Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: Surely this wish won't go awry!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: Surely this wish won't go awry!

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?

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 19:46

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:34

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

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 01:20

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.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 14:44

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

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 18:23

ActingPower: Jun 4, 2013

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.

Also, we're not the best with understanding the mechanics either, if I can mention that quickly as well.

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?

# ¿ Oct 25, 2014 00:27

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 19:34

ActingPower: Jun 4, 2013

Chipping in to say I'd love to see more Chuubo's games goin' on around here. Chuubo's has so many different options open to it! I may or may not want to play in that Glass-maker's Dragon game, but I'll certainly be watching it.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2015 18:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine: Surely this wish won't go awry!