Raspberry Heaven Playtest Version 0.3

After getting some important inspiration out of the blue, and doing a good amount of writing, I’ve got a new playtest draft of Raspberry Heaven, my silly high school slice of life RPG.

The biggest change is that I’ve vastly simplified how Special Moves work in play. Players pick a card rank from 2 to 10 for each Special Move to be a wild card associated with it. This also makes it really easy to create new Quirks. I’ve put together a set of Quirk Cards, which will hopefully make it all-around easier to keep track of things. On the cards you circle the number of the card rank you’re using as wild cards for that Special Move.

The introduction mentions some stuff I’m working on/thinking about for the game. I’ll hopefully be doing some serious playtesting/playstorming soon, and generally whipping the game into shape.

Update (9/22/09): Added v. 0.3.2.

Raspberry Heaven Playtest Version 0.3.2
Scene Template
Character Cards
Quirk Cards2

Yaruki Zero Podcast #7: Random Thoughts

In this episode I talk briefly about a variety of different topics that have been on my mind.

1. PDFs and Piracy
• Palladium Books on RPGNow
• DLSite.com, Japan’s major site for selling electronic doujinshi stuff. Among the few tabletop RPG products are some stuff from Tsugihagi Honbo and Kodanuki Soba (which does D&D4e adaptations of elements of the Dragon Quest games).
2. Randomness and Cinematic Role-Playing
3. Oban Star-Racers
• Official Oban Star-Racers Site
• Sav! The World Productions
• Oban at Shout! Factory
• Preview of Episode 1 on Veoh
4. Grognardia: Genre Bending
5. Raspberry Heaven Design Notes
• Raspberry Heaven Playtest Rules
• Sunshine Sketch, available from Yen Press
6. The “Pink Panther” is what you get when you put a scoop of strawberry ice cream into lemon-lime soda.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #7 (32 minutes, 26 seconds)

Next Time
I haven’t decided what to do next. ^_^;

This podcast uses selections from the song “Click Click” by Grünemusik, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website.

Very awesome caricature of Ewen (with his mascot character Kurumi) courtesy of the talented C. Ellis.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #6: Marketing Anime RPGs

In this episode I’m joined my by longtime friend Jon Baumgardner. He’s worked at several different companies doing marketing and brand management for anime, and I brought him on to talk about marketing techniques for small-press/indie RPGs, and for marketing to anime fans.

There’s a bird cooing in the background in some parts. I don’t feel like re-recording. Meow.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #6 (50 minutes, 37 seconds)

Show Notes

1. Introductions
• Jon’s blog and Jon’s twitter.
• Master Plan #47: Tangibility in Mechanics
2. What is marketing?
3. Small-Scale Marketing
4. Selling an Experience
5. Marketing to Anime Fans
• OVA: Open Versatile Anime
• Anime conventions include FanimeCon, Anime Expo, Otakon, etc.
• GeekBrief.tv
6. Specific Techniques
• FatCow Web Hosting
• Tom Peters, Seth Godin
7. Addendum: New Millennium Currencies
• Anime News Network
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss (and Tim Ferriss’ blog)

Next Time
The next episode will be “Random Thoughts”, another solo podcast, where I’ll talk briefly about several different topics that have been on my mind.

This podcast uses selections from the song “Click Click” by Grünemusik, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website.

Somewhat embarrassing but very awesome caricature of Ewen courtesy of the talented C. Ellis.

(For an added bonus, I recorded a piece on Dragonball Evolution for Anime Confessions.)

Yaruki Zero Podcast #5: Japanese RPGs (Part 2)

In the second half of my discussion of Japanese RPGs with Andy Kitkowski, we talk about indie/doujin TRPGs, some neat games we’ve seen, and localization issues. Also, for whatever reason the mp3 file worked out to be precisely 40 minutes.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #4 (40 minutes)

Show Notes

• Comiket is a massive convention for selling fan-made comics and such.
• Tsugihagi Honbo, Ryo Kamia’s doujin circle. Sunset Games, his original publisher.
• Flowers is an adaptation of the Touhou series.　Here’s the dice they made.
• Gundog, a modern action game.
• Silver Rain
• Meikyuu Kingdom
• Yuuyake Koyake, another game by the designer of Maid RPG.

Next Time
Next time I’ll be joined by my longtime friend Jon Baumgarder to talk about marketing for small-press/indie RPGs and to anime fans.

Andy and I will definitely be talking about Japanese RPGs more in the future, so please feel free to let me know about any other topics you might want to hear more about.

This podcast uses selections from the song “Click Click” by Grünemusik, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website.

D&D Race: The Wild Folk (v2)

A while ago I posted up my first draft of a new D&D4e race called the “wild folk”. Earlier this week I went crazy working on them more, and came up with a revised version, thanks in part to feedback from folks at RPG.net, and my local friends. I got inspired to do all this because one of my friends is running a one-off 4e game and out of the blue he offered to let me play as one, something I wouldn’t have been bold enough to ask for, but wasn’t about to turn down.

The wild folk are basically a mishmash of races and characters from several different Japanese games. In particular, the Varna from Arianrhod, the weird tribes from the Grandia games, Fam from Ruin Explorers (pictured above), and to a lesser extent some of the part-animal races from Final Fantasy, all became part of it. They’re also a way to play a catgirl in D&D, and I wouldn’t really fault any DM that doesn’t want to use them in his or her campaign. On the plus side, I did some interesting things with their culture, and they have a vivaciousness and optimism that seems to be lacking in the existing D&D races.

I’ve put together an excessively complete write-up, basically the equivalent of a Dragon Magazine race article, plus monster stats. I’m pretty happy with the actual race write-up and the feats. The paragon paths probably need more polish, and the monster stats are… passable at best.

Wild Folk (Beta v2) PDF

Just for fun, I’ve also started statting up the Tabbit race from Sword World 2.0 (little rabbit people who excel at magic), and making a maid class (loosely based on Maid RPG). It’s going to be a quirky defender with some leader elements, and designing it is going to be a total bitch to do.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #4: Japanese RPGs (Part 1)

In this episode I’m joined by Andy Kitkowski to talk about Japanese tabletop RPGs. This is sort of a general overview, and we’ll be returning to this topic in future podcasts to discuss various things in more detail. Our talk went on long enough that I’m splitting it into two installments. This time around we talk about how RPGs came to Japan, the Japanese TRPG subculture, and Japanese RPG design trends.

Yaruki Zero Podcast #4 (43 minutes, 23 seconds)

Show Notes

• Meanwhile… The Super Games Podcast. Episode 12 is Andy’s interview about Tenra Bansho Zero.
• Sword World, the foremost Japanese-made TRPG.
• Record of the Lodoss War on Wikipedia. Originally featured in Comptiq magazine.
• Lucky Star manga artist Kagami Yoshimizu got into RPGs through Lodoss War novels and replays.
• In Episode 66 of Canon Puncture, Jason Morningstar talks about Fiasco.
• Night Wizard, a game from F.E.A.R.
• Ryuu Tama (Dragon Egg)
• Alshard ff, a Final Fantasy-inspired TRPG, also from F.E.A.R.
• Fusou Bukyouden, a wuxia RPG.
• Tokyo NOVA, the first Japanese cyberpunk TRPG.

Next Time
In the second part of our discussion, we cover doujin/indie RPGs, some neat Japanese games we’ve seen, and localization issues.

This podcast uses selections from the song “Click Click” by Grünemusik, available for free from Jamendo.com. If you like the song, consider buying some CDs from Nankado’s website.