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[Sirus]

Um...
~desu?
_{Fuggit, I'm no good at this Japanese stuff...}

[Sensei]

It isn't even a particularly strange system. The only reason people see it as bizarre is because of the lelJapan factor in the setting and characters. Though if we're honest it isn't much different from some of the weird stuff you see in western tabletops.

We're thinking of the same game right?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Where, parody as it is, that character sheet is correct.

It sounds like Paranoia where Friend Computer is replaced with the master you're flirting with and you're also all trying to seduce eachother. And that's the main point of the game, no less. It's not like in DnD where if you sought out the Book of Nymphology and opened the cover, it's your own damn fault.

[OREOSOME]

PTW?

[Xotes]

Years back, I was browsing /tg/ and saw a thread for a pickup game set in Bioshock's Rapture.

The morning went well enough, save for the maid who went to wake the (relatively sane) Master failing miserably and getting spooked by him. The cooking and the cleaning and the shenanigans went on, until an angry mob came for Master, forcing a hasty retreat while one of our number jumped out the front window to delay them. Everything went well enough as we ran, until the boss man turned a corner and bumped into a Big Daddy. Now that, in and of itself, would not have been too bad, but he failed a Will (?) save and shot it from the sheer surprise of smashing into one of Rapture's giant metal dudes.

So the whole party gets embroiled in a fight, everyone hitting it as hard as they could. A massive combination attack was what finished it, my maid striking the killshot when I rolled for Luck on my attack to trip, roll between its legs, and then jump up and slam her drill-arm into the Daddy's back while shouting for it to "Take it all, you bastard!"

Yeah my maid had a drill arm. I rolled for an exotic weapon and figured, you know, we already got drill-armed dudes in the place, I'll take one too.

The climax was when we made it to a Bathysphere leading to the surface, but getting it ready called down a massive horde of splicers on our heads. I don't remember many of the little details, save that we fought long and hard and eventually all piled into the sphere to break for the surface.

It was going to be a one-shot, but the GM asked if we wanted to continue the campaign, and we went for it. That fell through, sadly, so now I'll never get that epilogue for our party, but I like to think everything went well for them.

In closing, it was still pretty weird, but the weirdness really depends on who you're playing with.

[UristMcDwarf]

It isn't even a particularly strange system. The only reason people see it as bizarre is because of the lelJapan factor in the setting and characters. Though if we're honest it isn't much different from some of the weird stuff you see in western tabletops.

We're thinking of the same game right?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Where, parody as it is, that character sheet is correct.

It sounds like Paranoia where Friend Computer is replaced with the master you're flirting with and you're also all trying to seduce eachother. And that's the main point of the game, no less. It's not like in DnD where if you sought out the Book of Nymphology and opened the cover, it's your own damn fault.

"SEXY BOOBS"

[Julius Clonkus]

Had one test session of this once.

Found out that doing it with a group accustomed to Paranoia leads to gore. Fugdammit don't turn people into goasts just because they had a better present for Master's birthday!

And I stand by my opinion that a biological mecha for a blind crippled child was a better birthday present.

[Iceblaster]

It isn't even a particularly strange system. The only reason people see it as bizarre is because of the lelJapan factor in the setting and characters. Though if we're honest it isn't much different from some of the weird stuff you see in western tabletops.

We're thinking of the same game right?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Where, parody as it is, that character sheet is correct.

It sounds like Paranoia where Friend Computer is replaced with the master you're flirting with and you're also all trying to seduce eachother. And that's the main point of the game, no less. It's not like in DnD where if you sought out the Book of Nymphology and opened the cover, it's your own damn fault.

"SEXY BOOBS"

Boobs that have boobs on them making them sexy?

...Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain

[Neyvn]

Had one test session of this once.

Found out that doing it with a group accustomed to Paranoia leads to gore. Fugdammit don't turn people into goasts just because they had a better present for Master's birthday!

And I stand by my opinion that a biological mecha for a blind crippled child was a better birthday present.

That sounds like a really weird anime setting...
Maids that go all Combat Kungfu crazy as they try to out do each other at menial tasks and such...

[Neonivek]

Hayate Combat Butler had that...

Including a Butler fighting competition and Lelouche taking part in an episode.

[Flying Dice]

It isn't even a particularly strange system. The only reason people see it as bizarre is because of the lelJapan factor in the setting and characters. Though if we're honest it isn't much different from some of the weird stuff you see in western tabletops.

We're thinking of the same game right?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Where, parody as it is, that character sheet is correct.

It sounds like Paranoia where Friend Computer is replaced with the master you're flirting with and you're also all trying to seduce eachother. And that's the main point of the game, no less. It's not like in DnD where if you sought out the Book of Nymphology and opened the cover, it's your own damn fault.

S'sorta the point I was making, that it seems unusually weird because it's a different cultural flavor of weird. Like, say, getting a bowl of green ice cream that you think is pickles and spinach flavored, only to find out that it is in fact wasabi. That aside, I'll just put it out there that I've seen some really fucking strange things in Paranoia, though they were strange for reasons other than the reasons that this is strange. Like, for example, an entire team of troubleshooters staring at a bowl of apples, egging one of their number on to eat one, all with an undercurrent of desperation and fear. Without context that's bizarre. Even with knowledge of the clearance system it's still pretty strange, though a certain element of that has been lost.

[Aoi]

S'sorta the point I was making, that it seems unusually weird because it's a different cultural flavor of weird. Like, say, getting a bowl of green ice cream that you think is pickles and spinach flavored, only to find out that it is in fact wasabi. That aside, I'll just put it out there that I've seen some really fucking strange things in Paranoia, though they were strange for reasons other than the reasons that this is strange. Like, for example, an entire team of troubleshooters staring at a bowl of apples, egging one of their number on to eat one, all with an undercurrent of desperation and fear. Without context that's bizarre. Even with knowledge of the clearance system it's still pretty strange, though a certain element of that has been lost.

Moreso than just a different 'cultural flavor of weird', the whole Japanese maid thing is more like a caricature of a stereotype (or another caricature?) from another culture. There's additional layers of disconnectedness here than what we see with things that originate from Eurocentric culture. (Sorry. From the US myself.)

Actually, even with context, the Paranoia example is still sort of weird.

And unrelated, but my favorite wasabi story involves somebody who loves guacamole and has the cultural awareness of Plato's Cave... Yeah, didn't end well for her.

[Flying Dice]

That's deliciously evil. Or possibly evilly delicious.

Spoiler: OT (click to show/hide)

What was going on in that example, put briefly, was this:

It was the end-of-mission briefing, and our handler had just given us a bowl of (red) apples before quickly leaving the room, as a reward for doing a good job. As a bit of backstory, that mission we had been tasked with delivering a fake apple that was in fact a virus bomb to a UV target by way of her secretary, and we sort of knew that we were being ordered by another UV. The mission went south and one of our team ended up releasing it in a random fight, so the rest of the mission consisted of us trying to reach the target's secretary and pass the virus to her, by completing a mission she had assigned us earlier in the campaign. When we eventually reported to her, half the team did things like shaking her hand, kissing her hand, coughing on her, etc. to try to transmit the virus. We left and returned to HQ, where we were debriefed, leaving us with the empty room and the bowl of apples.

Now, our handler had told us that they contained the cure to the virus. We spent a few minutes examining them, tinkering around, trying to tell if they were actually more virus apples. Eventually one of our number decided to just eat one, but we shouted him down when we remembered that... apples are white on the inside! One of the others insisted that they were actually yellow, and he had the clearance to eat them, so he took a bite. We all stared at him for a couple minutes to make sure he didn't keel over, then swarmed the bowl and chowed down.

The GM mentioned that he hadn't intended to cause any sort of alarm, that he was literally just giving us the cure in a suitably ironic package for a quick mission wrap-up. Oh, and we found out later that the virus depopulated an entire sector (as in, the three-letter sector code in your name).

IIT: Why I love Paranoia.

And now that's reminded me of the mission where a relatively new player was exploring a hospital and looked through a window. The GM described a man in a white suit and lab coat, stark-white walls, furniture, etc. The poor guy walked straight in and buttonholed the UV asking him about our target, and was genuinely surprised when the turret popped out of the ground and made the first couple feet of floor R-clearance.

[Sensei]

Like, say, getting a bowl of green ice cream that you think is pickles and spinach flavored, only to find out that it is in fact wasabi.

Look at the character sheet again. It has three "seduction" slots. This is a main mechanic. I maintain that this constitutes more than cultural flavor.

[NobodyPro]

Like, say, getting a bowl of green ice cream that you think is pickles and spinach flavored, only to find out that it is in fact wasabi.

Look at the character sheet again. It has three "seduction" slots. This is a main mechanic. I maintain that this constitutes more than cultural flavor.

IIRC there is an entire section of optional rules for things like that.

[Flying Dice]

Like, say, getting a bowl of green ice cream that you think is pickles and spinach flavored, only to find out that it is in fact wasabi.

Look at the character sheet again. It has three "seduction" slots. This is a main mechanic. I maintain that this constitutes more than cultural flavor.

It's either a parody or (gods help us) a played-straight tabletop harem fighting game centered on maids. Tell me that that isn't distinctly Japanese nerd-media in flavor? It still belongs to the "Fucking bizarre things" category, subcategory "Tabletop RPGs", flavor "Japanese". I'm not about to deny that, on a certain level, Japanese media is really weird and creepy, even more so than western equivalents. My point was that Japan isn't unique in producing strange things, even if it does tend to be a bar-setter in the field. Please tell me that this hasn't been another "We agree with each other but keep arguing about it because we say the same thing in slightly different ways" trip.