START a companion book for BREAK!! RPG

What is BREAK!!?

BREAK!! is an award-winning TTRPG, inspired by classic fantasy video games and anime.

• BREAK!! is an easy-to-learn tabletop roleplaying game focused on exploration and teamwork, set in a fantastical post-apocalyptic world.
• BREAK!! uses a simple and fast rules system that will be familiar to anyone who has slung a d20 before.
• BREAK!! originally had over 10,000 backers enabling us to produce a 470 page ENNIE award-winning game which has been praised for its fun-character creation and rich setting. 

More detailed information about the BREAK!! rules and setting can be found at the bottom of this page!
 

What is START?

START is our new companion book, designed to get your table learning and playing BREAK!! as quickly as possible.

START will be a 200 page hardcover companion book for BREAK!!. It will be filled with adventure content that was originally intended for inclusion in core rules. Now refined and expanded, the new book will help your game group get to the fun more quickly.   

It's a great time to jump in!

If you're new to BREAK!! you can now buy the BREAK!! Core Rules and the START adventure at the special Kickstarter discounted prices.

It's time to start your adventure...

Life is tough in the Wistful Dark, a sunless shadow realm. But hope remains, especially while brave adventurers like you are still around. 

In START you'll take a group of Rank 1 Adventurers on their first quest, helping the Knights of Lantern battle against the ills that lurk in the perpetual night of an area known as the Shadowed Lands.

START is divided into 3 main sections

1. A tutorial adventure 

You'll begin at Kuro’s Keep where you’ll hone your core skills under the watchful eye of one of the grumpiest Knights of the Lantern. Will you pass his test?

This is a simple 'one-shot' experience where your table can quickly get familiar with the rules. It also provides clear hook into the full adventure.

2. The full adventure

When your training is complete you'll venture on to Beacon, a tumbledown settlement struggling to survive in the oppressive darkness. Will you put an end to their troubles? 

This adventure is more open and allows your group to explore Beacon and the mysterious ruins nearby. Here, they'll be able to see the impact of the choices they make have on the game world.

3. A 'sandbox' region

Later, you can roam deeper into the Shadowed Lands, where the sinister Blades of Blight seek to spread their demonic plague. Will you be able to thwart their dastardly deeds?

This collection of settlements, adventure sites, factions, and adversaries provides GMs with gameable material to extend the starting adventure into a longer-running saga. This allows the Adventurers to rise in Rank and enables them to take on the region's bigger challenges.

On your travels you'll meet folk with unique talents and needs. Some will be able to assist you, others might provide a side quest, all will have a tale to tell. 

The relationships between characters, locations, and events help make the world feel like a living place. PC interactions have consequences as they'll make friends and enemies on their travels.

Hidden in the dark, the remnants of a fallen empire festers. Dangers and treasure reside within. Only the cunning and the well-prepared will return triumphant. 

Adventure sites are not only carefully designed to provide interesting spaces to explore but also use environmental storytelling to reveal their history.

The Shadowed Lands are home to unique creatures and characters: predators that specialize in night hunting, mysterious ancient spirits, servile ice warriors, and other unusual inhabitants. 

Each new adversary is designed to provide a unique challenge for adventurers, so every encounter is memorable.

Amongst the ruins lies the ancient's wondrous technology. Some reveal forgotten truths, some have practical use, a few possess miraculous power. 

Items are designed to support creative problem solving and provide new interesting ways to interact with, or learn about, the world.

New core rules 'special edition' cover art

Note: The special edition has identical interior content to the standard edition, it just has a slip case and a variant cover with metallic ink. We are reprinting as the previous variant sold out.

GM screen art

Note: The interior of the GM screen will have the same information that's on the cheat sheets in the back of the Core Rules, with some additional information for quick reference adversary stats. 

Items & rewards

Items

All items backed during the campaign will receive a Kickstarter discount.

Reward tiers

• New to the game or not? Tiers are structured so you can just buy the new stuff if you already have BREAK!! or get it all if you're new to the game.
• Extra £5 off: Get the physical copy of START with another item (GM screen or core rules) and get an extra discount.
• Add-ons: The core rules (both variants) will also be also be available as an 'Add-on' so you and your gaming group can order multiple copies to save on individual shipping.
• Retailers: Retailers can follow along with a minimal pledge and get the 50% wholesale discount.

Learn more about the rules & setting

Gameplay

As an adventurer you will:

• Journey across shattered landscapes.
• Explore the world’s ancient ruins and the wonders of the modern age.
• Encounter and interact with Outer World’s many unusual inhabitants.
• Negotiate or fight with monstrous or cunning adversaries.
• Survive and endure Outer World’s many perils and challenges.
• Craft items, magic and mechanical.
• Create social bonds with the friends you meet along the way.
• Attempt to rise through the adventuring ranks to become legend.
• Experience the wonder, humor, tragedy and triumph of adventuring.
   

Who is BREAK!! for?

• New TRPG players: BREAK!! is simple and quick to learn, perfect for anime and JRPG fans looking to try out tabletop games for the first time.
• 5e players: BREAK!! provides a familiar, yet clean and modern, rule set for those looking for a new place to have their fantasy fun.
• Gaming parents: BREAK!! is 12+. It contains some challenging themes and art that will engage older children but parental discretion is advised for younger players.
• Oldschool players: BREAK!! possess many features that make oldschool style of play so much fun... it's just a little bit less grimdark. This includes: problem solving focus, zero to hero progression, quick procedures, and modular subsystems.

Character Creation

• Familiar fantasy archetypes are bolstered with character options that are unique to BREAK!!'s setting. You can choose from 8 Callings and 11 Species enabling you to create anything from a nekomimi ninja to a mechanoid mage.
• Each PC has a Quirk, a physical or psychological anomaly that makes the character unique. Quirks range from strong personality traits to oddities like a Magitech eye.
• In addition, characters come with a History that ties them into the setting and provides them with useful knowledge and expertise. A lowly Moss Scraper from the Buried Kingdom will have strong survival instincts, whereas a Disgraced Scion from the Twilight Meridian will be adept at deception.
• Kit out your PC with Gear to provide them with more tactical options: interesting weapons, mildly magic consumables, outfits, pets, followers, vehicles, and more.
• Options focus on creating interesting, rather than optimized, characters.
• Create a character in as little as 5-10 minutes!

Setting

Outer World: A wondrous and deadly setting

• BREAK!! has a post-apocalyptic fantasy setting full of derelict mega structures, shambling war machines, and nature warped by magical pollution.
• The sun machine is broken; bathing half the planet in light and casting the other into shadow.
• Enough setting detail is provided to excite players and inspire GMs, but not so much it makes it difficult to build in your group's own preferences and ideas.
• A brief history provides gameable legend and myth to connect your adventures to.
   

Themed regions allow players to find adventures that suit their taste

• Wistful Dark: Cloaked in darkness, a gloomy and melancholy realm filled with an equal measure of fear and hope.
• Twilight Meridian: A land of perpetual dawn, a series of diverse and interrelated islands that compete for resources and influence.
• Blazing Garden: Under the permanent glare of the sun machine, a bold and bombastic place full of larger-than-life characters and creatures.
• Buried Kingdoms: Below the crust of the earth, an endless war rages in the burrows and caverns of the underland.

Adversaries

• Outer World is full of strange individuals and creatures that want to thwart your progress or simply eat you.
• 21 distinct and archetypal, ready-to-use Adversaries are included; these range from demonic plague carriers to tiny, annoying elementals.
• Titanic monsters roam the land; scale them, find their weak spots, and bring them down using the Colossal Combat rules.
• Modular design makes it easy to remix and reskin Adversaries. Reskin a Skeleman into a clockwork automaton, or add the Living Dead Ability to an Adversary to make a zombie version. New monsters in minutes!
• Adversary Mood Tables make each encounter you have unpredictable, so don't reach for your sword too soon.
• Easy to reference tactics and roleplaying notes make the Adversaries simple to run at the table.
• Harvest monstrous body parts to Craft magic items.

 Production design

• Easy to use: Find what you need quickly with easy to parse text, clear section navigation, diagrams, and cross referencing.
• Durable: The hard cover, smyth sewn book will lie flat at the table and won't shed its pages.
• Portable: Its digest size, so it's easy to transport (and it contains ALL the rules you need to play)
• Quality: Thick pages prevent show through, a head and tail band add to durability, and a reading ribbon is provided for bookmarking.

Special edition*
Note: These photos are of the previous Kickstarter variant

Rules preview download

→ Download 60 page preview of the BREAK!! core rules
 

Community links

→ Check out Blog for free BREAK!! content

→ Join our active and friendly discord to talk BREAK!!
 

Video reviews

ENNIE winner Ben Milton's read-through of the core rule book (40 mins)
BREAK!! also made Ben's top 10 books for 2025!

Ennie Winner Dave Thaumavore's read-through of the core rules (34 mins)
He also has some thoughts on the isekai element of the game

Weird Place's read-through of the core rules (36 mins)

About us

Reynaldo: A lifelong fan of fantasy media and creator of several small tabletop games who finally figured out that if he wanted his perfect game, he would just have to write it.

Grey Wizard: Hobby artist and information design nerd obsessed with visual world building and usability. Once worked in the console and movie business before falling in love with the challenge of designing TRPGs.

Project journey

BREAK!! has been a 10+ year passion project for the two if us!

We started collaborating in 2013 after discovering a shared love of old-school TTRPGs, JRPGs, and 80s anime, and then deciding to create the game our teenage selves would have loved... a fast and fun tabletop game that was influenced by the classic fantasy videogames and animation we both grew up on.

BREAK!! evolved into a full color, heavily illustrated, 470 page book. The game managed to find 10,000 backers and went on win a gold Ennie Award at Gencon in 2024. Incredible!

START is just the first of many planned books for BREAK!! as we have never-ending love for the world we created for you to play in. We're still on the journey and would love to see you come with us! 

Shipping

Shipping will be charged after the campaign ends through a pledge manager. We don't charge shipping until closer to when the game is ready for release as shipping rates can fluctuate.  

* Far East: Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand

** Important! You may be charged a local custom tax or duty on delivery.

Unable to ship to: Russia, Ukraine, Afghanistan,  Belarus, Iran, Iraq, Syria, South and Central America. 

We will not resend packages to: Pakistan and Nigeria (Due to high rates of packages going missing in these countries)