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My buddy loves this and finally got us to agree to play and I just can't bring myself to give a shit about it.
I like hanging out with the group but the game is just super-boring and we spend half the session trying to get a straight answer about anything about the world. The entire source books are 'maybe this or maybe that'
It's so fucking frustrating.
Do I need to be 15 to enjoy this?
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I know some people who adore Chuubo, but it's very much not a conventional RPG. More on the weird storygame/guided freeform end, although from what I understand the mechanics it does have are quite interestingly designed, if with very different goals than conventional ones.
I tried running it at one point but it was so difficult to work with we gave up after the first session. It's full of legitimately cool ideas, in my honest opinion, but if I need to take a course just to play in it and major in it to run it it's not a good system.
I think you're really jsut supposed to take that Glassmaker's Dragon campaign book and run it with that using the premade characters. That's the only way it makes any sense, considering all the focus on those specific characters throughout the books and the novel based on the setting. It's sad because I think the whole thing is kind of cool, in this surreal, narrative logic-based way.
The marketing for this constantly compared it to Adventure Time, as if that's the kind of well thought out and internally consistent universe that makes for a good RPG setting and not, y'know, a silly cartoon.
Well, it is Jenna Moran, aka R. Sean Borgstrom. She's pretty famous for making fascinating but unplayable games. She did Graceful Wicked Masques, the Fae book for Exalted, but the big example of that is Nobilis. Fucking Nobilis. The best game you will never play.
I've read her fiction and I like her writing style, but still, you'd think she'd try a little harder to make her game easy to understand. The massive size of the book, coupled with the density of esoteric mechanics makes it fucking impossible to find anyone willing to play it, even if I decided to try and run it again.
I wouldn't really say it's like Adventure Time except in that the world is kind of segmented into thematically different areas. The themed areas in Chuubo's aren't shit like "fire kingdom", though, they're more like "in this place, everything is slice of life" or "in this place, everything is a coming-of-age fantasy novel". If you step past the border of the world you end up in a place where literally nothing exists and you start to decay into 'ideas'. It's where all the goth kids go to become evil dark wizards who hate everything.
Honestly it's one of my favorite RPG books for the sake of reading it.
People kinda tend to overthink the game (people do that too about Nobilis) while the only true problem (that and the marketing one) is that the emotes thing is a bit artificial and sometimes cringy in play.
>I like hanging out with the group but the game is just super-boring and we spend half the session trying to get a straight answer about anything about the world. The entire source books are 'maybe this or maybe that'
Kinda a case of overthinking, the GM is supposed to make a campaign, not some weird freeform where you are trying to divinate what Jenna is hidding.
The Glassmaker's Dragon campain is a good example on how a Chuubo game can be more focused.
Yeah it's the marketing problem, Chuubo is more adaptive than say D&D but it's far from being generic despite the thematic themes of the powers and all that.
It's still decent at simulating things, but it's not GURPS or FATE.
Nobilis 3E is perfectly playable and is IMO pretty much the only good cosmic powerlevel RPG, better than Amber Diceless and that Exalted mess.
2E is the one not actually playable because lol no you can't directly affect anything miraculous
Yeah, Nobilis 3e was a big improvement in usability, although it did lose some things along the way.
I adore the big white book though. Nobilis 2e is an utter clusterfuck of a game, but as a work of art it's just amazing.
>although it did lose some things along the way.
The only thing I miss mechanically are probably Chancels, you still have them but it's less detailed unless you read 2E.
Getting Persona and Treasure instead of Realm and Spirit is a win to me but I know that some old fans disagree.
>I adore the big white book though. Nobilis 2e is an utter clusterfuck of a game, but as a work of art it's just amazing.
Yeah 3E is a bit of a letdown otherwise even if I like what the 3E fluff changed. (Hell and Heaven, Dark and Light)
Part of what I loved about 2e was its presentation. Like, I know that's part of what made it impenetrable, but fuck it was fascinating to read. At some point it felt more like a religious book, or some bizarre work of mystical philosophy, than an RPG.
Play it like Nichijou.
So bad Jenna doesn't make that kind of efforts anymore but at least Chuubo presentation is better than Nobilis 3E.
There is a lot of it in Chuubo, indeed.
>Glassmaker's Dragon
Yeah, I think we're playing that. We're certainly playing the characters from that.
I'm playing the Prodigy and the character quests tell me that I'm supposed to simultaneously be training hard-core all the time, be taking it easy and enjoying life (in two separate ways) and angsting about stolen memories or something. And something, something, life in Russia. Apparently they lost someone in their past but I don't know who or why.
These all seem completely incompatible with each other, as if they're just randomly thrown into the character.
Being fair, there are a lot of things better than random chibis and traced touhou fanart. That whole thing was such a mess. Thank fuck someone on Veeky Forums ripped all the art out. Did they ever do an edition with all original art, getting rid of the traces?
>Play it like Nichijou
That's an anime?
Official PDFs you can buy have replaced the traced art, but if anything there are random chibis and low quality manga art in that version.
There was so much in this book that I loved, conceptually.
But I can't believe I convinced myself it was worth spending 70 fucking dollars on.
The Prodigy is supposed to basically be the child soldier monotone character who is the best at everything. Think of it like an anime trope. You should never be the straight man in a gag, always avoid pranks in a way that they backfrie on the person who tried to play it on you. You're never caught off guard
I think you need to educate yourself on what this game is trying to convey.
It's an absurdist slice of life anime. Imagine the cute, mostly carefree tone of stuff like Yotsuba, but stuff like this keeps happening: youtu.be
I have Meloncholy of whatsherface downloaded somewhere but never got around to watching it. I suppose I could but I fear that if I do, I'll run a fucking mile from this game.
>The Prodigy is supposed to basically be the child soldier monotone character who is the best at everything. Think of it like an anime trope
I got that much, they seem to be a humourless version of the Golden Child?
Not necessarily humorless, just the kind that makes jokes that hinge on monotone and non-reaction. You're supposed to like being lazy, but never say it.
as in dry, sarcastic humour?
I'm playing her as an ice queen anyway, so that can work fine.
No, don't be dry and sarcastic. If you want to be cold, ignore things. Your humor tropes are monotone and too-much-skill, not shitting on others.
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