Digimon: Digital Adventures

So first things first; how do  you design an enemy for DDA? It’s recommended to prioritize Health as your survival stat and Accuracy for your offensive stat, if that hasn’t been gone over I can ramble about that for a bit.

Effectively, Health as your primary survival stat makes you easy to hit and able to survive bigger hits, but still makes the numbers players can toss at you bigger. This allows players to feel strong and important without breezing through things too. This isn’t to say Dodge and Armor should be ignored, just that if you have to pick a big survival stat, Health is the way to go.

As an aside for this point; be very careful when taking Combat Monster on an enemy who prioritizes Health. It can get out of hand very fast and should be weighed more similarly to a lower end Boss Quality when an enemy takes it.

Offense is a bit different; we really only have two options between Accuracy and Damage, but of the two Accuracy scales a bit worse after initially hitting. So this allows a bit of variance in how much damage you deal while still being threatening (but not so threatening that you’re liable to oneshot an unlucky player outside of big outliers).

So now with those two key theories laid out, we can dive into what we’ll be sorting enemies into; general roles! This is similar to how players will fall into build archetypes between Strikers, Tanks, Supports, and the like, but we’ll try and branch out a bit as stages go up.

Striker: this role is primarily about dealing damage to threaten the enemy. There’s several sub-roles between where you like to be on the field like melee strikers vs ranged strikers, or frail strikers that don’t have much durability vs bulky strikers who are kind of like miniature tanks. Almost every Digimon will like to be a Striker as a secondary role because being able to deal damage is just a good idea, but primary strikers will often branch out into other roles themselves as options open up more.

Tank: this role is about being very difficult to take down while keeping allies alive. This is usually done with a taunt or interceding to make you the most appealing target on the field, but there are other more creative ways to tank. When categorizing enemies I’ll try to make three broad types of tank between the meat tank, the dodge tank, and the control tank. Meat tanks are your standard ‘big hard to take down’ type monster, dodge tanks survive by being hard to hit in the first place, and control tanks are a bit of a hybrid between a tank and support who keep you locked down between grappling or battlefield control to attack them first.

Support: Support is an incredibly broad category I use a lot, but effectively it’s anything from buffing allies to debuffing enemies to controlling the field. These Digimon exist to help make their allies lives easier in one way or another, effectively making the other party members more dangerous by extension. This category may need more breaking down but I’ll be sure to cover the archetype the best I can.

Other: some enemies won’t fit into an easy classification, being very generalized, or just plain wacky. This won’t be gone over much in these guides but know that you could make something say, just built for movement that doesn’t do much damage or support otherwise, or a Digimon built to make skill checks.

So we should probably start at the beginning, at character creation. Your starting stats give a good idea of what your build can do, and Bonus DP can be talked about later. But the major thing that should be done is discuss with your group what everyone is playing. Talk to each other, make sure redundancies are taken care of, make sure that nobody’s build feels like they’re being walked over because someone else has the same Qualities. A big one I see a lot of is people taking the same Effect tags over and over; a wide range of Effects is much, much better for a party because it not only makes everyone feel important as their Effects won’t be overridden, but it also mechanically makes the party stronger as that lets most Effects stack (bar some like Poison and Burn which are explicitly made to not stack). Personally I recommend leaving Exploit and Fury to Effect Warriors then discussing what else everyone else can take, but this is something for your party to speak on.

Additionally, I’ve seen a few scenarios where one role is popular and then everyone plays that role. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that but it can make things hard to balance when the whole party is made of tanks who rely on retaliation damage to hit.

People also seem to have missed that having high stats have increasingly diminishing returns; to use an example from the current raid being ran on the Discord server; a boss at Ultra level with the party at 35 bonus DP will probably have average stats of 20-30 give or take. This makes having insane armor stats of 40+ redundant at a certain point, because even if the boss rolls amazingly well odds are that you’re only taking 1-3 damage at most unless it pulls out a Tankbuster. Those stat points after that would be better spent elsewhere, especially if you have any buffers in the party that can boost armor. And remember, no matter how high your armor is you will always take damage if you’re hit and the attack has a damage tag; you are still vulnerable to a death by a thousand cuts if you lack dodge.

But perhaps more importantly something I see is that people have seemed to miss that your defensive stats directly impact how effective the rest of your party can be.

To explain; your Health directly impacts how high your White Mage’s Accuracy can be before they’ll struggle buffing; meaning if you have a White Mage in a party of low-health allies, you’ve effectively made a scenario where they can only single-target buff because they have to keep refreshing their buffs, or they can’t attack because they have to have as low accuracy as possible to hit everyone with AoE’s. Your Dodge directly impacts how high the Tank’s Dodge can be; if your Tank’s taunt does not make you notably harder to hit while at least in neutral stance if not offensive stance, they have to spend time Interceding and they can’t increase their dodge; making them increasingly vulnerable to Effects. And if you’re running a dodge tank, they don’t want to Intercede as often as they usually have less armor than other tanks, and if their goal is to not be hit while drawing aggro off of you, they still need to be theoretically easier to hit than you are. And Tanks with low dodge means the White Mage has to keep spending actions to Cleanse any Effects they get hit with instead of buffing, healing, or attacking. Similar things can be said of Armor; if you have low Armor and people need to keep taking hits for you to survive it only hurts the party as they’re using their actions to keep you alive instead of doing their main job. That can quickly end with people feeling frustrated, and that they’re not getting the most out of their build.

So what does this have to do with starting stats?

RKD has laid out a great guideline for high/low stats. Starting at Rookie each stage has average stats they should generally be at once they’re done; 3-4 for Rookie, 5-6 for Champion, 7-8 for Ultimate, 9-10 for Mega, then 11-12 for Ultra. If you have a stat that’s more than 3 points above or below the average, you’ve got a spiked stat spread. I would personally consider any starting stat, especially a defensive stat, that is higher or lower than your Stage Bonus in comparison to the starting averages is probably such a big swing that you’ve begun to outright hurt the rest of your party’s effectiveness to what I would consider a selfish degree. Effectively; having a Dodge, Armor, or Health stat that’s below 2 at Rookie, 3 at Champion, 4 at Ultimate, 5 at Mega, and 6 at Ultra, is probably doing far more harm to your party than it’s doing good for your build, and inversely having a starting stat above 5/8/11/14/17 is going to have increasingly diminishing returns. You could probably still have Accuracy and Damage above that level but that’s at least a bit more build dependent and won’t hurt party synergy quite as hard if you’ve got the right build.

Now for Bonus DP: I like to think in frames of blocks of 10 Bonus DP; it’s easy to visualize and break down and see exactly what you need per chunk. It also works well with most games that implement DP caps because those tend to also work in numbers divisible by 10. But no matter your build, you really should put at least 1 point into every stat for every 10 Bonus DP. I also generally consider Dodge and Accuracy to be stats you want to keep even to get the most out of stances, so most builds should want to add 2 to each of them per 10 Bonus. The following are examples for general builds but for every 10 Bonus I would consider the following stat increases normal, but they could always be adjusted as you see fit (for example a White Mage could potentially have a slightly different Accuracy/Damage or an Armor Tank slightly different Dodge): Strikers: +1 Health, +2 Accuracy, +2 Damage, +2 Dodge, +1 Armor Armor Tanks: +2 Health, +2 Accuracy, +1 Damage, +1 Dodge, +2 Armor White Mages: +2 Health, +2 Accuracy, +1 Damage, +2 Dodge, +1 Armor Black Mages: +1 Health, +2 Accuracy, +1 Damage, +2 Dodge, +1 Armor Dodge Tanks: +1 Health, +2 Accuracy, +1 Damage, +2 Dodge, +1 Armor Each of these spreads should still leave you a few points to buy Qualities you need to round out your build, or to increase other stats per block of 10 Bonus DP, keep your role distinct, and still make sure the rest of your party can do their jobs without having to babysit you.

So now that we’ve gotten a good ramble about stats and at what point they really just spike too hard. What does this mean for each role?

Strikers: don’t neglect your defenses. Having good Health, Armor, and Dodge lets your Tanks and White Mages do their job without having to babysit you. Instead of entirely neglecting your Dodge; try to aim for 4/6/8/10/12 and use your Stances to get the most out of your Accuracy and Dodge instead. Try to make sure your Armor and Health are at least at 3/5/7/9/11 so you can take a solid hit, meaning the Tank won’t have to keep wasting actions to Intercede. And if you plan to dip into a bit of support; take a look at what the White Mages and Black Mages took. They’re likely to have better Spec Values than you, so it’s just a good courtesy to take Effects that they don’t have instead of taking ones they do. Focus on progressing your Accuracy and Damage, but don’t neglect your defenses. When playing; use Stances to your advantage. Offensive is likely your go-to Stance but don’t stick in it if you see yourself getting hit soon. And keep your Health high; a White Mage’s buffs being reliable and long-lasting on you only lets you do your job better. By having low Health you’re only hurting yourself and your White Mage. Armor Tanks: don’t neglect your dodge. You want to be easier to hit than the rest of the party, but all you need to be is around 3 to 6 points of dodge easier to hit than your allies after Taunting and Offensive Stances. Consider this; if a Striker at Champion has 3 Dodge while in Offensive Stance, and you have 2 CPU which can be used to Taunt 4. This means you really should consider 3 or 4 Dodge as low as you should go because any lower and you’ll be incredibly vulnerable to effects, meaning the White Mages have to continually spend time healing you. But you can still justify 5 or 6 Dodge just fine as long as the Strikers have about average Dodge themselves; that’s the power of Taunting! And don’t neglect your offenses; other than just being easier to hit one of the best ways to keep aggro is to actually be an offensive threat over a big brick wall. Keep your Accuracy and Damage at about your average and you’ll be fine. White Mages: consider how strong your buffs are. If you aren’t attacking, your buffs should generally be something that makes up for you not attacking. You however are in an inherently synergetic role and thus won’t have to worry too much about stepping on any toes; just make sure you can reliably get off your buffs whether it’s by using single target buffs, being in Defensive Stance, or whatever it is you need. And don’t neglect your defenses just like the other builds. You’re probably one of the few builds that can somewhat neglect their offenses if you know the playstyle very well, but remember that Accuracy boosts your BIT too and System Boost BIT can only go so far now, and having too low of a Body score can make you vulnerable to being grappled. But remember the key thing about how math works: you add your buff values after Stances are calculated. This means that your buffs can make up for allies in Offensive Stance by buffing their Dodge to a value more comparable to Neutral Stance if not better. This means that Dodge-buffing Effects aren’t just worse than Fury, as while they don’t directly buff offense they buff it indirectly by letting your allies more safely stay in Offensive Stance. This is why despite me saying I consider Fury/Exploit to be one of the best Effect tags upfront, there are no outright bad Effects either.

Black Mages: see what I said about Strikers and White Mages: don’t neglect your defenses. Accuracy is your best stat and you want to be in Offensive Stance, but you don’t want stats that are so low that a light breeze kills you. And remember your debuffs stack with a White Mage’s buffs for the same stat counterparts; this means that combined you can create massive swings for certain combinations. At Mega, Fury 6 combined with Exploit 6 makes a whopping net 12 Accuracy 12 Damage swing in practice, and that’s an absolutely massive swing in the party’s favor.

Dodge Tanks: don’t neglect your Health and Armor. Just because you focus on not being hit doesn’t mean you won’t ever have to Intercede, and it doesn’t mean you won’t ever just get unlucky. And having good Health means the White Mage can buff you, which is always helpful.

In short; keep your stats at least somewhat balanced and talk to your party. A massive issue I’ve seen has been a complete lack of communication and people all wanting to play the same role which just becomes redundant at a certain point. The more you communicate, the more you make sure nobody’s build is redundant or struggling, the better the game will be for everyone.

Before I end this essay of a post I want to once more lay out this is not saying this is the only way to play DDA; however this is what myself and other members of the community have found to be a way to play that enhances the fun for everyone involved by making everyone feel important and letting them do what they want to do.

Effect Changes

Effects now work differently than they did before. This is probably the biggest change to the core system and as such I want to talk about it upfront.

Now, when rolling for Positive Effects, the user rolls Accuracy and counts the Successes. Then the target(s) roll Health and count the Successes. For every number above the TN set by the Accuracy successes, add 1 to the duration of the buff.

Single-Target Positive Effects now automatically hit for 1 duration no matter what you roll for Accuracy/Health. Your friends no longer dodge your high-five buffs!

Multi-Target Positive Effects can still miss on a roll of 0 for Accuracy.

Melee tagged Positive Effects can target the user, allowing for self-buffing builds.

Positive Effects do not lower Dodge Pools anymore.

What does this mean? For one thing it means you want passable Accuracy but Accuracy is no longer the end-all-be-all of a support build because you don’t want it to be massively higher than your Ally’s Health stats. It also means being in Defensive Stance is the best way for you to buff in general, as opposed to Offensive Stance from before this update.

Negative Effects work effectively the same as before; roll Accuracy vs Dodge, count net successes for Duration. However, there are a lot of cool changes and new effects for debuffers to work with now. Be sure to check out the changes in the book. Personally I’m a huge fan of Lag and DOT and can’t wait to use them someday.

Tamer Orders

Tamer Orders are a spiritual successor to the old Tamer Qualities. When you hit a certain tier of power, you unlock the ability to use a Tamer Order. These are special types of things your Tamer can do and give amazing bonuses to your Digimon without relying on Charisma to Direct. These can range from applying a Taunt to an enemy, to healing your Digimon, to allowing  your Digimon to use your Fateful Intervention. There’s a whopping 15 Tamer Orders, so I can’t fit them all here. Be sure to check them out in the book.

Instinct/InForce

Too long has Weapon been the only way to build a Digimon. Instinct now stands out as a defensive alternative which buffs your Digimon’s Dodge, Health, and Movement. And later on you gain access to InForces; powerful mechanics you can now utilize to your advantage. Instinct cannot be taken with Weapon, so be sure to choose wisely what kind of build you want.

Twin Partners

There is now a system for having two Digimon at once! They progress differently than normal partners, and have their own special rules. However despite being much weaker early in the game they can be the most powerful Digimon by the time you reach endgame. They also have access to combination attacks by default, so be sure to check the rules out.

Signature Move Update

Signature Move is no longer just a way to apply Certain Strike and Armor Piercing (which have been changed by the way, check those out!). Now it’s a big attack with extra damage, but at a cost; you can’t use it until your third turn by default. This means the Quality is worth taking even if you don’t have Certain Strike and Armor Piercing on the move.

Naturewalk/Element Master/Domain Control

Naturewalk has been updated to a proper tree of Qualities. Naturewalks now can grant special effects and bonuses, like Naturewalk: Dark granting Darkvision or Naturewalk: Water granting waterbreathing. But now there’s more than just fluff reasons to take the Qualities; and it all ends with Domain Control. Domain Controls are powerful Qualities which last for a set period, but allow your Digimon to do even more cool things. Be sure to check the tree out in the handbook. Personally I’m the biggest fan of Shadow Vale, but there’s something for everyone in here.

Negative and Free Qualities

Something that never got fully implemented before: now you can take a small selection of negative Qualities in order to get a bit of DP back on your build. These can be incredibly fluffy, or ways to just add a bit of randomness to how you play.

Free Qualities are all neutral for benefits; each has a tied in downside and are mostly for fluff. However they can be excellent ways to make your build more fun to play with. Both Free and Negative Qualities require GM permission.

Stage Bonus/Limitations

Stage Bonus is now implemented as a mechanic, mostly as a way to create smaller and non-DP related bonuses for certain things, as well as to limit the purchase of certain Qualities such as Weapon, Instinct, Armor Piecing, Certain Strike, and the like. Rookies can no longer just take 2 ranks of Weapon and Armor Piercing to punch well above their level. This was a very welcome addition for balance.

Mode Change/Burst Mode

I fully admit when I picked up DDA, I wasn’t as versed in terms. As such I missed Super Ultimate/Ultra as a stage and made Burst Mode the final stage of the system.

This is no longer the case. Ultra/Super Ultimate are now the highest stages, and Burst Mode is the capstone of the Mode Change tree. It allows you to effectively re-build your Digimon for a high cost, and depending on your Tamer Build grants extra special effects, many of which are callbacks to .12, AKA Rocket Tag Party Edition ™. Two Weapons are back on the menu!

Stealth Build Update

Sneak Attack, Hide in Plain Sight, and Shade Cloak have always been somewhat undervalued, as the former is very all-or-nothing, however the Substitute, Glamor, and Illusionary Overlay have all been added to give this type of build some more love. As of writing this post it’s one of the more recent updates to the system, so I haven’t had the chance to play with it much, but I look forward to it a lot.

Combat Monster Update

Combat Monster has been sort-of nerfed, upfront it’s more limited in how big its bonus can get. However, it’s now a tree type Quality. You can either go down the old Berserker path, or you can take the Brave Heart path. Brave Heart allows Tanks to take a special Stance and get more bonuses, and it caps with One for All, which upon activation shares your Combat Monster bonus with all your nearby allies. This has made a very teamplay based Tank setup which has been very welcome in .14.

Quick Healer Update

Quick Healer has been updated as a line; Second Wind will allow your Digimon to heal themselves mid-combat, thus giving more reason to dip into the tree than just out of combat usage. Regenerator has also been adjusted, be sure to check it out.

Summoner Update

Summoners can now create much more specialized minions; ranging from one big one to smaller, scout-based minions. This creates amazing versatility to a previously fairly basic type of playstyle, and I encourage everyone to check it out.

Range Update

How far you can attack has been a big concern in previous editions. With .14 there is a hard defined limit for your Digimon’s range, instead of it just being a practical limit. This is adjusted based on your stage and Accuracy, be sure to look things up before blasting away. This has been an excellent way to stop people from just sitting back and using Ranged Strikers to win.

And More!

There is so much to go over with .14, and I’ve barely scraped the surface (another thing to check out for example is the Cross Counter Quality). It’s late while I’m typing this up, so I’m sorry if I’ve missed anything major, but I cannot go on enough about how much I love the changes to the system. If you haven’t picked up .14 yet, please do as soon as you can.

Coming Soon

The major thing that I felt set the Adventure and Digimon World plane apart was the design, and the fact that the environments were familiar, but had items tossed in that simply seemed bizarre or out of place. For example, a fridge full of eggs, a subway car on a lake, or telephone booths on a beach.

Now when it comes to strange things in the Digital World, it can generally be broken down into several categories: “the useful but strange”, the “junk data”, and the “something off” type.

“Useful but strange” is exactly what it says; it doesn’t seem to quite fit, but it serves a purpose in the area. This might be replacing a natural resource, or giving aid to people passing through who aren’t acclimated to the area by having a useful function that may make things easier. Great examples are the fridge full of eggs in Digimon Adventure, or the random restrooms seen in Digimon World 1. These types of items help to connect the odd design of the Digital World with an actual function, making things seem more believable.

“Junk data” is more about random items that serve no purpose, helping to make the world seem stranger and more bizarre, because there’s no reason or function for them to be there. They’re just weird! Great examples are the lightbulbs posted up above from Digimon World, or the random telephone poles in the desert from Adventure.

Lastly there’s things which at first glance seem right, but on closer inspection isn’t really what it appears. This works similar to the Junk Data type in terms of what will make things feel not quite right, but will make characters do a double-take or think twice. Great examples of this are Andromon’s factory, the upside-down Pyramids, and the Hiding Tree in Adventure. Things might make sense, but in reality they’re entirely different from what the characters expect.

Now this is a bit of a shorter post (by my standards) but I’m also going to go over a few examples of things which aren’t just copy pasted from Adventure, but might go a ways to making your Digital World feel more unique and alien.

Water Fountain in the Desert

In the middle of a desert is a perfectly ordinary drinking fountain. Nobody knows what it’s connected to but Digimon travel far and wide to take their turn at the fountain, creating a regularly mile-long line just to get a few mouthfuls of water.

Cyborg Jungle

The Digital World’s jungle has a collection of strange fauna, including the occasional metal tree, and loose wires mixed in with vine bundles. Due to a lack of truly small insects and animals in the Digital World, speakers are littered throughout the jungle to make ambient noise.

Volcanic Crossing Station

There’s a train crossing station at the foot of a volcano, complete with a bar and alarm bells. Whenever the volcano erupts, the bells go off and the bar lowers, letting anyone nearby know to not cross just yet. Miraculously, the lava never seems to touch the post.

Meat Plant Fields

A true classic, always has a place in the Digital World. This can work into a Digital World farm or the like. Try to think of other weird things too, like using a metal detector or dowsing rod to find fruits underground, or fishing for vegetables.

Turbine Fields

We’ll be breaking things down into sections, then going over things as a whole later.

The Story

Hoo boy this was a doozy. The story was all over the place, it felt like so many threads got opened up then dropped entirely. They just... went nowhere. The basic plot was fine, it just... lacked focus. Hell, the entire “Evil Gennai” thing basically didn’t get resolved at all, which in my opinion was a bad move, not to mention we have no idea what happened with the Tapirmon thing. It makes it feel like the series is gunning for a sequel or continuation despite its... less than stellar presentation.

Of course the plot being as slow as it was only hurt it more. Every time I watched Tri I found myself thinking that they took the worst path they could have here: a middle ground. If they’d made it a longer running anime series, or an actual series of proper feature films, it would have served the plot better. Instead the 30 minute cuts are there to add more padding via the opening and ending being played at the end of each segment; essentially this TV movie format hurt the series.

Story Score: 2/5 (predictable and had too many dropped plot threads, harmed by the film’s format.)

The Characters

With one major exception, I feel like this is where Tri really shined. Everyone was great and on their A game, I can’t fault them there. Even Kari, my least favorite character from Adventure, felt perfectly well written in Tri, especially at the end when Tai is presumed dead.

We got some legitimately good character moments through this series, from Tai coming to terms that courage is good, but you also need awareness, to the realization that the pure child TK was flat out lying to everyone’s face about Patamon’s infection.

And of course, what in my opinion was the best moment of Tri...

Seriously, if this moment did nothing for you you’re heartless.

That said, the major exception? It’s Mei.

Mei never felt like she really fit. If I had to put a word to it, she played out like fanfiction. This girl shows up and despite her awkwardness everyone immediately loves her and are torn between killing her partner Digimon, and saving the world. They’ve known her for maybe a month tops if we’re being generous, it’s ridiculous and it drives me absolutely bonkers.

Her personality is essentially “I’m shy, the character”. When her hiding an accent is considered a big deal? Something’s gone wrong, and it needs to go back to the drawing board.

And Meikoomon was honestly barely better, but the problems of each character compounded themselves. From the get-go it was “Better Tailmon” and even as a catalyst for the destruction of the Digital World and real world, they outright say the reason it’s so outlandishly strong is because of the memory data of every Digimon it stores. This felt really strange, how do memories add to your physical power when you’re rampaging? If Meicrackmon was a tactical fighter that’d be one thing, but it was a raging beast of a Digimon.

Other small problems I had with characters was the... fuckery of Evil Gennai... that was just uncomfortable. And how Agumon’s entire personality seemed to revolve around eating now. Which was cute, but it got tiring.

Character Score: 4/5 (for everyone people came here to see, it was good, but the new and side characters stopped it from being perfect)

The Music

Tri has good music. There’s no question about that. Between the new versions of Butter-fly (main, cast, and instrumental) and Brave Heart alone it killed it, and the other music was pretty solid if generic at times.

What went wrong was how it was used.

The timing for when they played the music kept coming off wrong, it started too early or too late, or in some cases the wrong song played.

It was frustrating hearing things like Brave Heart play, spending half of the song on evolution sequences then spending the other half with Gennai and Hackmon talking away from the action.

The same thing happend with Butterfly: dammit Toei that’s ass-kicking music not sit back and watch the 3 minute evolution sequence music!

Music Score: 3/5 (technically good but used improperly)

Animation

Tri’s animation really varied. Sometimes it was great, other times it seemed... choppy and off.

But the biggest problem I had, was with the Champion evolution sequences.

Ripped right out of the PSP game, they took ages and didn’t fit the theme well. If anyone wants to know the easiest way to tell a game sequence from an anime transformation sequence: it’s the idling.

A game sequence will always idle at the end of a transformation, while an anime generally holds still. The fact that Tri used the PSP version was jarring for both how they moved and how they posed at the end.

The traditional sequences however, were just fine, in fact I’d say they were pretty solid.

However in the final episode I noticed some major slip-ups, characters whose tone of voice simply did not match the camera angle or their actions. It was again, jarring and distracted me from the actual plot at hand.

Animation Score: 3/5 (variable with noticeable flaws)

The New Toys

So as you all know, the Meikoomon line, including Ordinemon was a major selling point of Tri, and then there was Omegamon: Merciful Mode.

Way to make Imperialdramon Paladin Mode redundant Toei. Real smooth move.

The sequence itself was cool, although the Katana is held at a really dumb angle... why is it held vertically instead of horizontally like the normal Grey Sword? It feels like that would scrape on the hands when it’s being retracted.

But on to Meikoomon and Ordinemon.

Okay let’s be perfectly honest, I’m not going to mince words here. This line was fur bait with a lewd finale. Seriously every other shot of Ordinemon in the finale focused on its ass or its boobs. It got really uncomfortable after a while. I get it happens but... who flies like that? Realy, who flies like that? I won’t link any images to keep things as SFW as possible, but people who saw the movies will know what I mean.

And of course let’s not leave out Meicrackmon and Raguelmon, whose canon design is the textbook definition of the “extra thicc” meme.

New Toys: 2/5 (Redundant and awkward)

Total score: 14/25

All in all, Tri felt like a huge missed opportunity with no real focus. It wasn’t offensively bad, but it certainly wasn’t great either. If you really want to know the story I would recommend it, but if you were expecting something near the story quality of Adventure, you might want to look elsewhere. If Toei does decide to expand on this story, I would prefer to go back and fix all of this mess before tackling new Adventure stories.

“Also known as the "Digimon Dynamo", it is conjectured to be a member of the Mamemon-species. Its tiny body has the properties of a magnet, and is always clad in electricity and discharging lightning.” - Thundermon’s Wiki page

There isn’t much about Thundermon’s personality or general environment, but going with what we know about the Mamemon-species, it’s safe to assume it has a generally friendly demeanor but it has a nasty side with immense destructive power.

This might also generally lead Thundermon to have a bit of a trickster or mischevious personality. This fits with it being a somewhat smaller species of Digimon with deceptive levels of power hiding behind its outer appearance. This can make for some really fun roleplay scenarios, similar to how the Icemon line works.

Evolutionary Line Ideas

Fresh: Leafmon, MetalKoromon, Botamon In-Training: Minomon, Koromon, Tsunomon Rookie: Elecmon, Kokuwamon, Kunemon, Toy Agumon, Thundermon* Champion: Thundermon, Mamemon* Ultimate: Mamemon, BigMamemon, CatchMamemon, MameTyramon, MetalMamemon Mega: PrinceMamemon, BanchoMamemon, TonosamaMamemon Burst: Various custom Burst Modes.

*While Mamemon may canonically be an Ultimate level Digimon, I feel like the line’s most direct evolutions have a bottleneck at the Champion stage. Since most of the other Ultimate-tier Digimon are a subspecies of Mamemon, it feels acceptable to potentially shift Mamemon down to the champion stage to avoid this. But be sure to talk to your GM about it.

“It digivolved in a harsh environment. Contrary to its cute appearance, it conceals a terrifying destructive power. With the exception of one Digimon, it is perhaps the most powerful class. The large hands attached to its small body are capable of turning into powerful bombs and detaching themselves. Its nickname is the "Smiley Bomber".” - Mamemon’s Wiki Page

“It exists as the boss of Mamemon. As a matter of fact, it's suggested that it is an aggregation of Mamemon. Since normal Mamemon are the same size as Rookie Digimon, they possess a degree of power that couldn't even be imagined from their appearance, but as its name suggests, BigMamemon is dozens or even hundreds of times the size of a Mamemon. However, the reason why a "Mamemon" is this size is still unclear. Its personality is extremely gentle, and it hates conflict and battle, so it is always playing with its Mamemon followers. The text on the soles of its shoes reads "BIG" and "MAME".” - BigMamemon’s wiki page

“A Mutant Digimon resulting from the evolution of Mamemon after it was fused with the data from a file management software. It has a serious personality and an uncompromising side, and seems to think that managing Digi-Eggs is its duty. It is also capable of walking without needing to float, by using its arm parts as legs.” - CatchMamemon’s wiki page

“It is a tiny Digimon feared as the "Small Tyranny" (Tiny Tyrant). It condensed Tyrannomon's data into its tiny body, pushing its ferocious nature and combat instinct to the surface, where they have strikingly manifested in its behavior. While its body may be tiny, rather than assaulting opponents en masse, it always acts by itself, swooping down on Digimon roaming its own territory without wasting breath on discussion, and always making a show of being the strongest in its domain. However, because its body is tiny, its territory is not very wide. With its physical strength condensed several hundred-fold into its tiny body, and its tenacious jaw that can crunch even super-hard armor, it possesses fighting strength that surpasses even that of gigantic Dinosaur Digimon.” - MameTyramon’s wiki page

It digivolved further in strength than Mamemon, who holds the alias of "Smiley Bomber". As usual, if one is deceived by its cute appearance, they will have a terrible experience. Nine-tenths of its body is mechanized, and it has the Psycho Blaster equipped to its left arm.” - MetalMamemon’s wiki page.

Thundermon and subverting expectations

Thundermon is one of those tiny Digimon who pack a real wallop, making it a really good way to mix a bit of humor in with your build without having to go full meme mode. If even Mamemon is only the size of the average Rookie, and judging by its appearance in Adventure 02, Thundermon is only about the size of someone’s eyeball at best. It’s tiny! This makes the damage it can dish out all the more amusing.

However you can take this in other ways besides size; giving the digimon an upbeat and carefree personality only to have it turn around and destroy the obstacles in its way. This can also make a wonderful partner concept; but don’t put too much into the idea of plowing your way through every encounter, a GM always has the ability to one-up a player’s Digimon.

“Having taken in data on the Net concerning a royal family, it is a prince of the Mamemon world. Partnering with KingEtemon, it plays the part of a mock royal family of the Digital World, and that's why it looks so gorgeous. Although its personality isn't awful, it was incited by KingEtemon and is convinced that it truly is a member of the royal family, and the embarrassing thing is that it considers even the "Royal Knights" to be its subordinates. Despite its appearance, the part that it boasts is its tremendous destructive power, since it is a Mega, after all.” - PrinceMamemon’s wiki page.

- no information given (BanchoMamemon)

- no information given (TonosamaMamemon)

Variants and Subspecies

Being an element based Digimon, Thundermon is a really easy Digimon to make variants of, although this list will also go over a few new Mamemon variants to boot.

Fireballmon (Red): this species of Thundermon emits shocking amounts of heat and flame despite its small size, and is significantly more aggressive than its normal Thundermon cousins. However, if Fireballmon aren’t careful they’re liable to wear themselves out much quicker than other variants, becoming exhausted and unable to produce much more heat. Many tamers who partner with Fireballmon will carry it in their pocket, where its aura of heat can keep the tamer warm even in the coldest environments. (+Accuracy, +Damage, -Armor, -Dodge)

Snowballmon (Blue): this type of Thundermon is the polar opposite of its red cousin; the Digimon is naturally cold to the touch and quite shy. It uses its tiny size to avoid conflict by hiding in crevices that only Digimon much weaker than itself could fit into such as Fresh and In-Training stage Digimon. However, due to living in the unforgiving arctic environment, Snowballmon are exceptionally hardy and able to go long distances through meter deep snow without tiring. Many Snowballmon also cover themselves in discarded furs similar to Gabumon, in order to stay warm in their icy environment. (+Health, +Armor, -Accuracy, -Damage)

Smokeballmon (Green): this variant of Thundermon repels intruders with its constant emission of toxic fumes. Very few Digimon can stand to be near the stench, with the exception of Digimon such as Numemon and Sukamon. And in the event that an opponent gets close enough to be a threat, Smokeballmon is capable of firing blasts of debilitating toxins from the Mame Blaster on its arm. (++Accuracy, -Armor)

SkullMamemon (Ultimate): A Mamemon whose body has worn down to almost nothing, it’s resorted to dark magic in order to keep moving its body, spells it stole from Wizardmon. This bouncing skull Digimon is no less dangerous for it, combining Mamemon’s terrifying offensive potential with the utility of a variety of magical skills.

JetMamemon (Ultimate): A Mamemon who appropriated technology from Andromon. In this case, a jetpack and a specialized cannon which fires hyper-compressed air at the opponent strong enough to dent Chrome Digizoid. JetMamemon combines terrifying melee potential with devastating ranged power and mobility.

BanchoMamemon: Burst Mode (Burst)

EmperorMamemon (Burst): through decades of diligent training and discipline, PrinceMamemon has gone through a terrifying change. Clad in shining armor, this variant of Mamemon rules its domain fairly, but without mercy to those who oppose its laws. Its optimistic and naive nature makes it very easy to manipulate, and many evil Digimon of shrewd nature have used an EmperorMamemon as a figurehead to further their own goals.

Building the line from Champion Up

Thundermon

Wound Boxes: 10 Stage: Champion Size: Tiny (+2 Agility, -2 Body) Speed: 11 (Jump 11/11)

Health: 5 Accuracy: 6 Damage: 5 Dodge: 5 Armor: 5

Body: 3 Brains: 8 Agility: 7 BIT: 2 RAM: 2 CPU: 2

Misc. Qualities

Speed Striker Optimization (1 DP) Armor Piercing Rank 3 (3 DP) Certain Strike Rank 3 (6 DP) Charge Attack (1 DP) Extra Movement: Jumper (0DP*) *For everyone not aware, Champion stage Digimon in the current version get a 1DP discount on their first purchase of Extra Movement.

Attack List

Thunderball [Ranged][Damage][Blast][Armor Piercing 6] Thunder Bomber [Melee][Damage][Charge] Thunderbolt [Ranged][Stun][Line][Certain Strike 3]

Build Breakdown: Thundermon is a solid all-rounder type Digimon. It doesn’t excel in any particular area of combat, it’s not incredibly durable but it’s not likely to go down in one hit either. It’s got a mixed bag of tricks to utilize; Thunder Bomber to deal some melee damage or reposition itself, Thunderball as your go-to attack for damage, and Thunderbolt to provide a bit of support in slowing down the enemy.

This means Thundermon is best to fill in the gaps for what your party needs at a given moment; if you need someone in the melee fray, it’s got an option, if you need to stand back and bombard the enemy at range, it’s got an option, and if you need to slow down an enemy, it’s got an option.

Just be careful: with the new rules you can only use a given attack once per round unless you’ve entirely run out of attacks.

Mamemon

Wound Boxes: 14 Stage: Ultimate Size: Tiny (+1 Agility, -1 Body) Speed: 10 (Jump 10/10)

Health: 6 (7) Accuracy: 7 Damage: 7 Dodge: 7 Armor: 5 (7)

Body: 6 Brains: 11 Agility: 8 BIT: 4 RAM: 3 CPU: 3

Misc. Qualities

Close Combat Optimization (1 DP) Flurry (3DP) Armor Piercing Rank 3 (3 DP) Certain Strike Rank 3 (6 DP) Charge Attack (1 DP) Extra Movement: Jumper (0DP*) Weapon Rank 3 (3 DP) Chrome Digizoid Weaponry (1 DP) Chrome Digizoid Armor (1 DP)

Attack List

Smiley Bomb [Melee][Damage][Armor Piercing 6][Weapon] Strike Upper [Melee][Knockback][Weapon] Buster Drive [Melee][Burst] One-two Rush [Melee][Charge][Certain Strike 3][Weapon]

Build Breakdown: Mamemon has entered the fray as a bruiser; a melee striker with some solid survivability, but it’s not exactly something you would want to be your main tank unless you entirely lack one for the fight.

It still has a bit of that utility that Thundermon had; it can cover a few more things than its main job, it’s specialized significantly better for melee combat now. With One-two Rush and Smiley Bomb with another free basic attack from Flurry, it can really dish out the hurt.

It has a few other tricks up its sleeve; if it has to push something back a bit for one reason or another, Strike Upper can be your saving grace, and if you’re surrounded by enemies, Buster Drive might be a good trade-off over the single target power of Smiley Bomb and One-two Rush.

BanchoMamemon

Wound Boxes: 19 Stage: Mega Size: Tiny (+1 Agility, -1 Body) Speed: 16 (Jump 16/16)

Health: 7 (9) Accuracy: 9  Damage: 9 Dodge: 9 Armor: 5 (9)

Body: 8 Brains: 14 Agility: 10 BIT: 5 RAM: 5 CPU: 4

Misc. Qualities

Close Combat Optimization (1 DP) Flurry (3DP) Armor Piercing Rank 3 (3 DP) Certain Strike Rank 3 (6 DP) Charge Attack (1 DP) Extra Movement: Jumper (0DP*) Weapon Rank 3 (3 DP) Obsidian Digizoid Weaponry (3 DP) Red Digizoid Armor (2 DP) Speedy Rank 2 (2 DP)

Attack List

Bukkomi Otokodama [Melee][Damage][Armor Piercing 6][Weapon] Strike Out [Melee][Knockback][Weapon] Senbon Dokkān [Melee][Burst] Golden Rush [Melee][Charge][Certain Strike 3][Weapon][Pass] Ougon Batto [Melee][Stun]

Build Breakdown: BanchoMamemon combines the best of both Thundermon and Mamemon; still taking that all-rounder statline that lets it be a solid frontline bruiser with supporting aspects. By taking a few ranks in Speedy it’s now got Thundermon’s mobility, and with Ougon Batto it has that stun potential. Golden Rush takes the place of One-two Rush, but this time Mamemon can use it for even more positioning potential with the Pass keyword. Other than that, it takes a very similar role of its lower stage, it just does it significantly better. It isn’t afraid to get into the middle of the fray, but on the other hand it doesn’t have the survivability to soak up hits like a proper tank.

Starter Pack: Bean Machine

The starter pack Bean Machine plays up on Mamemon’s cute outer appearance and devastating combat power by having it play a mix of defense and utility early on, then turning around and hitting the opponent as hard as possible. The goal is to keep your enemy on their toes if they know what’s coming, and make them underestimate you if they don’t.

Note: this is using the updated TCG Tamers Splat. In short, each card may only have a single negative quality now, deck sizes are cut in half, and some mechanics have changed. For anything more specific, please go check out the book!.

Digivice x1 (Common, Evolution)

Ruined Meal x2 (Common, Power) Delayed Reaction Rank 2 (-2 Rarity), Trick Shot (+1 Rarity), Assisted Boost (+1 Rarity) Applies Fear, +2 Accuracy. 

Bean Sprout x1 (Uncommon, Power) Iron Wall (-2 Rarity), Alias (+3 Rarity) +2 Dodge

Something Lost, Something Gained x1 (Uncommon, Power) Sacrifice Rank 2 (-4 Rarity), Potency Boost Rank 2 (+2 Rarity), Duration Boost Rank 3 (+3 Rarity)

Mamemon x1 (Rare, Attack) Last Stand (-3 Rarity), One-two Punch (+2 Rarity), Potency Boost Rank 3 (+3 Rarity) Grants: Smiley Bomber [Melee][Damage][Certain Strike 3][Armor Piercing 6][Weapon] (purchased Signature Move)

Let’s start off with something big; when do you use music, and how many songs should you have saved in the back?

Honestly, the answer varies, but it’s best to save it for important moments, or to have some very quiet background music that’s not intrusive for general play and saving those special songs for those big moments. Try to avoid anything with lyrics if you decide to have background music; that can make it really hard to concentrate on the situation at hand.

But what qualifies as “important” is another question to ask yourself. Personally, I consider it something that the TV series would have a theme for anyways; that is to say, evolution and big boss encounters. Those are the points where you want to bring out all the stops and get people into it. But with evolution that may be something to reign in every now and again; with the show it normally only happens once or twice an episode, but in a tabletop setting it could potentially happen a lot in a session.

Another thing I’ve tried is to let each character have a theme; this can work really well and serve as a queue that this is their moment to shine. I do want to say be careful with this, as you don’t want anyone at the table to feel neglected. Other than that, if you do take this route work with your players, analyze their character and coordinate. They probably know songs you don’t, but that song might not be appropriate. Work together to find the best theme you can.

Next, let’s take a quick look at what music works and what doesn’t, because some things are just better for tabletop campaigns than others.

The easy way of course, is to find your favorite Digimon songs and slap them into the campaign. This is entirely fine and you can do that, there’s no shame and it makes perfect sense; those songs were already picked to work with the franchise. Dub or sub, take what you enjoy and run with it (just keep the volume at a level everyone can hear and talk over.)

But sometimes you want your own songs. And that’s fine. But take a few moments to 1) make sure it’s appropriate for the scene you have in mind (if the boss is a big brute type of encounter with no rational thought, something like a metal track may be more fitting than an upbeat pop song... although that inversely does make it a much funnier encounter) and 2) make sure that people will be able to play properly with it present. This means songs with very loud spikes in sound or loud vocals might be something to avoid. Instrumental tracks tend to work the best, in my experience, simply because you won’t have any intrusive vocals cutting people off.

But what about good places to find tracks that work well for a tabletop game? Video games tracks are generally really good; they’re normally instrumental, they’re designed to work around an atmosphere and theme, but they’re also there to invigorate you and aid you in concentrating. All these factors make game tracks a goldmine for themes to play at your game table.

Another good place to check is TV, movie and anime tracks for similar reasons. Just be sure it still works volume-wise, because some of them still have loud vocals that can distract from a discussion.

Just be careful when you look at music designed for the sake of music on its own; there are a ton of great songs out there, but not all of them work for a tabletop setting for one reason or another, and that’s okay.

Before we dive in, I want to take a moment to talk about what evolution is and what evolution means to a Digimon story. It’s a moment of growth, it’s a moment of overcoming your weaknesses and ending up all the stronger for it. It’s symbolic, and that’s something to always keep in mind.

Of course, exactly what a Digimon turns into, heavily depends on the way it’s raised and the circumstances of how it evolves. An Agumon could just as easily become a Greymon as it could Tyrannomon, Numemon, or Angemon based on the sources we have thanks to wikimon. This is significantly different from other monster taming franchises like Pokemon (I’m not throwing any shade, anyone who joined the Discord knows I love Pokemon too.) where almost every monster has a set evolutionary path which is usually determined by your level or being in the right environment (the major exceptions I can think of are the few branching path Pokemon like Eevee, however when you break it down, Tyrogue is probably the closest thing Pokemon has to a Digimon; what it evolves into entirely hinges on how you raise it).

Seriously look at this damn thing it’s huge.

Since Digimon is a relative oddity with very few Digimon only having a single linear path to go up and down, and if they do they’re generally very new and will get more lines as time goes on (it took a while for the Jesmon line to branch out a bit for example). I feel like this has created a bit of a disconnect in the fandom, as Digimon is rarely the only monster taming franchise people are into.

What I’m getting at is; there’s not really a hard set ‘proper canon’ line for any individual Digimon species. One Rizegreymon in the franchise has turned into Victorygreymon (Next), while another turned into Shinegreymon (Savers).

Specifically this argument tends to come up around... one or two lines. If you haven’t guessed by now, it’s Gatomon and Gomamon being the biggest sources of fandom discourse (Gomamon significantly less so).

This may be just arguing semantics, but to get to the brass tacks; KARI/HIKARI’S Gatomon’s canon final stage is indeed Magnadramon, as we’ve seen in both Hurricane Touchdown and the trailer for the final episode of Tri, and this is fine to say because this is an individual Gatomon, and not Gatomon as a species, although this isn’t really a hard rule either as I’ll go over below. But Gatomon as a species, could just as easily become an Ophanimon, Rosemon, Babamon, the list goes on (seriously check out the wikimon page there’s like 20 different potential evolutions for Angewomon by various sources) .

The tl;dr of this is going to be paraphrasing a certain old man from the Digital World said before things went to hell in Tri; there are no wrong evolutions. Skullgreymon is just as fine an evolution as Metalgreymon, it just might not be what you need to get the job done.

Now I’m going to preface this with the fact that I’ve been presented with several concepts for Qualities revolving around Digimon like Zubamon turning into armor and weapons for their Tamer, essentially a Weaponize Quality.

I am not going to be supporting such Qualities in vanilla DDA. If you want to make a houserule for it, I won’t stop you by any means, but I feel like such a Quality would only further exacerbate the issues I’m seeing with Combat Tamers, rather than alleviate them.

At a certain point with a Combat Tamer, one has to ask themselves: where would it be easier and more flavorful to just be a Hybrid Digimon?

Because I get it. It doesn’t make inherent sense that normal humans will always be able to damage creatures who can essentially face tank a nuclear warhead exploding in their face, much less Digimon whose mere presence is so powerful that it warps Spacetime.

But I’m going away from the main point: I’m starting to see a lot of people who are treating their Digimon either as combat accessories or someone just kind of sitting there on the sidelines.

This isn’t okay, and I want people to know that I don’t care for character dynamics like that any more than I like Tamers who are basically useless lumps on the sidelines.

A Digimon duo is two parts of one whole, and if one part is more fun to play than the other, something’s gone wrong and needs to be fixed. Don’t get me wrong, I get that people have favorites, but if you find yourself only caring about your Tamer and not your Digimon, it might be time to take a step back and re-evaluate your playstyle.

I’m going to be using Masaru as an example here, because people seem to like to try and emulate what he does... or at least, what they thought he did. With the exception of two fights in Savers and the alternate universe fight in Xros Wars, Masaru was not some Digimon-pummeling powerhouse people like to make him out to be.

What? What am I saying?

Bear with me just a bit here, trust me this is important to my little rant here.

Masaru wasn’t the real combat ace of the duo. He had a novel method of initiating Digivolution and he had several instances of actually winning fights himself once he mastered Digisoul a bit more, but overall, you know what happened?

Agumon won the fights. Masaru got his Digisoul flowing with a punch, then Agumon finished it. The punch might stun the enemy or slow them down, but it wasn’t the finishing blow. The only real exceptions within Savers, were Belphymon (and even that’s a bit of a stretch as ShineGreymon still dealt a ton of damage itself), and Yggdrasil (one could also argue Craniummon). But that was at the end of the series when the character had matured, developed, and started to finally and truly grasp the mechanics of the world he lived in, not right off the bat at the start of a story.

Agumon and Masaru are a dynamic duo to the core: they both compliment each other, they both need each other, they encourage each other, cheer for each other, and fight as a team. One member isn’t more important than the other in a fight, in fact there was an entire episode dedicated to this within Savers. Without Agumon, Masaru got his ass handed to him, and without Masaru, Agumon can’t Digivolve.

But it’s more than fighting. These two characters complimented each other’s personalities and made each other grow as they bonded. Masaru was devastated when he realized the pain he’d caused Agumon with the Ruin Mode incident, and was horrified about the possibility of his friend not recognizing him ever again, and was overjoyed when Koromon hatched out of that Digitama and recognized him.

They worked together, they complimented each other, and they fought together. While there was a clear pecking order in terms of who was in charge, Agumon wasn’t just a passive observer to Masaru’s brawling skills. In fact, even in episode 1, they were shown to be, well, about equal in terms of fighting, Masaru barely coming out on top against a Rookie level Digimon.

A Digimon and a Tamer need to have some level of dynamic. If one of them is just sitting there watching, something’s gone wrong, and it’s up to us as players and GM’s to recognize this and go about fixing it.

Never forget to flesh out one half of your dynamic duo. And if you do make a Combat Tamer, think of ways your Digimon can still be useful. Maybe one half functions as the Tank while the other is the Striker if you want to stick to purely mechanical duos. Or maybe one is the hothead while the other is the voice of reason, maybe they both encourage each other to strive and grow stronger as people every day, or maybe they squabble over who actually got the last hit on the enemy.

Digimon are more than just accessories to a fight, and both Tamer and Digimon are more than just a pile of numbers ready to be used when they have to be. And I just wanted to make sure everyone remembered that, because it’s a subject I care very deeply about when it comes to Digimon. And I’ve found that this is overlooked most often whenever the player focuses on how they can keep their Combat Tamer up to snuff, instead of crossing that bridge when they get to it. If you have concerns, talk with your GM, but be respectful if they don’t want normal humans being able to fight on-par with Mega level threats. Not every game needs people who can punch Yggdrasil in the face and beat it to a pulp. And that’s okay.

And don’t forget, Masaru was also a very charismatic and strong-willed character. If you are trying to emulate him and keep up at late game, maybe invest a few points into Charisma if your game doesn’t have the means for you to keep up. There’s nothing wrong with a character learning that they can’t keep punching their way out of things and have to support their teammate either. If anything this can make for a wonderful character arc; the ex-combat tamer can grow as a person and instead use their experience to guide their Digimon partner to victory with the confidence of a seasoned veteran, or who starts to study battle tactics when they realize they can’t just overpower everything they come across, and learns something as a result.

But if you’re just playing your Digimon, or just playing your human half, it might be better to have asked for a Hybrid character type rather than a normal one, because that is admittedly easier to write, and one doesn’t have to worry about falling out of combat later on. And that’s okay too! Spirit Evolution is a legitimate way to run a game, and you shouldn’t be afraid to allow it.

Now go forth, and make both halves of your character sheet shine bright!