The Inside Scoop on Gaming

A few months back I requested a review copy of the Demon City Shinjuku RPG from Guardians of Order. While I was waiting for a reply, a copy of the game showed up on the reviews queue at RPGnet, so I requested it. Several weeks later, the nice folks at GoO told me that they would, indeed, send me a copy of DCS. Thanking them but informing them that I already had a copy on the way now, I inquired if I might get a copy of something else of theirs to review.

The answer came a couple of weeks later in the form of the Tenchi Muyo! RPG and Resource Book.

At the time, I had absolutely no interest in Tenchi Muyo! What did I care about some adolescent fantasy in which a host of cute alien chicks obsess over and pursue a 17-year-old boy?

But! out of curiosity, I rented the first episode of the series.

And then the next.

And the next.

Until finally I'd rented all of both the OAV and the first TV series and had bought all three movies.

"Free review copy", my ass.

THE SETTING

Tenchi Muyo! RPG and Resource Book covers only the 13-episode OAV series. This is important, because the other Tenchi series and movies share the same characters but seem to occur in alternate universes where the histories of those characters vary.

Basically, the story is as follows:

Tenchi Masaki is a teenage boy living in Japan with his father, an oafish but well-meaning architect, and his grandfather, a Shinto priest and master swordsman. His mother died when he was very young.

One day Tenchi accidentally frees a demon that was supposedly trapped in a cave near his grandfather's shrine - a demon that turns out to be a beautiful, irreverent, and superpowered space pirate named Ryoko. Thus begins a series of events leading to a whole group of alien women taking up residence in the Masaki household and competing with Ryoko for Tenchi's affections. They include Ayeka, a beautiful princess from the planet Jurai; Sasami, Ayeka's adorable younger sister; Mihoshi, a bubbleheaded klutz of a space cop; Washu, the universe's most brilliant mad scientist; and Ryo-ohki, a cabbit (cat/rabbit hybrid) that is also a Ryoko's spaceship. As they say in the TV listings, hilarity ensues, along with a fair bit of action and adventure.

The book does a great job of covering as much of the setting as is revealed in the OAV series. Unlike the Demon City Shinjuku RPG, it also goes a just a bit further than that. Included are plot summaries of every episode of the OAV, detailed descriptions of all major characters and shorter write-ups for the minor ones, and discussions about locations throughout the Tenchi universe.

The write-ups of the main characters are particularly good, with each one taking up a good three pages or so and delving deep into their motivations and histories. It is here that the book goes the furthest beyond the facts revealed in the series. My only quibble is that the descriptions do not always match the game statistics: for example, the text describes Ayeka as having a remarkable endurance and Ryoko as having a kind of sixth sense, but their game stats reflect neither.

As in the Demon City Shinjuku game, the Tenchi game is so faithful to its source material that the holes in the series are also the holes in the game setting. In this case, the OAV series ended with several major plot hooks unexplored, and so the game leaves these as mysteries. This may be a blessing or a curse, depending upon whether a GM prefers lots of freedom or lots of support; however, if it's a curse, it's one that's unlikely to ever be lifted: future Tenchi RPG supplements will cover the various Tenchi spin-off series, rebooted histories and all.

More than any licensed RPG I've read, Tenchi Muyo! lends itself to the players playing the characters from the source material. This is no doubt due to the series' focus on character interaction. So long as you have a group mature enough to handle characters of vastly different power levels, a game based on the OAV characters could be a whole lot of fun with minimal setup on the part of the GM.

On the flip side, I didn't see much that would make me want to run a Tenchi game that didn't involve at least some of the Tenchi characters. Once again, this is not so much the fault of the writers of the game as it is the fault of the writers of the series: the setting is an interesting backdrop for the main characters, but it is not, in my opinion, strong enough to stand without them.

THE SYSTEM

I won't bore you with a complete rehash of the Tenchi Muyo! RPG's system, which is the Guardians of Order's Tri-Stat System that was first introduced in Big Eyes, Small Mouth. Suffice it to say that the system uses a universal 2d6 roll-under mechanic based on three stats (Body, Mind, and Soul) on a 1-12 scale with attributes providing special abilities and skills reducing the rolls. For a more detailed discussion of the Tri-Stat System, I refer you to my Demon City Shinjuku review.

I will say that while my problems with the system remain - namely, the lumping of all physical attributes under one stat and the equal importance of all three stats in combat - they did not seem so egregious when used in this setting. I suspect that there were two reasons for this. First, character interaction, rather than game mechanics, holds the primary appeal for me in the Tenchi RPG. And second, the ridiculously holistic Attack and Defense Values used in the Tri-Stat System, which make little brainy schoolgirls and feeble, pious monks the equal of tough, agile mercenaries in combat, actually seems to fit the Tenchi setting.

One nice tweak to the system that was later incorporated into the second edition of Big Eyes, Small Mouth is the elimination of the division between stats and attributes during character creation. This negates the need for attributes whose only purpose is to increase stats.

Speaking of attributes, the Tenchi RPG introduces three new special attributes: Jurai powers, Mass powers, and Mechas. Jurai powers are the mystical abilities of the Jurai royal family and lean slightly toward the mental. Mass powers, which tend to be more physical in nature, are derived from the genetic material of the primal aquatic life forms known as (unsurprisingly) Mass. Mecha abilities cover every aspect of mechanized possessions, not just those of giant robots.

Together, these three special abilities do a good job of covering the metahuman powers seen in the OAV. My only qualm regarding the Jurai and Mass powers is that their sources seem rather restrictive, implying that Jurai royal blood and Mass genetic tampering are the only sources for superhuman abilities in the setting. The Mecha abilities seemed overly detailed for my taste, and the line between "equipment" and "mecha" seemed blurry.

THE BOOK

This book is absolutely beautiful, putting full-color images from the series to excellent use in illustrating both game mechanics and the mood of the setting. (Perhaps as a result of all that ink, however, my book has a peculiar chemical odor to it.)

The writing is clear, concise, and (as far as I could tell) free from typos. The one thing the text did not do was capture the comedic aspects of Tenchi Muyo!, describing even the episodes of the series with a completely straight face. And in a way, I'm glad. So much of the comedy in Tenchi is visual that conveying it on paper would have been a daunting task, and one that would have taken up valuable print space. (Just imagine trying to write out the humor in a "Three Stooges" pie fight.)

Unfortunately, this means that despite the wealth of information the book provides, I don't believe it can convey the true feel of the series to someone who hasn't seen it. On the other hand, I doubt that such a person would be interested in the game in the first place, so I'm inclined to think that GoO made the right choice.

The book contains two adventures, both of which have very specific and very different character types in mind.

The first, which requires the players to play main characters from the series, explores the intriguing question of what became of Washu's child. It offers plenty of room for the kind of humorous interaction that makes the series so endearing, along with a respectable amount of action.

The second has the players taking the roles of space crooks hired to retrieve a massive gem that can reincarnate the Soja, the space battleship used by the villainous Kagato in the series. I didn't care for it for two reasons. First, as I mentioned above, it is the cast of Tenchi Muyo that I find compelling, not the setting. Second, the PCs will come into direct conflict with Mihoshi, and the very real possibility that they might kill her makes this adventure potentially very dark.

CONCLUSION

This game is unlikely to attract many gamers with no knowledge of the OAV series, and it will not truly convey the comedic feel of the series to those it does attract. It is so faithful to the OAV that the plot holes in the OAV are holes in the RPG setting, meaning that it will be of limited use to GMs lacking the time or wherewithal to fill them.

But for fans of the Tenchi Muyo! OAV - gamer or not - this is as comprehensive a resource book as could be desired, and one that GMs willing to flesh out the mysteries of the Tenchi universe themselves will find highly playable. Well done, Guardians of Order.