itch.io

Glad to see some Shinobigami scenarios in the wild. This one is complicated but interesting -- I'm not sure how it would play out, which is part of the fun.

Did find one typo where you spelled "Kyoto" as "Kiyoto" on page 3.

Thanks for taking the time to have this discussion. I know it can be really unpleasant to have someone show up to talk about your project only for them to go "Well actually..." -- I hope it comes across that I'm saying all this as a fan of 2d fighters and also as a fan of your concepts.

That said, I don't feel like I'm looking for "simulation" here, but I think I'm looking for something that uses more than the trappings of 2d fighters.  To be clear, I'm not asking for any of the specific examples in my previous post, but rather, I was using them to show the types of decisions they represent -- the sort of "I think I can guess what you're going to do, so I'm going to try to counter it" style of thinking that forms the core of these games. It doesn't have to be "at 100 miles an hour" -- in fact, I'm not really sure how you'd go about pushing that in a TTRPG format -- but from my perspective, a little bit of "Yomi" is what would make the difference between "this feels like a 2d fighter" vs "this feels like two guys punching each other in most RPGs." That said, it's starting to sound like you're actually aiming more for the vibe of "anime based on a 2d fighter" rather than trying to actually evoke the feel of the 2d fighters themselves, which is fine, but different. 

Having said that, I have concerns about reling on players adjusting and tuning characters across multiple fights to solve something as simple as "A fight between two base characters is literally unwinnable by one of them." Especially if the solution is "You can't play a full grappler, because you'll just lose fights to zoners.  You have to take some levels in zoner to compete."  I think we can probably agree that having a common archetype like that be functionally unplayable without mixing in something else is probably an undesirable situation.

But ultimately I guess what I'm really trying to get at here is: What are the benefits of the way you are doing it now? What is it giving you? What sort of experience is it creating?  I feel like it's easy to use "turn based with initiative" as a sort of default, instead of questioning the pros and cons of the approach. Is it giving you a feel you want? Is it fast and easy to learn relative to other approaches? Does it consume comparatively little time in play? What are you gaining from this design choice?

Ultimately, I understand the desire to make a game that's as much about the 'adventure' as it is about the fighting in these sorts of games, and I think the systems that support that adventure will be equally important, but I think if you advertise your game as being based on 2d fighters, you're going to set up a certain degree of expectations that you'll want to either try to meet or work through.

Okay. Did the research I needed to do, I think. 

I'm not sure I'd say you're placing "too high an emphasis on moving on your turn" so much as that the idea that there are "turns" feels highly disruptive to getting to the feel of a 2d fighter because of the interplay I mentioned -- if you are within your Move of your opponent on your turn, you are GUARANTEED to be able to reach them.  And that's not how 2d fighters play out, generally -- unless both fighters really want to be at the same range, it's all about people trying to outguess and outplay each other to get to their preferred range.   And just being able to "Move 3, then attack" doesn't mimic that at all, no matter where the sources of movement come from.

I think that this is a somewhat unique challenge to trying to emulate 2d Fighters because of what they look like.  And the difference I'm seeing between the system you've laid out and the system of a 2d fighter is simple:

One character is a grappler and wants to be at grapple range.  They have Move 1. The other character is a Zoner and wants to be at Long range. They have Move 2 but only when moving away. Right now, as written, it is functionally impossible for the grappler to EVER catch up? What ways are you giving them to try to outguess their opponent -- how do you simulate the "I think you're going to throw an attack RIGHT NOW that hits in a straight line, so I'm going to jump forward, even though that's an objectively terrible decision if you DON'T throw that attack" decision making?  These contests are not, generally, decided by which character can move faster. How do you simulate "I'm going to wait for you to throw a projectile so I can move through it with my move that's immune to projectiles, and thereby get a little closer" in a turn-based setup? or "I think you're going to try to throw me, so I'm going to jump, even though that would leave me horribly open otherwise"?  These are the kinds of decisions that I think are central to a 2d fighter, and they just... don't really work in a turn-based setup, because that "I think you're going to do X at this moment" kind of guesswork can't exist. Either you KNOW they just did X, or they will know on their turn that you just did your counter and there's no reason for them to then do X.  Even a "reaction" doesn't really solve this, because if I have an out-of-turn reaction like "Block a projectile and advance one range band"  I can use that with 100% reliability each time my opponent uses a projectile...so they just won't.  Unless it's unreliable, but even then all you've done is reduce the guesswork to a "Do I think a 60% chance of hitting you is worth a 40% chance of getting countered?" game.

The way I've seen this tackled elsewhere (Check out Heaven/Hell for what seems like a pretty solid implementation) is double-blind simultaneous reveal play. I feel like there's probably not much place for a traditional initiative system -- the way I see these games play out there are three states: Either both characters are 'in neutral' and trying to gain an advantage, or one character or the other has the advantage, and the get to press it until the other character escapes/does a reversal/finds an opening to counter or something like that.  And I think emulating that is an interesting challenge, and one that is going to be very hard to meet in a "I go, you go" kind of game format.

I'm going to give your game a read through before I answer this, just to make sure I'm not making any bad assumptions. Stay tuned.

I'm not sure if this addresses my concerns.  Partly because it makes it feel like slow characters will potentially just -never- catch up to zoner characters, and partly because it still feels like you're going to get a weird situation where each character is in their "ideal range" on their own turn, because the zoner can back away and do their attacks, and then the shorter range character can just close in and do their attacks -- assuming neither character is significantly faster than the other after their stances/traits/special tricks are taken into account.

Fundamentally I find that 'turn taking' movement produces a weird, artificial feeling in a lot of games. This is why stuff like attacks of opportunity exist -- to keep a person with a bow from running away from melee and then shooting, which is really only a problem in a turn-taking environment.  Whereas in a 2d fighting game, I feel like there's need to be a sense of "Oh, he got into short range against that opponent because he made a really good choice/his opponent made an error" which is absent for this style of movement.

How does this interact with characters who don't WANT to be close to their opponents?   This has always been a place where things get really janky in map-based turn taking games, because someone can use their turn to close to close range and attack, and then their opponent can use their turn to back away and attack (subject to whatever screwy 'attacks of opportunity' the close character gets).

And this is a super terrible way of modeling a 2d fighter where a lot of the time a character will really have to struggle to reach their effective range (or to keep their opponent from closing to their effective range).

No worries. I also have a spreadsheet.  :)  Thank you for your support and I'm glad you enjoyed reading the game!

Thank you for your support!  I'm a little sad you probably won't use this stuff, but I totally know how that goes too. ;)  Let me know if you do end up having any feedback -- I'm planning a gentle revision of at least the core game at some point this year.

I'm expecting the next DirectRelief payment to go out relatively soon, just waiting for a few more Itch payments to clear first.

I think this could be a fun game, but it's hard for me to tell.  A little bit of feedback:

• I suspect the "odds" chart is wrong -- -2 says "Slim chance. Roll 3 dice, and choose the best result." and you probably mean "choose the worst result"?
• "if it takes to much effort to justify" should be "if it takes too much effort to justify"
• " (or you injury yourself)" --> " (or you injure yourself)"
• Generally probably want to run a basic grammar check on this. =(
• I appreciate the printable tri-fold format, but please provide one for screen reading as well -- it's really very confusing to try to make sense of things without printing.

Today, I learned that Apocalypse World is not tagged "PbtA" on Itch...

FYI to folks who might be looking for a community copy, I don't tend to add them while the game is in a charity bundle, as it is right now, but when the No ICE In California bundle ends in 2 weeks, we're going to have a bunch of copies added.

So please support the bundle if you can, but if you can't, please be patient, thank you!

Aha! That makes sense! That's my habit of not reading the "lists of stuff to pick from" when going through a game coming back to bite me. Thanks!

A quick question:

How do I improve my rating in Core Skills? Secondary skills can be improved by Tutoring and by rolling crits, but it seems like neither of these is an option for Core Skills, and given how modest attributes are, it seems like Secondary skills would rapidly surpass Core Skills in modifier? (Though Core skills will have Tricks)

Well done, well done indeed.

It's June 1, but we don't seem to be live?

Excellent! I know how it goes! Thank you very much!

Thanks for the interest!  Please consider leaving a rating if you like the game!

There are more Community Copies now. :) Let me know if you don't manage to nab one.

No problem! Glad you're getting the work!

I'm enjoying the vibes here, but I think you definitely need to do another proofreading pass -- in addition to the issues other folks have mentioned, it seems like the text for Operate and Tinker is the same, and Cook and Sharpen have the same "flavor text", as do Ritual and Research.

Further, did you...change the name of your game at some point? In a few cases, it seems to refer to itself as "HSS"? 

I also found the explanation of tokens somewhat confusing -- some are applied to characters and some to leviathans, but it's not clear to me if you "spend" tokens on yourself or on your target, and whether tokens on the target are "character specific"; If I apply Target to a part, can someone else use that Target to attack? 

I could also really use a...checklist? Bullet list? for how Leviathan actions should go.

Looking forward to future revisions!

Excellent! I hope you have a good time, and let me know if you have any questions or anything you need!

Hey, thanks for your interest!  Always glad to field questions.

You spend 1 Insight or take 1 Arthic hold on 7-9 AND on a 10+ -- I wrote this as "When you roll a 7+" which might not have been the clearest.  Basically: Anytime you get the effect of your Art, you pay a little bit of Insight/Arthic hold to represent the sort of "MP cost".  Arthic Hold clears fast, but is a problem if you expect to be casting repeatedly in a single scene, while Insight recovers slowly, but there's no penalty for using it other than not having it.

On a 6- on a support Art, the GM should still make a move per page 53;  What that move is will depend on the situation in which the art is being used, but you can usually fall back on Deplete Their Reserves (and make them spend Insight even without getting the effect), Inflict a Condition (Give them Drained, with or without getting the effect), or Ask Them What It Costs (and ask them what goes wrong.).   Alteratively, you could use the opportunity to Foreshadow Something Ominous and just cut away to bad things happening elsewhere. 

I probably should add information about this to the rules text though, since I think the support Arts are the only Moves that don't have an explicit 6- instruction.

It's in a charity bundle right now, so I probably won't be adding any more until that ends in two weeks;  That said, once it does, there will definitely be a few more copies added, so I can drop a reply to you here when that happens if it will help.

No problem! Glad to help out! Good work on the game, I'm going to keep it in my back pocket for a oneshot sometime!

In the Keepsakes section"The GM gives a Keepsakes to a PC for succeeding a Romance Roll with an NPC." should probably be "The GM gives a Keepsake to a PC for succeeding on a Romance Roll with an NPC."

This is an elegant twist on the Lasers & Feelings formula, and gives it just enough extra 'game' to mix things up. 

I particularly like the Keepsake mechanics -- both for awarding them and the fact that you need to spend -all- of them to clear Heat -- and the Emotional Encounters table, which gives me EXACTLY the vibes I want from a game like this.

Honorable mentions to the mech 'sketches' with the snail tank.

Awesome, thanks!

I really like this game, but the text seems to have a number of errors - usually game elements being referred to by the wrong name, presumably reflecting changes that have been made but not thoroughly implemented. 

Are there plans for an update? 

Wanted to add a comment here since I just cracked open my copy for a look for the first time in a while -- it seems like you've got some sort of weird issue with your PDF bookmarks; While there are correct bookmarks in the document, there are preceeded by a whole bunch of bookmarks with names like "_heading=h.pp6px1afcjnd" which clutter up the pane and are probably not intended?

Ah! Thanks for the reminder! I had been putting off adding more community copies while the Trans Rights West Virginia bundle was running, but now that that is over, I've added the backlog, so there should be a few around for you to grab!  

Good luck! Let me know if I can help.

I was able to open the PDF in Affinity publisher and edit it easily, but in so doing I lost the fonts. If you know what fonts they are, you might be able to do something similar but more effective.

Can anyone verify for me if the issue with the play materials that exists in the DTRPG edition of this game is a problem here too?

Specifically, in the reference materials (but not in the actual book) Comfort and Support says:

When you assist a fellow PC, roll.

On a hit you lift them up: they may choose to give you a Bond with them or clear a marked Element.

On a 7-9 you may also clear an Element yourself, ask them a question they must answer, give them a Bond with you, or gain +1 Influence (Courtly).

In a scene, you may use this move to aid someone before or after a roll. Spend a Bond you created with them to give them a +1 to their roll.

***

Fiddly nitpicks:

• You have a typo. "Someone Else›s Coat"
• heroic should have the ‡ traumatized mark
• The "stories were once told..." section seems to appear twice, once on page 4, and once on page 5.  They seem to be the same.