Slime Story: Continuing

projects

Slime Story is really coming together, though it seems like the game is determined to require me to tear out and replace chunks of it to the very end. Yesterday I wrote a combat system, this morning I decided I hated it, and today I started writing a new one. Basically, I’d devised a hybrid of Tunnels & Trolls and Slime Story’s conflict rules, which made combat too abstract for my tastes. The system I’m working on now is more like a mixture of D&D4e and Meikyuu Kingdom, with (IMO) some neat flourishes.

On the other hand I’m pretty happy with the conflict system, though it’s going to definitely need playtesting to get everything just right. It’s kind of like a cross between In a Wicked Age and Truth & Justice. Each side makes a check (2d6 plus an attribute). The winner can either spend their margin of success (Victory Points) on status effects (Tired, Upset, Injured, or Shaken) or ask the loser for a concession. I’m very glad I listened to Paul Tevis’ podcasts on “Stakes and Sticks.” Anyway, if you don’t like the way a conflict turns out for you, you can escalate, which means both sides have to switch to different attributes and roll again, but the consequences roll over, so the stick becomes more menacing.

What I like about this is that it lets you make an argument or asking a girl out on a date mechanically interesting without taking away any freedom to role-play how you want. If I best your character in an argument, I can hold several ranks of Upset status over your head, giving you an incentive to do what I want, but you don’t have to. That’s just awesome.

The major thing I need to get into playtesting to figure out is whether the rate at which you can exchange victory points for status ranks is right. Right now I have it so you can give someone a -1 to either social or physical stuff per point of margin of success.

The combat system uses a “Footing” mechanic where you declare whether your character is in a Forward (high offense), Middle (neutral), or Rear (high defense) position. Certain classes can get feats that let them get into “Ambush” footing, and enemies and screw-ups can force you into “Off-Balance” footing. A basic attack is just a check against a static defense rating, but if someone’s attacking you, you can do a “Clash” action and resolve it as a conflict instead. I’m also working on some neat stuff with “tactical actions” that can weaken or otherwise inconvenience an opponent.

I’m happy with the basic outline of the combat rules now, though I want to work in some stuff that will help push you into role-playing during battle, because as it stands now it’s like 4e in that combat won’t afford many opportunities for role-play unless you force free-form in by yourself. The way battles propel you into role-playing is IMO one of the coolest things about 3:16.

There are some things that I’m contemplating putting in, like mechanics for characters’ relationships with their parents and their overall social standing, but I’m not sure these are necessary per se.

And… that’s about all I’ve gotten done lately.

Slime Story: Progress

projects

I’ve been really inspired to work on Slime Story lately, both the stories and the RPG.

The Slime Story RPG has been a strange and at times annoying project. Very rarely do I wind up ripping something apart and starting over so many times, but each time I’ve accumulated more usable stuff. I’ve gone from a d20-based system to 2d6+Bonuses Roll-Over to a d6 die pool thing and back to the 2d6+ thing, but along the way I’ve settled on the game’s basic structure, on classes and cliques, and a bunch of other things.

This time I think I’m finally getting to where I can at least finish a first draft of the rules. As I had hoped, the Mouse Guard RPG really inspired me. This is partly just because it’s put together so incredibly well, and partly stuff like the way it handles conflicts, conditions, and goals. I really like the idea of “consequences” as a result of conflicts, and just plain using group consensus to decide on things like Beliefs and Goals seems simple and effective.

Slime Story is shaping up to be a hybrid of indie, traditional, and Japanese RPG design influences, though I don’t really see all that strong of a strong distinction between them unless I try really hard to step back. The relationship mechanics in particular look like certain bits of Yuuyake Koyake, Beast Bind: New Testament, Aitsu wa Classmate, Bliss Stage, In a Wicked Age, and Dogs in the Vineyard all thrown into a blender.

The weird thing about it is that the traditional and Japanese side of things has me writing up lots of crunchy bits. However, the Feats you can get by being of a given clique (Average, Geek, Jock, Popular, Punk, or Weirdo) mostly relate to social stuff, and I’m having to do come up with some pretty wacky stuff just to reach my goal of giving each one eight to choose from. Even writing up monster descriptions is strange because like a lot of things in the game I end up presenting hackneyed fantasy tropes through a pop-culture lens.

Things I learned about the Slime Story setting by writing a novel:

  • Monster Mart sponsors a yearly convention called “MonsterCon.”
  • Slime Cola tastes like cheap supermarket cola mixed with oil and window cleaner, but it is a really effective energy drink like they say.
  • The “First Monster Hunter” was a housewife. She also is the inventor of the original recipe for healing potions.
  • There’s more–possibly a whole lot more–to squishies (the little slime creatures) than meets the eye.
  • The more gifted alchemists are coming up with all kinds of crazy things.
  • There’s a professional monster hunting circuit, most notably the M-Crawl, which is kind of like American Gladiators with monsters. A lot of hunters don’t take it seriously.
  • There’s an organization called PETM that is vehemently against monster hunting, and calls Monster Mart “Murder Mart.”
  • Monster hunting has shown up on TV and such, but by and large hunters haven’t been too thrilled with the results. The “salamander crystal thing” on an episode of 24 is infamous.
  • In that world Weezer did a song called “Monster Girl.” There are also a couple of bands that do all songs about monster hunting, notably a punk band called Wild Hunt and a nerdcore rapper called DJ Dragonslayer.

Kyawaii RPG #4: Black Hole Girls

games

I wrote most of this game a while ago, and then sort of got mired in finishing it off because of the tables. But I got all inspired today, so now you know why I’m posting two Kyawaii RPGs in two days.

Anyway, Black Hole Girls was inspired by Shadow Star and Alien Nine, two very disturbing manga (both with good anime adaptations that unfortunately cover less than half of the overall story), and owes entirely too much to The Shab-al-Hiri Roach.

You are a 12-year-old girl. You have an extremely powerful alien symbiote that will more or less do whatever you want. Will you try to make your alien more powerful by having it take Gel from the other girls’ aliens? Or will you try to build influence in the human world? Only one of you can ascend, but to what?

Click here to download.

Pointless Side Remarks: Word 2007 lets you do some pretty neat stuff really easily, but it can get goddamn retarded when you try to mix up different margins and columns. Second game in a row to start with bad poetry. This one is an excerpt from a poem I wrote inspired by Alien Nine, called “Alien On My Head.”

Kyawaii RPG #3: Seasons

anime, games

316530c5ba84778bfd6b375f349010a4

I started watching Clannad yesterday, got highly inspired, and wound up banging out a very simple game in a matter of hours. I’m not sure how well it lines up with the source material, since it’s from about 5 episodes of Clannad, plus what I can remember from Air and Kanon. Seasons is a very simple game, basically pure role-play with some guidelines related to revealing what makes people tick and helping them out. It bears some resemblance to It’s Complicated, only not as good.

Click here to download.

D&D: Nine Towers

musings

Without really meaning to, I started coming up with a campaign setting for D&D4e. It makes me wish that I could buy something close to it in book for, because I’m not sure I’m qualified to write up everything it calls for. Still, I was thinking about running a D&D mini-campaign, and this is looking to be an interesting enough setting to make me want to do it.

The setting is a mixture of D&D, Final Fantasy, assorted anime, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, etc. I want a world that’s over the top, baroque, and sometimes surreal. So, there’s this massive Empire of Man that, through ambition and soulfire technology (tentative name), which uses captured spirits as batteries/fuel, spanned the whole of its homeworld and is now spreading through the ether to colonize other worlds. This takes place in Nine Towers (also a tentative name), a colony that has very rich soulfire resources, but also faces threats from powerful natives and dangerous monsters. The Empire is spread thin right now, so it can’t actually provide Nine Towers with the military support it really needs, even as it demands more and more soulfire shipments.

The capital of Nine Towers is a city that was formed by a Dreamshaper, one of an exceedingly rare breed that can transpose elements of reality and the Dreamtime. Thus the city is a great surreal sprawl stretching into the sky, beautiful and twisted, but with very real nightmares lurking in its far corners.

This setting is meant to have some of the issues that D&D normally glosses over, including racism (non-humans are not given imperial citizenship unless they earn it through exceptional service), sexism (though more like 1950s than medieval), and modernity (soulfire technology has propelled the Empire beyond its agricultural economy abnormally fast).

Imperials refer to the main race of the natives as “Wild Folk.” This is a new race I’m working on, based on the Varna from Arianrhod, the weird tribes you meet in Gradia, and so forth. Basically, they look human but they’re a little smaller and quicker, and they have some kind of animal features (tails, ears, horns, etc.) depending on which tribe they come from. The twist is that they’re at least as vital and ambitions as the humans, but the Empire founded Nine Towers before their civilization really took shape. The Wild Folk have an animistic religion, and a considerable command over spirits, though how they express it varies greatly. Hence, Wild Folk can include druids, witch doctors, shamans, barbarians, summoners, etc. (And to do the setting properly I think I need a new Summoner class…)

Some other things that I think are neat:

  • The two main religions of the Empire are the newer monotheistic faith of the One God, and the polytheistic faith of the old gods. The clergy of the One God dislike letting the old ways persist, but soulfire technology depends on the summoning rites of the old ways.
  • Magic is a scientific practice; the Empire employs many sorcerer-scientists. Divine powers are actually magical rites encoded within scripture.
  • I want to do something with different varieties of humans (races in the proper sense of the word) rather than leaving it totally generic, but I’m not sure what.
  • Most D&D races are not present. Eladrin, Tieflings, and Genasi are “re-skilled” as “Spirit-Touched” humans, people warped by soulfire exposure or other factors. I may throw in some of the other optional races from the Monster Manual (Shadar-Kai, Dopplegangers, and possibly Drow) as other varieties of Spirit-Touched.
  • I want to put together another, less common native race, to give the setting some kind of big bruisers.
  • Nine Towers has great need for adventurers, whether in the bowels of the city or out on the frontier.

So, the list of things I would need to do it properly includes:

  • Information on the Empire and Nine Towers.
  • A Summoner class, and appropriate rituals.
  • A Wild Folk race writeup, with some racial feats. If I were to go for the full effect, probably one or more paragon paths too.
  • Rules where appropriate for soulfire stuff, including magic items, rituals, etc.
  • Guidelines for monsters in Nine Towers, probably including some write-ups of new ones.
  • Other stuff that I’m no doubt forgetting.

TRPG Book Report: Doko ni Demo Aru Fushigi

Japanese, musings, TRPG Book Report,

Doko ni Demo Aru Fushigi

With so many TRPG books to go through, I’ve decided to start posting about the various books I’ve got as I go along. First up is Doko ni Demo Aru Fushigi. This is a 50-page doujinshi produced as a collaboration between Tsugihagi Honbo and Majo no Kai. Tsugihagi is Ryo Kamiya’s circle, and responsible for Yuuyake Koyake. Majo no Kai, headed up by “South,” published a print edition of Witch Quest, a free TRPG available as text files. Witch Quest and Yuuyake Koyake are both heart-warming “everyday magic” games, so it was natural for the two circles to collaborate on something. However, the notion of doing so came right when Kamiya was hard at work on Mononoke Koyake, so if they were going to do such a project, it needed to be one that wouldn’t place undue burden on either party. This book is the result. They met online, played a session of each of their games, and had a lengthy dialogue about everyday magic in general, and the book has a transcript of the discussion, sandwiched between two replays. It’s not the most impressive RPG book out there, but for me it was definitely worth the 500 yen.
Continue reading TRPG Book Report: Doko ni Demo Aru Fushigi →

The TRPGs Have Landed

games, Japanese

I now have the care package of Japanese RPGs and such that Andy picked up for me in Japan. It’s been a while since I got more TRPG action, and now I have a huge stack of books to go through. (I put all of the pictures up on Flickr). I’ll be posting extensively about this stuff as I read it, but here’s a quick lowdown of my initial impressions.

First, here’s a picture of the loot. Be impressed.

Continue reading The TRPGs Have Landed →

Maid RPG Update: First Interview

musings

1225616214571

Things have been pretty quiet on the maid front lately. However, over at the Living Dice site, they’ve posted up an interview with yours truly about Maid RPG. Aside from the opportunity to get some insight on the release of Maid RPG, the site has a series of interviews with other game creators, and plenty of other articles on gaming.

In other maid-related news/linkage: Joe Wreschnig has posted up A Serious Analysis/Review of Maid RPG, and Persona did a comic called My Lovely Maid Meiko.

Novel Writing

musings

I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year (and I need to write another 1500 or so words tonight to keep on track…). I mention it here mainly because I’m trying to write a novel that takes place in the Slime Story setting. I hadn’t originally been planning to participate, but unlike every previous year since I first heard about it, I found I have both an idea for a story and enough free time to actually write stuff. (Seriously; while I’ve been a college student NaNoWriMo, Game Chef, and so on have always come at the worst possible time for me). Anyway, my NaNoWriMo username is “neko ewen”.

Anyone remember the Monty Python novel writing sketch? It was from the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album. I am such a nerd. Also, someone put it on YouTube.

Ook.
At the Alternative Press Expo (or “APE”) I came across a comic called North World (which is also a webcomic). Its premise very superficially resembles Slime Story. It’s very different, but also very good so far. I may have to investigate webcomics more.

Okaeri
Also, Andy is back from Japan, and I’m very much looking forward to the Japanese RPG goodness he was kind enough to pick up for me, including Tsugihagi‘s doujins, Savage Science, Sukupani, Satasupe Remix+, Sword World 2.0, the new Yuuyake Koyake supplement, and a few other random things. Rest assured, I will post extensively about this stuff later.

Progress

musings, projects,

Okay, so here’s what’s going on:

Slime Story is finally starting to properly come together. I had to throw out a lot of my previous ideas for how the game might work, but the gears are actually fitting together. Right now the game in my head is like a mashup of Aitsu wa Classmate, Bliss Stage, and Tunnels & Trolls, with some Arianrhod, Yuuyake Koyake, 3:16, The Shadow of Yesterday, and D&D thrown in for good measure. It still needs a whole hell of a lot of work, but it’s getting there.

I’m increasingly thinking that fringe-y games that distribute creative input are more what I want to do. Running traditional games is proving too psychologically taxing. Not bad, not unpleasant, but they have a way of leaving me mentally exhausted at the end of the night. Besides, the friends I play with are all very creative people anyway. Also, I realized that, perhaps as a result of being the GM so often, immersion is not a priority for me.

I started on three different Kyawaii RPGs, and have been neglecting all of them, even the one that’s nearly finished.

For no particular reason, I’ve started working on a thing called “Anime+2d6.” I’ve basically taken the Anime d20 SRD and started re-working it into something kind of like Tri-Stat and kind of not. I will probably never actually play it, but it’s a mildly amusing way to kill time, and White Wolf isn’t showing any inclination to do anything with BESM3e ever again. It’s going slowly, partly just because I feel the need to edit out the SRD’s relentless abuse of the passive voice, though I also have to basically reconstruct the mecha rules and a few other things. When you think about it, the rules bloat BESM has undergone is pretty amazing. Needless to say, I’ll post it here when I feel I have something worth posting.

I still hate identity politics in RPGs. It’s like, with the whole Proposition 8 thing there are people speaking against gays even more than usual, and in a lot of cases, I want to walk up to them and say, “Have you ever actually met someone who’s gay in person? I’m guessing no, because if you had, you’d have realized they’re human beings like everyone else.” The way some people talk about indie RPGs reminds me of that. We’re all gamers, who want to have fun playing games.