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Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?


Valor is a hybrid crunch/narrative RPG system with a focus on over-the-top anime action scenes. It's also a thing I co-wrote!

Seven years and one successful Kickstarter later, we're on DTRPG and our own website, where there's a blog where we post complicated adventures. One of them is an Iron Chef homage involving slaying and then cooking delicious monsters in a head-to-head kitchen arena deathmatch.

How it Plays
The game's a combination level-based pointbuy system, because you can't capture the intended feel without a constant upward spiral of increasing numbers. Each level you increase attributes (Strength, Agility, Spirit, Mind, Guts), become generally more powerful, then get more points to spend on Skills and Techniques. Everything is opposed d10 rolls plus values based on your attributes and level.

Skills/Flaws
Theoretically it's an ads/disads system, but we've ironed it out long enough that it functions more like a build-your-own-class-package system. No roleplaying 'flaws' for mechanical benefits, no Skills that are required to build a functional character, no serious trap options. There's whole clusters of Skills dedicated to things like Ranger-style companions, reaction-based tanking, or being Naruto.

Techniques
The real meat of chargen - if you've played D&D 4e, it's like Powers there, except you get to build them yourself. You start with a Core that defines what the technique does - Damage Core to hurt people, Healing Core to un-hurt people, Boost Core to temporarily grant Skills, Summon Core to summon lesser allies to join the fight, et cetera. From there, you add Modifiers that do things like increase the range, make it hit a bigger area, or add extra weird effects like immobilization or bypassing defenses. Then, you add Limits to reduce the cost of using the Technique, like cooldown times, ammunition limits, or requiring Valor to use it. Each level you get points you can use to either expand/upgrade existing Techniques or build new ones, and together they're what you use to do stuff during fights.

Valor
Every important character has a pool of Valor that resets to 0 each scene, then goes up by 1 each turn. If you act suitably dramatic and over the top, or tie your character motivations back into the scene, you get more Valor. You can spend 3 Valor at any time to retroactively get +5 to a roll, recover a bunch of Health (that you lose again after the scene ends), or other such fun bonuses. The actual intent of Valor is to get your PCs playing up the melodrama and shouting forbidden technique names at the table.

Challenge Scenes
Valor's got a baked-in framework for things other than combat, which I've seen used for stealth missions, information gathering, social conflicts, cook-offs, Kendo duels, and even actual combat. The core idea is that each scene has a number of Meters, ranging 1-10, which represent various kinds of progress - Enemy Suspicion, Infiltration Progress, Endurance, Troop Morale, Dessert Quality, whatever the scene needs. Some are scene goals, where getting it to 1 or to 10 ends the scene with some kind of outcome. Some are there to affect the road to progress, giving bonuses or penalties to rolls to try and move other meters as they increase or decrease. It's all very straightforward, flexible, and has a bunch of extra support from the Skills pile to make things more complicated.

This sounds neat but is it really worth that price?
I know this only means so much coming from me, but yes. It's a bit steep, but production values are high, and we're working on getting the next three books out. It honestly is some of the most fun I've ever had playing a system, even after being a part of four or five different campaigns.

The next three books
Valorous Foes (monster manual, we're working on that one right now), Tools of the Trade (sort of a PHB2/DMG2 book full of Extra poo poo), and an as-of-yet unnamed book for expanded Mecha rules.

Here's a simple sample character sheet:


We're very new, and working hard on getting word out, and someone over in F&F suggested I make a thread, so here we are! I'll gladly answer any questions about the game.

Quinn2win fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jul 17, 2017

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kaosblaze
Sep 26, 2015
As somebody who is currently playing in two different games using the Valor system, I can safely say that it's one of the best systems for mechanically representing moments you would expect in the most action-y of action animes. Mid-fight power-ups, dramatic yelling giving tangible bonuses, bosses that transition through multiple distinct phases, The Actual Power Of Friendship... it's all there.

Also, the concept of creating your own techniques using the sort of building blocks provided makes each character really feel like your own, instead of the 4e "I feel like I'm playing a miniatures game disguised as a roleplaying game" situation.

Monathin
Sep 1, 2011

?????????
?

I've played in one of Prof's games and I can attest that Valor is a cool system, if a bit difficult at times to get your head wrapped around, when it comes to building techs that do what you want.There's a -lot- of options, and having that many options invariably means that designing techs can be a bit difficult!

What Prof doesn't tell you in the OP here is that each level-up, you can re-configure any Tech you put points into, swapping out Limits (ways to keep the cost of the Technique down by giving it certain conditions, like "takes X amount of turns to recharge" or "can only be used when you have X amount of Valor"), Modifiers (stuff like say, Ramming Attack, which lets you do extra damage by slamming someone into something, or Blast Radius, aka your standard AoE burst ability, or even Very Special poo poo, like Sapping Strike as a Damage-Over-Time or Piercing Damage to bypass defense), or anything else about the Tech.. So re-configuring your character is in fact pretty easy on the player - even if there's a little more overhead for the GM to track when your plays are constantly evolving there character builds into what they want.

For an example, I play Kazuki - a sort of secondary frontline character in one of Prof's games, emulating small town murder mystery with kids with awakening- ok I'm just gonna say it, it's a Persona game. As I learned the system, Kazuki evolved from a sort of ranged frontliner who was meant to pick off enemies at range while tanking, into a sort of frontline mixed-damage skirmisher with a 'berserk' state, getting stronger at low health. However, I was also roleplaying Kazuki as the 'smart guy' in the group, helping the team push tactical advantages against monsters - which lets me pick up stuff like Feint (a support action that lets you do more damage) and in later seasons, stuff like Battle Analysis and Exploit Weakness, which let you make an opposed roll to give people, including yourself, bonuses to either hit or avoid being hit by enemies. Prof's been pretty chill about me learning the system, which has been a godsend as I hammer out exactly how all of Kazuki's techniquess work.

Basically, if you love designing your own character's abilities from the ground up and working with a system that gives you a boatload of options, Valor is definitely your kind of game.

Monathin fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Feb 15, 2016

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
For those curious about what play looks like, here's a text log of a boss fight from aforementioned Persona game.

Overbringer
Nov 27, 2013
I can confirm that I have played many many campaigns in Valor and they were all goddamn fantastic. The system is a LITTLE complex in terms of character creation, but once you get through that and into the meat of actually playing it rolls super smoothly and intuitively. I would put the strongest point of the system as its ability to effortlessly include and handle any kind of character you can come up with, so here's a few characters I have made up or seen during the years:

- Combat cyborg from space
- High School Student channeling the spirit of Gilgamesh
- Surfer loser turned reality warping god of mathematics
- Alcoholic wizard that uses BAC to power fire magic
- Creepy little girl with a cursed teddy bear that shoots lasers at people
- A Saiyan
- Man turned madness inducing elder god who sucked people into his own pocket dimension of madness
- Robotic torso with no head, thrusters for legs, and a laser cannon and spatula instead of arms

In conclusion, all hail Torsotron, master of destruction, maker of breakfast.

Overbringer fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Feb 15, 2016

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Could this be used for the wackier parts of hong kong action stuff? I've been looking for a mechanical framework to replace Feng Shui since their 2nd edition didn't actually fix any of the problems I had with the game and this might do it.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Night10194 posted:

Could this be used for the wackier parts of hong kong action stuff? I've been looking for a mechanical framework to replace Feng Shui since their 2nd edition didn't actually fix any of the problems I had with the game and this might do it.

Yes, absolutely! At low levels, it could do Wuxia swimmingly, and at high levels you get Kung Fu Hustle.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

ProfessorProf posted:

Yes, absolutely! At low levels, it could do Wuxia swimmingly, and at high levels you get Kung Fu Hustle.

I'll probably pick it up, then. Even if I don't end up using it, studying how other people tried to get Action into RPGs is still valuable to trying to make my own fix someday.

blazingfool
May 31, 2013
Another player/former GM here to chime in that Valor is one of my all-time favorite systems to play in. If you're the type of tabletopper who doesn't go in for the complicated gritty rules and prefers to just let loose and have a fun time shouting attacks and roleplayfighting, I can't think of a better system for Valor. It can do funny, it can do dramatic and tense; it really is Anime: The System.

LaSquida
Nov 1, 2012

Just keep on walkin'.
So, this looks neat, but I saw comments about the . Pdf having copy/paste disabled. Is that true?

Also, to add to my question in the F & F thread, why is the pdf&print combo so pricey?

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015
As someone who just bought it recently and skimmed through it, it kinda reminds me a bit of Mutants & Masterminds / 4e (powers and combat, respectively) crossed with the Final-Fantasy-ish games Super Console and Zodiac (stat/level relation and more powers). This looks pretty promising so far.

Something I'm kinda sorta missing at the moment from my skimming is some kind of henshin flaw (aka "Go through your stock footage transformation sequence to gain access to your powers"). Then again shows with such a dedicated combat form don't really make it a problem to just transform right before the fight starts, so why should I?

Doresh fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Feb 15, 2016

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

LeSquide posted:

So, this looks neat, but I saw comments about the . Pdf having copy/paste disabled. Is that true?

Also, to add to my question in the F & F thread, why is the pdf&print combo so pricey?

As mentioned in F&F, all the business decisions about pricing and whatnot were handled by the other writer - I have it on good word that he'll be around later today to talk about all this stuff. I'm mostly dev work.

Doresh posted:

Something I'm kinda sorta missing at the moment from my skimming is some kind of henshin flaw (aka "Go through your stock footage transformation sequence to gain access to your powers"). Then again shows with such a dedicated combat form don't really make it a problem to just transform right before the fight starts, so why should I?
For the kind of transformation that you do to unlock all your fighting moves, you're exactly right - just handwave it as happening while you're rolling Initiative. For a game where PCs run real risk of losing access to their Henshin Device, it might be worth a custom Flaw.

For the kind of transformation where you chage up and unleash your true latent power to turn the tables, that's a Transformation, a kind of Ultimate Technique. You get one every 5 levels, and they can be a transformation or a super attack.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!
Will there be a POD version of this at some point?

Nevermind, I found it.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Feb 15, 2016

Doresh
Jan 7, 2015

ProfessorProf posted:

For the kind of transformation where you chage up and unleash your true latent power to turn the tables, that's a Transformation, a kind of Ultimate Technique. You get one every 5 levels, and they can be a transformation or a super attack.

Yeah, I've seen that stuff. Very DBZ, I must say.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

ProfessorProf posted:

As mentioned in F&F, all the business decisions about pricing and whatnot were handled by the other writer - I have it on good word that he'll be around later today to talk about all this stuff. I'm mostly dev work.

It seems like you guys put yourself in a bit of a catch-22 with your previous kickstarter pricing, mostly.

I don't recall the kickstarter being promoted on SA previously, was there a reason for that?

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Alien Rope Burn posted:

I don't recall the kickstarter being promoted on SA previously, was there a reason for that?

That was for the carefully well-reasoned logic that I didn't think of doing it until it was too late.

NutritiousSnack
Jul 12, 2011
I decided to take a chance and pick it up, because of the pitch in F&F and in this thread.

Have done nothing but a prelim skim over the rules and layout of the book few thoughts.

- Why isn't this bookmarked? Like seriously, it always confuses me whenever a rpg PDF isn't bookmarked in this day and age.

- For an indiepress game the layout and presentation of the book is legitimately great. I can't say anything other than reading rules and the way techniques work, I have more than a general idea of how it works and that through play I'll actually nail it down. The best you can hope for. I'm sure I'll find nit picky problems and areas you can improve, but it's better than 90% of the market in this area alone. The art isn't DnD good, but it looks very nice and sets the tone of what this game is/does. Way, way better than a lot of competition especially at the "level" you guys are operating on.

- Techniques looks like this game bread and butter, and it looks like an artisan bakery that has an insanely long line at 4am right now. Kudos. I think the skills section could stand to be beefed up to provide more tactical options, especially at a $25 dollar price tag but it's far from parred down. There's plenty of depth here and unlike a lot of crunchy games that aren't DnD4e or Exalted 3rd edition, the pool looks like something I'd actually want to dive into.


I'm going to say this is worth the price of entry and so far looks like a great game (though man is it pricey for an indie rpg), especially with the books you've planned on the horizon to expand/broaden the core concept (mecha rules) and add smart depth to the game. I want to start a campaign using this game already, looks perfect for JRPG or shonen battle antics.

Kaja Rainbow
Oct 17, 2012

~Adorable horror~
I usually dislike crunchy systems and yet I've had a good amount of fun playing this. It helps that most of the crunch is upfront, so I only have to worry about it when in chargen and during levelup. And when I wrapped my brain around it, it wasn't really that hard, though I still have to look up some stuff when I level up. In play it's decently smooth and not too complicated. Skills and Techniques are pretty fun to play around with, but what really made the system for me was the Valor subsystem. You get Valor every turn and for particularly entertaining RP (such as a hotblooded speech). In practice, it tends to make the middle to late parts of combat more exciting, as people (including the NPC enemies!) begin blowing Valor on Overdrives, making for some sudden reversals in combat. In a recent session, a boss was knocked down to 0 HP, then suddenly went through a transformation, summoned a bunch of minions, and Overdrived for some extra HP, then began kicking our butts even more. A couple other PCs piled in teamwork Overdrives to help my character land the killing blow before the boss got a turn that would have potentially really hurt our KOed teammate.

Plus the challenge meter system is decently versatile and I've seen it used for such things as trying to persuade someone before they lose their patience with us, or for a kendo duel... and that play example Prof linked to has an example of the meter system being used to affect combat, with Psyche and Rejection being separate meters where Psyche affects the penalties or bonuses the PC gets against their own Shadow and Rejection affects the Shadow's defenses. So combat was combined with a social challenge to help the PC overcome their Shadow.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.
Can you pull of the fusion dance with this system? Not a deal breaker, if not: it can be a very hard thing to pull off.

Cirina
Feb 15, 2013

Operation complete.
This looks pretty interesting, don't have the money to spare to grab the pdf right now but it's definitely something I'll try to keep in mind.

Behold the Void
Feb 16, 2016
Hello everyone, I'm the other writer of Valor/CEO of Valorous Games, so I'm happy to answer questions on business decisions and direction, as much as I am able!

LeSquide posted:

So, this looks neat, but I saw comments about the . Pdf having copy/paste disabled. Is that true?

Also, to add to my question in the F & F thread, why is the pdf&print combo so pricey?

Copy/paste is currently disabled due to advise from our Legal Counsel, but we're open to removing it. I've a number of things to discuss with him since I'm working on our first errata push and I'll put this on the top of my list.

Regarding the PDF/Print combo, the pricing was actually based on our initial setup, our infrastructure wasn't especially robust so there was cost and time associated with sending out a PDF. We've managed to correct these issues as we've begun getting Valor in with distribution services, so this price will very likely drop quite soon. For now, you can get the combo with no additional charge above the book over at Indie Press Revolution.

NutritiousSnack posted:

I decided to take a chance and pick it up, because of the pitch in F&F and in this thread.

Have done nothing but a prelim skim over the rules and layout of the book few thoughts.

- Why isn't this bookmarked? Like seriously, it always confuses me whenever a rpg PDF isn't bookmarked in this day and age.

- For an indiepress game the layout and presentation of the book is legitimately great. I can't say anything other than reading rules and the way techniques work, I have more than a general idea of how it works and that through play I'll actually nail it down. The best you can hope for. I'm sure I'll find nit picky problems and areas you can improve, but it's better than 90% of the market in this area alone. The art isn't DnD good, but it looks very nice and sets the tone of what this game is/does. Way, way better than a lot of competition especially at the "level" you guys are operating on.

- Techniques looks like this game bread and butter, and it looks like an artisan bakery that has an insanely long line at 4am right now. Kudos. I think the skills section could stand to be beefed up to provide more tactical options, especially at a $25 dollar price tag but it's far from parred down. There's plenty of depth here and unlike a lot of crunchy games that aren't DnD4e or Exalted 3rd edition, the pool looks like something I'd actually want to dive into.


I'm going to say this is worth the price of entry and so far looks like a great game (though man is it pricey for an indie rpg), especially with the books you've planned on the horizon to expand/broaden the core concept (mecha rules) and add smart depth to the game. I want to start a campaign using this game already, looks perfect for JRPG or shonen battle antics.

The lack of bookmark is due to our intent to get the PDF out as soon as we were able after the Kickstarter, we're hoping to add that functionality when we do the first errata push hopefully soon (we have a major convention we're gearing up for and are also doing dev work for Valorous Foes so we're spread somewhat thin at the moment).

Regarding the overall price, our intent is to offer a product that can eventually move beyond the "Indie" space, we're all working very hard to build a brand and content to make this a fully realized and supported roleplaying system. It's very heartening that you like our presentation and core system, we were actually using among other things the D&D books as a point of reference to how our book needs to look and feel and how deeply our system should be developed. Sounds like you feel you got your money's worth, which is definitely our intent. Our pricing structure is generally modeled after smaller studios with equitable production values, with splatbooks being similarly priced but likely slightly cheaper as they're optional books and not required to play the game.

Covok posted:

Can you pull of the fusion dance with this system? Not a deal breaker, if not: it can be a very hard thing to pull off.

Not yet, but I would suggest as a quick and dirty ruling to have the players doing the Fusion dance work together to create a character sheet for a Master character combining some of their general traits. Fusion Dance is definitely on our radar for Tools of the Trade, it's a very iconic thing that we want to capture but didn't want to delay release to try to figure out how to make it work.

Countblanc
Apr 20, 2005

Help a hero out!
So convince me that this game is well balanced. Games with lots of options, especially ones that let you build options, have a history of having wild power imbalances between characters. The game is supposedly "crunchy" (though I don't really know what that means, there's certainly a lot of numbers so I guess there's that) but I'm more concerned with the options I have available being both powerful/exciting and not objectively better than what my friend has on their sheet than I am with just having a lot of choices for the sake of covering every possible niche.

JesterOfAmerica
Sep 11, 2015
Have you considered giving a preview copy to Six Feats Under? They are a goon actual play podcast who are open to demoing games on the station. I'm sure if you asked they would be cool with it.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Countblanc posted:

So convince me that this game is well balanced. Games with lots of options, especially ones that let you build options, have a history of having wild power imbalances between characters. The game is supposedly "crunchy" (though I don't really know what that means, there's certainly a lot of numbers so I guess there's that) but I'm more concerned with the options I have available being both powerful/exciting and not objectively better than what my friend has on their sheet than I am with just having a lot of choices for the sake of covering every possible niche.

Builds currently being run in games I'm GMing:
  • Support hero with AOE wind magic, buffs and healing
  • Massive tank who eschews all ranged abilities to tank hits for allies and counterattack the attackers
  • Low-mobility long-range damage-and-debuff harrier
  • Hybrid melee/magic flanker who goes nuclear at critical Health
  • Backline fragile blaster mage who copies enemy techniques to use them back against them
  • Simple high-mobility lightning/sword medium range striker
  • Melee fighter who has a robot companion that shoots rocket punches at enemies, who can flank with his own companion
  • Healer tank who throws bombs and throws shields on everyone
  • Melee magic-user who hurts herself to do sonic blast attacks and gets more powerful the longer the fight goes on
  • Witch who debuffs and immobilizes enemies before blowing them to pieces, but runs the risk when using her stronger spells of being taken over by a demon living inside her
  • Goku

All of these characters are competitive, none of them have had any trouble keeping pace. Some of them have had 1v1 duels against each other that came down to clashing their final ultimate techniques while screaming with a sliver of health left on each side.

As long as you're pumping 2-3 stats so that your active attributes are maxed out for your level, you're guaranteed to be able to hold your own, because you can use any of your attributes to attack or defend (although there are drawbacks - for example, dodging a non-Agility attack using Agility means you risk taking slightly extra damage if you get hit). We designed all the skills with a few hard design tenets to make sure nothing completely broke the game - attacks always outstrip healing to keep fights from lasting forever, nothing EVER gives you additional attack actions, nothing reliably boosts accuracy or evasion by more than 1-2 points.

Keeping any character types from outshining other character types was one of our top priorities during design, and the place where most of our playtesting and design effort went.

AweStriker
Oct 6, 2014

Countblanc posted:

So convince me that this game is well balanced. Games with lots of options, especially ones that let you build options, have a history of having wild power imbalances between characters. The game is supposedly "crunchy" (though I don't really know what that means, there's certainly a lot of numbers so I guess there's that) but I'm more concerned with the options I have available being both powerful/exciting and not objectively better than what my friend has on their sheet than I am with just having a lot of choices for the sake of covering every possible niche.

In addition to the above, I'm in two campaigns and in one I run a mixed-talent damage sponge and in the other I run... "Rock Lee with a sentry turret" is probably not inaccurate, although the sentry turret is new and untested and he's also got lower HP than the Rock Lee bit might indicate. The second one's begrudging companions include a corporate-themed back-row blaster whose techniques include literal red tape, a snake oil saleswoman that naturally can't heal herself, and a mercenary with a gun and a lot of bombs.

Eventually I'd like to play a character that employs Portals for extreme trick shots but neither of them are really built for that so who knows when that'll happen.

kaosblaze
Sep 26, 2015

JesterOfAmerica posted:

Have you considered giving a preview copy to Six Feats Under? They are a goon actual play podcast who are open to demoing games on the station. I'm sure if you asked they would be cool with it.

Feats covering Valor would be amazing. I think a while back, when Valor was still in dev I proposed the idea of Feats running a test campaign, but now that there's an actual product, it may be a better time to try again.

Cirina
Feb 15, 2013

Operation complete.
Well I decided to buy the pdf, I was surprised to find out that going through storenvy doesn't just let you download it immediately so I'll have to wait until I can actually give it a read however.

LaSquida
Nov 1, 2012

Just keep on walkin'.

Behold the Void posted:

Hello everyone, I'm the other writer of Valor/CEO of Valorous Games, so I'm happy to answer questions on business decisions and direction, as much as I am able!


Copy/paste is currently disabled due to advise from our Legal Counsel, but we're open to removing it. I've a number of things to discuss with him since I'm working on our first errata push and I'll put this on the top of my list.

Regarding the PDF/Print combo, the pricing was actually based on our initial setup, our infrastructure wasn't especially robust so there was cost and time associated with sending out a PDF. We've managed to correct these issues as we've begun getting Valor in with distribution services, so this price will very likely drop quite soon. For now, you can get the combo with no additional charge above the book over at Indie Press Revolution.


Thanks for the answers! Being able to copy out rules blurbs for my own use (usually into google docs for planning/statblock writing purposes) is pretty important for me when it comes to .pdf products. If that gets resolved, I think I'll pick up the print/.pdf bundle.
I'm really happy to hear about the combo at IPR; are you planning to sell through brick and mortar stores? If so, I really encourage you guys to consider Bits and Mortar. It really makes the proposition of buying games through the local store (and the local store actively wanting to support RPGs) more attractive.

Cirina
Feb 15, 2013

Operation complete.
It occurs to me that perhaps something went wrong with the Storenvy system, as despite getting a confirmation in my email my purchase isn't showing up in my orders section and perhaps that would be where I'm supposed to download the pdf from. If either ProfessorProf or Behold The Void know if that's the case, I'd greatly appreciate a reply, either here, in pm, or at my email that I sent a message to their store address from earlier before I had thought of this.

sheepyton
Feb 16, 2016

Eopia posted:

It occurs to me that perhaps something went wrong with the Storenvy system, as despite getting a confirmation in my email my purchase isn't showing up in my orders section and perhaps that would be where I'm supposed to download the pdf from. If either ProfessorProf or Behold The Void know if that's the case, I'd greatly appreciate a reply, either here, in pm, or at my email that I sent a message to their store address from earlier before I had thought of this.

Hi there! So I'm actually the one that takes care of the store-side stuff (along with a few other things, but that's not important atm). I just saw all of this go through, so I'll be contacting you in a sec! Not sure what happened, but I'll get it fixed for you.

Cirina
Feb 15, 2013

Operation complete.

sheepyton posted:

Hi there! So I'm actually the one that takes care of the store-side stuff (along with a few other things, but that's not important atm). I just saw all of this go through, so I'll be contacting you in a sec! Not sure what happened, but I'll get it fixed for you.

Ah, thank you very much.

Behold the Void
Feb 16, 2016

LeSquide posted:

Thanks for the answers! Being able to copy out rules blurbs for my own use (usually into google docs for planning/statblock writing purposes) is pretty important for me when it comes to .pdf products. If that gets resolved, I think I'll pick up the print/.pdf bundle.
I'm really happy to hear about the combo at IPR; are you planning to sell through brick and mortar stores? If so, I really encourage you guys to consider Bits and Mortar. It really makes the proposition of buying games through the local store (and the local store actively wanting to support RPGs) more attractive.

Bits and Mortar is definitely something we'll look into, thanks for the suggestion! We are working on building our distribution network and customer base with the hope of getting into local game stores, focusing on the Pacific Northwest with more personal attention since we live out here. IPR is part of that, and partnering with Bits and Mortar would help a lot as well since they work with stores that IPR works with so there's definite synergy there.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.
Do you guys have some fillable character sheets?

Also, how would the game go if you cut down season restrictions or outright give people skills for free. Like, ruling that Flight is free and season 1 for a DBZ game.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Covok posted:

Do you guys have some fillable character sheets?

Also, how would the game go if you cut down season restrictions or outright give people skills for free. Like, ruling that Flight is free and season 1 for a DBZ game.

Editable PDF here.

I'm actually running a DBZ game right now with that very house rule, and it works perfectly fine. Fiddling with the skill progressions generally won't break the game, as long as you do it the same way for everyone.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.
Perfect! I love fillable character sheets.

I'm thinking of doing a weird DBZ (I suppose it's more apprioate to say Dragonball Super, in this case) game where everyone is a Sayian from Universe 6, the universe were sayians grew to become protectors of the universe. It's good to know those rules work them.

What lead to you guys making this game?

Also, I strongly reccomend against brick and mortar stores. I don't feel people buy books from brick and mortar in general as much anymore and it requires physical inventory, which has its own added costs.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Covok posted:

What lead to you guys making this game?

In short, because it didn't exist. We both like ridiculous fightmans anime, and we couldn't find an RPG that properly captured the feel. So, we decided to fill the niche.

A lot of the early mechanical inspiration came from D&D 4e, Super Robot Wars, a few failed homebrews of my own, and a bunch of D&D 3.5e homebrews Void did with similar objectives.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.
If anyone is interested, I got a recruit up for that Dragonball game I mentioned.

ProfessorProf posted:

In short, because it didn't exist. We both like ridiculous fightmans anime, and we couldn't find an RPG that properly captured the feel. So, we decided to fill the niche.

A lot of the early mechanical inspiration came from D&D 4e, Super Robot Wars, a few failed homebrews of my own, and a bunch of D&D 3.5e homebrews Void did with similar objectives.

Well, I'm glad it worked out for you then. I have to imagine the Valorous Foes book must be pretty fun to write considering it is making a bunch of crazy villains and character.

Edit: Also, I bookmarked my copy of the pdf, if you want some help getting it bookmarked.

Behold the Void
Feb 16, 2016

Covok posted:

Perfect! I love fillable character sheets.

I'm thinking of doing a weird DBZ (I suppose it's more apprioate to say Dragonball Super, in this case) game where everyone is a Sayian from Universe 6, the universe were sayians grew to become protectors of the universe. It's good to know those rules work them.

What lead to you guys making this game?

Also, I strongly reccomend against brick and mortar stores. I don't feel people buy books from brick and mortar in general as much anymore and it requires physical inventory, which has its own added costs.

Regarding the brick and mortar, we're actually holding a reasonable amount of physical inventory that I'd love to move into stores. We're still working on our distribution network but getting into stores is a goal of ours, even having the books on the shelf in regions outside our own is valuable and I know many people who are still interested in a single copy alone (I admit I'm a bit old school myself, most of the work I've been doing on Valorous Foes, which is currently about 25% complete, has been done with my own copy of the book spread open). We take a lot of pride in the quality of our physical hardcover, it's in my admittedly extremely biased opinion a simply gorgeous book and a lot of fun to flip through. Getting stores on board with our game and getting our game on their shelves is very important to us.

Also to add to Prof's point, on a personal note I've always dreamed of making a career in a creative industry. I would love to someday make Valor my full time career, it's a work of passion that's taken around a third of my entire life to complete and I still love it, I still play it, I'm still unbearably proud of it. I want to make it great and I want to reach the point where I can devote my working time to making it even better.

Covok posted:

If anyone is interested, I got a recruit up for that Dragonball game I mentioned.


Well, I'm glad it worked out for you then. I have to imagine the Valorous Foes book must be pretty fun to write considering it is making a bunch of crazy villains and character.

Edit: Also, I bookmarked my copy of the pdf, if you want some help getting it bookmarked.

It's been a lot of fun thus far! Something we're introducing with Valorous Foes which will continue into Tools of the Trade is more flavor-intensive skills, flaws, and techniques. We're trying a few new things, keywords for behaviors and tactics to help encourage the GM to do more than just have foes jump out at the party and fight them to the death, and interesting and flavorful builds that keep to some of our core balance tenets (no instakill, no extra action) while still being interesting and engaging. I've enjoyed a lot of the Foes I've already made, some of them are really neat. And some are just awful, like the Goblin Flunky whose entire build purpose is devoted to turning invisible and shanking you.

Behold the Void fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Feb 17, 2016

Hostile V
May 31, 2013

Solving all of life's problems through enhanced casting of Occam's Razor. Reward yourself with an imaginary chalice.

I'm sincerely enjoying that all of your stats help boost stamina/health/whatever, just to different degrees, and that you can use your Good Stats for defense, it's a nice, thoughtful touch that helps keep the characters healthily balanced.

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Cirina
Feb 15, 2013

Operation complete.
I've received my copy of the pdf after some confusion thanks to using paypal, and I'd like to thank sheepyton for being patient and helpful until it was all resolved.

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