BADASS by CapitalistPig
Let's See How Many Times We Can Say The Word Badass In One Post
Original SA post
Let's See How Many Times We Can Say The Word Badass In One Post! Part one
I didn't see this one posted so I thought I'd give it a whirl.
This is a game about being in an over the top, violent , explosion filled action movie. You, of course, play a BADASS the main characters that can punch people through walls and destroy skyscrapers with your grenade launcher while riding on the top of a speeding cop car.
The game says this better than me though:
BADASS posted:
A BADASS Introduction
BADASS is not a game that you can attempt to work your way around with
logic. In fact, BADASS kicks that logic in the face, twists its arm behind its
back and makes it cry for its momma.
Kick a reinforced metal fire door down off its hinges? BADASS
Catch a bullet with your teeth? BADASS
Slice through an Abrams tank with your katana? BADASS
Does it make sense? NO! Does it have to? HELL NO!
In fact the moment you start making sense is the moment you lose your
Badass Points, reverting into the mewling pathetic 98-pound weakling you
truly are.
This game is an incredibly great amount of fun and better yet it's absolutely free!
http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/badass/
The basis is just that you are a badass, thats it. The setting can be whatever you want from cavemen badasses to far future laser pistol badasses.
Character creation is incredibly simple:
Name yourself
Come up with a defining moment (This is the thing that turned you from a normal joe to a badass, in most Steven Segal movies this is when someone he loves dies and he vows revenge.)
Here is what the book says about it
BADASS posted:
Every Badass has a defining moment. It’s that
point in your Badass character’s life when
something went terribly, terribly wrong, and
nothing will ever be the same again.
It could be when he lost his family to guntoting
terrorists, or the time when she was
brutally beaten and left for dead in a dark alley
in the bad side of town, or that time when the
neighborhood kid kicked his dog.
It doesn’t matter what the moment was, but it changed your Character’s
life forever, putting him on the irreversible path of the
Badass. Think about it and scribble it down on your Badass
Character Sheet.
Now the parts that actually have some sort of rules crunching
Pick a type - this is pretty much equivalent to your race and class all in one.
There are three types
Kickass - The physical fighter type these guys get a +2 to their physical rolls
Smartass - The thinkers these guys get a +2 to their mental rolls
Wiseass - The face man charisma type these guys get a +2 to their social rolls
Pick 2 Flavas
This is ,in my opinion, the best part of character creation.
Flavas are where you get all of your Cool Stuff from , Powers, Skills, Abilities, and so forth and boy are they just freaking fantastic.
Flavas
Dinosaur - Yes, you can be a dinosaur - bonus to physical stuff but you are dumb and don't have opposable thumbs, also you can't talk.
Robot - basically you have one built in weapon that cannot be taken away, but you recover badass points (here on out referred to as BP) more slowly.
I'll get to BP later
Learning to be human - if you have chosen one of the above two, this flava lets you remove some of the negative aspects.
Then theres a whole bunch of profession related ones Ninja, Cop, Doctor etc...
Though there is one rather amusing one
Badass posted:
Politician - What do you mean Badasses can’t be politicians? Have
you seen Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura or Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger? I rest my case. Benefit: +3 bonus when trying
to rally a crowd or sway a group’s opinion of yourself or on a given
subject.
Badass posted:
Right where I Want You - Badasses
are so awesome that they can
exhibit a manly form of mind
control. Benefit: A Badass with
this flava may spend 2 BP as a Free
Action to goad a mook or villain with
a ranged weapon to approach within
striking distance. This can take the
form of anything from insulting their
mother to asking for a cigarette or a
drink of water. Note that this can only
be used in Combat, and not in Chase
Scenes.
Cinematic Disability - Your character is Blind, Deaf or otherwise
physically or mentally impaired except when it COUNTS. Benefit: Your
gain 1 BP at the start of any fight due to them underestimating your
true badassitude. Drawback: You really are disabled, blind people
can’t read, deaf people can’t hear, etc.
And now, the reason this game is so awesome
Metagame Flavas
I will quote these to preserve the magic
Badass posted:
BRING IT - What, the base task resolution system too tame for you?
Well, Badasses who buy this Flava end up playing under a different
set of rules. Badasses who have BRING IT roll only 1d6 instead of the
usual 2d6 for tasks. The results of this die are then doubled, making
it only possible to roll Snake Eyes, 4, 6, 8, 10 or Boxcars, dramatically
raising the chances of critically succeeding in a task, as well as the
chances of failing miserably.( This will possibly make more sense later when I go into how the game works )
Oh Yeah? Let’s Arm Wrestle For It - Don’t like the odds? Then man
up, and put your arm on the table and say the name of this Flava.
Badasses who have purchased this Flava may, once per session, opt to
shift the task resolution for one roll to an Arm Wrestling match against
the opposing player or GM. If this task is an attack roll, damage is
assumed to be 2 BP.
Everyone’s Got a Price - Sometimes Badass is not what you are but
what you have. Once per session, a Badass with this flava can buy a
successful roll by *ahem* bribing the other players by doing a small
favor, like bringing drinks to the game, or paying for pizza on gaming
night.
“Little do you know, that I am actually a ROBOT!” - Rather than wait
for Downtime to be able to buy Flavas, a Badass with this Flava may
cash in on his 30 Awesomeness at any time as a Basic Action. The
only requirement is that the Badass must reveal whatever flava it is
he purchased with some form of statement in-character.( Awesomeness is like your xp, I'll talk more on this later )
Thats it for Flavas
Next you get 5 BP or Badass Points Which I'll explain in part two.
Then give yourself gear, basically it is just whatever you want for the most part or whatever you GM allows you to have. There's not really any money stuff in this game. If you want a weapon or armor of some kind you just run it by the GM and he will arbitrarily decide what the bonus for it is (from +1 to +3) and that will change with the situation it is being used in. For example a pistol may be a +3 bonus in a knife fight but against ten thugs with bazookas and shotguns, not so much.
And that's it! You now have a Badass Character.
I'll give you the character I played when a buddy of mine ran this as an example.
Name: Jet Lee Chan Damme
Defining Moment - His mother was raped by Chinese werewolves who also slaughtered his whole family, and his dog.
Type - Kickass
Flavas -
Martial Artist - helps you beat people up better.
Ninja - Sneak around better.
BP - 5
Awesomeness - 0
Gear
Nunchucks
A Sweet Headband with the Japanese rising sun on it
A Frozen Burrito (Not frozen for long)
A Swiss Army Knife
And that's it - small character sheets as this is more of a beer and pretzels kind of game, though I could see running a campaign of it if you wanted to.
Next Time - How to actually do stuff and what the GM can do to you.
Artwork
Original SA post
BADASS Time Again!
Ok I'll start out by saying that there isn't a whole lot of artwork in this book, but here is a few examples.
That there is a bat designed for puttin' the hurt on bad guys.
Some sort of sailor moon/chun li mix.
So yeah, that's what the art is like in this book.
Now on to how to play this silly game.
Gettin' Shit Done
Ok so the system is incredibly simple. You ready?
2d6 against a target number set by the GM.
Snake eyes is a critical fail.
Boxcars are a critical success. (the effects of which are arbitrarily decided by the GM)
See, simple.
Now, to add to this you can declare a setback for a scene. It can be anything you want. The GM decided how much your setback is worth and takes that many of your BP and locks it away for that scene and you cannot use it. Why would you want to do this you ask? Well, because you then get a comeback, in the next scene you get extra dice equal to the amount the GM set aside from your setback, and the real bonus is they are automatic 6's.
Also, you MUST make a Fist when rolling your dice, it's seriously in the rules. If you don't make a fist when you roll your action fails and the GM takes away a BP.
Which makes it a pretty good time to discuss....
Badass Points
BP are the source of all of your badassness.
Not only are they your hit points but you can actually spend them during play as follows.
• Once per turn, you may add +1d6 to any one of your rolls.
This die is rolled after the result of the base 2d6, and cannot be
used to prevent a Snake Eyes result.
• Pay for the benefits bestowed by one of your Flavas.
Each BP spent in this way adds to a Badass character’s Awesomeness
stat on a one to one basis. Awesomeness is like XP and I'll discuss it in a bit.
Some other important info about BP.
You basically have to remove all logic and fear because, taking any action that the GM deems to be cravenly or cautious to the point of killing the Badass mood of the scene automatically reduces your BP total by 1.
Ok, so when you get reduced to 0 BP you become an Average Joe, and basically aside from not being able to spend BP if you need to, one more bit of damage and you are done.
It is important to note that even though all characters start with 5BP, there is no upper limit to how much you can attain, which brings me to ...
Regaining BP
This is the fun stuff, in between scenes the GM will give you downtime to regain BP.
I'll copy and paste directly from the book for hilarity.
BADASS posted:
Badass characters
can regain 1d6 BP once per Session by narrating any of these as a
Downtime Action:
• Training Montage - Ah, the classic option. A Badass may regain
BP by narrating a training montage. Players should feel free to
go all out and describe unique and interesting training regimens.
• Moment of Personal Affirmation - Sometimes a Badass needs to
feel like one. These can be quiet scenes where an NPC drops by
to encourage him, or he discovers the wellspring of foolhardy
confidence to face the challenges before him.
• Flashback - Sometimes even Badasses have to remember lifechanging
childhood lessons. Whether it’s advice from their
grandfather about how Superman isn’t brave, to the day they
learned to tie their shoelaces, meaningful and significant
flashbacks have the power to restore BPs
You can also get smaller amounts of BP during scenes and combat
BADASS posted:
Running on Fumes
What if a Badass runs out of BPs in a fight? Unlike the above options,
there’s no time for a Badass to be thinking of crucial life moments,
but a Badass has another source of BPs: the thrill of combat itself!
Unlike the other types of BP regeneration, restoring BPs in combat
is less rewarding. A Badass restores only 1d3 Badass Points when
performing any of the following once per fight as a Free Action on
your turn:
• Slo-Mo - The Player narrates an attack or exchange in cinematic
and exhaustive detail.
• Bad Pun / One Liner - The Player snaps a witty retort that draws
either laughter or groans from the other Players.
• Show Some Skin - The Player has his character tear open his shirt,
discard his armor.
• Posedown / Strut / Weapon Flourish - The Character skips his turn
to pose or show off.
• Trash Talk - The Character insults a target, don’t hold back now. A
Badass is meant to make his enemies feel inferior.
• Dramatic Entrance – If the Character enters the fight when it’s
already going on, then the Player may decide to narrate the
character’s entrance into the fight in a showy manner.
And finally, my personal favorite.
BADASS posted:
Epic Soundtrack Bonus
During any attempt to regain BP, a player may introduce an Epic
Soundtrack to accompany it. The player might have the song in their
mp3 player or laptop, or they could just causally mention the title and
artist. Doing so nets an additional 1 to 2 BP depending on how well
the music is received on the table.
However, you can only use a given song once per session of BADASS,
so don’t think that you’ll get 2BP when you play “Carmina Burana” a
second time in a row. Variety is a good thing here, so see if you can
mix it up a bit.
Furthermore the music has to set the mood. Anything terribly
inappropriate to the situation (say, the Benny Hill Show theme song)
could merit a BP penalty from the GM instead.
Another quick note about the downtime in between scenes , not only can you regain BP but if you have enough Awesomeness you can spend it on a few things like getting new Flavas or developing contacts.
Awesomeness
As stated before, Awesomeness is XP you get it in the following ways
spending BP on:
• +1d6 BP Bonus to rolls
• Powering Flavas
• Bidding BP on Initiative (more on this in a bit)
• Spending additional BP on Initiative in the middle of a fight(this too)
It can be spent like this
In downtime you can spend 30 awesomeness to buy a new flava
you can also spend 20 points to develop a new contact
Contacts are very loosely defined , this can be anyone you want to start any sort of positive relationship with that can help you do stuff.
and, thats it.
COMBAT Finally!
Ok so, initiative is done through bidding and it works like this.
The GM will announce how many BP he is bidding for any villains (Big boss bad guys) and Mooks (Minions) Villains will have actual BP and mooks just have a static bid that they do every round.
Then once the GM has anounced his bids it starts with the players and everyone bids in turn until everyone passes and the bids are set. These BP are spent so they go away and everyone acts in the order of bids high to low.
On each tun, a character may perform:
• One Move Action (I'll explaine range in a moment),
and
• One Basic Action (Usually an attack)
• Any number of Free Actions
Moving
Basically the game doesnt use feet or whatever it uses increments, of which there are four,
• Melee (0 range increment; 0 range attack penalty) - Hand to hand
and Melee combat can only be performed when the combatants
are in this range.
• Short (1 range increment; -1 range attack penalty) – Thrown
weapons like Shuriken can work on Short range.
• Medium (2 range increments; -1 range attack penalty) – Most pistols
work effectively until this point.
• Long (3 range increments; -2 range attack penalty) – Long arms like
assault rifles work effectively until this point.
• Extreme (4 range increments; -3 range attack penalty) – Sniper
Rifles, and other specialized weapons work effectively at this Range
You can move 1 increment as your move action, and can use your basic action to move another if you don't want to attack or are too far away.
Attacking
When you attack you roll 2d6 + any bonuses you may get from flavas and whatnot and total it up.
The defender does the same and the results are compared.
Ties go to the Defender.
Every 4 points you are above the defenders total counts as 1 BP worth of damage.
Villain characters get BP just like you and Mooks have 1 BP worth of health per mook.
And thats it for combat!
The rest of the book is devoted to different settings for the the GM to consider and an example city as well as how to create Villains and groups of mooks.
Villains get their own Flavas just like Badasses but , obviously, geared towards villains.
Stuff like
“Just You, Me and My GUAAARDS!” – Villains always seem to have a
group of Mooks nearby for some reason, often emerging from some
sort of secret room. Benefit: Once per combat, by spending 2 BP, a
Villain may summon a mob of 10 Mooks with stats determined by
the GM.
and
I am Your Father – Villains are a cruel lot who relish in inflicting
anguish upon their foes. Benefit: Once per battle, a Villain may
spend 2 BP to make a stunning revelation that unbalances the target
Badass in awe, fear or utter despair. The target Badass suffers a -2
penalty to all rolls for the rest of the scene as he grapples with his this
emotional beatdown.
and my favorite
Behold my TRUE form! – Villains never go down without a fight.
And some villains can put up one hell of a fight! Benefit: Once per
campaign, a single Villain (designated as the Final Boss) may instantly
gain 2 flavas and 10 BP as soon as he is knocked below 0 BP by any
attack.
And that's pretty much it!
In the one session of this game that I played as Jet Lee Chan Damme I was sent by the mercenary outfit I worked for to a small jungle type country with some rebels I had to squash and the whole thing ended with me throwing a huge executive desk out of the window of a ruined skyscraper at a helicopter containing the head chinese werewolf that ruined my life and raped my mom (the bastard)and exploding it.
So what are you waiting for? Go, play, now!