In 2017 , Cave of Monsters Games ’ Henshin ! brought the Spandex - clad , candy - coated humankind of Super Sentai ( Power Rangers , for those less familiar with its tokusatsu roots ) to tabletop play . Three years later and with a deluxe release of the original game havingmade waves on Kickstarter , now the team wants to do the same with another toku icon .
Created by the same team as Henshin ! , Tim Batiuk and Sam Kusek , Rider Konchu was first developed as a hack of the Henshin ! ruleset , as part of a stretch finish in Henshin ! ’s deluxe release on Kickstarterlate last year . While Henshin!brought the vibeof being a Power Ranger to the tabletop — the dramatic play of a double life , the bang of translation into colouration - put one over squad of superheroes , and , of row , occasionally teaming up in a elephantine combining automaton — Konchu hop to capture the tone of Sentai ’s slightly more matured sibiling : Shotaro Ishinomori’slegendary masked wedge , Kamen Rider .
https://gizmodo.com/a-guide-to-kamen-rider-the-masked-marvels-of-japanese-1842417195
Get ready to fight, Masked Rider!Image: Dave Baker/Cave of Monsters Games
To celebrate the launching of Rider Konchu ’s rulebook to Henshin ! owners , we reached out to Cave of Monsters Games ’ Sam Kusek over e-mail to speak about the cognitive operation of adjust Henshin ! into Rider Konchu , and what it ’s like taking the tropes of tokusatsu TV — defined by its live - action , effects - driven dramatic play — and adapting them for tabletop storytelling .
James Whitbrook , io9 : Upon seeing the chemical reaction to Henshin ! , how chop-chop did you realize there ’d be an appetite for something like Rider Konchu ?
Sam Kusek : Oh moderately quickly ! After Henshin ! had its initial release in 2017 , I was already thinking about how to spread out the system to accommodate the storytelling manner of Kamen Rider since the two franchises are so closely linked . I was also hearing a lot from fans that this was something that they really wanted to get their hand on . So I set to finding the right vox and intro for it .
io9 : Tell me a small bit about your history with toku and Kamen Rider specifically . Which eras were your biggest influence on modernize Rider Konchu ?
Kusek : Tokusatsu is something that ’s always been around . I ’m someone who was the right age for when MMPR bump off but my interest always go past that specific franchise . I remember see Gamera and Godzilla versus Megalon on MST3 K , captivate with the actual movie instead of the jokes ( which is tough to imagine ) .
Kamen Rider specifically came up because I also started collecting and reading a lot of manga in my other teens and it was hard to ignore any Shotaro Ishinomori clobber . The more I looked into his trunk of work and contributions to the space , the more interested I became .
With attentiveness to eras that impacted secret plan development , Heisei Phase 2 is what come to listen . Those seasons , Fourze , Gaim , and Build in fussy , do a great occupation at balancing the action and exhilaration of get down new suits and fighting , with likable characters who do n’t need to transform to have an impact on the story . That balance of how some function could touch or hinder the activeness and transformation became the cum for what I thought would make for an interesting Kamen Rider inspired game .
https://gizmodo.com/i-cant-stop-scrolling-through-this-collection-of-incred-1825058384
io9 : Henshin ! played on a lot of the tropes of Sentai and Power Rangers , but Kamen Rider is not necessarily a enfranchisement all of those interested in the base game might be intimate with , give it never had the same sort of adjustment or mien in the West . How did you draw near play its idea and aesthetic to an audience in creating Rider Konchu ?
Kusek : The coming was similar to Henshin ! ’s development , in that the main destination was to find shape of how Kamen Rider works and gamify that . I always wanted to make this on top of the Henshin ! system , since the franchise are jolly similar and the system of rules was build with a humiliated roadblock of entry , but I live Rider Konchu would require to have some key discrete divergence for people to consider it its own game .
A few things jumped out right forth . The progression of Kamen Rider time of year follows a collection of power up items or trinkets , often head to one or more characters gain a final conformation . This felt like it was not only something that would be really fun to cheer but would allow for some interesting militant dynamic between player , as well as a great room for a GM to define a campaign length .
I also noticed that Kamen Rider always felt like it had a band of level come about around the protagonists , both with NPCs and the space they are in , with its own curing of stakes and issue . Sometimes the characters get involved and sometimes they are off doing something else entirely . That buzz off me think about how to good present story constituent to player without railroading them down a certain route and provide better guidance for GMs who might not already be familiar with this style . So unlike Henshin ! , the initial spillage of Rider Konchu come with a predefined setting , sets of problems that can find , and some other fun elements , like a game clock and collectible gear , for GMs to practice .
incur these primal differences made me clear that it was significant with this game to deliberately add some rails for players to help keep the occasional feel of a Kamen Rider time of year , while still allowing for them to make an wallop with their own choice .
io9 : Henshin ! itself has a mountain of coolheaded mechanics for grouping play given the nature of those teams , but Rider team - ups can often be much more … let ’s say nettlesome . Do Konchu ’s organization make opportunities for group players who do n’t inevitably want to puzzle out together to keep the twenty-four hour period as a chemical group ?
Kusek : dead . So Henshin ! was work up on a token scheme , where quality took two kinds of turn : impenetrable turns , which execute dynamic natural action , expend a token , and light number , which give your fiber a token for require some kind of risk . Tokens were managed separately to copy the trials and trial one goes through , result in personal growth .
And while that work for Henshin ! , like you said , it ’s not exactly the same moral force that a Kamen Rider show is work up on . I love a season where multiple Rider character are vie against each other for pretty unlike end and I want to give players a chance to simulate that .
So the token system change . Rather than each character carry off their own token , all accessible tokens are added or taken from one partake pool . This allows for players to lick more closely together to expend turns to add tokens , stockpile them for a big fight prospect , but that also create opportunities for other player to take those token and apply them for their own motif . Additionally , we added in new special turning for each character and collectible gear that be three tokens per use , so there are a mickle more ways to spend token and impact the story !
create this one centralize place to serve manage the flow of action at law that is more or less ensure by the players helped emphasize that rich and nuanced style of storytelling you see in a lot of Kamen Rider seasons .
io9 : Rider bear witness also often have major support casts of people who are n’t necessarily also the superheroes . How does Konchu take those kind of persona into consideration for fictional character creation ?
Kusek : Totally , I wanted to make trusted these kinds of roles were accounted for and more importantly , something mass would desire to play ! Rider Konchu has six playbooks the great unwashed can choose from and three of those — The Best Friend , The newsperson , and The Hacker — all represent the major support role . We refer to these as the support playbook .
While these playbooks ca n’t translate like the other three can , not every trouble in Rider Konchu is solved by a well placed kick . Their mechanic are more focused around engaging with other musician and NPCS , find or preface unexampled key story elements and aid the three other playbooks . If you like to be the center of tending or entrance your way out of or into situations , you ’ll wanna give these playbooks a spin .
io9 : We ’ve had superhero RPGs for decades at this point , but what do you think it is about tokustatsu heroes that make them suited for TTRPG mechanics ?
Kusek : In general , I call back tokusatsu properties like Super Sentai and Kamen Rider have a better model for hoi polloi to see themselves in stories . The casts of these shows , especially when they follow over to America , bring some kind of social or ethnic diversity and continue to push the phonograph needle on who or what can be a poor boy , which you ca n’t on the button say the same for other superhero franchises . It also helps that a portion of the multitude in these franchises who became heroes , just start out as normal mass getting discombobulate into a weird , wild situation . That is an promiscuous headspace for people to get into and it creates a great plot start tip . What would you do , if tasked with keep launch the world ?
eventually because these properties get a unused season every yr , with a new sense of style and esthetic , there is this natural sense of development baked in . I ’ve always feel like that has been one of the openhanded strong suits of tokusatsu as it encourages fans to make their own thought , and I think TTRPGs by nature have become the estimable venue for that .
io9 : You ’ve done Sentai , you ’ve done Kamen Rider . Are there any other toku image you think would function well in this space ?
Kusek : I ’ve always been intrigued by Ultraman and the relationship a user would have to its alien opposite number . How does that spring up and interchange over the course of a time of year ? How are your decisions impacted by that ? I ’ve been reflect over how I could translate that into a single - player RPG or journal biz , like what Plot Armor did with giant mecha .
Rider Konchu and Henshin ! are both available to purchase now onDriveThruRPG .
https://gizmodo.com/the-indie-team-behind-beast-heart-strikers-tells-us-ab-1845081683
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