Mechanical Girl Lupinranger: A 4-page RPG [PEACH] [Archive]

sandmote

2024-04-06, 01:12 AM

The way the initial description of the acts is described, it almost looks as if there's going to be a particular type of action tied to each of them, which works out very weirdly; is one of the characters applying the penalty for the relevant flaw when acting for the entire act? My gut instinct to this is "no," but that does make the description of the acts (which appear to include the description of mechanics for Crime, Magic, and Mechanics work inside each) odd. That section should probably be reorganized, with some parts getting rolled into additional GM materials.

I'd also expand the variety of Actions you can take. I expect the game would end up more interesting if there's situations where no character present has the easiest to justify Action as their Forte, and only having 3 to choose from would mean a party of 6 has to choose between doubling up on a Forte/Flaw combination or having each person take each of the possible combinations. I don't like vague "it feels off" comments without at least some attempt at a minimizing the problem, so I would at least replace "Crime" with some form of sneaking/disguise and add social and systems skills.
Off the top of my head:

Speaking: skill at communication and dealing with people. The sort of appeal or statement you make when Negotiating decides which Attribute is used, but having Negotiation as a Forte or Flaw is primarily a sign of your overall speaking skills.
Infiltration or Masquerade: the art of traveling into places you aren't expected, both when doing so unseen and when disguising yourself as someone else. If you have or take on a secret identity this action also applied to keeping this identity separate from your actions as part of the team.
Surmise or Employ: Used when working out or utilizing a system or set of rules. This could be a set of laws, the way a trap works (either to escape or disarm), or dealing with a technology for the first time.
Mechanics: Related to using physical items as intended and repairing them to function, typically mechs or magical artifacts which work under an already known set of principles.
Magic: Related to the world's supernatural systems. If there's only two or three it may make sense to say a character must choose a specific system as their Forte. But as this limits the number of cases such a forte (or flaw) will come up, for games with a wider variety of supernatural systems, having Magic as a Forte should mean an affinity for such systems in general.
Honey Heist looks neat (I hadn't heard of it before), but it can get away with a generic "Crime" skill because everything you're expected to do is either "Bear" or "Crime." I expect the characters from Sailor Moon/Kamen Kiders/Franchises With Mechs to include a wider variety of things the characters are doing, like talking and dealing with problems by methods other than combat (not all the time, but at least enough to have a skill which encompasses each).
Finally, I like the idea of breaking up some character's playstyles by having Magic, Gadget, and Mech based subsystems which may or may not come up in a particular game. I'm thinking something like a character can have a Mech to fight and lacks features when it isn't present, while a Magic user has to balance what magic they use for utility verses how much they use for combat as the two types of magic share a resource pool. And then have gadgets works as a Vancian system where each can be used some particular number of times either each act or each episode. So you could have a game where all the characters have access to all three, but you could also have a game where using magic, gadgets, or a mech to solve problems is a decision left up to each of the players and they can cover each other's backs when each one would be most useful. Or have an all mech game and not have to worry about the Magic system (and presumably taking Magic off the list of Actions if/when this is the case).