Namco's Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine: Signup/Confirmation Thread

For quite a while now, I have been planning a Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine game using the Gothic genre and set primarily in the setting of Namco High. Anyone who's never played Chuubo's is welcome to PM me for a rules handout that I am currently writing; I should have it done in a day or two, and it will cover the rules in enough detail to get you by without invalidating the corebook. Suffice to say that it is a diceless system that relies upon bidding limited resources for effects, and is heavily invested in roleplay and characterisation. It excels at stuff like Namco High, Homestuck, El Goonish Shive, Girl Genius and the Pokemon anime - anything where the focus is on character building rather than killing and looting.

One minor thing: I do ask that if you enjoy the game, you consider picking up the Chuubo's core at some point in the future, when a) your personal finances and situation allow and b) the Chuubo's core is, um, actually released (I'm going from the kickstarter drafts; the ePub of the corebook is apparently in final review, with PDF coming when art and layout are finished).

I've done playbooks for the characters that include variations (different genders, altered powersets, replacement with a thematically related Homestuck character and so on). Varying the characters in ways not contained within these playbooks is perfectly fine, although I would suggest that people without Nobilis/Chuubo's experience PM me to find out how to go about doing a thing they want to do. Like, if you want to drop Davesprite's Creature of Light stuff and go for pure Reality Syndrome so you can pull off full-on world-modding, consult me to find out what that means and how it works.

Namco High itself can be found here, at least for the time being; I'm unsure if it will survive past the end of the month, since I believe Shiftylook is shutting down.

Character playbooks can be found here. While characterisation is king in Chuubo's, there will be no penalties whatsoever for not getting a character's voice precisely right; this is supposed to be fun, not the final exam for Pretending To Be Aki Matsuo 101.

At present I have 6-7 volunteers; this thread is mostly to allow them to confirm their status and allow a few more people to join up, assuming anyone's interested. I don't think I can handle more than ten people or so, though, so bear that in mind.

Current lineup, awaiting confirmations:

• Meowkie: Inari 2600 [CONFIRMED]
• Lolo: Crinias [CONFIRMED]
• Richard Miller: Rosvo 1 [CONFIRMED]
• Blue Max (variant - Magic Maxine): Neopie [CONFIRMED]
• Al B. Tross: rikalous [CONFIRMED]
• Nidia (pencilled in; variant currently under construction): Victin [CONFIRMED]
• Anti-Bravoman (variant - Pac-Man in Disguise): Odie From The Oz [ABSENT]

It is now 1:30pm on Monday; I will close primary recruitment at 7am Saturday, barring something horrible happening in the meantime.

Setting

Namco High is a high school for, primarily, Bandai Namco characters, with Homestuck exchange students. I will be sneaking in references to other game franchises, fictional game franchises, and so on. "Cheat codes" are treated like drugs, although their effects are not the same as ordinary narcotics. Beyond that, however, characters generally are not aware they are video game characters, and interact like ordinary teens who may incidentally be zombie samurai, mad scientists, or superheroes.

There may be appearances by stuff related to Chuubo's, such as Riders, but at first it is mostly going to deal with Namco High itself.

The Rules

The following alterations to the Chuubo's core rules will be made.

• The 3/5 Rule: All XP requirements and payouts listed on sheets should be multiplied by 0.6 (rounded up to the nearest whole number). Your first Arc, which would normally require 100XP, will go to 60XP. Quests that were once 30XP will only take 18XP. However, 5XP milestones on those Quests will only earn you 3XP. This is happening because Chuubo's in PBP goes slower than in real life, and it can take a very long time to complete full-length Quests.
• Timing: Stuff that refreshes once every 15 minutes of real time, such as anytime quests or bonus XP emotion, will instead refresh at the beginning of each new page.
• Fading: This will not happen. In face-to-face or IRC play, after you take an XP Action, you are expected to clam up and let someone else have the spotlight; the resultant slowdown is a PBP killer.
• Ritual Actions: As HG, I will declare any Ritual Actions that take place, although some may be based on character actions. In a Ritual Action, players each take a turn narrating a thing they are doing in a montage; you might have a training montage, a heist montage, a Home Alone trap-setting montage or anything along those lines. Since players will not be declaring it, the XP Action from participating in a Ritual Action will not count toward a player's two XP Actions per chapter limit.

(If this made no sense to you, as I said, I'm working on a rules handout.)

Standard Rules:

• All the rules in here apply. Special mention to the one about needless OOC drama, which will get you expelled from Namco High in short order. (Needless IC drama, on the other hand, is positively encouraged. Feel free to have your character get into a fight with their best friend, as long as it doesn't actually end in any deaths.)
• In addition, don't be afraid to mess up or make poor decisions. You're expected to get in IC trouble or mess up or stumble or hurt other characters' feelings. That said, try not to doom everyone unless it's at least an interesting and escapable doom, and try and make sure that someone is only offended in-character. Talk it out in the forthcoming discussion thread or over PM if you're unsure.
• I will be available a lot of the time. Don't be afraid to send me a PM if you need to discuss something.

The ideal post format during play is:

And...I think that's about it. Welcome to Namco High!

edited 21st Mar '14 1:01:30 PM by CountDorku

I'm here; you can pencil me in and stuff.

And to prepare, I'm gonna try to replay Meowkie's route sometime when I'm free.

edited 16th Mar '14 7:37:24 PM by Inari2600

Confirm me for Al B. Tross, who is totally still a student.

Also, anyone wanna volunteer to be the subject of irrational suspicion of wrongdoing?

Edit: Keeping track of XP here. 1 Dossier, 1 Gossip Sentinel, 1 Basic Quest, 3 floating.

edited 25th Dec '14 8:24:48 PM by rikalous

Well, that could tie in with Meowkie's conflict, but that seems too... actual for it to work.

I'm going more for funny than the asshole dumping yet more shit on poor Character X, so I'd rather not do Meowkie.

Confirm me for Lolo.

I'd like to volunteer for that, rikalous, since it'd give me a reason to be annoyed and upset at something instead of being totally apathetic. It's not enough that nothing really matters, noooo, someone must start suspecting Lolo when she just wants to be alone.

Alright, I'm in, you can confirm me for Miller.

edited 16th Mar '14 8:41:07 PM by Rosvo1

Works for me. That might be worth a -1 Connection one way and/or the other.

Neopie, reporting for duty! My computer's still in the shop, but I can reasonably expect to be able to make a few posts a weekday from school, and it'll be fixed before the weekend. Magic Maxine is still mine, I'll see if I can get the variant statted up real quick..

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ym3pMGCOENluP7_OEw_aTIn6IyHWfqLizUsX8ijvV_s/ Bang! Set up, could you look over it?

edited 17th Mar '14 6:14:55 AM by Neopie

Looks good. About the only nitpick I have is that you mention a pilot uniform under Devices, instead of a top hat and wand or whatever you were going for.

You can count me in but I feel too paranoid to say "CONFIRMED" :| I always expect something to get me busy when I think I'm free. Also:

2. There's some stuff I don't get conciously, but I think I can understand after I see an actual example/trial-and-error. For example, the posting format, which while I understand what 90% of the terms mean, I still don't feel safe.

3. Hmmm... I think Nidia would work then better as a pure Child of the Ash, or maybe with something else that isn't Spiritual.

4. How long does a chapter/book/scene/word last, because I have no idea :S

Standard Nidia starts with Primordial, not Spiritual. If you want pure Child of the Ash, I'll PM you the rules, but bear in mind that apart from radiating moods, Child of the Ash doesn't have many tricks that aren't tied to "I turn into a giant monster and do [thing]".

And by "CONFIRMED" I just mean expressing a willingness to play; I can always unconfirm anyone who has something come up.

Also, this is a very slow Chuubo's game I'm in, so if anyone needs an example of play, check it out.

Also also, a scene is variable and depends mainly on plot, but you should probably assume a class, lunch break or detention session to be one scene; a chapter in Gothic lasts "as long as is appropriate" but I will probably be defaulting to a couple of days; and a book lasts for an arbitrary number of chapters.

edited 17th Mar '14 1:37:44 PM by CountDorku

Oh, sorry, brain fart. I was even reading Nidia's playbook at the same time >_< I'll try to think of something and I'll ask you if I manage to have any ideas. In the meantime, I was thinking her prophecy could be a weather forecast, but I'm not sure how to roleplay that in non-obvious ways, like trying to tie it to people and not weather maybe???

I just skimmed over that example, and it seems pretty straightfoward. I'm sort of busy right now and I think I'll be this week, so I don't think I'll remember studying it deeper later

Also my resuming doubts are about prerry basic stuff. For example, if I succeed an action then I get one Will back, but if I spend more than 1 Will multiple times, is there any way for me to regain it or do I just have to do actions without Will and hope I succeed to regain Will?

P.S.: @_@ So many XP Actions... I'll probably have to keep that Doc open while I write for her.

You could have a prophecy that delves heavily into vague weather-related foreshadowing.

Bear in mind that failing an action also earns you back 1 Will, as long as that failure has some degree of closure (e.g. burning food is failing, but it's a fairly clear failure, so you regain 1 Will; deserting your cooking because you needed to pick up a third Intention and abandon one of your earlier ones will not earn you 1 Will.)

If you run completely out of Will, you have the following options:

• Spam 0-Will actions. These are unlikely to achieve very much, but are still workable. 0-Will actions don't regain 1 Will on success - you need to invest at least 1 Will to get that payout - but they can still theoretically succeed, even if they frequently won't.
• Get into trouble from a Bond or Affliction. This earns you Will up to its rating.
• Expend a Recharge Token (if you have one).

Also, there are really only going to be four XP Actions you need to worry about - Shared Action, Shared Reaction, Slice of Life, and Obsessive Action, and I'm putting those in the handout. (Admittedly, some players will need to deal with (Suffer) Corruption/Sickness or (Be) In Trouble, but those will also be in the handout.)

edited 17th Mar '14 2:12:53 PM by CountDorku

Okay, thanks.

So you mean something like: "A dark storm rises on the horizon, bringing a rain of blood." And she has no idea if it's literal or metaphorical or both or what does it mean

Stuff like that, yeah. A lot of Nidia's stuff works best if you assume the prophecy is heavily invested in the idea that Vagueness Is Coming.

So the majorty of posts are going to look like the example? Just asking.

It's a lot easier to keep track of things if you use that format, certainly. Although I'm not hugely fussed where you put the MP and Will record as long as it's there; I've found that in PBP it is very easy to forget how much of both you have. The recording of Emotion XP is more to make it easier for other people to know what you're going for and thus make them more likely to remember to throw it your way.

A more detailed example, using Aki (who has access to Miraculous Will from The Ace):

Alright. That seems like a good idea. It might also be good to list Wounds if you have them, but it probably doesn't come up too much.

Okay, so when should I use Will and not Miraculous Will or MP and vice-versa?

Will is for basic, mortal actions, MP fuels your miraculous powers, Miraculous Will is for... Imperial miracles, I think? Not sure on that.

EDIT: Never mind, that's it.

edited 18th Mar '14 6:20:09 PM by Inari2600

If you have both Will and Miraculous Will, you should start from the Miraculous pool - it refreshes whenever someone takes an in-genre XP action, while the standard Will pool only refreshes at the end of the chapter. Miraculous Will works exactly like Will except for that and a couple of restrictions that vary depending on the specific power granting you access to Miraculous Will - Tireless from The Ace can't be used with magical Skills, Miraculous Ease from Sentimental can only be used with your Treasures, etc.

Use MP to either use miraculous powers (both Miraculous Actions and Imperial Miracles) or add Strike to them.

edited 18th Mar '14 6:17:36 PM by CountDorku

So, how do the Genre XP Actions Work? Also, would people mind posting/Pming me skype usernames so I can set up a skype chat? This can also be used when say, we want to RP out something in a quick session, usually conversations, rather than PBP.

edited 18th Mar '14 7:46:37 PM by neopie

I... don't have a Skype?

I do not trust my skype connection to be reliable in places where I can talk without bothering anyone.