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Tollymain
Jul 9, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
i have no idea how this game works, somebody sell the system on me

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Bongo Bill
Jan 17, 2012

And me, also.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
All right!

At heart, the Chuubo engine is all about helping you answer the question "So, what happens next?" (It also has a more standard resolution system underneath, but this is secondary and it's not uncommon to see play groups actively ignore it.) Players start the process by choosing quests that frontload specific dramatic possibilities they want to see happen, and the quests provide them with an overall structure and a series of bullet-points to shoot for (as you can see in the example card about blackmailing your dog).

Meanwhile, in between events relating to your personal story, the eight genre modes provide the beats that will fill in the spaces between episodes of plot and determine the pace. If you're doing Immersive Fantasy, the standard things to do when you aren't doing anything else are "Discover something new," "react to the world around you," or "have a sudden emotional reaction to a discovery/sympathize with somebody who is." This tends to mean that, whatever you're up to, the basic tone is going to be one of constantly discovering things and experiencing wonder, and you'll be doing this several times in a day.

If you're playing a Pastoral game, on the other hand, the basic beats are "do ordinary things with someone else," "talk about your feelings with someone else," and "react to the world around you." This means that forward motion on the plot is going to be constantly interspersed with scenes where you drink tea, watch the sunset, and say "Ah." Because really, what else is there to say? And in between the times you say "Ah," whole weeks can fly by, and before you know it it's Pancake Week again.

It may take a little getting used to, because it's pretty different from the rhythm of other games, but I think it has a lot of potential and people seem to be having fun putting it through its paces.

ibntumart
Mar 18, 2007

Good, bad. I'm the one with the power of Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aton, and Mehen.
College Slice
I think I would enjoy giving Immersive Fantasy a whirl as long as someone who understood the game well (or at least better than me!) were running it.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Pastoral sounds like it'd be the perfect Touhou sim if you added 'Pointless Danmaku Battle Over Petty Stakes' into that list of beats.

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

Ratoslov posted:

Pastoral sounds like it'd be the perfect Touhou sim if you added 'Pointless Danmaku Battle Over Petty Stakes' into that list of beats.

The role of pointless danmaku battles in the Pastoral genre is actually just obfuscated rather than missing---

In an earlier version of the rules, the "Slice of Life" Action that Rand describes as "react to the world" had about a zillion things going on with it, and it'd be quite normal to have Slice of Life bits that were like,

Flurry of basically meaningless action!
Wry comment on it from one PC to another.
Grin or sigh or roll eyes or whatever at that comment.
Shift to another location!
Flurry of basically meaningless action!
Pause to admire a tree or something.
Flurry of basically meaningless action!
The sun begins to rise ...

... but the old rules were too complicated, and eventually it all got boiled down to "experience something flavorful, declare that that mood or image sticks with you." Plus various small things scattered throughout the system as examples or optional rules or suggestions or more general resolution rules to to keep as much of the original concept without forcing players to remember it all as possible.

Still, even though I need all those words to make it not ridiculous-sounding, "oh, pointless danmaku battles fall under the 'react to the world' beat" is actually pretty solid. ^_^

Unless they're actually hard-fought and totally leave the victor in question IC; those might need a different genre or at least the occasional indulgence in an out-of-genre action.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
OP updated with the final cover image.

narm00
Feb 18, 2006
The PDF's now up for sale on DriveThruRPG.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
I've updated the OP to reflect this fact!

Now to get ready to do a rundown for FATAL & Friends.

occamsnailfile
Nov 4, 2007



zamtrios so lonely
Grimey Drawer
I bought the ePub version and was quite satisfied with it as a reading copy, bought it around the time the dog martial arts thing was making the rounds. Now the PDF's out, is there any way to get a discount to grab that too? Or PoD, I just want to see the formally laid out version as well and have a nice tablet and/or shelf spot.

ETA: I hope more games do e-reader versions, my tablet can do some PDF viewing fairly well but some books use smaller type than others and many other complaints of the PDF reader.

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

occamsnailfile posted:

I bought the ePub version and was quite satisfied with it as a reading copy, bought it around the time the dog martial arts thing was making the rounds. Now the PDF's out, is there any way to get a discount to grab that too? Or PoD, I just want to see the formally laid out version as well and have a nice tablet and/or shelf spot.

ETA: I hope more games do e-reader versions, my tablet can do some PDF viewing fairly well but some books use smaller type than others and many other complaints of the PDF reader.

It looks like the DriveThru mechanism for giving out discounts is to send email with a discount code to people who own the ePub but not the PDF.

So I plan to arrange for that discount, but I want to let kickstarter sponsors pick up their copies first so that they're not on that list.

Flavivirus
Dec 14, 2011

The next stage of evolution.
Just started looking through my kickstarter copy and wow, the formatting and art really makes a huge difference to how it looked back during the playtest. I also really appreciate the streamlining that's been done to arcs and actions - while the playtest was definitely really fun it often felt like post-hoc struggling to fit scenes into very narrow boxes, and it looks a lot more natural now. I'm looking forward to trying it out!

e: Also, the Fading rules are a really neat way of handling spotlight time and character balance in a system where actions get you XP.

Mile'ionaha
Nov 2, 2004

I actually ran a decently long Nobilis campaign, goodness knows when I'll find a solid group to run this in, but no damns given!

I am really happy to contribute to something new and interesting in the gaming world. Been a longtime fan of your work, Jenna.

Also, I have a sweet boat now.



Say, how well would this game work in, say, chat-RP or various fandom RPs? I've often asserted that you could sell a million copies of an RPG book if only you could prove that it would add something to, like, Livejournal games. There are hundreds of thousands of roleplayers who don't think of themselves as 'RPG' people because they don't use a system or dice to write their collaborative fiction.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Flavivirus
Dec 14, 2011

The next stage of evolution.

Mile'ionaha posted:

Say, how well would this game work in, say, chat-RP or various fandom RPs? I've often asserted that you could sell a million copies of an RPG book if only you could prove that it would add something to, like, Livejournal games. There are hundreds of thousands of roleplayers who don't think of themselves as 'RPG' people because they don't use a system or dice to write their collaborative fiction.


I can certainly say Chuubo's works very well in an online format - potentially better than tabletop, as it'd be easier to express emoting or claiming XP actions in a way that doesn't break immersion (say, having set text colours for certain emotions). I'd guess the main benefit the Chuubo system has is offering a way of tracking character development and goal progress in a simple and immersive, and while it might not be a big deal to most RPers I could see some enjoying the structure it gives the game.

Empress Theonora
Feb 19, 2001

She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
I'm so excited this is finally out! I hope I get a chance to actually play it at some point. :v:

inklesspen
Oct 17, 2007

Here I am coming, with the good news of me, and you hate it. You can think only of the bell and how much I have it, and you are never the goose. I will run around with my bell as much as I want and you will make despair.
Buglord
I'm still reading Chuubo and I'm not sure I understand what's going on yet. But I do have two questions?

Would using Storium to play Chuubo be feasible? Or are its mechanics too different?

And how feasible is it to use the different Chuubo rules and genres in an existing fantasy setting like Golarion?

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

Mile'ionaha posted:

I actually ran a decently long Nobilis campaign, goodness knows when I'll find a solid group to run this in, but no damns given!

I am really happy to contribute to something new and interesting in the gaming world. Been a longtime fan of your work, Jenna.

Also, I have a sweet boat now.



Say, how well would this game work in, say, chat-RP or various fandom RPs? I've often asserted that you could sell a million copies of an RPG book if only you could prove that it would add something to, like, Livejournal games. There are hundreds of thousands of roleplayers who don't think of themselves as 'RPG' people because they don't use a system or dice to write their collaborative fiction.



It is consciously designed to be good for such things---but I don't know livejournal games well enough to make any bold claims on the subject without worrying that I'm making a "hey net punks" move.

I'm hoping that some portions of it catch on---Issues, quests, or the Glass-Maker's Dragon being the likely suspects, since XP Actions would need context-specific optimization and emotion XP will rapidly become "a concept created in Chuubo's" rather than "a Chuubo's thing" if it does spread---at which point I'll be able to refine the game for such things.

I mean, I *really* think the basic toolkit would be good for such things: it's designed to create the kind of stories you see in a carefully-plotted and edited novel from the random impulses of a bunch of players and some just-in-time rules reactions thereto, and before I started simplifying it for tabletop play it was roughly as good of a storyteller as I am.

But I can make no claim whatsoever of knowing the state of the art there, or the common complaints, or anything, so I'm not in a great position to push for its adoption there. (I should have investigated it, really, but first I need to get the already-written books out the door and then like sleep for six years or something and then wake up bright and perky and able to investigate potential avenues of coolness. ^_^)

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

inklesspen posted:

I'm still reading Chuubo and I'm not sure I understand what's going on yet. But I do have two questions?

Would using Storium to play Chuubo be feasible? Or are its mechanics too different?

And how feasible is it to use the different Chuubo rules and genres in an existing fantasy setting like Golarion?

Storium would be a weird combo with the rules---kind of peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwich, y'know? Not to everyone's taste, but not completely out or anything.

Using the rules in an existing setting is 100% possible. Possibly even 110% possible or more. See, if you strip away style and approach, the baseline setting is a biome fantasy. Like Torg, y'know? Just, just from the school of magic realism and YA fantasy ("the world is full of amazing stuff, if you just go outside your comfort zone a little bit and open your eyes to wonder") instead of the pulp/camp/extravaganza "meanwhile, in the land of dinosaurs" stuff.

---And that means that, like any biome fantasy game, it's got its own story feel but is adaptable to anything up to the kitchen sink in terms of locations, props, and events.

Doc Aquatic
Jul 30, 2003

Current holder of the Plush-bum Mr. Sweets Chair in American Hobology

Jenna Moran posted:

I mean, I *really* think the basic toolkit would be good for such things: it's designed to create the kind of stories you see in a carefully-plotted and edited novel from the random impulses of a bunch of players and some just-in-time rules reactions thereto, and before I started simplifying it for tabletop play it was roughly as good of a storyteller as I am.

Now I'm really curious about the sorts of things that were streamlined out. I love CMWGE, and the theory that came before the practical application seems like it'd be a really cool thing to dig into.

Calde
Jun 20, 2009

Jenna Moran posted:

Storium would be a weird combo with the rules---kind of peanut-butter-and-banana-sandwich, y'know? Not to everyone's taste, but not completely out or anything.

A toasted peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich is the greatest breakfast ever. What kind of monster wouldn't enjoy those?

Downloading the PDF now, thanks for writing this!

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

Doc Aquatic posted:

Now I'm really curious about the sorts of things that were streamlined out. I love CMWGE, and the theory that came before the practical application seems like it'd be a really cool thing to dig into.

Hm!

So, let's take Adversity. The original rules set was scene-based, and looked sort of like:

• there must be something very wrong
• you either
...o decide you must hide your suffering. You emote endurance or acceptance, or
...o realize that you can't hide your suffering any longer, and emote that.
• whatever you choose, it has to feel at least a little real and at least a little tragic.
• then there must be a heart-wrenching moment, wherein either:
...o something worse and more awful happens
...o you collapse, give up, or, more generally, surrender.

That was what it looked like from the player side, anyway; the rules were phrased a little differently for the HG/objective perspective and came with a couple thousand words of general discussion and a pointer towards Hero, It Never Stops!, and maybe Sickness Issues. Most of that discussion went away, although it'll reappear to some extent when I do a Regionbook for a Road of Trials-type location; the final action wound up being:

Condition: You’re in a really unpleasant place and situation. It’s getting harder and harder to think of anything but how much this really sucks.

Action:
• Tip over the edge into delirium; or
• Just . . . give up.

This is one of the actions that didn't wind up changing much between versions, but even so you can see why the former rules-kit has a bit more utility for forum gaming---it gives whole-scene guidance, so it's more useful, and and it's easier to take advantage of whole-scene guidance and filter scenes on the first bullet point if you're playing in a slow, detached format like forum stuff---and the latter is more tabletop focused, in that it doesn't need you to keep track of any context that isn't immediately on hand.

ActingPower
Jun 4, 2013

Just have to say, I picked up the ePub (without the PDF; I may want to try that discount) and devoured the book in a week. It's just... fantastic! We've got to get some games running on here. I'll lead it if I have to. I'll play by myself if I have to! (Accruing a point of Isolation, of course.) Everything about this system, from the genres to the Afflictions to the freakin' Bleak Academy, just exudes beauty. I can't properly express just how incredible this system is. A lot of the time with new game systems, it takes me a bit to fully wrap my head around what it's trying to do. But Town just... makes sense, fundamentally. It's so freaking cool!

Sorry, that's just me gushing. I picked this up after hearing so many good things, and now I want to try stuff with it. What kind of plans have people got?

Kaja Rainbow
Oct 17, 2012

~Adorable horror~

Mile'ionaha posted:

Say, how well would this game work in, say, chat-RP or various fandom RPs? I've often asserted that you could sell a million copies of an RPG book if only you could prove that it would add something to, like, Livejournal games. There are hundreds of thousands of roleplayers who don't think of themselves as 'RPG' people because they don't use a system or dice to write their collaborative fiction.

As someone who's had some experience with the Livejournal RP community I can offer some commentary on this. If I was to run a game like that, I'd probably use the Mundane rather than Miracle rules and maybe streamline it a little on top of that. Also, it would have to be run with minimal GM involvement but that isn't necessarily a problem given how Chuubo can easily be driven more by the PCs than the GM--I know there were a number of scenes with the GM not doing much of anything but speculating in the one Chuubo game I played in. And a Livejournal (or rather Dreamwidth as most of the community's moved there) game would have tens to hundreds of PCs so there wouldn't be a shortage of characters to interact with.

My main worry is the bookkeeping involved. Every single additional thing to keep track of is more work, and the people running those games already have a lot on their platter even with the freeform format. Did I mention the tens to hundreds of PCs? (Though there're fewer players than that as every player will have anywhere from one to five PCs in a given game.) I've been in at least one game that started with a currency system but abandoned it because it was too much bookkeeping with the number of PCs involved.

That said, it would be an interesting experiment at least. And I know some of those LJ/DW games have more complicated mechanisms than others.

EDIT: Or to put it another way, the kind of game I'm speaking of has more in common with large LARP gatherings than tabletop play. As such, adaptations would have to be made.

Kaja Rainbow fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Aug 23, 2014

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.
I'm having a little trouble understanding one of the issues. It seems to me that they are about becoming a stronger person by learning a lesson, some of which culminate in painful consequences immediately before the issue resolves. But (being a) Hero seems to resolve immediately before you get murdered instead? What am I misunderstanding here?

ActingPower
Jun 4, 2013

DalaranJ posted:

I'm having a little trouble understanding one of the issues. It seems to me that they are about becoming a stronger person by learning a lesson, some of which culminate in painful consequences immediately before the issue resolves. But (being a) Hero seems to resolve immediately before you get murdered instead? What am I misunderstanding here?

You're talking about Hero? Here's what I have (it's from the short version):

Hero Issue posted:

Your life is on course for a climactic confrontation.
0: Everything is under control.
1: You've shown some heroism.
2: You've decided to step up to the challenge.
3: You've met your enemy, and it terrifies you.
4: All seems lost--but wait...
[--Somehow you survive, maybe win, but now--]
5: You face a final, impossible challenge.
The "painful consequence," in this case, is being forced to stand up to the thing that terrifies you. The way I see Issues are as something that builds and builds until it demands resolution. Good or bad, painful or easy... those things are up to you and your HG.

ActingPower fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Aug 26, 2014

DalaranJ
Apr 15, 2008

Yosuke will now die for you.

ActingPower posted:

You're talking about Hero? Here's what I have (it's from the short version):

The "painful consequence," in this case, is being forced to stand up to the thing that terrifies you. The way I see Issues are as something that builds and builds until it demands resolution. Good or bad, painful or easy... those things are up to you and your HG.

I think I grok it now. I misunderstood it as a Complex where the doom was the part where everything implodes on you. Which is a very negative way to interpret heroism, don't you think?

The issue is much more like Calling, except instead of "I accept my new responsibility" the resolution point is "I accept that I have fear." The resulting conflict between the character and their doom isn't important to the issue, although, of course, it's still important to the story.

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

DalaranJ posted:

I'm having a little trouble understanding one of the issues. It seems to me that they are about becoming a stronger person by learning a lesson, some of which culminate in painful consequences immediately before the issue resolves. But (being a) Hero seems to resolve immediately before you get murdered instead? What am I misunderstanding here?

Most Issues are like that, but the mechanic is a bit more generic---they're just short stories about your character. Most of them feature a lesson and some character growth because most stories do, and Chuubo's focuses on that kind of stuff, but there's also Leverage-style capers and superheroic deeds and stuff, where character progression is important but not obligatory, and stuff like boxing up Warehouse 13 artifacts, where usually there's some metaphor or character relevance but sometimes it's just fun... y'know.

Anyway, Hero.

Hero resolves when all is lost, pretty much, and there's no hope, and you can pretty much just leave the story weeping because nothing will ever be right again. Like, when Frodo decides not to throw the ring into the volcano, or Luke Skywalker gives up on killing the Emperor, or when the priest declares Buttercup married to the Prince, or Kal-El kneels before Zod in utter defeat, or whatever---basically, the point where you can sneak out of the movie and throw away your popcorn remnants and use the bathroom before everyone else is done, because from there the German existentialist influences on modern cinema pretty much guarantee it's just going to slide downwards, ever downwards, to the abysmal, painful end. I wanted to capture that hopelessness in an Issue, that way that ultimately heroes are doomed to fail and even the brightest light of hope is ultimately going to flicker, fade, and go out against the sheer ... uncaringness of the universe.

You know.

That part of the story when it's all over, and the heroes die.

ActingPower
Jun 4, 2013

Jenna Moran posted:

Most Issues are like that, but the mechanic is a bit more generic---they're just short stories about your character. Most of them feature a lesson and some character growth because most stories do, and Chuubo's focuses on that kind of stuff, but there's also Leverage-style capers and superheroic deeds and stuff, where character progression is important but not obligatory, and stuff like boxing up Warehouse 13 artifacts, where usually there's some metaphor or character relevance but sometimes it's just fun... y'know.

Anyway, Hero.

Hero resolves when all is lost, pretty much, and there's no hope, and you can pretty much just leave the story weeping because nothing will ever be right again. Like, when Frodo decides not to throw the ring into the volcano, or Luke Skywalker gives up on killing the Emperor, or when the priest declares Buttercup married to the Prince, or Kal-El kneels before Zod in utter defeat, or whatever---basically, the point where you can sneak out of the movie and throw away your popcorn remnants and use the bathroom before everyone else is done, because from there the German existentialist influences on modern cinema pretty much guarantee it's just going to slide downwards, ever downwards, to the abysmal, painful end. I wanted to capture that hopelessness in an Issue, that way that ultimately heroes are doomed to fail and even the brightest light of hope is ultimately going to flicker, fade, and go out against the sheer ... uncaringness of the universe.

You know.

That part of the story when it's all over, and the heroes die.

...Huh. So that brings up an interesting question. The mechanics of the game allow you to resolve the Issue at rank 4 instead of rank 5. But, in your mind, are you "supposed" to always go to rank 5, and stopping at rank 4 is "incomplete" somehow? I was reading it that 4 was the "end" and 5 was just an extra wrinkle to the resolution.

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

ActingPower posted:

...Huh. So that brings up an interesting question. The mechanics of the game allow you to resolve the Issue at rank 4 instead of rank 5. But, in your mind, are you "supposed" to always go to rank 5, and stopping at rank 4 is "incomplete" somehow? I was reading it that 4 was the "end" and 5 was just an extra wrinkle to the resolution.

Nah, you'll probably finish at level 4 most of the time. It just muddies up the explanation of Hero to talk about that, and the cinematic references aren't as clear-cut.

Tiger
Oct 18, 2012

And you, who are you? This is what we've got, yes. What are you going to make of it?
Fun Shoe
I'm starting an irl game of Chuubo's on tuesday! Since I couldn't wait for the printalbe issue cards pdfs (those are coming, right?) I made some of my own. Feel free to use them as you wish (except, you know, they contain text from the game, so I guess use them as Jenna Moran wishes).

They're on here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iaV9-tQcX3UP_Yi5rvjJknExUY0Fg5c0oe2B78EjW20/edit?usp=sharing

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

Tiger posted:

I'm starting an irl game of Chuubo's on tuesday! Since I couldn't wait for the printalbe issue cards pdfs (those are coming, right?) I made some of my own. Feel free to use them as you wish (except, you know, they contain text from the game, so I guess use them as Jenna Moran wishes).

They're on here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iaV9-tQcX3UP_Yi5rvjJknExUY0Fg5c0oe2B78EjW20/edit?usp=sharing

As long as someone in the gaming group in question bought the book, I figure this probably qualifies as them excerpting small sections for personal use (which is OK) even if you're actually the one excerpting small sections for them. ^_^

Zurui
Apr 20, 2005
Even now...



Is there any word on when this might be out for POD? I want to buy it, but I'm 90% certain that I will want a book and don't want to buy it twice.

Jenna Moran
Jun 6, 2013

It's nothing to someone with naturally curly hair, like myself.

Zurui posted:

Is there any word on when this might be out for POD? I want to buy it, but I'm 90% certain that I will want a book and don't want to buy it twice.

I couldn't upload the PoD body file to DriveThru's page. I've sent them email hoping for a fix to this, but it is the Labor Day weekend. Once it's uploaded, it may be correct or it may need a few more passes in order to pass their standards. Then I'll have to order proofs and review them.

I'm estimating this process to take two months.

I want to get the print run going before the PoD, because sponsors. The files for the print run should be ready this month. It's been a while since I've checked whether Eos is ready to go there. There's probably no issue, so I'm going to assume that happens with reasonable alacrity. With luck I'll be getting copies shipped off to sponsors shortly before the PoD is ready. Otherwise the PoD might have to wait until the printing is happening (because sponsors.)

Things could also go swimmingly, in which case, like, October 1? Is probably the fastest imaginable.

Zurui
Apr 20, 2005
Even now...



Okay, that's near enough that I'll wait for a proper book!

neaden
Nov 4, 2012

A changer of ways
I've started a PBP recruitment Here if anyone is interested. It's for a game set in Principal Entropy's School in Horizon if anayone is in the mood for experimenting with things man was not meant to know and then monologuing about it!

ibntumart
Mar 18, 2007

Good, bad. I'm the one with the power of Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aton, and Mehen.
College Slice
I'm planning to submit a character, but must first confess: I am not an anime fan. I'm not anti-anime, just not someone who watches it. I mean, I liked Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke, and as a kid wanted to pilot a Voltron lion (and am tempted to somehow make that my character's story arc) or be one of the Gatchaman team, but my monologuing might not be up to snuff is what I'm saying.

ActingPower
Jun 4, 2013

ibntumart posted:

I'm planning to submit a character, but must first confess: I am not an anime fan. I'm not anti-anime, just not someone who watches it. I mean, I liked Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke, and as a kid wanted to pilot a Voltron lion (and am tempted to somehow make that my character's story arc) or be one of the Gatchaman team, but my monologuing might not be up to snuff is what I'm saying.

The genre he's doing is Gothic, so if you can imitate Heathcliff or Victor Frankenstein, you should be good. Just run around moping and obsessing over things.

On another note, with that game running, my game would seem redundant. It was going to be a tutorial one-shot where pairs of PCs would set up stalls for a cultural festival. I thought I would share my design for the "creating a stall" quest I would assign everyone. Like the "building a house" example in the book, it has three different options: A Pastoral choice, an Exciting! choice, and a storyline choice. I was trying to make it a short quest, so it was only worth 20 XP. If neaden ever decides he wants to do a cultural festival, this might be helpful to him. Any criticism or concerns would be appreciated. :shobon:

EDIT: ...Well, that's embarrassing. There's a "Preparing for a Festival or Event" quest in the book. :blush: Well, mine's kind of different, though, so... I guess it can stay.

Quest: Prepare Our Stall for Festival Day (20 XP) posted:

Choice 1:
You're working on completing your cultural stall for Festival Day. What kind of stall is it? Once per scene, you can earn a bonus XP by tying what you've been doing to your work on the stall. Pick a standard phrase to indicate that you're doing this, then just say it or something like it to get the bonus.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Choice 2:
You're working on completing your cultural stall for Festival Day. What kind of stall is it? You're so excited to get working on this stall that sometimes you get a little... overenthusiastic, shall we say. When your vim and vigor gets so strong for your craft that you just can't handle it, announce that you're going “Over the Top!” Also, you should put this image in your post:

Once per scene, you can go over the top to earn a bonus XP.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Choice 3:
You're working on completing your cultural stall for Festival Day. What kind of stall is it? As part of your work, one of these may happen:
  • You seek help from one of your classmates to really make your stall authentic.
  • Thanks to a mixup at the store, you get the wrong things for your stall, but you want to figure out how to use them anyway.
  • You and your partner get into an argument about which direction to take with your stall, and one or both of you stomp away in a huff.
  • Some disaster occurs, setting your work back significantly. You're having trouble coping.
  • You and your partner work late into the night on your stall to make sure it's perfect.
You may complete 2 of these, each giving you 5 XP, for a total of 10 XP max. (You can do the other ones, of course, but you can't earn XP for them.)

Quest Flavor:
Once per scene, you can earn an extra bonus XP by doing one of these:
  • Selling other students on how awesome your stall is going to be.
  • Checking out the other stalls to see if yours is the best
  • Taking a break and relaxing with your partner (Sympathetic Action)
  • Noticing something on your daily routine that'd be just perfect for your stall (Slice of Life)
You can do these with an XP Action, but you don't have to.

ActingPower fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Aug 31, 2014

Tiger
Oct 18, 2012

And you, who are you? This is what we've got, yes. What are you going to make of it?
Fun Shoe
We played our first session this wednesday! We had lots of fun, though it felt that character creation (with 5 players + HG) took a little longer than it should have had to.


We're playing in a fairly nondescript countryside, our main inspiration being My Neighbour Totoro and the Swedish children's books about Bullerbyn (The children of Noisy Village in English). I warned the players that the system ensures that sooner or later something supernatural or otherworldy will creep in, but with that in mind we aimed for very mundane for the start.

The PCs are:
Yon, the small boy in a white-and-blue sailor shirt and hat, an only child, who lives with his parents. His father is the retired captain of a grand ship of the royal navy. They have a small boat they use to sail out in the nearby lake and fish.

The three siblings Kima, Sami and Pami, who normally live in the city but come here with their parents every summer.
Sami and Pami are twins. Sami is a wannabe-detective, who loves a good mystery to solve. His starting quest is to explore the abandoned house in the woods.
Pami (non-gendered, with the handwave "they're drawn in a way that makes it hard to determine whether they're a girl or a boy") has the skills Talk to grownups 1 and Planning 2, but Leadership -2.

Kima is the older sister, who loves animals. She's on a Bindings arc – one of her traps (a covered pit) has just caught some sort of cub!

Finally, there's Kem. He also lives in the city or town or something, and gets to see his pen-pal Kima in the summers, when his parents bring him here. He's all about reading, but he always brings too few books out with him. His starting quest is to find some more books.



The game opened with Yon picking redcurrants - the parents had decided that the kids should pick all of them before they overripened. Pami has dragged Sami out there too, and Pami spots Yon despite his best attempts at hiding in the bushes. Sami decides that picking berries is boring, and darts into the woods. Sami got an XP for their starting quest "Make sure those berries get picked" (a Work and Study quest), for exclaiming "Am I the only one who cares about these berries?"

Now, Yon's starting quest is a paradigmatic generic quest where the thing he's always thinking about is "how do I get people to be friends with me". His player proposes a new theory: if I help Pami with the berries, maybe they'll be my friend! Cut scene.

Kem and Kima are out in the woods. Kima is talking about all the cool animals she's seen, and Kem has of course read about most of them. Kima goes to check on her traps, and when Kem looks up from his book, she's gone. Kem's affliction is "I get lost if at all possible", so I declare that he's lost. Luckily Kima gives a shout which lets him locate her. She's found a furry little creature in her pit trap! They are both incredibly excited by this – "It looks like a bear!" "Or a yak! I've read that their young ones are indistinguishable!" "Maybe it's a bear-yak-hybrid!" "Oh, how cool would that be!" – and we fade, as this was a Slice of Life XP action.

In the afternoon, all the kids are invited to stay for dinner with Kima, Pami and Sami. Except, Sami is still gone. Pami explains to their mother what happened, and she's a bit worried and goes looking for Sami by the edge of the forest.

We cut to Sami, who is obviously spying on the abandoned house. He's been close to it many times, but today is the day he will finally enter! He's startled by a window banging in the wind, earning him a quest flavour XP. After a few false starts, he opens the creaky door and sees a hallway chock-full of furniture and old junk. Opening the first drawer he sees, he finds a crude metal medallion, taking it. The next drawer has some earwigs, though, so he decides to run away home again.

After all the kids have had their dinner, Yon's father the old captain comes walking across the yard with his cane. He strikes up conversation with the other kids' mother, and mentions that he's teaching Yon to raise the sail by himself tomorrow. Yon's player holds up her two-sided card for her Struggle basic quest: the front says "I'm proud of my father", bt the back reminds her Yon is also thinking "I wish he wouldn't force me to be just like him". Aww. Yon also gets an XP for his other quest when his player proposes that "taking Pami out in the boat when I'm allowed to sail it by myself might make them want to be my friend".



That's where we finished for the evening. Since less than a week passed (and we know that we want to play out Kem and Kima's visit to the cub the very next morning), the first chapter isn't over yet. I handed out Calling 1 to Kima and Pami. Maybe I should have given them to more people, but I had only printed two copies of the card.

We only managed to take 2 XP actions in total – the Slice of Life, and an out-of-genre Discovery action by the abandoned house. I think they'll catch on pretty quickly though.


We struggled with two things during rules explanation and chargen: bonds/afflictions, and choosing arcs and starting quests.
Bonds and afflictions are just not very intuitive, or at least, I can't explain them very well. I also think it's easier to see a mythical creature have an arbitrary restriction or destiny to them, than a mundane 10-year-old. In the end I didn't push very much for everyone to get it 100% (I'm not even sure I have), so we ended up with e.g. Kima's affliction "I'm afraid of water" and Pami's bond "I always try to stay on top of the situation". They don't really feel right, but sharpening them to "I can't go near water" and "I always stay on top of the situation" seems like it might break from the mundane too much... Maybe our low-key setting is part of the problem, here?

Choosing arcs and starting quests wasn't badly explained in the book, just that I hadn't thought about having to do it with five people at a time, so we had to pass the computer with the PDF on it around, scrolling between the descriptions of the arcs and the longer descriptions of each arc's starting quest. So, advice to people running this I guess: think through how you're presenting the arcs and their starting quests to the players during chargen. If you're doing chargen in person, with everyone at the same time, print multiple copies of some sort of reference sheets, or just the relevant pages wholesale.

We'll play again in a few weeks.

Rand Brittain
Mar 25, 2013

"Go on until you're stopped."
If you should happen to want one, you can now buy the quest cards from DriveThruCards, including the ones from the book and blank ones to make yourself.

Issue cards forthcoming!

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Bart Roberts III
Jun 28, 2008
I was hoping to play this past Wednesday, but the GM flaked.

Here's hoping this Wednesday is better, it seems like a really solid game so far.

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