ANIMALOID - A SAMURAI PIZZA CATS ROLE-PLAYING GAME ======================================================= Welcome to the first draft of ANIMALOID. Now, the internet is full of play-by-email SPC RPGs and the like, but I haven’t yet found any kind of traditional pencils- and-dice RPG ... so I figured I’d write one. First of all: Copyright. Mainly this: I don’t own the Samurai Pizza Cats. They belong to Saban, Sotsu Agency and Tatsunoko Production Company. No infringement is intended, and I’m certainly not making any profit from their property. So no suing! ======================================================= INTRODUCTION - The Boring Stuff You Find At The Start Of Every RPG Actually I won’t bother with much of that crud. What you’ll find in this game are the following sections: 1. Character Creation. How to design your own character. Stats, attributes, etc. The things that allow you to immerse your character in the environment of the game world. 2. Game mechanics. The rules. How to do things and resolve conflicts. 3. Combat. The fighting system, and weapon stats. 4. The World of SAMURAI PIZZA CATS. A few notes on significant places in Little Tokyo. Followed by statistics for some important characters from the show. Sections 1-3 are contained in the document spcrpg1.txt, and section 4 is in spcrpg2.txt. I won’t go into detail with regards to things like how to run a game - this project is really aimed at experienced role-players. I’m just trying to devise a system of mechanics (so as to avoid just shoving the Pizza Cats in to a pre-existing system, as that would double the likelihood of someone taking legal offence ... !). The referee/game master/story-teller/whatever you want to call it in ANIMALOID will be referred to as the NARRATOR. The rules will be *extremely* simple - probably ludicrously so. The emphasis here is on ... well, on just quickly hammering out some kind of Pizza Cats RPG in a hurry, actually. So don’t expect AD&D. Hopefully a few people might have some fun, or it might bug people so much that someone else writes a *better* game - *that’s* what I’d *really* like! ======================================================= 1. CHARACTER CREATION First of all you need things like a name for your character, and an idea of their skills, background and personality. These are up to you. One of these important aspects is your Animaloid’s SPECIES. Cat, Rabbit, Panda, Crow, Fox - whatever. Next you can assign the character’s attributes. These are: MIND * BODY * STRENGTH * AGILITY MIND represents your mental faculties - intelligence, resistance to psychic attack, etc. If you need to use your head to solve a problem, this is the attribute you use. BODY is about how well you’re built and how much of a beating your body can take. This is used for things like holding your breath for a long time, trying not to sneeze when you’re locked in the Pepper And Feather Emporium, resisting the debilitating effects of the Big Cheese’s Nefarious Poison Sushimi, and determining the character’s Hit Points. STRENGTH indicates a character’s physical prowess and fighting skills. It’s used for feats of strength (duh) and hence has a significant role in combat. AGILITY relates to how fast one’s reflexes, etc., are, and how flexible or agile a character is. It’s used for dodging attacks, trying to out-run someone, and so on. *** Each player receives Twenty-Six Attribute Points to divide between these four attributes. Each attribute must be given at least two points, but beginning players’ attributes cannot exceed nine. The scale of points-to- ability is this: 1 POINT = Pathetic 5 POINTS = Average 10 POINTS = Superb 10+ POINTS = Alarmingly spectacular. *** Next the player selects the character’s skills. Each player has 10 Skill Points to spend. The available skills, and their Skill Point costs, are listed below: [WEAPON] - 2 points. The ability to expertly wield the chosen weapon. This can be taken more than once if a player wishes to specialise in more than one weapon. HAND-TO-HAND - 2 points. This combat skill adds 4 to any damage inflicted while fighting hand-to-hand. SUPER ATTACK - 4 points. This skill gives the character a devastating combat ability like Speedy’s Ginzu Catslash (the player can choose the appearance, method, etc. of the attack). “Super Attack” must be paired with a “[Weapon]” skill or with “Hand-to-Hand”, as the Super Attack is generally focused through the weapon (or summoning of Chi or something similar, if paired with “Hand-to-Hand”). The Super-Attack cannot be parried or dodged by anyone except someone with the skill WITHSTAND SUPER ATTACK. The Super Attack instantly defeats any opponent who does not have the WITHSTAND SUPER ATTACK skill. Using the Super Attack skill requires expenditure of 8 Ninpo Points (which will be explained later). The Super Attack should not be abused - it should only be used when absolutely essential. WITHSTAND SUPER-ATTACK - 7 points. Allows a character to emerge completely unscathed from another character’s Super Attack. However, this skill will not work against two or more simultaneous Super Attacks from different people. PSYCHO - 3 points. This skill enables the character to fly into frightening fits of rage. Anyone who doesn’t let a character with “Psycho” get their own way is asking for trouble! Only another character with “Psycho” can refuse to obey a character in a Psycho rage. CROSS-DRESS - 1 point. A character with this skill perpetuates some variety of gender confusion (which may or may not extend to the cross-dressing character themselves). INVENTION - 3 points. The character is a brilliant (or not-so-brilliant) scientist or inventor. They can create any device they can imagine. After the invention is built, the Narrator makes a secret Mind roll (using the Mind score of the inventor). If the roll fails, the machine is a dud, but if the roll succeeds the machine works perfectly (well, maybe not *perfectly* ...). This skill also covers various other Scientist-type things. ARMY - 4 points. The character has a small army of helpers, whose stats are half of the character’s (rounded up), (ie. A character whose Strength score is 8 will have helpers with a Strength of 4). Generally one successful hit will defeat a helper, but they still have their uses (spying, running errands, etc). RANK - 3-6 points. The character has some amount of power, such as a place on the city council or as an adviser to someone in the Palace. The higher the number of points spent, the higher the rank. SPECIAL ABILITY - 3 points. This is some skill such as Flight, Tunnelling, transforming Ninja Crows into slices of peperoni, etc. Any unusual ability that is not covered by another skill. BATTLE MODE - 3 points. This skill allows a character to (under the proper circumstances) “power up”, generally by donning a suit of power armour. This armour, with the “Battle Mode” skill, adds 10 to the character’s Hit Points BATTLE MODE TWO - 4 points. This allows the character to utilise a *second* suit of superior power armour which can only be used when the character is already in Battle Mode 1. “Battle Mode Two” grants the character one chosen “Special Ability” skill, such as Flight. PSYCHIC ATTACK - 4 points. This skill allows the character to protect deadly psi-blasts (damage of Attacker’s Mind score + 3). If the player decides to spend 5 points on the skill, they also gain the ability to communicate telepathically. Each psi-blast costs 4 Ninpo points. Telepathic communication costs no Ninpo points. INCOMPREHENSIBLE LOONEY - 2 points. The character is stark raving mad. *** Mini-Skills: Players can also opt to choose up to 5 Mini-Skills - things like Cooking, Book-keeping, Piano-Playing, Brick- laying, Ballroom Dancing - anything a little more mundane than the kinds of skills listed above. *** To determine the character’s Hit Points (which measure their health - when they run out of Hit Points, they pretty much fall over) you take the Body score and multiply it by 5. Hence, a character with a Body score of 6 will have 30 Hit Points. *** Write down a description of the character’s appearance and personality. This is very important to a successful role-playing session. *** Weapons and Equipment: The player can choose up to four weapons for their character to possess (eg Sword, Throwing Knives, Cannon, and Glue Bombs) and can choose five items of equipment or other possessions (eg grappling hook, portable gas oven, one- man tent, bottlecap collection, and widescreen TV). A Giant Robot (similar to the Supreme Catatonic) can be purchased at a cost of FIVE SKILL POINTS *and* FIVE ATTRIBUTE POINTS (or SIX SKILL POINTS and SIX ATTRIBUTE POINTS for a robot that transforms from one form to another). The robot will have the following stats: Strength: Owner’s Strength multiplied by 3 Agility: Owner’s Agility multiplied by 2 Hit Points: Owner’s Hit Point’s multiplied by 5. It will also have two weapons and the skills to wield them. *** Now select your character’s POLITICAL LEANING - decide whether your character is a Good Guy, a Bad Guy, or a Mysterious Guy (allegiance unknown). This indicates the character’s moral standing and probably relates to their career choice too... ======================================================= 2. GAME MECHANICS The game is played with ten-sided dice. One per player is the maximum needed. When a character is attempting an action at which the Narrator believes he/she will not automatically succeed, the character rolls one ten-sided die and checks with their relevant attribute - Mind for mental tasks, Strength for physical feats, etc. The aim is to roll lower than their attribute score. This is a success. If they roll higher than their score, they fail. If they roll their exact score, the Narrator rolls one die - what we’ll call a “Luck Die” - and if it comes up 1-4, the character fails. If it’s 5-10, they succeed. The Luck Die is also used by the Narrator whenever any situation seems a bit ambiguous, or a roll is required that doesn’t seem to fit into any of the other rules presented in this game. When the character is attempting to perform an action which is opposed by another character, they each roll until one fails. This is used for things such as arm- wrestling, running a race, playing “Snap”, etc. The rules for fighting mechanics will be explained in the combat section. *** Ninpo: Ninpo is similar to a character’s Chi; it represents a kind of spiritual energy. It’s needed to use magic, psychic powers, or Super Attacks. Each character starts with a Ninpo rating equal to their Mind + Strength scores. Different actions/attacks using magical or psychic powers require expenditure of a certain number of Ninpo points. Used Ninpo can be regained by a character spending time in meditation or prayer, studying under some kind of guru or mentor, or sometimes by the use of certain mystical items which restore Ninpo. Ninpo is also recovered during sleep, and Ninpo Batteries can sometimes be purchased which refill a character’s Ninpo. Legend has it that some ancient warriors can refuel their Ninpo reserves by draining it from their enemies ... *** Gaining Experience: Characters accumulate Experience Points throughout play which can be used to further the character’s abilities and skills. Here’s the table for point allocation: Defeat Standard Opponent: 1 Experience Point Destroy Giant Robot: 2 Experience Points Defeat Arch-Enemy/Villain Leader (eg Bad Bird or the Big Cheese): 3 Experience Points Survive Adventure: 1 Experience Point Succeed in an action for which a Luck Die was rolled: 1 Experience Point ---------------------------- Experience Points can be spent as follows: Raise Attribute (Mind, Body, Strength, Agility) by one point: 3 Experience Points Raise Ninpo by one point: 5 Experience Points Raise Hit Points by one point: 3 Experience Points Add New Mini-Skill: 1 Experience Point Add New Skill: [(Skill cost) multiplied by 3] Experience Points New Weapon/Equipment item: 3 Experience Points ======================================================= 3. COMBAT Here is a brief outline of the steps involved in resolving combat: 1. All involved players make Agility rolls to determine initiative. Of those who succeed, the highest roller acts first, followed by the second highest roller, and so on. If anyone fails the roll, they have to wait until everyone else has acted before they can do anything. 2. The highest roller decides what to do (eg. Attack, dodge, set up the Anti-Riceball machine, etc.). If the player attacks, the target then has a chance to try dodging or counter-attacking. 3. Play continues until the end of the round - that is until everyone has acted. Then the next round begins with another initiative roll (as in step 1). Any character who has been hit calculates damage and detracts the damage from their Hit Points. *** Fighting: A character can attack using their bare hands (or feet ... or shoulders ... or tails ... etc.) or using a weapon (if they have the skill to use that weapon). If they don’t have the skill to use the weapon, then their fight rolls suffer a penalty of -2 to their roll (making it harder for them to succeed in their attack). To attack, the player simply makes a Strength roll, declaring the method of their attack (“I swing my sword at him”, “I pull out my Little Moldavian Super-Gun and try to blow her head off” etc.). If the Strength roll is successful, the target of the attack has a chance to Dodge (by making an Agility roll). If the target’s dodge fails, or the target chooses not to dodge, then the attacker has hit the target, who must then take the appropriate amount of damage (see below). Some attacks may rely more on reflexes than sheer brute strength; sometimes an attack will be made using an Agility roll instead of a Strength roll. *** Damage Calculation: The following table shows the levels of damage assigned to various weapons. With most weapons damage usually relates to the attacker’s Strength score. Punch/Kick: Strength - 2 Knife: Strength - 2 Small Sword (eg Polly’s): Strength Sword (eg Guido’s): Strength + 1 Spesh Sword (eg Binky): Strength + 3 Magic Weapon (eg Ginzu, Sunspot): Strength + 4 Shuriken (throwing stars): Strength -2 Throwing Knives: Strength - 2 Small Gun: 5 Medium Gun: 6 Big Gun: 7 Super-Big Gun (eg Freda’s bazooka): 9 Staff: Strength + 1 Small Axe: Strength + 1 Bigger Axe: Strength + 2 Scythe: Strength + 2 Small Ninja Bomb: 5 Medium Ninja Bomb: 7 Whip: Strength - 1 Yari (Japanese Spear): Strength + 2 Yumi (Japanese Bamboo Bow and Arrows): Strength + 2 Kusari-Gama (small sickle on a long chain): Strength + 1 Kongo-Zue (staff with metal rings on the end; used by warrior monks, and seen in many anime series): Strength + 2 Tesson (metal fan): Strength Naginata (bladed pole-arm): Strength + 2 Giant Hammer: Strength + 1 Missile Barrage (such as Lucille’s): 8 While far from being an exhaustive list, it should at least give you a good idea of what different weapons can do. *** When a character is down to 6 Hit Points, they incur a -2 penalty to every roll. Upon losing all of their Hit Points, a character is virtually on the verge of ... something very nasty. They are basically unable to perform any kind of action, and will probably have trouble just staying awake. Hit Points can be recovered through visiting a doctor or a hospital, through lots and lots of bedrest, or by drinking a *particularly* good strawberry and kiwi thickshake. Et cetera. Characters are in very little danger of actually *dying*, though - death should only occur if the player and the Narrator agree and decide that it would serve to nicely further the storyline. =======================================================