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Atarashi Games' Panty Explosion is a game about psychic japanese schoolgirls. RPGNet put out the call for reviewers for Horror Week, and I responded, enthusiastic about getting the chance to read and review the game I'd heard a lot about. I was provided with a PDF copy of the book to read through and review. They sell the pdf of the game for 10$ and the print copy for 20$ from their website, AtarashiGames.com.
Setting
Panty Explosion takes place in modern day Japan, specifically in high schools. This is developed in a chapter devoted to Japan. The book describes Japanese high schools, and Tokyo. It also has a bit of a section describing how bullying and other forms of abuse happen in Japanese high schools, and how it differs from a lot of the rest of the world. I admit to not having very much knowledge about Japan, either high schools or Tokyo, so I cannot describe the differences between what the book presents and reality. On the other hand, because the game takes place in Japan, the authors did well by presenting this chapter. It contains a lot of information, sufficient to hang a game upon, but not too much to feel like a travel guide.
Where's the Horror?
So, in a game that was requested to have reviews for Horror Week, one would expect some horror elements. There are some in Panty Explosion. Specifically, the psychic powers and demons. Psychic powers can enhance the character's abilities, but can have some negative side-effects. Psychics also have two special powers: the ability to levitate, and the ability to make people's heads explode. A couple of the provided examples are especially creepy. The game also includes a substantial bestiary of Japanese, or Japanese-inspired, demons. They seem particularly interesting, however, with only a paragraph description each, most devolve into "this demon eats men", or "this demon eats women".
System
Panty Explosion is an indie game, with a tight focus. It therefore uses a conflict resolution system. This system is easier to understand than others, and leads to an interesting style of game.
Character Creation
Characters in Panty Explosion are Japanese schoolgirls. As such, they have some simple things like a name, a homeroom teacher, a class year, birth date, and a few other easy things. They also have some mechanically interesting information: their Junishi sign (a kind of zodiac, which assists in personality development), Godai element stats, blood type - according to the book, there is a Japanese belief that blood type affects personality - and some Traits. The player also decides at this point whether his Student is psychic or not. At least one of the party must be Psychic. There is also a brief note that not all of the party should be Psychic.
The Godai elements are Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and Void. These elements aid in personality generation, as well. The player ranks the elements between least and most important elements, from 1 to 5.
The player then selects five descriptive Traits for their character, based on their high Godai Element, Junishi sign, Blood Type, Friends and Family, and Hobbies. These descriptive traits are things like "Excellent Go player".
Finally, the player selects one of the other characters as her Best Friend, and another as her Rival.
Conflict Resolution
A Conflict may be called at any appropriate time. The book does not discuss the setting of the stakes of the Conflict, however, assuming that they should be obvious. When a Conflict is called, the player who called the Conflict gets the first Action. These Actions can be anything - but should be stated as an "I attempt to do x by y" template. Then dice are rolled. Each Action belongs to a governing Element. Each character gets a number of dice for each element per scene equal to their rating. For instance, a Student with 3 Earth has 3 Earth dice they can use for a scene. For any action, a Student may roll any number of element dice, as long as the Student has them available. If any dice show a 5 , the Action is a success. After an Action is finished, any one character may take an Action to react. Then, as a form of initiative, the receiver of the Action gets a turn next, and so on. When there are more characters involved in a Conflict that have not yet taken a main Action in the turn, they get a turn. A round is complete when everyone involved has taken an Action. Then the player who called the Conflict gets a chance to decide whether or not the Conflict is resolved by taking another Action and starting a new Round.
Traits may come into play once per scene, per Trait. Using a Trait increases the size of the die - from d6 to d8, from d8 to d10, and from d10 to d12. Also, a Psychic character may fuel an Action. This causes the die size to be increased to a d10, after which it may not be increased.
The first reason the game plays differently from most other games, including other Conflict Resolution style games, is this: if the action was successful, your character's Best Friend's player narrates the result, and if the action was unsuccessful, your character's Rival's player narrates. Unless your character is Psychic. After your Psychic Student uses a Psychic ability, your character's Rival's player always narrates the result.
Popularity
The other quirk of this game comes from the Popularity mechanic. Periodically - this should be done after character creation, and at other times at the GM's discretion - the players vote on which character is the most popular in the group, and which is least popular. This is done by secret ballot. The most popular rolls d10s, and the least popular uses d6s. Everyone else uses d8s. Psychics may not be the most popular character.
Being the GM
The GM has the job of coming up with the main adversary - the Demon - for the session, and running all the other NPCs. This also involves designing the school. The game suggests designing proto-NPCs (to use the term from Dogs in the Vineyard) - that is, stats without a name. Then, when you need stats to belong to a name, you can pick out a card and use it. The book includes guidelines and advice on setting up stats for NPCs, and designing the Demon. Unfortunately, the segment on the Demon's stats is less than clear. Specifically, the book talks about dividing the dice up, but provides an example of such that is unclear whether it is one example or three, confusing the issue (at least, in my mind) about whether the Demon should use fewer dice in an encounter than it has available, or if the dice are strictly divided. It's also unclear whether Demons have dice divided by Elements or not.
Conclusion
The book was an interesting read, and definitely at many times piqued my curiosity and imagination. I would really enjoy running this game some day, as a Hallowe'en one-shot, for example. It's gleefully understated in the horror, but the horror comes out of the situation, and the effects of the psychic powers.
Style
The game is evocative in artwork, with groups of girls painted throughout. The style of artwork greatly supports the theme. The pieces of text that illustrate the effect of the psychic powers are golden, but there are, sadly, too few of them. Now, for the downsides. The book has a distracting background. I understand the decision to go with a background image of lined notebook paper, but as the text does not line up with the lines, it gets in the way, especially the doodles that appear from time to time. Also, sadly, the grammar and lack of punctuation use really distracted me, and I found I often had to read past it. The authors could do well with another editing and proofreading pass to clean up the language, and add in the possessive apostrophes and missing commas. This would allow for easier reading. Given the sadly present flaws, I feel a 3 in Style is appropriate, though it could easily reach a 5 with a revised version.
Substance
As for the game's substance, it is a very well put together game. The mechanics seem like they would work very well, and have some interesting quirks. I do have a couple complaints, however. First is the previously mentioned confusing GM advice which could be clarified. The other is that the effects of psychic powers - specifically, the effects in society at large - are absent. In essence, I feel a lot more could be done with the psychic premise than what is presented in the book. Because of those two issues, I feel that a 4 is appropriate. Again, though, it could easily be a 5.
