Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => brainstorming & development => Topic started by: neko ewen on May 26, 2011, 02:52:57 PM
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Yesterday I finished reading a rather old manga called Dragon Half (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dragon_Half), a farcical thing about a super-strong half-dragon girl (her father was sent to slay a dragon and married it/her instead) who's in love with heartthrob monster slayer/pop idol Dick Saucer. And it occurred to me that for Dragon Half, Slayers, and similar titles (I'm making a list) there could totally be a move along the lines of "act sensibly despite temptation," and now I think I'm going to be writing a really strange Apocalypse World hack at some point.
Right now I'm just tossing ideas out (especially since I have no shortage of other stuff to work on), but it would basically abandon the concept of Harm per se, since it's more about characters wanting to do violent, stupid things and the circumstances rerouting them into weird hijinks. (Except for nameless monsters. Kill the hell out of them all you want. And eat them afterwards if you're hungry.)
My tentative list of character types/playbooks so far:
Explosive Mage (think Lina Inverse from Slayers)
Half-Dragon (Mink from Dragon Half)
Dumb Warrior (Gourry/Dick Saucer)
Useless Bard
Nutjob Cleric (Amelia from Slayers)
Adorable Mascot
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Aren't all bards useless? Rimshot!
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If you're playing D&D4e or Dungeon World bards are pretty badass actually. I want to come up with a hilariously ineffectual character with moves to blunder into making things happen, and although the anime characters I'm thinking of are different (Lufa from Dragon Half is a really terrible elven mage), bards seemed like the right class to pick on.
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Neko, you might want to take a look at Mike's 'Monster of the Week' hack. (There should be a thread for it a little further down the Hacks page.) The 'Mundane' character class might inspire you with some of the sorts of moves you're looking for.
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I've been poking at this a bit more and brainstorming a few things, though I haven't gotten seriously started on the mechanics. I added Conniving Thief, Dodgy Alchemist, and Tweaky Shaman to the list of possible character types, and started in on a list of possible MC moves. I'm still trying to better understand what MC moves are all about, but looking at the source material it seems like for this game they'll need to be quite a bit different from regular AW.
So far I have:
Add Silliness
Cut Scene
Fade Out on Chaos
Introduce a New Version of an Old Nuisance
Introduce Temptation
Make Someone Fall Down (kind of analogous to Inflict Harm)
Withhold MacGuffin
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I've been working on this project a bit more, and it's kinda starting to come together. I posted about it more extensively on my blog (https://yarukizero.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/design-journal-dragon-world/), but I've realized that writing up principles and MC moves for Dragon World basically amounts to trying to distill many years of running games like Toon and Maid RPG, and to me that's really neat. The basic moves also have a lot of stuff that goes "and on a miss you look dumb in front of everyone," because I guess character humiliation is a big thing in this?
I also posted up the first draft of the first completed character type, the Explosive Mage (http://yarukizero.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/explosive-mage.pdf), though I'm not sure the moves are where I want them yet.
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Loving this idea.
Have just discovered AW but have been a massive Slayers fan for years.
How about 'Cursed Sorceror'...I'm thinking Zelgadis?
Moves would include...
'Using Eldritch Doom'
'Divine Destiny'
AW would be perfect for a Slayers/anime game. Keep this going please :)
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Thank you! It's sufficiently fun to work on that I'm definitely going to keep at it. Writing up character types seems to be the single hardest part of this, so you'll forgive me if I'm hesitant to commit to more of them, though the Cursed Sorcerer does sound like a nice straight man type character.
Right now I'm contemplating making MacGuffins a major part of the game, since it seems as though characters in the genre inevitably need them to achieve their ultimate goal, whether beating the Big Bad (like when Lina get spells that go beyond the Dragon Slave) or just achieving their dreams (like the Pido Potion that Mink so wants in Dragon Half).
I also have an idea for random event tables (inspired by Maid RPG of course) that trigger when a player rolls snake eyes or boxcars, but right now I'm kind of drawing a blank on what to put in the tables.
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Yes, MacGuffins are essential to the genre I guess - Hellmaster's Jar, Sword of Light etc.
For random events, the things that strike me relate to the inevitable plot misdirection that is so characteristic of this type of anime:
1. The NPC hero is actually a villain.
2. The villain is actually your long lost sister!
3. The MacGuffin is actually an evil alien entity bent on opening a portal to the Netherverse.
4. It is your 'time of the month' and you can not cast magic during this session.
5. You are insulted by everyone in this town for some reason.
6. That octopus you just ate...wasn't quite dead.
I think you can have a lot of fun with this.
By the way, I started reading your blog after seeing your posts. My daughters are massive anime fans and I believe they will LOVE your other games. You need to get some of these published soon I think.
Also liking your podcast. You talk considerably more sense, with a lot more to say, than most others.
(I have the Maid RPG but have not played yet...I must)
Also thinking on the 'Nutjob Cleric'. Perhaps Amelia is more of a 'Warrior / Cleric for JUSTICE'...(Chaotic Good alignment anyone?) rather than a straight nutjob?
Also, Zelos...hmmm...'Devious Monster' perhaps?
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I've been working on this plenty more, and on Friday night I ran my first playtest, which went really well overall. I think there's room for improvement, but it's the kind of thing where DW's shortcomings are subtle enough that it's hard to know what needs to be done.
The good news was that the setup worked really well, and made it easy to come up with a starting situation. The PCs were a Pure Sacrifice (a princess burdened by Destiny), a Dumb Fighter, and a Conniving Thief. Each character has two Temptations, and then a Heart's Desire (which is a more specific thing stemming from one of the temptations). Combined with Hx, we got a situation where the Pure Sacrifice had to journey to another city to retrieve the All-Seeing Eye of Agamato, with the fighter her sworn protector and the thief both obsessed with stealing the Eye and secretly in love with the Sacrifice. Much wackiness ensued with the dread necromancer's undead minions attacking.
The game presently has 5 stats:
Charm (manipulate someone)
Guts (endure strife, kick some ass)
Magic (spout lore)
Sanity (act sensibly despite temptation)
Wits (read someone, run away)
I think having both endure strife and kick some ass on the same stat may have been a mistake, since the Dumb Fighter's Guts+2 let her handle *every* combat situation really well. (Though it didn't help that neither of the other PCs took moves that would let them do well in combat.) But then I'm really not sure how to rearrange the stats.
I think I'm still getting the hang of writing up character types, because relatively few non-basic moves came into play during the game. (Also, I gave the Pure Sacrifice some moves that key off of her being captured, which seems to be too specific without some mechanism to have her be captured a lot.) I'm also concerned that I've given character types too many moves that go off of their best attribute, but I'm not sure how much that's a thing to really worry about in AW.
But, working on new character types is still really, really fun, and I've found that people who take an interest in the game very frequently have suggestions for new character types. I have a list of like 20 possible ones, and I'm currently writing up the Angsty Shadow Warrior (for Drizzt and other angsty born in darkness types), the Chosen Visitor (a Japanese teenager who's been pulled into the fantasy world), and Psycho Warlord (a take on the D&D4e warlord class, though I may need to come up with a better name).
Another nifty thing I added was a "scenes from a hat" rule, which you can use in place of the random event table, either preemptively or after the table gets stale, which is where the MC asks the players a leading question ("What's weird thing could happen while you're fighting undead?"), which they write on slips of paper to be drawn randomly. That's how the game ended up having its own version of Murray the Demonic Skull from Monkey Island.
My friends were pretty happy with the result and want to play more, so while it needs more work, I think it's on the right track at least.
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I'm not a huge anime watcher, but am at least aware of some of the genre conventions. Like you, I also have fond memories of Toon, and the Loonyacy of the Tooniversal Tour Guide. :)
Anyway, this sounds like an interesting and challenging hack- does the 6- result in a comedy genre (Falling Down? Being Humiliated?) need to have the same narrative drive as a Hard Move in AW, and if so what does that look like? That's what struck me on reading the Explosive Mage.
The Animation Controller (AC) sets up the embarrasment, then follows through on a missed roll? Guidelines on how to do comedy gaming would be something special. I'd be very interested to see what else you've come up with since this slightly necro-ed post...
Had a thought about the Sacrifice and being captured- perhaps give them a move like the Savvyheads where Hold can be spent to have them being on-the-spot:
Damsel in Distress: at the beginning of the session, roll+(Primary Stat: Charm has a certain logic). On a 10+, hold 1+1. On a 7–9, hold 1. At any time, either you or the AC can spend your hold to have you already be captured, with your friends knowing where you are and/or the Adventure Maguffin on scene, with or without any clear explanation why. If your hold was 1+1, take +1forward now. On a miss, the AC holds 1, and can spend it to have you already be captured, but in an embarrassing, compromising or comedic situation.
Or maybe it's a 10+ Hold 1+1 and choose three when the Hold is spent, 7-9 Hold 1 and choose one:
-The Maguffin is on scene
-You can expect rescue soon
-They know who you are
-They don't know who you are
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I'm totally going to have to sit down and think about more interesting and silly stuff happening on a 6-, Cneph. Thanks. :3
Dragon World has kind of ended up on the back burner as I concentrate on Magical World instead, but the other day I had what I thought was kind of a nifty idea, which was to give the various improvement options some flavor in addition to the mechanical benefit. So for example the Explosive Mage might have:
- Get +1eldritch (max eldritch+3), and your eyes start glowing whenever you cast a spell.
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Uh-oh, her Eldritch Eyes are glowing again! Duck!
I like that.
+1 Charm and your eyes now seem strangely (but appealingly) large in relation to the rest of your face.
Sorry to hear Dragon World is on the back burner, I'd still be interested in seeing what you've come up with so far.
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Over this weekend I got all inspired and put together a complete draft of Dragon World (http://yarukizero.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/dragon-world-hack-v0-1/). I'm hoping to get in some more play soon.
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It occurs to me that I should update here too. I wrote two blog posts on what I've been working on for Dragon World:
http://yarukizero.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/dragon-world-monsterhearts-lessons/ (http://yarukizero.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/dragon-world-monsterhearts-lessons/)
http://yarukizero.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/dragon-world-moar-stuff/ (http://yarukizero.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/dragon-world-moar-stuff/)
The shorter version:
I've concluded that AW's system of marking experience during play just doesn't work for me and my group, so I replaced it with a "levelling up" mechanic where players just get an advance once per session.
I'm introducing a currency called "Guts," which players can spend to not Fall Down (and for a few other things). The drawback is that you have to make a roll to not have a Stress Explosion and act crazy for a while. (Not unlike the Stress Explosions in Maid RPG.) I'm still working out how exactly PCs gain Guts points though.
I'm replacing History/Connections with a "story threads" system. Basically you make a list of "story elements," which include each of the PCs, plus one other element (a prop, NPC, etc.) contributed from each player. Each character type has a set of story threads with a fill in the blank kind of like Bonds in Dungeon World. These aren't for any game mechanics per se, but hopefully they'll help develop an interesting starting situation.
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Hokay, here's the new Dragon World Hack (http://yarukizero.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/dragon-world-hack-v0-2/)!
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Cool, thanks for posting this up! Looks like you've given some thought to the DM sections and to providing some resources.
Are you looking for feedback from a read through? If not, ignore the below. :)
I'm guessing you used a cool font for the headings... Because they don't display in GoodReader on my iPad. E.g. The bit directly under Moves and Dice.
Also, there is a When you actually stop and think, roll 2d6 + Sane move on page 8. Is this space intentionally left blank? ;) That could make some sense...
Could the after 5 advances options maybe be fitted somewhere onto the player reference sheets? Or on the the generic side?
So really, thats pretty petty stuff. Nice work. I'd like to give it a try sometime, if ai can rustle interest in the genre. Probably should watch some Slayers first, though.
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So I ran this tonight, excellent fun was had by the Explosive Mage, food cult Nutjob Cleric, Conniving Thief and Twinky Shaman. They started on the run from the mob/city guard after their last misadventure, escaped (thru fast-talk and fire, a recurring theme) went on a quest for the Ultimate Spell (the Destruction of Magnus Varga), the Last Seed of the Great Oak-en, the Holy Golden Pizza Slice, and stealing said holy item.
In the course of reckless disregard for the safety of themselves and others, and an only partially successful selling out of the party to a Minotaur cultist, they found themselves as sacrificial toppings on the Great Pizza Stone (deep dish) of the heretic sect of food cultists (toppings first, then cheese!)
Things I found tricky, other can coming up with streams of nonsense...
- spouting lore, who says what the lore they are spouting about is? I had the players narrate things, then adjudicated based on the roll. This may or may not have been correct?
- felt I had to rush in a move to get a clue and just up and told them what the macguffin was (cause the great pizza maker to lose faith). I was running in a just over 2 hour slot, we were failing a lot of rolls, and I wanted to finish up with a win. Or at least a powered up Big Bang that blew everything up.
- I was also trying to fit in as many hearts desires in as possible, which may have been a bit much for a oneshot. But it was a conscious decision, and you do address this in the game text.
- the list of moves are very different from other AW derivatives, much less, well, hard. I did make people Fall Down where appropriate. I'd need to think about them more, the instincts about which to apply on failed rolls, and when you apply them (a lot of moves specify what happens on failure, do I still remove a clue or whatever?)
- some temptations are easier to invoke than others. Food and shiny things was easy, The mage self compelled bragging, but Telling Lies? Less concrete things seemed harder to fit in.
Things I could do better
- I didnt go through guts points thoroughly enough, we missed the use to avoid falling down, which would have made me feel better about that removal of player agency if we'd picked up on it.
-two of the players, one totally new to tabletop rpg btw, wanted to spend more than one guts point at once to boost a roll by 3. In fairness I don't think it says you can't, But I said no. Also no to the Shaman cursing herself, into a Dragon.
Things that went perhaps suprisingly well
- no one had seen much, or any, genre anime, and I've only watched a bit, so the alt-sell of silly DND and Diskworld got us through. Though one player had in his head this was a sendup of 12 year olds playing DND, which I guess isn't too far off base. The character sheets (we only read the phrase out loud, time constraints) moves and flavor text seemed to really get the players into the idea of the characters and genre pretty well, the players enjoyed reading and picking moves.
Things to do again
- prod and poke at the hearts desire until you get something concrete and pursuable. Then ask more questions.
But, everyone said it was a lot of fun, the players laughed a lot, so I'd like to say thanks for putting this together. A success!