Diceless my mortal foe, how you have bewitched me with your presentation by the corporation of Seraphim Guard.

Heart Quest (Or HeartQuest as it shows up on most search engines) as some of you reading this may know is a game devoted to the genre of shoujo manga. A particular style of comic and anime, which embodies more about romantic feelings/magical girls/comedy than standard mecha slugging it out or martial arts ones. The game proved a remarkable success for its origins and became a staple of players wanting to play anime themed games. As I understand it, they are releasing a large amount of new products so I decided to purchase its alternate core rules.

First of all Heart Quest Diceless is available in two formats; Electronic Book and Paperback but if you buy the paperback then you should be aware you arn't going to get as much as if you get the e-book.

Yes, you heard me correctly.

No Seraphim Guard is not so on the e-book bandwagon they are supporting it over their paperback book line but it seems that a number of fans complained about the book's only flaw in the lack of the main system (see below) it uses and SG decided to put the system's material in the back of the later released e-book. I got both and while the e-book certainly allows you to play the game as originally intended, I use the Heart Quest Dice-less main book as a reference book for role-playing material as opposed to its rules.

The paperback book is 84 pages and the e-book containing the Active Exploits system. The former costs $14.95 of near pure material and the later only $6.00.

The Cover: This is in my mind a slightly inferior cover to the main Heart Quest rulebook with the girls more 'comic' drawn rather than the sexy anime imagery of the main book. It shows Ghost Tamer Miyaki, Heidi Hustmarck, and Chiharu the three heroines of the sample campaign of the book.

Chapter 1: Is appropriately character creation which basically skips over the Active Events creation information and acts as a supplement to it. Here is listed skills, gimmicks, and convictions which roughly correspond to skills (appropriately enough) and merits and flaws ala Vampire. These are the same ones from the main rulebook and are a nice humorous yet useful collection of anime stereotypes along with a few genuinely original ones like gender bender (You look like the opposite sex). It also discusses I'm happy to say expanding character background and personality at some length.

I thought the supplement would have been much better with the information included in the main book and the ebook answered that point.

Chapter 2: Special Abilities are discussed here where the system describes in short detail how to create magical powers of a extremely flexible nature. You can cover Superman and Goku or Sailor Moon with the minimalist system but expect to do most of the description.

Chapter 3: Playing the game gives a short and sweet summary of how to RPG and handle RPGing whether you are a player or a Director (as they call the Game Master). It covers pretty much the basics in a dice-less system and gives some tips for everyone having fun which is a nice reminder in today's age of strict authoritarian rules.

Chapter 4: Teen Romance in Japan is described in remarkable detail and worth the e-book price there as we get an idea of how culture functions for young adults and especially mores regarding youths, courtship, and sexuality.

Chapter 5: The Magical Girls section covers reasonably in-depth Sailor Moon's particular genre and arguably Buffy. I could have used a whole book on it but it gives two examples of how to run variants on it.

Chapter 6: Historical Romance is covered here, basically describing how to use romanticized versions of the past ala Dumas and the Musketeers to do adventure settings. Its crying out for more material to be done on it.

Chapter 7: Sendai Academy, the first of Heart Quest's campaigns is a High School Drama ala Dawson's Creek only with anime leanings. The characters are actually likeable and slightly interesting unlike true ones.

Chapter 8: Ghost Tamer Miyaki is the second of Heart Quest's sample campaigns with this about a slightly darker edged magical girl with the usual boy problems and a destiny out of her hands. I liked the somewhat more serious take ala Ceres the Celestial Legend.

Chapter 9: Steel Heidi is a Historical Romance set in the Germanic Kingdoms that basically takes at face value women swordsmen existed, abet were rare and one could bodyguard a virile prince without there actually BEING a scandal necessarily. It’s a fun setting and the characters are quite interesting, though I prefer Sendai personally for a true shoujo feel.

Chapter 10: Some sample characters that are campaign non-specific including a brainiac girl and two gay men struggling to eck out an existence. Not too interesting in my mind.

Bibliography and Resources: This is basically a guide to shoujo anime and if you want swift reviews of a LARGE number of them, they are here.

Overall I liked it alot and while the Heart Quest main system is what I'll continue to use, I must say that the Diceless system is no longer on my list of things that herald only destruction and hatred.

8/10

The product is located at

Electronic Book: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=1769

Paperback: http://www.rpgmall.com/product_info.php?products_id=32634