HeartQuest Diceless
Romantic
Roleplaying in the Worlds of Shoujo Manga
HeartQuest
Diceless is an odd, niche RPG aimed at emulating the kind of
plotlines and tales found in “shoujo manga”, or “girl's
comics” in Japan. For folks who aren't that familiar with them
(that includes me, honestly), here's a general summary. While there
are all sorts of manga available in Japan (and often exported to
other countries), “shoujo” refers to the titles which are
largely aimed at young girls. They generally involve female
characters and have a strong emphasis on romance and relationships in
addition to adventure. Sailor Moon is probably the most famous
example.
So what is Active Exploits, anyway?
Since this genre isn't as random or combat
oriented as many, the author has chosen to use the Active
Exploits Diceless system, available for free at
http://www.pigames.net.
Since many people may never have heard of this system, let's first go
over the basics of Active Exploits. It's a diceless resource
management system. This means that while your character will have
some set stats and skills, you can augment them by spending points,
of which you only get a limited number. This means that interaction
with other characters can still be very unpredictable; how dangerous
a foe is will depend heavily on how many resource points they have
and are willing to blow on this encounter.
The basic stats
are Fitness (physical strength and dexterity), Awareness
(noticing things and reacting to them quickly), Creativity
(coming up with new ideas) and Reasoning (intelligence and
general education). The three mutable stats (which can be spent to
augment other actions) are Luck (representing the vagaries of
random chance), Revelation (representing your personal insight
and character) and Discipline (your willpower and personal
determination). Each can be used in different situations and can have
different effects. For example, Luck can be spent to resist physical
damage, Revelation can be used to resist psychological damage
(such as fear or insanity; they call these points dementia)
and Discipline can resist fatigue.
The Active Exploits writers really like to use symbols as
shorthand, which makes it a little difficult to understand the system
until you learn to recognize all of the symbols. For example, every
skill given will generally have at least one of 3 symbols... one with
an “A” in it, one with an “F” and one with an
“M”. These mean, respectively, that the skill is
appropriate for a campaign set in an Antique setting (examples
are the Victorian era and the Civil War era in the U.S.), a Fantasy
setting (medieval, but with magical elements) or a Modern
setting. If using something generally incurs Fatigue, it
won't say “you take fatigue”... instead, it'll have two
little lightning bolts next to it. That's the icon for “Fatigue”.
There are only 13 symbols, so it's not very hard to learn them all,
but you'll probably spend a few minutes going “Wait, what did
the little drama mask mean? (flip, flip) Oh, yeah, it causes
dementia.”
There are a bunch
of skills and they're generally broken up according to what stat most
influences them. Many also list secondary abilities, which can be
used to boost them as well, but only by a single point. For example,
the Boating skill normally uses Fitness, but says to use Awareness or
Reasoning to navigate. The Forging skill also uses Fitness, but lists
Creativity as a secondary ability which can be applied as well. You
won't always want to use it, though.
Why not? Well,
because there's a simple rule: whenever the total “effort”
that you're exerting on a task (the sum of every stat that you've
chosen to apply to it) exceeds your current Discipline rating,
you take a point of fatigue. So really throwing everything you have
into a task may leave you weak and weary. Too much fatigue will give
you -1 or -2 penalty to all tasks, depending on exactly how exhausted
you are.
They use a simple difficulty chart, which compares how skilled you
are (the ratings are Unskilled, Apprentice, Proficient and Expert) to
the difficulty of the task (Trivial, Routine, Challenging, Improbable
or Impossible) and tells you the total value you'll have to get to
succeed. Trivial tasks can generally be accomplished automatically by
anyone who's stats aren't negative numbers, whereas performing an
Impossible task when you're Unskilled in that area requires a
whopping total of 8 to succeed. Since an average person has a stat
rating of 0 and a rating of 5 is considered godlike, even superheroes
aren't likely to be able to pull that off without spending all of
their Luck.
There are some additional details, and some rules for advantages
and disadvantages, but that should be enough for everyone to
understand the basic system (I hope).
Back to HeartQuest!
The version of HeartQuest that I received was the PDF
format. I'm pretty sure that there's also a dead tree version
available, but I've only read the PDF. I doubt that there's much
difference in the content, though.
The introduction discusses exactly what Shoujo Manga is and
what sort of tales are expected in this genre. There's also a brief
history of the genre and how some titles came to be available in the
west.
Character creation uses the standard
Active Exploits Diceless system, with some additional
Skills, Gimmicks (personal advantages) and Convictions (personal
credos or weaknesses that you are expected to roleplay; you can be
penalized for going against them) to better fit the genre.
Some players may
need a little while to adjust to playing in a game where skills like
Calligraphy, Flower Arrangement or
Sewing are considered about as important as Acrobatics,
Climbing, or Brawling. The authors have also included a
variety of social manipulation skills, like Bribery, Flattery, or
(my favorite) Guilt Trip. I'm iffy on the inclusion of Fast
Talk, Lying, and
Persuasion, as
they'd overlap a lot, but as long as everyone's clear on the
differences it shouldn't be a problem. Most of the Gimmicks are
pretty standard but I did like Flunkies (you have a small
group of friends who hang on your every word and generally do your
bidding for free) and Guardian Angel (you really do have an
invisible force looking out for you). There are also some primarily
malign Gimmicks, like Drama Queen or Fear of Commitment.
The Gimmicks don't
really come with game rules; that's not in the Active Exploits
Diceless style. Instead, they're pretty much just roleplaying
guidelines that the GM should support as well as the player. For
example, the standard Internal Compass Gimmick just says that
you never get lost. Gimmicks are often assigned by the GM to further
fill out someone's character concept.
The negative
Gimmicks in HeartQuest includes some really cute ideas. There
are quite a few listed here. My particular favorites are Nosebleeder
(whenever you are aroused, you have a tendency to get
embarrassed and have blood squirt out of your nose) and Gender
Bender (you look more like a member of the opposite gender than
your own). Both of these are Anime
standards that I've seen dozens of different shows. That sort of
attention to detail shows that the author has put a good bit of
thought into the game.
Chapter 2 covers additional special powers and supernatural
abilities necessary to support the “Magical Girls” genre.
The system presented here is very freeform,
with a single double-cost skill covering pretty much any kind of
sorcery allowed in the GM's campaign. I did
like the “Transformation” Gimmick, which allows you to
magically transform from your street clothes into your battle
outfit... and now matter how long or elaborate your character's
transformation sequence happens to be, it all occurs pretty much
instantly and no one can interfere with it.
This is not a terribly long chapter. At just 3 pages, there's not
really much here besides a single example of creating a magical girl
with the main Active Exploits Diceless rules and a few
additional magical Gimmicks. But, as the author says, magical powers
in this genre tend to be unique, with every major character being
significantly different, so an exhaustive list of suggested powers
would take up quite a bit of space.
Chapter 3 is just a basic summary of what roleplaying is and how
to run a game. It has a small amount of GM advice (PCs should never
die unless it means something, don't bother with maps or miniatures,
develop NPCs in interesting ways) but it
hasn't got much of interest for experienced players or GMs.
Chapter 4 however, starts to dig into the meat of the genre: Teen
Romance. First, the author describes what life & dating is like
in Japan for youngsters, particularly how the various school years
are laid out and what sort of exams are involved. They discuss little
details like most schools prohibiting part-time jobs for students and
the agonies of 9th and 12th grade (those are
the years when you take standardized exams to determine what school
you go to next... if any).
There's a big section on dating... interestingly, even dating is
often prohibited by the school because it distracts students from
their studies. We get a discussion of how Valentine's Day and
Christmas differ in Japan. For example, the religious significance of
Christmas is almost entirely absent since most folks aren't
Christians and there's special significance to it if a girl offers
hand-made chocolates to a boy on Valentine's Day.
This is a fairly well written section, and one that I'd consider
really important for anyone seriously interested in shoujo
roleplaying. It even covers some common tropes of the genre
(including the importance of sports, homosexual crushes and couples
who refuse to admit that they care about each other). We also get a
short discussion of Forbidden Loves and what sorts of
relationships are going to be illegal or frowned upon in Japan.
Chapter 5 delves into the Magical Girls genre a little more
deeply. The authors briefly discuss a few variations on the genre,
particularly the Magical Thief and the Magical Idol (e.g.-
pop star). This section is only a vague overview, not a detailed
study. Each variant gets a page at best, but then I think this
product is aimed more at the sort of gamer who will recognize all of
the titles mentioned already than someone completely unfamiliar with
them.
Chapter 6 discusses historical and
out-of-this-world settings (such as the traditional, “several
students get teleported into a sword &
sorcery universe” plot). It's only 6 pages long, so again, this
is more of an overview than anything else. I did like the comments
about the importance of “carefully sticking to the setting”
when basing a game on a published manga that both the players and GM
have read, just to minimize arguments about the characters and who's
in love with who. They also go into a nice discussion about the whole
“fish out of water” effect that out-of-this-world
campaigns will be trying to instill and how best to achieve it.
Chapters 7, 8 and 9 describe three very different potential
campaigns, each with a description of the setting, several example
characters (including their stats) and enough plot hooks to get you
going. First we get Sendai Academy, a traditional
teens-in-high-school drama. There are stats for 7 example characters,
and most have several potential plot hooks like secret crushes and
family troubles. There are no magic powers or violent enemies here...
but the next setting is Ghost Tamer Miyaki,
which has them in spades. The title character here is a formerly
normal teenage girl who (much to her surprise) has inherited magical
powers and is now the official arch enemy of a powerful demon. Among
her allies are a mysterious male character called Black Rose and a
ghostly dog who doubles as both sidekick and font of enigmatic clues.
Since both of these campaigns are set in modern day Japan, the third
is Steel Heidi, a
historical romance set in 1720's Germany. The title character is a
skilled swordswoman and the personal
bodyguard of Prince Hendrick of the fictional kingdom of Kensmarck.
Naturally, her heart has gone out to him, but he must marry for
political reasons, not love; to do otherwise would be to plunge the
kingdom into civil war. All three settings are rife with dramatic
possibilities and the first almost completely lacks both magic and
violence. Very different from
the “normal” RPG setting.
Chapter 10 contains some additional example characters for other
sorts of games. We get the nerdy girl-genius who was promoted several
grades ahead and who masters every subject with ease but whose social
life is abysmal. There's a rock star with a secret shame. There are a
wide variety of characters here (9 in total) ranging from ordinary
teens to sword & sorcery Dread Hunters. It's a good source of
inspiration for people trying to find a campaign that interests them.
Finally, the author wraps it all up with a bibliography of
relevant shoujo manga and anime, including a one-paragraph summary of
what each title is about.
HeartQuest is 84 pages
long and strictly black & white with a color cover. The
art is decent, if amateurish, and fits the genre quite well. There
aren't any pics that impressed me, though, so I definitely wouldn't
recommend it to anyone just for the art. The interior art is all on
about the same level as the cover. The editing is quite good; there
were hardly any typos and I only saw a couple of layout mistakes
(mostly unnecessary gaps between two lines of text). While it's
somewhat light on concrete detail, the genre it covers isn't really
suitable for that sort of thing anyway. The PDF doesn't take full
advantages of the format... that is to say, there aren't any
bookmarks and the interior links aren't clickable, but that's not a
big deal.
I'd say it's the best treatment of shoujo manga for roleplaying
that I've ever seen, but it's the only one I've ever seen. If you
have any interest in this genre, though, I'd seriously recommend
HeartQuest. Be warned though, it's mostly an overview of the
genre as a whole; it doesn't spend a lot of time on any one manga or
subgenre, so it's not a suitable reference for any particular manga.
I give it a 3 for Substance and
a 3 for Style. What will really sell it or kill it for you isn't the
presentation, though; it'll be your interest in this sort of game.
It's a big departure from the typical action & adventure RPG, so
if you're looking for something that concentrates a lot more on drama
than action, you should definitely give HeartQuest a look.
There are actually two versions available on RPGnow, one in Active
Exploits Diceless
and one using FUDGE
(a dice-based rules-light system). There's even a rather odd-looking
campaign pack out for it, called Musical
Mistresses. At about $5-$8 each, it won't cost
you much to check this system out.
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