And one more thing...

Further to the genre emulation concept below, I made the following post to RPG.net a few days ago where it generated a fair amount of discussion, some of it useful in getting me started on this project. I think the post might be a useful illustration of what I'm talking about, so I reproduce it below.

Encouraging the power-escalation-during-combat anime trope in RPG play

To set the scene I’ll use Bleach but many fighting manga/anime follow the same pattern. Our hero Kuchiki Byakuya, all-around cool-but-badass-guy, steps forth to face his opponent. Said opponent is known to be strong - a definite threat. This plays out one of two ways. To whit:

The anime way – Byakuya and the enemy trash talk a bit and then our hero attacks. He uses his zanpakuto but does not unseal it and he uses flash steps (cause that’s cool and what he’s famous for) to move quickly. The enemy uses his natural claws/big teeth/rapier wit/chi-powered rubber ducky (on setting 1).

Not gaining the advantage after a few exchanges at this level, one side or the other ramps it up. Byakuya unseals his zanpakuto to its shikai form, maybe adds in a binding or destruction spell, but not a top-level one, not yet. The enemy dials his ducky up to level 3 (out of 5). Battle continues.

With much sweating and grunting, not to mention cutting and spitting up blood (this is Bleach after all), neither side has an advantage. Byakuya moves to the next level of shikai and spells while the enemy puts his ducky on 5. Cue more trash talk, gouts of blood and the SFX budget of a season of the new Battlestar Galactica

And yet after a few minutes of this, still no winner. The enemy roars, “Is that all you have? Bwahahahaha, then now feel my TRUE power.” His ducky transforms into the fabled Gutting-Goose of Shinigami-Slaying and he races forward to attack. While it takes him the requisite eternity to close with our hero, Byakuya adopts a look of pained regret and utters, in that way he does, “Ban…kai”. Cue drifts of sakura petals and the SFX budget of the entire Star Wars saga. Fight ends in tears for the enemy about 10 seconds later.

Now the RPG way;
GM – “Before you stands a powerful foe. He is thought to possess the mighty Gutting Goose and he may truly be a match for your power. What do you do?”

Player – “Bankai!”

Soooo the question at hand is; what, if any, system does the best job of mechanically encouraging the first version of the scene, rather than the second. I know that the GM could just rule that top-level powers cannot be used out of the gate, but that seems a bit much. And even in-genre there are times when characters pull out all the stops at the start, if only so they can discover that they actually have yet another level of power they hadn’t found yet.

Systems like BESM 3 that can restrict usages also tend to give points for the restriction that can be used to make powers even better than might be desired.

Power point economies (BESM Energy Points, OVA Endurance, Exalted Motes) can actually discourage the trope by penalizing the use of smaller powers first if they eat up the point reserve, perhaps making it impossible to use the big gun later. Better to fire the wave motion gun at the start and mop up with the shock cannons.

I see some merit in systems like D&D 4E with its At Will, Encounter and Daily powers. But if the game is not running with the same kind of “encounters per day” assumptions as D&D, there may not be any incentive to not spam the dailies at the start of the boss fight, especially if it may be the only combat that day.

To some degree the Charge Dice mechanic in Anima Prime has promise, but I’m not sure how well it works out in practice and that system does have a fair bit of combat bookkeeping with its three dice pools and their ever-changing values.

So, does anyone have any suggested sub-systems, games, house rules or just plain ideas that might be of use? I’m probably going to kit-bash something based on OVA or CAHS2 for my own use and I’m looking for something I can lift and graft on to encourage this play style without just mandating it or making the exceptional cases impossible.