Something completely random: I’ve become a huge fan of Lucky Star, so along with the now 5 manga volumes I picked up the “Lucky Star Public Guide Book,” a guide to the manga (and other associated stuff) for hardcore fans in a manga format, similar to Love Hina 0. In the back there’s an interview with him. It turns out that he got into TRPGs in middle school (when he was enjoying the Lodoss novels and accidentally bought a replay), and started playing them more seriously in high school. All this got mentioned in the interview because when it came time to put together a 4-koma manga he was having a hard time coming up with characters, so he opened up his RPG scrapbook and pulled out some of his characters. It doesn’t mention what TRPGs in particular they came from, though it shows very tight pictures of the character sketches from the character sheets and three of the four have a box for “運命” (unmei/fate) underneath. The interview doesn’t really get into much detail about his TRPG habits, and whether he still plays or has since given it up a la Stephen Colbert. Still, especially in light of the fact that his manga is one of the key inspirations for a game I’m working on, I found it interesting.
Thrash 2.0: Home Stretch (of Lap 1)
The other day I realized something about Thrash. Something about the game inspires people to form strong and at times divided opinions on things. Maybe it’s got the cumulative opinionation (I think I just invented a word) of both RPGs and video games. I really do genuinely appreciate getting feedback on my games–Filip in particular has been tremendously helpful of late–but thinking back to all the discussions on the Thrash mailing list I can’t help but think that as fun as all of that was, at times there were problems with the signal to noise ratio there. I’d say “I’m thinking of switching from 1d10 to 2d6” and a big argument would follow. Certainly, trying to get the community to collectively figure out where to take the game was an abject failure. I really wonder how the FFRPG guys did it.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful or anything like that. If the above has slowed me down any, the majority of the 5-year delay still falls squarely at my own feet. When doing creative stuff, I have to take my own twisted personality into account, and remember that a lot of the time I work best in isolation.
So, right now I think I need to just hunker down and finish up the rest of the current draft. Barring any sudden amazing blasts of inspiration, I pretty much just need to finish filling out the less interesting bits of what I’ve already got laid out. The base character creation rules are done, maneuvers are pretty much complete (I’ll be needing people to look to see if any need to be added), the combat rules are complete, the Destiny rules need the wording cleaned up at most, etc. The weapon rules are still a little sketchy, and there’s a decent amount left to write in the GM section (though that’s mostly fluff and advice). From there I’ll have my local friends look at it (especially fighting game fanatic Suichiro), and then put a version up on the web for all to see.
Thrash 2.0: Destiny
I get happier with Thrash 2.0 the more I work on it. Things are just generally fitting together really well. The new maneuver design system seems to work just fine so far, and I’ve got the Special Maneuvers all taken care of (though there wound up being more Support Maneuvers than Specials, and only about 6 Supers, though most of them are meta-things used to make supers based on your special moves). Although I mentioned this before (a while back), the new AP system has allowed me to finally get combos and counters figured out in a way that looks fairly solid, for which I’m immensely glad.
I also keep coming up with rules options — three pages so far — that I’m sticking into the playtest version for people to look at and mess with to their heart’s content. I wound up creating a “power level” rule similar to Mutants & Masterminds, to set and gradually raise caps for various character traits.
The major thing I’m still working on figuring out is the details of the game’s more narrative-oriented aspects. I’ve added “Destiny points” to the game, which do double duty as XP and meta-game Drama Point type stuff. My inspiration for this melding of two elements is Truth & Justice. The game starts out with just adding clever rules for superpowers to the PDQ system, but its implementation of Hero Points goes a long way towards adding some of the feel of superhero comic storylines to the game. The question is, what do I need to do to give more of a fighting game/fighting manga feel?
Fighter Nature is sort of like T&J’s “Motivations” in that it’s going to describe the fighter’s reasons for fighting and affect the flow of Destiny points. I’m still working out what I want to do with Story Hooks though. These can be things like having a murdered family member to avenge (Chun Li), being famous enough to attract challengers (Ryu), or having been created by a secret organization as a fighter (Cammy). Stuff like that. I’m thinking of taking a cue from The Mountain Witch and giving the player the power to introduce things related to the Story Hook into the game (albeit with a Destiny point cost, and a potential for a Destiny point reward).
Some of the other uses for Destiny I’m thinking about include:
- Second Wind (get some Health back)
- Digging Deep (get a bonus on a roll)
- Duel (force someone to have an uninterrupted one-on-one fight
- Epiphany (suddenly figure out a new move pertinent to the situation at hand)
- Fury/Quiet (reach a new plateau of rage or meditative calm to be more effective for one scene)
Thrash: Not Dead, I Guess
After it coming up in an e-mail conversation, and being mentioned in this RPG.net thread alongside Final Stand, I think I got sufficiently embarrassed over the fact that I’ve been failing to work on Thrash 2.0 for 5 years that I got inspired, and came up with some new ideas for how to handle and fix some of the things that have been bothering me. I’m still keeping the majority of the stuff from my last big push to work on it (last year), but changing some fairly major things too.
The main thing is that I’ve come to dislike systems with lots of fiddly points to spend. Now, I admire what’s been accomplished with stuff like Hero system and Mekton Z Plus, but I just have a very low tolerance for dealing with that kind of stuff personally. The earlier draft had characters spending pools of points on Attributes, Techniques, and Everything Else. I’ve decided to nix that last category (for which PCs originally would spend a big wad of Character Points) in favor of something less granular. Characters get a set number of selections for Maneuvers and Supers (by default, 3 and 1 of each to start with), and a set number (10) of “Support Traits,” which are a catch-all for Edges, Skills, Maneuver Upgrades, Support Maneuvers (which are where you get your movement and defensive maneuvers mostly), and Story Hooks.
I’m still working out the details of Story Hooks, but I want them to be something like TSOY Keys and the whatever-they-were-calleds in Weapons of the Gods. Basically the player has an opportunity to “buy in” to storylines ahead of time, and get extra XP for it. I’m also thinking of brining back that “Fighter Nature” idea I had a while back, which is basically where you pick an archetype that represents your character’s basic motivation for being a martial artist and going out to enter tournaments and whatnot. I was originally going for more of a purely “gamey” design, but I think I want to also include at least some stuff that points the characters towards getting into fighting game/fighting manga style storylines.
I also got sick of dealing with so many fiddly bits for maneuver design, and decided to come up with the simplest system possible. So, although the game still has Action Points and whatnot, its maneuver design rules are more akin to BESM Weapon Attacks. You take a base maneuver, and add Enhancements and Drawbacks, up to a certain limit, to get what you want.
So, at this point the final version of Thrash 2.0 is looking like a crazy mashup of The Shadow of Yesterday, Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game, and Cinematic Unisystem.
Raspberry Heaven: Playtest Version 1
So, with the game proceeding at a nice pace, I now have an initial playtest version ready to go. I may be doing my first playtest in the very near future. :3
Get the Raspberry Heaven Playtest Version Here
Writing up episode descriptions turned out to be WAY harder than I expected (though I am kind of out of it because of school starting up…). I’ll definitely have to work on that more as I go along. Anyway, any and all feedback is greatly, tremendously appreciated.
Ichigo Mashimaro Characters
Okay, here goes:
Chika
Diligent
Tsukkomi
Plain
Miu
Boke
Genkisugi
Space Cadet
Matsuri
Delicate
Naive
Timid
Ana
Complex (English)
Nice
(crap I don’t know what the third one should be)
Nobue
Lazy
Obsession (Cute Stuff)
Obsession (Smoking)
Raspberry Heaven: On The Act of Role-Playing
Now that I’m in a mood for game design, I’ll no doubt continue posting here excessively until I get caught off-guard by something else.
Right now I’m really liking how Raspberry Heaven is turning out. We’ll have to see if I keep liking it after I do some playtesting, but that’ll have to wait a little while. The game mechanics are actually very simple — with the possible exception of the descriptions of quirks they could probably fit on one page — but it’s more the attitude towards role-playing that game brings to bear that I’m liking a lot.
The other day I finally finished reading a book called The Effective Use of Role-Play, by Morry van Ments. It’s an overview of role-playing as used as an educational tool, and as I’d hoped it helped me reexamine some of the underlying processes of role-playing. Educational role-plays are generally bound by realism, and are carried out in order to either train students in sensitivity, or let them practice certain social activities (like interviewing). As van Ments presents it, there is a huge emphasis on “debriefing,” discussing the role-playing session and its implications with the students. He advocates debriefings that are 2-3 times as long as the actual role-play, and notes that they also serve to help the students leave their assumed roles behind. While of course I wouldn’t go to that extreme for a non-educational role-play, I find that a certain amount of cooling down (and warming up) is helpful and natural.
Of particular interest to me was a section called “Beating the system,” which touches on issues that have become more and more pertinent in my own actual play. It’s impossible to fill in every possible detail no matter what kind of role-playing you’re doing, so to a certain extent it falls to the role-players to fill in the gaps here and there. In a highly traditional RPG (I know, I’m generalizing), the players have input through their character’s histories and actions, and everything else is the purview of the Game Master. In practice, my group has gradually blurred the line over time. This is especially true when it comes to whether a PC can do things “off-camera,” announcing an action retroactively, even if it’s something trivial and only impacts the “social flow” of the PCs. In a sense, this sort of fits with how some forms of narrative appear to flow, and I think it’s actually a pretty complex issue that merits exploration on its own.
For Raspberry Heaven, there’s no GM or other central authority figure to act as gatekeeper, and I’m not sure adding hard and fast rules to govern narrative input (as has been used very successfully in some other games) is really what it needs. Instead, I wound up with a set of principles guiding story input, aimed at both keeping the game on track in terms of genre (slice of life anime high school girls) and group consensus:
- This game lacks any kind of fantastic/genre elements. If it doesn’t fit into a normal slice-of-life high school story, it also doesn’t belong in the game. No one gets any magic powers or anything like that.
- Regardless of who has authority over a given aspect of the game, everyone should be willing to give and receive ideas and advice.
- The overall game/story belongs to the group. Elements that impact the big picture should be decided in accordance with a group consensus.
- The tutor has authority over the general contents of scenes he or she is running.
- The individual player has authority over the specifics of his or her character. Do not invent anything about another player’s character without consulting them first. Characters mostly start off as strangers and become friends, so there should be relatively little in the way of pertinent past events to invent in the first place.
- “Off-camera” action (things that take don’t take place in the context of an actual scene) should be minimal and inconsequential.
- Actions that are obviously difficult and/or have far-ranging consequences should be treated as challenges (i.e., where the dice are rolled) if at all possible, assuming they’re appropriate for the game in the first place.
Lucky Star Characters
Now, as I mentioned before, here’s the stats for the Lucky Star characters. It’s just the four main characters for now; once it gets going the series has a fairly large cast, actually. After that I’ll do Ichigo Mashimaro. ^_^
Konata
Obsession (otaku)
Physically Gifted
Lazy
Tsukasa
Innocent
Lazy
Timid
Kagami
Diligent
Tsukkomi
Tsundere
Miyuki
Busty
Genius
Nice
The Status of My Games
I have no idea who I picked it up from, but I came down with a cold the day after I got back from GenCon. On the plus side, I also came back feeling inspired about gaming in general, so it’s time to look at my various back burner projects and figure out where I am and what I need to do. The most important thing, unquestionably, is that I need to make much more of an effort to playtest the stuff I create.
Raspberry Heaven
Today I finally finished typing up the descriptions of Quirks. I need to fill in a few things here and there, but at this point the only thing I really need to to for playtesting is have a single episode write-up ready to play. I actually slipped some elements of this game into a weird dream episode of my Divine Machine campaign (a long-term dimension hopping game using OVA), but the rules never really came into play. I’m trying to do a “Bonus Indie Gaming Night” kind of thing with my friends, and I think the first real playtest of RH will come after The Mountain Witch.
Anime Dreams
I looked through what I currently have the other day, and I’m thinking that I’m closer to having it testable than I realized. Mostly I need to work a little on how I’m presenting what I’ve already got, and maybe do a little bit of trimming. The game is essentially a conflict engine, a diceless version of games like DitV, FATE, PDQ, TSOY, etc., and while the setting creation rules have the potential to be really interesting, they’re a distraction from getting the engine running.
I also want to come up with a more evocative title. In no particular order, here are some titles and bits and pieces thereof that I came up with:
Anime Stars
Defenders of Tokyo
Dreaming of the Sunrise
Round Zero
Zero Saga
Zero Requiem
Zero Spark
Sea of Miracles
Starlight Breaker(s)
Raging Heart(s)
S, R, J, Super, Z, A’s, Zero, 1/2, +
Soul
Striker(s)
Code
Sparking
100%
Unlimited
Infinite
Tokyo Heroes
I think I mentioned this before, but Filip sent me literally 8 pages of feedback. I know more or less what I want to do with the game — an overhaul to make it much, much less handwavey — but it’s going to be pretty time-consuming. The main thing is I’m going to delineate game session structure according to kishoutenketsu as mentioned before, which in turn will require retooling several other widgets in the game to match. In particular, I want to take a cue from the GUMSHOE system and put the emphasis on when and how PCs find clues, rather than rolling dice to see if they figure things out.
Slime Story
I came up with this setting idea ages ago (and even put it in an episode of Divine Machine), and I’ve been wanting to do it in RPG form, either as a setting or an independent game. Right now I’m thinking I want to create a game that uncomfortably marries simple hack-and-slash with hippie/story game stuff about the protagonists’ hopes and dreams in the face of a bland reality brightened only by the monster hunting hobby that they’ll eventually have to give up. It’s still very much in the preliminary stages, and I honestly have no idea how I’m going to tackle the latter part of the game’s concept.
Thrash 2.0
The eternally delayed, hope to do it some day second edition of Thrash. Every time I get even remotely motivated Real Life starts dumping stuff on me, plus my tastes have changed enormously since I wrote Thrash in my first year of college, and while I still want to make a game-y hand-to-hand combat thing, I find assigning lots of points to be bland and cumbersome. I’m thinking that characters should just have set selections of maneuvers (say, 3 Special Moves and 1 Super to start with), and applying similar simplification all the way through. I’ve lost count of how many total rewrites I’ve done, but if I go this route it’ll be yet another.
we are flat
This is intended to be an anthology of three short-form games inspired by Superflat: Moonsick, Magical Burst, and Black Hole Girls. Right now it’s WAY on the back burner. Each game is going to be radically different from the others, and require its own development cycle.
GenCon Indy: Sifting the Program Guide
Here’s my second post stemming from GenCon Indy 07. I went through the GenCon program guide looking for titles of games I didn’t recognize. Here’s the list, with URLs and short burbs from those websites wherever possible.
- WEGS: “WEGS is an old school sword-n-sorcery rpg that revels in the ‘let’s get a game together tonight’mentality. Flavored with an air of whimsical high-fantasy, the rules are energized by an
errant rule system which encourages players to take risks and, most of all, have fun.” - Dragon Storm
- Witch Hunter: The Invisible World: “Such a duty is one that few would choose willingly, particularly if they understood the nature of their foes. And indeed, when those foes are invisible to the untutored eye, even a willing guardian would never know that his efforts were needed. But those precious few, given sight of the Adversary, and the will to face them, are the Witch-Hunters.”
- Crusaders of the Holy Lands: “Crusaders of the Holy Lands is a 13th Night Role Playing game set at the time of the end of the First Crusade. The Crusaders have had a prosperous existence and look forward to a peaceful future.”
- Cadwallon: “Cadwallon is a role playing game played with miniatures. It lets you represent one of the heroes of a tight-knit group of adventurers.”
- Dark Refuge: “In the distant future the evil and tyrannical government of Mars has waged war on Earth. In the catastrophic battles that followed, refugees from Earth have fled to the furthest corner of the inhabited worlds to colony D-455, now called Refuge. Hidden, humanity looks forward to enjoying this eden. But this planet is not quite what it seems. Dimensional rips in the fabric of reality have allowed energy called Leyas to seep into the planet’s atmosphere.”
- Chronicles of Ralmar: “The Chronicles of Ramlar is a fantasy roleplaying game, with the heroic setting of Eranon, one of the two major continents on a world created by Ramlar, the Maker of All. The premise behind the game is to create your own heroes and weave their own chapters of legend and legacy to be immortalized in The Book—the ultimate annals chronicling Ramlar’s world.”
- Beyond Mere Mortals: “Beyond Mere Mortals is a unique d20 superhero roleplaying game that brings you all the excitement from your favorite comic books – brought to your game table from Noble Hero Press!”
- Battlestations: “Battlestations is a pulp sci fi adventure boardgame. Ongoing adventures feature simultaneous ship-to-ship and boarding combat in space. Players work together as a starship crew aboard a ship of their own design facing referee-controlled forces. You’ll track the heroes’ positions on the starship layouts and the starships’ positions on the space map. The action in Battlestations is character driven. If you want the ship to turn, speed up, or launch a missile or blast the enemy ship, a hero has to take an action to make it so.”
- The Great War of Magellan: “The vast and desolate galaxy of Richard Hatch’s new epic Sci-Fi saga, The Great War of Magellan is meticulously captured in this innovative new role playing game produced by DGA Games. The story is incredibly deep and offers a myriad of possibilities.”
- Ustio: The Rebirth: “It is a ‘Neo-fantasy, non-Tolkien’ role-playing game. The world is not based on the mythos, geography, races or creatures of Earth; that is to say not intentionally, but many things could be likened to creatures or races of Earth in some fashion – the game was designed by humans after all. That disclaimer withstanding, the game, world, breeds, creatures and history of Hlomb are ours and not based of of any fiction or mythos known to us.”
- Trin’ Dar: “Welcome to Trin’Dar. A continent formed from the aftermath of warring gods; a realm kept in balance by a superior race of Dragons that will only interact in the guise of mortals. Explore a world where the only absolute is the unknown.”
- Four Colors al Fresco: “Four Colors al Fresco is a roleplaying game of pulp-style adventure, set in an alternate Renaissance. The setting is Renaissance Italy — as it might have been. Had there been fantastic, pre-industrial advanced technologies in the hands of a few.”
- Sign In Stranger
- Mundi Animalia: “Welcome to the world of Mundi Animalia. A comprehensive system that lets you play anything from an ant to an elephant. It includes 6 sets of supernatural powers using the KaSE system used in Edward Abbot Abbot’s Flatland (Inflated) the RPG. Mundi Animalia is primarily usable as an omni supplement to an existing campaign to show the hidden world of animals.”
- Bounty Head Bebop: “This roleplaying game was inspired by the world of Cowboy Bebop and takes over where the animated series leaves off; presenting players the opportunity to jump in and experience the adventure, humor, and drama of Cowboy Bebop for themselves. So roll up a character, pop in your favorite jazz CD, and 3..2..1… LET’S JAM!”
- So Ya Wanna Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star!
- Skies of Glass
- Cursed Empires
- In Dark Alleys
- Khymir
- Adventures In Fantasy
- Strikeforce: 2136: “The StrikeForce Role Playing Game is based on the Conflict System. Gaining experience, StrikeForce characters gain detailed skills and access to more powerful technology. The world is a place of violent competition between Corporations, Nations, and Independent Guilds. The characters are placed in a world, where on the surface they appear to be the power and strength of society. Only to discover they are simply pawn of the larger forces that run the world. From the UN to the rumors of Paulson units and Aliens, the StrikeForces tend to be the asset of choice to get the job done.”
- Iridium Lite
- Advanced Dimensional Green Ninja-Educational Preparatory Super-Elementary Fortress 555: “Based on the hit TV series of the same name, Advanced Dimensional Green Ninja-Educational Preparatory Super-Elementary Fortress 555 chronicles the lives of children attending the elementary school in the suburbs surrounding the city at the center of the universe.”
The following didn’t turn up anything on Google: Ascent, Bullseye, Cats, Century’s Edge, Demon Hunters, HiBRiD, Luchador: Way of the Mask, Mithuria, Realmsaga, Serial, Spacers, Supernatural, War Gods. Some have too generic titles to let me find anything, and for others it was just that nothing came up. Anyone out there have any info?
GenCon Indy 2007: Aftermath
I survived GenCon Indy. I put a long diary-type report on my LiveJournal, but here I’m going to concentrate on actual gaming stuff rather than complaining about how tired I was or commenting on the restaurants I went to.
I didn’t get all that much gaming in during the con. I’m actually sort of ambivalent about this because I feel like I should’ve gotten much more in (why else does one go to a gaming con?), but I was feeling too physically and emotionally spent to handle much in the way of roleplaying.
I did however run two sessions of Maid RPG as planned. I put together a fairly simple scenario, and had the players make characters and go at it for the remainder of the three hours. The first session was brisk, random, and fun. The second was the single strangest RPG session I’ve ever witnessed, and at times I had to put my head on the table and breathe deep to be able to handle it all. John Kim was there for the second one, so hopefully he can provide more useful commentary than my sleep-deprived brain could hope for.
I think I came home with a total of about 20 or so different books, a mix of indie RPGs and bargains, so I have entirely too much reading material now. I got all inspired to play more of these games with my friends, so I’m going to finally try to organize to play The Mountain Witch in the near future, as well as my neglected Fudge-powered Halo game. I also want to work more on my own games, and try to properly integrate playtesting into the process. Raspberry Heaven and Anime Dreams are actually relatively close to being testable, and I have a very solid idea what I want to do with the next revision of Tokyo Heroes (based largely on Filip’s advice, and in general trying to make it much less handwave-y).
I got to hang out with Andy K a little bit at the RPG.net meetup on Saturday, so in addition to meeting a bunch of cool people I got hooked up with Meikyuu Kingdom, Demon Parasite, and Baka Baka RPG wo Kataru. The latter is a collection of a Japanese gamer’s columns on weird American RPGs, including some indie stuff, and even Panty Explosion (about which he notes that there are only two explicit psychic powers — levitating and making heads explode — but for some reason nothing to make panties explode). Andy did a very short demo of Tenra Bansho there, and I have to say it’s made of pure unadulterated awesome.
I still have a lot of other stuff to post about, but that’ll have to wait. Notably, The Hobby Games: The 100 Best book from Green Ronin is amazing so far, I have lots of games to read, and I went through and wrote down the names of all the RPGs being run in official games that I hadn’t heard of (like Bounty Head Bebop, basically Cowboy Bebop with the serial numbers halfway filed off).
GenCon Indy 07!!!1!
Tomorrow (very early) I head off to my first ever GenCon Indy, along with my friend Mike (and I’ll be meeting Guy Shalev in person for the first time). I think I’ve just about got everything ready. Packing clothes was easy; loading up my Zen Vision M and having all the information I need has proven pretty time-consuming. About the only thing I have firmly planned is running Maid RPG.
Yaruki Zero Games 