Candy Land

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the_taken
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Candy Land

Post by the_taken »

Starting with the flow chart!

Step One - Name the PCs: A Harem

Step Two - Write up a Six Member Harem:
  1. The key member of the group, Tom. He's the weakest member in terms of combat ability, but he has one incredible ability. He has a Magical Candy Cane, and with it, he's an amazing diplomancer. When a CandyGirl isn't trying to rip open his bag of Skittles (Taste the Rainbow!), he can spend a little down time with the girl and convince her that following the wielder of the Magical Candy Cane is the best thing to do with her life. And it really is, since the Magical Candy Cane enables her to grow in skill and power.
    Since his actual combat ability is terrible, Tom contributes by using his eyes and brain to give tactical advice to girls of the Harem.
  2. Sally, the CottonCatgirl. Sally has been with Tom since childhood, and knows just how sweet the Magical Candy Cane is. She follows Tom around, and protects him from feral CandyGirls, but she also helps him hunt them. She has a keen sense of smell, and she begins fights by pouncing on unsuspecting CandyGirls, then using her claws to cut them up a bit.
    She spends her training time on getting stronger to become a PeppermintPanthress.
  3. Zzuuzu, a perky IceCreamMaiden. She contributes to the Harem by keeping a cool head at all times. In combat, she freezes the ground and enemy CandyGirls. She can also make snowmen and dress it up in ice clothing that may fool dummies.
    As she has a cool mind, Zzuuzu can basically argue with egg heads about math and geometry without worry.
  4. Vera, a PecanPelican. She contributes to the Harem's combat by flying out of reach and pelting wild CandyGirls with magical Feather Shurikans. She's kinda sneaky too, but she really likes singing and making people feel good about themselves.
  5. Mindy, the MintMantis. Mindy is a very sneaky CandyGirl. She was born in the wilderness, and has grown up in the unforgiving wilds. To survive, she's learned to hide very well, and upon becoming a MintMantis and growing scythes, has learned to make brutal slices on weak points. She also has a huge resistance to pain, through discipline and necessity, allowing her to shrug off anything short of an actually lethal wound.
  6. Maggie, the Lolipop. The newest member of the Harem. She is aiming to become a LicoriceDominatrix, and has the basic skills of tying CandyGirls up in animated ropes and vines, among other things. But her real gift is telepathy. She's keen on making psycho-whips to cause mental break downs and force people to tell the truth. She's tough girl, and actively protects Tom by taking hits for him. She also helps keep the other CandyGirls in the Harem from fighting with a really mean stare and some stern words, but also helps them unwind with a very relaxing massage.
Step Three - Write up a Three Person Party:

Team 1 will have Tom, Maggie and Zzuuzu. For combat, Maggie and Zzuuzu drop down terrain effects, or just tie up foes into uselessness. In a pinch, they can nab a stray CandyGirl and introduce her to Tom's Magical Candy Cane and convince her join up.
For social situations, Tom can wave his Magical Candy Cane to get his way, Zzuuzu can talk sciency people into being helpful, and Maggie can bully everyone else.

Team A will have Sally, Vera and Mindy. In combat, Sally will brawl and make enough of a distraction to allow Mindy get into ideal positions for her ganking, and keep attention away from Vere circling overhead just out of reach.
In social situations, Sally will use small talk to distract people or make them forget what they're actually talking, Vera will sing to put everyone in a good mood, and Mindy will tell raunchy jokes and make funny comments about Magical Candy Canes.

Step Four - Outline an Adventure:
Today in CandyLand, Fred's farm hasn't been doing two well. Some HoneyBeeGirls have been eating his good crops, instead of eating from the discard pile over at Frank's farm like they usually do. Fred hires Tom and his lady friends to go round them up.
So the Harem starts searching the woods near Fred and Frank's farms. Sally uses her keen sense of smell to track down the food they didn't eat but take as a snack for later, Vera flies up to get a bird's eye view of the area, Mindy uses her experience as a Beegirl from before to give everyone an idea on where to look, and Zzuuzu freezes places solid in an attempt to find the Beegirls by process of elimination.
While they don't find the hive, they do find one of the lookouts. A short fight breaks out, and the Harem manages to capture the lone HoneyBeegirl. Then Tom and Maggie team up to convince the HoneyBeegirl to spill the Jellybeans on the location of her hive. This mostly involves Tom's Magical Candy Cane, but Maggie helps by tying the wild CandyGirl down so that she can't sting Tom's bag of Skittles.
With the location of the Hive revealed, the Harem charges right into the Hive and take it on a grand battle worthy of being hidden in a pack of bubble gum. What the Harem didn't know or bother to ask their captive was that the Hive had a HoneyQueen leading the HoneyBeegirls; a tougher CandyGirl with a few abilities that make people feel too good to engage in violence by taking a sip from her Honey Pot.
But the Harem prevails, beats up all the HoneyBeegirls and takes the Queen Captive! Fred's Farm is saved!

Step Five: Write out a campaign

So Tom decides he wants to add the HoneyQueen to the Harem, using his Magical Candy Cane, but it turns out she's already obeying another Magical Candy Cane. Frank's. And he ordered her to mess up Fred's farm.
After confronting Frank and his Harem of GoatGirls, it turns out that Frank is being blackmailed: His daughter has been kidnapped, and the nefarious villains told him to get Fred to want to sell his farm, "Or else".
So Tom and Harem track down these villains, beat them up and ruin their protection racket and land grab. In the process, the Harem finds ties to the big boss in the big city, running several criminal schemes, including setting up gambling machines in elementary schools to steel lunch money, and making teenage girls go bonkers by training teen pop idols.
Unfortunately, the Harem can't just go pound the BBEG a new pie crust, since he's backed up by the law. So they'll have to figure out how to either black mail and/or bride the law enforcers, or get around the legal system by entering the Grand Tournament of Championship.
Last edited by the_taken on Wed Nov 10, 2010 3:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Username17 »

This is hysterical. I can't tell if you're serious or not, but either way I want to see more about this project.

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Post by JonSetanta »

Delicious.
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Post by CatharzGodfoot »

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Post by the_taken »

Step Six - Choose a Base System:

I've decided to use a modified SAME system for the character attributes and action resolution system. Hit Points, Strength, Agility, Spirit and Willpower will be the attributes, and 2d20 will be the RNG. The base to hit number will be 18, which will conveniently also be the base number the attacks will be designed from.

A CAN system is going to be in place, but instead of making the CAN score on accumulate on yourself to make special effects happen, what instead happens is that you do stuff to increase the CAN score on opponents and that gives you a bonus on affecting them with status effects. This will encourage ganging up tactics.

Originally I was going to use PhoneLobtser's Big Fat Square, since the primary medium in which I play games is on forums and chat rooms now, and grid systems are a serious hassle to work with. However, I'm going to switch to Frank's Really Abstract Locations and use the Force Projection Roll. This will encourage controlling the battle field, which will counteract the fetish on ganging up I set up with the CAN score.

I don't think I want to incorporate a Wheel of Fate. I see no reason to prevent a CandyGirl from using ever using, say, Rolling Cinnamon Wave if she really wants too, even if she has no valid target at the time, or risks hitting a friend. I am, on the other hand, considering incorporating a Rage Bar system, or a Screaming Charge Up system. Or both.

I think I have an idea on how to handle wrestling type moves. I'll run the concept by my part time assistant when I have a clearer idea.

This setting will not have monsters to slay, only CandyGirls to capture, or beat up and move on from. As such, there will be a huge variety of CandyGirls to encounter, so a simple system to generate them will have to be in place. I'm going to have them start at a base form, and then there will be numerable different greater forms for them to transform into, unlocking greater powers, and higher attributes. We will call this Rising, like how Cakes or Buns rise.

I'm also going to incorporate a Move List system similar to the one started in the Pokemon as D&D Monsters project. CandyGirls will learn techniques from discreet lists, and then based on some of these choices, they will Rise.

I am at a loss as to how I'm going to handle non-combat skills, things like item crafting, baking and cooking, and diplomacy, and am open to suggestions.
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Post by TarkisFlux »

This is fantastic.

I'd like to suggest that there be a girl replacement for Tom with a Magical Fur Berry Pie (or whatever, that was just the first euphemism I found that sorta worked) that allows the Koumeis of the world to lead their own harems as well.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

Magical Fur Berry Pie
Cherry Pie has reasonable traction as that sort of metaphor already.

As does Cheesecake

See also: Tomato, Taco, Hot Tamale, Forbidden Fruit, etc, etc
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Post by Koumei »

...I was very tempted to respond with an image macro of The Rock with "Do you like... pie?"

I'd pick Cherry Pie if we're going with euphamisms, and looking at the rest of this game, we're clearly all about the euphamisms. This is highly entertaining.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

While Cherry Pie is a nice euphemism I think being clearly somewhat inspired by Japanese fiction it would be more appropriate if girls lording it over Candy Harems just had Candy Canes as well. Indeed, they should probably ALSO be called Tom as well. Then you can do the comedy routine "No, I mean BOY Tom.", "Oh you mean the Tom Boy", "NO I mean..."

Though it would probably be moderately funny if the settings non-candy girl girls just regarded the whole candy girl phenomena with disgust and angrily refused to participate. Then one of your major Villains could just be that real girl that wants to steal Tom away from the Harem, and her super powers that threaten the Harem could be derision, lectures and guilt trips.

Or alternately the setting could just not have non-candy girl girls at all. Then you could go all down the "the way this world works is completely fucked up" path.

You could even have a thing where the ultimate aspiration of a candy girl is to somehow BECOME a real girl, and the only source of (rare) real girls (and indirectly their candy lord sons) is the mysterious transformational power of the end of the series.

Anyway. Clearly I am unimpressed with your choice of Franks choice free targeting option. But this looks like a light comedy game so some variant of that probably wouldn't hurt. I suggest to make it funnier you roll targeting AFTER choosing your action. Because screw it, if dice are making your tactical decisions the least they can do is cause chaos and stupidity while they are at it.

As for your resourcing system I'm going to suggest my rather overlooked "Energy and Stuff" mechanic I've been messing about with lately. The very short lived thread on it has vanished so I'll do a quick go over right here.

Energy
Works a bit like mana. But you don't actually have much of it. Like maybe 3-5 points.

Your better abilities cost Energy. Much like mana. But Energy costs look like this...

Costs 1 Energy (an ability you are expected to use several times)
Costs All Energy (Minimum 1) (an ability you are expected to use infrequently)
Costs All Energy (Minimum 0) (an ability you are expected to spam in desperate desperation situations)

Then you also have a mechanic that gives you BACK energy at an (average) rate of sometimes about 1 per turn that runs off a conditional power thematic to your class/ability set. So some Candy Girls get 1 Energy every turn they hurt something, some get 1 Energy every turn they get hurt, some need to miss things, some need to share a zone with a Candy Girl or Candy Lord (ally or even rival?), etc... And some girls just get back ALL their energy in one hit from special things like having their clothes blown off in a sugar explosion.

Which brings me to the OTHER part of the resourcing mechanic.

Stuff
With the Energy and Stuff mechanic I decided I wanted to make gear moderately exciting, expendable and dynamic.

So the idea was sometimes, often as a substitute, or entirely alternate cost to Energy an ability breaks/disarms/expends your weapon or armor. So some attacks just make your lolly pop club explode, but do extra stuff as a result.

One of the main things the Stuff mechanic did was have stuff act as a requirement for some abilities or bonuses, but had expending/breaking stuff commonly be a means of avoiding or canceling incoming injuries.

The PRIMARY stuff expending skill, the basic thing every named character got was...

Torn Shirt - (Block)
Expends your clothing or armor item and provides 1 Block
Much like Captain Kirk someone shoots you but instead of being injured you end up with a torn shirt.

And while I had to run around saying that expending your clothing item just left you with a clothing item that lacked bonuses/abilities to avoid exploding strip show nudity YOU actually probably want something more like...

Critical Wardrobe Malfunction - Block
Utterly destroys your clothing or armor item, in slow motion, with a close up, and provides 1 Block
Much like those girls in anime someone shot you with a giant candy missile and the explosion shredded your clothing into individual threads and dispersed it to the winds, you however are basically unhurt, and naked.

Why do this?
Because while the Energy and Stuff system is far from perfect it is relatively simple, provides SOME degree of variation in combat behavior from round to round and character to character, and the expending Stuff aspect turning into a potential strip show instead of being a problem for you is actually probably exactly what you want.

Hell. All things considered for this system chucking Energy out and just doing a Stuff and Stuff system where you had more individual items to smash, rip, burn and discard might be better for the whole strip show via anime fire ball punch up aspect.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Thu Nov 11, 2010 5:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by PhoneLobster »

the_taken wrote:I am at a loss as to how I'm going to handle non-combat skills, things like item crafting, baking and cooking, and diplomacy, and am open to suggestions.
Wait. I missed this last time round.

Crafting, baking, cooking and diplomacy out of combat should be handled by well nigh complete rules free bullshit negotiate with the GM "mechanics".

Because this is a zany anime inspired system. So those crafting, baking, cooking and diplomacy mechanics are COMBAT mechanics because in zany anime cooking a cake, being cute or being really good at calligraphy is something you do to attack people and making an oops you can see my panties diplomacy action happens while other people are throwing strawberry punches and licorice shurikens and results in knocking people unconscious in pretty much the same way.

Which reminds me, Tom needs an ability to land face first in a Candy girl to avoid taking falling/throwing damage.
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Post by Jilocasin »

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Post by PhoneLobster »

That's what? The tea ceremony episode?

Ranma was pretty much what I was thinking of. Because in Ranma the following things are all martial arts attacks and part of combat resolution.

Punching people
Punching people faster
Plucking roasting chestnuts from a fire
Attacking people with energy blasts (powered by bleak despair or over confidence)
Poisoning them with your bad cooking
Hitting them with a giant spatula you keep for giant omelet cooking
Cooking them into that same giant omelet
Throwing your bra at them
Looking cute
Looking like a cat
Looking like another character
Smacking them in the face with a wad of cash
Licking them
Giving them a bunch of sweet smelling flowers (with poison powder)
Throwing Gymnastics Equipment at them
(edit: Throwing your brother at them, fortunately throwing your brother at them IS a legal attack, throwing your brother at them again, and again, and again...)
Attacking them with Calligraphy or Tea Ceremony
Playing cursed music at them
Threatening to reveal their secret identity as a pet piglet
Eating

Here is probably one of the broader overviews.
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Thu Nov 11, 2010 10:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Jilocasin »

Yeah, I couldn't find a better image. The Ranma aesthetic seemed like the way to go.
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Post by Koumei »

Anything-goes martial arts figure skating, flower arranging... Ranma is the perfect show for turning anything into a martial arts fight.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

girls lording it over Candy Harems just had Candy Canes as well. Indeed, they should probably ALSO be called Tom as well.
Well, I did once date a girl named Tom, so that might be a little too realistic for this setting :p
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Post by Prak »

Josh_Kablack wrote:
girls lording it over Candy Harems just had Candy Canes as well. Indeed, they should probably ALSO be called Tom as well.
Well, I did once date a girl named Tom, so that might be a little too realistic for this setting :p
But did she have a candy cane?
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

No candy cane, but she did work as a baker, so I guess that's an argument for the pie metaphor.not that she,uh, baked me any, if you know what I mean winkwinknudgenudge Plus she lived in Plum
Last edited by Josh_Kablack on Thu Nov 11, 2010 4:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Vebyast »

Maybe female Toms should have those light-up plastic candy canes that people put out on their lawns at Christmas?
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Post by Mask_De_H »

There should be female Toms with Cherry Pies, female? Toms with Candy Canes of Power, and male? Toms with Cherry Pies. If this is animez, then you've got to get all of the gender-bending craziness.
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Post by violence in the media »

Vebyast wrote:Maybe female Toms should have those light-up plastic candy canes that people put out on their lawns at Christmas?
Now that's just the sort of Tom-foolery that rogue CandyGirls would engage in.
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Post by JigokuBosatsu »

I fucking hate you all.
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Post by Koumei »

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My friend Carlton pretty much ruined Candyland for me with his crappy book. Which I haven't read, to be fair... but come on...
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Post by JonSetanta »

Shit man, we just got Touhou-rolled.
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Post by the_taken »

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