/twewy/ - The World Ends With You TTRPG - Thread #07

Shopping my own pictures edition.

What is the World Ends With You?
It's a strikingly original Square Enix action RPG from 2008 for the Nintendo DS about trust, collective consciousness, desperation, imagination and fabulous outfits. Characters are swept into the Underground, a parallel dimension linked to major urban centers, where they run through a 7-day gauntlet of tasks and trials by higher-plane beings called Reapers. Band together and win the Reapers' Game and you have a shot at returning to the Real World. Fail, and you face erasure.

>What is this?
This is a Veeky Forums Homebrew RPG based on the above game. It's designed to be fast, simple and exciting, and it adapts virtually all of the mechanics from the source game to a form optimized for a tabletop experience. Most importantly, we've striven to preserve its core themes of cooperation, psychic powers and elaborate fashions.

>What system are you using?
We've adapted the core resolution mechanic from another Tabletop game Tenra Bansho Zero into our system. Roll a pool of dice based on your Stats, and count each die that's under your Skill or Psych as a success. It's fast, easy and dynamic. Characters only have four Stats based on your strength of will and mental condition, and only 9 Skills; mixing and matching Stats with Skills creates unique actions, such as rolling Protect:Rhythm to block a punch or Protect:Flow to dodge out of the way.

To flesh out your character, you come-up with free-form Tags like "The Gambler"or "Street Smarts" which describe unique elements of your character's personality and background which fills in the gaps in your Skills. Altogether, character creation takes all of five minutes.

Combat is fast and emphasizes cooperation. Players fight as a team, sharing their a common pool of HP and passing buffs to one another so that a different Player gets to the the superstar of each Round. Range is abstract, numbers are small and the action is lightning quick.

Other urls found in this thread:

docs.google.com/document/d/15kJXvBVinsbst0tMWmzwaUj5ddk0hotd3nifw3Hs720/edit
docs.google.com/document/d/1JJQRubikTOJDyYnsQFCHmb_I9xMz-c-8HOazu8DIdiI/edit
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

>What have you done so far?
Here's our main document, which contains all of our ideas recorded en masse. We're currently in the process of transcribing this into a properly composed PDF.
>docs.google.com/document/d/15kJXvBVinsbst0tMWmzwaUj5ddk0hotd3nifw3Hs720/edit

There are several supplementary files in the Google Doc, including character sheets and some appendices for Psychs (combat powers), Threads (clothing that grant abilities) and Noise (monsters).

>What's on the Agenda?
We're working on making our skills more relevant, and whipping up a few more Reaper Sports (AKA our newbie DM scenario generator) so we can have a functioning UG.

We're also piecing together the Trust system that Archivist left here before he/she left for greener pastures. I'm thinking some sort of assistance system.

We also gotta get some more playtesting going on in here. One just ain't enough! If anyone reading this is interested in playtesting our system and, effectively, bug fixing, then please leave a message here! We need playtesters!

We also need some fluff pages in regards to the individual sections of the rulebook, but that'll be more necessary once we actually have the crunch down.

>Wow, that's a lot of crap you guys gotta do
You're damn right it is!

>So how can I help?
Well, helpful netizens, we just so happen to need some help with making a few more monsters for encounters, as well as pins for combat and, of course, playtesters! And, if you don't have time for any of that, maybe you'd like to at least try out creating a character. There's a lot of people out there who have difficulty making characters on the fly, especially for games that have to mix in fluff and crunch together like this one, so having many premade characters is always a bonus. The linked picture is a blank character sheet which, if I did it right, should be form fillable.

>Previous thread?
Here;

bump?

bump

Thanks for the new thread Jazzman. Hopefully I'll get to put some work in this evening but chances are I'll be otherwise occupied till Monday.

cmon and bump

I'll try to keep it alive until then.

doot

I'll give it a bump too

and my bump

I'll give this a bump.
Big fan of TWEWY, would love to see a tabletop version.

Nice, new thread
We should also continue stating pins and start working on threads, while we're at it

Pin input is always appreciated.

For instance, how should we handle Holy Light, Ignition and Thunderstorm? Those are all Pins we haven't even approached yet.

Holy light would probably run off Insight or flow, and immobilizes the target on finisher. And low damage. Dunno what to do for the other two though.

Bump

One more before bed

and again, for posterity

Still out and about, but a question:

We're already working on the Reaper Sports guide, which will help GMs to figure out what they should make the players do. Question is, what else would a GM need to run the game easily and effectively?

d10s, and lots of them.

That and practice.

And on the DM's sheet, having a small description of each skill/stat combo. Like, one or two sentences max.

updoot before bed

Good call on the Stat/Skill combos. I hadn't even thought about that.

Maybe some sample Reaper and GM statblocks (and a short explanation on how they should be used/why each has what stats/skills) to help inspire their own?

Quick Bump

Question: at this stage what do we think is more important: completing development on the Skill System (which will allow for all kinds of non-combat activity) or the GM tools?

Skill system, all the tools in the world are useless if the game isn't complete

Skill is more important to get it immediately playable, and could alter decisions in making the gm tools.

That's my thought process too. Especially now that we have a working understanding of what the GM may ask the players to do via the Reaper Sports it's more important than ever to work out the specifics on Skills.

I think our skill descriptions in the google doc are good, but might need changing to reflect the 1-2 sentences limit, if they're larger than that.

If we can stick them on a sheet and put the sport grid near it, the other pages of the DM screen (I imagine we'd use one) could outline these too. The only downside is, that's 100 things to fill out. Perhaps we could put short descriptions in the grid instead of just the name, like the skills have.

The way things are going with the Sports grid it might work better if we had six possible Sports for each Game then can get a random outcome with a d10 and a d6

36 options instead of 100. This pleases me.

60 actually. A d10 for category, a d6 for the game

Still cutting 40.

In that case, should we edit the sports document to change all "X-0" sports to X-1, X-1's to X-2, etc.?

Yup

Which also means that we're done or almost done with a couple of them like Move and Struggle.

Awesome.

bump

Morning bump

Alright fellow TWEWY devs, welcome to the new work week!

Here's how things are looking:

>Reaper Sports
Given that we've moved from a 2d10 roll to a d10+d6 roll, we're actually much further along than we were before. This is how we stand:

>Games of Speech: 2/6
>Games of Struggle: 4/6
>Games of Protection: 2/6
>Games of Thought: 3/6
>Games of Perception: 2/6
>Games of Movement: 6/6 ---DONE
>Games of Expression: 2/6
>Games of Dexterity: 2/6
>Games of Endurance: 2/6
>Games of Chance: 1/6

By my count we're a little under halfway done with the Reaper Sports, which is excellent progress! There's been some great contributions to that particular file (which can be found here for anyone who doesn't already have it:
>docs.google.com/document/d/1JJQRubikTOJDyYnsQFCHmb_I9xMz-c-8HOazu8DIdiI/edit

That means this week our priorities should be split between finalizing this document and setting up the Skills Chapter.

For the Skills chapter, we have a very good grasp on how most of the Skill:Stat combinations work, but a few, like the Endure, Think and Sense skills can still use some fleshing out.

It's going to be a busy week for me but I should still be able to work out a good bit of stuff.

Looking forward to a productive week!

Oh, and here's an updated version of the combined doc, which now includes the Basic Combat section. We're at 32 pages now, so the work we've done has been significant!

Couple other ideas for Reaper Sports:

>PERCEPTION
5-3: Desensate- Each Player must reach a destination with one of her senses nullified.

>EXPRESSION
7-3: Fever- Create and propagate a new trend within the RG.

>DEXTERITY
8-3: Puzzlebox- A room or building has been secured with a complex system of locks. You need to break into it-- or indeed out of it if you're already inside.

>ENDURANCE
9-3: Ball and Chain- the pavement of the UG exerts an intense gravitational pull, making movement on concrete and asphalt extremely taxing and difficult.

Starting on the Skill System chapter. Been super busy today but got it started at least.

Bit of a bump.

Sorry I couldn't get as much done as I wanted, I got slammed today. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to contribute some more.

Mate, you've contributed the most out of all of us. I wasn't convinced you even work until now. You're allowed to not contribute every now and then.

What said, you're like the driving force behind this, dude

Emergency bump

And here I am worried that I'm monopolizing the project!

For real though I'm glad the stuff I'm putting together is appreciated and I hope it'll yield good results when we're all done with it.

Bump before bed

Bump

buuuuump!

Alright, getting Skills set up!

Speak is written-up. How do you all think the format and information looks? Especially the Difficulties table.

Are the write-ups for each Skill Combination specific enough?

Alright, biiiig thing here. I added the rules for the Fight Skill. We could really use some input here:

Notable rules:

>When a Player chooses to use her Fight Skill, her target will typically counter with one of his own Skills. The most common are another Fight Skill, meaning both combatants are just slugging it out, and Protect, where the target tries to defend himself from the Player’s attack.

>Fighting works similarly to launching attacks during a Combat encounter. If a Player rolls more Successes than her opponent, she scores Hits equal to the difference.

>If a fighter accumulates Hits exceeding his or her Endure Skill, then he or she is beaten and is at the mercy of the victor.

Then there are specific rule for each Combination:

>Fight: Rhythm
A Player who Fights with Rhythm gets a free +1d bonus when facing an opponent with less Rhythm than herself.

>Fight: Flow
When a Player Fights with Flow, she can choose to convert one Hit per action into a trip, disarm or other supporting action designed to weaken or throw her enemy off-guard.

>Fight: Insight
a Player Fighting with Insight gets a +1d bonus if her opponent chooses a Protect action.

>Fight: Bravery
a Player choosing to Fight with Bravery deals an extra Hit on a successful roll, but also suffers an extra Hit if her opponent’s Fight roll beats her own.

Hey guys! What's up? Sorry I've been MIA as of late, but that should change as IRL has calmed down a bit.

Glad to have you back!

Jazzman ran a playtest last week that turn out some good results. Combat seems to work just fine, so what we're working on now is working out the non-combat elements of the game, primarily Skills (see my posts above) and GM tools like the Reaper Sports:

>docs.google.com/document/d/1JJQRubikTOJDyYnsQFCHmb_I9xMz-c-8HOazu8DIdiI/edit
as a way to help a GM figure out what task to assign to the Players.

We can especially need help on getting the rest of the Reaper Sports worked out.

Do we have stuff like the 'fix hachiko statue' goal?

The stuff you do while Sho is busy fucking around, like doing things for other reapers, or Kariya's maze.

Sho also has you win the tin pin tournament.

>Do we have stuff like the 'fix hachiko statue' goal?
Nope! Good call! Let's add that under Dexterity.
>8-4: Fixer-Upper- Something is broken or in need of upkeep. Find it an fix it.

>The stuff you do while Sho is busy fucking around, like doing things for other reapers
I think most of those tasks could fall under existing sports like Fetch.

>Kariya's maze
Should that be a game of Movement (because you're navigating a confused space) or Thought (because you need to use your brain to work it out)? I'm included to categorize it under Thought, if only because we already have enough Movement Sports, though we can always change or reclassify some.

I was thinking Thought. And yeah, everything can be shuffled later.

There's also a mission where you have to remove all the noise from one area, but two characters are having an argument in it which is spawning noise. So you have to resolve the argument before you can do that.

Is 'get X brand to be number one' covered by Memework, or are we holding off on brand stuff until that's covered?

>There's also a mission where you have to remove all the noise from one area, but two characters are having an argument in it which is spawning noise. So you have to resolve the argument before you can do that.
Nice call. How about we call that Mediation?

>Is 'get X brand to be number one' covered by Memework, or are we holding off on brand stuff until that's covered?
That's counted under Fever, up here:

Last thing for tonight: Protect.

Here's what I wrote for Protect:Insight

>Protecting with Insight requires foresight and calculation. It’s not about stopping or sidestepping danger: it means you’ve anticipated it and taken steps to avoid it.

>Protect: Insight works in two ways. If a Player uses it to protect herself, she always gets a +1d bonus to her roll, but if the attack Succeeds in-spite of that, she takes an extra Hit. She tried to predict it, but miscalculated.

>The other way it works is that a Player can roll to alert another Player of some danger, in which case she gets bonus dice to her own Protect roll equal to her Trust in the Player warning her.

Does this seem fair and reasonable, or too complex?

We've yet to make proper Trust mechanics, I think. You could just give them a bonus equal to the successes or something.

And I think Bravery could get a +1d bonus if they're close to the protected target, as they don't really have to run in front, more just step in front and steady themselves or something.

Bump

What about:

The Player using Protect:Insight needs to beat the Attack that she's predicting, and the extra successes she scores can become bonus dice. That way there's a certain challenge in decoding the attack and calling it out before it connects with its target.

Bump

Good call. That way it can support other players. Each of the stats should probably have a "favoured" skill or "teamworking" skill or two, so that each player can support their friends in different scenarios. It'll also incentivise players to choose different play styles if they want the best chance of success.

Yeah that's basically how we're doing it. In the end we should be getting a nice split between obviously active, reactive and support Skills.

bump

Morning bump

Alright, good morning gentlemen!

Today let's try and get the rules for Think, Sense and Move written up, which will bring us 2/3rds of the way to a complete Skill System!

As I'm working on that and other office stuff, here's a thought:

When we start working on describing adventures in the Underground, I think the game would benefit from the Players being able to interact with the RG in more substantial ways. Being able to move through the shared space of city totally invisible to its citizenry is cool and interesting but I think could limit potentials for interaction and conflict.

What about this:

How about if the Reapers can temporarily down-tune Players back into the RG on a limited basis as a way to complicate their tasks. Getting from A to B while you're invisible and insubstantial to the majority of the world is easy; doing so when you actually have to contend with traffic and crowds is a lot harder.

I figure that it could be represented by a Player receiving a Reaper's Mark on the back of their hand, just as the timer appears on their palm.

What do we think about that?

Added Think to the Skill List. I think it's a good synthesis of all the ideas that we tossed around when coming up with the Skill, and I included this bit describing exactly what it's meant to be used for:

>Both Players and GMs must understand the role of the Think Skill. A Player shouldn’t expect to simply have the entire breadth of the Reapers’ plans laid bare because she passed a Difficulty 4 check, and the GM shouldn’t expect a Player to make a Think roll to process basic facts. Think can yield hints which can point a Player in the right direction and give her the one push she needs to assemble the clues and pieces she’s already ascertained into a final answer.

Let me know your thoughts; meanwhile I'm going to move onto a much easier to figure out Skills.

I like it

quick bump while I finish up the Sense section.

Sense added! I was worried about this one but it actually came out pretty well. Here's one particular point I wanted to highlight:

>Sense also has an important job alongside Fight and Protect. If Players and NPCs start Fighting, those with higher Sense get to declare their actions after those with lower Sense; in this way they can adjust their strategies and plan their moves better to reflect their superior perception of the sortie.

Also the details for each combo:

>Sensing with Rhythm detects sources of danger and aggression around a Player. In unknown terrain it picks-up on possible angles of ambush and attack, and sharpens a Player’s intuition to sense hostility and violent intent in others.

>One of this combination’s most tactical uses is that it can identify hostile individuals in the area a Player is in, which can help refine a plan of attack.

>Sensing with Flow lets a Player feel when she’s being manipulated, mostly often by someone else using Speak: Flow. It also allows a Player to get a feel for mood and attitude of a place or population: a vital piece of intelligence if you’re trying to fit in among an unfriendly crowd.

>Sensing with Insight involves training a Player’s sharpness on the minute and the hidden. It’s crucial for rooting out concealed traps or treasures and identifying forgery and sabotage.

>Finally, Sense: Insight can give a Player something of a sixth-sense, informing them via chills, willies or pure cerebral alarms when things aren’t quite right.

>Sensing with Bravery involves wrapping your head around what motivates others. A successful roll will give a Player an idea of where another’s passions, loyalties or fears lay, the latter being especially helpful if you’re trying to pressure or intimidate the person you’re probing.

Move added! 2/3rds of the way there!

Some notes:

>Move: Rhythm is by far the fastest way to get around. Catching or fleeing from someone Moving with Rhythm using any Stat other than Rhythm requires an additional 2 Successes.

>Moving with Insight has less to do with movement than it does with good planning. A successful Move: Insight roll helps a Player figure out the safest, quickest or least patrolled route to a place.

>For this to work, the GM assigns a difficulty based on the complexity of the terrain. If the Player beats that Difficulty, she can reduce the time it takes to reach the destination based on her surplus Successes.

>Moving with Bravery involves pressing despite conditions that would otherwise make it hard to get around, like an injury. When a Player moves with Bravery, any Difficulties based on injury, encumbrance or environmental hazards are reduced by 1.

Forgot to attached the updated PDF.

That's about it for today; hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to get the final 3 Skills written up.

Once the Skill section is done, we should work on what limited World Building we want baked into the guide, to describe the Underground and what it's like to be there.

So for the evening here are some thoughts:

>How should we describe the relationship between the Reapers and the rest of humanity?

>What instructions should we give the GM when it comes to creating his own UG?

>How should we integrate Scanning/Reading/Implanting?
The last point's been discussed somewhat earlier, but I think it bears repeating as it's a fairly crucial part of the original game that we should get right.

Furthermore, let's talk about Trust.
We've got the Trust chart there as kind of a legacy thing, but so far we haven't thought of a lot of good uses for a system of grading Trust between Players on a 1-5 scale.

Here's what we need to consider:
>Should we abandon the Trust system or figure out a way to work with it?

>If the latter, what should be done?

Several of the posters who were advocates of the Trust system aren't really around anymore, so this is an issue that we should talk about.

Move:Rhythm could also involve dragging others along if they're taking too long getting to the place, effectively giving the player that they're assisting extra dice to move with.

"Pick it up, Phones!"

That mighty work better for bravery since it's a) moving while encumbered and b) risking yourself to help another

Yeah, you're right. I like that better.

>Getting from A to B while you're invisible and insubstantial to the majority of the world is easy; doing so when you actually have to contend with traffic and crowds is a lot harder.

Getting from A to B with your partner phased in is harder, too.

bump

Wow that would be a total dick move. Awesome.

Bump before bed

Bump

Morning bump before work!

Octo Bump

Working on the last three Skills this morning: Express, Handle and Endure. Once those are done, which will make the Player side of the game basically fundamentally complete, what should be our next priority?

It's probably a good idea to get pins and threads done as soon as possible since, aside from noise, they're the most essential part of combat

Express has been added! Just two more now. Not sure if I'll be able to get to them this afternoon but if I have some time I will.

Express was surprisingly tricky to work out, but I think Handle will be comparatively simple because we have a pretty good grasp on what each Stat does for it.

Page 10 bump

Cannon wise there's reason to think this would limit their ability to directly fight Noise. If this is worked into the game it WOULD add mostly needless complexity but but would also add some depth and potentially strategy. One would have the need to plan their grinding to be before or after the mission to make sure they're not missing exp, would need to scope out the path they'd take ahead of time to make sure they wouldn't become reliant on other players to clear any Noise-based challenges that are needed to actually finish the initial A-to-B challenge and thus regain their Noise fighting abilities. In exceptional circumstances the terms of this challenge could be exploited to avoid Black Noise attacks and being personally targeted by Noise-wielding Reapers. And of course regardless of Noise fighting ability it could also be used to impact NPCs in ways more direct than reaper creeper, memetics, and Noise erasure.

One of the nice things about the world of TWEWY is that there's very little said about what the Reapers can and can't do to the Players. For the most part, limits on their actions aren't due to physical impossibilities but because they're in violation of the rules of the game. Which basically means that as long as some effect or condition is tied to the rules of the Game, the Reapers can do anything including the above.

Imagine this:

The Players need to erase some Noise, but their ability to detect the Noise has been disabled. In order to face them, one Player gets down-tuned and has to create certain emotional conditions in the RG to attract the Noise, which the other Players can then deal with.

One last update for today:

I started work on the Handle Skill, which is one that I really struggled with when putting the Skill system together.

revival doot

bump

I'll throw in another bump before bed.

As shall I! (Not before bed, just to get it off page 10)

bumpin

bump

Throwing a bump here for interest

How do Flow and Insight differentiate again?

Rhythm was basically beating the problem into submission and Bravery was a one-shot wing it style of problem solving, what was Flow and Insight? They're both sort of problem solving characters, so how do they split in Handle? Speed and precision go hand-in-hand in this particular skill.

But, this is just a question I ask before I sleep to see what answers we come up with. I have my own opinion on how they should work, with Insight being the actual problem solver and Flow having this skill as support, either noticing things and pointing them out for others who are trying to Handle with a different Stat, but it could be the other way around too. I guess Insight is more focused on solving a single problem, which is why I suggest it be the non-support role (roll?) for this skill, whereas Flow cares more about picking a bunch of suggestions or ideas from their surroundings or many puzzles and mix and match to see what fits.

Like solving a puzzle, Insight will use the pieces in the box to make the picture. Flow will find a whole bunch of puzzle pieces around the house to suggest if any of them fit any of the missing spots, because the puzzle is incomplete.

But that's just my suggestion.

Anyway, night all.

The way we had discussed it previously, Flow is for work that requires extreme dexterity and a light touch, like picking a lock or performing a magic trick, whereas Insight is for work demanding a high degree of concentration and mental focus, like hacking a computer or playing Go.

That said I also like your ideas as well, so I'll incorporate that Flow incorporates improvisation whereas Insight is more about performing a task to exacting specifications.