Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Engine

There is an active community on the rpg.net forums, and also on Tumblr (which has the unfortunate side-effect of being tumblr, but they do have a discord chat, which is nice if you can get a link from the person who has one).

It's a story-generating mechanism that happens to have a task/conflict resolution system on top.

1) You choose your story-shapes before you play through them. You do not simply declare that you are looking for a long-lost treasure: you take a Quest, which is a list of things that might happen when you are looking for a long-lost treasure, and act out the story-beats written on the quest for points. (You don't have to do all of them, and there are other XP options that you can use to add XP in if you don't want to use all the on-quest options, but that's how it usually works.) When you are done with the Quest, some sort of story event happens, you get a relevant temporary power, and then you pick up another one.

2) You get powersets matched to the kind of stories you went through. Did you learn how to work with demons or mad science stuff? You get powers based on being the person who keeps them away from the world. Did a concept start taking over your soul? You get powers based on shaping that concept and taking cool things out of it. Were you shoved so far into the unknown and the unknowable that you lost something of who you were? You get powers based on being able to manipulate the presence and absence of the unknown.

3) The main system for doing things that aren't Quest-shaped is based on a mood that your Hollyhock God (artsy term for GM) wants to foster. They pick a genre (the names of which have nothing to do with actual genres, but they serve a similar role, so eh), which determines the kind of scenes you get XP most easily for. For example, in a Pastoral game, you can get XP most easily by sharing chores and tasks with other people, talking about your feelings, or looking at the world and having a feeling about it.

I bring up Pastoral because it's the genre that Moran seems to be pushing most, at least this early on with the Fortitude-set supplements. But you can play other types of games in it too, if you want.

continued from 4) You may notice that Quests are generated on the player side. Chuubo's is a game that doesn't expect the HG to prepare a story. In fact, it is possible (although not advisable) to HG a campaign with minimal knowledge of what even the immediate plot or setting will look like: again, this game is a story-generating mechanism, so the HG's job isn't to provide scenarios. (Well, unless you're in the Immersive Fantasy or Techno genres. But that's another kettle of kaiju meat.) The player is the person who strings together story; the HG is there to tie everyone's plots together and remind people of loose ends. Of course, the HG does need to know what the rules look like, but that's a given.

5) Then there are Issues. I'm not even going to discuss Issues. They're somewhere between XP actions and Quests in scope, and they're interesting concepts in their own right, but you don't strictly *need* them for a game. (You will want them, and not just in Chuubo's games; but you don't actually need to know anything about them unless you're being the HG.)

That's still a game in my books, but I see where you're coming from.

Your description gives me a vibe somewhere between Tenra Bansho Zero and Ryuutama. Fascinating, but probably hard to get players for.

mediafire.com/download/bu8q776hy25rlv3/Chuubos_Marvelous_Wish-Granting_Engine.pdf

Here it is

You are a scholar and a gentleman.

>That's still a game in my books, but I see where you're coming from.

Oh that wasn't me. I say it's not a game because it's a massive book that, in the end, accomplishes basically the same thing as freeform RP. You could just get a GM to oversee a freeform setting (which many people do) and get the same result.

>Fascinating, but probably hard to get players for.

Nigh impossible. The system is incredibly complex, and it isn't like most RPGs where, if you're new, you can tell the GM what you want to do and they'll tell you what dice to roll. From the start you have to understand the way Quests, Actions, Intentions, Scenes, and every other game concept works, or you won't be able to do anything. The only way to lure people in is to tell them that you can use it to play their favorite setting, usually one that hasn't been ported to an RPG, and even then it requires so much heavy lifting on the part of both the GM and players to crowbar in whatever they want to create that most people don't get very far.

Oh, and one more thing for those of you in the bleachers.

It's diceless.

Okay, there, now I'm done. Have fun.

If for some reason you're still interested after this infodump, be sure to join the fandom on rpg.net or tumblr. The Jenna Moran fanclub is small, but very excitable, and produces a surprisingly respectable amount of fan-content given its size.

>If for some reason you're still interested after this infodump, be sure to join the fandom on rpg.net or tumblr.

That's useless, it amounts to 'find a random stranger who might know something about this and bother them about it'

What you do is ask here eternity-braid.tumblr.com/ and get on the IRC and the skype and so on

That sounds overly dismissive.
There must be at least some merit to it.

Interested enough to give it a read.
I'm always eager to read some good or new ideas and concepts, even if the final product doesn't pan out. Like, say, Dungeon World.

>Nigh impossible. The system is incredibly complex, and it isn't like most RPGs where, if you're new, you can tell the GM what you want to do and they'll tell you what dice to roll. From the start you have to understand the way Quests, Actions, Intentions, Scenes, and every other game concept works, or you won't be able to do anything.
This is probably the biggest problem with the game for newbies - you need someone to help you wrap it around your head or else you're not going to get it. Jenna Moran basically always writes games that are kind of asking 'what even is a game'?

Nobilis is vaguely similar to WoD in that there is an awesome and terrible world hidden from ordinary eyes, and you play as a Cool Person with Weird Superpowers, but despite this you're still subject to your superiors, factional in-fighting, and a bunch of weird and possibly insane guys on the Other Side.

Wisher, Theurge, Fatalist (WTF) is basically a complete desconstruction of what it means to have a game - with the titular three characters controlling the powers of the social contract, crunchy mechanics, and established setting knowledge. I'd suggest giving it a look.

And finally, we come to Chuubo's. Chuubo's is essentially what happened when Jenna took a look at 3e, which notoriously had a bad presentation and not many examples in contrast to 2e, and decided to make it more approachable.

The core system is basically the same, but polished and clarified. There's lots of examples of skills and miracles and how to level up in a way that's better than 3e's Projects (the Quests and Arcs are the best part of the system for me). Instead of having so many options at character creation (which cause the effect of paralyzing freedom), the game is has several established levels of play and balance.

Meanwhile, the setting is basically the inverse of Nobilis; instead of the big-ass tree of Creation in Nobilis which is huge but described in broad strokes, Town is small but described in great detail, telling you what its people do, what their customs and traditions are, what that guy down the street does, and how that one member of the regional council makes jam and likes to answer urgent emergency calles with "Well, it sounds like you're... in a jam."

I understand if you don't like Jenna or diceless fluffy games, or even that you'll pirate them (this IS Veeky Forums after all), but I suggest you at least give it a read and see if there's something in there that you like.

TL;DR: Chuubo's is the D&D 3.5 of Nobilis.

mediafire.com/download/5j3rxw1zy2xja49/nobilis_core_rulebook__printab.pdf

Here's Nobilis, for comparison

>TL;DR: Chuubo's is the D&D 3.5 of Nobilis.

So it's worse in every way?

...

>h-he doesn't like 3.5, it must be bait ;_;

Sorry pal, but it's the only edition worse than 4E

>So it's worse in every way?
It lacks the grandeur of 2e, but the presentation is way better. It has an optimistic attitude and is full of energy that actually makes you want to play it. It defines a lot of mechanics a lot better.

And you'd think it would be a horrendously broken system, where one character can at character creation be a reality-warping giant war god, while another could just literally have Heart powers, but unlike D&D it's not a system where you're expected to fight and min-max to a ridiculous extent, or where people would eventually make a Tippyverse or whatever, so it works out. If you're the kind of person that would play Chuubo's, you're probably not the kind of person that makes 3.5 unbearable.

That's probably precisely why Veeky Forums doesn't like it, though. I mean, besides not having dice.

...

>If you're the kind of person that would play Chuubo's, you're probably not the kind of person that makes 3.5 unbearable.

The people who made 3.5 unbearable were called 'Wizards of the Coast'

>That's probably precisely why Veeky Forums doesn't like it, though. I mean, besides not having dice.

No, I've explained in great detail why I don't like Chuubo's and it has nothing to do with either of those things

>narrative rules are the same as freeform
Why do people come to this conclusion? It seems to lead them to try to do things narrative systems aren't meant to do, they get upset and call the system shit.

>it's no good for running [my favourite setting]
Its pretty clearly not meant to be a game that emulates other settings. It emulates certain kinds of stories. If your favourite setting happens to facilitate that kind of story, great, but it probably doesn't and you're gonna have a bad time.

You seem to have invested some time into analysing the game, but you seem to be coming from a weird place.

>it's no good for running [my favourite setting]

The blurb on the drivethrurpg page says it was made for the MLP audience. If that's the kind of story you want to tell, check in to the oncology ward, because you're cancer

I haven't seen any MLP, but it's a bunch of friends teaming up to solve problems with friendship, right? Like most other childrens' cartoons?

You don't want to play that? Not enough brvtal awesome ass-kicking and name taking? That's fine, but don't assume everyone wants to play the same thing as you. No such thing as badwrongfun, user

>That's fine, but don't assume everyone wants to play the same thing as you.

Listen here, (you). I'm not assuming everyone wants to play the same thing as me.

I am, however, assuming everyone wants to play a game. Not badly emulate the freeform experience by filtering it through a book packed with elaborate rules for something people who agree on a few basic setting conceits can do without a system at all.

It's the same problem as FATE. They sell it as getting the rules out of the way and just letting you craft an incredible, textured narrative, but to do absolutely anything you need to familiarize yourself with three entirely separate systems (Aspects, Stunts and Skills) the devs stitched together to try and make a cohesive game. All they had to do was take the Aspect system and make that the whole game, they didn't even need dice. Instead they piled on layers and layers of bullshit.

>No such thing as badwrongfun, user

Why do people still use this as a defense? I can say I find FATAL fun, that doesn't change the fact that the setting is dumb and the system is a fucking mess. It's a non-argument.

This right here.

The badwrongfun meme is used as a defense by degenerates who want to shit up a hobby and refuse to grow, and bring shame to the community overall.

>The blurb on the drivethrurpg page says it was made for the MLP audience
If you're going to be that disingenuous, why not just claim it's "the brony RPG" so everyone knows you're full of shit? There's 4 other shows or films mentioned along with it, include much more respectable stuff like Kiki's Delivery Service
>I haven't seen any MLP, but it's a bunch of friends teaming up to solve problems with friendship, right? Like most other childrens' cartoons?
Pretty much. The main problem was the fans, not the show. I never really got why some people were obsessed with MLP but after watching a couple episodes one time I don't see why it's any more shameful or cancerous than Adventure Time (another show the DTRPG blurb compares it to).
>It's the same problem as FATE. They sell it as getting the rules out of the way and just letting you craft an incredible, textured narrative, but to do absolutely anything you need to familiarize yourself with three entirely separate systems (Aspects, Stunts and Skills) the devs stitched together to try and make a cohesive game. All they had to do was take the Aspect system and make that the whole game, they didn't even need dice. Instead they piled on layers and layers of bullshit.
Hey, want to give me a plot summary of In Search of Lost Time? Might be a nice break from talking about all the other shit you've clearly never read

>Hey, want to give me a plot summary of In Search of Lost Time? Might be a nice break from talking about all the other shit you've clearly never read

What? Are you trying to say I've never read FATE or Chuubo's? Because you're wrong on both counts. Fuck off, kid.

>emulate the freeform experience
Why do you think that's what its trying to do?

> FATE. They sell it as getting the rules out of the way
Where do they do that?

You seem to be judging things against criteria that these games never tried to satisfy.

Nobody finds FATAL fun.

It's a valid defence if the argument is "x is not fun" and the arguer is defining fun in their own terms. It's not a reflection of the game, but of the player's goals in playing RPGs not aligning with the kind of RPG the game is trying to make.

>I never really got why some people were obsessed with MLP but after watching a couple episodes one time I don't see why it's any more shameful or cancerous than Adventure Time (another show the DTRPG blurb compares it to).

Threadly reminder

>searching mblr in the /co/ catalog yields Steven Universe and Adventure Time

Are you implying I should be disagreeing with that poster? Because he's completely right. People find things fun because of reasons. If you call something fun without articulating *why* it's fun, you're not meaningfully contributing to any kind of dialogue. You're literally spewing buzzwords.

>What? Are you trying to say I've never read FATE or Chuubo's? Because you're wrong on both counts. Fuck off, kid.
If you'd actually read it you wouldn't be calling it three system's stitched together. There's a case to be made that aspects and stunts are redundant, but without skills or something like it you don't have a whole hell of a lot. Every character would be basically the same except for 2-5 things situational things that make them different. Everything you've said about FATE (never read Chuubo's, but I suspect it's the same here) in this thread reeks of "grog rage telephone," where you've never read the rulebook and all your complaints are all based on the complaints of people who never read the rulebook, who in turn got everything they think they know from someone who skimmed through it one time. That, or your understanding of system design is so bad I'd accuse you of never having played an RPG before.

>you just don't understand it!

No, I read it and it's bad. The main mechanical loop is just 'create an advantage' to stack free invocations, the skill system is completely at odds with the FATE point economy. It's Risus but spun out from two pages into hundreds.

You're right that unqualified fun is not very useful in terms of analysis. Instead of ignoring the word fun for the mechanism that lead to it (which is missing the forest for the trees) people should instead concentrate on the kind of fun you're talking about.

Its splitting hairs, but if you dismiss fun out of hand as a buzzword people are going to have a kneejerk reaction and think you're wrong because they think you're anti-fun, when really you're just wanting more precise language in your discussion.

The kneejerk reaction is why that screencap is always reposted. Gotta get them (You)s.

Am I the only one who tries to interpret Veeky Forums in the best possible light? Outside of blatant trolling, people are genuinely interested in discussion. Assuming malice instead of misunderstanding is counter-productive.

Fate RAW isn't that great. Fate tweaked and homebrewed to your group and game is quite nice. They point out all the different ways you can tweak things (dials as they call it) in Core, though they could probably reinforce that you should be doing that for every game.

>if a system needs homebrewing its a bad system and you should just play something else
If you're playing Fate you probably have a weird concept for a campaign that nothing else works for, it is a universal system. If there's a more-suited narrower-focus RPG yeah you should play that instead.

Otherwise if you want your unusual setting you would've had to homebrew anyway, at least Fate gives you a good basis and is easy to work with.

Has anyone ever actually played Chuubo's?

What happened when you did? Did you use the default setting or make your own? How much effort did it take to cram everything you wanted into the system?

>people are genuinely interested in discussion
Sometimes. Others just decide they love/hate something for arbitrary reasons that have nothing to do the thing itself and dogmatically stick to those opinions come hell or high water. There's nothing to discuss with those people because they're just going to trot out the same talking points over and over again until the other person gets bored or the thread 404s.

Just look at the D&D edition wars

> Fate tweaked and homebrewed to your group and game is quite nice.
Fate is scaffolding for more specific rules to be built upon. File Related for one makes combat significantly less deathy-spiraly and allows for more valid options during play, even if you only take bits and pieces from it.
Just the changes to aspects and the removal of boosts from Style attacks make significant changes, something I've been able to test and see in the group I'm playing in.

That's a risk, but I still like to be as sensible and cogent as possible for the sake of lurkers if nothing else.

I'm fairly sure a lot of the bitterness here is residual hatred for "narrative" systems, which a year+ back would get you 300 replies 100 images omitted of bile for daring to suggest that they were games, and that wasn't even getting into diceless stuff.
And on that front, Chuubo is by relatively universal standards a 'game'; It has a system for gauging relative ability between players NPCs and the world, and it has a system for resolving conflicts of varying types between those same actors. Those qualifiers are really all I consider necessary to elevate something above freeform, but I'd be interested in hearing what additional requirements people think there are.

Nice, haven't seen that before.

Skimming through it looks to be stuff that I already do with my group. Usually as a result of running up against something clunky in play and deciding that RAW didn't feel good so we did something else.

>RPG 'game' definition
A definitive resolution mechanic is all you really need

Anyone?

Please?

I don't much like making combat different from the way everything else works.

De-emphasising dominant strategy is good, but replacing it with a choice of three different ways to do things also discourages players from trying things outside the box. Being able to handle any character action within its framework is the main strength of Fate, compartmentalising that framework into "combat" and "not-combat" takes away from that and makes it more like other Gamist RPGs.

He makes a good point. MLP is a kids show like any other.
It's the fans who are pure, unadulterated, cancer

Here here

Why play it when you can argue about it endlessly?

I've played a bunch of games about the sample campaign that Jenna gave to the backers of the kickstarter. What mostly trips out people is the pacing, but aside from that they're really fun, people always have a good time figuring out character dynamic and abusing their powers for fun. It is essentially as anime as you can get, in a good way.

Incidentally, that's one thing I'll endlessly praise Jenna for: she had the corebook, Fortitude setting book and Glass-Maker's Dragon campaign drafts all written and basically ready from day one, with very small revisions. She gave them to the backers as soon as she reached the proper milestones, and then went the extra mile and gave a bunch of other materials. And all this while she's the game's sole writer, she doesn't get enough credit for any of that. The kickstarter was basically to pay for editing, layout, art, publishing, and printing. On those last two EOS was a piece of shit, so after she broke contact with them, a fan stepped up and massively helped with that.

Speaking of which, word is that the GMD campaign should be publicly available in 2-3 months, which should conclude most of the promises of the kickstarter.

Weird, I've always seen it pitched for running Persona games more than anything else.

While I somewhat agree, I find "comfy" used in the Veeky Forums context to be infinitely more aggravating that fun.

While saying something is fun is vague as well without context, I at least get what they're trying to say. Comfy has no fucking definition and can mean whatever you want it to mean.

Stuff that's comfy makes you feel warm inside.

I appreciate that this is vague and subjective but most people seem to share similar ideas of what comfy is.

If you don't then sorry I guess.

It has a stupid name.