Character March 2025: The Heaviest Metal

Not sure if this one gets to be posted, but I'll do it anyway. Despite the fact it's less about the pilot and more about the preparation for his next tournament.

My ratings will be done on four scales, each ranging from 1 to 5:

• RPG: How much does this feel like an RPG to me, as opposed to a board game?
• Soup Stone: How little content does the game expect you to add? For this scale, 0 is a complete Soup Stone since I'd like to sum the scores to see the game's total score.
• Would I Play: If I were given a chance to, would I play this game?
• Would I Write: If I were inspired enough and had time/energy for it, would I get back to working on this game?

The Heaviest Metal

Lotta Pi is getting ready for the next tournament by fixing her mech, E.14.

• (2) At first, she goes through a breakdown. Her machine is not at all ready, and finding spare parts for it is hard.
• (5) But then she finds a secret, some kind of device that should aid her in the tournament.
• (4) Upon doing some more research, she learns that this device is a secret government experiment meant for the protection of the Earth. It's damaged, obviously, they wanted to get rid of it, but why? And why is it abandoned in the junkyard, though?
• (6) She overhears an explosion; someone else is having bad luck preparing their mech. (At this point, I would twist another player's cube twice.)
• (4) She learns that the device was in the junkyard on purpose. Someone was meant to find it.
• (2) Someone comes looking for the device, giving Lotta a hard time.
• (1) On the next day though, she finds something that could fit the secret invention into her mech.
• (1) A friend of hers gives up on the tournament participation this time, and offers her an arm of his own mech suit. She gladly accepts it.
• (1) Her father sees the determination she has for this tournament, so he chips in too with some finances. Just what she needed.
• (6) A strong competitor of hers has an accident. (Twist another player's cube twice again).
• (1) Lotta receives a mysterious gift. Yet more parts that she needed
• (3) She finds out that all competitors received mysterious gifts. How strange.
• (4) There's a secret saboteur among the competitors looking for parts, trying to make people hate each other.
• (4) After some time spent searching, the pilots have identified the mole, a government agent who was meant to disrupt this tournament from ever happening.
• (4) The secret plan that the government has for these competitors is to give them deadly parts that they could use to actually kill each other so that the tournament doesn't happen.
• (6) I guess it worked on someone. Their mech went boom.
• (3) ... unless it was an accident?
• (3) Lotta finds love, I guess? Love in the junkyard.
• (1) With the help of her partner, she gets just the part she needs.
• (1) Her rival tossed away a part that he couldn't fit into his machine, so Lotta snatched it for her own.
• (1) And then she found another one of those government experiments. How strange.
• (9) To her shock, combining the force of two of these devices leads to exponential growth in destructive force. The time is up, though. The tournament day has come.

That was more tiring than it looked. But hey, now we know that Lotta has a couple of friends, rivals, a supportive father, and even a romantic partner.

Ratings

4/5 RPG. I'll be a bit more lenient; at least there's something to roleplay here.

1/5 Soup Stone. Here are the rules for how the mechs can fight. As for anything else, including everything I said in the previous section, I had to make that up myself. I was getting quite tired of it, honestly, since the only prompts I had to work with were Another Man's Treasure, Secret, Explosion, Breakdown, and Revelation.

1/5 Would I Play. I don't feel the draw to do it. Maybe as an experiment one time.

2/5 Would I Write. It's got potential. It would certainly benefit from a bunch of roll tables or more things to use.

8/20 Total Rating

Character March 2025: Hacks of One Trade

Another short system is coming right up. I'll aim to make this one short.

My ratings will be done on four scales, each ranging from 1 to 5:

• RPG: How much does this feel like an RPG to me, as opposed to a board game?
• Soup Stone: How little content does the game expect you to add? For this scale, 0 is a complete Soup Stone since I'd like to sum the scores to see the game's total score.
• Would I Play: If I were given a chance to, would I play this game?
• Would I Write: If I were inspired enough and had time/energy for it, would I get back to working on this game?

Hacks of One Trade

Benedict Tryce is one of a group of tailors. Whenever someone needs an article of clothing done from scratch as quickly as possible, these guys will have your back, provided they're not already working on something that day. Mr. Tryce is a brisk worker, which allows him to add +1 to any increases of Progress. That's how they can get their work done so quickly. Their goal is to become the best tailor troupe in town and the most stylish one day, too.

Ratings

1/5 RPG. Like most of my 200-word experiments, this one is more of a system test than a roleplaying game with options outside of a minigame.

1/5 Soup Stone. Crafting is done, but what about the rest of it?

1/5 Would I Play. Maybe? I'm not particularly motivated to play it, seeing how it's just a crafting minigame with some player options slapped on. But if I actually needed it, it's nice to have this system around.

1/5 Would I Write. For now, this is one of those ideas waiting in my brain cabinet to be uncovered when the need for it arises. Until then, I don't really feel a need to work on it.

4/20 Total Rating

Characters March 2025: Play It by Cheer!

Those of you who know where to see my releases might be wondering why I skipped Gon' Click. Well, in retrospect, you can't really make a character for that game. Sure, I could write up a description and all that, but at the end of the day, there's no mechanical substance that would make them different from other characters. This might complicate my challenge a little, seeing how I have roughly 30 TTRPGs out there, and not all of them might include some character creation rules. I'll worry about resolving that at the end of the month.

My ratings will be done on four scales, each ranging from 1 to 5:

• RPG: How much does this feel like an RPG to me, as opposed to a board game?
• Soup Stone: How little content does the game expect you to add? For this scale, 0 is a complete Soup Stone since I'd like to sum the scores to see the game's total score.
• Would I Play: If I were given a chance to, would I play this game?
• Would I Write: If I were inspired enough and had time/energy for it, would I get back to working on this game?

Play It by Cheer!

Scarlet Matters is a guitarist in the girl pop band called Peak Chic and the Babes. Let's first talk about her qualities and what they represent.

• Tempo 13. She can act really fast, but she has a hard time being careful.
• Intensity 12. She can be quite forceful and loud, but she has a hard time being subtle or unseen.
• Authenticity 7. She can raise people's spirits easily, but she has a harder time being empathetic to their troubles.
• Creativity 6. Her methods are simple and straightforward instead of unconventional.

She has good relationships with her band members. The keyboard player could be way more creative, the drummer could be even more intense, and the singer could be quite authentic, though all this depends on the other players.

Ratings

2/5 RPG. There was a music band system. It worked, kind of. Not sure if I'd say it was good, or much of an RPG on its own.

1/5 Soup Stone. It doesn't even have a core resolution mechanic written beyond the words "Use common sense". It's been almost two years, and I forgot what I meant - was the core resolution the same as rolling for the musical performance? Perhaps it was. At least the music playing was sorted out already.

0/5 Would I Play. Did you see that dice-rolling mechanic?? Roll d6+d12 and d8+d10, and keep the sum further from 10. That alone feels like it would take forever to get used to, and you'd have to do that a lot.

0/5 Would I Write. I already did. This system has been reworked and included in the Runehack RPG as the Seeker minigame. This was a fine start and an introduction of a cool probability curve I had never thought possible, but at the same time, that dice-rolling mechanic was really impractical, and the Qualities took me some time to fix. Not sure if I'll ever publish the newer music game as a standalone.

3/20 Total Rating

Character March 2025: Double the Zombies

Another day, another game to make a character for. This time, it's time to Double the Zombies.

My ratings will be done on four scales, each ranging from 1 to 5:

• RPG: How much does this feel like an RPG to me, as opposed to a board game?
• Soup Stone: How little content does the game expect you to add? For this scale, 0 is a complete Soup Stone since I'd like to sum the scores to see the game's total score.
• Would I Play: If I were given a chance to, would I play this game?
• Would I Write: If I were inspired enough and had time/energy for it, would I get back to working on this game?

Double the Zombies

My character for this game used to be a criminal before the society's collapse. That's why he's got a gun on him, along with ten bullets for it, and a sizeable pocket knife. His final mundane item is his Swiss army knife that he got from his father. His stats would be like this:

• forcefully +3
• subtly +4
• quickly +2
• carefully +1
• boldly +0
• cleverly +0

His goal is to survive. Hopefully, nobody will ever learns about his criminal past, especially once he starts caring about the people around him.

Ratings

4/5 RPG. I haven't played it yet, but I feel like the doubling of zombies gimmick might lead to some fights that would keep dragging on and on. That's why I give it a rating of 4.

1/5 Soup Stone. You'll need to make up the vast majority of stuff for this game to work.

2/5 Would I Play. I could imagine giving it a try one day if I expanded the rules.

1/5 Would I Write. Maybe? But right now I'm not feeling it at all.

8/20 Total Rating

Character March 2025: (Almost) Everyone is Harry

Let's continue this series with a quick entry from the year when I committed myself to writing a game every month. Except this game came before I knew I'd challenge myself like that.

My ratings will be done on four scales, each ranging from 1 to 5:

• RPG: How much does this feel like an RPG to me, as opposed to a board game?
• Soup Stone: How little content does the game expect you to add? For this scale, 0 is a complete Soup Stone since I'd like to sum the scores to see the game's total score.
• Would I Play: If I were given a chance to, would I play this game?
• Would I Write: If I were inspired enough and had time/energy for it, would I get back to working on this game?

(Almost) Everyone is Harry

This game features three types of players: the Game Master, the Detective, and the Voices in his head. Your goal is to solve a crime together despite your amnesia. I'm going to assume that I'll be a pair of voices inside of the detective's head, seeing how that will be the role of most players.

The number I'll choose for these two voices to share is 5. Sonder is a hunch you have for other people's lives. It allows you to guess what their job is, whether they have a family, what kinds of songs they like, and so on. It's not based on perceptions, at least not on the kind you'd be aware of. The other voice, much weaker than Sonder, is Attriage, your control over the emotions you feel for others. The original rules didn't say that the two voices have to be related, but I figured I'd try to connect them. It makes sense here - the better you know others, the harder time you'll have not feeling for them.

Ratings

3/5 RPG. Some important details are missing, but it's pretty clear this ain't a board game.

1/5 Soup Stone. Make up the characters. Make up the detective. Make up the crime. Make up the world. Make up the NPCs. A ton of work. You have to make up pretty much everything, save for the premise and the body hanging from a tree (and even that feels rather shallow).

1/5 Would I Play. It could be fun, but I'm not exactly driven to do it.

1/5 Would I Write. This was an experiment on my part. It's an okay premise, but if I were to return to it, it would be independent of franchises and maybe with more mechanics for how the voices could interact with each other, also giving each player maybe just one voice and figuring out another way to balance them. It's an okay start, but I don't feel like developing it more anytime soon.

6/20 Total Rating

Character March 2025: Fae King

Continuing in this month's challenge, here's the second article on my most recent game, the Fae King.

My ratings will be done on four scales, each ranging from 1 to 5:

• RPG: How much does this feel like an RPG to me, as opposed to a board game?
• Soup Stone: How little content does the game expect you to add? For this scale, 0 is a complete Soup Stone since I'd like to sum the scores to see the game's total score.
• Would I Play: If I were given a chance to, would I play this game?
• Would I Write: If I were inspired enough and had time/energy for it, would I get back to working on this game?

Fae King

I won't talk much about this game since it's fairly recent. Let's cut to the chase and get to the character.

Janette Swift is a mortal who wants to kill the Fae King to bring her husband back from the dead. Perhaps she's a model, fighting the fae on their home field of beauty. So her twelve spaces of adjectives are:

• Way Fair er
• Keen er
• Quick
• Prim
• Shrewd
• Smooth er
• Thin ner

Losing these would be tragic for her, but it would be worth it for her ultimate goal.

Ratings

2/5 RPG. Courting Phase gives opportunities for roleplaying. But outside of that, it's largely a game bound by its rules. This is what it takes to build the house of cards, this is what happens when you're being chased, and nothing happens when you're not in Elfame because it's not included in the rules.

4/5 Soup Stone. You still need to come up with the problems that the fae have, but other than that the three pages of rules give you plenty of stuff to work with.

2/5 Would I Play. This game was largely made for the game jam within a single week. It's okay, but I can't say it's something that actively entices me to give it a try.

2/5 Would I write. Right now, it's way too recent for me to delve into it in a useful way. Maybe after I let this project rest for a bit, I could do it.

11/20 Total Rating

Character March 2025: Clues and Hunches

This is a game I already reworked once. The older version of the game was published on this blog in March of 2023, and it was a decent starting point. I won't deal with that, though. Let's see how I will do with the newer version of the game.

My ratings will be done on four scales, each ranging from 1 to 5:

• RPG: How much does this feel like an RPG to me, as opposed to a board game?
• Soup Stone: How little content does the game expect you to add? For this scale, 0 is a complete Soup Stone since I'd like to sum the scores to see the game's total score.
• Would I Play: If I were given a chance to, would I play this game?
• Would I Write: If I were inspired enough and had time/energy for it, would I get back to working on this game?

Clues and Hunches

Miss Ponsible, first name Iris, is a private investigator with a strange power of reverting time a couple of seconds back. This gives her an edge in her investigations, allowing her to make daring moves and maneuvers without others knowing anything about them. That being said, her only domain of specialization is in psychology. At least she has a friend on her phone, Theodore, who knows a lot about culture. That being said, the one thing she can rely on the most is her intuition, represented by the six points of Hunch.

Ratings

5/5 RPG. Barely anything about this feels like a board game. One could argue it's comparable to telling someone a puzzle, but I still think that roleplaying it makes it feel different.

2/5 Soup Stone. The system gives you a decent set of special powers, a way to progress your character, example domains, and guidelines for GM preparation. That being said, the GM will have a lot of prep ahead of them, and they'll have to stay on guard throughout the game in case the players pull off something unexpected.

5/5 Would I Play. I am working on a oneshot with this system, so that's a yes.

4/5 Would I Write. If I get decent ideas and won't have anything higher up on my priorities list, I would.

16/20 Total Rating

Characters March 2025: Deviants

New month, new challenge. This time, I decided to go through the TTRPG Character Creation Jam. The goal of this jam is to create 31 characters throughout March. I will revisit games I made, make characters for them, and rate them with my current point of view on them. I'm gonna put little effort into these articles, since there's likely gonna be 31 of them.

My ratings will be done on four scales, each ranging from 1 to 5:

• RPG: How much does this feel like an RPG to me, as opposed to a board game?
• Soup Stone: How little content does the game expect you to add? For this scale, 0 is a complete Soup Stone since I'd like to sum the scores to see the game's total score.
• Would I Play: If I were given a chance to, would I play this game?
• Would I Write: If I were inspired enough and had time/energy for it, would I get back to working on this game?

Deviants

My first proper TTRPG. Deviants was based on a simple premise, playing superpowered people in a modern setting. It was very inspired by Prototype and inFamous, and I believe it holds up well enough.

My character grew up in a big city where the game takes place. He's a grounded person who doesn't overuse his powers too much, but he uses them for good. He probably hides them and tries to live a normal life for the most part. His powers allow him to manipulate Neodynium, which is why he purchased a whole set of Neodynium magnets and made a cool weapon out of them. I'm imagining something akin to the Buster Sword that can split into several floating parts he can telekinetically manipulate. Though I'm not sure if he'd be that violent. As for his name, Drew Near.

Ratings

5/5 RPG. No arguing with this; it's quite a freeform game.

1/5 Soup Stone. That being said, the only thing the game gives you beyond the core resolution mechanics-wise is the system for injuries. Anything beyond that would have to be added to the game.

3/5 Would I Play. I could go with this if I needed to run a quick game with very little player-side prep. However, I'm afraid the GM need to prepare a lot more.

4/5 Would I Write. I don't have ideas as to how I could expand the system or whether it even needs expanding. But yes, if I had everything necessary for an update, I would be very willing to republish this game as a better product.

13/20 Total Rating