Shibuyan Knights is an RPG inspired by the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) and Forged in the Dark systems to play light-hearted wuxia adventures. If you’ve watched or read the original Dragon Ball series, that’s a perfect fit for Shibuyan Knights. The game book lists a few inspirations including One Piece, Princess Mononoke, Alita Battle Angel, and The Fast and the Furious. The PCs are people living within the mega city of Shibuya, inspired by the real Shibuya neighborhood of Tokyo. It’s just like the real city except for magic, monsters, and experimental tech gadgets being all over the place. Similar to New York City in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
As a PbtA game, Shibuyan Knights uses 2d6 for a partial success system. Whenever a PC does something that might not succeed, they roll 2d6 and add any relevant stats or modifiers. On a result of 6 or less the PC failed and suffers a consequence. On a result of 10 or more the PC succeeded and gets what they wanted. On a 7-9 the PC gets a partial success. They get what they wanted, but they ALSO suffer a consequence. In the simplest sense, a consequence can be damage, but it’s more interesting to introduce new barriers in the story.
Characters in Shibuyan Knights have access to a few customization options. There are single use brews that can be used once per adventure. Gadgets that provide more permanent bonuses. Spells which require spending the game’s health resource of Stress. And there are feats, the playbook moves of Shibuyan Knights. The game is a bit different that other PbtA games by having very few points for the basic moves, but huge bonuses from the items. Notably, if you are a homicidal lunatic, acid provides a +4 (enormous for PbtA) to a Fight move.
Despite acid being a common fighting tool Shibuyan Knights claims to be a more lighthearted system. The players are meant to be solving crimes like Scooby Doo and not engaging in titanic struggles like Attack on Titan. I can’t say that the system really supports a lighthearted game, but it does seem to be made for a smaller kind of hero. You could do a Scooby Doo adventure with Shibuyan Knights, but you could also do something more mature in tone like Trigun or Full Metal Alchemist.
I don’t think Shibuyan Knights is the right system for my China game though. It’s a grab-bag of anime tropes on top of a simple PbtA design. It’s not even close to being about China and it’s barely about real Japan. So much of its inspiration comes from a mishmash of different anime and manga stories that the game doesn’t have much identity of its own. What it does have is so heavily connected to Tokyo that it feels difficult to play without ever having been to the city. Plus, no wuxing magic (there is zodiac magic though!).
Shibuyan Knights is not the right game for me, but if you’d like to check it out for yourself you can snag a copy at DriveThruRPG.
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