Runic Flux
The Anime Time Travel RPG
Introduction
Welcome!
So, perhaps you’re wondering what
exactly this is all about. ^_^ Well,
this little book is a role-playing module I’ve written to allow pen-and-paper role-playing
for Runic Flux, an RPG that I currently GM online. There are RPGs out there that could possibly be used for Anime,
but I felt that none of them really presented the type of rules I was looking
for. Among them, I considered using the
Star Wars: the Role-Playing Game and Big Eyes, Small Mouth: the Universal
Japanese Anime RPG. You see, the 2nd and 3rd edition Star Wars rules, while somewhat
anime-like, seemed just too complicated and cumbersome. Big
Eyes, Small Mouth, on the other hand, is a little too simplified and
doesn’t take into account a lot of important things, especially in battle. It does a lot of things right, but the
difference between Strength and Speed isn’t well-defined, it limits the use of
pure luck, and Technical skills are either meshed in with all the other stats
or just not there.
The rules for Runic Flux consider
some ideas from these two games, but only in general; this game is intended to
stand entirely on its own. The
dice-rolling system is unique, flexible, and simple, and the characters’ abilities
are meant to make the game as anime-ish as possible. :)
Summary
The rules of Runic Flux: The Anime
Time Travel RPG may take some time to learn by reading, but they are very
simple to play with. The bulk of the
rules basically give you a variety of things you can do in the game, then tells
you how to roll dice to determine what happens. Consequently, it would be best if you hear what the game is
really about in summary, so the other sections won’t seem so overwhelming.
Characters have six base stats, which measure from 1 to
9. These represent their innate
abilities in certain areas. Base stats are the starting points for
anything you may want to try to do. If
you ever want to use innate abilities alone to accomplish something, roll one
six-sided die and add the result to your base stat. The higher the result, the more successful it is. Later on we’ll tell you how to find out how
well something has to be done for it to succeed.
Skills
are more specific than base stats. They
range from Level 1 to Level 4 and tell you how many six-sided dice you can add
to your regular one-die roll. Using a
skill is accomplished by rolling these dice and adding the result to a base
stat — for instance, Yo-Yoing would rely on the base stat “Agility,” so you
would roll your Yo-Yo skill plus one die and add the result to your
Agility. With skills, your character
can improve his/her strength in a certain area beyond what they were ever able
to do otherwise!
Sometimes, your success relies
partially on an object or item, such as when you are determining how hard you
hit someone after a swordblow connects.
When this happens, the strength of that item (in Levels of 1-4)
substitutes “skills,” so in this instance you’d add the item’s dice level to
your regular roll instead.
Character Creation
Just about the most decisive time in
role-playing is when you create the character you’re going to play the role
of. At this point, you determine your
character’s strengths and weaknesses, advantages and flaws, and most
importantly, their personality!
For this reason it’d be a good idea
to spend some time and thought on what kind of character you’re going to play
even before the group meets. Fitting a
character into a story may take some cooperation, but most everyone has their
preferences when it comes to personality types. You don’t need to know much about the rules to think up your
character. The stat-allotment system is
pretty easy to remember if you’re looking at the flowchart cards included at
the back of the book. Just remember
that the GM needs to approve your character before you play him or her!
Base Stats
The first thing you need to do is
determine what your character’s general strengths and weaknesses are. These are called “Base Stats.” There are six base stats — Agility, Strength,
Perception, Knowledge, Technical, Vitality — which range from 1 (worst) to 9
(best).
(Note:
it’s possible to raise a base stat up to 10, but starting characters aren’t
allowed to begin that high!)
Here’s
a description of each base stat:
Agility:
This
stat is a measure of how fast your character can move and react. Running, dodging, and a variety of styles of
hand-to-hand combat require Agility.
Strength:
This
measures how physically strong you are.
Actions that require your character to use a lot of force, such as arm
wrestling, tossing a heavy object, and bowling someone over, require a lot of
strength. And since this is an anime game, strength is not necessarily
synonymous with size! ^_~
Perception:
Perception
marks the sharpness of the five senses and your character’s powers of
observation. Sensing just what’s going
on around him/her will allow your character to do just the right thing at the
right moment. It also represents your
character’s ability to fast-talk, fool others, and move with stealth. Perceptive characters may not know
everything, but they are very good at finding out what they need to know!
Knowledge:
This
stat marks the sheer amount of information packed away in someone’s brain. Legends, history, myths, cultures and
customs, geography, street smarts, first aid, how to cast spells — all these
fields fit under the heading of knowledge, which could also be called “book
learning.”
Technical:
Knowing
about the world and what’s in it won’t necessarily tell you about how it
works! Technical-minded characters may
or may not have a lot of general knowledge stored away, but they have a natural
talent for taking things apart (and in some cases, even putting them back
together again). Technical mainly deals
with machines and other man-made structures, but it can also refer to other
sciences that use the same mode of thinking.
Vitality:
Finally,
we come to the most Anime of the base stats. ^_^ It represents your character’s vigor and luck. It can be represented by a wide variety of
personality types – characters with high vitality tend to be more emotional
and/or lively, while characters who score low in this area are often on the
deadpan side. Vitality usually doesn’t
stand alone, but it can affect many other actions during the course of the
game.
Now that you know what all the base
stats do, it’s time to determine how strong your character will be in each
field. To do so, take 30 Stat Points and divide them up
between the six stats.* Each stat must
start off between 1 an 9. You’ll probably want to give your character a good
deal more points in one or two stats than the others, to make your character
more interesting, unique, and useful.
*Note: your GM may instead opt to have everyone roll two
dice and add 20 to the total roll to determine their Stat Points. Or, he may decide to give a character as
little as 24 or as many as 32 starting Stat Points, depending on the
character’s background.
Here’s
a summary of how strong each level is for a stat:
|
Stat value: |
Description: |
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 |
Virtually useless. Inept. Okay. Average. A little above average. Quite good. Excellent. Wonderful. Fantastic. |
If you’re not sure whether the stats
you’ve ended up with express exactly what you want your character to represent,
don’t worry. As you role-play your
character through adventures, you’ll get a chance to spend Character Points and
raise their base stats. This is the
best way to gradually increase your character’s strength in all skills. Don’t be fooled, however; base stats aren’t
everything — if you never specialize, your character will be much less
interesting, and in many cases less useful!
Stats are used primarily for dice rolling, and a good deal of the rules
actually require no dice rolls at all.
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