Wise Turtle Publishing

I'm literally new to OVA and stumbled over it yesterday on my search for a system to play Power Rangers with my son.

What I really like about the system is the intuitivity but I'd like to ask some questions to give me newbie a head start:

- what would the typical Power Ranger character look like?
- how should I handle zords/megazord mechanic wise? How should I scale it properly? Just to mention, as I will play with my son there is no trouble that he will be the one piloting the megazord.
- how should I scale the monster when it finally enlarges to be en par with the zords/megazord?

Oh and off topic, are there any adventures, supplements for OVA (apart from Golden Sky)?

Awesome! Power Rangers or it's Japanese equavelent Super Sentai are not not My favorite Toku (I prefer Kamen Rider and Ultraman) but they have some fantastic monster designs. I've been considering converting the bad guys from Magiranger/Mystic Force, the 10 Infershia Hades Gods into OVA.

Ironically, My avatar is based off of a Power Ranger/Super Sentai villain, Fuwa Juzo..

While you can have pretty much any number of Ability points as long as you have enough Weaknesses to balance it out (with the total equaling up to 5 points), I prefer 'starting' with about 15 points in Abilities. That way you aren't overwhelmed with options. For example, I converted 80s toku hero Kamen Rider Black here.

You'll be wanting Transformation for turning into your Ranger type character, and Vehicle for the Zord. You don't really need a whole lot of details to make the Ranger form or the Zord, generally some Armor, Attack, Super Strength.

For stories, you'll want two different themes- a Monster of the Week, and the overarching threat. PR/SS tend to be moralistic, so make the Monster of the Week part of some moral- don't say bad things to people could include a monster that knocks people out by saying terrible things. The overarching threat would be your Big Bad, the one that's sending out monsters. Rita or Lord Zedd for example. This would be slowly built up until you're ready to finish the game, as you want this to be the final boss. This is also a good time to really go out and be as silly, hammy, over the top as you want.

This next thing is hugely optional, but this is the sort of thing I created My over-the-top Monstrous Damage rules. Give the monster and the transformed Ranger form Monstrous Damage and Monstrous Durability +1, and have the monster "grow" in Monstrous Damage and Durability by +1, so their total MD is +2. Then let the Vehicle have MD +1, so the Ranger's MD total is +2. This shouldn't affect the actual gameplay, but the characters will be hitting and taking bigger numbers, which'll replicate the feel of power Power Rangers should have. The Big Bad could have a total MD of +3, so give the Ranger a power up for an extra +1 MD so they can fight equally for the final battle.

If you like, I can make some samples, either with the Monstrous Damage/Durability or without, of what the characters can look like.

Of course, OVA is very cool in being very flexible, so My way isn't the only way to approach it.

Belisarion wrote:I'm literally new to OVA and stumbled over it yesterday on my search for a system to play Power Rangers with my son.

What I really like about the system is the intuitivity but I'd like to ask some questions to give me newbie a head start:

- what would the typical Power Ranger character look like?

Actually, Fukiko or Auren would probably be best, in terms of attributes. Their Magic would be renamed to whatever Tokusetsu power set you want. Transformation being a big angle.

These next two can be answered as one:

Belisarion wrote:- how should I handle zords/megazord mechanic wise? How should I scale it properly? Just to mention, as I will play with my son there is no trouble that he will be the one piloting the megazord.
- how should I scale the monster when it finally enlarges to be en par with the zords/megazord?

Nothing really needs to change when it's Megazord vs. Kaiju. But when either face off against say a car, or some poor minion goon, you use the Scale system listed. Those extra five dice HELP a lot.

You can make the Zord as a 'Vehicle/Mecha' and build the Kaiju with as many Attributes as you want.

(I have/had a character that worked in tandem with Karis, but when he gets into planet buster mode, he doesn't get physically bigger, but his power scale allows him to level buildings. ...Still got him his butt cheeks handed to him. Shadowman was mean...)

Belisarion wrote:Oh and off topic, are there any adventures, supplements for OVA (apart from Golden Sky)?

Not yet (which is me being hopeful that there IS stuff down the pipeline, but Clay is... Remarkably uncommunicative to us about his plans. He very likely has very good reasons, but it is something we fans would like to know.)

Malancthon, Chris, thank you very much for your advice

Malancthon wrote:If you like, I can make some samples, either with the Monstrous Damage/Durability or without, of what the characters can look like.

I would appreciate this very much.

How would Saba, the white ranger's sword from MMPR be implemented (speaking, laser from hilt's eyes)? As a companion?

I'd like to first reiterate that while this is how I'd do things, it's not the only way to build such a character. You might prefer using more Abilities and Weaknesses to detail the character, or you might prefer a different set of Abilities. Also, I go with a 'less is more' mentality, since you can often fudge the details with descriptions. For example, while I call the Vehicle a "Mega Beast", you can add more details as to whether it's a tiger or a dragon shape, or whatever. It doesn't really matter for the mechanical details, but only in how you tell the story.

So, here's a serial numbers filed off version of the White Ranger (Mega Sentry for Power Ranger, Mega Beast for Megazord, and Mega Sentry Knight for the transformed Megazord).

Mega Sentry White
Abilities (15)
Agile +2
Attack +1
Companion +1
Pilot +2
Perceptive +1
Evasive +2
Transformation (Mega Sentry)+2
-Attack +2
-Armored +1
-Tough +1
Vehicle (Mega Sentry Beast) +3
-Armored +2
-Strong +4
-Tough +4
-Unique: Pilot Fusion +1
-Awkward Size: -3
-Focus: Companion -2
Vigorous +1

Weaknesses (-10)
Code of Conduct -2
Guardian -3
Rival -2
Secret -3

Attacks:
Sentry Arts: Affinity: Martial Arts; Roll 4, DX: 2, End: 0
Mega Sentry Weapon: Accurate (+5), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Companion; Roll: 5, DX: 4, End: 0
Mega Sentry Blaster: Effective (+5), Ranged (+0), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Companion; Roll 4, DX: 5, End: 0
Mega Sentry Beast Claws: Affinity: Vehicle; Roll: 2, DX: 5, End: 0
Mega Sentry Beast Blasters: Ranged, Strength-Powered (+5), Affinity: Vehicle: Roll: 2, DX: 5, End: 5
Mega Sentry Knight Weapon: Effective (+5), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Fused Vehicle; Roll: 4, DX: 7
Mega Sentry Knight Blast Attack: Accurate (+5), Effective 2 (+10), Ranged (Strength-Powered) (+5), Finisher (-10), Affinity: Fused Vehicle; Roll: 5, DX: 10, End: 10

Defense: 4
Health: 40
Endurance: 50

Mega Beast
Defense: 2
Health: 80
Endurance: 40

Mega Sentry Knight
Defense: 4
Health: 80
Endurance: 50

This first version is pretty much by the book. The only thing I added in was the Unique Ability to Fuse with the Vehicle. This would represent the Megazord before and after it transforms. Normally, you don't add Health and Endurance modifier Abilitiess to a Vehicle's stats (which default at 40 Health/40 Endurance like a normal character), but with the Unique Ability, I figured that would show off the combination aspect, as well as the superheroic nature of the bond between pilot and Megazord. That is why there is three sets of Defense/Health/Endurance (the first being the character, the second being the robot beast, and the third being the combined hero with the robot).

I also used Affinities (page 89) as a way to separate out the attacks. Sentry Arts would be the general martial arts a character would use before and possibly after transforming. As Martial Arts, there isn't any real restrictions to when the character can't use them. The Mega Sentry Weapon and Mega Sentry Blaster have the Companion, meaning that they'd be only be available when the character has access to their Companion (and it's up to you to decide if that will be the same as the Saba sword or different type of weapons). The Mega Beast Claws and Mega Beast Blaster, as Vehicle Affinities, are only available as the Mega Beast mode. And finally the Mega Sentry Knight Weapon and Mega Sentry Final Blast are weapons that can only be used as the transformed/fused form.

For this version, you'd want to use the default Scale rules (pages 100-101). In a nutshell, any time a character has a sizable or distinct advantage over another character, they get a +5 dice bonus to that roll. For example, a giant monster has a mass advantage over normal sized people for squishing them. So he'd get a +5 bonus to Strength rolls, subsequently increasing his DX by 5 and doing a lot more damage. In contrast, since the giant monster has a harder time hitting a smaller size, the fleeing people could have a +5 bonus to Defense. However, a giant monster fighting a giant robot doesn't have any advantages, so they'd fight like a pair of normal characters... just really big normal characters.

Oh, an easy thing to not immediately understand is a character can have any number of attacks, as long as they are appropriate to use at the time. The Attack Ability only increases the damage you do, not limit you on the number of attacks a character can have. So if you or the hero pulls out a new attack every 'episode', that's perfectly fine.

Mega Sentry White
Abilities (15)
Attack +1
Agile +2
Pilot +2
Perceptive +1
Quick +2
Transformation +2
-Attack +1
-Armored +1
-Monstrous Destruction +1
-Monstrous Durability +1
Vehicle (Mega Sentry Beast) +3
-Armored +2
-Mecha Destruction +1
-Mecha Durability +1
-Strong +3
-Tough +3
-Unique: Pilot Fusion +1
-Awkward Size: -3
-Focus: Companion -2
Vigorous +1

Weaknesses (10)
Code of Conduct -2
Guardian -3
Rival -2
Secret -3

Attacks:
Sentry Arts: Affinity: Martial Arts; Roll 4, DX: 2, End: 0
Mega Sentry Weapon: Accurate (+5), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Companion; Roll: 5, DX: 2 (15 when transformed), End: 0
Mega Sentry Blaster: Effective (+5), Ranged (+0), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Companion, Affinity: Transformed; Roll 5, DX: 3 (20 when transformed), End: 0
Mega Sentry Beast Claws: Affinity: Vehicle; Roll: 2, DX: 20, End: 0
Mega Sentry Beast Blasters: Ranged, Strength-Powered (+5), Affinity: Vehicle: Roll: 2, DX: 20, End: 5
Mega Sentry Knight Weapon: Accurate (+5), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Fused Vehicle; Roll: 5, DX: 50
Mega Sentry Knight Blast Attack: Effective 2 (+10), Ranged (Strength-Powered) (+5), Affinity: Fused Vehicle; Roll: 5, DX: 70, End: 15

Defense: 4
Health: 40
Endurance: 50

Mega Sentry
Defense: 4
Health: 200
Endurance: 50

Mega Beast
Defense: 2
Health: 350
Endurance: 40

Mega Sentry Knight
Defense: 4
Health: 700
Endurance: 50

Here I'm using My Monstrous Damage rules I mentioned earlier. To make things easier, I just swapped out a level of Attack/Strong/Tough for a level of MD. In this case, I wouldn't bother with the Scale rules. The actual play of the game is the same, you roll the same dice and everything. You just now take and deal more damage, which I think represents their power more accurately.

If you do a "Mid-season power-up", that'd be as simple as adding a level to Transformation or Vehicle, and using those points to add Monstrous Destruction +1/Monstrous Durability +1 (whether you want the power up to be for the hero themself or an upgrade to the robot). If you're not using the Monstrous Rules, you could just add a level of Attack/Tough instead.

Belisarion wrote:How would Saba, the white ranger's sword from MMPR be implemented (speaking, laser from hilt's eyes)? As a companion?

Over in this thread, Clay does suggest using Companion would work. Since Saba doesn't really do much himself, instead needing to be used by the White Ranger to attack and command the Tigerzord, I didn't go into details under Companion. I figure most of Saba's abilities are descriptive narrative, and the actual uses for Saba are covered under the main characters Abilities (as attacks and focus for the Mega Beast). You might wish to add Abilities and Weakness to the Companion.

Hope this helps.

Thank you very very much for the effort you put into this, Malancthon. This looks really awesome!

Coming from D&D like systems, FFGs Star Wars (and lately 2D20 like Conan/Mutant Chronicles) this system looks indeed very versatile and easy the same. Perfect for some sentai action with my son, who is 8, so an easy to learn system is gold for me and him. I even imagine that OVA is versatile enough to be used even with non anime settings, like Numenera for example (setting is great, classes have for my taste too few options to customize).

I just hope Clay will keep supporting OVA and maybe there will be supplements. Would be a shame if such a jewel of mechanics would be discontinued.

Malancthon wrote: Abilities (15)
Attack +1
Agile +2
Pilot +2
Perceptive +1
Quick +2
Transformation +2
-Attack +1
-Armored +1
-Monstrous Destruction +1
-Monstrous Durability +1
Vehicle (Mega Sentry Beast) +3
-Armored +2
-Mecha Destruction +1
-Mecha Durability +1
-Strong +3
-Tough +3
-Unique: Pilot Fusion +1
-Awkward Size: -3
-Focus: Companion -2
Vigorous +1

Weaknesses (10)
Code of Conduct -2
Guardian -3
Rival -2
Secret -3

Attacks:
Sentry Arts: Affinity: Martial Arts; Roll 4, DX: 2, End: 0
Mega Sentry Weapon: Accurate (+5), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Companion; Roll: 5, DX: 2 (15 when transformed), End: 0
Mega Sentry Blaster: Effective (+5), Ranged (+0), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Companion, Affinity: Transformed; Roll 5, DX: 3 (20 when transformed), End: 0
Mega Sentry Beast Claws: Affinity: Vehicle; Roll: 2, DX: 20, End: 0
Mega Sentry Beast Blasters: Ranged, Strength-Powered (+5), Affinity: Vehicle: Roll: 2, DX: 20, End: 5
Mega Sentry Knight Weapon: Accurate (+5), Weapon (-5), Affinity: Fused Vehicle; Roll: 5, DX: 50
Mega Sentry Knight Blast Attack: Effective 2 (+10), Ranged (Strength-Powered) (+5), Affinity: Fused Vehicle; Roll: 5, DX: 70, End: 15

Defense: 4
Health: 40
Endurance: 50

Mega Sentry
Defense: 4
Health: 200
Endurance: 50

Mega Beast
Defense: 2
Health: 350
Endurance: 40
Hope this helps.

Just one last question regarding the white Ranger Tommy. He and red Ranger Jason are quite capable Karate trainers in their human form. Would knowledge(karate/martial arts)+2 or close combat+2 be appropriate in addition?

Always when I think I asked my last question I come up with more.

Power Ranger's monster of the week, would they be rather heroic NPCs or even Bosses? At the beginning of each episode the monsters often defeat the whole Rangers band single handedly before they figure out the weakness and overcome the threat in the end. But if Rita/Lord Zed are already a Boss NPCs, can his Monsters be Bosses as well?
Especially Goldar mopped the floor with the rangers in the first episodes single handedly (then he got weaker later on).

Belisarion wrote: I even imagine that OVA is versatile enough to be used even with non anime settings, like Numenera for example (setting is great, classes have for my taste too few options to customize).

Anime itself is such a diverse genre that to limit thinking it as just 'anime' is a disservice. Absolutely OVA can be used for any type of game. I think of OVA (and BESM) as "here's how things work, you figure out why".

Indeed, the Monstrous Scale stuff partly came about because I wanted to use some ideas from the Rifts sourcebooks but haaaaate Palladium's mechanics.

Belisarion wrote:Just one last question regarding the white Ranger Tommy. He and red Ranger Jason are quite capable Karate trainers in their human form. Would knowledge(karate/martial arts)+2 or close combat+2 be appropriate in addition?

Probably. I built the Mega Sentry character to not be specifically Tommy or other Rangers, but basic enough to be any of them. Feel free to tweak what I got here to fit your ideas.

However, if Knowledge (martial arts) adds to the characters' Damage Multiplier or Attack Roll level (which I could see it doing), I'd make Knowledge full cost. If Knowledge is just to know about history and styles of Martials Arts, as well as for exhibition only or teaching, but not add to Damage Multiplier or Attack Rolls, then Knowledge can be bought at the optional half cost.

Belisarion wrote:Always when I think I asked my last question I come up with more.

Power Ranger's monster of the week, would they be rather heroic NPCs or even Bosses? At the beginning of each episode the monsters often defeat the whole Rangers band single handedly before they figure out the weakness and overcome the threat in the end. But if Rita/Lord Zed are already a Boss NPCs, can his Monsters be Bosses as well?
Especially Goldar mopped the floor with the rangers in the first episodes single handedly (then he got weaker later on).

No worries, questions are good.

I would definitely treat MOTWs as heroic NPCs (with the starting 40 HP/Endurance), probably with one level of Monstrous Durability and Monstrous Destruction (if you are planning on using those). It also depends on how you want the monsters to grow. Maybe Rita and Zedd are able to cast Monstrous Abilities onto the MOTW (via a Unique Perk). Maybe when the monsters are defeated they have a 'second life' as giants (in which you'd treat like the Boss Ability Health Reserve; either provide it as a Unique Ability or make it a freebie since it fits the 'rules' of Power Rangers).

Rita wasn't much of a fighter, but a plotter and caster of spells. So, she'd have higher Endurance than Health, possibly even Monstrous Drive. Zedd, being a stronger fighter, would have higher levels of Monstrous Durability and Monstrous Destruction, probably as high as +3, maybe even +4.

Thanks a lot Malancthon! Since I haven’t seen Power Rangers since, gosh, probably the original series from my childhood, it’s really great to have someone versed in its sentai sensibilities give such verbose and well-thought-out answers.

Belisarion: I think it’s amazing that you’re introducing your son to gaming using content he loves and is familiar with. Makes you wonder why there ISN’T a high profile sentai RPG out there. Then again, I imagine Saban would put the smackdown on it quickly whether it mentioned “Power Rangers” by name or not.

In any case, don’t be afraid to simplify some things. While OVA certainly supports perfectly recreating every individual attack move these characters possess, it’s also fine to say “You use 3 dice to attack, but since you’re MEGAZORD SUPERFORM now, you get to roll 6!” and just totally wing it.

Of course, if you’re trying to teach your son more structured play, maybe that’s the opposite of what you want, but I just wanted to give the creator OK to do whatever makes the game most fun for you both.

Clay wrote:Thanks a lot Malancthon! Since I haven’t seen Power Rangers since, gosh, probably the original series from my childhood, it’s really great to have someone versed in its sentai sensibilities give such verbose and well-thought-out answers.

Yes, I'm very thankful that Malancthon takes his time to provide me with such awesome advice and templates

The old D&D 3.5 veteran in me is easy prey for the crunch he puts in especially mecha/monstrous abilities. I have yet to see how my son absorbs the system and will scale the difficulty level accordingly. And thanks to the versatility of OVA it will be a cakewalk

Thanks. I tried to keep it KISS still, but I think having options for bigger numbers is a fun idea, and not one really that's done (or at least done well) for tabletop RPGS.

If you do end up using the Monstrous Abilities, please provide some feedback. I'm pretty confident that it will work well, but having more people try and react to it would be immensely helpful.

Well in honor of the movie coming out, and to answer inquiries of my own, I have some construction quandaries of my own.

Basically it's about the Zords, or to be more exact the varying stages of Megazords.

Now, I figured that there'll be some species of Fusion/Fuse/Gestalt Ability to explain how to get the individual Zords to come together and become the Megazord (Voltron jokes aside), but as many of us who know the show over a multitude of seasons, there's more than one version of the Megazord that ultimately culminates (usually) into an Ultrazord of some kind.

Let's take MMPR's zords for example. For the first Megazord, it first had a Tank Mode before it transforms into it's more familiar Battle Mode. I can assume that it'll be either Transformation or Alternate Form, whichever makes the most cinematic sense and how gameplay is utilized. The Dragonzord Battle Mode would be reflected as well, though with notable omissions of certain Zords.

However it's the Dragon Megazord and the eventual Ultrazord that gives rise to my initial inquiry. Basically is it allowed to have a Transformation/Alternate Form within a Transformation/Alternate Form under OVA2e, or discouraged? If so, what would be the more optimal approach to it?

Probably the way I would handle that is allowing an Vehicle to have a Combined Form as a new Unique Ability, and each level of Combined Form provides an additional form, and the Combined Form's Vehicle level is equal to the number of Vehicles combined.

So, something like this: Vehicle 1 (various abilities/weaknesses as appropriate for the base form, Unique Ability: Combined Form 1 (Megazord: Vehicle 5)).

The initial MMPR Megazord would probably have Transformation, as it would combine in tank form then transform into it's humanoid form.

Additional forms, such as the Dragonzord Battle Mode and the Mega Dragonzord would then require Combined Form 3, with the Vehicle level equal to the combined Zords (4 and 6, respectively).