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Hey TG, let's have a little chat. Are you a bit burned out of games where the best solution is to put a sword through someone's face? How many games have you played where no matter how well you guys play together, you kinda can't escape the fact that you're a bunch of murder hobos? Let me tell you, there's a movement in gaming to get away from that, in fact, there's a movement to do the exact opposite of that, and there's no game that better exemplifies this concept than  Golden Sky Stories. Golden Sky Stories is a game where violence isn't the point, in fact it's highly discouraged, the worst 'violence' you could face in a normal game of GSS is getting snapped at by a mean dog or slugged by a bully. That's because GSS and other games like it aren't about conflict, in fact let me tell you how Ewen Culney, the guy who was in charge of translating this game from its original Japanese, described it in his Kickstarter: quote:Golden Sky Stories is a heartwarming, non-violent role-playing game from Japan, by Ryo Kamiya, the creator of Maid: The Role-Playing Game. It was originally published in Japan as Yuuyake Koyake, and we’re very pleased to finally be able to bring it to you in English! Don't worry it's not near as weird as Maid Do you hear that? It's a heartwarming game. Look, I love killing Orcs, it's pretty awesome, but after a while that gets a bit old, after a while you kinda start to wonder if it's good to spend so much fantasy time cutting a bloody path through a world. That's where GSS and its ilk comes in. In Golden Sky Stories you play as Henge, a spiritual concept from Japan and other Asian regions of enlightened animals with magical, sometimes godlike, powers. The catch to all this great power? They're not in the world to go lead armies or kill heretics, they're here to help us, the humans, with our stupid bullshit problems. That's the thing about being an enlightened fox spirit or whatever, when you spend a few hundred years in perfect harmony with the world you realize that the real problem is what is making a little kid cry rather than what the general is saying needs to be killed. The basic setting of Golden Sky Stories is an idealized rural town in Japan. Think My Neighbor Totoro and other Miyazaki films. One train station that doesn't get used a ton, a bus that comes through for work and not a whole lot else, and generally a peaceful countryside life. This isn't a game where you save the world from unspeakable horrors, or fight mafia families or whatever, because really what's the worst that happens in such a peaceful little town? In this game players take the role of a wide array of these near-divine animals, the base game includes rules for playing as a fox, raccoon dog, cat, dog, rabbit, or bird, all with their own unique powers and outlooks on the world. Really I can't praise this game's writing enough. Every animal's entry is a first person perspective done as if he or she is answering some questions about themselves. Every core concept to the animal's outlook on life or quirks or the like are covered. For example the Rabbit gets quite offended when you imply she's got chubby legs, and then casually mentions how fast her legs are and how good they are for kicking. The bird forgets things, and the raccoon dog assures you she'd never do anything UNETHICAL with her ability to make leaves money. Also for real guys, raccoon dogs have the power to drum on their tummies at night to get people and other raccoon dogs to come over and get filled with child like whimsy, this fukkin game guys.  The system itself is pure simplicity. You pick what kind of magical creature you'd like to be, pick a weakness (or more) and not only do you get the weakness but you get a related bonus power as well (for example a raccoon dog can take the weakness 'glutton' which means exactly what it sounds like, but in return they get a power to make their tummy grumble if they haven't eaten in a bit and anyone who has a protective bond to them feels even more protective because aw d'aaaw she's hungry and so cute). After that you spend 8 points between 4 stats, all of which are very simple to understand. Henge is the strength of your magic powers, spiritual lore, and knowledge of other Henge in the town. Animal is 'primal' abilities, strength, stamina, senses, agility, all that jazz covered by one simple stat. Adult is how well you...well act like an adult. Hide your true feelings, work with machines, figure out other people's emotions, that stuff. Finally, Child is how well you EXPRESS those emotions the Adult stat hides, how well you wheel and deal with others, how well you get others to protect you and how well you just in general have fun in the world around you. Simple, right? It's a balancing act between your enlightened and primal side, and your adult and child side. It should be noted that the book never says any stat is BAD, it's not a BAD thing to have a high Adult score, you just...ya know...are a pretty grown up kid, so it's hard to work with other kids, but easier to work with adults, get it? It's about balancing the two sides, not focusing on one or the other. After that you pick your human form, most henge take the form of young people of the same gender as their animal selves. It has no bearing on how old the animal is or anything like that though. An old dog could become a rambunctious young boy, an ancient Fox spirit can be a kindergarten student, it's magic we don't have to explain poo poo. The base range, though, is 8 to 18, so pick something in that wide range and you're aces. That's it. No seriously that's it. When you have to make a check you compare your attribute score against the target number. That's it. You got a 4 in Adult and the computer takes a 2 in adult to log in? You're good, keep telling the story. That's what this is, a storygame at the purest. Oh, you ask what happens if a target number is, say, a 6? That's far too high for our puny stats to pass, at least at the start, this game is broken poo poo! Well settle down, buddy, that's where you get Feelings in the mix. Feelings is exactly what it sounds like, you draw upon your feelings for others to get a boost. How do you get Feelings? Why by connections of course, because that's the core point of this game! You're connected to everyone around you, and the stronger this connection is the more Feelings you get. Basically speaking you get Feelings for every point in Connections you have. These Connections can range from anything from 'I like this person', 'they're my rival', or even 'I accept this person for who they are even if others don't', or 'this is someone I trust'. These bonds are your power, for the most part, so in this brilliant system the game tells you to go out and make some loving friends. Your group sees a lonely looking kid? Go be his friend! Why? Well not only do you feel like a decent person and make this fictional kid happy, but you get that connection with them to draw on when you need it! It's a mechanical reward for good roleplay! These connections also grant Wonder in the same way, and Wonder is how you power your magic. Honestly there's not much more to say there, it's mana, spend Wonder to do cool poo poo with magic. What, not everything has to be the most unique and cool system in the world. Golden Sky Stories is, in my eyes, the perfect storygame. Every mechanic requires roleplay, you don't get to just say 'this is Joe I have Connection 3 with him give me points please' you have to show why you and Joe are so tight, you and the group have to interact with the world and help the 'little people' that normally we ignore in our games unless they have a flashing quest marker over their head. Little Suzy doesn't want you to kill the Troll that took her mommy, she lost her doll and Billy teased her for crying about it but that's only because Billy is crushing supes hard on her and is just being a dumb kid so now he feels like an rear end in a top hat too, go make feel them better about themselves if you want sweet sweet bonus points. Why am I talking about GSS? What makes it so special to anyone but me? The Golden Sky Stories Kickstarter wanted $7,000 to do a translation and limited print run. At the end it got $85,266 from 2,350 backers. It decimated stretch goals, it was such a success the dude behind it had to go 'woah gimmie a bit to work this out' when his original stretch goals got busted down quickly. There's a market for this stuff. Every one of us who has younger family we want to get into table tops, or hell every one of us who just thinks playing a magical bunny hanging out with their magical fox and dog friends helping people out sounds like a great way to spend time, we need games like this. We need games that remind us sometimes heroes don't cut heads off or save multiverses, sometimes they just make someone who's really sad feel better. So, this is a thread for those games, those games that make us smile, those games that make us feel good about everything, and those games that we can show to our younger family to get them in the game without worrying 'oh drat is this the book with the picture of the shirtless lady killing a dude?' Golden Sky Stories isn't even out yet officially, if you backed it you got the drafts and such but this poo poo isn't even on sale yet and it already has me in love. If you want to check out their free stuff though go here: http://starlinepublishing.com/our-games/ They have a demo and a complete game as an example of how things are played. If you guys have also backed and played GSS please share your stuff, or hell, any other game like it that focuses on non-violent, positive stuff, post that too! sexpig by night fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Sep 2, 2013 |
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Sep 2, 2013 00:01
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 10:00 |
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DalaranJ posted:As a nonbacker, I badly need to know when GSS will be available to me. Sounds like some time this month or the next (if everything is on schedule)? It sounds like either this month or early next for the core book, yea. Not sure about all the extras since he had to make those fresh and all. The backers got a copy called "Final Book" recently and the update said barring someone going 'hey you somehow totally hosed this page up' that was it, so they're moving along at a brisk pace. I backed at the physical and art prints level, I woulda gone higher if I could swing it. The art in the book is just lovely.
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Sep 2, 2013 05:59
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To get my group into this game I ran a short Halloween themed game focused around a group of kids who lost their candy bags. It was great since they could be more open (no one questions why a girl has fox ears and a tail when everyone else is in costume) but still had to play it under the table (overt magic had to be hidden still). Everyone had a great time and the group loved a change from our normal Orc slaughter campaigns. It was really fun to just run around helping a kid find their Laffy Taffy because it's their favorite candy. I think my favorite part was when the Raccoon Dog had a legit moment of debate between just eating the whole bag of candy she found and handing it over to the kid. My group never had an issue moving forward, but I did have to sometimes give them a little nudge to remind them of the conflict at hand, but honestly their biggest problem was wanting to do stuff on a tangent to the story, which was totally cool and fun to work with.
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Oct 10, 2013 19:29
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Yea Freemarket sounds like Paranoia's good twin from the mirror universe.
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Oct 14, 2013 21:04
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Gasperkun posted:Thought you folks would like to know: gently caress between GSS and Ryuutama my group is gonna be up to our tits in whimsy.
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Oct 29, 2013 02:14
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And it's broken past its goal with 40 days to go. Yes I will pay fifty dollars for magical Oregon Trail translated from Japanese thank you internet for making this a thing.
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Nov 3, 2013 07:24
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I'd say the easiest way to do that would be 3 short stories, loosely (or tightly if you have a good arc in mind) connected to a central theme or emotion that's a major part of GSS' style. For example, and this is entirely me pulling an idea out of my rear end spur of the moment, the theme could be 'compassion'. From that you can do, say, a story about a kid being bullied and needing help, a story about someone new in town having trouble fitting in, and a story about friends having a big fight and needing help getting the friendship back. That way the stories all have at least a common thread even if the style of game doesn't really serve a traditional 'campaign' format. Or if you do it this month and want a tighter connection to the central theme maybe an emotion like 'love', you can go from solving a crush to solving a strained message to something like helping a widow get over the loss of her spouse or something. sexpig by night fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Feb 4, 2014 |
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Feb 4, 2014 02:33
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