Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that rebuilds popular culture icons into combat capable Essence20 characters.
Today this article is being written by Carlos Cabrera, developer for the Welcome to Night Vale Roleplaying Game using Essence20 that you can back right now on BackerKit here! I have also written some upcoming work for the Transformers Roleplaying Game, and you can read about some of my other work in the “Meet the Team” section on BackerKit. Thank you to everyone who has come out to pledge thus far!
That brings us to why we are here. Over 9,000 of you signed up to be notified of when the BackerKit campaign launched October 1st! So in fine anime tradition, I bring you Vegeta from Dragonball Z.
Building Essence20 Vegeta
I am no stranger to anime let alone Dragonball Z. Once I dressed up as older Gohan in his blue and orange gi for Halloween in high school, and I regularly wore long-sleeved DBZ t-shirts as well. I also used to own a copy of the 1999 Dragonball Z: The Anime Adventure Game RPG (and maybe drew myself as a character once).
But enough about my weeb status (feel free to pry for more). The Welcome to Night Vale Roleplaying Game happens to be my first professional crowdfunding campaign. While not the first project I’ve acted as developer on, because of Renegade Game Studios and because of you, it will be my first developed project to hit the market—and what a turnout! So this article is dedicated to you, the fans, of roleplaying games, of Night Vale, and of Dragonball alike.
I would also like to give a special thanks to Renegade Producer, Ben Heisler, Know Direction’s Ryan Costello, and some of the Renegade Discord chat I noticed for giving me pointers on where to find the rules I was looking for. It was like we came together like the Ginyu Force on this one.
The Prince of All Vegetables
Vegeta is the Prince of all Saiyans. A space-faring, warlike race who sent their strongest warriors to distant planets to either conquer or destroy. Normally humanoid in appearance, with the exception of their brown, fuzzy tails they usually wrap around themselves as a convenience. All saiyans have the ability to transform into giant Great Apes, which will be the focus of the article here with Vegeta’s first appearance in the series.
Why vegetables? The creator of Dragonball, Akira Toriyama (ALL HAIL), had a legendary fondness for puns. The series’ main protagonist, Goku, is a saiyan with the birth name of Kakarot (carrot). All full-blooded saiyans had names along these lines. Vegeta was given his name, which he wears proudly, because he’s the prince of them all.
Origin
(Vegeta’s original color scheme, before they settled on his classic blue and white)
Noble Blood (Power Rangers: Across the Stars) and… My Little Pony: Story of Seasons
Sometimes you find rules that are exactly what you’re looking for. Not only does Noble Blood encompass the fact that Vegeta is a prince, but across the stars? It was just too good not to.
For this build, we’re going to use the Essence increase and skill training or specialization into Social and Persuasion. Not only is he a prince, but at this point in the series he commands his lackeys to do all the fighting for him until he decides to step in. While the Origin Benefit: Be an Example does a great job to reflect that Vegeta puts a lot of pressure on himself to be the very best, there’s one thing that separates Dragonball from the other Essence20 IPs—flight.
Yes, Transformers has aerial movement, but I wanted to get away from the slightly heavier rules of switching between modes to gain access to it. Flight in Dragonball is a constant. Everyone can do it in the Z series, and the best fight scenes include charging at each other from angles in the sky. So I wanted flight to be easy, mobile, and easily accessible. The best example of that would be the Soar Like an Eagle Gryphon Origin Perk from Story of Seasons. This grants 30 ft of ground and aerial movement, which highlights a little of the speed in Dragonball. This would replace Be an Example, which at this point Vegeta does not do at all.
Role
Purple Ranger (Power Rangers: A Jump Through Time)
What greater baseline to start with for a super powered martial arts anime than a super powered martial arts show in live action? Rangers in the Power Ranger Roleplaying Game get personal power! Plus, they’re more alike than you think. Power Rangers transform and pose with explosions in the background! Dragonball characters pose and charge up in an explosion of energy! Also, the aforementioned Ginyu Force are a team of five, and they even double down on poses. It was just meant to be.
The reason why the Purple Ranger works so well is because of their Emotional Mastery ability. Characters in Dragonball can gain power through the use of their emotions (usually anger) but the cast of the series is wide enough that with a group of them, they can utilize the whole gamut. Their level 1 armor training and skill levels can even remain the same. Characters in Dragonball often wear armor or integrate weight training as part of their gi, and whether that is light or medium armor can reflect whether your character is a Z Fighter from Earth (in the classic orange and blue) or wears something heavier, like Vegeta’s body armor or Piccolo’s turban and cape.
At the higher levels, Emotional Strength is still pretty on theme (your powering up sequences), and naming a unique strike or attack is very normal for Dragonball. Because you can choose the damage type for the Unique Strike’s ability, it’s okay balance wise that the attack is only within reach. Point blank energy explosions happen all the time in Dragonball. The Purple Ranger also gets a ranged energy attack at level 5, which could be reserved for one of your character’s unique ki blasts like, Vegeta’s Galick Gun or Goku’s Kamehaha.
One of the things unique to Dragonball is its high amount of energy attacks. Using the personal power system, you could even mechanically have more energy attacks but keep them at shorter effective ranges, saving that level 5 ability for the most impressive ki attacks of the show. In order to keep it balanced with the Essence20 system, however, I suggest swapping out It’s Morphin Time for another Unique Strike.
What do we do with It’s Morphin Time? That can become Vegeta’s Great Ape ability at level 3. For a Standard action, Vegeta can create an artificial moon if one is not already present (and probably for a power point) and morph into his own Zord form. You can use the base stats of a zord without any of the driving or other zord features, and in exchange for being able to change into this form effectively at will, you get a Hang-Up. If an opponent grabs Vegeta’s tail he freezes, unable to attack (but can still defend himself or escape) or if it’s cut off, he reverts back to his normal saiyan form. If we’re planning for the future, every time a new zord feature is supposed to be gained, that can be another form, like Super Saiyan.
Influence
Martial Artist (GI Joe Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)
This was probably the easiest choice to make. The Influence Perk of being able to study your opponent to learn about their capabilities (power level or threat level) was a no brainer. Plus, in Vegeta’s case, he’s extremely competitive and is quick to take offense when he learns that Goku no longer has his tail at this point in the series. That is a definite hang-up against his opponent’s Social abilities.
Essence Scores and Skills
In Dragonball, martial arts and energy attacks are the main focus. A lot of Skill Points should be put in Might or Targeting, but even more so in Conditioning. In every episode (that’s not filler) characters are being pounded into craters in the ground, or thrown into rocks or mountains. In order to do what they do that have to be able to take a beating. All they do is fight and train, really, looking for that next opponent or defending against the next intergalactic threat. You can also put an emphasis on evasion and defense, to reflect being able to block a flurry of attacks in mid-air as you and your opponent attempt to outmaneuver each other.
General Perks and Other Options
For an IP so combat focused like Dragonball, you’ll probably want to heavily invest in anything that can make you a better hand-to-hand combatant or can really hit with your long-range ki blasts. What’s great about the Power Rangers Roleplaying Game is that there are plenty of General Perks and Grid Powers (abilities you can gain with any of the ranger roles) that utilize your personal power points in unique and interesting ways. Boost Initiative in the Power Rangers Core Rulebook for example, allows you to spend Power to increase your initiative by +2 per point spent. Now that is aerial movement in Dragonball to reflect the most epic of showdowns.
Conclusion
I tried to approach this build as an entry point into the Dragonball series. Some of the things which didn’t make the cut were things I was also familiar with in the previous RPG. Thoughts on beam collisions, how delaying initiative or contingency actions might have an effect on things, even whether or not reactions were the right way to go. Maybe in the future for a higher-level build. Perhaps even a stat block.
I certainly hope you’ve enjoyed this first foray into Dragonball using the very flexible Essence20 system. Again, thank you for so many of you signing up to be notified about the Welcome to Night Vale Roleplaying Game. As of this writing, we still have 3 weeks until the BackerKit campaign closes on October 30th. Developing it, and this article for you, has been an absolute pleasure.
