Trigun Stampede Tabletop RPG Announced Using the Resistance System – Free Quickstart Released

Trigun Stampede, the popular science-fiction Western anime based on Yasuhiro Nightow's manga series, is getting its own officially licensed tabletop roleplaying game.

Announced during the Crunchyroll Showcase at Lucca Comics & Games on 31st October 2026, Trigun Stampede Roleplay is being developed by Italian publisher Mana Project Studio and French publisher Don't Panic Games, with a Kickstarter campaign scheduled for the first quarter of 2027. English, French and Italian editions are all planned.

The new game uses an adapted version of the Resistance System, the narrative-driven rules engine behind Spire: The City Must Fall and Heart: The City Beneath, published by British indie publisher Rowan, Rook and Decard.

Players won't have to wait for the crowdfunding campaign to experience the game though, as a free 69-page quickstart PDF has already been released. The quickstart, called Press Play, contains the core rules, pre-generated characters and an introductory adventure.

A Space Western Powered by the Resistance System

Originally developed by Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor, the Resistance System is particularly suited to stories where characters must contend with difficult choices and the consequences of their actions.

For Trigun Stampede Roleplay, the system has been reworked to capture the mixture of explosive action, emotional drama, dark humour and moral dilemmas that have become hallmarks of the franchise.

Players use pools of ten-sided dice, assembled using their characters' Skills, Approaches and special abilities. The highest remaining die determines the outcome, with results ranging from catastrophic failure through success at a cost to critical success.

Rather than relying on traditional hit points, the game features five Resistance tracks representing different pressures on a character: Bonds, Incognito, Humanity, Resources and Vitality. As these accumulate Stress, characters risk suffering Fallout, resulting in complications, injuries, damaged relationships or other potentially devastating consequences.

Interestingly, the rules also extend these mechanics beyond individual characters. Both the adventuring group and the settlements they visit possess Resistance tracks, allowing the destruction and collateral damage caused by characters' actions to have a measurable impact on the wider world.

This seems particularly appropriate for Trigun, where its central protagonist, Vash the Stampede, is notorious for the chaos and destruction that follows him despite his determination to avoid killing.

The game also places considerable emphasis on collaborative storytelling. Characters possess personal Narrative Arcs, while the party shares a Group Drive, with both providing opportunities for character advancement as stories develop.

The complete rulebook will feature nine basic character Roles, including Duelist, Daredevil, Peacemaker, Reporter, Researcher and Killer, alongside three Special Roles: Augmented, Hive Mind and Independent Plant. These allow players to portray everything from gunslingers and investigative journalists to genetically enhanced warriors and powerful non-human beings.

Exploring the Other Side of No Man's Land

Rather than simply recreating the adventures of Vash and his companions, Trigun Stampede Roleplay explores a previously unseen hemisphere of No Man's Land, the harsh desert planet where humanity struggles to survive following the disastrous Project SEEDS colonisation mission.

The quickstart introduces several new settlements, including Juniper, Helichrysum, Taraxacum, Rosemary and Thymus, which will allow the players to be able to explore the struggles os these isolated communities away from the familiar locations of the anime. Confronting dangerous organisations and investigating the exploitation of Plants, the extraordinary beings upon which human civilisation depends for energy and other essential resources.

Themes such as survival, ecological destruction, exploitation, the nature of humanity and the cost of violence are pretty common in the game.

Free Quickstart Available Now

The free Trigun Stampede Roleplay: Press Play quickstart provides quite a bit to get you started. Alongside its rules overview, the PDF contains Escape from Juniper, a ready-to-play introductory adventure, which is intended to take up to two sessions to complete.

The scenario sees the characters on the run from powerful enemies, introducing the game's rules and setting through a four-act adventure. Five pre-generated player characters are provided, alongside a Group Sheet, Settlement Sheet, Fallout tables, rules references and safety tools.

The PDF also outlines the material planned for the full rulebook, including expanded character creation, additional Narrative Arcs, more Fallout options, extensive information about the setting's factions and a larger selection of enemies, allies and supporting characters.

The 69-page English-language PDF is available free from Mana Project Studio's website.

What Is Trigun?

For those unfamiliar with the franchise, Trigun began as a manga written and illustrated by Yasuhiro Nightow, first published in 1995. Combining science fiction with the aesthetics of classic Westerns, the series follows Vash the Stampede, an exceptionally skilled gunslinger with an enormous bounty on his head.

Known as the Humanoid Typhoon because of the destruction supposedly left in his wake, Vash is actually a compassionate pacifist who refuses to take human life, even when faced with murderous adversaries.

Set on a remote desert planet colonised by humanity, the series is full of gunfights, bounty hunters, bizarre technology and larger-than-life villains and often has themes questioning morality, redemption, environmental exploitation and whether violence can ever truly resolve conflict.

The manga subsequently continued as Trigun Maximum, while animation studio Madhouse produced a 26-episode television adaptation in 1998. The anime became a cult international success, particularly among fans of science-fiction and action-oriented animation.

The franchise returned to television in 2023 with Trigun Stampede, a computer-animated reinterpretation produced by Studio Orange, which revisited the characters and their stories for a new generation. A follow-up series, Trigun Stargaze, premiered in January 2026.

Coming to Kickstarter in 2027

Trigun Stampede Roleplay is scheduled to launch on Kickstarter during the first quarter of 2027, although an exact launch date, pricing and details of the physical editions have yet to be announced.

Mana Project Studio already has experience adapting anime properties into tabletop roleplaying games, having previously worked on licensed RPGs for Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell.

With the free quickstart already available, interested players have an opportunity to experience the new rules and explore No Man's Land ahead of the crowdfunding campaign.