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We've played two more sessions now! I can't really say the rules have really brought it, though. The players are starting to realise that it's almost completely player-driven, so hopefully we'll pick up plot as we go along. I've been handing out some Issues, people are chipping away at their quests, but mostly the rules don't add much. No-one has ever run out of Will during a chapter, which I think is a combination of two things. Firstly, we don't really know what genre we're in and how long chapters should be. Secondly, no-one has claimed an Intention longer than a single action, and I don't think of asking about Intention levels for every single thing. For example, I could start asking about the intention levels for entering the scary house, searching through the drawers, going upstairs even though the others saw a monster there before, reading the small runes on the wall, etc to show people that that poo poo is expensive, and they should just drop an ongoing intention to "Explore the house". Is that about right, do you think? -- A brief session log: In the second session, Yon was going sailing with his father. He proved that he could hoist the sails all by himself! Kem and Kima were out looking at the byak (their new name for the bear-yak-like creature Kima trapped). Kem went to the lake to see if Yon could get him a fish to feed it. He got lost – his afflicition is "I get lost if at all possible"! In the meantime, Kima had an encounter with a majestic elk-like creature with very large horns, who seemed to communicate with the byak. Kima hid in a tree. Kem eventually found the lake and got a fish from Yon's father. He took Yon back to the byak, who liked the fish! A storm was brewing, at least according to Yon's father, the old captain. Pami tried to get Sami to help picking berries, but failed; I don't remember the specifics. Pami came up with a great plan: steal some of the others' favourite things and hide them near the bushes, and then when they find them they'll be glad they helped pick the berries! She sneaks up and takes Kem's animal book, Sami's watch (I think) and Kima's knife. She hid them in the attic until the next day; while there she found a secret "room" underneath an old bed. The others ended up finding her, and in the secret room there were a lot of pinecones and a map, with an X over the scary house Sami found. Pami enacted the plan, but I don't remember the exact details. Sami and Kima got their things back, but were suspicious. Kem's book was left in the attic for some reason. Kem wrote a letter to the Royal Academy of Science explaining their find, the byak. He delivered it to the postman when he came around. Sami, Kima and Kem went to the scary house. They got all the way up the stairs before they were accosted by a monster! They ran away. Yon invited Pami to play at his house. Yon made a small animal out of a pinecone and some sticks (this is a level 2 skill Yon has), and then they spent the rest of the day drawing. The storm obviously struck when the adventurous kids were on their way home. They were eventually found by Pami, who helped their mother look for them. Wet, tired and cold, they got scolded for being out in the storm. This was a session break, and in the third session it really took off. Sadly without Yon, as his player couldn't attend. I'll write up the third session as soon as I have time. Tiger fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Oct 24, 2014 |
# ? Oct 23, 2014 10:56 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 16:20 |
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Me and my friend backed the kickstarted and received our copies a while ago. We are both interested in the title, but neither of us know how to run it. We've never done a "slice of life" game before. We do understand there is very detailed advice in the book, but we still don't get how to run the game. As in, we don't understand how to really set-up a plot and have it work. What I mean is...how do you keep to a point in a slice of life game? How do you keep things moving? To be more precise, how do you really prepare for a campaign in Chuubos? We're both more used to dungeon crawling and mystery games so this is new to us. The game gives get advice for genres, but we just can't really wrap our heads around it. Also, we're not the best with understanding the mechanics either, if I can mention that quickly as well.
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# ? Oct 24, 2014 04:58 |
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Covok posted:Me and my friend backed the kickstarted and received our copies a while ago. We are both interested in the title, but neither of us know how to run it. We've never done a "slice of life" game before. We do understand there is very detailed advice in the book, but we still don't get how to run the game. As in, we don't understand how to really set-up a plot and have it work. What I mean is...how do you keep to a point in a slice of life game? How do you keep things moving? To be more precise, how do you really prepare for a campaign in Chuubos? We're both more used to dungeon crawling and mystery games so this is new to us. The game gives get advice for genres, but we just can't really wrap our heads around it. Here's what I've fathomed from reading the book: 1. Your characters are driven by their Arc, their current Quests, their Issues, their Bonds/Afflictions, and their XP Emotions and Actions. If a player isn't sure what to do, have them do something related to one of those. 2. Same with the plots. You should have an overarching plot (IIRC, you can make a group Quest that everyone can put XP towards), but it should be something really simple. That way, what really gives the characters direction is their own struggles. That's how you keep to a point or keep things moving: just have the player work towards one of their quests. 3. Campaigns are designed around four things: Books, Sessions, Chapters, and Scenes. A Scene is about 15 minutes long. A Chapter is between 1 and 6 Scenes long. A Session is approximately 3 chapters, or on average about 4 hours. And a Book is 2-5 Sessions. Basically, however much you'd expect to happen in something of that narrative length, that's what should happen. 4. The mechanics are pretty simple. There are basically two things worth thinking about : XP and Intentions. You get XP by doing Quests, receiving XP by inspiring your XP Emotion, or performing the XP Actions. Once you get a certain amount of XP, you can complete a Quest. After you complete a certain amount of Quests, you can finish part of an Arc. The other thing, Intentions, is the action resolution system. Whenever you focus on an action, that's an Intention. You can do two of them at once. If you want to really focus on something or work really hard on it, you have to spend Will. You add your Will to either your Skill level or the greatest Bonus you can apply, then subtract the Obstacle or other penalties to the action. There's also Miracles, but that's basically just Intentions, only Magical, and you spend MP instead of Will. (Kind of. It's a little more complicated than that.) Is there something other than that that's confusing you?
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# ? Oct 25, 2014 00:27 |
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Covok posted:Me and my friend backed the kickstarted and received our copies a while ago. We are both interested in the title, but neither of us know how to run it. We've never done a "slice of life" game before. We do understand there is very detailed advice in the book, but we still don't get how to run the game. As in, we don't understand how to really set-up a plot and have it work. What I mean is...how do you keep to a point in a slice of life game? How do you keep things moving? To be more precise, how do you really prepare for a campaign in Chuubos? We're both more used to dungeon crawling and mystery games so this is new to us. The game gives get advice for genres, but we just can't really wrap our heads around it. Generally speaking, setting up your Arcs and quests at the beginning will frontload most of this for you. Once you know what's the big project in your characters life, and you know that you'll be taking at least one slice-of-life-y action every chapter, that should keep you to the "point" of slice-of-life gaming without you having to do much else. So, what you actually have to do on-the-fly will be anything that isn't obviously slice-of-life. If you want to have an adventurous, mysterious, or wicked interlude (as slice-of-life stories sometimes do), that's the part you'll have to deliberately introduce while running the game.
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# ? Oct 25, 2014 01:04 |
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Rand Brittain posted:Generally speaking, setting up your Arcs and quests at the beginning will frontload most of this for you. Once you know what's the big project in your characters life, and you know that you'll be taking at least one slice-of-life-y action every chapter, that should keep you to the "point" of slice-of-life gaming without you having to do much else. ActingPower posted:Here's what I've fathomed from reading the book: No, that was pretty much it when it came to our questions. This really helped us out. Thank you.
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# ? Oct 26, 2014 20:42 |
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Also, Issue cards are now available in print-on-demand for those who want them.
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# ? Oct 27, 2014 23:38 |
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In an incredibly timely fashion, the Chuubo Halloween Special arrives on DTRPG! (It's a one-shot campaign for four players.)
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# ? Nov 6, 2014 00:44 |
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I've been reading through the book on my commute and I'm currently about halfway through the Setting chapter. Still not completely sure how to run a game, but I'm hoping it'll become clear. One thing I'm pretty sure of; there's approximately 0% chance I'll be able to get most of the people I regularly RP with to read a 577 page book. What would really be useful (and I would happily pay $5 or so for) would be a Player's Summary Manual. It'd be 25-35 pages (6x9 or A5) with decent margins, something roughly like Fate Accelerated Edition. Preferably there would be two editions, one for mundane campaigns and one for magical, so I could simply hand the appropriate version to my players. Everything would be covered in brief and end with "for more detail on this topic, consult Chapter FOO of Chuubo's or ask your HG". Basically I think the first 5 pages would cover Skills, Intentions, Obstacles and Will. Another 5 pages on genres? Then 2-3 pages on character creation, followed by 10 pages on quests, 2-3 pages on arcs, and 5-6 pages on both health/wounds and issues. It might be possible to actually play with just the Summary Manual, though I doubt it, but I think even a version that gives the short bits followed by a cross reference to the full explanation would be very helpful. inklesspen fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Nov 9, 2014 |
# ? Nov 9, 2014 01:56 |
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inklesspen posted:I've been reading through the book on my commute and I'm currently about halfway through the Setting chapter. Still not completely sure how to run a game, but I'm hoping it'll become clear. Noted. Normally, my to-do list would be too long for new projects, but I've had some thoughts moving in this direction anyway, and it does sound like a sensible and quick project, so maybe it'll happen!
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# ? Nov 9, 2014 07:05 |
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Chuubo is now available as part of the latest Bundle of Holding if you missed it before.
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# ? Nov 28, 2014 05:11 |
I'm waiting for PoD.
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# ? Nov 28, 2014 10:36 |
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Little_wh0re posted:I'm waiting for PoD. PoD should go live as soon as the Kickstarter backers start receiving their copies.
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# ? Nov 28, 2014 17:53 |
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Jenna's finally got her Patreon up, and is using it to fund some miscellaneous content, including some new Arcs for Chuubo starting with the Called Away arc that's appearing on her Tumblr. It looks like there's going to be some new Nobilis content I've never heard of at $300. I didn't know there was Nobilis content I hadn't heard of! That's disturbing!
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# ? Dec 30, 2014 21:40 |
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Can someone please explain to me what the techno sub-genre is supposed to be?
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# ? Jan 18, 2015 14:13 |
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SwimGood posted:Can someone please explain to me what the techno sub-genre is supposed to be? It's Immersive Fantasy with added anime weirdness. It's Utena, Penguindrum, and that sort of thing. It's like urban fantasy, but you're also having confusing visions or weird waking dreams and you don't have to worry about whether they make sense or not.
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# ? Jan 18, 2015 17:54 |
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Rand Brittain posted:It's Immersive Fantasy with added anime weirdness. It's Utena, Penguindrum, and that sort of thing. It's like urban fantasy, but you're also having confusing visions or weird waking dreams and you don't have to worry about whether they make sense or not. I'm not very strong on anime. So it's urban fantasy with magical/surrealist metaphysics? In other words, would Norther Exposure or Twin Peaks be typical of Techno?
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# ? Jan 19, 2015 01:47 |
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SwimGood posted:I'm not very strong on anime. So it's urban fantasy with magical/surrealist metaphysics? In other words, would Norther Exposure or Twin Peaks be typical of Techno? I'm not familiar with Northern Exposure, but that sounds about right.
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# ? Jan 19, 2015 02:35 |
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SwimGood posted:I'm not very strong on anime. So it's urban fantasy with magical/surrealist metaphysics? In other words, would Norther Exposure or Twin Peaks be typical of Techno? Pretty much anything by David Lynch is a good primer for Techno. Basically the world is magical, there's always something to discover but unlike urban/immersive fantasy the game is explicitly supposed to go completely off the rails from time to time and not make sense; you can jump from fantastic reality to outright surreal dream-sequence without having to worry too much about whether there's an internal logic behind it, and the game provides rules for doing so. (The Ritual and Transition rules.) Certain miraculous character Arcs (most notably Creature of the Light) have power sets that allow you to do this sort of thing in other genres as well.
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# ? Jan 19, 2015 03:20 |
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That's pretty awesome. I've been looking for something that could run Earthbound for ages, so I bought the pdf and realised that it'd be better for 90s weird/magical realist/supernatural shows. Especially the mystery ones. I've only just skimmed it though so it might still do Earthbound (as I was told it would). Are there any APs out there yet?
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# ? Jan 19, 2015 07:21 |
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SwimGood posted:That's pretty awesome. I've been looking for something that could run Earthbound for ages, so I bought the pdf and realised that it'd be better for 90s weird/magical realist/supernatural shows. Especially the mystery ones. I've only just skimmed it though so it might still do Earthbound (as I was told it would). Are there any APs out there yet? I think it could probably do Earthbound, yes. Pastoral mode sounds about right. For APs, Chuubostuck is one of the longer-running ones.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 02:52 |
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While I know General Ironicus hinted at doing one, does anyone know any good actual plays of Chuubo's? Just curious.
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# ? Mar 23, 2015 03:35 |
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Covok posted:While I know General Ironicus hinted at doing one, does anyone know any good actual plays of Chuubo's? Just curious. What funny timing, that's what I'm looking for as well. Most of the discussion I can find about this game revolve around the lore connections to Nobilis and the metaplot. In fact this thread is the first place I found that wasn't.
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# ? May 31, 2015 21:35 |
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We started our game of this last night and it seems pretty fun so far? The biggest obstacle I think was digesting the huge character play books and working out that there wasn't actually all that much that you needed to know - most of the writing is examples or in-depth explanations or inspiration if you get stuck. We had a pretty easy-going first session, with Jade Irinka and Shoukyu cleaning the Yatskaya shrine, fetching tea from Miramie's new shop, finding out tea deliveries are going missing, running into Leonardo de Montreal and accidentally inspiring him to make shops sentient, and eventually finding out the missing tea was due to the harbourmaster being ~mysteriously hypnotised~ by Outside dust leaving the harbour to fall into chaos. The system was pretty simple to get a hold of and it was great to have quests there to tell you what your objectives should be or what fun things you could do to advance your plot. We didn't use Issues at all and I'm a little worried they'll complicate things a lot but I'm looking forward to trying them out!
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# ? Jun 2, 2015 08:24 |
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Flavivirus posted:We started our game of this last night and it seems pretty fun so far? The biggest obstacle I think was digesting the huge character play books and working out that there wasn't actually all that much that you needed to know - most of the writing is examples or in-depth explanations or inspiration if you get stuck. We had a pretty easy-going first session, with Jade Irinka and Shoukyu cleaning the Yatskaya shrine, fetching tea from Miramie's new shop, finding out tea deliveries are going missing, running into Leonardo de Montreal and accidentally inspiring him to make shops sentient, and eventually finding out the missing tea was due to the harbourmaster being ~mysteriously hypnotised~ by Outside dust leaving the harbour to fall into chaos. Cool, just a question, have you used just the premade quests so far or have you used some of your own yet? How does making your own quest on the fly go?
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# ? Jun 4, 2015 04:09 |
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Just using the premade ones - we're working through the Glass-Maker's Dragon campaign and using the quests in that. It seems on the face of it that it shouldn't be too hard to make your own quests though; just eyeball how much XP it'll take, think up a few one-off xp conditions and some more ongoing ones, and work out what perks you get for finishing it. It looks like there are enough quests in the main book to give lots of inspiration for this, though if we do run into difficulties I'll let you know.
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# ? Jun 4, 2015 08:16 |
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Had a second session last night - game is still fun. Got a few new quests like learning the Cat-Speaker's family magic and joining School's golf club despite haunting premonitions of death at the hands of a laser-guided golfing robot, and started playing around with Issues. I think we're getting more comfortable with the skill system though we haven't done much with miracles yet. One of the most interesting things about this game so far is that it centres the play experience around experiencing life in Fortitude rather than pursuing objectives. Sure, you do have goals from your quests, but the main way you get the XP to fulfill the quests is to bond with npcs or other players as they go about their lives or remark on the world around them. Really you could reduce the game down to just the quests and XP actions and I think it would still work really well - skills and miracles are still great but they're not the core mechanic they appear to be.
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# ? Jun 9, 2015 10:03 |
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Flavivirus posted:Had a second session last night - game is still fun. Got a few new quests like learning the Cat-Speaker's family magic and joining School's golf club despite haunting premonitions of death at the hands of a laser-guided golfing robot, and started playing around with Issues. I think we're getting more comfortable with the skill system though we haven't done much with miracles yet. Thanks for posting your impressions, they help a lot. Edit: this is such a stupid question, but I honestly can't figure it out: what actually advances Issues? XP actions, or just actions that "fit" the issue? mycot fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Jun 12, 2015 |
# ? Jun 12, 2015 05:37 |
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I'm pretty sure they advance using the same conditions for you picking them up to begin with; you do an out of genre or particularly meaningful XP reaction and the GM recognises it and bumps you up the issue track. Of course once you have an issue people are going to be on the lookout for advancing that specific issue, so you're more likely to advance that one rather than pick up any others.
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# ? Jun 12, 2015 08:16 |
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Covok posted:While I know General Ironicus hinted at doing one, does anyone know any good actual plays of Chuubo's? Just curious. I wasn't following anything when you asked this, but I was recently pointed to: On the Horizon Mysteries of the Far Roofs Glass Maker's Dragon
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# ? Jun 27, 2015 02:25 |
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Are there any top-secret games about Chuubo at Gen Con?
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# ? Jul 25, 2015 10:17 |
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Chuubo's is apparently going out now, print-on-demand. Interesting.
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# ? Aug 1, 2015 06:16 |
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And on that note, a quick question for Jenna (if she's not too busy) or anybody familiar with DTRPG's POD options: Do the standard and premium color hardcovers differ in their binding? In particular, are they both perfect bound, or is one (or both) sewn? If standard is perfect bound and premium is sewn, that makes premium an instant buy for me (though that seems highly unlikely). If they are both perfect bound, then I'll need to think about it a bit more. Also, are the core-set physical quest cards going to be available again soon? I put off ordering physical copies until the physical book appeared, but I really do want the cards as well. Flavivirus posted:Really you could reduce the game down to just the quests and XP actions and I think it would still work really well - skills and miracles are still great but they're not the core mechanic they appear to be. This is my experience exactly. I tried a solo (pastoral) game as a writing exercise, and the first book more or less ended up being solely about XP actions and quests as pacing mechanisms. With the second book I'm starting to try to bring in more of the skill+will mechanics and also issues, just so I can get comfortable with them, but for solo gaming, I've found XP actions and quests to provide an almost perfect amount of structure.
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# ? Aug 1, 2015 08:47 |
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Alhireth-Hotep posted:And on that note, a quick question for Jenna (if she's not too busy) or anybody familiar with DTRPG's POD options: Do the standard and premium color hardcovers differ in their binding? In particular, are they both perfect bound, or is one (or both) sewn? If standard is perfect bound and premium is sewn, that makes premium an instant buy for me (though that seems highly unlikely). If they are both perfect bound, then I'll need to think about it a bit more. As far as I know DriveThruRPG only offers perfect bound, so that's what they'll be.
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# ? Aug 1, 2015 09:49 |
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Yeah, it's my understanding that the one and only difference between standard and premium is the thickness and quality of the paper (and the effect of this on the size and weight of the book).
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# ? Aug 1, 2015 15:36 |
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I didn't know that we had a thread all for Chuubo! If I did, I would have asked my questions here instead of the chat thread. I have reached the setting section of the book, and it's pretty great! Not only as a setting, but also as a collection of mechanics examples.
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# ? Aug 2, 2015 08:58 |
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Okay, the copies of the book being ordered for backers through the courtesy of Christopher Humphrey are beginning to ship, although owing to some of the limitations of the current software this is basically happening one-at-a-time.
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# ? Aug 8, 2015 02:07 |
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I just woke up from a dream in which there was a Chuubo's spinoff for the genre conventions of shōjo manga, and it doesn't actually exist, and now I'm sad.
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# ? Aug 8, 2015 12:09 |
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You say that like you can't run Chuubo to handle a shoujo story already.
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# ? Aug 8, 2015 16:36 |
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Sure, but there were entirely different arc and quest writeups. And the art was nice.
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# ? Aug 8, 2015 17:01 |
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# ? May 11, 2024 16:20 |
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Got my hardback copy. It's really beautiful. Just need to face up to the unlikely-to-ever-play-this problem.
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# ? Aug 9, 2015 01:25 |