Fast, Furious, Fuku

There are some anime type rules for Savage Worlds I'd kicked around a few months ago. The idea is to provide a plot point campaign as well as a rule set that allows for anime type fighting. That could mean a lot of things, but I'll try to get across a few.

Powerful: Anime characters have good fights when it's against a main character, but extras are REALLY extras. Savage Worlds is good for this since there are extra rules inherent, but a few more power moves and Edges to speed up minion clean up and create truly large scale battles seem appropriate. This part was easy, represented by a set of edges that are there to allow for characters to destroy multiple minions with one spell, as well as objects.

This also includes a sort of uber arcane background that, while using multiple skills much like super powers, provides more power points, as well as a penalty for rolling ones. It's more powerful than the average AB, but it 1) fits an anime setting style better and 2) is available for everyone to use during the game, for free at character creation.

One Upping: A lot of anime fights are a series one upping the other person- a new technique is broken out to overcome the last technique used, over and over again, until somebody ends up on top. These techniques may be secret or spur of the moment, or even just a sheer moment of Willpower overcoming the character and pushing them past their limits, but it's the way things tend to go.

A One Upping system has been discussed, an advantage that is passed around between characters as they bust out new powers, each time the advantage growing until it will almost certainly lead to characters being knocked out or killed from it's use with one side victorious.

The current system gives a lot of options for how this advantage is passed around and what it does for people, but I'm starting to realize that the list, while allowing a lot of flexibility, isn't necessarily fast, furious, or fun. So I think I'll change it from being a flexible list into something characters pick from, like a Limit Break from FF VII, maybe picking a single 'one up' advantage and one up taking technique per rank.

Vets and Youths: I kind of want a way to distinguish this in a way that feels 'fair'. I've been thinking about allowing Vet's to gain all the starting advantages but the special arcane background, instead getting a more focused, but less powerful arcane BG- they would be far more skilled and powerful starting off, but weaker in the long run. Probably, they'd have less power points, but a single controlling skill, and less powers over all. It would make them very GOOD with the power they had though. Just not having as much potential as the youth, which is the usual route of such things.

A Flexible Setting: Anime runs a gamut of genre's so no setting can be appropriate for everything. I think of things like Tenchi Muyo when I think broad- there's space, aliens, demons, magic, super powers, a little of everything. But it's not Savage at all, it's far too fluffy. Savage makes me think of Berserk, but that's just low fantasy. I'd love for a game to really fit things like Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, Gunsword X, and a few other types of shows with a nice ensemble cast.

My first try was the idea of a school that trained Earth's next generation of superhuman children after the Power Wars (a war fought with superpowers) destroyed most of Earth's infrastructure, leaving a large underground population of children, who are growing into teenagers, as the largest superhuman population in the world. Hijinks, calamity, and world saving ensue from the various Battle Schools.

The second idea I tried to throw around was one where a Colony Ship has flown away from a wrecked Earth to establish a new home on a colony world. Only the colony world seems to be on the rocks when they get there, small patches of lawless human civilization, lots of monsters, superhuman gangsters, etc. The young Colonial Troopers, using the disciplines of Martial Arts, Super Science, and Magic, must work to save this wrecked world and discover the hidden evil that plagues it. Kind of a Space Exalted feel.

No third idea at this point, but I really do want to figure out what would be better. The first seems more ready for some light hearted antics, while the second feels a little too close to the Phantasy Star series.

Really, my biggest obstacle is setting. I may post on this elsewhere to find some opinions.