Hanako Games

Magical Diary - Forum RP [Frame or Groundrules discussion]

#1 by Soulbringer - Jun 14 2012

As there have been posted elsewhere on these forum

Anarchy:

We could all RP students, and maybe teachers to a lesser extent, from the school, and perhaps reference characters like Potsdam and Grabiner.

Soulbringer:

what kind of forum RP would be preferable, if id venture a guess it would be rather freeform and all the players agree to a certain set of bounderies to be within.

The players invovled just needs to agree to a frame that all can adhere to

Hence ive made this thread in order to start the discussion, and to feel the vibe/interest for such an activity...

For those who knows a bit about RP, this thread is considered OOC (Out Of Character), while the main thread would be IC (In Character)...

IF you are interested dont hesitate to post and give your 2 cents about it ^^

#2 by Wraith_Magus - Jun 14 2012

The actual game has a very different style than most pen and paper RPGs, in that the gaining of stats is random, but the actual effects of those stats never are. A Magical Diary game would either have to have very strange rules, or a completely different set of rules from the original game.

The choose-your-own-specialty nature of the game's mechanics is inherently conducive to character point-based rules systems like GURPS or World of Darkness. You could hypothetically crib some notes from World of Darkness, and build a character system like that, where you just add "dots" to a character sheet in five different schools of magic, and get spells as you add dots. The sub-geometric growth rate of costs is also conducive to the way in which "canon" Magical Diary grows your spell repertoire. Cross-color magic would need to be handled as a special case, however - possibly with a special cross-color track of dots, if you don't mind deviating from canon.

It would, however, require a serious stripping-down of the rules set beyond that basic notion. World of Darkness has 9 stats, and tons of skills and advantages and other oddball things, compared to Magical Diary having just Smart and Strong plus the magic colors, and a largely non-functional cute and weird stats.

NWoD, however, has the problem of being highly random in its resolutions. It would be up to the players if they wanted to play with highly random resolutions to every event, or if they wanted to preserve the game's low-random, highly predictive approach to the ramifications of actions and magic.

#3 by Wraith_Magus - Jun 15 2012

No comments at all, one way or another or alternative ideas? Doesn't bode too well for getting the sort of support it would take to get this off the ground...

I kind of meant to say this earlier, but if you are going to have a poll with only two options, and you ask why anyone would select the second one... what's the point of the poll? The way it's written, it feels like, "Push this button to agree with me!" "Don't push this button."

#4 by FantasyFan - Jun 15 2012

If it was going to be a fun, acting-things-out RP about just playing characters and not worrying about "stats," then I'd be in. If it was going to be a complicated stat-based thing, then no. I'm fine with stats when they're calculated for you (like in the real MD game), but having to keep track of my own stats sounds more like math class than fun.

#5 by hanako - Jun 15 2012

... I'm not sure WM knows what a forum RP is.

He's talking about trying to design a tabletop gaming system, which wasn't really what Soulbringer had in mind at all as far as I can tell, and that may have scared everyone else off...

#6 by Wraith_Magus - Jun 16 2012

Playing a more rules-bound RP is still RP. I just never really play the freeform ones, I tend to play the Forum RP games that are basically just playing a tabletop RPG over a forum.

Ah well, if you guys want the more freeform type, then go ahead and ignore me.

For the record, though, there are very rules-light games out there. The original BESM, for example, and, I believe, that Maid RPG, where you have little more than 4 stats you roll.

#7 by FantasyFan - Jun 16 2012

I think the initial idea was an RP with NO stats, just acting out the story playing different characters.

#8 by Anarchy - Jun 16 2012

Yeahhhh, we were talking about narrative-based forum RPs, without stats and stuff involved.

Here's what I suggest: People who are interesting in RPing post their original characters in this thread (or in another RP OOC thread) with some basic information about them: name, appearance, what year they're in, personality, family background, etc., for reference purposes during RP. The profiles could even include rudimentary information like what kind(s) of magic the character's good at, without going into specific details and stats.

It may be better for people to restrict themselves to playing first year students, so we can use the information in the game itself, such as magic spells available, to base RPs off.

Then people can use the thread to find RP partners, decide the basic storyline they want to RP (for example: three people could decide to be roommates and RP moving in day), and go.

Though, if this RP experience is going to be like a substitute for future years, it might be better to have a system like this:

Say you have an OC who ended up with, say, Damien on your first playthrough. Maybe you want to RP an event in your second year where your OC meets up with Damien outside of school. You could then issue an invitation in this thread for people who are willing to RP Damien and any other supporting characters you might want to have in your RP. For example, you might want to involve William somehow to add some conflict to your RP. Once you have your partners, you can decide on a basic plotline to start with, and then go off and start your own RP thread.

It doesn't even have to involve OCs. If you, for example, ship DamienXWilliam, you could ask somebody to RP William or Damien for you and start a RP in their first year when the two were rooming together or something.

This OOC thread would then mainly serve to hold OC profiles and for people to look for RP partners.

Thoughts? Might that help to scratch the Magical Diary sequel itch? XD

#9 by Soulbringer - Jun 17 2012

Anarchy:

Yeahhhh, we were talking about narrative-based forum RPs, without stats and stuff involved.

Here's what I suggest: People who are interesting in RPing post their original characters in this thread (or in another RP OOC thread) with some basic information about them: name, appearance, what year they're in, personality, family background, etc., for reference purposes during RP. The profiles could even include rudimentary information like what kind(s) of magic the character's good at, without going into specific details and stats.

It may be better for people to restrict themselves to playing first year students, so we can use the information in the game itself, such as magic spells available, to base RPs off.

Then people can use the thread to find RP partners, decide the basic storyline they want to RP (for example: three people could decide to be roommates and RP moving in day), and go.

Though, if this RP experience is going to be like a substitute for future years, it might be better to have a system like this:

Say you have an OC who ended up with, say, Damien on your first playthrough. Maybe you want to RP an event in your second year where your OC meets up with Damien outside of school. You could then issue an invitation in this thread for people who are willing to RP Damien and any other supporting characters you might want to have in your RP. For example, you might want to involve William somehow to add some conflict to your RP. Once you have your partners, you can decide on a basic plotline to start with, and then go off and start your own RP thread.

It doesn't even have to involve OCs. If you, for example, ship DamienXWilliam, you could ask somebody to RP William or Damien for you and start a RP in their first year when the two were rooming together or something.

This OOC thread would then mainly serve to hold OC profiles and for people to look for RP partners.

Thoughts? Might that help to scratch the Magical Diary sequel itch? XD

((Offline for almost 48 hours cause of moving...))

You pretty much nailed the intention...

First off, freeform seem very appropriate for a MD forum RP, getting too fixated on the rules might kill the flexibility of the imagination (pre-defining actions) - And rules tend to slow down a narrative based game - After all from the get go, it is not the intention to have someone watching what everyone is doing...

Secondly, restricting people to play 1st year students is a good way of "forcing" people to have a "relation", however this is best with few players, the more players that join the more its likely to include exceptions such as 2nd year students and what not.

Thirdly, keeping the use of already existing characters to a minimum (aka the characters in the game)

#10 by shadowshed - Jun 29 2012

Err, we are talking about Role Playing, right? I think it is a very good idea, but why thinking it hard?

Rules are definitely needed in RPs. You know, scenes like God-modding or all else. And rules are made to make it easier to advance the story and rping. But the most important is the plot. What is the goal of these students? Or, if we can RP as teachers, what kind of tasks are given?

So, do you have some kind of plot?[/b]

#11 by hanako - Jun 29 2012

Looks like someone else is trying to set up an RP over yonder:
http://www.roleplaygateway.com/roleplay/magical-diary/

For reasons unknown they're setting it in Wales rather than Vermont.

(No association, I just caught it in a websearch. ALL-SEEING GOOGLE EYE)

#12 by vonpenguin - Aug 18 2012

I'd be very game for something like this. As we never really meet any juniors during the game it could easily be set during Mary and the gang's sophomore year. Hard stats really aren't needed since many times in the game characters display powers that Mary couldn't possibly have (Ellen teleporting, Donald's fire dragon.) Just some general notes on the characters and such. Probably a mod to keep things civil and settle disputes.

#13 by Flyinmagma - Aug 20 2012

Actually, Mary can teleport as well if you max your Blue magic at the beginning. And since you are able to do Flames by the time when you duel with Donald (if you go for Red Magic), it's quite probable that you'd be able to shape it as well, especially if you have more INT.

But yeah, having some basic stats would be fine, unless we all literally want to be Mary Sues.

#14 by Hichiko - Feb 7 2013

If there's still an interest in this, I've been fiddling with some space on Proboards.

http://goregimental.proboards.com/index.cgi

Re: Magical Diary - Forum RP [Frame or Groundrules discussio

#15 by kokokat06 - Jun 10 2015

Hichiko, did you stop making the other forum? Cause I checked it and there's like nothing there.