Japanese Tabletop RPG General

Let it die.

Like people say, it's a one-shot culture. Except apparently shadowrun is popular.

Lawyers fight in giant robots to settle disputes in dystopian not-Australia. GMless PvP.

What are you trying to... allege?

Didn't know i wanted this. Is there a phoenix wright objection move?

Just took a look at the system, and its the dumbest thing I've ever seen and holy fuck I want to play it.

t. Aussie

No, but you do shout "Objection!" to proceed to the second and third rounds.

Model: Combat Shell
Designation: Beijing Computers

Type: M (Flight A)
REF/MV: 5 (Flight 20)/2 (Flight 80, lasts 2 Turns)
STR: X+10
DEX: X-8
HP: 7

Chassis Price: $6,000
Set Price: $13,000

Load Limits

(Weapons, Armor) 80
(Cargo, Personnel) 0

Crew: 1

Armor
(All Locations) A30/60% (Hi-Chobham Armor)

Hit Locations:

1-6 Chassis
7 Engine (CP 3)
8 Boosters (CP 2: 1 hit disables them)
9, 0: One Module

Installed Modules: Cyber Laser Sight (for Main Arm), ECM Pod (B)
Main Arms: 7.62mm Assault Rifle, Low-Recoil AP Gun

Is that an Allege, or something different?

Different, it's from Metal Head. These are more VOTOMS-like small mecha.

So started reading TBZ rules and setting for real, and the basics seem cool enough though I don't expect to completely wrap my head around some things such as the wiki/kiai/karma economy until I see some play.

The only thing that's made me stop and think so far: has anyone had problems or group inequalities arise from the roll to turn chits into kiai being tied to Empathy?

As others mention, Japan is more conducive to one-shots or relatively short campaigns than extended campaigns. They have a number of systems over there, but they do have a thing for some western systems, notably Call of Cthulhu or Shadowrun.

Does Metal Head have a translation? I can't find anything on Google.

And on the note of translations. Can anyone share the translation of Alshard? I saw a pdf floating around a while ago, but it was a WIP. so I'd like to see if any progress was made.

Like I said on the previous thread, I've been working on and off it for a while. It's really rough because I haven't done an editing pass or anything, but at least I can share some stat blocks. It's an amazingly '80s game, even if it's from 1990.

Model: Combat Shell
Designation: Weiss America M-PS12

Type: M (Flight Time A)
REF/MV: 6 (Flight 25)/3 (Flight 100, lasts 3 Turns)
STR: X+10
DEX: X-5
HP: 9

Chassis Price: $10,000
Set Price: $22,600

Load Limits

(Weapons, Armor) 100
(Cargo, Personnel) 0

Crew: 1

Armor
(All Locations) A30/60% (Hi-Chobham Armor)

Hit Locations:

1-6 Chassis
7 Engine (CP 3)
8 Boosters (CP 2: 1 hit disables them)
9, 0: One Module

Installed Modules: Booster Tank, Flare Pod M, ECM Pod B, Cyber-IR Vision
Main Gun: AT Rifle

Never.

Is Sword World any good?
Found a translation of it on the web.

1E is a wonderful fantasy heartbreaker. 2E is mayonnaise.

> tfw the translation you have is of the mayonnaise

giant allege when?

Has anyone played Meikyuu Kingdom?
I want to give it a try, but have so many questions

The least of which being, what does the Laboratory Facility do?
The translated pdf has an error, and skips it.

...

Awesome, thank you so much
Where did you find such a nice, translated card?

I'm struggling through the no-frills, no pictures pdf

I made it myself.

Do you have more you can put up, or a template so I can make my own?
Any resources that you can provide would be appreciated

Not that guy but I'm planning on during my free time on shooping the translation over the cards so I can have play aids in live sessions.

www118.zippyshare.com/v/Ka8SY8YW/file.html

Here's a folder of all the cards to be shooped

Been a while since I looked into JTRPGs.

>Did they ever finish the translation of Log Horizon? Has anybody made it into a PDF rather than a plaintext file?

>Are there any translations of Arianrhod or Alshard Fortissimo?

How does Giant Allege tie into Arianrhod? (since Arianrhod RPG is plastered on the cover).

I remember reading that the guys from Red Dragon would release books on the RPG. In fact, I remember seeing a pdf of the World Book.
Is there anything else? Any translation?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dragon_(role-playing_fiction)

It doesn't and it isn't.

Thanks, please share them with us if you get a chance to make them someday

I just read through the powers for Double Cross, and how come Japanese games have all the awesome/chuuni names for powers?

>power to manipulate light and enhance the senses, usually characterised by the user glowing slightly when in use.
>Angel Halo

>Conjure orbs that allow the manipulation of gravity, time, and space.
>Balor (the orbs are called "Evil Eye" or "Jewel"'s)

>Manipulate personal bio-electricity and turn it into electric shocks and manipulate technology.
>Black Dog (after some english folklore)

And my favourite.
>Manipulate blood and turn it into weapons/ammo/armour, create servants using blood.
>Bram Stoker

It's amazing.

Did you read the setting? The whole premise is about being a semi-justified chuuni.

I know and I love it.

The modern world with a supernatural underbelly/secrets is one of my favourite setting types in general. Throwing in all that chuuni stuff is great.

How's crisis heroine coming?

>Did they ever finish the translation of Log Horizon? Has anybody made it into a PDF rather than a plaintext file?
I think they died last year - the original website went down and someone mirrored it

tabletalk.fyi/wiki/index.php?title=Log_Horizon_TRPG

Search this topic but I don't think it has happened.

forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread.php/3472-Red-Dragon

Unfortunately the project seems dead. There was a bit of spark when the Anime adaptation happened but then it turned out to be shit

The CACTs are almost done.

For Log Horizon, we've moved onto other projects. If they ever put out Book 2 like they've been saying they would for literally a year at this point, we were thinking of giving it another go.

Mamare getting hit for tax evasion makes things look shaky though.

For Ryuutama, how should I distribute HP and MP as a magic type? Starting with, say, 6/4/6/8 stats.

>Mamare getting hit for tax evasion makes things look shaky though.
Didn't that guy get hit for it TWICE?

That must be the saddest way to end your Legacy

Funnily enough, I'm planning to make a Nandeck for MYK myself. It won't have the neat design of the original cards, but it will be a bit more printer-friendly, I think.

Arianrhod and Alshard Fortissimo have not been translated and with them being SRS games, I'm relatively sure they won't be anytime soon, either.

Where do you read "Arianrhod" on that cover?

Generally speaking, Magic types want all the MP, but there's nothing stopping you from picking up one HP here or there for that little bit of sorely needed extra survivability.

>and with them being SRS games

Is there any reason this might be an issue?

Can you really survive at high levels with starter-tier HP?

Should it start with 8 strength and 8 spirit instead for more starting HP but less intelligence?

Yes. SRS is like our d20. Most games using that system are garbage, and neither of those two games seem to make any effort to distinguish themselves in any way.

Isn't Alshard at least supposed to be the good SRS game?

No, people just wank over the stupid setting.

It's "exotic". Or rather, it's just so different from what we're used to here in the west that we're willing to look past the fact it's basically immature weaboo garbage and if someone on Veeky Forums came up with the exact same thing as a "homebrew" we'd laugh him all the way out the door.

From what I managed to read of my copy of Alshard Gaia, it's extremely standard SRS. No new ideas or concepts.
That means it's almost certain to be shit.

I hate to be quoting Disney here, but let it go.

Ryuutama is a beginner's RPG, not an optimizer's RPG.
No matter what you dump, you'll feel it. And no matter how you build your character, you can't really fuck it up.
As you level up, you'll have plenty opportunities to cover any weaknesses you might discover in play.

Is Alshard the one with Nazi motorcyle cavaliers or something and lots of not-Norse iconography?

That's the one.

I don't think they're nazi-esque but yeah there's a bunch of Norse naming shit and steampunk/magitech. Honestly it's pretty standard JRPG magitech/steampunk shenanigans slapped on a standard medieval European based world, so if that's what's so interesting in spite of being "immature weaboo garbage" as calls it speaks to being a massive sperg that's afraid of playing in a rule of cool oriented setting or some shit.

Like one of my dumb animu as fuck homebrew could probably turned into a terrible LN with a SRS tie-in game.

>Lawyers fight in giant robots to settle disputes in dystopian not-Australia.
so, kind of a kangaroo court

Is that Ayers rock in the center? If so that's hilarious as that's where you get your robots from

...

Honestly after reading the one translated scenario for it, the setting seems close to FFVI. There's am empire, which happens to be German-Inspired and of course a resistance group dedicated to stopping it. Standard stuff, but it does seem interesting.

The notes in the scenario also make it appear that the game runs like a cross between Tenra Bansho, Double Cross (Not in a bad way), and another Japanese ttrpg that I can't name.

On the other hand if you put all of the translated material together you could get a super rough draft of the setting and homebrew up whatever else you need.

The scenario in question.
docs.google.com/document/d/1lwTC8DQ8i7SyNSLWlocx66NUHkk8BibL7_L8T0w2RvI

I remember reading this in the past. I love reading scenarios and replays like this, but it does seem to reinforce just how forceful the Japanese railroad can be.

Any SRS games you know that are actually good?

Metallic Guardian

And why exactly is "railroading" considered to be such a negative thing anyway?
It's efficient. Clearly communicated and set expectations mean less floundering and more playing.

The only good SRS games I know are officially not SRS games and factually diverge from the SRS enough that they probably shouldn't be considered as such.

Never even heard of it.

I didn't say the railroading was bad. I'm just saying it can be very obvious at times.

Here's the real question, then. How do you make a good SRS game?

I will say I like how classes/races are handled in Arianhrod (I think). You have three class slots, and you can fill those slots with different classes, multiple instances of the same class for more class abilities, or certain race templates like Saurian. It's one of the cleaner forms of multi-classing and race templates I've seen in a while, partly because of how freeform it is.

First you'd need to come up with a mechanical framework for something other than combat. Then you'd need to ask yourself why you'd want to use SRS for such a game in the first place, since it's pretty much what you'd get if you wanted to reduce D20 down to the experience of sitting in your bedroom alone coming up with outrageous character builds based on taking one or two levels in a panoply of really hyperfocused niche classes from 3rd party sourcebooks.

Satasupe when?

You do not.
By the time you have made a good game with SRS as its base, it will have deviated so far that it cannot really be considered a SRS game anymore. Same as with d20.

Actually, that is absolutely normal for SRS games. And while that idea is very neat, class design is usually so bad that it negates the advantages of that system.

Tokyo Nova actually keeps this system in its entirety (including the 1/scenario super skills) and provides 22 classes (plus some more in the first supplement) that are conceptually and mechanically distinct, which is just insane.

I feel like the SRS killed someones parents or something.

>SRS as its base
So basically the only things we would take from the core rules are 3 class slots, 6 stats per class and the sum of their attributes is your final character, add some bonus points for variety, and tie abilities to classes? 2d6 resolution mechanics and that's basically it from what I read.

That's so skeletal that any addition we add would "deviate" from base SRS. What's wrong with that?

Also scenes. That's basically what I got from SRS.

I could try and brainstorm something, I had thoughts of doing a Dungeon Meshi themed setting based in the SRS months ago.

>What's wrong with that?
The sheer amount of garbage it engenders.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head. If you add anything to the skeleton, you deviate from the SRS. And any game that bills itself as a SRS game...
Well, doesn't.

Take the very basic system, come up with some snazzy-sounding names for the various things, write a couple of skills that inevitably end up being mostly the same across classes and even games, because there isn't really any design space to work with and call it a day.
That's how you make a SRS game.
If you're feeling particularly fancy, you can make one or two cosmetic changes to the skeleton that don't really make any (positive) difference, such as using bigger dice or implementing a reverse MP system that ends up invalidating HP and any ability that interfaces with them.

And yes, I do happen to hold something of a personal grudge against the SRS, because the fuckers behind the Etrian Odyssey TRPG used the SRS to ruin a wonderful license and because I suspect its presence on the creators' mind to have had a negative influence on the Log Horizon TRPG which just isn't as good as it could be.

Have fun waiting on that one. I got a couple pages in and it's easily one of the densest RPGs I've ever had to parse in any language. It's a beautiful mechanical clusterfuck.

I feel like most of your resentment comes from Double Cross if your post is any indication because reverse MP is just the encrouch mechanic. While I like the idea of encrouch rate I haven't read into the system or played it so I just have the words of people on the net. It's a mixed bag of a system for sure. Keep in mind that DX isn't base SRS. It's much in the same vein as Tokyo Nova where it's clearly borrowed some elements, but they went whole hog on new mechanics enough to make it something different. And I used "deviate" not deviate because I don't think adding mechanics to the system would be a problem. If I changed the number of attributes a class could give that would be a deviation. If I gave a class a unique resource to manage that wouldn't in my opinion.

And speaking of classes I liked the TN classes during my read through. The social damage track opened up new classes and new opportunities to play a cyberpunk character. Now you can be a reporter without also having to pick up a combat class because A) Scenes allow you to be present when you want too, B) Social damage does something and you can also use support abilities to help with combat if you are present, and C) Your class Miracle (much like all the other classes) is a get out of jail free card depending on how the GM handles the aftermath.

So to the original question, what would you do to make a good SRS game? There has to be something you liked about the rules?

>Etrian Odyssey TRPG
I have three EO games staring at me from my shelf (never got a 3DS so that's where it ended for me). I don't hate SRS because people don't know how to use it for a cheap license. even though it was for an RPG that already had a system that could have been better translated to PnP because it's a fucking dungeon crawler.

No, DX has little impact on my resentment of the SRS. I just couldn't resist taking a jab at it after last thread's discussion, which I still had some points to make for (T-Loises having an Encroachment value and shortening combat being more efficient at saving Encroachment for the party), but ultimately felt pointless.

You already touched upon what makes TN so great. It opened tons of design space before creating skills and classes, ensuring great variety.
Using cards opened up two extra dimensions in action resolution for skills to interact with: suit keying and hand management.
Going away from HP and introducing three mechanically and conceptually different damage types contributed further.
TN also took scene participation rules, actually made use of their implications and converted them to even more design space.

Though what I probably like most about the system compared to its limply drooling SRS brethren is its skill distribution.
Where Log Horizon, DX and others only give starting characters enough skills to specialize on a single trick that they will use time and again, TN actually provides a reasonable number of skills from the get-go and with the suit keying ensures that you have good reason to use different combinations.

Has anyone found scans of Terra the Gunslinger? Poorfag can't afford the $50+15 price on Ebay.

Did Tokyo Nova every get translated?

Tokyo Nova has a complete translation somewhere out there, or so I've heard. I've also heard that the pictures aren't high quality.

Not that I know of, unfortunately. I haven't really seen any real mentions of it anywhere. I only know about it because of Tenra/Terra war, which I've also never seen mentions of it's also SRS but I really just want the setting info

>the pictures aren't high quality
That's an odd way of saying "text only".

Here ya go, the pictures were never inserted to the documents though.
mega.nz/#!oBABVIAQ!hF9D_ofyL_3T2wbgyD9ys6WbtHp_zeXynSUItDB1DvI

>or so I've heard
I never said I'd seen the document, just mentions of it. Regardless, all images gone is bad.

>And why exactly is "railroading" considered to be such a negative thing anyway?
I'm a complete outsider to the conversation, but: Interactive medium that is supposed to be limited by your imagination, but instead limits you by arbitrary boundaries determined by another person. It chaffs some people.

...

I want to, but I only have an occasional interest in the Dragon Quest-esque brand of humor the system has baked in. "Fat" status, weird monsters, et al.

I have questions about Meikyuu Kingdom
The Land Makers have no storage in the kingdom, at all, outside of getting special facilities for it, right?
The Treasure Chest facility lets you store Rare Items, and the Depot stores 1 kind of Material per level, but I don't see any way to store regular items.

>but it will be a bit more printer-friendly, I think.
Please, for the love of god, I need this to happen

It's the memorial hall which lets you store anything it seems so long as you name everything you put in.

DESU the only thing you'll want to print multiples of is of items, especially gear that can be leveled.

Didn't think of using the Memorial Hall like that, since you can only store items gotten that game in it, as I understand it

bumpity bump

Any recent updates on that plan to translate the Medabots RPG? I haven't visited one of these threads since the one where two people said they planned on doing that.

Someone in the discord is working on it last thing I heard.

CACTs are up in the wiki now.

That is a way of thinking that is utterly incomprehensible to me.

By chosing to play a Tabletop RPG with other people as opposed to playing Freeform or just sitting alone in a room staring at a wall, you actively choose to engage in an interactive medium that isn't supposed to be limited by your imagination, but instead is limited by arbitrary boundaries determined by other people.

The first set of arbitrary boundaries is set by the people who created the game you're playing (and by their marketing guys if you play one of those games).
The second set of boundaries is set by the people you play with. That is called the social contract.

All JTTRPGs do is incorporate some of the usually unspoken second kind of boundaries so that you get a more reliable playing experience and waste less time on the usual stories you keep reading on this board, which are almost always caused by someone violating the social contract.