Accidental Magical Girl CYOA

From all the series that I've seen, magical girl shows always seem to have a normal everyday setting with a supernatural setting built on top of it in a way that isn't too intrusive or obviously disrupting. So usually all of the interesting worldbuilding is going to be around that supernatural setting, varying heavily based on the nature of what it is and which ties in closely with the kind of story the writer is trying to create.

There could be a few exceptions to that, for example Nanoha Strikers, which takes place on a different futuristic sci-fi world. I personally did not consider that concept to be a success because it takes away from that feeling of the home and everyday life, which I can't elaborate on properly but I feel like those things are an important core to the magical girl story in some way. Probably a more successful example in my eyes is Madoka's Mitakihara city, which has a bright white shining linoleum design that looks utopian and is made to contrast with the tone of the story. Farther down, the industrial zones, use of darkness and sunset, and eerie set design with strangely long hallways or odd item and building placement can help change the mood significantly. That's probably as far as would be advisable to go on that front though.

The world at large should generally be unaware of the existence of supernatural creatures/magical girls themselves. Typically a modern setting not unlike our own world. The protagonists are typically thrust into the hidden supernatural world unexpectedly (see: Sailor Moon) and must contend to protect the ignorant masses from the vile forces that seek to rule them from the shadows. There's opportunity to delve into conspiracies, shadow governments, secret empires etc. in a campy, fun way, which I believe is more faithful to the tone you should take.

Madoka Magica did irreparable damage to the genre by popularizing """dark and gritty""" mahou shoujo.

Cry harder.

WE JUST HAD A POST LIMIT THREAD ON /D/

YOU CAN'T CONTAIN US

Y'all feel free to drop in anytime, I'm sure there's some overlap between our interests even if we're more magical girl freeform and system based RP oriented than actually a CYOA.

You funny guy. We purge you last.

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Rolled 18, 1, 3, 17, 9, 17, 9, 15, 20, 3, 10, 14 = 136 (12d20)

I'm trying to get something kinda specific but don't /really/ wanna pointbuy fully. Bronze coins a go go I guess.

Post magical girls?

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Just an opinion question, but what do you think the limits of power are for a magical girl long-term (for the cyoa not pnp)?

I tend to think that with enough coins and maybe the right magical contacts, anything a coin can buy at the start can be achieved. So that if a girl "rolled" badly and became a thin 8 year old MG with bad everything, she could eventually become a hot sixteen year old powerhouse, and that in this world the most senor MGs might have multiple powers, weapons, many perks and maxed stats. Of course getting even a single gold coin might take years depending on circumstances.

Age: 13/14? Can't remember for the life of me.
Body type: Average (for +1 Luck)
Specialization: Light? (+2 Vit, +1 Mag/Agi)
Weapon: Mystic (+1 Mag) (Empowered enhancement?)
Outfit: Uniform (+1 Vit) (Reinforced enhancement?)
Power: Power of Friendship (+1 Luck)
Perks:
Allies (+1 Luck)
Does Moon Healing count as having a Purification Artifact (+1 Mag)?
Fated, I think, based on reincarnation stuff (+1 Luck)
Leitmotif
Fortunate (+1 Luck)
Sturdy? (+1 Vit)

STATS:

Strength: 4
Agility: 4
Vitality: 8
Magic: 11
Luck: 15

(spent all the coins on stats, since there's no way to reflect Protagonist Power v well otherwise I guess?)

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What about enemies? What's a good middle ground in seriousness between madoka and sailor moon?

The CYOA does offer the possibility of monstergirls as villains, doesn't it?

If you have a purification artifact/ability on your team, it wouldn't be hard to avoid the PMMM "you have to kill what was once human like you" while also getting out of the SM campiness of "we added female humanoid characteristics to [random noun] and it turns into a harmless [noun] when you defeat it!"

It'd also be pretty true to genre to have several weak villains spread over several sessions, then scale things up a little as the Big Bad goes "ah, this isn't working" (since SM didn't do that much, and PMMM just went straight to immediately deadly fights), then keep making the villains stronger as your players gain exp/useful abilities until they're slightly underpowered to fight the BB, face a defeat, and have to train up to fight it again- or, just wait until they're powerful enough to fight it and win.

...or something?

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Rolled 13, 9, 2, 11, 20, 14, 13, 9, 19, 14, 10, 11 = 145 (12d20)

>the possibility of monstergirls as villains

I think you mean the fact that monstergirls are villains :^)

Rolled 16, 3, 4, 20, 10, 9, 10, 2, 6, 6, 6, 17 = 109 (12d20)

How do you propose characters gain new powers? A pile of magical coins? An artifact that's the subject of an entire quest? Have them gain XP?

In story or mechanically?

Do you guys actually run campaigns of this or do you just kinda writefag everything?

There are campaigns in the irc, but nothing in the thread.

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You say that as if we don't get an entire season of Precure every year already. Not that I'm complaining about that.

My love of Madoka aside, it hasn't done damage to anything in the genre. I like the tone diversity we have in mahou shoujo, and I've enjoyed both Precure as well as anime like Nanoha and Yuki Yuna that hit different moods.

Oh, shit. I guess it's back for now, so I'll pop back in for a bit.

Long term? Possibly Godlike. But that's really, really long term. Also, all that power is still bent toward whatever your specialization is, so unless you got something that lends itself to shapeshifting, you'll still be weedy girl that looks like she's 8.

Seek out a teacher/smith/wizard. Spend time and effort tracking them down, then bargaining with them to learn the magic, have the weapon forged, have the spell cast on you.

Seek out/find an ancient treasure - as put forward by the origins, there are old, extra powerful weapons around.

Do something significant - finish an arc by punching out the big bad, and harvest his magical power.

Spend coins on stats by absorbing them yourself.

Not sure how advancement would work in the RP systems. But narratively, it's relatively easy to set a goal, and then figure time and obstacles which would be in the way.

A good middle ground is just to use standard monsters - werewolves, vampires, demons, etc. It's not as campy as Sailor Moon's 'female hair brush' thing, or as grimdark as PMMM's 'this is the remains of a despairing magical girl.'

I mostly just writefag. I haven't been to the IRC in yonks, and the Discord never.

Interestingly, I've seen someone make an argument that PMMM is arguably a much more pure take on the Magical Girl genre than Nanoha is.

Discord runs a game or two a week. Its been sorta slow as everyone returns to life after December but there's been a good amount of less mechanical rp.

>somebody else also hates madoka magica
my nigga where have you been

This may be because Nanoha's design is based on the RX-78-2 Gundam. That, or that someone is just dumb.

Rolled 14, 11, 1, 4, 15, 7, 9, 4, 9, 3, 1 = 78 (11d20)

All that aside, I wanna see what I can roll up, real quick-like. Maybe I'll write a little thing out of it. Maybe I'll combine it with the other magical girl CYOA.

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Ai-n
Come back! ;_;

>This may be because Nanoha's design is based on the RX-78-2 Gundam.
If Lyrical Nanoha wasn't "Magic" and it wasn't near the level of /u/ it ended up / currently is, it would be as close as something could be to being called "My Jam". Sadly I'm denied this.

-but yeah Nanoha's reaching out there for a Magical Girl series, even more so the setting itself isn't even a Magical Girl setting.

>PMMM is arguably a much more pure take on the Magical Girl genre than Nanoha is.
It is far closer, but I wouldn't call it a "pure" take on the Magical Girl genre. CCS may be the purest example I can think of, Precure and Sailor Moon have some Sentai thrown in, and it is kinda obvious.

The magical coins would be the core of most methods given whats in the cyoa. The coins can explicitly confer power to people who use them and my main point is that the coins have varying abilities in the cyoa.

For your question specifically, I would cite that in the cyoa a gold coin can be spent to gain a second power, so while it would be more expensive after our first transformation coins should be able to do it later as well (assuming my assumption is right).

>unless you got something that lends itself to shapeshifting

Part of why I asked the question is whether or not coins lend themselves to this. During our transformation we can use the coins to do exactly that, "shapeshift". The transformation starts shifting you to one type of age/body but the coins can override it to get something different even outside of what is normally possible (an age higher than 16 or lower than 8 or the perk that allows you to be male). The puchuu are going around magically shapeshifting people for their army so we know such magic exists as well.

I know the whole thing is open ended so that a GM would have the freedom to limit or allow whatever, but their are real mechanical and narrative consequences. The main consequence is what is the smartest strategy for the cyoa both as a player but also as an rper who is being forcibly turned into a MG. Assuming we know that the coins can raise our stats later (that much seems clear from the coins section) it might be a TERRIBLE choice to use the coins given during our transformation to raise stats, if it is our ONLY chance to change other things with those coins.

I definitely agree that to get some of the effects I am talking about after our transformation, a specialist might be needed to "shape" the magic in the coins (and a small fee for them of course). This could really tie in nicely to the patron module by having different patrons be capable of providing different services to a group of girls. The girl working for a lich or creepy flesh weaver might find acceptance from a regular puchuu team after they get the soul jar perk or a body change, while the girl working for Shiva might help her friends get the Third Eye power (or a horror girl the Tentacle power, Gemini the Twins power, etc.)

Rolled 4, 14, 11, 8, 18, 2, 18, 1, 11, 10, 18, 10 = 125 (12d20)

Rolled 3, 9, 18, 12, 5, 11, 12, 15, 12, 19, 15, 5 = 136 (12d20)

Rolled 14, 5, 1, 12, 15, 14, 3, 9, 11, 15, 19, 6 = 124 (12d20)

Rolled 5, 20, 5, 2, 10, 15, 6, 17, 9, 19, 14 = 122 (11d20)

Rolled 18, 17, 14, 13, 1, 8, 7, 3, 11, 14, 6, 8 = 120 (12d20)

Anyone got suggested series to watch for inspiration for campaigns?

I haven't done any magical girl roleplaying myself; I'm not sure there's much to say except to do the obvious and watch whatever magical girl series you find. Feel free to try series with different moods for inspiration.

One more crazy idea, related to some of the worldbuilding talk above, could be to try looking at two different non-magical girl shows to form the inspiration for your "everyday story" and your "magical story". Everything from Clannad, Hidamari Sketch, and Haruhi to Fairy Tail, FMA, and Index/Railgun.

Magical Girl Raising Project is literally the rp from the IRC.

Oh hey! I remember this joke, and then I remember it isn't just a joke!

I wrote this status update a couple weeks ago. TL;DR is that combat takes a long time and can be improved by changing stats around. I have a lot more to do, but it'll take time since I have other stuff to attend to.

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So are you making your own community to play in?

I hope something comes from this!

Rolled 14, 16, 19, 14, 17, 9, 10, 4, 4, 16, 19, 15 = 157 (12d20)

How much does your mahou sleep?

Enhanced Sustenance bb

roll

Rolled 17, 7, 4, 16, 17, 15, 10, 15, 1, 4, 7 = 113 (11d20)

bump

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Mongrels belong in the trash.

The gundam resemblance was a coincidence, but a few episodes into the first season it was pointed out and they just went with it from there.

The comparison is still valid. The Nanoha team has the advantage of being self aware.

bump

Perish

Fuck

Nope

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I don't get it. What does Nanoha resembling Gundam have to do with anything at all?

Rolled 15, 12, 18, 15, 18, 1, 15, 8, 19, 20, 3 = 144 (11d20)

Are An Emergency's combat perks in addition to the standard? I'll probably go that way regardless.

Remember that AGI and MAG users generally can't deal 3 w/s like STR users, so their fights will probably take longer

I think they are in addition to the perks you roll.

They are not, in fact. At least that's how the IRC and Discord interpret them.

Rolled 13, 4, 19, 14, 2, 18, 19, 4, 3, 19, 3, 1 = 119 (12d20)

Does your mahou have swag?

No, she's a classy woman.

Yeah, my next balancing goal is to create example characters for COO (AGI) and MAG, and balance using simulations between the three of them. I'll tweak powers, perks, techniques, spells, etc. based on my observations. However, in order to be able to do that I need to get the framework of everything else set up so that I can just worry about changing numbers.

Here's a more complete picture of what I've got.

All of it. She's Zephyr Edge, she's permitted to have it.

Eh, I figured it bore mentioning. Probably ain't it, though.

Write the plot as such, duh. Or make everyone else weaker in comparison.

Hey, I finally found it again. Let's go to town.

Artifact Origin
13 years old (Bronze coins, changed from 10
AVG Body (+1 Agility*)
Fire Specialization (+3 Magic)
Melee Weapon (+1 Strength, +1 Vitality)
Flowing Outfit (Bronze coin, changed from Elaborate; +1 Strength)
Focused Assault
Blood Magic (+1 Vitality)
Power Artifact (changed from Mystic Artifact; Time specialization chosen)
Big Damn Hero
Fated (+1 Luck*)
Interdimensional Tourist

5 Strength (3 untransformed)
4 Agility (4 untransformed)
5 Vitality (3 untransformed)
7 Vitality (3 untransformed)
4 Luck (3 untransformed)

I'll figure out how I'll cut the coins in another post. Stay tuned.

Man, this stuff's actually pretty similar to what I've got. Funnily, ye've even got actions dictated by a resource to be used, too.

Good stuff. I think I'll back ya fer the time bein'.

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Is this Maid speaking or?

Nah, she's way too clumsy.

Bamp

Maid don't got an accent none. They say it right an' proper-like.

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