Category: RPG

Alice in Cybertales

Box contains blonde cybernetic female

Alice in Cybertales (アリス イン サイバーテイル) is a svelte thirty two card TRPG-like cooperative conversation game. It puts the TRPG element of interacting with NPCs its core mechanic. Set in a Cyberpunk Alice and Wonderland inspired world where the PCs are searching for a rabbit. As part of this search, the players attempt to gather information from the city’s inhabitants.

It’s supports two to five people, including one as the GM, and estimated game time is under thirty minutes, making for a snappy game.

Made by Yuugakugei (遊学芸), a prolific group whose works include Summon Skate, it’s visuals and production are top notch. Continue reading Alice in Cybertales

Eyes on Wares Blade – Magic and Machinery – Box Set

I still remember the first time I was at Yellow Submarine and happened upon the original Wares Blade box set, its cover instantly piquing my curiosity. I later found it again at Mandarake and picked it up. With LionWing Publishing’s English translation in the works, I thought it’d be fun to take a look at the original box.

Wares blade box, front and back side by side.

But first, just what is Wares Blade? In its own words, Wares Blade is a “magic and machinery”, a fantasy world with mecha. And while we’ll be looking at the TRPG today, it’s a world unto itself. There is a plethora of novels, and an active movement to make them available again. Back at the 2019 Tokyo Game Market I stopped by the Wares Project booth and heard a bit about their plans, including a board game “Legion”. Six years later, with out of print books being made available as PDFs and now an English translation, Wares Blade is very much alive!

Set on the continent of Ahan (アハーン大陸) with three cultural areas, the core set focuses on the Western area. Later supplements, of which there are many, look at other areas.

To be clear, the Kickstarter is for the revised edition that came out in 1994, while we’ll be taking a peek at the original 1989 version. I’ve only skimmed the sample English rules, but have referenced it a few times for consistency with speciality terms (eg 練法師 as Word-Caster). With that said, on to the box! Continue reading Eyes on Wares Blade – Magic and Machinery – Box Set

Catalog of Many Indie TRPGs

Cover of Doujin TRPG Catalog 2023I’ve been totally impressed with the Doujin TRPG Catalog 2023 (同人TRPGカタログ2023) edited by Suguru Cioya. It’s a follow up to the previous catalog (同人TRPGカタログ201X) published in 2020. That version contained 175 entries, while the new edition has expanded to 283! Well, 246 are in the main book, and another 37 are in a separate book dedicated to derivative works whose relation to copyright may be questionable. While both are available in print, the latter is also freely available on Booth.

Coming back to the main book and its 104 black and white pages, there are Continue reading Catalog of Many Indie TRPGs

Foretelling the Elements of Trade

CoverAs a kid I adored the Torneko story arc and running a shop in Dragon Quest IV, so when I saw the indie TRPG Hakke Gogyou Shou (八卦五行商) and its beautiful cover, I was immediately intrigued. A slim fourteen black and white pages with a glossy cover, it’s a game of merchants peddling their wares in an ancient China inspired fantasy.

The name itself is composed of three words: Eight Trigrams Divination (八卦), Five Elements (五行), and Merchant (商), with the shapes behind the title corresponding to the concepts. Not being very familiar with them and the book assuming some familiarity, a bit of research helped with reading. Continue reading Foretelling the Elements of Trade

Return of the Dragons

News of Hobby Japan losing the license to D&D and planned releases being cancelled was a shock to the Japanese D&D community. This led to numerous calls to keep D&D in Japan, including a petition to Wizards of the Coast. A few months later WOTC announced that they’d be releasing 5E in Japan directly. The price point actually dropped from ¥6,000 to ¥5,500 per book, with the starter and deluxe play sets being competitively priced.

As I mentioned in my write up about Game Market Fall 2022, Wizards is putting a lot of effort into promoting D&D. Most recently was a Magic: The Gathering Players Convention in Yokohama where there was a D&D booth with 10 minute trial sessions.

That’s on top of the commercial they released: Continue reading Return of the Dragons

Message on the Palm

I stumbled upon a simple solo journaling game with an interesting mechanic while researching TRPG ebooks. Called Message on the Palm (てのひらの伝言), its premise is awakening to find a palm-sized visitor outside your window. What that visitor is depends on the last digit of your previous Tweet. In fact, this is the only randomizerーeach tweet references the ID of the previous one to customize the prompt from a list of options.

Templates are provided for each tweet to serve as a guide. Most tweets have a single template, but the fifth has two options: one for if the visitor is invited in and one if the visitor is driven away. Continue reading Message on the Palm

World’s End Journey

World’s End Journey (終末紀行RPG) is a rules light indie TRPG about two travelers, human and robot, surviving in a world that has ended. The text from a promo image sums it up as, “No school. No society. No food. No bullets. No anything. With partner.” Using a d6 pool for resolution, it focuses on generating stories using roll or choose charts (ROC) .

World's End Journey CoverBoth the free 16-page and paid 40-page PDFs are A4 landscape with a three column layout. Primarily in black and white with a few images, the sample characters are illustrated in full color. The sections are clearly labeled and handy reference numbers are provided to make navigation even easier.

Setting

The setting is loosely defined with several core principals: mankind is long extinct; no other humans nor robots are around; there are no resources left, with only remnants from the past being repurposed; and the world is dangerous: in addition to the harsh landscape, mutants and drones pose a threat. The journey itself is one of survival. There’s enough guidance to set the mood, while the details are left to the GM and players to weave together. The exact year is undefined, and there both realistic (eg machine-guns) and far-future (eg laser guns) items available, but as we’ll see later, the items are about expressing the character and don’t have mechanical benefits. Continue reading World’s End Journey

Dark Souls TRPG Solo Play Report

Character sheet on a tablet, with the cards comprising the map and dice behind it.
Early in the scenario.

After spending so much time with the Japanese Dark Souls TRPG (part one and part two), I wanted to give its tutorial scenario a try. The following are my play through notes with my impressions at the end. I played with real playing cards and dice, but marked up a PDF version of the character sheet on my tablet. Now, it goes without saying, but this post contains spoilers for the solo Dark Souls TRPG tutorial scenario.

The scenario is intended for a single player, and I ended up playing it solo. To make it more interesting for me, I did not read the scenario beforehand. Instead, I played through while reading it for the first time, and did my best to not read ahead. Continue reading Dark Souls TRPG Solo Play Report

Dark Souls TRPG Deep Dive: Behind the Screen

Our deep dive into the Japanese Dark Souls TRPG continues with a look at the GM portion of the book. Part one covered the first half of the book, which focuses on player content. I’ve done my best to keep spoilers to a minimum, but I do show the data of the first enemy encountered in the tutorial scenario. The remaining three sections we’ll look at today are Scenarios, Enemies, and Charts and Sheets. After that there’s a quick look at the bonus GM screen.

Scenario Section

The scenario section begins with helpful advice for the GM and an overview of both solo and multi play. It continues with an overview of how scenarios work, mapping, treasure, and the ominous malevolence sheet. Continue reading Dark Souls TRPG Deep Dive: Behind the Screen

Dark Souls TRPG Deep Dive

We’ll begin our deep dive into the Dark Souls TRPG by looking at the player-focused first half of the book. Part two will cover the game master focused latter half. Designed by Hironori Katou and
published by Group SNE, Dark Souls TRPG is a book that has been sitting in my blog backlog since it was published. It’s a crunchy, class and level based system that seeks to evoke the feeling Dark Souls III, while also avoiding what would be tedious in an analog game. As with many Japanese TRPGs, it only uses six sided dice. Continue reading Dark Souls TRPG Deep Dive