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My Games

This page has a rundown of all of my various RPG projects, from the stuff I’m furiously hacking away on to things I’ve been neglecting for years but refuse to completely abandon. I’ll try to keep it updated, but the most recent stuff is going to be on the main blog itself.

Active Projects

  • Slime Story: This is a game about teenagers who hunt cute monsters (like out of a Korean MMO) for spending money. The game is a mixture of social stuff and hitting monsters until they die so you can collect the valuable bits they leave behind.

More or Less Complete

  • Hikikomori: This is my only 24-hour RPG so far (I think the format is just bad for my sleep patterns), a solo RPG inspired by the hikikomori phenomenon and the novel “Welcome to the NHK!”
  • Kyawaii RPG Series: This is an ongoing series of short games I’m doing to get more practice and to force myself to finish stuff. There’s a lot of things that draw inspiration from anime, because that’s the way I am.
  • Mascot-tan: This is a short and silly RPG based on “moe anthropomorphism.” You create girls who are mascots of various things, and put them through silly little adventures to gain popularity. It’s not inconceivable that I might try to design a new version that can do more than just let you resolve actions by playing rock-paper-scissors, but for what it is I’m satisfied with it.
  • Thrash: This is a fighting game style martial arts RPG I originally designed around 1997. In 2007 I finally got a beta of the second edition finished, though it still needs much playtesting and editing that I’m not really ready to give it any time soon.

Works In Progress

  • Halo: The Covenant War: A Fudge-based Halo RPG. I need to update it for the new goodies in Halo 3 and actually get around to playing it, something I’ve been putting off forever.
  • Raspberry Heaven: This game is for warm-hearted slice-of-life stories about Japanese high school girls, as seen in titles like Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, Hidamari Sketch, etc. It’s a GM-less game where you use playing cards in a manner similar to Uno to figure out who gets to narrate, and the cards suggest moods and other elements. It needs more playtesting and tweaking, but overall I’m exceedingly happy with how it’s turning out.
  • Adventures of the Space Patrol: This is a “retro-cute sci-fi” pickup RPG, where you play members of the Space Patrol who help ordinary people with space-related problems. It’s based on a very light version of FATE, with some inspiration from Japanese RPGs. I made good progress on this game during my initial burst, and I mainly need to get back into working on it and finish what I started.
  • Catgirl: The Storytelling Game: This was originally meant to be a tongue-in-cheek parody of the World of Darkness, but it took on a life of its own and became fairly serious. I like where it’s going, but the setting will require a lot of development and brainstorming. I was contemplating using Opening The Dark, but Malcom Sheppard pulled it off his site for some reason, so I’ve reverted to my original plan to use an ST-ish variant of Fudge.
  • Dandelion Complex: This is meant to be a sort of twisted younger sister game to Raspberry Heaven. It’s still about Japanese high school girls, but it’s based on Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei and Pani Poni Dash, and thrives on randomness and insanity. It has a GM, who plays the teacher, and uses cards to get results from random tables.
  • Moonsick: This is meant to be a Superflat-inspired RPG, drawing on Takashi Murakami’s art movement that subverts and parodies otaku media in various ways. Little girls who live on the moon with the rabbits get sent to a radioactive earth to try to find the Celestial Cleanser that can fix everything. The game would be based on custom cards that you play on the table to build scenes or mutate your character, leading up to a final confrontation. My original plan was to have it be part of an anthology of three games called “we are flat.” The other two would be Black Hole Girls (girls with alien symbiotes, and an open-ended RPG with board game elements) and Magical Burst (a dark magical girl game, and a new version of my old “Magical World” campaign setting).
  • Tokyo Heroes: This is a sentai/Power Rangers RPG with support for fighting magical girls (a la Sailor Moon). My first attempt was tolerable, but since Filip gave me a mass of suggestions and comments, I figured out how I wanted to rework it, but haven’t gotten around to implementing those changes.
  • Zero Breakers: This is the tentative title of my fighting shonen manga RPG. It’s a diceless game based on the ideas that (1) characters are consistent in how competent they are, and (2) the consequences of a battle are much more interesting than whether or not A dodges B’s punch. At the moment this is the project I’m most actively working on, though it’s been more a matter of filling in the ideas I already had.

Possible Future Projects

  • Ether Star: A few years ago I ran a campaign called “Star Sorcerer,” a science fantasy space opera inspired by Xenosaga and Phantasy Star Online. At some point I want to put together a full RPG, and I was contemplating a custom Fudge variant along the lines of one of F.E.A.R.’s Japanese RPGs, with character creation mainly based around picking a couple of templates.
  • Monsters Fight Back!: Inspired by “Monsters! Monsters!” (I’ve never read it, though I did play a con game of it back in ‘94…) along with a host of other things, ranging from Magical Pokan to Lordi music videos, this would be a tongue-in-cheek RPG where you play monsters in a more or less standard fantasy world. I’m planning to use a variant of the system from Adventures of the Space Patrol (which means I need to actually finish AotSP first…). I’m thinking of having monsters made from combining two keywords a la Beast Bind (e.g., Seductive + Demon = Succubus), and making reaction checks of some kind a major part of the game. Also, monsters would always have at least one “monstrous” aspect to help them get in trouble (e.g., “You know you shouldn’t eat the guardsman since his friends will come after you, but he just looks so tasty…”).

Other Assorted Ideas

  • Distorted Futures: A “dystopian ass-kicking RPG” based on stuff like The Matrix, Ultraviolet, V For Vendetta, Equilibrium, etc. where there’s a dystopia and you use highly stylish violence, philosophy, and sacrifice to fix it.
  • I Hate You: A Cartoon Role-Playing Game For Two Good Friends: Basically a two-player competitive RPG based on Coyote Vs. Road Runner, Bugs Bunny Vs. Elmer Fudd, Tom Vs. Jerry, etc.
  • Melancholy Kaiju: A silly little game where you randomly create silly little kaiju. Inspired by weird Japanese toys. Not sure where to go with it.
  • Tiny Aliens: A game about miniature aliens trying to invade earth, equal parts Keroro Gunsou, Bottle Fairy, and Invader Zim. Except the game involves lots of “micro-games” inspired by Wario Ware as a form of action resolution.