Magical Girl System

[JNAProductions]

What's a good system for playing Magical Girls? Especially in the vein of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, with the lasers and the flying and the bim-bam-boppity-boom.

[khadgar567]

well its not pathfinder or starfinder right kow. but i am curious to.

[Bastian Weaver]

Big Eyes Small Mouth.

[Cespenar]

High level D&D 3.5, limit the classes to just Warmages? :smalltongue:

I mean, it could work.

[inexorabletruth]

I've heard good things about Magical Fury (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/143004/Magical-Fury). It's supposed to be much more "pick up and play" than your average TTRPG, so you'll be able to attract players who tend to be skittish when it comes to trying new systems, and it's one of the few systems outside of D&D I've ever considered trying (I'm like the white tailed deer of trying new systems).

I'm not sure which side of the magical girl you're going for, and certainly the lighter side (Miraculous Ladybug) is the more popular of the two major MG themes right now, but this represents a darker side of the magical girl, which I find allows for at least a wider variety of gaming options.

For the lighter side, and I'm not sure if this entirely counts, but there's MAID RPG (http://www.maidrpg.com). I don't know much about it, other than it's got good reviews, but I think it looks very railroaded and almost too simplified. But I thought it was only responsible to offer a contrast to the darker Magical Fury option.

[Mordaedil]

High level D&D 3.5, limit the classes to just Warmages? :smalltongue:

I mean, it could work.

Warmages have a bit few too many tools for a proper magical girl. We experimented a bit by using Warlock and Incarnum with a bit of a beef-up to represent the magical clothes of the magical girls.

But really D&D is a bit too hardcore death and life kind of deal for magical girls to really work. You have to soften a lot of elements or you'll suddenly be playing Madoka Magica instead of Pretty Cure.

[JeenLeen]

I think there was a fan-made new World of Darkness game centered on playing as magical girls. I think it might have been called Princess, but don't remember. You can probably find it by search Googling for "World of Darkness" and "magical girl".

[JNAProductions]

I think there was a fan-made new World of Darkness game centered on playing as magical girls. I think it might have been called Princess, but don't remember. You can probably find it by search Googling for "World of Darkness" and "magical girl".

Princess the Hopeful, I believe. But I've heard it's more focused on the darker side of Magical Girls, which is fine, but not what I'm looking for at the moment.

Will check out Magical Fury.

[Knaight]

Anima Prime (which is a totally different system than just Anima) would also work quite well, with a particular focus on the pew-pew lasers side.

On the counter intuitive but surprisingly viable side, there's Mythender.

[JNAProductions]

Anima Prime (which is a totally different system than just Anima) would also work quite well, with a particular focus on the pew-pew lasers side.

On the counter intuitive but surprisingly viable side, there's Mythender.

I do like laser pew-pews...

[Segev]

Big Eyes Small Mouth.This would be my first recommendation. Mutants and Masterminds 3e can also do it, though it's more geared for superheroes than magical girls. You could do it with GURPS, but I only recommend that to people who already love the system, and if you didn't jump on it without asking the boards for suggestions, you probably aren't in that group.

BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) is designed to run anime games. BESM 3e is probably the best of them, having gone through more refinement.


I think there was a fan-made new World of Darkness game centered on playing as magical girls. I think it might have been called Princess, but don't remember. You can probably find it by search Googling for "World of Darkness" and "magical girl".There are actually two:

Princess, the Hopeful, which is a serious take on it and plays to the WoD aesthetic of things being a bit dark, but manages to capture the "magical girl" feel of the girls themselves being heroic figures. Even if "heroic" may be more classical than modern. This is a runnable system.

Senshi: the Merchandising, which is a parody that treats Magical Girls as a cosmic merchandising gimmick, and looks like a lot of fun, at least to read. No idea if it would run well, but if you're up for a crack game, it probably would suit.

Both are fan-made, and I believe available online for free.

[Geddy2112]

Blades in the Dark has a semi official variant rule system called Girl by Moonlight.

The original system is a criminal heist Oceans 11 style criminal syndicate style RPG, and girl by moonlight turns it into much more Sailor Moon crime fighting. I have never played Girl by Moonight, but I did a one shot of Blades in the Dark and it was pretty fun.

As for Pathfinder, you can play an entire party of Magical Child vigilante's which is basically Sailor Moon/Cardcaptors Sakura the class.

[Friv]

Fate Accelerated Edition works well to showcase the handwavey-ness of a lot of magical girl skills - how you do things kind of matters more than what you know, unless it's a part of your core concept, and your special attacks inexplicably only work once or twice per fight. There's also not a lot of quick advancement, which fits more magical girls.

With that said - I am real curious about Girl By Moonlight now.

[ElFi]

Can I recommend Magical Burst? It's a little on the rules-light side in places, but it's a system explicitly designed to run magical girl campaigns. And you can find all the rules online for free.

There's also the Tome of Radiance (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258654-Tome-of-Radiance-Mastering-the-Power-of-Love-and-Justice), a homebrew subsystem for playing magical girls in D&D 3.5, if you're into that sort of thing.

[Blackhawk748]

I've heard good things about Magical Fury (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/143004/Magical-Fury). It's supposed to be much more "pick up and play" than your average TTRPG, so you'll be able to attract players who tend to be skittish when it comes to trying new systems, and it's one of the few systems outside of D&D I've ever considered trying (I'm like the white tailed deer of trying new systems).

I'm not sure which side of the magical girl you're going for, and certainly the lighter side (Miraculous Ladybug) is the more popular of the two major MG themes right now, but this represents a darker side of the magical girl, which I find allows for at least a wider variety of gaming options.

For the lighter side, and I'm not sure if this entirely counts, but there's MAID RPG (http://www.maidrpg.com). I don't know much about it, other than it's got good reviews, but I think it looks very railroaded and almost too simplified. But I thought it was only responsible to offer a contrast to the darker Magical Fury option.

I own it, its basically Apocalypse World (not a bad thing in and of itself). Also, Sparx is always a thing same as FATE.

[legomaster00156]

Can I recommend Magical Burst? It's a little on the rules-light side in places, but it's a system explicitly designed to run magical girl campaigns. And you can find all the rules online for free.

There's also the Tome of Radiance (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258654-Tome-of-Radiance-Mastering-the-Power-of-Love-and-Justice), a homebrew subsystem for playing magical girls in D&D 3.5, if you're into that sort of thing.
Magical Burst is good, but for an even more rules-light variant (I find that restrictive rules get in the way of being an awesome magical girl warrior) I have ran Magical Fury (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/143004/Magical-Fury) by the same developer and loved every bit of it.

[Mordaedil]

There's also the Tome of Radiance (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258654-Tome-of-Radiance-Mastering-the-Power-of-Love-and-Justice), a homebrew subsystem for playing magical girls in D&D 3.5, if you're into that sort of thing.
Good lord, this is exactly what we were doing. Thanks a ton for this.

[Karl Aegis]

I don't know about Lyrical Nanaho, but Double Cross does have lasers(Angel Radiance) and flying(Black Dog, Balor) and stuff(Orcus).

[Drascin]

I have played a full two-year campaign in the Nanoha universe (set after StrikerS) using Mutants&Masterminds 2nd edition. It works perfectly well. I would recommend M&M as your first stop - from what I hear 3rd edition is pretty good.

Magical girls, in the end, are very much superheroes, just marketed to young girls, and so I would expect superhero RPGs are going to give you the closest experience with the least work.

[tensai_oni]

Whatever BESM can do, Mutants and Masterminds can do better. This includes anime-style games. The latter is just far superior mechanically and narratively both. Its only major flaw is that many options are either too powerful or mechanically inefficient, but that is even more the case for Big Eyes Small Mouth. In M&M you can at least assume some baseline competence if your character has attack and defense scores on PL cap.

I'm suggesting against Princess the Hopeful. It may be a dedicated magical girl book, but it's also a WoD book with all that entails - not very good mechanics, shoehorned five clan-equivalents and class-equivalents just because every WoD does it, etc. Also the list of inspirations written in the book shows the authors really don't know the genre as good as they think they do. I digress.

On the other hand we have Maid RPG. If Princess is too dark and thinks every magical girl series is Madoka, Maid doesn't fit because it's just too silly. Unless you're trying to recreate that embarassing oughties anime fandom feel, with a mansion full of player character catgirls, a literal Death Note, and a dungeon full of bishonen, I suggest you stay away.

[Max_Killjoy]

I have played a full two-year campaign in the Nanoha universe (set after StrikerS) using Mutants&Masterminds 2nd edition. It works perfectly well. I would recommend M&M as your first stop - from what I hear 3rd edition is pretty good.

Magical girls, in the end, are very much superheroes, just marketed to young girls, and so I would expect superhero RPGs are going to give you the closest experience with the least work.

Indeed, HERO/Champions, with some tweaks and focusing, could handle it quite well I think.

[Scots Dragon]

This would be my first recommendation. Mutants and Masterminds 3e can also do it, though it's more geared for superheroes than magical girls.

Honestly magical girls are just a specific subtype of superhero to begin with. They're almost all heroines who adopt costumes and often codenames to battle the forces of Evil™ and often even have secret identities to go along with it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

M&M is great if your magical girls are going to have unique powers. Fate/Fate Accelerated would work decently for a game where their powers are similar.

[Psyren]

Big Eyes Small Mouth.

+1 this. You can easily run the d20 version in D&D/PF too if that's your cup of tea.

[Mordaedil]

I have played a full two-year campaign in the Nanoha universe (set after StrikerS) using Mutants&Masterminds 2nd edition. It works perfectly well. I would recommend M&M as your first stop - from what I hear 3rd edition is pretty good.

Magical girls, in the end, are very much superheroes, just marketed to young girls, and so I would expect superhero RPGs are going to give you the closest experience with the least work.

Impressed with the rest of your post, but if you think Nanoha or certain other magical girl shows are targeted towards young girls, I have some news for you.

They target the adult male demographic.

[Scots Dragon]

Impressed with the rest of your post, but if you think Nanoha or certain other magical girl shows are targeted towards young girls, I have some news for you.

They target the adult male demographic.

I'm not even much of a fan of this genre, but that's far from true of all of them. Or even most of them. Sailor Moon (plus Codename Sailor V), Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, Pretty Cure, Tokyo Mew Mew, and quite a few others explicitly target the young girl demographic.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, etc. are relatively recent exceptions.

[Mordaedil]

I'm not even much of a fan of this genre, but that's far from true of all of them. Or even most of them. Sailor Moon (plus Codename Sailor V), Cardcaptor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth, Pretty Cure, Tokyo Mew Mew, and quite a few others explicitly target the young girl demographic.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, etc. are relatively recent exceptions.

That's why I said Nanoha and specific others. But yes, you are absolutely correct with everything here. My post was in agreement with this, just not as specific.