Raspberry Heaven: Quirks

projects

In terms of the game’s rather simple mechanics, Raspberry Heaven characters are defined by a set of three “Quirks” chosen by the player. So far it looks like I have a good selection of quirks figured out, considering it was pretty easy to figure out the quirks for the Azumanga Daioh cast.

Here’s the current list of quirks:
Baka, Boke (clown), Busty, Complex, Cool, Cute, Delicate, Diligent, Feral, Gaijin, Genius, Genkisugi (hyper-active), Innocent, Jock, Lazy, Nice, Obsession, Physically Gifted, Plain, Slow, Softy, Space Cadet, Timid, Tsukkomi (straight-man), Tsundere (here), Worldly

So, here’s my attempt at the Azumanga Daioh cast. Note that Kaorin is a “wallflower” character and is supposed to get less Quirks, and also that teachers are assumed to be good at whatever their main subject is.

Chiyo (Mihama Chiyo)
Cute
Innocent
Genius

Kagura
Baka
Jock
Softy

Osaka (Kasuga Ayumu)
Space Cadet
Slow
Delicate

Sakaki
Cool
Softy
Physically Gifted

Tomo (Takino Tomo)
Boke
Genkisugi
Baka

Yomi (Koyomi Mizuhara)
Tsukkomi
Diligent
Complex (Weight)

Nyamo-sensei (Kurosawa Minamo)
Diligent
Nice
Tsukkomi

Yukari-sensei (Tanizaki Yukari)
Lazy
Worldly
Boke

Kaorin
Obsession (Sakaki)
Plain

Next time, Lucky Star. :3

起承転結

ideas, projects,

Since it’s looking like it’s going to become an important part of two of the games I’m working on, I decided to write up a blog post about kishoutenketsu (起承転結). Kishoutenketsu is a four-act structure commonly used in Japan. Although it originally derives from Chinese poetry, it has been applied to all sorts of longer works, including novels and manga. The four stages are introduction, development, climax (or turn), and resolution. Just like the three-act structure (set-up, confrontation, resolution) more commonly used in the West, it is ultimately just a model, and it certainly can’t be used to explain the structure of every story out there.

On the other hand, there’s the case of yon-koma (four-panel) manga. These are comic strips consisting of four vertical panels, and are more or less Japan’s version of our newspaper comic strips (which, possibly not coincidentally, are mostly three panels). When you examine yon-koma comics from the point of view of kishoutenketsu, more often than not the panels correspond exactly to the four-act structure, wrought in miniature. In case you’re wondering I learned about this through (1) a fan-translation of Welcome to the NHK, which mentioned kishoutenketsu in a footnote, and (2) a how to draw manga book I saw at a store and have never been able to find since.

Anyway, with Raspberry Heaven most of the source material (notably Azumanga Daioh and Lucky Star) started off as yon-koma manga. Even when I come up with a good idea I usually need some prodding in the right direction, so it wasn’t until Jake Richmond egged me on that I came up with a good idea for how to use it in this game, and in a way that will hopefully make the game that much better. Essentially it’s going to be a part of the rules structure for how scenes are set up and run. The four phases are:

  1. Ki/Introduction: The player sets up and initiates the scene.
  2. Shou/Development: The group commences role-playing.
  3. Ten/Climax: The scene comes to a head, and a “challenge” (a thing that requires rolling dice) happens.
  4. Ketsu/Resolution: A little more to bring the aftermath of the climax into the game, and to close up the scene.

With Tokyo Heroes (at Filip’s urging) I’m also planning to use it, albeit on a different scale. As a genre, sentai has a relatively rigid plot structure, so the four acts could correspond fairly tightly to the stages of the story of a standard episode, with mechanical effects (or a lack thereof) appropriate to each.

  1. Ki/Introduction: The game starts, with the heroes doing something ordinary (for them) that, though they don’t know it yet, is going to lead into this week’s conflict.
  2. Shou/Development: The inciting incident hits. The heroes have to do whatever investigating is necessary to be ready for this week’s battle. For this I’m thinking of taking a cue from Gumshoe/Esoterrorists, and making it more about how the PCs find clues rather than if.
  3. Ten/Climax: The battle finally happens for real. The heroes go all-out and beat the monster of the week.
  4. Ketsu/Resolution: The game goes a little further, to establish what happens after the monster is defeated. The people affected by it turn back to normal, the girl it kidnapped is freed, etc. The heroes go back to base and things settle down. Credits roll. Preview plays.

Raspberry Heaven is coming together fast enough that I might actually be able to playtest it before the month is up. With Tokyo Heroes it’s kind of a different story in that Filip sent me a LONG e-mail (8 pages when I printed it out) with a blow-by-blow critique. It’s been tremendously helpful, but it’s required me to rethink some very basic parts of the game’s structure, and a massive rewrite is in order before I do more playtesting.

(Some day I’ll work on Thrash 2.0 again…)

What’s your bliss?

games, musings, projects

I lost count of how many blogs I’ve seen this in. I don’t know if it’s my moe otaku tendencies showing through, but whatever. ^_^; I gave into temptation and pre-ordered by the way, so I’m definitely looking forward to this. :3

“I’m an Innocent Sweetheart!”

“People say that I’m too young to pilot an ANIMa, but I just want to do my best… for everyone!”

Personality: As an Innocent Sweetheart, you’re the youngest pilot, under-trained and inexperienced. But you make up for it with a heart of gold and an energetic spirit that just won’t quit. Although most people don’t have a lot of confidence in you, who can help but catch your infectious enthusiasm?
Advice: Believe in yourself more. You can do anything you set your mind to as long as you don’t let your self-doubt get in the way. Your greatest asset is the trust that others hold in you, so never forget your friends and loved ones. At the same time, it might pay to be more realistic in your view of the world.
Which Bliss Stage Pilot are you?
Bliss Stage

In other news, it turns out that Sunset Games is releasing a new RPG called “Moe-kei?! Gakuen: Aitsu wa Classmate!” I’m not sure how to properly translate the title, but it’d be something like “Moe-style (?!) Academy: That’s my Classmate.” According to the blurb on the website in the game your goal is to help out those who are troubled (“They’ll surely say to you: “Thank you.”) It’s slated for some time in the summer, so I’m thinking I’ll order it along with Mononoke Koyake (the Yuuyake Koyake sourcebook) after GenCon.

The other day I checked out some books from the library on educational role-playing. I’m currently reading The Effective Use of Role-Play by Morry van Ments, which is a nice overview of role-playing as an educational tool. I’ll be putting together a full post about it when I’m done reading, but the differences in goals and the emphasis on “debriefing” after the actual role-play is finished are striking. It’s helped me think a bit about the kind of atmosphere and approach I want for Raspberry Heaven, while Filip Luszczyk, Ben Lehman, and Fred Garber have all offered me very solid advice via the Forge.

Yarukimantan: Raspberry Heaven

ideas

Now that my freelance translation stuff is mercifully done (for now), I want to get back into doing creative stuff over what’s left of the summer, including getting back into the swing of things with game design. Although I need more time to think about my Slime Story idea, I wound up coming up with a new game idea that while not groundbreaking per se is definitely promising and doable. There’s nothing quite like it as far as I know, and it’s not so ambitious that I’m worried about (a) whether I can actually finish it, or (b) whether the end result will be complicated enough to be a pain to get fine-tuned. More importantly, I’m actually excited about it.

Raspberry Heaven (bonus points if you get the reference) is meant to be a game about Japanese high school girls, but where Panty Explosion has them being mean to each other (plus the occasional exploding head), this would be about fun, everyday stuff. It’s Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, Ichigo Mashimaro, or Hidamari Sketch (take your pick) with the serial numbers filed off. Basically, a light-hearted slice of life kind of thing. I’m still working out how the rules will function, but I’m thinking the end result is going to look like a mashup of The Shab-al-Hiri Roach and Best Friends, but with a general feel more akin to Yuuyake Koyake. It’ll most likely be GM-less, something I’ve been wanting to experiment with anyway, and revolve around the players setting up scenes, very much like in the Roach.

It’s still very much in the preliminary stages, so while I have a rough idea of how I think the overall game will work, lots of things are up in the air, and there are lots of bits that I’m looking forward to discovering how I’m going to make them work. Of the four anime titles I mentioned above, three were originally done as yonkoma (4-panel) manga, so one wacky idea would be to somehow fit the four stages of kishoutenketsu (起承転結; introduction, development, climax, resolution) into the game somehow.

Update: Started a thread in the Forge’s First Thoughts forum.

GenCon Indy 2007: The Pre-Game

events

My creative mojo is still on vacation — which is just as well since I have a crapload of school and work stuff to contend with — so nothing new to report on the RPG front except that my OVA-based dimension-hopping game (“Divine Machine”) is taking a long time to properly get off the ground, on account of a substantial portion of the group having various obligations to attend to for multiple successive weeks. I’m hoping we’ll be able to play on the 19th.

I’m beginning to wonder if GenCon Indy isn’t too damn big for its own good. It slipped my mind that event registration opened yesterday, and this morning (i.e., barely 24 hours later) about 2/3 of the RPG events were full. On the plus side that includes both of the Maid RPG sessions I’ll be running. Also, Guy tells me that since we’re staying at the Embassy Suites finding people to play with after hours shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll almost certainly wind up running Maid RPG at least one more time. Hopefully I can get in on some Shab-al-Hiri Roach, DitV, etc.

So. Things.

Japanese, random

Ugh. So, I wasn’t able to participate in GameChef even to help out with feedback, and I’m almost certainly not going to get any further with Moonsick in time for it to be considered for Push. School has been kind of intense and stressful lately, and my creative mojo tank is running dangerously low. Spring break is taking too long to arrive (seriously; it’s two weeks later than at the college one of my friends goes to), and Summer vacation can’t come soon enough. Hopefully then I’ll be able to get some shit done. Of course, it doesn’t help that GameChef, like NaNoWriMo, comes at kind of a lousy time for anyone who’s in college (“Should I work on this game/novel, or be ready for midterms?”). If either one was during the Summer, I’d have more free time for them than I’d know what to do with. But then it’d probably manage to be a lousy time for everyone who’s actually got a real job. I may try to make July my own personal NaNoWriMo, but then the moment I try to do something like that I usually get inundated with freelance work.

So, apart from struggling mightily to concentrate on studying (I should be studying for my midterm rather than writing this) I haven’t been doing a whole lot. I’m starting up an anime-inspired dimension-hopping campaign using OVA (“Divine Machine”) and we’re going to resume and conclude our stalled Truth & Justice campaign as well. More on those when something actually happens, which probably won’t be for another two weeks.

I got a copy of the original Japanese version of Tenra Bansho Zero in the mail the other day, and I haven’t had time to do more than skim it, but (1) damn does it look awesome, and (2) now I understand entirely too well why it’s taking Andy so long to get it out in English.

That’s all for now. go away.

Edit: One more thing: Tokyo Heroes Actual Play.

SRS Basic

games, Japanese,

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but FEAR is trying their hands at an open system. For a while now they’ve been using variants of the same general system for most of their games, and they took the version from Alshard GAIA (the modern-day Earth version of Alshard) and created SRS (“Standard RPG System”). Since I have a couple of back-burner projects with a relatively mainstream bend to them, I decided to go translate it in my spare time. Here are my impressions:

SRS uses a very simple roll-over system; 2D6 plus whatever modifiers you have. It also has a very simple class-and-level system. You pick out a total of three levels of classes at character creation, and those mostly determine your attributes, add bonuses to your combat values (derived values for various things) and decide what Skills (special powers/shticks) you can select from. SRS is basically just a framework for creating games, so it lets you decide on what attributes, combat values, and classes you want. It’s definitely a toolkit for making games, rather than a game itself. With, say, Fudge, you can treat it as a complete game out of the box if you want to play it a certain way, but that’s not the case with SRS.

One interesting thing about it is the use of scene framing. It doesn’t have any particular meta-game effects (though the design notes say you can add stuff like that if you’re so inclined), but the rules call for fairly tight scene framing, over which the GM has substantial authority. The GM designates certain PCs as “scene players,” and other PCs are either left out, or can make some kind of roll to get into the scene.

The most glaring omission is that the SRS Basic rules have nothing for combat. This would seem very odd, considering most FEAR games seem to be fairly combat-oriented. However, their plan is to have the stuff in SRS Basic be required (or at least if you change stuff from it you have to acknowledge such in your game’s text). They’ve started to release combat rules in the form of “Plug-Ins,” though they’ve started with one on “Combat Movement and Engagement,” which I haven’t fully read just yet but seems like it’s actually SRS’ answer to Attacks of Opportunity. On the other hand, there aren’t really any limits as to what you can add to the game. Skills in a more traditional sense aren’t in SRS or a lot of FEAR games, but they do have them in Beast Bind, and they’re hardly unusual in Japanese RPGs.

The SRS Terms of Use are interesting, and they’re probably something that couldn’t be pulled off in the U.S. Essentially, they say that you can do anything within reason for personal use of SRS, but for commercial uses you have to contact FEAR and get permission and possibly pay a licensing fee. And they provide an e-mail, address, and telephone number to contact them directly. They also specifically mention that they’re only sharing things that have been explicitly released as SRS content, so material from Alshard GAIA (or other published games) is off-limits as per normal copyright laws.

Also, as Andy noted, FEAR is putting out a new game called Tenra WAR, apparently a crazy crossover between Tenra Bansho and Terra The Gunslinger. AFAIK it’ll be the first SRS-branded game, where neither of the games it’s based on used the proto-SRS that appeared in many other FEAR games.

So, as far as SRS is concerned, I think I’ll hold off on trying to do anything with it until there are enough plug-ins released that I wouldn’t have to build a combat system from scratch. On the other hand, along with the new Yuuyake Koyake supplement (Mononoke Koyake, which adds spirits, ghosts, and aliens into the mix), I already have a decent list of games to order from Japan when I have the money to do so. (I still have no idea how to get my hands on Meikyuu Kingdom though…)

Weirdness

Japanese, random

Fear the Roach
My friends and I played The Shab-al-Hiri Roach last night, and once it got going it was really incredible, though we only got through the first two events (that’s what happens when we play on a weeknight). We very quickly had a bunch of backstabbing and subplots going, which seems to be right where it should’ve been. The cards were great at helping give people cues for their scenes, and the assignment of NPCs to players worked wonderfully.

Now I’m buzzing with ideas for how to mess with things to make my anime RPG project more interesting. I’ve been getting caught up on Bleach lately, and some of this stuff feels like it would be a good fit for how some anime is set up.

Nihongo
The other thing is that while searching to see if anyone had linked to this blog (thanks Guy and Fillip!) I came across a thread from the TRPG board on 2-channel (probably the single biggest BBS/forum in Japan). Since it’s over 1,000 posts, I haven’t read it all, but apparently my blog posts about Japanese RPGs became a side-discussion for a while. It has stuff like “How does this gaijin know about Maid RPG and Yuuyake Koyake? LOL” (Most of the really weird games I own I discovered through the internet, lately that’s been mainly via Story Games; in this particular case it’s specifically Andy K’s fault). There was even someone who thought I must be a Japanese guy living in the U.S. and fluent in English (I’m definitely caucasian, though I also know Japanese and work as a translator). Unlike when I had this blog on Blogger.com, WordPress doesn’t display a bio anywhere that I know of. At least it looks like I’m not totally screwing things up when it comes to trying to make generalizations about the hobby in Japan.

でね、直接聞いてもかまいません。っていうか、喜ぶわけですけど。日本語でもいいし、メールアドレスはnekoewen@yahoo.co.jpです。