BREAK!!

• Genre: Tabletop RPG
• Time Played: 300+ Hours 
• Too Short/Long: Honestly it depends on the game. I think this is best played in a mid-length campaign. Tell a story about adventurers facing a threat, maybe multiple, and conclude their story. Make sure there is some travel and multiple key locations. If you're playing once a week, you might wanna aim to wrap up a campaign in half a year tops.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Very Pleased, even if I wasn't playtesting, BREAK!! would be in my regular tabletop RPG lineup.
• Why I played: Mainly because I know one of the creators, but what draws me in specifically is the gorgeous artwork and the inspirations behind it. I see a lot of what I want to put into games myself, in this game.
• Recommend to others: Definitely, that's why I'm making this post. SOLID recommend from me, but specifically if you want an easy to pick up and play but also content rich rpg for a group of friends specifically into anime and video games, this is the one to go for.

 Doing something a little different today. Most of my blog is for my own personal use. I write up on the games I finish to hold myself accountable so I actually finish games, and also so I can reference my thoughts on them. There are so many games I play that years later I just can't remember what I thought of them, but when I reference my own writing it all comes back to me. So pay that no mind. I'm not here to get followers for my personal notes that I make to also share with my friends.

Today I wanna talk about BREAK!! Considering I've finished several campaigns, I'd say it's fair to say I have "Completed" BREAK!!.

I have been involved in playtesting of the game for a few years, and admittedly, one thing I haven't done is run a game of BREAK!! My main reason for that is nothing against BREAK!!, but just the fact that I make an effort to play as many different games as possible, and since the writer of the game is always willing to run BREAK!!, I find myself in a position to run other games more frequently. That said, I have played BREAK!! games run by other players, not just the creator.

Some of the most fun I've had playing tabletop games has been with BREAK!!. Some of that can be attributed to the group I play with, my wife among them, and some good friends who get along well and seldom bicker. The group you're playing with can make or break a game, but I do have a reference point as I have played several non-BREAK!! games with all of these players. So I can see how they approach things from different angles, see what works and doesn't, and even see how the writer handles running games that he didn't write himself.

BREAK!! is a delicately crafted project of passion. For those who have followed it for so long, 10 years. 10 years. When I met Reynaldo, it sounded like the Kickstarter was out any day now, and I will tell you I did not meet Reynaldo only a few days ago. I've playtested many other games, I've seen them in worse condition than BREAK!! was when I first saw it, all the way to publishing in the time I've seen BREAK!! in production. Sure some of that can be attributed to both the creators having other jobs, obligations, etc. BREAK!! isn't their 9-5 they can put all their energy into, but most of it is them not being in a rush to get a game out, just to get it out. They could have released a game 5+ years ago, just to get their name in there, have this cool anime-video game inspired TRPG before the market became more saturated with other independent TRPGs with similar inspirations.

But no, they didn't want BREAK!! revised edition 2 years later, they didn't want Break 2.0 in another year. They wanted to come out with a product they could both be completely proud of, mainly for themselves, that way when they did share it, they could support it as-is. 

These aren't their words, this is just my interpretation. Keep that in mind.

But enough about the idea of BREAK!!. What is BREAK!!? What "sets it apart", what makes it "special" or "unique". Honestly nothing. There is no one element that's going to make BREAK!! change the industry.

They put it on the front page of their Kickstarter - it's a culmination of ideas, together, that's what makes BREAK!!. There is this and that, both new and familiar flavors of the atmosphere and mechanics, put together until something that worked came out of it. I've seen many things that were once part of BREAK!! no longer part of BREAK!!, maybe they will be one day in the future, but for the time they didn't work.

OKAY SO FOR REAL THIS TIME, THE NITTY GRITTY, THE GOOD STUFF.

What's the cool stuff in BREAK!!? Murder Princesses, let's get that out of the way, they're cool as shit, and everyone asks about them. They're a calling, which is basically your "class" in other games. They break stuff. Mostly your heart, but not in the way of a lover long forgotten, but in the way of they literally want to break your ribs, grasp your heart, throw it on the ground and stomp on it. So cool right? But hey let's not forget the Heretic! The heretic is an edgy summoner using blasphemous scripts to call forth immortals too great to kill, who have been sealed so that fractions of their power may be used by those who call upon them.

Okay so that's the edgy stuff, wanna do something a bit more traditional? They got that. Wanna be a tank? Okay Champion. Rogue? Okay Sneak.

Wanna be the actual most useful member of the party? Be a Factotum. Probably the best example a combat-oriented Tabletop RPG out there has of a non-combat oriented class. If you love to roleplay and want diverse abilities focused more on the adventure, it's the way to go. Don't sleep on the factotum.

There is some other really cool stuff for the game I'm probably not allowed to talk about. Stuff that isn't going to be in the core book, but I am pretty sure is planned for future content. So there is definitely more to look forward to.

So, I'm a huge fan of Breath of Fire series of video games, so one thing I really appreciate in my RPG's is a diverse selection of races/species. BREAK!! has it. 10 right out of the gate, 11 if you actually consider the two human options different, I personally don't, I usually dislike when RPG's, especially fantasy RPG's have several options for humans. I will give BREAK!! one thing though, it has the best reason for it. Anime fan? Love Isekei's? Well Isekei Protagonist is a species in Break. It's the Human (Dimensional Stray) option. A lot of the lore in BREAK!! refers to different dimensions, space, and other worlds. It's not just there for fanservice, the isekei protagonist has a fully in-game lore based reason to be there.

But we're not here to talk about lame humans. I'm here for the Tenebrate, the demon-like species of the dark sides of the Outer World, the Rai-Neko, the space faring cat girls(and catboys, catpeople etc.), the Bio-Mechanoids and even the Promethean, all some of the more unique and less-often seen takes of RPG species, that I personally find a lot of fun.

There are classics of course, Goblins, Dwarves and Elves, but they made an effort to make each their own just a little bit. I'm sure you can play your classic archetype, if you like, but the BREAK!! version of elves for example, are weirdo eccentric immortals who just don't see the world in the same way as other people.

So there are some pretty fun calling and species options, and for me, that's a pretty important part of an RPG. I want a game that I can make interesting and varied characters in. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I enjoy the classics, and BREAK!! is ready to do both.

Moving on from calling and species, you have your character History. In some games, this is used as something to flesh out your character, which is fair, but in BREAK!!, it provides your starting gear, as well as your Purviews. Also, if your character is known in any capacity, they will be known more for their Histories, rather than their calling.

Purviews are pretty important, if also kind of open to interpretation. It's probably the easiest part of the game to either neglect or abuse. With my experience with other game masters and similar mechanics, I feel this might be the aspect of the game that GM's might wanna write off the most, but you would be doing a disservice to the game. Why not give your players the chance to get a +2 to their roll? There are also some other game mechanics tied to purviews, so you don't wanna neglect them.

My personal experience when running any tabletop game longer than a 1-shot, is you should have a little cheat sheet for each character anyway. You might just want to keep player purviews on that, so for the more neglectful players you can remind them to use purviews. If players try to abuse it, you might wanna put a limit to it, like only using each purview once or twice a session if you have that kind of player who wants to argue that their purview comes into play for every roll, but that is just how I would deal with it if it ever became a problem, I'm more the type that wants to remind players or ask them if they think a purview fits to give them the bonus.

Okay so we almost made a character at this point, what's next? Quirks! Quirks are great, it what turns your character into a true OC. There are several categories, and which species you are helps determine which of the categories you can select from. It makes sense, and some overlap, for example, all characters can have Spirit quirks, which are quirks based off your characters personality. That makes sense, right? Since any character can have any personality. 

Other quirks which are based off their physical form for example, are not shared. It wouldn't make sense for a robot to have prehensile hair or a cat person to have an industrial grade alloy body. Quirks are great, it's basically, pick the thing you like the most/fits the character best. The biggest downside is only having 1! But I guess having 2-3 goes into Mary Sue territory real quick (My character has Angel wings, and is so adorable everyone loves them, they're also always prepared with the necessary tools and have been crowned as royalty by the fey!).

Moving on, gear, equipment, items and such. In an effort I think to let people have the types of weapons people want, most weapons are classified by a type, rather than caught up in the specifics of it's shape and name. Don't get me wrong, the game gives plenty of cool examples of weapons to use! But the meat of it is in the weapons "type". You first see what options are available to you in class selection, but besides your "standard" you have stuff like Master, Arc, and Mighty, which provide various bonuses to your attack, and have their own rules for how the weapon handles. Master for instance, has a lower threshold for achieving extra damage(most are around a roll of 20 while Master is 18), AND give you a +1 to hit, making it much more likely to get bonus damage. Mighty works similar but opposite, you always do an extra damage, but it's harder to hit(but you can also do a 3rd damage on an exceptionally high roll if you can achieve it!).

Arc, since I mentioned it, attacks multiple enemies. Good for crowd control. There are of course a bunch more, some options for ranged weapons, and also the ability to customize weapons, and customization isn't limited to weapons, there are armor options as well. There aren't infinite options, but there are enough good options to make to make you want to customize stuff, without giving you decision paralysis. There is also imbued gear, which is adding magic to items, in addition to some of this customization.

So I just mentioned some rolling mechanics when talking about weapons but never actually got into game mechanics, so I'm gonna jump into that. Generally speaking, for your challenge rolls and such, when you want to achieve something, you're going to roll a d20, and aim to achieve your aptitude score or under. Say you have a Might of 12, you roll 11, that's a success. In contested rolls, you want to both succeed your roll AND roll higher than your opponent. So if you have an exceptionally high Might, say 15, and you roll right on it. It might be impossible for your opponent whose might is 14 to even beat you. Unless... they have a bonus.

Modifiers are relatively simple and come in two categories. Bonus & Penalties, and Edges & Snags. Both pretty simple concepts. B&P come in minor and major and offer a change of 2 or 4. E&S's have you roll the die twice and take either the better or worse result. For the Bonuses and Penalties, it's important to remember you can move your result in EITHER direction. Bonus is the direction that benefits you most, Penalty is the direction that hurts you the most. For example, I have my Might at 12, I roll a 14, boom a minor bonus can take me to 12, so I succeed. Similarly, if I originally succeed at a 10, I can make it a 12, to in theory, make it "more successful", which is most useful for a contest and a bonus is always useful in an attack(gotta break that extra damage threshold!).

Oops, I may have skipped the specifics for how attacks work. Attacks work differently than checks and contests, and I think it's mostly just because at least one of the creators likes seeing the numbers go up when bonking the monster on the head. For attack rolls with your weapon, you're almost always aiming to roll a high number. If you're not checking it against a aptitude, you want the high number. Not only so you can hit the enemy, but to do extra damage. There are some exceptions, like certain "attacks" based off your calling, are going to be checks and contests.

Since we're on attacks, less cover some other combat stuff. How do you move around? What else can you do during combat? Can you attack in different ways?

Combat takes place on a battlefield made up of several areas. If there was a set amount, I forgot it, but I wanna say 3-6 areas is appropriate for most battles. You want to be in the same area as your enemy for melee, an area away for short ranged weapons and long ranged can hit enemies 2 areas away. There are also conditions that can be set to the areas to change the strategies for interacting with them. Movement is pretty simple, based off your speed you can move 1 or 2 spaces. You can both move and perform an action on your turn. An "action" is usually using a skill, or performing an attack with your weapon, but you can also defend, assist and perform other actions. My favorite part about the combat is that there are alternate types of attacks, regardless of your calling.

Attack, Stunt, and Trick. Attack is your straightforward, I hit opponent, they get damaged. But Stunt! Stunt is attacking in order to cause a negative impact on your enemy, like disarming or tripping them. You then go into the bargain phase with your GM. I feel like this is how you make the best of "roleplaying" your attacks. For example, let's say I have a lash weapon, a whip. There is a chandelier above, so I want to attack by swinging from chandelier and kicking into my opponent, knocking them down and leaving them open to attacks by my allies. GM says "sure, but if you fail, the chandelier is coming down on top of you", if we agree that's a fair condition, we go along with that plan. Leaving my fate up to the die. If we don't both agree, then I just do a normal attack... or, a trick!

Trick is similar to doing a stunt, except I'm not also trying to cause damage, just disadvantage my opponent. Since you don't roll an attack, you may be required to roll a check or contest instead. 

There are of course other options for combat, but I feel like these are some most worth mentioning without going into every single detail. But one thing to bring up while we're on combat and numbers and such. Damage and Hearts. Generally damage is going to be in the 1-3 range on both sides of the conflict, and for that matter, most characters and enemies(bosses aside) are only going to have 2-5 health. While I've definitely been in situations where I wish I could do or take just a little more damage, it does a lot to prevent number crunching and moving the game a long. Rarely does the combat feel like it's dragging on which is not something I can say for a lot of tabletop rpgs, even some of my favorite. The easy roll mechanics and lack of crunchy numbers is why I think BREAK!! is great for TRPG newcomers as well.

Quick shoutout to Colossal combat. BREAK!! has rules for fighting monsters the whole size of a battlefield, if you wanna fight something Shadow of the Colossus style.

Okay so we've covered character creation options, items, mechanics, combat. What else is there? Well, A LOT. This is a HUGE book. We're talking over 400 pages of content. To be fair, almost every page is filled with gorgeous artwork. If it's not the banners that each tell their own little stories, its the icons that give you glimpses into the action, the examples of characters is different scenes, or from different perspectives, examples of the vast majority of the content within. The actual typography of the various languages! God, I love that so much. Every time I select a language, I look at the scripts. I love this!

There is just so much passive story telling in the artwork on practically every page and because this is probably the best place to bring it up, I have to mention that one of my favorite aspects of the game is that the world map is laid out on a twenty sided spread. The map is a d20. There are ideas in BREAK!! that I have also had, or similar enough to be comparable, but the d20 map is something I can only wish I came up with.

So I feel like I've segued into each section pretty well so far, so let's keep it up. What are we gonna do with that map? Travel of course. Many games neglect rules for travel, or just leave it up to attrition and basic navigation checks and make sure someone keeps watch over camp! The travel rules are a bit more fleshed out in BREAK!! but to be completely honest, it's just not something I know that well as someone who hasn't run the game. I can tell you that there are rules for navigation, having a guide, traveling along different types of terrain, and all that, which is all great for embracing the "adventure", but I don't know it well enough to express more insight, what I do know is exploration! Your dungeon crawling and such, usually. 

For exploration, your gonna break up your party into different roles, a scout, vanguard, observer and rearguard. Your role determines how you will interact with surprise or sneak attacks, traps, and noticing other points of interest. There are a couple rules for each position and it's just another nice touch to make it feel like your characters archetype has a specific role in the party. When exploring, you can also choose your pace; cautious, hasty and stealthy. Cautious if you think there are traps, stealthy if you are avoid detection, and hasty if you want to neglect those aspects, either out of pure neglect, or the fact you're in a hurry. Being chased, or setting a timer on the objective are good motivators.

Last thing I'll cover is kind of an overview of the game master section. Many game master sections in other games, neglect the style and artwork in favor of in-depth information and tables. BREAK!! Maintains a consistent readable format that it does for the rest of the book. Information provided in short bursts with accompanying artwork. I really appreciate this and it makes the GM section as fun to read as the rest. Gonna be honest, if I know the "rules" of a game, I will often skim over the GM section because it doesn't do what BREAK!! does and that is, make the information easily consumable.

It provides examples and gives you the tools for customizing and reskinning your locales, npcs, and adversaries with tips and call outs along the way, while still giving you interesting things to look at, and yes of course there are still tables.

The past handful of years I've probably played BREAK!! more than any other single RPG, and despite my efforts to play many other tabletop games, I can't wait for it to finally have a place among my shelves, only to be pulled out every couple of weeks for years to come.