My wayward son, they’ll be peace when you are done! Lay your weary head to rest, don’t you cry no more! {Cues guitar riff}
Once I rose... oh... right... Sorry about that. I had to make that joke. Anyways, last we left the blog off, I made my character, and exited chapter two. Now onto chapter three.
So we are introduced to the Tri-Stat system, which I assume is used for much of Guardians of Order’s games. This near-transparent system is said to allow the flow of the game to run smoothly, without the interruptions of rolling dice, calculating damage, seeing where the dice lies on the table (as in the ones you see in Excel, not on an actual table) and they give us the GM advice on ignoring rules that we don’t like. I will not do this unless there is a rule that have FATAL-levels of stupid.
We have this nice flow chart where it starts with determining initiative, as always. The person going first can choose to either use a combat ability, or not. If they do choose the combat ability, they must roll some dice. This counts the same for defence. I have to roll equal or less than my attack/defence combat value. It might be hard, as I can only think of few combinations of five using only two dice. I might have to adjust my character a bit if I feel intimidated.
Correction, now I feel intimidated. This thing asks for stat checks, in which I have to roll lower than my stat number. This means that I can only roll snake eyes for my body stat. Ah well, At least I might not run across a Body Stat check anytime soon. So anyways, Critical Success is snake eyes and critical failure is twelve.
Let us not focus on how Awesome, but Impractical my character will fare in the game and watch other people show how it’s done. We see Sailor Mercury having to jump off a burning rooftop. It is difficult, so the GM decides to bump the modifier to plus three, which will drive up the resulting role, which in this case is a bad thing. However, since Mercury has two levels in acrobatics, it is driven down to plus one. She rolls a three and the final result is a four. Mercury makes the jump slightly. Next, we have Crimson Blade, who I will picture as Kamen Rider Blade coloured red. Why? Because he is racing to stop a Youma with a motorcycle. However, despite the minus two from Blade’s motorcycling history, he had to stop for tourists and lost precious time due to him restarting his bike. Up next is a foot race between Mercury, Blade, and Sailor Nebula (who for the record, is a gender-bent Chad), which results in Nebula being first, then Mercury, then Blade. Other than a simple out-of-monster-fighting contest like the swimming race between Amy and Michelle, I can’t think of any context that a foot race would fit in. Let us continue.
The book tells us when it is a good idea to roll dice, which again, is obvious for anyone who has done a role-playing game before or has seen it in action a few times. It also tells us that we have a near-limitless list of actions to do in the game, which again, is obvious to one who has played or heard of RPGs. We also have another RPG example. Chad is inside someone’s house, searching for devices that would link that person to the Negaverse. There are three levels of details, with the third being more detailed to the point in which it is not vague for the GM to interpret it as something else. The book warns us that combat does not have to be frequent. The author of the book does not know that I just happen to be a fan of a show in which fights happen at the drop of a hat. Again, the author gets on his high horse and rants on how the Magical Girl genre is more about a fight against hormones rather than evil villains.
All right, time to explain some combat. Initiative is “who gets to go first.” You just roll one dice, then add your combat value to it and whoever’s total goes first. If there is a tie, the tying characters go at the same time. If someone’s health drops below zero, they have the option to attack once more before dying or being knocked unconscious. Attacking multiple enemies is possible, but gets more difficult the more enemies you target. Defending is also an option, and you can choose to defend against multiple attacks in one round, but it also gets difficult for each defence. Oh, and armed combat multiplies your combat value by 3-6. Equip scouts with rocket launchers and watch the fireworks. If you roll snake eyes, you can also roll one extra die for a critical hit. That means the monster would be hurting for quite a bit, or could just be insta-killed. And then they talk about armor and weapons, yadda yadda...
Wait... Look at the photo of 124... It is a knight! In armor! The outfit matches what I think knights should look like! They do not have to be in formal wear! ALRIGHT! {Dances the dance of joy} Oh, right back to explaining the rules. You can also regain lost points, but they regenerate a few points an hour and I have no idea how long an hour is. Oh look, we are done chapter three already. That was quick... Alright, I should tackle chapter four now.
This tells us how to role-play in the Sailor Moon universe. In other words, it explains to us the Mythos of Sailor Moon so that we may use it to our advantage. However, this raises problems. This book was meant to lure in the Sailor Moon audience, not the Role-playing audience. Could it be that they thought “what if a role-player got this and knows jack about Sailor Moon?” Well, if that is the case, then congrats, thanks to this and the card game that I am thinking was their creation as well, I know have learned a lot more about Sailor Moon. Not enough to peak my interests of watching it, but close enough. And I guess I owe thanks to Iron Liz (for those who don’t know who she is, she’s an RPG reviewer who dates a little known comic book fan named Lewis Lovhaug. Yeah, kiss that Marz/Linkara ship goodbye) for if she hadn’t reviewed this RPG, it wouldn’t have caught my eye. Or hell, had she not played the card game with Linkara, or any card games with him. Funny how that works.
For those not aware of this show, it takes place in Tokyo, specifically the Azabu district. This quickly becomes Wikipedia, and trust me, I don’t want to make this a live blog of Wikipedia. It is worth noting that Shinjuku is mentioned. Hm... a crossover with Karas would be perfect... Anyways, we are presented with a map. A mention of Shibuya and another crossover in my head. Anyways, it mentions a time-line and a time-paradox. Hurray for Time Travel. On a side note, they do mention Sailor V. The timeline seems to skip out the last three arcs and instead focus on the first three.
Oooh... But they leave this gem out. Sometime in the 30th century, Sailor Moon herself decided to “clean the Earth”. Those who refuse to be “cleansed” were banished to another planet to form their own civilization. You know what this means? It means at some point in time, Sailor Moon will take over the world, banish those who don’t like it, and begin her reign over Crystal Tokyo. I know I made it sound like she’s the bad guy, but come on! If the author wishes to interpret an entire genre as a story of someone simply going through puberty, then I might as interpret Sailor Moon as the villain. Oh, and Rini, her daughter, uses the crystal that was meant to protect the city in order to grow up (that’s how I interpret it). It enters her, causing the defences in Crystal Tokyo to fall and leading The Black Kni- I mean Negamoon to invade and take back what’s theirs over the world.
There is a Hand Wave as to why the astronauts can’t find the ruins of an entire kingdom and why people could breath on the moon. Unfortunately, it’s a Joe Quesada level Hand Wave. To quote Joe, “It’s Magic, we don’t have to explain it.” There's some talk about how the Monarchy could work.
The book (after some explanation of the Negaverse later) opens up some Fridge Logic at us about it. In fact, it did that with the Planetary Kingdoms some pages back as well. This time, it's on how big the Negaverse is and if there's a stable civilization. I might remind you that these are demons we're talking about. I don't think demons would have jobs and families. If so, then that might be taking a dip into Darker and Edgier, as Sailor Moon would mostly be confronted by the ethics of killing innocent Youma that were just doing their job. Then it discusses that the Negaverse could be a Mirror Universe. Wow, for once, I get to call someone else out for referencing the wrong show. And... everyone has an evil twin... Does this mean I can pit Amy against her dark self and have her go all “YOU’RE NOT ME!” and then she goes all One-Winged Angel on the scouts? Alright! That’s another work to cross over with the Mooniverse.
Anyways, more fridge logic, this time on the Great Deku Tree Doom Tree. Pretty much there was only one spoken paragraph that details about Alan and Ann's race. It talks about the possibilities of an Atlantis underneath the planet's waves. Yeah, no. There's also the possibilities of there being more than one Doom Tree, each with their own element. That might work, though I would get Sonic X Flashbacks. They also talk about the possibilities of There Is Another. Dude, this is Fan Fiction. Clans that are shown to be endangered in canon will definitely have thousands of members in Fan Fiction. (coughuchihacough)And they ask What Happened To Alan, Ann, and the Tree of Life/Doom Tree.
Then we talk about Crystal Tokyo, which if I hadn't pointed out already, screams Dystopia in Utopia's Clothing. They talk about politics and La Résistance and also if the Scouts ever return to their homeworlds now and then. Uh, half of those planets don't really contain life and usually kill people with out proper protection. I mean, look at Mars. You explore that place with no helmet, and you'll blow up. Okay, yeah, Magic, but who gives a flying care. They then talk about if life is still normal in Crystal Tokyo and if the wounds caused by the Black Knights will heal.
They also give a talk about the Negamoon, but they don't talk about the possiblities because there are no established info about them other than "Neo-Queen Serenity kicked them off her planet". And they offer TEMPT me to do a Crystal Tokyo campaign. If I ever do one, I will do a Diamond of the Rebellion campaign. Then, they decide to have someone else talk about school life. I am skipping it.
Now it’s time for the GM to play the Sailor Says game.
The first bit of advice? Watch Sailor Moon. Easy. Just don’t want to though.
Second piece of advice? Get some flaws. The author points out that we should not make perfect characters and that Flaws improve the roleplay. Sunny already has flaws. You want me to get more? Uh... Well, the fact that she has a demon (who shall be called Taiyoumaru) ready to pop out should she not transform for a long time would count... So, Now I have Special Requirement (must transform every three days or else Taiyoumaru would be unleashed, killing her) (2). What do I use these two points for? Increasing my Body and Mind by one point. This means increasing my health and energy. Which also means that I have to update the sheet again. (I do not feel like lengthen this post to show it to you, so you must go to Post 5 for the changes)
Third piece of advice? Don’t create a loner. Uh... Problem with that. What if the character had legit reasons to be alone, like staying at his house to protect his friends from himself? I do agree with his reason why, that Role-Playing is about interactions.
Fourth piece of advice? Don’t be obsessed with the rules. In fact, don’t even use the rules at all. Screw the rules, you have plot! No. I refuse to go the Yu-Gi-Oh! Path of screwing the rules to get my way. Nice try, though.
Final piece of advice? Give the GM feedback. This means you can complement on his acting, and yet call him out for Railroading. If that does not work, you can always have your characters utter “I hate this campaign.”
And finally, one Sailor Says. She tells us that if someone tries to touch- NO! SHE TALKS ABOUT THAT ONE TIME RELATIONSHIP WITH MOLLY AND NEPHRITE THAT I NEVER LET GO! THEN SHE POORLY HOOKS IT UP TO “BE YOURSELF!” At least she doesn’t bash us over the head with that moral. Or else I would have went into a rant. And thus ends chapter four. Next part: The GM’s section... We are in for a treat. I hope.
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