Post originally by Joe Murphy at 2004-05-10 03:51:15
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"It assumes that the PCs are point balanced against one another (despite most shoujo having a very clear Most Important Protagonist), that socializing should be primarily covered through negotiation between Player and GM with some dice roll trimming while combat gets some more interesting tactical decision making, and so on. Given how Gossip is at least as important in most shoujo as Dodge..."
Oh *man*. *grumble*
I'd assumed the game was doing a bit more than that. Oh well.
Post originally by Pierre Dostie at 2004-05-10 09:20:35
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From your review, it seems the book doesn't answer the question on actually how to play shoujo rpgs in a different way than actual rpgs. What's a shoujo adventure like? A campaign? What do you DO actually in a rpg session, if not indulge in pseudo-sexual fantasy with your GM (something unappealing for most players)?
Post originally by Owl at 2004-05-10 13:45:11
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If you're feeling downtrodden by the FUDGE rules or want relationship mechanics, try using the Heroquest rules for shoujo manga. It's almost criminally easy to learn and handles all sorts of situations (maybe a bit spotty when it comes to ranged combat but that wont come up too often in a shoujo manga setting I assume) with grace.
Just make sure everyone knows what kind of manga you're playing, or someone will bring a character with "great body" as a keyword as they did with me. Suffice to say the abilities listed under it caused some raised eyebrows.
Post originally by Jeremy at 2004-05-10 14:09:56
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I only have the book edition (which would be non-revised), but I never really saw any explantion of the "how". It seemed to assumed a lot of things on the part of the reader/player/GM.
Yes, they give you campaigns, but they fail to give actual play examples. Or tips on how to avoid any weirdness.
Post originally by Drew Stevens at 2004-05-10 15:54:14
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As I said in the review, and made a point of highlighting in the Good Stuff Well Done, the /fluff/ part of Heartquest is excellent. It goes in to great depth with describing genre tropes, providing advice on playing them out, and so on.
What it fails entirely to do is provide any actual system to encourage those same genre tropes. Instead, it slightly tweaks FUDGE to make combat take longer, and leaves all the actual shoujo elements of the game to the negiotation of the players and GM. Making the book far less useful and valuable than it otherwise would be to many potential buyers, IMO- who already /know/ the genre tropes and believe they could act them out.
Basically, to a fan of shoujo, Heartquest seems to promise something new to the table (a game of Shoujo magna) and then fails to deliever.
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