Black Tokyo! Well, this is for the crew I summoned with my pervy powers.

Started by Chris Brady, February 16, 2008, 09:29:39 PM

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AKunoichi

Hmm I finally got here.

I have two ideas.

First idea is a ninja schoolgirl,
She just want's to be a normal girl but her parents expect her to seduce men 3 times her age, Stab them in the gut, and Chop off there appendages leaving a warning to anyone who would dare deify the yukuza. Stumbling into Black Tokyo hasn't made her life any better.

The second is a sadistic Yukuza punk,
He's a very dangerous criminal who has stumbled into Black Tokyo and thinks it is his kind of town. Has he bitten off more than he can chew?

Chris Brady

 :o

Oh, wait a tick.  Apparently, I may have to run two games!

The first crew hit my limit as to how much I can handle on a thread...
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

AstraKiseki

Quote from: WyzardWhately on February 18, 2008, 06:02:32 PM
As promised, I'm going to make a summary of those characters posted so far.  I know people love their PCs, so I apologize in advance if I misinterpret your writeup.  Let me know, and I will correct with all due haste any misstatements.  In fact, I suppose people could give me their own character summary, and I'd replace mine with theirs.  I think the real function of this is to put them all in one place, so we can look at how they might relate.

Kimekomi Ichigo
Player: AstraKiseki
Concept: Budding Harem Mage
Kimekomi is a sickly young girl with a broad artistic streak.  Her mother was able to create realistic magical androids, and Kimekomi is following in her footsteps.  Her mother has fortunately left behind two artificial bishounen older brothers; Nisen the homemaker and Sanro the motorcycle-riding English teacher.
Plot Hooks: 
She has two artificial older brothers, whose true nature is secret. (risk of exposure)
Her brothers are extremely protective of her. (tension between anyone she wants to get close to, and them)
There is some potential sexual tension there. (It's hinted that they could go strange once she becomes sexually active)
She has a strong desire to become a harem mage. (someone could use that desire to manipulate her)
We know nothing about her father. (Does she even know who he is?  Family seems to be something of a theme for her)
Mechanical Niche: Charismatic Hero, Social & Artistic Skills, Minions

Correction: the Ningyo twins are flesh and blood, though if they die, it's very, very obvious they aren't real; they vanish in a swirl of light.  Once Ichigo learns the art, hers will be living as well, made by sketching and drawing, just like her mother did.

And holy crap, you are right!  She knows nothing about her father!  Her mother never really talked about it, and the brothers have no idea either.

Note: She is also the most physically ill, and possibly the only medic in the group.

Reshki

Quote from: AstraKiseki on February 18, 2008, 07:00:50 PM
Note: She is also the most physically ill, and possibly the only medic in the group.

Jessi's got a smidge of first aid training in her current "Jill of All Trades, Master of None" build.  I plan on keeping that one, if possible.

Reshki

Thanks, WyzardWhately!

First, yes, I had done the math wrong.  I'd forgotten the additional +2 from my Studious feat.  Her Research is +15, not 13.

Also, I tightened up her skills a bit, focusing a bit more on her core, Nancy Drewness.   ;D  This means I dropped Concentrate and Gather Information.  She's still a student, and hasn't really been tested enough to have Concentrate, and Gather Information is too much a people-skill.  She's no misanthrope, but she's no socialite, either.  I also dropped Ride.  It was cute, but that's it.  Of the three I dropped, that's the one that hurts the most.  :'(  I might put it back, just 'cause.

I also changed how I listed her skills, putting the total bonus in parenthesis, so I won't have to calculate on the fly, and will be less likely to miss things like my Studious feat or Class Skills.


Jessica Kane

Daughter of Elizabeth Kane, daughter of Beatrice Kennedy.  It was Beatrice who took the family tradition, handed down from mother to daughter, a sacred charge since at least the Middle Ages, of fighting supernatural evil, and turned it into a business.  Since then, Jesus & James Detective Agency has been the front for their ongoing war against the forces of evil.  Robert Kane was the son of a drunkard who got himself possessed by a demon.  After Beatrice and a Catholic exorcist managed to banish the demon, Beatrice took Robert under her wing, and found him work at the agency.  Today, he’s CEO, though Grammie Bea still calls the shots. 

Jessi, as her friends call her (never Jess), was raised to take on the family tradition.  Where other girls might learn Grandmother’s recipe for chicken and dumplings, or makeup tips from Mom, Jessi learned how to spot the supernatural, and how to shoot and care for semi-automatic pistols.  Still, she’s managed to live a mostly normal life.  She’s had a few boyfriends, attends a small private Catholic school, and her parents have been able to keep the Things That Go Bump in the Night away from home.  Supernatural Evil has apparently written off west Texas, at any rate, so the agency now spends more of its time doing the usual work of detective agencies: tracking down deadbeats and trailing cheating spouses. 

The exchange program that sent Jessica to Japan was supposed to be something of a vacation for her.  No memorizing the Spates Catalog or Tobin’s Spirit Guide.  Not spending every other Sunday afternoon down at the shooting range.  She hasn’t even been to confession since she landed in Tokyo. 

An entire semester without ghosts and vampires, spirits or demons.  Beth and Rob thought it was important for her to live, at least a brief while, as a normal girl.

Grammie Bea, of course, knew better… 

So far Jessi enjoys Japan.  She’s picked up the language pretty quickly, it’s a lovely country, and the people are very polite.  But she doesn’t fit in very well.  At 5’8”, she was tall back home.  In Japan, she feels like Godzilla.  When she first saw how the girls tittered behind their hands instead of laughing out loud, she thought it was cute.  Then it got annoying.  Now that she’s caught herself doing it, it’s starting to piss her off.  Even worse, some of the boys are convinced that all girls from America are sluts.  Sure, she’s not as pure as fresh-fallen snow anymore; she’s had her share of back-seat romance.  But she’s not some whore, ready to spread her legs for any guy who winks at her, and she very nearly started a riot when she ground the heel of her shoe on the instep of some dirty old freak who groped her on the subway.  And while she grew up wearing school uniforms, she hasn’t had to wear one since she started high school.  She didn’t remember the pleated plaid skirts she used to wear being quite this short...

And Japan is eyeball-deep in the supernatural.  You’d have to be blind not to see it, and she can’t understand how people can’t not be freaked out by it.  Most of the spirits she’s seen have been fairly tame, hanging around the shrines and playing with fallen leaves.  She thinks she saw a kitsune, but it wasn’t there when she looked again.  So she’s a lot more relaxed than when she first arrived.  Which, as Grammie Bea always said, is when the damned bastards are sure to jump you.   

Jessica Kane
Smart Hero Level 5
Occupation: Student
Wealth
BAB +2
Fort +1, Ref +3 (+2 DEX), Will +4 (+1 WIS)
Defense +2
HP 20
AP 7

STR: 10
DEX: 14 +2
CON: 11
INT: 15 +2
WIS: 13 +1
CHR: 10

CLASS SKILLS (+1 Competence Bonus)
Computer Use
Knowledge (Arcane Lore)
Research

SKILLS: 88
Read/Write: English (native), Latin, Mayan, Japanese, Spanish
Speak: English (native), Latin, Japanese, Spanish

Computer Use (INT) 4 (+7)
Decipher Script (INT) 4 (+8)
Investigate (INT) 6 (+8)
Knowledge: arcane lore (INT) 6 (+9)
Knowledge: history (INT) 4 (+6)
Knowledge: pop culture (INT) 4 (+6)
Knowledge: religion and philosophy (INT) 4 (+6)
Research (INT) 5 (+15)
Search (INT) 4 (+6)

Drive (DEX) 2 (+4)
Hide (DEX, armor check penalty) 4 (+6)
Move Silently (DEX, armor check penalty) 5 (+7)
Spot (WIS) 3 (+4)
Swim (STR, armor check penalty) 2 (+2)
Treat Injury (WIS) 4 (+5)

FEATS
Combat Expertise
Exotic Weapons (katana)
Personal Firearms
Simple Weapons
Studious

TALENTS
Exploit Weakness
Linguist
Savant (research)

WISH LIST
Ghost Sight Goggles
Linemaker’s Polymer
Oni-Bane Memento
Oni-Bane ribbon (either blue or silver)
silver folding-knife
access to secret (or maybe not-so-secret) online database of the occult and supernatural

While I imagine Witchbane Rounds are fairly standard tools of her family’s trade, I doubt she brought any with her to Japan, and even if she had, where would she get a gun to fire them?





Stattick

Quote from: AstraKiseki on February 18, 2008, 04:16:01 PM
The impression I have gotten is that this is much more of horror than comedy.  Yes, there will be jokes, like in most anime, but...

The mental I get can be summed up in 'flashes.'

Hikari frozen still, staring at Masato, who just slammed his fist into a wall inches away from her, struggling with his rage.

Matt and Jessica staying up late at school for studying, and discovering the dire secret within the school.

Ichigo, Jessica and Matt arguing over the implications of the strange signs around the school, Ichigo worrying over how it will affect her brothers and any siblings she could create, as they are creatures born of magic.

The girls kidnapped and their innocence offered up to some sort of... thing.


That sort of thing.  Is that the sort of thing that should be going though my head?

This is the same impression that I had gotten of the game as well. Dark and horrific being the two most overriding aspects of the game.

Perhaps I presented my character concept poorly. Takara (means treasure, precious object) is not supposed to be a humorous character. She's trying to live in a (relatively) human world and thinks of herself as human, but there's a dark secret that few people, or no one, knows about. Perhaps her mother was raped by a tentacled demon, or maybe Takara's an artificially created construct, a melding of human and demonic flesh. What's certain is that although Takara appears human, she certainly is not. The only visible difference in her is her purple hair. (Elsebound race chosen out of the Black Tokyo book.) However, when she is full of lust, several tentacles emerge from her flesh. These tentacles are nearly impossible for her to control, and they are fueled only by lust. She's terrified that she's some sort of monster, and that one day the lust will overcome her, and she'll turn into some sort of rapacious fiend. So far she's been able to resist her carnal impulses, but she does not know how much longer she can do so. Perhaps the secret to whatever she has become since puberty hit is hidden in her past. For reasons she cannot explain, she has no memories of the time before she hit puberty. (I'm still undecided as to whether to make her an orphan.) Takara is understandably standoffish about sex of any sort. She fears what might happen if she were to let go, and the only semi-controllable tentacles were able to ravish an innocent. As stated above, she has a great deal of difficulty controlling them once they emerge. The tentacles have not been kind when they've ravaged Takara in the past and shown her a a painful form of carnal pleasure that makes her feel dirty and shameful. It is not uncommon to see bruises on her that the tentacles have given her. She is strongly considering going to a temple to see if the priests can perform an exorcism to rid her permanently of her possessed flesh, but at the same time fears to do so. What's worse is that as time goes on, there's a part of her that's starting to enjoy the tentacles.

Now that I've had the the chance to go through the book, I see that there's no actual feats to create a tentacle demon. A strange oversight for a hentai game. Tentacled Myriad is the closest, but it creates a huge area of effect (40 foot spherical radius!) of ephemeral semi-tangible tentacles that aren't even physically attached to the demon in question. I was looking for something a little different. Perhaps there is a feat from another source that one of you know about that can be adapted? As far as other feats are concerned, I was thinking of taking Vaginal Prison, and its prerequisites Gifts of Ecstasy, & Iron Will (which doesn't seem to be in this book). The combination of Gifts of Ecstasy and being an Elsebound means that once she does give in to carnal desires and starts learning to work with her body instead of against it, she'll be one hell of a lover if she can learn to direct her tentacles better.

After careful review of the classes presented in Black Tokyo, none of them seem to fit my character concept. I don't know the character classes from other sources at the moment, but I'm thinking that she'd be someone that probably has some street smarts, and is perhaps a bit roguish. Having not decided yet whether her mom is still in the picture, or whether she's just a distant and foggy memory for Takara, I haven't decided yet whether to include a period of homelessness in her background, but it's a possibility. I need to get these details nailed down and get her written up, or start a new character ASAP.

Chris, if the character concept still is not one that you like, please let me know and I'll come up with a new one. Perhaps by morning I can offer an actual charsheet or two for review.
O/O   A/A

Hikari

Weapon Finesse would definitely be a good buy, but I don't really want her to be a killing machine right now.  As she doesn't have any supernatural fighting abilities yet, and very limited conventional combat skills, I'm trying to keep her more defensive by nature; Brawl's more of a fluke pick up (it's either that or Archaic Weapons as an Athlete), and Combat Martial Arts is more defensive in that it mostly just protects from AoOs.  If she starts picking up Fast Hero levels then Weapon Finesse and other aggressive feats (Improved Combat Martial Arts/Brawl, etc.) might be in the cards.

Right now, most of what she's going to do in combat is get an enemy's attention--with Captivate, dramatic poses and threatening oration, and maybe a few weak punches--and then have no real clue what to do with it.  She means well, but she's not really Sailor Moon, so she doesn't have any demon-slaying frisbees or magic rape-be-gone wands.  Not even a Venus Love-Me-Chain!  So, she probably shouldn't be able to handle anything more threatening than a pushy first date on her own, at least for the moment.

I'm okay with her knowing other students.  She's a nice girl, and naive enough that she doesn't 'know better' when it comes to avoiding the stranger or more incongruous students like most Japanese will.  Heck, she wouldn't even call Ichigo strawberry-head and beat her up for being different!

As far as the 'dark' theme goes, I generally agree.  This character may seem light-hearted, but it's all a matter of perspective; what happens when you throw a character with (potentially) 22 Charisma, the 'a mind-blowing lay' racial power, negative marks in Sense Motive and Will Saves, and only just enough combat ability to aggravate into Dark Tokyo?  Especially when, considering her nature, she's going to derive power from that sort of thing and probably even inexplicably, instinctually enjoy it.

In other words, I'm going more for the 'playing a cute kid in an All Flesh Must Be Eaten' than the 'cute and funny' character type.  Bad things are going to happen, but they should be fun!
The wait is over,
I'm now taking over
You're no longer laughing
I'm not drowning fast enough


-The Strokes, Reptilia

AstraKiseki

Quote from: Hikari on February 19, 2008, 12:07:23 AM
I'm okay with her knowing other students.  She's a nice girl, and naive enough that she doesn't 'know better' when it comes to avoiding the stranger or more incongruous students like most Japanese will.  Heck, she wouldn't even call Ichigo strawberry-head and beat her up for being different!

Ichigo probably has fired back insults at anyone who has insulted her.  She may be sickly, but she has the brains and the personality to fight back.  And a camera helps a bit too.  She is a nice girl, but there is something of a worldiness to her, even though at times, she can be also insanely disturbing.  Just wait until you see her interacting with other Daydream creations. *evil grin*

Quote
In other words, I'm going more for the 'playing a cute kid in an All Flesh Must Be Eaten' than the 'cute and funny' character type.  Bad things are going to happen, but they should be fun!
Same here, lady.   ;D

Stattick

It doesn't look like I got in on time for this. I just wanted to give the other players a head's up, so you don't plan on my character being around or include her in stuff.

Well, I hope everyone has a great game.

Later,
Statt
O/O   A/A

AKunoichi

Quote from: Chris Brady on February 18, 2008, 06:50:09 PM
:o

Oh, wait a tick.  Apparently, I may have to run two games!

The first crew hit my limit as to how much I can handle on a thread...

So did I get in on time?

WyzardWhately

Quote from: Hikari on February 19, 2008, 12:07:23 AM
Weapon Finesse would definitely be a good buy, but I don't really want her to be a killing machine right now.

Well, that's fine.  I just thought you'd mentioned you weren't much of a d20 player, so I thought you might have overlooked it.  My character is even less of a fighter than yours is, so I'm not in any position to tell people they need more damage output or anything. 

So, who would like to know each other before the game starts?  I'd like for Matt to know at least one other PC.  I do kind of want to go with the conceit that he's only been in the country for maybe a week (Chris, you think it'd be cool for the first day of the campaign to also be the first day of school, or just before?  Because I'd be in favor of that.  Not sure if anyone else cares.) 

Good options for him that I can think of right now are:

Ichigo: Maybe she was drawing magical sigils in a sketchbook in the park, and he recognized what she was doing.  I'd think more of a passing acquaintance than a close friendship, but they both know the other has some arcane knowledge & experience.  They'd at least recognize each other at school.

Jessica Kane:  This would go the other way.  Maybe Jessica and her family read a newspaper article about Matt's little incident, and managed to read between the lines.  Finding him at the same school she's exchanging at would be a coincidence, and she might have made contact with him to confirm her suspicions...and maybe gain a little backup.

He also could have seen Masoto whupping the shit out of someone, or otherwise had a random encounter where Masoto was standing out.  Masoto does strike me as a character who tends to generate memorable encounters.

Thoughts?  Other ideas?
Look!  I have an ons and offs list now!  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=13580.0
It's still really sketchy, though.
Here are my dice rolls: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/player/WyzardWhately/

Reshki

Yeah, if Matt shows up on her radar, she'll definitely check him out, if nothing more than to make sure that he wasn't "infected" by whatever it was he killed.  But she'd probably keep it casual, mostly feigning ignorance of his past and building a bond based on them both being Americans.  If he brings it up, she'll say something like, "Oh, yeah, I remember reading something about that," but letting him tell his story of events.  But she won't bring it up if he doesn't.

Chris Brady

My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Chris Brady

Alright, before I get into the info dump as it was called, I need to know something.

What do people want out of this game?  Give me a direction to start in.  I can't promise I'll use all the elements, but I will try to weave what I can into it.

Oh, and I'm removing most of the stuff out of the setting that would break the forum rules.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Hikari

Crass exploitation!

Oh, uh, plot elements.  Demons are good.  Normal people who are just plain sick in the head can be good, too, especially if they're the sort to be consorting with demons or similarly stirring up incongruously huge amounts of mischief.  And some of the things the setting book promises but delivers on inconsistently or not at all: weird, sometimes perverse elements of Japanese society hypersexualized.  Anything you've seen that made you say, "Oh, those wacky Japanese!" should be fair game, from perverse gameshows to subway molestation.
The wait is over,
I'm now taking over
You're no longer laughing
I'm not drowning fast enough


-The Strokes, Reptilia

Khayin

Quote from: WyzardWhately on February 19, 2008, 11:22:15 AM
He also could have seen Masoto whupping the shit out of someone, or otherwise had a random encounter where Masoto was standing out.  Masoto does strike me as a character who tends to generate memorable encounters.

Masato would be somewhat stand-offish at first, but I think he'd probably grow to like Matt.  He has some serious balls to be messing with the stuff he's involved in.  As for how they would have met, I can't say that Masato is much of a defender of the weak, but any excuse to take out his aggressions on people works for him -- he may have put the hurt on a punk or three that decided to give Matt shit.  And, honestly, anyone who can help him figure out what monster was responsible for his existence is a back he's willing to scratch.  Once his inner beast erupts, he's going to want a target.

And I also thought your character summary plus hooks was awesome.  That really did help.  The only correction I'd make is the spelling of Masato's name.  :D

AKunoichi


Reshki

Quote from: Chris Brady on February 19, 2008, 01:21:55 PM
Oh, and I'm removing most of the stuff out of the setting that would break the forum rules.

Thank you.  Honestly, I’ve not seen some of the stuff that’s in the book in any hentai horror I’ve watched, but I’ve not watched a lot of it, so…

Mostly, I agree with Hikari.  I’m hoping for a bit of investigation as the horrible menace grows, a la CoC.  But instead of losing our sanity, I expect our characters to lose their innocence, their inhibitions, and maybe a bit of their humanity.  (Those of us that are human, anyway. ;) )  I expect the characters to face down threats to their school(s) and fellow students.  I expect sometimes they won’t be successful.  Sometimes, they’ll be mostly successful, but will have to pay a cost.

I expect we’ll see hideous things, have hideous things done to us, and sometimes have to do hideous things.  Because of the genre, I expect it to involve a bit more blood-and-guts than I might normally be comfortable with.  I also expect mind control to be a major part of the game, ranging from having our characters “nudged” towards certain behaviors, to out-and-out giddily happy mind-controlled, lust-driven slaves of things Man Was Not Meant to Know.

One thing about having characters molested.  In the anime I’ve seen, even when they don’t want it, the victims end up enjoying it, often in spite of themselves.  I didn’t see anything about that in the book, which surprised me.  Yes, it takes some of the edge off the topic, but I consider that a good thing.  I suspect characters who have been raped by demonic powers to be confused, wierded out, even horrified.  But I don’t expect them to be emotionally or mentally crippled, any more than I’d expect a fighter who got taken below zero hit points in D&D to be physically crippled.  That’s going to be a difficult line to walk, just like with the mind-control, so I expect a lot of OOC conversation when such issues come up.

The key core I’m expecting is, exploring an erotically focused, supernatural, exaggerated anime Japan.  I expect horny demons with a mysterious purpose for us to ferret out, sexual magical ceremonies that we might use to fight them, or be used in to further their wicked aims, and PC-to-PC interaction as we pick sides in the supernatural struggles happening around us and try to make sense of a world even more bizarre than the one most teenagers have trouble finding their place in.   

I'm also very flexible about this, so if my vision doesn't match everyone else's, I'm open to exploring other possibilities.

WyzardWhately

Quote from: Chris Brady on February 19, 2008, 01:21:55 PM
Alright, before I get into the info dump as it was called, I need to know something.
What do people want out of this game?  Give me a direction to start in.  I can't promise I'll use all the elements, but I will try to weave what I can into it.
Oh, and I'm removing most of the stuff out of the setting that would break the forum rules.

Before I go off on a huge rant, two suggestions:  We have a fair number of players, many of whom seem to be capable of self-direction.  I think we can probably establish a lot of our own scenes without troubling you.  Don't get me wrong, I really like having the GM around as arbiter, generator of NPCs and plot-hooks, etc.  But we probably shouldn't be afraid to just have two PCs meet in the hall and talk, argue, etc.  Essentially, I'm suggesting giving the players a bit of narrative autonomy, just because I think PBP games work best that way.  Secondly, we might eventually want to establish a few secondary PCs, or after the game's been running for a while, let other people come in to play bit-parts or cameos or whatever.  Just a thought.  Now, on to the big rant that I wrote because I'm a pedantic sonofabitch at heart.

Hmmm.  My ideal, I think, is a fair degree of horror with breaks for comedy, cameraderie, and the occasional win for the good guys.  Stay with me, please, as I'm probably going to talk for a while.  Buffy has been mentioned, and that's a good thing to talk about.  Buffy was so successful at what it did that it would be impossible to do the teenage protagonists and horror elements thing without inviting comparison to the whedon-verse.  So, we can start with that, and move on to what we want to do differently.

I think we should start with Buffy, and move it about five shades darker, five shades more sexual, and move the focus.  Buffy was very much a metaphor for the trials and tribulations faced by a lot of teenagers; it was a coming-of-age story in a lot of ways.  The big metaphor was often violence.  And we have some room for that.  However, we also get to use sexuality much more explicitly, both sex-as-sex and sex-as-metaphor.  Sex is inextricably tied to a person's identity: their orientation, their morals, the madonna/whore dichotomy, it's intimately tied into a person's desire to assert dominion over their own body and self, and the selves and bodies of others.  It's not explicit enough in the Black Tokyo book, but there's heady symbolism here.  The Weaponized Penii as a metaphor for men who use sex as a weapon (A set that might be larger than rapists alone), the similar feats available to female characters, and the tantric wisdom feat chain that lets people use their sexuality as a healing gift to someone they care about.  Ideally, those functions would have been subsumed into general genre-rules rather than  a feat chain, but we deal with what we've been given.  As Hikari mentioned above, Japanese culture has produced some wacky things.  I personally attribute that to the culture being fairly normative and repressive (you'll notice that even a lot of the expressions of individuality coming out of Japanese culture, things like cosplaying or the other "Dress up" subcultures, tend to be named, categorized, and formalized.  Think about that - even the outlets are pre-defined.) and so you get some weird leaking out around the edges.  I could be way wrong about this, I'm not an expert on comparative culture studies or anything, but there is a great emphasis on fitting in.  When pressure gets too high, leaks start to occur...

So, I think taking the psychology of sex and the backdrop of japanese culture, we have a lot of room to play around with not just sexual identity, but identity itself as a theme.  This is rich, fertile ground for psychological horror.  I also think we should downplay the physical effects of violence - we should be tossing around a fair amount of non-lethal damage, and probably trying to reduce people to that 0-HP state of relative helplessness.  (If anyone here is a fan of UA, think Isolation, Helplessness, and Self checks.)  We should be playing up ability damage, maybe even ability damage through psychological trauma, if we can come up with a way to mechanically do that.  Anything to make combat and confrontation about more than whittling away HP until someone goes down.

Also, see the Hellraiser movies.  They did glorious things with sexuality, identity, desire, and the trauma of facing your own darkness.  Also, death tended not to be permanent.  This was also a theme in Kult, maybe the best horror RPG I've ever seen.  The various shadowlands and whatnot behind reality, where the dead go?  That should be something people come back from.  Not via a resurrection spell, but simply because people decide to come back, and have the outright will and determination to do so. 

This makes killing the enemy or one of the PCs far less of a goal in its own right, and far less final.  I'm not saying it should be like, "Oh, this guy died, he'll be back next week."  I'm just suggesting it as a way to put violence and death less of a theme than the other kinds of horror available to us.

I realize that was kind of rambling, I hope somebody can drag something useful out of it.  I'd be willing to go into more detail about Unknown Armies' madness meters if anyone finds it interesting, it's actually an interesting introduction to the basic building-blocks of psychological horror by itself.

Quote from: Khayin on February 19, 2008, 01:40:11 PM
Masato would be somewhat stand-offish at first, but I think he'd probably grow to like Matt.  He has some serious balls to be messing with the stuff he's involved in.  As for how they would have met, I can't say that Masato is much of a defender of the weak, but any excuse to take out his aggressions on people works for him -- he may have put the hurt on a punk or three that decided to give Matt shit.  And, honestly, anyone who can help him figure out what monster was responsible for his existence is a back he's willing to scratch.  Once his inner beast erupts, he's going to want a target.

And I also thought your character summary plus hooks was awesome.  That really did help.  The only correction I'd make is the spelling of Masato's name.  :D

*headdesk*  So, that's two things I need to correct. 

I was really just picturing that Matt might have seen him beating the hell out of people for the normal reasons Masato beats the hell out of people.  Although, really, any of the PCs could have seen that, Matt's just one of the least likely to be very judgmental about it.  And, yes, I think Matt would probably agree to help him investigate his heritage once they got to know each other.  Honestly, Matt's first assumption would likely be that Masato already knew what his dad was.
Look!  I have an ons and offs list now!  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=13580.0
It's still really sketchy, though.
Here are my dice rolls: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/player/WyzardWhately/

Chris Brady

All good stuff so far, but I need both Astra and Khayin to add to this.

And as for ambulating between players without my intervention, I'm all for it.  Just give me a sign when/if you need something adjudicated.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Stattick

Quote from: WyzardWhately on February 19, 2008, 02:44:47 PMSecondly, we might eventually want to establish a few secondary PCs, or after the game's been running for a while, let other people come in to play bit-parts or cameos or whatever.  Just a thought.

I'd just like to say that if Chris and the players want to do something along these lines, I'd be willing to play a secondary PC, bit-part, cameo, or whatnot if you'd be comfortable with me doing so. I don't have a problem with someone else writing up the character (probably faster that way anyhow), predefining how they'd like me to portray the character, or assigning me a particular plot goal. Just drop me a PM @ rpg.net (Stattick) or a YIM message (stattick) if you would. I'm hessitant to ask to have a PM dropped on this site, only because I'm not sure at this point how active I'll be here.

I'll just add that I think everything that Wyzard wrote was pure gold and reminds me of the OCC discussions that we've had in the Buffy Gilead pbp game I'm in on rpg.net. Ok, I think that's enough from the audience, I'll go back to lurking.
O/O   A/A

AstraKiseki

I'll go with 'all of the above' please.  All of this is making me squee.  Though, yes, heavy on the physiological horror, and the lack of constant 'good guys win.'  Mind control, yes please, and blackmail. I want to have Ichigo facing her somewhat sociopathic outlook when it comes to Daydream Dolls and the true degree of loyalty the Ningyo brothers have towards her, and just truly messed up in the head she is.  Come on, she has been exposed to these dolls since almost birth, and knows that they die in a flash of light.  She probably attended an all-girls' school from preschool to high school (which allows for the awkwardness of meeting boys in an academic setting).  At this point, she would cheerfully use the dolls as tools for blackmail, and she will easily send them into a fight just as a distraction.

Quote from: WyzardWhately on February 19, 2008, 11:22:15 AM
Ichigo: Maybe she was drawing magical sigils in a sketchbook in the park, and he recognized what she was doing.  I'd think more of a passing acquaintance than a close friendship, but they both know the other has some arcane knowledge & experience.  They'd at least recognize each other at school.
That would work wonderfully.

She probably knows Hikari, especially if Ichigo asks to do a sketch of her.  At school, Ichigo strikes a balance in between geek and social butterfly, even though people tease her for being in a boy's uniform.

Reshki

Quote from: WyzardWhately on February 19, 2008, 02:44:47 PMSo, I think taking the psychology of sex and the backdrop of japanese culture, we have a lot of room to play around with not just sexual identity, but identity itself as a theme.  This is rich, fertile ground for psychological horror.  I also think we should downplay the physical effects of violence - we should be tossing around a fair amount of non-lethal damage, and probably trying to reduce people to that 0-HP state of relative helplessness.  (If anyone here is a fan of UA, think Isolation, Helplessness, and Self checks.)  We should be playing up ability damage, maybe even ability damage through psychological trauma, if we can come up with a way to mechanically do that.  Anything to make combat and confrontation about more than whittling away HP until someone goes down.

Another thing that surprised me by not being in the book, but is in the, I think, three episodes of "La Blue Girl" I've seen is the idea of sexual combat.  The idea of resisting desire, and defeat coming not with death, or even a KO, but with surrender to desire, is pretty central to most of the hentai I've seen.  The theme seems to be the conflicting demands of society and biology on the individual.  Forced transformation (emotional, spiritual, and sometimes even physical) is the price for defeat, shaping the loser to be more in attune with the desires of the different forces that tug them this way and that.

Anyway, long story short, I agree with WW.  Our characters should be struggling against the transformative powers of the evil spirits that confront them (as metaphors for the transformative powers of society's expectations and the chaos of the biological transformations into adulthood).  Some of our characters, especially those who are already half-demon, have this theme already built into their characters, obviously. 

QuoteAlso, see the Hellraiser movies.  They did glorious things with sexuality, identity, desire, and the trauma of facing your own darkness.  Also, death tended not to be permanent.  This was also a theme in Kult, maybe the best horror RPG I've ever seen.  The various shadowlands and whatnot behind reality, where the dead go?  That should be something people come back from.  Not via a resurrection spell, but simply because people decide to come back, and have the outright will and determination to do so. 

This makes killing the enemy or one of the PCs far less of a goal in its own right, and far less final.  I'm not saying it should be like, "Oh, this guy died, he'll be back next week."  I'm just suggesting it as a way to put violence and death less of a theme than the other kinds of horror available to us.

Again, I agree.  As in Lovecraft's "Shadows of Innsmouth", the threat is not death, but transformation.  The existence of ghosts and other spirits make death an imperfect solution to conflict.  Which means our characters will need to find another way to neutralize our foes.  In Vampire Princess Miyu, she doesn't destroy the demons, but rather sends them back to hell.  (Very much like the current show "Reaper".) 

This would give us a lot of neat flexibility as well, since PCs might change sides, either by choice or by force, as the story moves along.  This would also be in keeping with the horror hentai I've seen, where the friends of the protagonists are often converted into minions of the Big Bad, Bodysnatchers style.   

Anyway, we could do that with attribute damage, or maybe be very flexible in how we interpret hit points, maybe saying they're much less measures of physical stamina and integrity, and more a vague measure of will, and both emotional and physical fortitude, and how much resistance you're able to offer any foe in any sort of contest.  I dunno, again, like I said, I'm pretty flexible.

(And I love yakking about stuff like this, so thanks for indulging my inner grad-student.  ;D )

Khayin

Apologies for the delay in sounding off.

Hikari, Reshki and Whately managed to capture my ideals better than I could have expressed myself, especially on the concept of employing sexuality in terms of character identity.  Masato is the first "bruiser" type I've played and it's primarily for the chance to explore the more ferocious and violently carnal side of sexuality (emotionally, of course -- not just gory) for good and ill.  Of course, his desire to keep from becoming the monster he is inside means that he's set up rather well for a terrible fall.  He fears hurting the ones he cares for, but he has so much anger that it's just a matter of time.  Eventually, he'll decide to take this out directly on the real monsters -- then he won't hold back anymore.

I'd also like to echo the notion that while characters would definitely be disturbed and probably hurt by all the awful things that will happen to them, it should never be something that absolutely ruins them.

But, yeah -- everything said so far has been pure gold.  I'm extremely excited about the story.

WyzardWhately

Reshki:  I'm actually sort of a grad student myself - I'm in law school, background in psych and philosophy.  I agree with pretty much everything you said, and congratulate you on saying it in about a third the wordcount of my own ramblings.

Stattick:  I'll keep you in mind when we start needing people.
Look!  I have an ons and offs list now!  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=13580.0
It's still really sketchy, though.
Here are my dice rolls: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/player/WyzardWhately/