GURPS Ring Dream & Manga - Part One, Comic Life (UPDATED)

Here is another installment in my Dungeons & Manga series. However, this time I'll be going as far from D&D as you possibly can, both in terms of system and use of manga-style art.

Today I'll be looking at GURPS' Ring Dream: Women's Pro-Wrestling RPG.

Funnily enough, in my old bookstore scavenging, I have come across a fair amount of GURPS material. On the one hand are translations of books like GURPS Magic or Martial Arts, all with manga art boiled down into the pocket size versions that are still popular here. On the other are 'Japan-only' games created for the home audience. The same phenomenon happens for video games, where dating games or JRPGs might sell on the PS in Tokyo, but are never intended to go beyond Japan's borders, for both gaming niche and cultural unintelligbility reasons.

GURPS Ring Dream is one such Japan-only GURPS product. It would be interesting to see how the license was obtained...

Anyway, GURPS Ring Dream is described as a Women's Pro-Wrestling RPG, a genre represented in video games by Rumble Roses. Whereas English RPGs usually start with a blurb of fiction to set the scene, from the first page Ring Dream uses manga as the fictional underpinning to the game. The manga introduces us to Chika, the orange-haired girl who dreams of being a pro-wrestler. Allow me to translate:

Chika: (carrying two ice creams) Here I am older sister!
Sister: Look, it's starting! Hurry up! Did you get my coffee-flavored ice?
Chika: And my brown rice, green tea, and strawberry-avocado ice. It's delicious!
Sister: Chika, watch out!

(A lady pro-wrestler falls onto Chika) KER-SMASH!
Sister: Watch out! (guffaws at Chika smeared in ice cream)
Chika: (notices ice cream is all gone from her cone) Hunh?
Ring Announcer: Kumano has grabbed Ajihara's hair and thrown her to the center of the ring. Here comes the starting gong!

Downed wrestler: (groans)
Ring Announcer: Uh oh, Ajihara is completely pinned! Sonic is still outside the ring!
Chika: (spies the ice cream on top of Sonic's head) If I can just grab the scoop on top... it's do or die!
Ring Announcer: Ajihara is in a pinch!
Sonic: (jumps to her feet) Hiya!
Sister: Chika. what are you doing?
(sounds of battle as Sonic jumps in the ring and throws around her opponents)

Ring Announcer: With a Plasma Sonic Bomb and a Lobster Hold, Sonic and Ajihara win the match!
Chika: (outside of wrestler's dressing room) Thanks for your time!
Wrestler: No problem, sorry about what happened.
Sister: I was surprised that you went to Sonic's dressing room, Chika!
Chika: I've decided!
Sister: On what?
Chika: I'm going to become a pro-wrestler!
Ajihara: Sonia, who was that girl eating that load of ice cream?
Sonic: No idea...

I don't know about you, but this set up goes far beyond the pale of my GURPS experience. How would you GM this?? It sounds more like a storygame, or a Japanese storygame like Yuyake-Koyake than GURPS.

The manga fiction does not end there. After these 2 splash color pages, an entire manga chapter details life in the women's pro-wrestling dojo. Let's see what Chika goes through:

Chika: (carrying a bucket of water) I've brought back the water.
Girl 1: OK, let's clean this place up and go for breakfast!
Chika: Today's breakfast is dark seaweed broth with cucumber pickles and rice with a raw egg on top! (slobber slobber)

Chika: (notices the bucket she has spilled) Hunh?
Girl 1: Ack! We haven't gotten anything done!
Chika: I'm sorry!
Girl 1: Nothing! (smacks Chika in the ribs) Do you really wanna be a pro-wrestler or not? Unbelievable.
Girl 2: Hold it! Just because you like eating doesn't mean you don't have to hurry up and do things...

(sounds of girls scrubbing floor)
Chika: (gets slapped by both girls) Ouch!
Girl 1 & 2: Too late, we missed it! I don't want to get another convenience store meal...

Older Woman: (puts a tray laden with food down) Tah-dah!
Chika: Thank you ma'am!
Older Woman: I put aside enough for you three.
(girls hug her)
Older Woman: Cut it out you three.
Girls: I could marry you!

Girl 2: (grabbed from behind by Ms Yamaguchi) Ms Yamaguchi?
Yamaguchi: You're so slow! Eating is a part of your work, you three! OK, once you've finished let's go to the practice mat. Take your time but hurry up, chew slowly, and only have two refills or else you'll barf.
Girls: We understand!
Girl 1: (looking at Chika gobble down her food) I don't care either way, but you ever seen this girl puke?
Girl 2: She's already on her 3rd plate.

THUMP!
Yamaguchi: Hey! You there, do a proper breakfall! A breakfall!
Girls: (seeing Chika flop on the mat) Wow!

Girl 1: Chika did a true breakfall!
Girl 2: That's a first.
Yamaguchi: (grabs a girl from behind) Beginners shouldn't laugh at other beginners, or they'll learn a painful lesson! (throws the girl on the mat) You try a breakfall too! Who's next?

Yamaguchi: Next is neck muscle training!
Chika: (has girl pushing down on her head) Ack ack ack!
THUMP
(sounds of heavy breathing, running)

Yamaguchi: (breathing heavily) Ok, let's do some light stretches and end MORNING practice!
Girl 1: Chika seems to be keeping up with practice recently, even though she's still the slowest.

Girl 2: So what?
Girl 1: That girl, when she came here, she couldn't do nothing. She still can't do much even now. I thought of the ten who joined here she'd be first to quit. The only thing she is good at is running.
Girl 2: And Chika...
Girl 1: What?
Chika: (thought balloon) I feel sick but it'll be a waste if I puke...
Girl 2: She was a long distance runner in junior high.

Girl 1: Long distance runner? That is no help in pro-wrestling.
Girl: Yes, but it means she's tough.
Girl 3: It means she's had a more normal existence than us tough fighter-types.
Yamaguchi: Shall we put Chika under Eriko for training?
Manager:  Don't be stupid! It's only been a few years since Eriko debuted as a pro.

Manager. (speechless for a second) If you say that, it means you have something up your sleeve. Tell me what.
Yamaguchi: Just seems interesting.
Manager: We've decided to put Chika under you for training today.
Eriko: But...
Manager: It's decided!
Chika: (bowing) Looking forward to learning from you!

This manga is a snapshot of the Japanese apprentice system used to educate craftsmen and martial artists. Shit rolls down hill, but with a reason - to toughen you up. Unlike western RPG fiction, this manga concentrates on what would normally be downtime training to set the scene for play. Still, as nice as it is, it leaves me scratching my head on how to use this in a game.

The manga doesn't end there, but continues in set piece spreads throughout the book. I'll skip over these, however, to take a look at something far more interesting - the mangatized descriptions of pro-wrestling moves and GURPS character sheets.

But that is a tale for another time...

Next up - Ring Dream Part Two: Piledrivers and Money Shots!

Shifting Stereotypes in GM Voices

Any GM worth his or her salt has done impressions. You may eschew or find them childish now, but at some game session you used a voice that wasn't your own, for good or ill, for once or forever.

Make no wonder. The players hunch around the table, waiting for you to bring the gameworld to life. You dive into onomatopoeia for the clang of swords or crash of dragon scales. You're improvising like mad, flailing your arms and chewing the scenery. It is only natural that you use different voices to differentiate NPCs, and only natural that these are based on your limited repertoire of experiences. So you steal a Scottish brogue for a dwarf here, or do your best Hugo Weaving for an elven king.

The problem isn't (mostly) that these impersonations are racist. Most are about as mildly offensive as Mike Myer's Shrek, and the rare racist, mean-spirited impression should rightly be condemned.

The problem is that most impressions are hackneyed, repetitive, and done to death. Scottish dwarven brogues, lisping posh elves, North Country hobbits, and piratey orcs are all dull, dull, dull.

It's past time to shake up these stereotypes, to shift to different voices if you like vocal improvisation. Shifting voices will refresh NPC interaction for you and your players, challenge your assumptions, and push your play into new directions.

Here are my suggestions for some new voices to shake up your game:

Dwarves - Serene Zen Japanese gardener craftsmen. Love jewels as art, not wealth. Berserker rage replaced by stoic banzai charge.

"Ah! See this slope? A work of art! That cornice - I am speechless! Truly it is worth death to see the precious beauty of this forgotten tomb! How dare these uncouth gaki befoul this sanctum! BANZAI!!"

Hobbits - Lector style cannibals. Consideration of food trumps any alignment or moral compass.

"Hmmmmm, rations running low. Lucky so many tall sources of meat walking around. All it needs is some fava beans and a glass of Chianti. Then fly fly, little halfling, back to home."

Humans - Loudmouth hucksters, always spouting the Domain Game as needed progress.

"Well sirree, this is the wasteland, but it has potential! I can see it now, after we clear out the temple, we move in a drygoods and an inn. Get captured goblins to build a stable and dig a well, but we get the xp. We get minstrels to spread word of the spot where Evil fell, charge admission, sell gnomish souvenirs, and plots of swampland! I tell you, human ingenuity will turn this ruin into a goldmine!"

Elves - Burt Reynolds' Gator inspired, bacco spitting,  moonshine-swigging rednecks. Fall of the elves remembered like the fall of Dixie.

"Shoot, I seen this a million times. You uppity new races comin' round where you ain't wanted. But I ain't no racist. (swigs moonwine). Double negative? That's a positive in High Elf, boy. I'd speak it 'cept y'alls too dumb to unnerstand it. (swigs again). Boy, you bet not be lookin' at my sister Laurie-Lie. Don't want no mixed blood half-elves kickin' round."

Half orcs - Pessimistic, fatalistic French Resistence fighters.

"My mother, she full orc, she hate me. My father he abandon me. Merde! Life, she is shit. But still I fight, to drink and, mais oui, to forget in the little death of inebriation."


Got any suggestions? Leave a comment.

This post is inspired by THIS post.

Dungeons & Manga #2 - Knowing D&D Part Two

OK, let's jump right back into the action. While in part one we saw that the introductory section of the book Knowing D&D began with dynamic action scenes to capture the reader's attention, its latter half is all action art.

This second half of the text is a"replay", or the transcript of a play session. Replays are HUGELY popular in the Japanese TRPG scene, and the rationale seems to be 1) it is fun to read through someone else's session as a fictional account and 2) you can learn to run a game or play in one by reading replays.

Anyway, on to the art. In this part, instead of explaining every image, I will instead present them with questions and let you try to guess what exactly is going on.

First image - where is the best place to start an adventure?

Next, who invited a snake to this disco party?

Make the 1/2 HD mooks jump!

Uh oh, the TPK heavies just showed up...

Where does this lead to?

 Who best to find their way in the darkness...

A reward for bravery.

Splitting the spoils, making plans...

A summons!

These guys good or bad? Depends how they're shaded...

Taking the block.

Not alone!

About those goblins...

Who does your hair, Baal?

Bette Davis eyes?

Always a damsel somewhere...

She didn't see that coming...

Which edition theses guys playing? BECMI by the ads...

Anyway, so much for Knowing D&D. Excuse the photo quality, but my tablet camera at 2am is about all I can muster these days.

I'd like to thank all commenters - I didn't expect any response, especially any so soon or thoughtful. Good to know there are other people with the same interests out there in the nebulous space of the OSR.

Next in the series - scifi TRPG style, or Furries in Space!

Dungeons & Manga #1 - Knowing D&D Part One

Not having the time to compose the long (winded) discursive thoughts on games I used to, I thought I'd start a new series of posts that would require less time to write for but also provide something interesting for gamers until I can get more time to think and compose. I've turned to my fairly extensive collection of Japanese RPGs, most of which are fantasy games, to present what I call 'Dungeons & Manga', namely manga-style art used in Japanese TRPG books. Whereas English RPGs and D&D in particular took some time before accessing professional artists, Japanese game designers had access to the immense pool of relatively inexpensive manga artists in Japan.

Today, I will be looking at 1987's D&Dがよくわかる本、D&D ga yoku wakaru hon, loosely translated as Knowing D&D Well, or more simply D&D for Beginners. This book is much like a Japanese Judges' Guild resource, and the series it is a part of includes extensively written and illustrated guides on dungeons, monsters, and other RPG accoutrements.

First, the cover (below) presents a whimsical reversal of position of PCs and the dragons they are supposed to be gunning for. It reminds me a bit of the old Dragon magazine comic where adventurers sit around playing an RPG in which they take on the role of office workers. It also shows a high degree of self-deprecating humour, which is still evident in Japanese TRPGs today, but I feel somewhat lacking in self-important western RPGS. Anyway, here it is:

Moving inside, we see that Japanese gamers knew what captured goblins were good for. This is not surprising given the velocity with which unchi rolls downhill in a vertical society...

From the bottom of the dungeon hierarchy we soar to the top. Next stop, dragons!

With the reader's appetite whetted with images of adventure, the tone shifts to tongue-in-cheek comic art to present the classes. There's the fighter:

The top panel is captioned "The fighter is D&D's superstar!!", while the bottom states "However, they are none too smart..." and show the wizard saying "Hey, get back to work!" Unsurprisingly, the next picture is the wizard:

The mage's thought balloon reads "For MU's, choosing the right spell decides your fate." Below that the wizard mumbles "Without magic, I'm just an average human..." and chooses from a golf bag with the words "Fireball", Levitation", "Lightning", "Phantasm" and one other illegible spell name. Next, the cleric:

The cleric thinks "Clerics can't use bladed weapons!" while the elf behind quips "Razors are OK, right?" The bottom caption reads "They have the power to protect the party from undead and injury!" Whereas individualistic westerners might cringe at being in a support position, group-minded Japanese players would instead find supporting the party a worthy and attractive role. In contrast, next up is the thief:

The upper panel reads "The party uses me as a treasure detector..." while the bottom is captioned "The highly dexterous thief also levels up quickly." The thief himself quips "I aim to be guildmaster!", interestingｌｙ using the Japanese term 大親分　（o-oyabun, or yakuza chief) to anchor the character in Japanese culture. Moving on to the elf:

The female elf has been a Japanese fantasy trope since Deedlit of Lodoss War, and that archtype is here. The caption on top reads "Elves can fight, use magic, are intelligent, and long lived...". This totally fits the critique of elves as a token instead of individual characters that appeared on Playing D&D with Pornstars, perhaps implying that this simplification is even stronger across cultures. The bottom reads "But their advancement is also incredibly slow." This same simplification is seen with the dwarf:

"Dwarves are small but tough!" reads the caption, evoking Gimli to an almost painfully stereotypical degree. The humouruous bottom quip "Because we eat minerals (just joking)" lightens this image, but unintentionally adds an explanation for dwarvish miserliness and mining that I would add to any mythos I used in game. How about the hafling?

"Haflings are hard to hit" promises the caption, and the character breaks the fourth wall to counsel " You have to be strong, dextrous, and tough if you want to be me!" Here ends the cutesy art and manga style realism returns for the equipment section:

Chainmail, shield, platemail, and leather are all here.

Hand axe, shortsword, battle axe, and two-handed sword as well...

 Mace, crossbow, bow, dagger, and club...

Ending with lance, spear, war hammer,  halberd and sling. What, no katanas? Oh well, now on to character sheets:

For those of you that can read katakana, yes they have named the thief 'Darth Vader' and the wizard 'Ben Kenobi.' If that seems like a jr high D&D camp type of thing to do, remember that they are coming from another culture, and so are not much different from the L4R players who call their PC Musashi or Nobunaga. Similarly, the fighter is Pendragon and the elf is (wait for it)... Legolas. Sigh, there was also a cleric named Rasputin, but my tablet ate the photo, so I shall spare you.

That's it for this installment, tune in next time for the dynamic action scenes accompanying the sample adventure!

If you liked this post or have any suggestions or questions, leave a comment.

Updates Coming....

Soonish!

Seriously, life is so sweet it has left little time for gaming or the escape from reality I needed the last two terrible years. New work is AMAZING, PhD is done, son is growing like a weed, wife and I are... in a truce.

That said, this blog isn't dead, just dreaming. There are pages of ideas and projects I slowly chip at, but publishing for the career this year takes precedence.

Things will go up when they do.

In the meantime, a little sad reality check. THIS POST about misogyny in the tabletop hobby. I can say it half surprised me, but half made me remember the rude comments and rape simulations I saw women players subjected to back in my gaming heyday.

All I'll say is if you're rolling dice and pretending to be a hero in a fantasy world, you can carry some of that back to the real world and stand up against this and any other kind of bullying you see at a gaming table.

As the old X-Files saying goes, "Well hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage." Be courageous, be the hero you want to be.

I'm Baaack + Class Based Dystopias

Let's see...

The PhD thesis is in.

4 years, 289 pages x 6 copies. Just printing and assembling it took a day.

Next up, work put me on a sabbatical till April. I've signed an NDA and am happy to close that chapter of my life.

If any of you are thinking of doing a PhD, let me say this:

Think again.

Especially if you are married. That supportive spouse will come to resent the time you spend away, and hate how absent minded and unhelpful around the house you've become.

Super especially if you are working to pay your way through. Your job performance will suffer, coworkers and supervisors will hold your feet to the fire more than workers not doing a PhD. If you can, keep it on the QT.

So anyway, back hopefully to blogging, gaming, and generally enjoying life more than I have in recent memory.

Here's my inaugural post as a free man and doctor of philospohy. Very in keeping with my thesis on discourse:



Class Based Dystopias

Ever wonder why there are still kings and queens in the D&D world. If player characters are so powerful, why don’t members of the 4 classes rule every nation?

(PS: I know many D&D products have PC classed NPCs as rulers, this is just a thought exercise with delicious implications).

The answer is that the power corrupts and makes their society inherently unstable. Any nation ruled by a player character class is a dystopia that ultimately comes to a bad end.

Each of these societies has characteristics which can be divided into the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Ruler: Cleric.

Government: Theocracy.

The Good: Priests cast a level higher! Pray sincerely and miracles happen!

The Bad: You’re either with us or against us. Priests of other gods cast as one level lower, save at - 1 vs holy magic of our god.

The Ugly: Inquisitions, burnings, holy wars. This type of nation usually ends when the witch trials and inquisitions get out of hand and people leave the cities, where they are retaken by vegetation in a few years. Or else, they pick an illogical religious war with neighbors, who band together to wipe the floor with them and place a secular or at least non-fundamental regime in their place.

Examples: Berserk by Kentaro Miura

Ruler: Fighter.

Government: Dictatorship.

The Good: Can levy double army size. Arms and armor can be had at rock bottom prices.

The Bad: Violence is always the answer. Everyone is armed or guarded and ready to thrown down at any moment.

The Ugly: To the victor go the spoils, to the loser go pillaging, rape, mass mutilations or beheadings. This type of nation usually ends when the great leader is bumped off by another, or when neighbors band together to send an army or a group of murder hobos to take out the dictator and replace them with a non-PC class figurehead.

Examples: Game of Thrones (? dunno, haven’t seen TV since I started the degree…)

Ruler: Thief.

Government: Kleptocracy.

The Good: Anything can be bought, for the right price.

The Bad: Watch your purse every second.

The Ugly: Assassination is the solution to every problem. Usually such a nation ultimately devolves into a nation of beggars living in the ruins of once nobles cities as thieving skills are not passed or as teachers are strangled or poisoned off.

Examples: Nadsokor (Elric series), Thief Town (Adventure Time)

Ruler: Mage.

Government: Anarchy.

The Good: Potion shops, wand & staff ateliers, flying castles, it is all here, and at rock bottom prices compared to other places.

The Bad: Mundane, non-magical folk become the underclass. Killing them isn’t even a crime.

The Ugly: Monsters, monsters everywhere. Chaotic creatures are drawn to this place, and welcomed with open arms. Eventually the Tarrasque will show up and eat the place whole, or demons will infiltrate the ruling structure and turn it into a hellmouth or warp the kingdom to some shadow plane. Within a generation it is a myth or legend become cautionary tale.

Examples: The Shadow Plane (Elric), Sigil (Planescape), Wizard Town (Adventure Time)