So, I got Wario Ware: Smooth Moves for Nintendo Wii. Like the other Wario Ware games it’s a collection of “micro-games” that are thrown at you rapid-fire, so fast that sometimes figuring out what you’re supposed to do is part of the challenge. I haven’t had a chance to try out the multiplayer stuff at all (because for some bizarre reason Nintendo felt it should be unlockable…), but the multiplayer on the GameCube version had some surprisingly meta-game stuff. Like, there’s a version where each turn a doctor tells the player to do something (“Stare At Player 2,” “While reciting a tongue twister,” “While yawning,” etc.) while playing the micro-game, and the other players tap the A button to applaud how well the player pulled it off. At the end, the score is actually based on applause, and success or failure at the micro-games is unimportant.

Anyway, I had this zany idea to do a “Game Thing” that sort of plays off of this idea in a tabletop format. The Host of the game has the players do weird little things with dice, a rubber ball, pencils, etc., that in turn determine success or failure at a main game, of which there are a couple different types, including a board game and a silly RPG. I’m tentatively calling this project “Neko Neko Wai!” on account of titles aren’t really my strong point. (Though if I do wind up keeping that title, it’ll be an excuse to get cute catgirl art for the game).

As usual, the amount of inspiration I get far exceeds the amount of stuff I can actually work on. Here’s a quick rundown of the various things I’ve been thinking about. I’m sure I forgot a few.

• Thrash 2.0: The vastly overdue new version of my old fighting game RPG is turning out pretty nicely… so I just need to find time to actually work on it. Original system, though the original version was heavily influenced by Interlock/Mekton Z and SF:STG, and the new version shows a bit of Cinematic Unisystem influence too. Once I have it up and running it’ll be time to put together second edition Weird Powers rules, amongst other things.
• Tokyo Heroes: My crazy sentai/magical girl RPG. Also coming along nicely, but in dire need of playtesting once it’s done.
• Catgirl: A tongue-in-cheek White Wolf-ish RPG about catgirls in a modern-day setting. Powered by a weird variant of Fudge.
• Halo: The Covenant War: A Halo RPG. Powered by a different weird variant of Fudge.
• Distorted Futures: A dystopian ass-kicking RPG.
• Hikikomori: A solo RPG where you play a guy who almost never leaves his room and may or may not be going insane. I want to try this as a 24-hour RPG.
• Eternal Saga: A fantasy RPG in the style of Japanese CRPGs. I’ve been failing to work on this one for ages, though there are a few neat ideas in there.
• Something along the lines of Alien Nine, using Sorcerer. Player characters are schoolgirls who have to live with alien symbionts. Will you stay human, or will you become something else?
• Karyuu Densetsu: A revised version of my original Thrash campaign setting.
• WFL: The World Fighting Leage, a WWE-ish campaign setting for Thrash.
• Tiny Aliens/Battle Maids/Puzzle Girls: Three relatively self-explanatory campaign settings for Mascot-tan. Maybe in one book.
• Aniverse: Exploring the anime multiverse. This was originally a BESM book, but I never really finished it, and now I have some new ideas to incorporate. If I ever get around to redoing it, I’d prolly use OVA and/or BESM d20, in order to freely use the rules on my own.
• we are flat: Somehow I find myself wanting to try to do a mini-anthology of anime-inspired RPG settings that attempt to put some of the Superflat aesthetic into a roleplaying game. This may or may not be a terrible idea. I’m thinking there would be three in here, and one would be an even more twisted new version of Magical World. Not sure what system to use, but I’m eyeing OAV. Maybe Fudge instead, or maybe a forgey original system for each one. I have a ton of other ideas for less acid trippy anime mini-settings too.
• Our Truth & Justice campaign has wound up developing a fairly interesting original superhero setting with a wealth of nifty characters, and once the campaign is finished I think it’d be cool to compile all of that into a book.

With this much stuff, plus a stack of indie games I want to give a whirl (mainly octaNe and The Mountain Witch), I’m thinking that when the current epic campaign finishes up I should try to organize a regular “anthology campaign,” which is to say a weekly grab-bag of mini-campaigns, one-shots, and playtests.

I’m also considering attending GenCon SoCal this year and running something too. Halo is definitely high on the list.

A while back I posted about the idea of doing a 24-hour RPG about hikikomori, and today I accidentally brainstormed about it a little bit. I think it makes more sense for it to be some kind of solo game, but I think it should be different from a choose your own adventure type thing. I’m thinking the game would be played in the form of writing a diary, either on paper or in a blog, and rolling lots of dice for various things along the way so the character could accumulate real friends, imaginary friends, insanities, and other stuff along the way that have to be periodically rolled for (or maybe cards or something). It would be kind of a pointless game, but that would be fitting for something about the life of a hikikomori.

Right now I’m going to be too busy to get much done on the RPG front anyway though. Just when I thought the freelance translation work had finished its chain combo, it super cancelled into the biggest job I’ve had so far. By the time that’s all out of the way, it’ll be just about time to start graduate school (assuming I get in).

Yet another RPG idea. On RPG.net there’s a threat titled “Photoshop a game that doesn’t (or shouldn’t) exist,” and before long anime stuff started filtering into the thread, like Exalted: Kawaii Edition, and that was followed by covers for theoretical fatsplats, starting with The Catgirls. It helps that I have a thing for catgirls, but anyway I almost immediately started having ideas for an actual RPG, with a bit of White Wolf flavor.

So, a modern-day occulty setting; the catgirls are among those who secretly defend the world against beings that would steal the very power of existence (I’ve been watching Shakugan no Shana), but like every White Wolf protagonist group they have many other enemies. There are humans who want to keep them as pets, other breeds of kemonomimi who hold grudges against the catgirls, and more besides.

I’d probably use Fudge yet again, but purposely structuring things very much like a WW game, with castes and/or breeds and something analogous to Exalted’s Charms (but less numerous and simpler), and maybe even WW-style health levels for damage. Castes would define a character’s role and charms just like in Exalted, and Breeds (or somesuch) would explain the circumstances of a character’s birth, much like in Werewolf: The Apocalypse (born a catgirl to human parents, was originally a cat, a transformed human, etc.).

I should mention there’s now an unofficial Fudge Forum, still kind of small (about 70+ members), but pretty active so far. I never quite got the hang of mailing lists (though the phoenyx.net people are supposedly working on a forum-style interface for the Fudge ML), so this is a good thing for me. Amongst other things, Bill Coffin mentioned that he’s interested in Fudge, and also that he likes the idea of going back to being able to do an RPG in 64 pages or so. If I actually do a Catgirl RPG (still don’t know what to call it yet), I think keeping it short would be a Good Thing.

Oh yeah, and on RPG.net someone posted Snakes On A Plane: The Roleplaying Game. You knew it had to happen.

I had another idea for an RPG today, though I doubt I’ll work on it any time soon, if ever. I don’t know what the title would be, but the subtitle would be along the likes of “The Dystopian Ass-Kicking RPG.” The idea is that the game is set up like a movie along the lines of The Matrix, Equilibrium, Ultraviolet, V For Vendetta, and probably a good number of others I can’t think of right now. The world is screwed up, and the player characters are bad-ass warriors fighting to fix it. Some assorted ideas, any of which could be tossed or mutated:

• Have the game be geared towards having a single player, whose character is The One.
• Something to make it worth the players’ while to get into weird philosophical stuff.
• Make motivations (Violet’s lost daughter, V’s revenge, Neo’s love for Trinity, etc.) play a substantial role in the game mechanics.
• Do something to encourage battles that come off as works of art. One of the coolest parts of V for Vendetta was the “Dagger-Time” fight, and almost the entire appeal of Ultraviolet was in the way they set up the fight scenes*. Play with colors, shapes, settings, debris, forms of combat, clothing for the hero, etc., etc.
• Play with stakes. Let players make sacrifices and get rewards (e.g., you get X bonus dice for this fight, but your character will definitely die gloriously at the end of it).
• It’d probably wind up stealing lots of ideas from Wushu and There Is No Spoon.
• And while we’re at it, possibly Dogs in the Vineyard, notably the Button Men-esque action resolution system. RPGs need to pay more attention to other tabletop games in general anyway.
• The object of the game, of course, is ultimately for the heroe(s) to figure out who they are and what powers they have and then go and kick the big boss’ ass, whether that happens to be the leader of the dystopia or one of its best henchmen (paging Agent Smith). That’s when the game ends (apart from a brief epilogue), though sequels are possible.

Sometimes I have too much inspiration for my own good. ^_^;

*Ultraviolet may have been substantially better before the studio decided to cut out about 22 minutes of footage against the director’s wishes. And people wonder why Alan Moore hates Hollywood. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a director’s cut. (P.S.: Samuel L. Jackson sez: “We got muthafuckin’ snakes yo!”)

Yet another RPG I want to work on is “Ether Star” (formerly “Star Sorcerer,” possibly to be called something else if I can come up wiht something better). I came up with the setting a while back; it basically mixes bits and pieces of Xenosaga, Phantasy Star Online, and a few other things, the result being an anime space opera setting with a big emphasis on “ether powers.” Ether is sort of a distillation of psionics and magic into a single scientific practice, and is heavily used in the setting’s technology.

The original Star Sorcerer campaign I ran used Fudge (with very loose rules) and was generally a big success with my group. Writing the actual book has proven to be more daunting of a task than I expected. Still, I want to sit down and try some time, and I do want to use Fudge still. One of the things I like about Beast Bind is that its character creation has a lot of “flavor” too it that generic point-based character creation lacks. There’s just something about picking the Full Metal blood and then the Gospel Engine art to go with it. I’m actually kind of starting to dislike noodly point-based character creation. Granted you don’t have to deal with it after your first game session, but I think a game system can go a long ways towards helping create interesting or at least pertinent characters. octaNe‘s archetypes kick ass on that front, and Weapons of the Gods lets you spend Destiny points on loresheets to give your character more plot hooks, and of course good old D&D’s classes give you iconic characters with pre-defined niches.

Although I was toying with using Five-Point Fudge, my idea for Ether Star is to go for more Japanese-style character creation and have players select a race (human, variant human, android, simulant) and two professions (or your can double up on one), plus a few levels of stuff to personalize attributes, skills, gifts, and faults. That’s the thing about Fudge; it’s basically just an action resolution mechanic and a list of suggestions, but most published Fudge-based RPGs just use the Objective Character Creation rules as-is, making character creation much like every other point-based RPG out there.

OTOH I do want to come up with some kind of HP type rules for Ether Star; the damage rules of Fudge work, but for me at least they’re a little clunky, plus a death spiral isn’t quite the right thing for an anime-style epic space opera setting IMO. And there’s the matter of vehicles/mecha and the actual ether powers too. But realistically, I think I’d better try to finish up a playtest version of Tokyo Heroes before I get into yet another RPG project.

Plus the major problem with Ether Star right now is that it doesn’t have a good answer to the “What do you do?” question. In Tokyo Heroes and Thrash it’s pretty obvious, but as it stands now Ether Star is a pretty wide-open setting, a big galaxy where there’s all kinds of neat stuff going on, but nothing so pressing that anyone can assume it’s about a particular thing. My campaign had a pretty clear focus, but it was based on keeping the PCs in the dark about a lot of stuff for a long while, so I’m not sure how effective it would be to have the secrets of the ancient Terran Empire be the answer to the “What do you do?” question. The lack of this kind of focus is one of the major things that keeps me from doing a whole lot with most of the White Wolf stuff I own. Solar Exalted are tossed out into the world to find their destiny, Dragon-Blooded are mired in imperial life, Sidereals mostly have to do stuff for Yu-Shan, etc., and all of that is pretty vague compared to “kill things, take their stuff, get stronger to kill stronger things” or “kill monsters and make people less afraid so the DeadLands disappear” or “fight supervillains for truth and justice.” (Though I’ve been hearing on RPG.net that the new WoD books tend to be chock full of plot hooks–like they should’ve been over a decade ago).

Housecleaning is pretty much done though, but then school starts up in about a week and a half, and my schedule’s going to be pretty heavy this time around.

Holy crap I’ve been posting a lot. But then I’ve been writing two RPGs and reading lots more (I’m about halfway through reading Dogs In The Vineyard, and I finished reading Primetime Adventures; more on those when I’ve had time to digest). Anyway.

I’d been thinking about trying my hand at the 24 Hour RPG thing for a while, and today I came up with an idea for one. I’ve been reading this weird Japanese novel called Welcome to the NHK (there’s also a manga adaptation, though AFAIK nothing published in English yet). It’s about a hikikomori — a guy who hardly ever leaves his apartment — and the bizarre adventures he has. It gets into some very weird territory, including religion, drug use, conspiracy theories, otaku, lolicon, and so on. I have no idea how this would translate into an RPG, but I figure that’s a good starting point for a 24 hour RPG.