Nechronica -The Long Long Sequel-

It's been a while since we had a thread for this dark but brilliant gem of a game.

Nechronica is a strange, post-apocalyptic sci-fantasy. You are a "doll", a weapon maiden resurrected from an ordinary person (or ordinary people...) by the "Necromancers" who now rule the extinct Earth. You are cursed to wander the wasteland, desperately seeking survival, and memories of who you were in your past life. Suffering and madness are around every corner, all for the amusement of your insane, demiurgic creators.

The best aspect of this game, is its' emphasis on emotional vulnerability. Your characters are not badasses, even though they can grow quite strong by mutating and devouring their enemies. You are innocent and fragile at heart, and you must rely on your "sisters" in order to soothe your "madness" and suffering. Emotional bonding and character development are mandatory, or you'll quickly lose your mind and become another grotesque beast, stalking the horizon.

Mechanically, it's a very fastpaced game. Easy to jump in. Extremely fun and tactical battle system. My group is currently working on translating and re-translating the book, along with some original JP fan-splats:

nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page

If you're searching for a group for this wonderful little game, we have a number of gm's who'd like to start, as well!

Nechronica is the best role playing experience I've ever had. If you want something gruesome, shocking, and beautifully bittersweet, I highly recommend it!

Other urls found in this thread:

nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page
nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Combat_Resolution_Guide
nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Combat_Examples
nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Replay:_Flowers_of_Hope_after_the_End_of_the_World
nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Combat,_Karma,_and_Favor#Attack_Checks
nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Combat,_Karma,_and_Favor#Attack_Checks).
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Doll Quest Redux
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

In before claims of pedophilia, necrophilia, etc.

Got any archives of combat?

We've been trundling along with translations and we've made great progress so far. We've translated the entire system as well as Japanese fan-made classes and reinforcements. Currently working on the offical scenarios.

Anime faggotry aside this sounds like a legitimately good premise

Is there any synergy between gothic/baroque?

It's one of the most straightforward and effective class combos.

>nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page
It says the wiki is 18+? What should I expect, I don't wanna stumble onto weird Japanese depravity

There's nothing *too* questionable there, but some of the class/position pictures might raise a brow. Nothing stronger than seeing mutant/zombie girls.

Nechronica in general is not meant for the faint of heart. Or more accurately, it's made to yank around the hearts of the sensitive.

The whole combat system is based on strategic dismemberment, mutation, and bodily chaos. When an aberration bites you, it doesn't take off 5 hp: it takes off your arm in a splatter of gore.

I'm shambling together a game for my own tabletop group using it, so I'm grateful for all the work you put in
I'll have fun at their expenses with Jacker, so it's nice I managed to start planning in time for Prosperous Electronica to be translated

Oh, this is a nice artist. I'm still strapped for art sources

>When an aberration bites you, it doesn't take off 5 hp: it takes off your arm in a splatter of gore.
I've wondered how much of the feel of the game would be lost if I tried to fluff them as wooden dolls, to make it easier to stomach. It's not a perfect solution but for things like bodily harm and damage at least.
I know for sure some of the people I have in mind could handle it as is, but I don't want to go too far and turn off the others.

Im down to give this a try if you want to set up a lobby on roll20 or someshit.

Make them toy dolls. Broken and forgotten. Something like grim Toy Story.

But is it more suited to eating damage or dealing it? Either class has special skills that you miss out on if you multiclass, like reinforcement part regeneration or nullifying special effects

A lot of players like to use cyborg or mech dolls, which the game encourages via the Enhancement tree. Wood should be fine.

IIRC, the original setting (and some developer interviews) suggest that (most...) dolls have extremely lowered sense of pain. Otherwise they'd have no chance to fight effectively.

So what's more important IMO, is the general sense of body horror and emotional trauma, then physical pain. So go nuts how you fluff stuff!

In general, I'd say that Nechronica should either be Grimdark, or Nobledark, depending on your GM and Players. It can either be a slow trudge into the abyss, or there can be a light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe you're turning into monsters, or maybe you can become a point of light in the darkness. Players shouldn't know which, I think...all the more tension!

Thanks! I have a big collection of inspirational art for this game. I'll try to continue dumping as I post.

Some friends and I did a one-shot of Prosperous Electronicha on friday. Balance is a bit wonky: a 0 favor Altruist managed to support my Lone Wolf with +10 to a crit...3 times! Crazy high powered stuff.

It's kinda hard for me to dig up an archive from our own group, since we do it on a combination of Discord (two channels, one for in and out of character talk) and a google docs image for the battle map.

Here's some guides and examples from the wiki though (incomplete):

nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Combat_Resolution_Guide

nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Combat_Examples

nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Replay:_Flowers_of_Hope_after_the_End_of_the_World

^^^old as fuck replay from the official book. Warning: contains outdated mechanics.

Thing is, you can refluff this game so easily to just be corpses of any size that it's a moot point on the first.

Ever see 9? Just do that if you want to remove the gore but keep the horror.

>A lot of players like to use cyborg or mech dolls, which the game encourages via the Enhancement tree.
Mechronica must be stopped.

>A lot of players like to use cyborg or mech dolls
Wasn't the Nechronica system used for a Medabots game? It's really a perfect fix.

It was. The whole structure system and parts lends itself well to mecha-like combat.

I actually really like the pseudo-elemental trinity present in the game, between the three upgrade trees.

You got your traditional zombies. You got your biomechanical mutants. And you got your mechs.

It's an interesting and varied dynamic! And you can play with it in some neat ways in your setting/lore.

I'd thought about that, a discarded toy idea felt like it could mesh well with the kind of setting Nechronica lends itself to.

Ah, those do fit more thanks to the enhancements, those are better ideas
>a slow trudge into the abyss, or there can be a light at the end of the tunnel
It's themes like this that have me so drawn to it, seeing if they have the will to keep going on, even if it gets just a bit harder after every fight, or every point of madness they take.

On that vein, I'm using it to run a sort of castlevania-esque setting. Basically a thousand year war between dracula and humanity, and the dolls are the final, last ditch weapon created against the hordes of darkness. If you're interested, get in touch via discord @ AC Giant Dad#7387

A little of both. Super Strength + Rip and tear lets your fist be fairly effective for dealing damage and Feast of Flesh is a great ability that makes you harder to permanently put down since you can just regenerate your fist when they get damaged.

Yeah, basically that part of the movie.

Oh I forgot to mention day/time. Looking to run on Fridays at around 1100 GMT-6

This pic does look like a Nech group doesn't it

I've run the system multiple times and it really does lend itself well to Mecha and Robot themes. You can easily refluff a lot of the parts and it works fine.

I ran one where everyone was the Maintenance Bots in a town falling apart and abandoned by humanity. Game starts with them doing the same things they've been doing for ages when a distress signal gets picked up by them.

They have to drop everything they are doing to save someone. It ended up with them "Repairing" and "Upgrading" themselves along the way to the point they couldn't be recognized at the Bots they were originally and finding a radio tower broadcasting the signal.

The signal was from space so the game ended with them all looking up at the stars and then broadcasting one message, [WE HEAR YOU. WE ARE COMING FOR YOU. WE WILL FIND YOU.]

Was a good game. Sadly the 2nd part of them trying to get to space never came about. Would of been fun watching them try to get there and stuff. Really started getting an Eclipse Phase feel towards the end.

I wonder how well this could be refluffed to play Near A Tomato as a TTRPG

i mean, it already kind of is a nechronica setting if you think about it so it should be pretty straightforward

Not that user but afaik you cant find people by their id's on discord, you may want to set-up a channel for people to find you.

>Sadly the 2nd part of them trying to get to space never came about.

Currently have two games running. One had the players finding out they weren't on earth and then having to escape on a ship from an anti-undead weapon that might have broken out of containment due to their actions. They are currently trapped on a space station and trying to devise a way to get their ship out.

The second one just last session had the players taking a shuttle and having a not so clean landing on the moon. They came up to find a base of what may be the last of humanity left alive and a necromancer already beat them there. Due to the poor landing, they have to make their way to the base before the space suits they have are compromised and their muscles freeze, leaving them immobilized on the lunar surface.

>t's themes like this that have me so drawn to it, seeing if they have the will to keep going on, even if it gets just a bit harder after every fight, or every point of madness they take.

Nech is a GREAT setting and system for this. If you love hard won happy endings, surreal sci-fantasy adventures, weaponized body horror, and lovable characters. It's the game for you!

Automata is probably the closest we'll ever get to a Nech video game.

I made my first full campaigne as GM in a local rpg club 3 years ago. I were really worried about how they would recieved it. Surprisingly, they enjoyed it. Of 5 players, only one was weeb-friendly. I changed the girl only part (fo' fuck sake, "boy" is a mutation in character creation) and kept the character under their 20's.
As always drama can be hard at first but the relation lin system help a lot to make them care about what their characters feels of each others. When they played the child part well, tragedy work the better. It offer some good comedy opportunity too. The battle where fun but my lack of experiences and material for enemy made them long and clunky for time to time. I found the memory shard mechanic hard to used as GM, but it's probably made to let the player create their past themself.

I translated all the english fan trad in french for the occasion. All my work burned in my old hd but I would love to jump in for more if new matrerial are translated in english.

go to "add friend" and you should be able to

>As always drama can be hard at first but the relation lin system help a lot to make them care about what their characters feels of each others. When they played the child part well, tragedy work the better. It offer some good comedy opportunity too.

Yup. With Nech, you can rapid fire mix action, horror, black comedy, and intense feels. It's very unique tonally. I love it.

>The battle where fun but my lack of experiences and material for enemy made them long and clunky for time to ti

Ha ha, yeah. This is my experience too. The first battle I made was an overlong mess. Once you get the hang of proper balancing though, it's an intense, tactical joy.

>All my work burned in my old hd but I would love to jump in for more if new matrerial are translated in english.

Take a look at the wiki! Our GM is putting a lot of work into english translations, both for the original game, and new japanese fan works.

Well done for translating it into French. There's now a whole slew of new stuff both offical and fan made from eastern and western players.

Memory Fragments are great tools for players new and experienced. One hurdle I've seen with RPGS is for people to come up with backstories. Nechronica can do that with a simple roll of a dice and even then it's up to the player to either unearth their past or just embrace the nightmarish present.

>The battle where fun but my lack of experiences and material for enemy made them long and clunky for time to time.

It's a lot of fun when you figure out how to make things, as a GM. There's an english fan splat on the wiki that might have useful advice for that sort of thing.

>I found the memory shard mechanic hard to used as GM, but it's probably made to let the player create their past themself.

The players have freedom, with GM approval, to make their own memory fragments, but the rest is supposed to be on the GM. It's a literal journey of self-discovery with even the players themselves possibly being surprised by what they find.

The Baroque special skill is attacked location shifting.

Oh man, that sounds fun. Thats kinda what I had in mind.

The other fun one was where the group of 5 all came to my game prepared and literally fought their way out of hell.

I made up a Purgatory game where they were Lost Souls and had to fight their way out of the Hells through the 13 layers to pass on to the Afterlife.

They gamed the hell out of the system and came in having planned stuff before hand. They all said they were a WW2 Platoon and I rolled with it. Didn't realize they had all rolled up double Requiums with varied Positions and someone went the Platoon Leader as a Sorority. Abused the hell out of the Order command to make them all attack multiple times a round.

They were a well oiled machine all equipped with rocket launchers, MGs, Grenades, Anti Tank Rifles, a Flamethrower, ect. They had planned it out amazingly well and passed the session amazingly.

Best part? They fight there way to the last layer of Hell. Literally beat the End Boss and are ready to pass through the Gates and someone goes, "Wait? Wheres B Company?"

Group just shrugs, say they reload and turn back around. "No man left behind. Back into the breach, Boys."

Was the perfect way to end the session. My group tends to love dramatic flairs like that and I love them for it.

At first glance I see enemy part and memory part where added. Did I miss something else?

Absolutely everything has been re-translated and upgraded with the latest errata from the offical website. There were significant errors in the original TLwiki translation that have now been addressed.

There's now all the sample enemies from the corebook and more enemy parts too.

Nice! I will work with that. Thank.

Blessed be your GM for his hard work!

>Shotgun, Wire Reel, Dynamite
What else could I use for a cowboy

twin pistols, sniper rifle (dat winchester)

Depending on how human you want them to look, there's some fun things you could do in the mut tree too

The Gun-kata skill for when you want to make your opponent dance. Hand Cannon's also a possibility, though for either Hand Cannon or sniper rifle to work, you need instrument of Evil. You could also do undead gun instead of Dynamite (fluffed as a coach gun)

just for example, a cowboy's got his horse, so you could do animal legs, and they're eternally linked to their ride. Meat snake could be like the lasso's fused with their body and grown a mouth, Extra Head could be their hat gaining sentience

Extra Head for the horse head!

You could do a weird and fun arc as they slowly get their ride back, by growing it back, heh.

Nech thrives on this sort of morbid creativity.

>"Wait? Wheres B Company?"
tell your players they made me cry

Ya dun good.

Drama of Death
>"When you and another Sister target an enemy with Attack Maneuvers, you may add +1 to the die roll for your Attack Check and +1 to your Damage."
So does this work if you're both on different counts (8 and 9) and decide to attack the same one? Do they need to attack first for you to get the bonus?

You always need to be on the same count for Drama to work.

It's a very fun and effective skill. Extremely recommended for damage dealers.

Seconded.

Always has to be the same count, and according to errata, someone has to have declared the attack before the drama of death user, so you can't have two Drama of Death users trigger it by attack the same target together. If you ever thought spine was unnecessary, Drama of Death will make you appreciate it.

Actually, speaking of that how do people handle stuff happening on the same count? I've had five players and monsters all have to act on the same count and it's a huge hassle to work out.

The counts work is that there's a declaration phase and then a resolution phase:
Enemies Declare>Players Declare
With rapids being declared as relevant
Then for processing it goes
Rapids (From last declared to first)>Players resolve>Enemies resolve
Making a list of declared stuff can be helpful if you worry about losing track.

Just remember, unless it's a rapid, it counts as all happening at the same time, so broken parts broken during the count can still be used until the end of the round, unless it was broken by a rapid.

Time for some nech art

2/?

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can somebody upload some game-play or something, I'm having trouble fully parsing all of the rules. like whether or not the dolls get to pick what part they target with attacks etc. Many little things like this that i either am blind to or the translation just doesn't elaborate on.

I wish my players could be half as awesome as this.
You should be proud of them.

You have me interested, this sounds like an awesome game.

well if you wanna at least check it out, see

Here is the answer to your question
nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Combat,_Karma,_and_Favor#Attack_Checks

It is always time for nech art.
Also does anyone have good art of undead knights?

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Thanks user

Sent a request

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Bwah! Love that one! Perfect Horror concept.

Another thing to love about this game, is that designing enemy abilities is very fun and easy. Balancing takes some getting used to, but you can create almost any kind of bio, mecha, or undead horror (and their assorted powers) fairly easy with Nechronica's system.

undead knights like this?

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BATTLEFIELD:
Limbo - Patches (AP 12), Boar (AP 9)

COUNT 12:
Patches will attack Boar with Metal Bar [Timing: Action/AP Cost: 3/Range: 0] - Melee Attack 2. Add +1 to the die roll of the Attack Check. The Boar may declare in response, but it doesn't have any Parts with the "Rapid" Timing, so Patches rolls to attack:
>1d10 (5+1) = 6. A 6 is the minimum required to hit, so Patches should hit with this.
We are now in Check timing, as Patches attacked but has not done damage yet. The Boat responds to this with Foot [Timing: Check/AP Cost: 1/Range: 0] - Hinder 1. "Hinder" 1 means to lower the result of the check by 1. Patches' check is now 6 - 1 = 5, or a miss. In response to Foot, Patches uses Arm [Timing: Action/AP Cost: 1/Range: 0] - Support 1. "Support" 1 means to increase the result of a check by 1. Patches' check is now 6 - 1 + 1 = 6, which is a hit.
Both Patches and the Boar lower their Count tokens. The Boar goes to 8 (9 - 1 (Foot) = 8), while Patches goes to 8 (12 - 3 (Metal Bar) - 1 (Arm) = 8).

COUNT 11-9: Nothing happens.

COUNT 8: The Boar declares first. It will attack Patches with Flesh Whip [Timing: Action/AP Cost: 3/Range: 0~1] - Unarmed Attack 2 + Chain Attack 1. Patches declares that she will attack with Metal Bar again. Patches resolves first, then the Boar.
>1d10 (10+1) = 11. Patches will hit, and as it is a critical hit (11+), she will do one extra damage.
Patches deals three damage to the Boar. The Necromancer decides to destroy its Foot, as it isn't useful anymore, and both of its Entrails parts. The Boar now rolls:
>1d10 (8) = 8. The Boar will hit.
Patches doesn't have any response, so she will take two damage to the Torso (see nechronica.miraheze.org/wiki/Combat,_Karma,_and_Favor#Attack_Checks). Patches breaks both Entrails. As the hit was successful, the Chain Attack 1 property comes into effect and the Boar attacks again:
>1d10 (5) = 5. The Boar will not hit.

And the combat will continue. Any specific questions?

Even though they're old they'll still help.

Anybody else think this would make a great video game?

The hitzone is decided by the dice.
It works something like this:
>enemy attacks doll
>rolls to hit
>result of 6 hits area of doll's choice, 7 hits legs, 8 hits torso, 9 hits arms, 10 hits head, 11+ is a crit, attacker picks hitzone
This works the same with anything sorted into legs/torso/arms/head, horror and legion enemies are treated as having just one hitzone.

If you ever do that you forever carry the stain of normalfag in your heart, though. Dolls are lolis or it's just not nechronica.

It would, although I think you'd need to be clever to work in both the emotional elements, and the "tactical dismemberment" of combat within a traditional hack and slash mold.

NieR Automata is probably pretty close on the former count. Metal Gear Rising has elements of the latter.

i meant the specific part that destroyed, sorry

>Automata is probably the closest we'll ever get to a Nech video game.

>TFW you will never have a strategy game in which you can freely mod your cyborg zombie lolis from the baseline corpse.

If everyone thought like you, there would be no video games at all.
No matter the game, someone's put in an effort and done something to make it, which is more than you can say.
Everyone starts somewhere, no matter if that's Game Design 101. If people like you sit and complain about how their games aren't being made for them, we're looking at a future with only Madden and Deer Hunting Simulator.
It's not like the universe has a clearly allocated quota of Chosen Ones who're blessed from birth with the Sign of the Game-Maker.
It's a matter of how hard you're willing to try. Right now, the people who make Madden are working harder than you, and all because you like to put walls between wanting and having something.
Sure, the end result might take some working on, but at the very least you'll have tried and created something that other people can enjoy instead of making yourself miserable and never accomplishing anything of note.

Nechronica is great. If played well it can be very emotional and engaging, since the relationship between characters plays a major part in the game, and the combat system is very unique (rather than abstract hit points you lose body parts when you take damage; it's the only game I've seen where getting your guts ripped out is a minor inconvenience).
Plus I find it funny that there's a game where "I'm going to play a gore-vore-yuri-loli-zombie" is perfectly ordinary occurrence, along the lines of "I'm going to play a male human fighter" in DnD.

Even in the rules the randomly rolled age for Dolls can be all the way to 17, which isn't really a loli anymore. However, the characters being childlike and emotionally vulnerable is a big part of the game.

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Huh, love the aesthetics but don't know what to think about the rules.

You think i could run this with a generic rpg like gurps or risus?

The rules are what really make it unique from every other game system I've seen out there. It's really worth trying to understand them. Off the top of my head, most rpg rules might struggle or become very clunky trying to track body part damage.

Another point is that in Nechronica your inventory, health and skills are all roughly the same thing. As body parts are crippled or torn off, your actions become more and more limited.

>Tfw running a Nechronica Quest.

In terms of rules and mechanics, there's two sides to Nech:

Combat and Non-Combat.

Combat takes place on a battle map, has very unique, tight, and well crafted rules for how things proceed, and is overall very challenging, tactical, and fun.

Outside of combat, Nech is comparatively rules lite.There's an extremely simple system for checks, and that's about it. Anything else is up to your gm's creativity.

Overall it's a very fast paced, easy to jump into game. Combat is the only part with a learning curve, the rest is all role playing and logical thinking.

Link?

>If everyone thought like you, there would be no video games at all.

>TFW
Generally are only half serious. And I'm working on fixing the lack of Tank Witches right now, so I do work on making stuff I like real already.

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Doll Quest Redux

That's Dollmaker. His quests tend to be rich in suffering.
It's more of a Nechronica setting than mechanics wise, but last quest he did showed part changing was definitely a thing when we attached the cut off arm of a Requiem savant in place of the one she shot off

The arm then tried to strangle us until we got it under control a bit

Interesting! I'll have a read.

>Dolls are lolis or it's just not nechronica.
Honestly never been too invested in that aspect of the game. Not because of any prudish reasons, but because it feels limiting. Why would there only be zombie little girls and why should I force my players (and maybe some day myself) to play as them?

I'm not a fan of it myself either, but I do feel like at the very least the dolls should have young souls, because a big part of the game is how does someone so innocent handle something so horrible

That is a big part of the game. It shouldn't really be about big burly chaos space marine types having a whale of a time tearing apart ungodly horrors and marvelling at their chainsaw hands and sentient organs trying to escape 24/7.

The characters should have a sense of weakness, of vulnerability. The average Nechronica character might not even know how to cook her own dinner, let alone survive in a surreal Nightmare realm. As long as there is that fragility, the sense of being a normal person caught up in an awful, awful situation, then it could work. The dolls themselves are more or less metaphors for innocence in a world that has none. It can be done with adult characters, but there's no denying that the effect the game is aiming for is diminished somewhat.

>It shouldn't really be about big burly chaos space marine types
It's more about letting my players pick older bodies if they choose too. Even the rules substantiate it. And from what I've been reading the concept of innocence can still apply too even an older one since amnesia and fragments or memories are at play here. I have no bones with undead lolis but I think you're over-selling how much being 5 matters in a campaign about broken humans facing the horrors of a post-apoc nightmare.

Plus since the game is about group dynamics you can have more variety in contextualizing your bonds and fetters if you open the age range up to it's fullest. (rules say 17). You can play with the usual conventions and have the physically older doll be the "little sister" to a much younger looking doll. Maybe that's because the latter has the soul of a mother stitched in there, maybe it's because the souls residing in the older doll is just as young as the child?

And if the group wants to play just adult frames, the rules don't give them any bonuses to that. They are still just as durable as a child frame right? It's all just fluff and all the other rules like madness still apply.

Yeah you can do whatever you want with their body you so you can make it look downright inhuman if you want, the important thing is that you capture that emotional vulnerability