Discussion Over Rules

[Rajvik]

I have d20 besm. Amongst my efiles as well as some of the older books. Give me a few days to upload them to a Dropbox and I will share them if you guys want

[Black Aeronaut]

Well, evidently the differences between 1st and 2nd editions of BESM presents an issue. Most of the licensed stuff is apparently 1st edition rules only and were not meant to be crossed over because the point allocation system was a bit different back then.

Which means we'll have to port everything over into 2nd Edition if we want to pull the trigger on this.

[Black Aeronaut]

Okay, been doing some research. Heard at first that there is a 3rd edition of BESM, and that it is supposedly much more 'flexible' than 1st and 2nd editions in that you can build a more complete character, but also that it's a hot mess of difficult to understand rules.

I also heard that there is a similar rule system called OVA, and the creators are kind enough to provide three free to download PDFs - each one is a complete, ready-made character for the system, along with a quick rundown of gameplay mechanics and rules.

http://www.wiseturtle.com/OVAPlayerBook-Auren.pdf
http://www.wiseturtle.com/OVAPlayerBook-Miho.pdf
http://www.wiseturtle.com/OVAPlayerBook-Raine.pdf

Now, I'm not saying that I'm sold on it, but I really would like to get everyone's thoughts on these.

[robkelk]

We may be overthinking this.

There's no way we're going to be able to get together and game this out on a tactical hex grid - this has to be done over the Net. The simpler the rules, the faster the gaming-out will go... but the more people will have to trust the GM to not be a dick when making things up on the fly.

Where do people feel comfortable on the rule-complexity scale?

[Rajvik]

Just read the Miho book, and I say yes to this system. Where do we find it for download?

[Mamorien]

Just read the Miho book, and I say yes to this system.  Where do we find it for download?

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1334...aying-Game

[Black Aeronaut]

Also, their main website: http://www.wiseturtle.com

[Black Aeronaut]

We may be overthinking this.

There's no way we're going to be able to get together and game this out on a tactical hex grid - this has to be done over the Net. The simpler the rules, the faster the gaming-out will go... but the more people will have to trust the GM to not be a dick when making things up on the fly.

Where do people feel comfortable on the rule-complexity scale?

Actually, I've had some thoughts in regards to this.

What if we treated this more as a quest (similar to the ones run on SB/SV/QQ) than an online gathering for a tabletop game?

That is, instead of everyone spending a lot of time hashing out individual characters moves, one of us runs the characters through an entire battle, then dumps the resulting chain of events onto the pirate pad where the rest of us fills in the details, such as dialogue, body language, thoughts of the characters, other prose in general.

And to help spread the work around, things that involve more than one author's characters - such as the dungeon crawl through the senshi castles - can be where each author takes turns running through battle scenes.

Though honestly, I wish I knew a good programming language for this.  This is exactly the sort of thing I would obsess over - creating something that we simply plug in the characters and the battle field, and the program uses a built-in RNG die roller function to run through the battle, letting you input the character's actions at each turn.  I mean, really.  It's doable - all RPG rules sets that I know of boil down to boolean logic.  And it's not like we need a GUI for it - we just want the log that shows the sequence of events.

Anyhow, the thing is that this would work because we already have an idea of which way we want things to go.  We just run through the battle system until we get the scenario we feel works best for the story.  This also introduces an element of random chance to help keep things.... 'fresh' I suppose?

And that brings us back around again to what level of complexity everyone feels comfortable with.

For my part, I don't mind as long as everyone's happy with the results - my big thing is having a system that will let us faithfully portray the characters so we aren't left going, "Uhm yeah, that's not how it works..."

[robkelk]

Name romanizations from Japanese: Hepburn or Kunrei-shiki?

They're both official in Japan, so...

Let's take a look at a few examples, copied from here:
ちびうさ - Hepburn "ChibiUsa", Kunrei "TibiUsa"
せつな - Hepburn "Setsuna", Kunrei "Setuna"
シャオラン - Hepburn "Shaoran", Kunrei "Syaoran"

I think Hepburn's the way to go, in that it's the more common version that non-Japanese-speakers would be looking for... I think.

[Labster]

Uh, I think my preferred variant somewhere between Hepburn and waapuro roumaji.  I guess the extent of this is that I really don't like the macrons (#giletsjaunes) on the vowels; seeing the multiple letters for long vowels makes me take the time to pronounce them.  I also don't get that they're trying to encode original Japanese grammar in what is basically a pronunciation tool.  Like, why spell 追う as "ou" and 王 as "ō" when they're pronounced the same, and rendered into kana as おう always.

I think the classic anime character example of Kunrei-shiki is Wasyuu, though.  And of course, you left of the pinyin for Xiaolan.

[Black Aeronaut]

I guess the extent of this is that I really don't like the macrons (#giletsjaunes) on the vowels; seeing the multiple letters for long vowels makes me take the time to pronounce them.

That's actually kinda the point.  Hiragana and Katakana typically each represent a single 'beat', but the moment you hit a long vowel, that's 'two beats' instead of just one; you pronounce the vowel normally, only exactly like as if it was doubled-up in duration.

That's why Ryo-Ohki's name is typically romanized the way it is - it's the easiest way for English speakers who are not used to Japanese long vowels to render the phonetics properly.

[Labster]

Yeah, we're doing a lot of random transliterations. Ryo-Ohki instead of Ryououki, Tohsaka instead of Toosaka, Osaka instead of Oosaka, and Tokyo instead of Toukyou. Oosaka the city is pronounced osaakaa in English, which translates back as osarkar or something like "honorable soccer".

I had a linguist explain to me moraic timing in Japanese over dinner, so I'm pretty well versed. The linguist was Larry Wall, who is definitely one of us.

[robkelk]

Maybe we should just use International Phonetic Alphabet (with the extIPA additions, of course) for everything.

[Black Aeronaut]

How about we go with whatever romanization is most popularly used on a case-by-case basis? The last thing I want to do is spook any potential participants because we got too anal retentive on romanization.

[robkelk]

Sounds good to me.

[robkelk]

Are we allowing displacees from works that didn't exist as of the displacement date in-universe, but do exist now?

For example, when can the main five from Princess Principal appear in the Metacontinuity?

• Never, because the series didn't exist on the Metacontinuity's origin date, September 7, 2016
  
• July 9, 2017, because that's when the first episode first aired in Japan
  
• September 24, 2017, because that's when the final episode first aired in Japan
  
• February 11, 2021, because that's when the first movie was first screened in Japan
  
• not yet, because the final movie hasn't been produced and screened yet
  
• Other (fill in the blank): _____
  

[Bob Schroeck]

Other, because the universe they come from is on a different timeline that has no bearing on the Metacontinuity's. In short, they existed before anyone in other universes documented the fact.

[Labster]

Other, because wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. Also, what Bob said. It’s possible that a different author wrote the first story earlier than in our universe (possibly even as doujinshi), depending on what the muses of the Metacontinuty felt like doing.

[Black Aeronaut]

There was one line from the Big Bad Evil Guy in Ghostbusters 2 that I liked enough that it inspires my own version: "Time is but a window.  Space is but a doorway.  I shall return."

We're already playing fast and loose with causality.  Prime example: I'm going to have it that Benjamin's appendix rupture (which, IRL happened circa 08/2019) occurred prior to his employment with Funthom Industries.  Why?  So when he faces off against Guaron during the St. Valentine's Eve Massacre, he can legitimately tell the man that Life itself has a hard time killing Benjamin, and Guaron is weaksauce by comparison.

Causality is causality, no matter "when" it is.  If the chain of events are there, then they're there.  So "when" doesn't really matter much beyond the contents of said causality itself.

Think of it this way: if you got the power to transplant (or copy) bits of causality from one universe to another, then having that causality occur whenever you wish is practically a non-issue.  Especially with the Malleable Causality System to smooth things over.

[robkelk]

Looks like we have unanimity, then.

So we can have a scene where somebody says "They're obviously displacees, but don't ask me where they're displaced from."

[robkelk]

As might be obvious from the edits I made today to relatively recent threads, we're dropping the whole "[IC]/[OOC]" thread tagging system. With the stories moving to their own subforum, it's no longer needed.