I have posted elsewhere on the forums about my experiences of playing and GMing pathfinder in Japanese, and in the process I recklessly committed myself to giving a report on a Japanese language role-playing game that I decided to read. As far as I know it's a representative example of a swathe of untranslated games from a popular company called FEAR.
I have now put two posts on my blog about it, one outlining the game concept and one running through a quickstart character creation.
If anyone reading this has an interest in Japanese-made RPGs, please do me the honour of visiting my blog. Also do me this honour if you're interested in Japanese schoolgirls with super powers, because of course that's the first character I created!
faustusnotes wrote: Also do me this honour if you're interested in Japanese schoolgirls with super powers, Who isn't?!
Thanks for posting again faustusnotes, very interesting and informative. Sounds like a fun game! When do you think you'll play?
It'll be sometime yet, Mr. Mothman, because I've got an uncertain promise (as the Japanese say) to GM some Warhammer 3rd edition, and I'm a tad busy at the moment to weigh in on more than one project. However, if at one of the conventions I get the chance I will...
This is more a research project at the moment.
By the way, I started reading the task resolution method this afternoon. It seems to revolve around a dice pool in which only the highest value counts, unless you roll a 10, in which case you get criticals. I may have misunderstood something though, and will recheck. I hope to post that up soon.
Cool, I look forward to reading more.
Whereabouts in Japan are you living again? (I'm sure you have mentioned in one or more blog entries, but I can't remember which ones).
I've, unfortunately, only been to Japan once, and that was a brief two day stop-over in Tokyo. I loved it though, despite the brief amount of time spent there, and the fact that I didn't get to see that much of Tokyo let alone a greater area of Japan. I would love to go back some day if I ever get a chance.
Thanks Mothman,
I'm in Steamy Beppu, which is in the Northestern part of Kyushu (there's a map of my area in a recent post). It's very rural - most of my experience of Japan was rural Japan, not urban.
You should definitely come back and see more of the place - it's great!
faustusnotes wrote: Thanks Mothman,
I'm in Steamy Beppu, which is in the Northestern part of Kyushu (there's a map of my area in a recent post). It's very rural - most of my experience of Japan was rural Japan, not urban.
You should definitely come back and see more of the place - it's great!
This was very interesting. Thanks for posting this link and also the project. As an Anime/Manga fan, and having done some anime style-RPG games with my group i was very entertained by the blog. Also, i've been to Japan myself. Lived in Misawa for 4 years as a kid due to my dad being stationed there. Also GunGirl was a fun looking concept.
You know, this actually looks pretty good. Then again, I'm gullible for decent random character generation, and this looks a bit more than decent.
Anyway, please tell me you're planning on putting up more about the game? Don't care that much about the setting, but the system seems interesting.
Thanks for reading and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm currently struggling with the probability distribution for the skill resolution system, which is absolutely the weirdest thing I've ever seen; I'm hoping to have the outline of it up by the end of the weekend. I'll let you know when I have.
I might put up some of the other sample characters with an attempt at translation, too. They seem kind of fun!
Hi everyone, just an update to let you know that I have put up a brief post on the strangeness that is task resolution in this system. It took some time to bash this out because I had to do some probability theory in R.
I think this is the weirdest dice-based resolution system I've ever seen. Anyone heard of weirder?
faustusnotes wrote: Hi everyone, just an update to let you know that I have put up a brief post on the strangeness that is task resolution in this system. It took some time to bash this out because I had to do some probability theory in R.
I think this is the weirdest dice-based resolution system I've ever seen. Anyone heard of weirder?
The reroll-and-add thing ("exploding dice") is common enough, but taking the maximum may be a bit different, I suppose.
How do exploding dice work in Shadowrun?
hogarth wrote: How do exploding dice work in Shadowrun? When you spend a point of Edge on a roll, you get to take all the sixes and reroll them, adding any successes to the total. It doesn't really come up most of the time. At least, that's how it works in the fourth edition.
exploding dice! I think I remember that term from 2nd edition as well. That leads to the same sort of annoying probability calculations, because the second dice pool is conditional on the size and outcome of the first. But wasn't it the case with Shadowrun that you counted successes? It seems like counting successes in dice pools is more natural than adding maxima, which just confuses the whole thing hideously.
Regarding exploding dice, I think the Exalted approach of counting 2 successes on a 10, is better because in practice it has a similar effect without having to roll additional pools of dice (which is a pain).
And the dice pools in this game are huge. At 5th level, my sample character Yumiko is going to be able to roll at least 19 dice for her pistol attack. So you have a pretty good chance there of multiple dice pools being rolled in sequence. I remember being flabbergasted by the size of some Exalted dice pools but at least they were a single roll.
I do like dice pool games though. When your abilities or your situation are working in your favour, the huge handful of dice really gives you a sense of overwhelming success...
faustusnotes wrote: exploding dice! I think I remember that term from 2nd edition as well. That leads to the same sort of annoying probability calculations, because the second dice pool is conditional on the size and outcome of the first. But wasn't it the case with Shadowrun that you counted successes? I've never played Shadowrun, so I can't say for sure. But I was reading the thread linked below and it stated that, in 1st ed Shadowrun, a target number of 6 is not any easier than a target number of 7 (which is what you noted in your graph -- the probability of getting >=10 and >=11 is the same, because no one can ever roll a 10).
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=368157
Now that I think about it, Savage Worlds uses the same sort of system. Then again, since die size varies and not number of dice, it's not that similar at all.
Hogarth, that thread includes the solution of dice labelled 0-5; I was going to shift the probability curves in my plots to exclude the multiples of 10, just so that they looked nicer, which would be essentially the same effect. Someone else in that thread pointed out that exploding dice aren't an issue if you're adding rather than counting successes.
The SR system seems to have an additive process though; so if you roll a 6, you roll again and add the result to the previous 6. Then you do the counting (of any dice that beat the target number).
That's quite torturous, isn't it? It has the added horror of having to keep track of which die rolled which 6! I don't remember Shadowrun being that much of a pain, but I haven't played it in... 15 years? Maybe I was young and stupid...
Maybe I should run a competition on my blog for the most torturous die system with the weirdest probability distribution... but then I'd have to judge them, so I think I'll avoid that...
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