Having trouble focusing a "Girls with Guns" tabletop game

Short question: What's a good way to "justify" a "realistic" Gun Porn-heavy Girls with Guns setting for a Tabletop Roleplaying Game? Gunslinger Girl uses "disposable" orphans, Lycoris Recoil uses "nobody suspects Japanese schoolgirls" logic, and Girls' Frontline uses service gynoids-turned-Robot Soldiers, but I'm drawing a blank.

Long Question: I've been sketching out an assortment of roleplaying games to alleviate workplace boredom. Whenever I get writer's block with one, I cycle to another. Two of them are well-developed.

• Schoolgirl Squad! Initiate Operation Plastic Storm!: An airsoft combat game inspired by Stella Women’s Academy, High School Division Class C³ and Sabagebu!. The Player Characters are members of a Okinawan high school's airsoft club tasked with engaging in plastic warfare against against a US Department of Defense Education Activity school at the local US Marine Corps base, their own school's cliques, and tourists with the urge to shoot balls at high school girls.
• SIREN & VALKYRIE: A Lovely Angels / Reality Show spoof set in a generic Cyberpunk city. The players are members of a vice police squad whose activities are televised then broadcast to the drama-hungry public. Since the PCs are on camera all the way from the squad station to the crime scene, explaining their motives to Confession Cams or coming up with dramatic ways to catch brain-frying-super-orgasm drugs and cyberpsychotic Snuff Film "actresses" can get extra ratings.

But I can't develop a High Concept for the third beyond "tacticool girls shooting bad guys". I can't think of who the player characters are or what they do, let alone a reason for a World of Action Girls. All my inspirations focus on the relationships between the protagonists just as much on the gunfights, but I don't see any reason to use young-ish Action Girls rather than Action Genre Hero Guys apart from personal taste and marketing potential. Men have feelings too, after all.

Edited by Negacube on Apr 6th 2024 at 11:28:42 AM

Regarding the girls: It could be either a bio-weapon that was designed to target the Y-chromosome, which turned the men either insane, monsters, or just dropping dead like flies, leaving the vast majority of the work to the surviving female population that is facing a slower version of gender-extinction due to the men dropping like flies and reducing the chances of re-population down to alarmingly low numbers.

That or the "Factor-X" (The reason for why there's just a lot of girls around) straight up "split" the Y-chromosome below, turning it into an X-chromosome instead, which turned majority of the world's population into women instead of just killing the men.

Not to be rude, but I'm uncomfortable with Gendercide or Gender Bender "viruses". I hadn't considered Applied Phlebotinum at all, but those specific examples make my skin crawl. I do like the "Factor X" term though.

Edited by Negacube on Apr 6th 2024 at 11:46:07 AM

Well Gendercide-reasons or anything targeting the Y-chromosome are also common in such settings, hence why I brought them up to attention.

...

Another example would be that there used to be a lot of men in that particular line of work, but their luck ran out and they got killed off in occupational hazards that comes with the job.

The girls being the ones that still are going at the job and managed to survive so far, with no new if any male recruits willing to line up willingly to do it as well.

Leaving the workforce to be composed of the survivors, in this case, almost all of them women who keep going due to the importance of this job being THAT high.

Edited by Trainbarrel on Apr 6th 2024 at 6:12:11 PM

That seems like a decent idea. At least one Power Rangers series decided to Recruit Teenagers with Attitude because adults wouldn't work together and got themselves killed.

My suggestions:

• The girls were found by entities that only they could see, who granted them their abilities, but also forced them into their conflict. Animorphs by way of Puella Magi Madoka Magica basically (transformation into either animals or eldritch insane monsters optional. Magical Girl flavor also optional)
• The conflict involves a different faction that is secretly trying to take over or destroy humanity, meaning these ladies are among the lines of defense against the invisible threat.
• the generic powerset will include instant expertise on wielding their firearm of choice, (tailed based on personality or history), but they will also include a personalized suite of powers that compliments it. Ranging from Arknights-esque "guns as magic wands" to abilities pertaining to stealth and tactical planning to something that isn't quite germane to the methods modern warfare, but fits the girl's aspirations and dreams.
• I'm assuming you're going with a realistic tacticool Rainbow Six aesthetic over Military Moe or Magical Girl fare. So I'd propose practical uniforms. If you are going for the latter instead, then you're gonna need to find a way to explain why those cutesy outfits do not make them sitting ducks (its likely the reason why GFL and NIKKE had gynoids). The middle can work regardless, but dress will still be a relevant factor.
• The thing is my suggested premise will entail Child Soldiery, so the tone will have to take that into account. OTOH it also means there is a need for secrecy as "drafting kids into a secret interplanetary war" is a hell of a way to trip parents' Adult Fear. The other issue would be the inevitable psychological trauma (again its Animorphs by way of Madoka. The former delved heavily into War Is Hell and the latter involved fae-liens condemning their contractees to a state of undeath that would end with them either with them shedding the "un" part or transforming into nightmarish creatures driven to insanity) There are ways to sidestep it, but it is something that should still be considered when planning the game and story.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 6th 2024 at 11:11:15 AM

I want this to be on the serious end of the Sliding Scale of Seriousness Versus Silliness compared to the others, so the overall aesthetic will be on the practical side, or at least in the middle. Like I said before, I hadn't really planned for anything supernatural, but since Schoolgirl Squad features a few Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane perks and SIREN & VALKYRIE is explicitly sci-fi, I could extend similar concepts to this project as well. As for psychology, I have experimented with a psychological health tracker similar to Unknown Armies in other projects, so bringing it over shouldn't be a problem.

"Girls in Black" going against a secret enemy is a good start. Now what kind of secret enemies would be good targets?

Edited by Negacube on Apr 6th 2024 at 3:08:21 PM

• Yerrk expies (to go with the animorhps influence) that is to say parasitic brainwashing aliens
• The Fair Folk
• people from the future trying to take over the past
• a shadowy cabal that is trying to exploit resources that the protags also use.
• Masquerade breakers

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 6th 2024 at 4:12:34 AM

After looking over notes on older projects, reading up on parapsychology and New Age weirdness, and talking with the friendly neighborhood Conspiracy Theorist, I think I've come up with an idea:

• Two of the perks in Schoolgirl Squad are "Chuuni Magic" and "Immersive Vision". "Chuuni Magic" allows the Player Character to roll a random mishap against a chosen opponent: jamming their weapon, being beaned by a home run from an off-"camera" baseball game, stepping on a noisy twig, etc.. "Immersive Vision" causes the PC to imagine they are in a serious battle rather than a silly airsoft match, improving their shooting skills and reflexes at the expense of everything else. In both cases, the characters' overactive imaginations seem to affect reality around them. What if they actually did?
• In this still-unnamed project, Schoolgirl Squad's Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane occurrences are a sign of an awakening generation of Psychic Children and the development of a new egregore. If these developing Psychic Powers are analyzed and harnessed without limit, humanity could ascend into a fully psychic species capable of dominating the galaxy. There are many Interested Individuals with an unhealthy fascination with these developments, and seek to either exploit them for their own purposes or stop them from advancing.
• The Player Characters are youths trained to seek out potential espers (assuming they aren't ones themselves) and Interested Individuals on behalf of a patron, in exchange for parapsychological knowledge, an arsenal of sick-ass guns, and near-free reign to use them both in their missions.
• Of course, there are some minor ethical and practical issues surrounding giving deadly weapons to immature minds...but what's the worst that could happen?

Is this too cliche'd, or am I onto something?

Edited by Negacube on Apr 8th 2024 at 2:45:32 PM

I think the idea has legs. Though it doesn't quite explain why they are girls specifically (leaving it as a coincidence is a valid answer imo)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 8th 2024 at 12:04:26 PM