these situations (discussion and compromise on which abilities the group buys). This might muddy character distinctions, creating more homogenization between the player characters. This could impact player choice in the future since players do like to optimize to some degree, and if choices are tied to the party, it might feel like a reduction in player agency. I see some potential in the idea though. Especially when considering group attacks and actions, or special effects on target numbers that aren't just maximum rolls. Even a chained action or ability could allow another player to jump into the turn on specific triggers (rolls, events, injury, etc). A chain reaction initiated by a suite.
7:10 EZ-d6 mentioned? Goodness, I thought everyone but me had forgotten it existed! Anyway, my thought with this are "with a little tweaking, you could use this as the DBZ system" with the dice going up resenting escalating desperation to beat the villain- and returning to neutral at the start of a new arc, maybe with some long-term bonuses.
I think maybe it was just the DCs of the examples that was off, like I'm sure "fly a helicopter to the moon" would have been a 30 in the show as a "functionally impossible, but you're still welcome to try, since the system allows it" I'm kind of surprised they didn't include suggestions for setting DC in the system pdfs.
Group abilities are a little unclear. It looks like in the show they do this: When everyone has at least one of a higher die type, the group picks one Group Suite that they qualify for to unlock. Now the group can spend 10 collectively to take one ability each. They all get to pick which one individually. Or they can collectively spend 18 for everyone to get all of the abilities from a particular suite.
Never Stop Blowing Up was so unhinged. I cried laughing. This would be great for a short campaign or like two shot because "perfect" movies are ~90 minutes give or take
I love games like this for short "beer and pretzels" one shot adventures. Longer scale campaigns...things go to bonkers pretty quickly. Not saying it's not fun, but I haven't found groups that want to stick around for that...and most of the players in the groups I play in want campaigns and character development.
This seems really neat, although I feel like it needs one more page doing at least a lose rundown of how to set the various DCs or I'm not sure how one would know how to run it off of this alone.
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Since it's not sponsored, send this to dropout. Those guys would give you a free membership for this, so you can catch up on a very entertaining RPG show.
by the end of the series it got to a point where the PCs basically could not fail due to all the abilities and the excess of turbo tokens, which may not be appealing for every table. but for a silly cartoon action game its great fun, and kind of incentivizes you to try the absolute most bonkers things possible. im def gonna run this with my folks
love seeing my favorite youtubers collide!
I LOVE that you’re a Dimension 20 fan!
Haha yeah! That sounds about right for this theme. Just learned from another comment that, in a different series, they used a similar system but when you reach d20 and blow up, you reset the die type and gain a permanent buff of some kind. Sounds more sustainable. Thanks a lot for commenting! :)
Unfortunately I live under a rock and haven't seen it yet, but I'd you get tokens from failing then it definitely fits the vibe. The lower who fails the entire first 10 minutes of the movie only to become Jason borne by the end is generally the core of most 90s movies especially if it's kids or teens. Although the idea of resetting at 20 but with a buff does sound cool, like how sometimes the hero or protagonist fails at something silly even though we just saw them fighting ninjas with ease. Definitely a game for hype and silly fun. Might play with my little cousins when I see them for Christmas, better start planning now.
@@T1J you could just make a rule that says “you need to blow up a skill 3 times to upgrade it to the next level” and that would slow down the power progression a bit.
Maybe also limit the amount of d20s the players can have. (3 maybe)
NOTE TO DYSLEXICS: There is little to no bowling in this game. Avoid disappointment like me, and find another, bowling-themed RPG if that's what you're looking for.
Thanks for the clarification
These are not mutually exclusive, you just gotta play a bowling-themed action game in which the bowling balls blow up when you throw them hard enough.
Play as The Bowler from Mystery Men
@@zibbitybibbitybop Just like real bowling balls!
Play as a nihilist from the big Lebowski
4:15 In the new season of Magic & Misfits, they introduced a mechanic where you reset your die type when you blow up a D20 but you gain a permanent buff
Ahh that sounds like a great way to handle it! Thanks!
@@BobWorldBuilderI think it’s more accurate to say that you get a magical boon (since the magic die is the only one this happens with) that can be kept permanently or that can be broken to release that item and gain 10 tokens instantly. Makes for fun story elements where they have to decide what boon they’re willing to burn to push for that last bit on an important roll.
@@MarceldeJong that should probably be how you get more abilities.
I have the seeds of an idea for using something like this in 5e, but it resets to the lowest die on every rest.
Hey! I watched the season on D20 and read the rules, so I can answer some of those questions.
You can only go up in the dice, not down. It is crazy and with some luck, you can get to a d20 in the first sesion, but this game is for short campaigns.
Kids on Bikes does have explosions, but you re roll the same dice value, the innovation of Never Stop Blowing up is the escalation.
To heal you need to be patched up by someone competent. This is mostly narrative, like going to a hospital, getting aid from a friend nurse, raiding a vet clinic and patching yourself. If I remember correctly, you get to full health after that, but I guess you could house rule it as only healing a level of injury.
Also, for the group abilities, the whole party chime in to pay the cost, and the first level, every person in the party chose one ability, it doesn't have to be the same but everyone should get one, and after you pay the whole suit, the whole party gets all of the abilities of that suit.
Thanks so much for the clarifications!
@@BobWorldBuilder happy to help!
Also the turbo tokens are the same thing as adversity tokens from KoB. You fail a roll, you get a token that can become a +1 to a later roll. Same thing with the prepared action, or it's aTleast similar. If you aren't making a snap decision in KoB you can take a flat number on a check instead of a roll
God I love Dimension 20, and all their antics and settings. Even their D&D stuff feels unique and fresh because of how Brennan handles the worlds and has house rules. Plus, as improv comedians, they play off each other so well. Love seeing D20, Dropout, and this system getting more attention.
They're awesome! I hope they get MORE attention!
Brennan is far an away my favourite GM, he's always there for the story.
after watching that season, I made up my own, even simpler, version of this for my family to play for halloween. I only kept the start-at-a-d4 and blow up. no abilities at all lol. we’ve tried d&d but it was a little complicated for my mom who has never played ttrpgs at all. but this? it was awesome. I said ‘if you hit the highest number in that skill, you level up. and it will become like plot armor in a horror movie by the end of this’ and it made sense and we had a great one hour little one shot where they had 6 characters die but my moms character became the main character and stopped the villain. it was the best gaming night we’ve ever had. some day we might graduate to adding in abilities, but for now we will stick to ‘tell me what you want to do, i’ll tell you what to roll and how hard it is’ and no extra fluff
That is awesome to hear! Thanks for sharing :)
This game is best for short campaigns, somewhere around 10 sessions. A one-shot can be fun but it’s best when you can get all the players to a point where it’s basically impossible to fail. One or two sessions of that and an epic final conflict is peak entertainment. I’ve already used this system a couple of times and my group loves it.
Excellent testimonial! Thanks for sharing
The fast and the furious franchise
“Short campaign”
“10 sessions”
I don’t even know what you’d call the campaigns I’ve been in, never getting past session 4
@ I’d call your campaigns incomplete. Based on what you’re saying, it sounds like you haven’t finished one yet. Is that right? 10 sessions would be short for most groups, particularly if a group does a lot of RP. My standard is 20-25 sessions(one per week), which can add up to 6-8 months after accounting for skipped sessions. If it’s a long campaign I count time rather than sessions. Long campaigns can last one or more years.
For Never Stop Blowing Up, someone published a google doc of all the rules they could ascertain from watching the show. I used that until Dimension 20 released the official. I had a close-knit group play at my house 2-3 nights a week, we were addicted. We’re finally taking a break after two “short” campaigns.
There are credits at the end of the PDF, it's made by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Carlos Luna
Weird, not in my PDF, so thank you for citing the creators!
I'm a payed subscriber to dimension 20, and didn't know that they released this. Thanks.
Omg it was my favorite "side quest" they've ever done!
Enjoy! :)
Sounds like Kung Fury the TTRPG
Great name haha, but I'm not familiar with that movie (show?). I'm imagining the Bruce Lee classics plus Die Hard or something lol
@@BobWorldBuilder oh man, you should absolutely make time for that movie
It's a riot, think Reno 911 jokes and humor in a Kung Fu movie.
And the best part is how they made it they green screened.. like 1 or 2 new characters into an existing fantasy Kung Fu movie from the... 80's
So all the original characters are dubbed using footage from the original movie
spot-on
Very accurate, I think.
It's also just around 30 minutes long, so easy to fit in a schedule.
I was so happy when you shouted out EZD6. It's one of my favorite games, and I was thinking the same thing- the exploding dice and metacurrencies are similar enough that I want to try this.
Nice! Yeah I only have a little experience with EZD6 (I like my d20s haha) but they *feel* too similar not to mention it!
Sounds like a fun one-shot. I wonder if I could make a bonkers Christmas themed adventure for the family with this.
Hahah oh yeah a saving OR stealing-xmas adventure would be great!
You could Die Hard trying for sure
Home Alone using this system.
If you were keeping with the theme of the system, I could imagine a "Santa Jail Break" after a "grandma got run over by a reindeer" type of background. Jailbreak, High speed bonkers chase, and getting him to the sleigh before it takes off without him on Christmas eve... could be fun.
i saw someone on tumblr talking about running nsbu for a christmas game, and they mentioned they added a tenth skill which was "merry" or "cheer" for particularly festive actions, kind of like mismag's magic die! it seemed like a fun addition for the holiday vibe!
I was inspired by this to make my own system "borrowing" all the best bits of game systems to make a fast paced game that's perfect for my group. I'm surprised I never really thought of doing it before. It's so easy to make a modular game like that and this is also a great mechanic for a no-prep one-shot. Just let players have one universal skill that starts at d4. No matter what they do, they use that skill. Kind of like Honey Heist.
That is awesome to hear! :)
Bob's Blowing Up with these non-D&D videos
10:33 its the group of abilities, not the group of players. All players get an ability when purchased
This. If the players cobble together 10 tokens for a suite, each player can choose a single ability from the suite. Note, players aren't required to choose the same exact ability, there can be mixing and matching. If the players then later spend the 8 token difference to get the whole suite, everyone gets all three
@link090909 thank you for expanding!
Looks great. The only thing I would add is to let the players come up with the name of the movie you're playing at the start to get an idea of the story.
That's an awesome idea! Definitely would help unify the theme even more. Someone just commented about a kung fu (inspired) movie, so I'm feeling like this game could capture a real variety of action flicks as long as everyone is on the same page... and maybe rename one or two skills for these different subgenres.
If that's the kind of zero-prep shenanigans you're into, I recommend You Awaken in a Strange Place by Jacob Andrews! It starts off with one player (silently) coming up with a genre, another coming up with a location, and another with an adjective. This forms the basis on which you quickly throw together a character and their skills, and five minutes later the game starts. For example, a oneshot I GMd ended up being a Noir Detective on Succulent Jupiter, and another was a Zombie Horror in the Fairytale Circus. It's great fun and really easy
Fantastic idea!
I subscribed to Dropout specifically to see more of that series.
The fact that the system is free is the cherry on top.
Nice! Yeah apparently they had no intention of publishing this but it was highly requested by viewers!
10 tokens allows everyone in the party to pick one ability from group of abilities. 18 tokens gives every party member every ability from the group of abilities.
THANK YOU!
One of my sons and I share a subscription to Dropout and were waiting for this. As soon as it dropped he converted it for our casual zombie game he is running and I brought it in for a one shot for the whole family on thanksgiving. 😄
Wonderful! :)
Is this how Big Trouble in Little China was made?
To add on to what people have mostly already said: in the show, they got to pretty high levels of dice by the end of the show. The main thing being that the show was 10 2-hour episodes, coming in to a 20ish hour campaign. Not super long in my experience. I could knock that out with a few longer Sundays. So it's not designed to do a long-form campaign, and that's fine!
As an "old guy" who's been role-playing since the early 90s and familiar with a lot of the systems that came out in the 80s, this is a weird mix of "oh, good job guys, you've figured out things we knew a long time ago," combined with "but the super-simple nature is a very strong 2010s vibe, taking a strong position in the Gamist/Simulationist/Narrativist debtate" that leads me to the conclusion that D&D / D20 rules have clearly become massively dominant since I last took a look at what rules existed on game shelves.
Exploding dice and "buff points" for failing rolls are both mechanics from the 80s. Better skill = bigger die size are mechanics from the 90s. Nothing in here is new. But the authors have taking all these building blocks, and packaged them up in a cool and easy-to-use way, and that's awesome. I'd not want to play this game routinely, I'm much too Simulationist for that, but as a one-off "palate cleansing aperitif" between campaigns of something heavier, or as a con game, this be a lot of fun.
I'd handle the skills inflation fairly simply: each story is a movie, in 3 or 4 acts, with a definite ending - a good ending if the players succeed, a bad ending if they screw up, but either way an ending. The next story is a *new movie* and we need to watch our heroes climb the action-intesification-arc all over again - and so the skills will have all reset. I'd have to do some testing to decide about the abilities, but the *skills* would start over at d4 during each story, because that's how anaction movie *works*.
They don't limit the blow-ups, they just keep going! The show is amazing, highly recommended!
Bro...I'm not even five seconds into the video and I've come to this sudden and massive realization...I LOVE your content, dude. Seriously, you and Prof. DM are the two RPG content creators who I immediately click on your videos when I see a new upload. You do great work man, for real. Thank you for the information and the entertainment...I'm actually gonna go watch the video now.
I really appreciate that! Prof is the man. I'll send your compliments!
The group abilities are 10 tokens from the group for each player to pick one ability each from the suite. The full suite for everyone is then unlocked if the group spends 8 more.
Thanks for all the worlds you've helped to build, Bob. Keep doing good work!
Thanks very much! :)
For a more campaign oriented game there is Feng Shui (and also Hing Kong Action Theatre) which are both a bit more detailed but focused on 80s action movies type games. Feng Shui also has a great background world and in world rationale for why PCs have such crazy skills & survivability compared to normal folks.
I've seen dice for attributes, I've seen exploding dice, what makes this really neat is that the explosion sticks for the session, naturally giving a curve to the game each time like a movie
I've seen some complaints that the exploding upgrade mechanic is untenable in long-term games, but I think that critique really misses the point of the mechanic; the mechanic is telling you that this is a system for short games. You shouldn't be running a year-long campaign or writing out a ton of lore, you should sit down and roll some dice for 4-8 sessions, wrap it up, then try another new thing.
Downloaded to try with one of my tables. Thanks Bob for the review!
This is the sort of content I like seeing from you, Bob. Keep them coming! I'd love to see you cover XCC at some point, too.
I think this is great for one-shots. I'll probably use it for my Christmas themed adventure. I don't think it's balanced well enough for ongoing campaigns or players who like game balance and fairness. But you're right EZd6 is an awesome game. It's ideal for using similar mechanics in a more effective way.
Yeah I wish I thought of this line for the video, but it seems like this system is built to "self-destruct" after a few sessions lol
@@BobWorldBuilder "Self-Destruct" is actually an apt description. And it does seem intentionally built for nothing more than a few games at most, which if you like quick and simple, is probably not an issue.
I was just thinking last night to put together a super-futuristic cyberpunk underground arena short campaign ran really rules lite and I'd been super wanting to run this system since watching the show after it came out, thank you for letting me know the final system finally released! I'll be retooling it to the setting and running it ASAP. VERY excited.
I think it would be funny if this became Bob's favorite RPG
Haha yeah, I like rules light games, but I need more crunch than this to sustain me!
The season slowly devolves into a fever dream as players are rolling over 💯 on some checks. Narratively it’s like the video tape that they are trapped in is physically breaking apart in the vcr.
Incredible 😆
LOVE the bonus action callout I loved his video!!!!
Exploding dice and tokens are also features of Savage Worlds. You don't get to roll the next die up, but you do get to roll that die again.
I love ALL Bob World Builder videos!
Thank you! :)
Kids on brooms doesn't have blowing up but does follow the dice for stats idea
Kobold press has their gunpowder weapon system which kind of reminds me of this
6:52. I don't remember a "Blow up" mechanic, but I do remember that your ability is associated with the size of a die. Difference is, KOB really likes keeping your dice separate, kind of like treating each die like an inherent part of your character.
It seems like you'd need a way to temper the skill gain for long-term campaigns - like blowing up a skill roll gives you an xp in that skill, and once you have a number of xp equal to the die size, it goes up (and xp resets).
Yeah totally. Someone else commented that, in a different series, they used a system where you reset the die after reaching d20, but gain a buff for that skill.
I don't think that the system was designed for long campaigns. If the core concept is "action movie", they normally are short stories packed with a lot of action and hence the need to improve quickly to do more crazy things... But yes, with some adjustments it can work for longer games, I definitely would use a kind of "achievement" progression were you improve the dice depending on the new wilder things attempted by the players
I love all Bob World Builder videos!
i like the ideas around this system because it looks very much like Savage worlds light, making TTRPG's more accessible and varied is a godsend and this project does that perfectly.
I for sure want to run a Never Stop Blowing Up mini-campaign for my group.
I just realized you should cosplay as a Nicholas Cage actor
"That's high praise."
Oh I thought it was going to be this one free matrix rpg with exploding dice that I played once
Haha well that's a great assumption! I didn't know that existed! What's it called?
@bobworldbuilder it’s called there is no spoon, I remember it being pretty rules-lite and supposedly made on a bus ride lol
TINS! "There Is No Spoon" is fantastic! It fundamentally changed how I looked at game design.
This is SICK! Great video mate!
This sounds like a really fun game! It reminds me (in spirit) of a 90s RPG named Tales of the Floating Vagabond. In that game, your character had "shticks" that resembled goofy skills/feats/abilities. For example, the Erol Flynn Effect caused there always to be something for the character to swing into a room on. The Rambo Effect caused the character to never run out of ammo. Of the weapons, there was literally a "BFG" (Big F'ing Gun). Games like these can be so fun.
You can also easily adapt it to an Arcane themed setting. Just gotta change a few things around.
That sounds really fun
Sounds fun and reminds me a tiny little bit of the Wushu RPG by Daniel Bayn, which has a similarly simple rules approach and has your dice pool blow up the more interesting and ridiculous descriptions you add to your actions. :)
Sounds neat! Yeah there's a lot of room for homebrew here
Wonder if anyone's gonna run some during PAXU... Hmmmm off to the website
Have fun at the con!
Yeah the thing that makes heroes powerful is actually the turbo tokens.
The thing about exploding die games like Kids On... and this one are that they are really swingy.
Sure, you might have got your stunt up to a d20, but there's still a "1" on that die. ;)
Oh and the Kids On systems involve exploding dice, but not as crazy as Blowin Up. If you roll a d4 and get 4, you then roll a d4 again and add it, and that can explode also. But you don't increase your die type in that skill just by rolling the max on that die.
Yo this sounds fun. Love the blowing up mechanic with moving up the dice chain. Sick!
Unless there's also an advantage or reroll mechanism, you can always still roll a 1, which keeps things interesting, as would a subtle (or not so suble) ramping up of the difficulty (and awesomeness) of the attempted actions. Ah... turbo tokens... It wouldn't feel as broken if the TTs only effected the immediate action instead of allowing you to force permanent blowups... but...
For crazy action-movie one-shots, this completely works. The protagonists get better at what they do until the climactic final battle. I'm not sure how this would go for a long-form campaign.
Just when I thought I was done collecting new games…I hear about this one. Time for a super Christmas one shot!!!! Buckle up. We saving Santa !!!
Or "stealing christmas" in the wildest possible way lol
My favorite thing about this system is that they've said, on the show, that it's based on "Murph's Terrible Dice Game", a game by one of the Intrepid Heroes where you just roll each of the dice in succession and reset if you don't roll the highest value.
There's about a one in three million chance of winning.
Haha 😆 That is a thing? I made a gambling game called Hydra for a campaign setting of mine that used something similar. Haha no such thing as an original idea I see. 😅
Arquebus damage die explodes in AD&D 2e. Though the size of the die doesn't change. They can also backfire if you roll a 1 or 2 on the attack roll.
Please cover ezd6. I have been a Scotty fan for ten years. Also please don't do a Scotty Collab as I'd HAVE to "die happy" 😉😉😉😉
Appreciate that thanks =)
Fast And Furious: the RPG. It’s crazy!
Good to see a simplified version of Savage Worlds coming to the table.
I literally just bought Kids on Bikes last week to use as a system for some narrative anthology style interconnected short fun campaigns. Adding this into that mix!
It makes so much sense that a bunch of actors and improv specialists would have a system like this. In improv, no, is a bad word. It’s yes and. Which is why they have so much fun playing and their shows are engaging. More games need to have a yes and style of play.
To bring you up to speed on how absurd 1980’s action was (admittedly these are TV shows):
- Airwolf flew into space
- Knightrider drive through an active lava flow.
😂🤣😁😆
Never even heard of "Airwolf" haha, sounds excellent
The thing about D20 is that most adventures span 6-12 sessions, with typically half of those being combat-focused. Most characters aren’t in more than 1-2 adventures and each character has a fairly dramatic arc, so rapid advancement is a good thing. This systems sounds ideally suited to that, but probably isn’t ideal for long-running campaigns.
A thing from the show that didn't make it into the system, that I'm a little sad about but I get why it was cut, is that they had it so that each group suite of abilities got cheaper when they moved up a die type without buying it. So, the d6 suite would become 8 for individuals and 16 for group if everybody got up to a d8 in a skill, dropping by 2 for each die level they reached above the die level needed for that suite without buying it. I felt this gave a fun sense of progression, so if they blew up a lot, but didn't fail much that session, they could make up for not affording the suites right away. But the trade-off is that you seem to keep Turbo Tokens between sessions in the released system, in the show their Turbo Tokens reset at the start of each new episode.
some of these contain direct references to actual Dimension 20 moments. the fact that a nat 20 can allow you to become the GM is a reference to the fact Brennan likes doing a comedic "rage quit" in response to unreasonably apt and lucky rolls, which is usually followed by one of the more chaotic players jumping into the scene and jokingly being GM. the thing is not once has Brennan actually canonified what happened during those moments. it's super fun.
This looks fun! Im reminded of Earthdawn
i didnt know they released it already. brennan said they wanted to release it and the nbsu series was kinda like the final playtest. im so bringing this to my group since most of us are d20 nerds and loved the series. also yes. the series is truly insane, backed by brennan's mentality for the season of "agree to everything, no matter how crazy it is" and the actual genius use of turbo tokens. the players min maxed, yes, but more min maxed fun and to better get away with fantastical stunts. there was a loophole that was in the playtest that basically gave them infinite turbo tokens but i have to see if they fixed that. brennan said he would. thanks for covering this game. i hope it gets more people into ttprgs besides dnd and also convert more people to the dimension 20 fandom :D
Tbh blowing up is a brilliant way to get a decreasing advancement rate over time with minimal rules crunch and bookkeeping. Also i think group suited work as when everyone levels up a skill in a session they can either spend 10 tokens to get an ability for 1 pc or 18 for the whole group.
This reminds me of the Cortex series of TTRPGs. One of my favorite systems, easy to pick up and play and highly customizable.
I will never stop blowing up the like button on Bob's videos, amiright?
You forgot to mention Savage Worlds, which also goes up die types and has exploding dice!
I might be missing something since I got really busy midway through the season so I've only seen the first few episodes, but I think it was 10 tokens (across the whole group) to unlock individual abilities for the group. Also the 10 tokens for one ability could be used as a deposit on the 18 tokens for the entire suite.
I think the system's designed for short form campaigns - Of the sort they tend to play on Dimension 20 (at least outside of the seasons connecting to their main campaign setting), and have relatively short sessions for (2 hour sessions compared to the 3-4 most home/online games I've been involved in have run for). In that context, and 9 stats, I don't think the lack of ability to go back down on the ladder, particularly with the tone of OTT action movies. But I'm only about halfway through the campaign, I just haven't found time to watch much AP stuff lately.
If I were running something in this system, I'd probably be aiming for 4-6 sessions, if not one shots, rather than anything long term with it. I don't know if I _would_ run something in it, just because it's not quite my genre, but I love that they published it.
I've played a couple of sessions of Kids on Bikes this year (as a solo campaign), dice can explode in KoB, but they explode in a more standard way - you roll the same die type again, and add the numbers together, keep going until you don't roll max or you succeed (meaning you can't get a better success via exploding dice), and it doesn't level up your skill. I think there's also a turbo token equivalent which is more similar to how they operate in NSBU (except you can't spend it for group abilities at the end of sessions). Exploding dice also exist in Savage Worlds, as do bennies but bennies in that game aren't gained from failure and are for rerolls rather than +1s (and also to 'soak wounds') (I think. I have neither played nor read Savage Worlds, I've just watched a couple of APs using it - S1 of Me Myself and Die; and the Deadlands season of Oxventure)
I'm planning on running one of these in the next couple of weeks. I want a slightly longer game than their single season arc, though, so I'm gonna be modifying things a bit. Like the blowing up won't move up to the next die until three blowups (not successive), and charging a bit more for the in between episode skill purchases.
If any of you here are into over the top action, you really need to check out Outgunned. It is such a fantastic game and for some reason not as much talked about as it should. When D20 did the trailer my first thought was "Oh they are going to use Outgunnend" que dissapointment. Still, this is small and 4 pages and good enough. But as you say a bit on the goofy side.
Loved this run on Dimension 20, Id love to run a 3 session mini campaign for freinds at some point.
Boom! I love all of Bob World Builder videos.
Are you doing a video on all the rpgs you tried/played this year?
Thanks for sharing and caring.
Pretty sure a guy I work with has neck snapper. He twists his head violently and it cracks. It is very scary.
Thanks! Yep early next year I'll make a video about everything I played/ran in 2024 :) Stay safe around neck snapper guy haha
This does seem really easy and really fun!
It'd be so easy to adapt this system into any setting. Finally a system I'd dm!
Awesome attitude! You can do it!!
We played this a couple weeks ago. It was way different than what we normally play but it turned out to be really fun.
I'm yet to playtest my idea - but consider this homebrew way to slow-down the rapid 'level-up' of PC ability (if that's what you want):
In order for the party to obtain 'Group Suite' abilities - they each need to have *banked* the required level of a skill. For example - if they want a d10 Group Suite ability, then *each* PC needs to have a *banked* d10-attainment. To elaborate - when a PC rolls max, & would normally get to go up a die-level in a skill, the player can choose to instead *BANK* that higher die for future contribution to a 'Group Suite' purchase, and therefore in this case they *remain on their original* skill-level.
This simple added mechanic could perhaps be tracked with a 'Bomb' token, or perhaps a checkbox on the PC sheet. Now let's go FUBAR some stuff!
My thought is to distinguish a natural crit (highest die value) versus a dirty crit (via adding tokens). Only natural crits level up the skill, but the dirty crit still let's you reroll the same die.
Suite Abilities are party level ups. The entire group needs to obtain the same threshold to purchase suites, and it is reduced for a group buyout. There's likely a deliberation needed in these situations (discussion and compromise on which abilities the group buys). This might muddy character distinctions, creating more homogenization between the player characters. This could impact player choice in the future since players do like to optimize to some degree, and if choices are tied to the party, it might feel like a reduction in player agency.
I see some potential in the idea though. Especially when considering group attacks and actions, or special effects on target numbers that aren't just maximum rolls. Even a chained action or ability could allow another player to jump into the turn on specific triggers (rolls, events, injury, etc). A chain reaction initiated by a suite.
This is like a more specific version of the game "Roll for Shoes". Interesting.
EZd6 is amazing.
7:10 EZ-d6 mentioned? Goodness, I thought everyone but me had forgotten it existed!
Anyway, my thought with this are "with a little tweaking, you could use this as the DBZ system" with the dice going up resenting escalating desperation to beat the villain- and returning to neutral at the start of a new arc, maybe with some long-term bonuses.
I appreciate the system drop Bob =)
I think maybe it was just the DCs of the examples that was off, like I'm sure "fly a helicopter to the moon" would have been a 30 in the show as a "functionally impossible, but you're still welcome to try, since the system allows it" I'm kind of surprised they didn't include suggestions for setting DC in the system pdfs.
thumbnail == 🔥💥
Exactly!
0:01 You look so good with the long hair
Thank you!
Group abilities are a little unclear. It looks like in the show they do this:
When everyone has at least one of a higher die type, the group picks one Group Suite that they qualify for to unlock.
Now the group can spend 10 collectively to take one ability each. They all get to pick which one individually. Or they can collectively spend 18 for everyone to get all of the abilities from a particular suite.
This is the Kung Fury of RPGs!
I LOVE ALL Bob World Builder videos! And for all those in the comment section: Be EXCELLENT to one another.
🙏🙏
Never Stop Blowing Up was so unhinged. I cried laughing. This would be great for a short campaign or like two shot because "perfect" movies are ~90 minutes give or take
Izzy? is on the moon. idk why i love that line lmao
It's a good line! xD
What's that music you have playing in the background? (from 1:20 and onwards)
Heard it in another video as well but I just can't track it down...
I believe that one is "The Goon's Loose" by Nathan Moore. Grabbed it from UA-cam's free audio library.
@@BobWorldBuilder that's the one!!!
Thank you so much :)
(Great video as well btw, wasn't here for the music, love your coverage of simple TTRPG's!)
This series was so much fun!
Fantastic overview!
I love games like this for short "beer and pretzels" one shot adventures.
Longer scale campaigns...things go to bonkers pretty quickly.
Not saying it's not fun, but I haven't found groups that want to stick around for that...and most of the players in the groups I play in want campaigns and character development.
I love Never Stop Blowing Up! It's the best season of Dimension 20 Dropout has released so far imo
This seems really neat, although I feel like it needs one more page doing at least a lose rundown of how to set the various DCs or I'm not sure how one would know how to run it off of this alone.