Raspberry Heaven, I’m Coming Back To You

musings, projects

Watching Hidamari Sketch and Sketchbook has done wonders to help me deal with crippling stress and anxiety lately, so I got inspired to get back to working on Raspberry Heaven. Out of my excessive collection of unfinished game projects, it’s the most promising and playable. It also doesn’t hurt that the kinds of 4-koma manga that inspired the game are becoming more readily available in English. You can buy all of Azumanga Daioh in one $25 book, and Yen Press (which has been putting out some seriously great stuff in general) has released the first volumes of Hidamari Sketch and one I hadn’t heard before (but which turned out to be great), S.S. Astro. Plus, Bandai has supposedly licensed the Lucky Star manga. Sketchbook is absolutely wonderful, but so far no one’s picked it up.

Anyway, the major issues with the game as it stands are as follows:

1. Turn Order: Originally I had players just put down cards as they felt like it. I’m contemplating using some kind of turn order mechanic, but I don’t know if it will help the game or screw things up.

2. Special Moves: I went through and cleaned up the selection of Special Moves (so that none of them overlap), but I need to see if they’re all more or less equally useful. In the one playtest session we did, no one used any non-wildcard Special Moves. At this point it may just be a matter of playtesting.

3. Memories: So basically, I want to have something where the game sort of archives particularly memorable things that happen during play. However, I don’t think much of the rules I have in place right now, and I’d happily chuck them out in favor of something better. Or I may just drop that aspect of the game entirely. I’m thinking that Memories should be something that belong to the whole group, which in turn let me to the idea of doing a Mad-Libs type thing to create one or more Memories when you first start playing.

4. Applause: After seeing meta-game player encouragement work so well in both Yuuyake Koyake and Peerless Food Fighters, I’m thinking Raspberry Heaven could benefit from something similar… but the existing structure of the game doesn’t really lend itself to that.

5. Snippets: Basically, I want to let players to individual mini-scenes during the game.

On the plus side, Tobias Wrigstad was kind enough to send me an article he did that is an overview of jeepform. While I intend for Raspberry Heaven to stay a tabletop game where you play with cards, the game is getting some jeepform influence here and there, especially when it comes to telegraphing, which to me is one of the most fascinating new things in role-playing, like, ever.

Also, I realized that if you want to make a visual representation of your character and you’d don’t have $200+ worth of Pinky:St dolls on hand like I do (some of them were gifts. shut up.), you could use an avatar creator website. Tektek.org’s Dream Avatar would be my favorite (in case you couldn’t tell), but there are plenty of others.

More Random Thoughts

musings

What was he thinking?
I wanted to translate Maid RPG because I think it’s a really fun game. That’s it. Seriously. I really didn’t give it any more thought than that.

Terminology and Stupidity
Somewhere along the line, people started trying to change the definition of “weeaboo” from “obnoxious fucktard who thinks Japan is superior but actually knows next to nothing about it he didn’t learn from Naruto” to “anything that seems even slightly Japanese–even if you have to squint really hard to make it seem that way–and comes from someone without a certificate of Japaneseness issued by the Emperor of Japan.” The former can be useful for pointing out where American anime fandom goes wrong. The latter is nonsense that perpetuates the notion that anime and manga are somehow “special” media with ludicrously high standards of authenticity, rather than just another kind of entertainment we can freely draw inspiration from.

Old School
I got the Tunnels & Trolls 7.5 boxed set. I’ve never seen an RPG that came with so many goodies.

New School
The next Kyawaii RPG is going to be a bit longer than the previous ones, and possibly more of a rough draft for a full game. Cliche, but neat in its own way.

Kerfuffle
It is strange that people would think they have any right to make demands of the creators of things they like, but it’s in no way odd that people might want stuff they like to stay available and perhaps become better. The creator still gets final say–that a-fucking-given–and some people are jackholes about it and need to be ignored or kicked, but still. It’s like when people talk about music piracy; the thing that’s reasonable and important to discuss (flaws in the record industry) gets hopelessly, idiotically intertwined with stuff that isn’t (the idea that it’s okay to pirate stuff).

Wacky
Penguin Musume Heart seems like it uses Maid RPG’s physics engine.

Long-Awaited, Sorta
I wanted to like Anima: Beyond Fantasy, but it’s exactly the kind of tome of a derivative traditional RPG that makes me lose interest almost immediately. (For the record I have nothing against traditional RPGs; just the derivative tomes). It’s an incredibly pretty book, but it feels like it should have “In development for 12 years!” on the back, as though we should be excited by how someone fixed the perceived flaws in AD&D Second Edition. The Japanese-style art is mostly from actual Japanese artist, but the actual game shows no traces of any kind of Japanese TRPG design aesthetic. I may be being unduly harsh, but that’s where my tastes lie these days. If you like it, more power to you.

Maid RPG Update: Viva La Revolution!

musings


Maid RPG is now available through Indie Press Revolution!

They should have print copies in stock some time in early November, but you can preorder if you like, and you can order the PDF through IPR right now. That’ll pretty much be the only way to get it while Andy’s off in Japan.

PDF Version
Print Version (Pre-Order)
Print + PDF

This should also make it easier for retailers to get a hold of copies to sell next month. I know some of the folks at my awesome local game store (Game Kastle) are eagerly awaiting it. Plus, you know, you can brows tons of other kickass games.

Kyawaii RPG #2: Monster Girls In Love

projects


This game is for adults only. Yes, really.

If you are 18 or over, you may click here to read it.

This game is largely because of my association with Suichi. Because of him I know more about sexual fetishes than I probably should. And I also know that they’re actually much more hilarious than people realize. This game also has themes and shit. You play as monster girls, who have encounters with male adventurers, and not in the 4th Edition sense. Yes, really. It’s specifically meant to be a very threatening game, but also a thought-provoking one.

To play (not that I really expect anyone to), you’d need some six-sided dice and index cards, and at least three very, very open-minded people.

Please don’t take this thing too seriously. The next one will hopefully be both more innocent and better overall. Not that that’s saying much.

I Do Not Feel Awesome

games, musings, projects, ,


Some various small updates rolled into one:

We’ve started working on preparing the extra Maid RPG scenarios that didn’t make it into the book. They’ll be no-frills compared to Ben’s awesome layout work for the book, but they’ll be free too.

I’ve been reading Dark Heresy, and enjoying it a lot. Like Maid RPG, it’s an example of random character creation done right. Also, 40K has a really neat setting. It’s just a shame that it took them 20 years to make an RPG version.

Usually Random is trying to do a mini-RPG design challenge on 4chan’s /tg/ board. The original thread has slipped off the board, which is just as well because there was a troll who just couldn’t handle the idea that people might design RPGs because they enjoy designing RPGs, and not for fame and fortune. And who couldn’t grasp the idea that some of us have friends who are not total jerks and are willing to give an unpublished game a chance. Anyway, the deadline for the contest is on the 28th.

I’m about halfway done with the next Kyawaii RPG, which is about stuff that a lot of people will likely find very disturbing or disgusting, a few people will enjoy entirely too much, and a tiny minority will find thought-provoking like I intended. I was thinking about not releasing it, or doing so under a pseudonym, but I’ve been having a shitty time lately because of school, so I don’t really care what people think at the moment.

On a more positive note, I’m making some good progress on Slime Story. It’s like a cross between Tunnels & Trolls and… uh… some indie RPG about high school.

Also, some more Wordles:

Kyawaii RPG #1: Peerless Food Fighters!

projects,
(Original illustration forthcoming)
(Original illustration forthcoming)

So, listening to the Independent Insurgency podcast on XXXXtreme Street Luge got me all inspired. Aside from working on Slime Story with renewed vigor (when I was about ready to shelve it for a while), I decided to try writing shorter, wackier games.

Thus I present to you the first “Kyawaii RPG,” Peerless Food Fighters!. It’s all of 5 pages, and it’s kind of like Muteki Kanban Musume but not really. You play a girl who works are her parents’ restaurant, and your goal is to make your family’s restaurant more successful than those of the other players. So, without really meaning to I made a competitive RPG. Guy should be happy. It also does some neat things with player evaluation and scripted events.

1. What is a Kyawaii RPG?
It’s part of a series of short, weird RPGs I’m going to design when I feel like it.

2. What’s with that stupid name?
I like it. Shut up. It’s a subtle Lucky Star reference, for no particular reason. Also, considering that this is me (in the words of one of my online friends, “a very Asian non-Asian,” which I’m hoping is code for “kind of like a weeaboo, but not nearly that annoying”), it should have a vaguely Japanese name.

3. So they’re going to be short and crappy?
These are roughly on par with a 24-Hour RPG, except that trying to do a thing within a 24-hour span doesn’t work at all for how I create and live. Plus I’ll try to do a little bit of playtesting and revising, though not until after I shove the thing into the world.

4. Why the hell are you doing this?
Because normally I’m bad at finishing things. Hence, short things that I’m more likely to finish.

5. Aren’t you just ripping off XXXXtreme Street Luge?
Fuck you. I actually got inspired to get off my ass and design stuff, and to finish it. Plus, every design contest manages to happen at the very shittiest time possible for me.

6. Whatever. What’s the next one going to be?
I’m not going to post about a given game until it’s done. All I will say about the next one I’m working on is that it’s going to be as perverted as people wrongly assume Maid RPG must be.

7. What do I need to play?
Depends on which one. PFF uses six-sided dice and tokens. But I also want to do ones that use cards and other things.

Maid RPG Update: Small Things

musings


I probably should have posted about this sooner, but Maid RPG is available for order on the Maid RPG website. It has sold extremely well — I think even faster than it did at GenCon. Also, the PDF is a steal at $8.

The mailing list has like three times the number of people we were expecting (and still growing), so we may put up an actual forum.

For those of you who live in the UK, Leisure Games UK is now an official distributor of Maid RPG. They have a blog post about the details here.

The Nun-Approved file (which has all the stuff we cut out or altered beyond recognition) is now up on the mailing list’s site.

Random Thought #1: Maid RPG is not a Forge/indie game. It’s not a “traditional” game either. That’s a false dichotomy; it’s from the Japanese TRPG scene.

Random Thought #2: A lot of people recoil at the idea of a Maid RPG, but I’ve yet to hear of anyone legitimately giving it a chance and not enjoying it.

Also: Wordle of Maid RPG’s text:

Random Thoughts

musings


In RPGs there’s this idea called “Rule Zero,” which exhorts the GM to ignore the rules when they go against the needs of the story, but too often is used to excuse dumb game rules. I propose we have something called The Real Rule Zero. It goes: Don’t be a douche.

Story Games is the forum that’s missing from the Forge.

Have you seen a Chessex catalog? There are apparently people at the company whose job is to devise new colors and patterns of dice. I wish they made Fudge dice.

Reaper Miniatures is doing a line of steampunk time travel miniatures called Chronoscope. My favorite so far is Sascha Dubois, Time Chaser.

I want to do a mini-campaign with Awesome Adventures or Solar System inspired by S. John Ross’ Adventures of Darcy Dare printable minis.

Maid RPG stuff has calmed down for the moment.

Got a plushie made of Maya, from my Divine Machine campaign.

I’m working on the introduction for my thesis project, a translation of a Japanese RPG. I may be getting too good at academic bullshitting, considering I wrote “RPGs are systems of cultural allusion in which participants recontextualize elements from a shared canon of product art in order to socialize and to communicate more effectively” with a straight face.

One of the monsters in Slime Story is a massive, dangerous tree monster. Someone called it (wait for it…) Arborgeddon, and the name stuck.

Not About Maids

games, musings, projects,

Illustration of Rita by Sue-chan (www.sue-chan.com)
Illustration of Rita by Sue-chan (www.sue-chan.com)

Time to post about some non-Maid stuff for a change.

I Design Too!
“This guy always has all the best ‘let’s smoke some peyote and watch anime’ ideas.”
— Eero Tuovinen

I haven’t gotten a whole lot done in terms of designing my own games of late, so I’m trying to make a conscientious effort to actually get some goddamn work done, and maybe even bring one or two to fruition. Raspberry Heaven is by far the most promising of my game projects, and the one that had probably my single most successful playtest session ever. I’ve already done some fine-tuning since then, and right now it basically needs more writing, testing, and tuning.

I’m also getting more seriously started on Slime Story, hence I started a thread on the Forge about it (which is where the above quote comes from). The thread explains what the game is about (and I’ve posted here about it before), and the game is basically at this point where I have a good idea what I want it to do, but I’m still trying to work out how.

Playing Games
My group is currently doing two different campaigns. There’s my Divine Machine campaign, which runs on OVA because it seemed the best system I had on hand that could handle all the crazy stuff I wanted to do (though now the scale of events is kind of pushing past what even it can handle), and which is barreling towards its conclusion. I’m kind of starting to wish I had a game that could mechanically handle an epic struggle against a sentient nanotech menace that threatens the entire multiverse…

We also finished our second adventure (fourth session) of D&D 4th Edition. Our characters reached level 2, and we’re generally playing the game more like a well-oiled machine, rather than looking up and arguing about the rules every 5 minutes.

Much as I’m enjoying both of these, I’m kind of looking forward to Divine Machine ending and/or D&D going on hiatus, because I’m increasingly wanting to shift away from long-term play and also to jump headlong into playing more of my accumulated indie games (plus playtesting my own stuff, and playing some of the stuff I’ve translated). In particular, I want to clean up Raspberry Heaven a bit and run a playtest, give Yuuyake Koyake another go with different local friends, and try out Monsters! Monsters!. I also want to play 3:16, do a PTA game about the lives of otaku, and do a Solar System game inspired by Fairy Quest.

Maid RPG Update: What I’m Working On/What They’re Saying

musings


Maid RPG is out in the world, which is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. My biggest hurdle–getting the actual translation done–is totally out of the way, but there’s still a fair amount of stuff to do. In particular, there are three things I’m working on, with vastly varying degrees of urgency, that will be available for free on the website, and one more thing that Andy is probably going to put together when he has time:

  • Errata: I spent basically two days going over the book looking for errors. Little stuff like that drives me totally crazy. Thankfully errors that actually affect the game rules were few and far between, but we’ll hopefully be turning everyone’s lists of corrections into a proper errata file soon. Regardless, this’ll be integrated into the second printing, which will be for sale (and at the rate things are going, disappear shortly thereafter) in about 2 weeks.
  • Quickstart: After prodding from a Brazilian guy in the comments on this blog, I’ve started working on quickstart rules for Maid RPG. I’m thinking of calling it a “Trainee Edition,” or something similarly thematic but punchier. It’s kind of a low priority at the moment, and I want to commission some original artwork to go with it, but it’s coming along nicely so far. It will include six pre-made maids (each with one thing you customize with a die roll), the basic gameplay rules, a sample master and mansion, the basic Contemporary Random Event table, and original scenario (called “You Can Be Replaced”) by yours truly. In short, it will follow the rough mold of the quickstarts White Wolf does, but with the added fun of being able to run random event-driven sessions with.
  • Nun-Approved File: I might have to think of a better title (it’s a reference to a Monty Python sketch where a nun says, “I prefer the dirty version”), but this is basically a collection of all the stuff we changed or removed for the English version. Some of it was too obscure (like, things where there’s almost no information in English, and in some cases not even that much in Japanese), some of it was just hard to translate in a usable fashion, and some of it a bit too squicky. (For example, several entries in the item table were sex toys). This will have all of that stuff for your… enjoyment.
  • Free Scenarios: There were five scenarios that didn’t make it into the printed rulebook, basically because we had to drop something to get the layout done. Admittedly, we put the scenarios we thought were the cream of the crop into the actual book, but there’s still some entertaining stuff here.
    • Farewell Master: The Master is a girl who is in line to the throne. If the maids don’t do something, their beloved mistress will be sent to a convent through foul play, never to return!
    • The Master Has Amnesia?!: Robbers broke into the mansion about a month ago. The Master is finally recovering, but he can remember very few details of what happened, and very little of anything aside from his own status.
    • Secret Base: The Master is convinced that he’s a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. He’s wrong, but there is something of a mystery waiting to be solved.
    • Tales of Suspense: The Master, Kira Tsukishima, will be starting high school in April. He’s the only child of Yoichiro Tsukishima, and he’ll be the next leader of the Tsukishima Zaibatsu. Since Kira’s high school is far away from the main house, he’s now living with some maids in a villa located a mere 5-minute walk from the campus. The main house has sent a butler, Haru Amajiri. However, Haru is more than she seems, and the maids will have to unravel the mystery before it’s too late.
    • Until the Master Is Born: The “Black Tea King,” Sir Lepton, sleeps eternally. The news spreads through England like wildfire, and his mansion and all of his assets will become someone’s inheritance. His adopted daughter Natalie sinks into an abyss of grief. Julio, Sir Lepton’s real son, has come to claim the inheritance as his own. With Julio intent on taking the mansion, what will become of Natalie and the maids?

What They’re Saying About Maid RPG
For a while now I’ve been making a hobby of Googling “Maid RPG” to see what comes up, plus checking the trackbacks on this blog entirely too often. Here are some of the things people have said about Maid RPG on the internet.
Continue reading Maid RPG Update: What I’m Working On/What They’re Saying →