Hi everyone! Today we’ll see some Tabletop Fighter cards from Skullgirls Mobile, a game we really love a lot here, in the Dragon Fighters and Musha Shugyo RPG community! Tabletop Fighter is a side-system born from Dragon Fighters, now live on Kickstarter here! This post is a translation and adaptation from this one on the official Dragon Fighters page.

You can play right away by downloading the Dragon Fighters Quickstart, here. Also, remember that only a few days are left until the end of the Dragon Fighters Kickstarter! Anyone who’ll join will receive amazing exclusives, therefore we’re trying our best to make it happen, too! If you support Dragon Fighters with ANY Reward, contact us when it’s up and you’ll receive a special digital gift FOR FREE.

In this post, we will analyze a Character Card together and learn how to use it with the basic rules of Dragon Fighters, for now. We will publish more information on the Tabletop Fighter rule-set as soon as they’ll be released by Acchiappasogni, the Dragon Fighters publisher.

Character Card

Tabletop Fighter Cards are released in Poker format. First, let’s analyze a Character. In this case, it’s Cerebella Understudy. Here are all the parameters that you can find in a Tabletop Fighter Character:

Variant name: this is the title placed in the middle of the card, in this case, it is “Understudy”. Each Character, in Tabletop Fighter, can have numerous variations. Each variant carries with it different symbols, elements, and modifiers, just like in Skullgirls Mobile.
Character Name: it is located directly below the Variant Name. In this case, of course, we are talking about Cerebella.
Character Rank: it is defined by the color of the frame and the number of “skulls” symbols on the card. There are Bronze (one skull symbol), Silver (two skulls symbols), Gold (three skulls symbols), and Diamond (four skulls symbols) Characters. This variant of Cerebella is a Bronze Character.
Element: you can find it at the top left, in the case of this variant it’s “Water”. The element also establishes the color of the background of the card. Other types of characters from other environments may have different belonging elements (such as those from Fruitarian).
Modifiers: these are the colored symbols at the top, they are located next to the Element symbol.
Stats: these are the three circles on the left. Red stands for Attack, Yellow for Rapidity, and Blue for Defense.
Combat Symbols: found in the slot below. There’s a total of 10 Combat Symbols in Tabletop Fighters.
Special Symbol: it is located in the upper-right corner of the frame. In this case, it is a Shield, which symbolizes the Untouchable Special Points Gain Method (see the Dragon Fighters Quickstart for more informations).

Character Card Creation

Each Character is defined, among other things, by a Rank and by the Name of the Variant. To create a Character Card, you must first establish the Rank that serves to define the number of Combat Symbols and Modifiers available to the Character:

Bronze: two modifiers and two combat symbols.
Silver: three modifiers and three combat symbols.
Gold: four modifiers and four combat symbols.
Diamond: five modifiers and five combat symbols.

You can choose any Combat Symbol. There is no limit even for the choice of Negative Modifiers. As for the Positive ones, remember that they are divided by Element. If you choose to equip your Character with Positive Modifiers, at least one of these must be of the same Character Element! For further Positive Modifiers, however, there is no limit.

Example: as you can see, Paroul’s Star Umbrella has three Positive Modifiers! In this case, Regeneration is green like her Wind element. The other symbols are from the Light Element.

We will learn more about the Modifiers in the future, but for now, you need to know that they are managed with special cards and provide some positive or negative effects in exchange for a cost.

Obviously, the higher the Rank and the more numerous the Symbols and Modifiers available, the stronger, potentially, the Variant Character.

Stats

Just like in Dragon Fighters, you have 7 points to distribute between Attack, Rapidity, and Defense:

Attack: add its value to the Check result to calculate damage.
Rapidity: establishes the number of Combat Symbols Dice (dCS) to be rolled in a Check.
Defense: establishes the amount of damage that the PC can absorb when suffering a hit.

Element

Typically, there can be many different variants of the same character. For example, there may be several Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond Cerebellas.

One of the peculiarities that most characterizes a variant, however, is also its element! In Skullgirls there are 5 elements: Fire, Water, Wind, Light, and Darkness. Different Tabletop Fighters set of Cards may use different elements.

Fire: Weak to Water and strong against Air.
Water: Weak to Air and strong against Fire.
Air: Weak to Fire and strong against Water.
Light: Strong against Dark.
Dark: Strong against Light.

When a Character is at an elemental advantage, he throws one more 6 sided dice in all of his Checks.

Using the Character Cards with Dragon Fighters

To immediately give you the opportunity to play with the Tabletop Fighter Character Cards, we have created a hybrid system that will allow you to play immediately following the Dragon Fighters rules! Here is an expansion card in Dragon Fighters’ 10x15cm bookmark format.

As you can see, on this Expansion Card there is room to house the Character Card, which also acts as Background slot. You can write down Special and Super Techniques as well as experience points (Exp). Create your custom moves following the Dragon Fighters Quickstart Guide and start having fun right away! Below, you will also find the colored cards according to the element attached.

As an example, here is Cerebella’s Bookmark Card. Of course, depending on the Variant, you can choose to create different Special or Super Techs, just like you do in Skullgirls Mobile when you choose which Moves to use for your Character variant!

Additional rules

Let’s see some additional rules we need to keep in mind when playing using a Character Card with Dragon Fighters.

Combat Symbols: during Combat, a Character can activate any of his Combat Symbols before performing a Check. To do so, an extra 1AP must be spent for each Activated Symbol! The effect of the Symbol thus activated is added to that of any other Symbols contained in the Techniques or in the actions performed by the Character.
Element: in all Checks, the Character who has an Elemental Advantage on the other rolls 1d6 more and chooses the highest value between the results of the two dice. Isn’t that a nice advantage? So choose carefully the element of your Character.
Modifiers on the card will not be considered in character combat with the basic Dragon Fighters rules. We’ll see more about them in another post.