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:

1. 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.
2. Regardless of who has authority over a given aspect of the game, everyone should be willing to give and receive ideas and advice.
3. The overall game/story belongs to the group. Elements that impact the big picture should be decided in accordance with a group consensus.
4. The tutor has authority over the general contents of scenes he or she is running.
5. 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.
6. “Off-camera” action (things that take don’t take place in the context of an actual scene) should be minimal and inconsequential.
7. 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.