Princess The Hopeful

This'll be pretty sparse until some things are decided by group discussion.

Big, Important Announcement

Characters are due February 1st. If you don't have a character sheet posted (and FINISHED) by the end of the day, you're not playing. The game will probably begin sometime in February or the beginning of March.

What is Princess?

It's a WoD fansplat for magical girls. Get it here. We will be using the non-GMC version for the most part, because nobody's actually familiar with the God-Machine Chronicle rules changes. Individual powers, merits, and other such things may be ported over on a case-by-case basis.

What's this game going to be like?

It's going to be like Sailor Moon or Precure, if things go as planned. They never do. The game is not going to be a deep and complex game full of deep and challenging moral quandaries and mysteries and secrets. We've had plenty of that with Psychoka, so I figure a change of pace would be nice. It will, however, be something of a formulaic romp based heavily on genre tropes played straight, with evil Kingdom hearts villains summoning monsters and spreading Darkness. You can expect to get a mid-season upgrade, have magical trinkets that look like toys waiting to happen, and have a magical fairy pet to provide guidance or just be annoying. There will be little to no emphasis on politicking, and the WoD setting at large will be irrelevant, so there won't be any crossover with other supernaturals.

The game will also be structured somewhat like a television series, in that the sessions will make up individual episodes, probably taking 1-3 sessions each. There will not be a strict time continuity between episodes, And there is, in fact, likely an assumed amount of downtime between each one. I'm going to try and hold everything to a fairly steady pace, and will be encouraging players not to spend too much time exhausting every avenue of conversation or dragging their feet on making the perfect plan or decision. There will be no (or very few) omake sessions, and in the spirit of entertainment, anyone can watch them, even if their character isn't involved.

Things to discuss

THIS IS IMPORTANT! Herein will be various things that I feel need to be discussed as a group before the game starts.

  • Any houserules or lack thereof, including things like bonus dots or experience at character creation.
  • A primary theme for the game. Sailor Moon has planets. Precure has run the gamut from yin and yang to flowers, story books, and playing cards. I like the idea of a unifying theme to lend some color to all the PCs, antagonists, and other events. Naming your character's magical girl persona to fit the theme is highly encouraged.
  • Every player should provide a list of 2-4 NPCs their character knows and who are important to that character. I'm too lazy to make a huge list of classmates and such and then put a burden on you guys to decide who your characters would know. So, instead, you get to create the people you know and give them some personality and such. Parents/families can probably count as only one choice, if they'd take up the entire list on their own. Whatever the case, you guys will be populating the game with background characters you already want to interact with. Additional NPCs will naturally appear throughout the game, but the ones you request will have a bit more importance.
  • I encourage each character to have some sort of personal issues that can be explored and worked through. We'll at least try for character arcs, though I an't promise it'll go over perfectly.
  • The setting for the game is currently up in the air. It could be Japan, because it's a magical girl anime, but we could also go with, somewhere in Europe (probably England), or in the US (possibly New Orleans or some other part of the country I know fairly well). The chances are good we'll be using a generic city rather than a real one, though.
  • Preludes. I know White Wolf sometimes suggest roleplaying out some sort of pre-game "this is how you became a supernatural entity" bit, and I don't usually se much need for it. I will, however, say that it may be particularly appropriate to do so for this game, as a way to get the entire group of PCs together before the game starts (as I would assume a starting point in which the PCs already know each other and work more or less as a team.) If we do want the full magical girl experience, then PCs would Blossom one after another in-game and join up. Doing all this in a special session or two set before the game starts, if we do it at all, would just help things speed along.

House rules

Actual house rules or silly ad-hoc systems will go here.

I'm giving you a familiar or whatever it is even if you guys don't pay for one. I encourage you to buy it, at least as a group, because they're not that expensive when you spread out the merit cost and if you're investing in them, you get to choose their personality and other features.

Merits and spending XP on them is somewhat ambiguously worded, and the official interpretation gets pretty expensive. With how mugh high ratings in most other things ends up costing, I'm going with a more player-favoring interpretation. Gaining or improving merits costs (new dots)*2 as usual, but you do NOT have to buy each individual dot starting at 1 for a merit that has a single, fixed cost. A 3-dot merit that is only ever a 3-dot merit costs 6 xp, not 12. Note that any merits with multiple levels of effect will require you buy each level in order, so Fighting Styles (if I even allow them) have to start at 1 dot (no just getting them rated at 5 for 10 xp), and Striking Looks 4 costs 8 XP plus the 4 XP for striking looks 2.

Stunts: If you describe an action well, or attempt something particularly daring, cool, and risky, you'll get a +1 bonus to the roll. This includes transformations. If you succeed at something particularly impressive, overcome great odds with a clever plan, or otherwise succeed a roll that tends to resonate with your character, you can regain 1 Wisp, as well. All of this is up to my discretion, and the length of your action's description is not a major consideration.

Grades: Every now and again, I'll be asking for Int+Academics rolls to see how your characters are doing in school. Keep track of your successes on each roll. When you reach 10 cumulative successes, your grades have improved enough to bump you up to the next letter grade. However, a single failed roll will cause you to lose any accumulated successes (and represents getting a grade below your usual/current average). Keep track of your failures too, as a total of 5 before any improvement through cumulative successes represents that your overall letter grade/average has dropped by one. A Dramatic Failure of a roll causes your grades to drop all on its own.

Villain's Side

Speaking of stuff everyone can watch for entertainment… Cutscene powers, ACTIVATE! Like any good show, there will be times when the antagonists interact, which will provide amusing vignettes and insight into their plans and personalities. For the sake of the game, they will NOT be played out during sessions (because while I hope it won't be boring, watching NPCs talk at one-another is just wasting time), but they will appear here after the fact. So, check back here if you're ever just wondering what Ganon's up to.

  • Kuroaki Kishida, Dark Knight
  • Ouka Akatsuki, Feisty Wolf
  • Alice Crowley, Crow Witch

Heroines' Side

Standard place to keep links to character pages. We don't have a wiki-fied template, so links to Myth-Weavers may be acceptable too.
Naomi Essen
Rosario Scaglietti
Andrea Lynn Schaeffer
Paige Zanados A bookworm with an unknown passion for a boy.
Rebecca Sinclair

NPCs

Drama Club

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