05/26/2008 - 21:17
I spent most of my time this Memorial day weekend attending Fanimecon. I really didn't pay much attention to the gaming room there, since most of the open gaming looked like various collectible card games and video games. There were a couple of guys who had Warhammer 40k miniatures, but I don't know if they actually played or not. Most of my time was spent going up and down artist alley, checking out all the independent/amateur artists. No cosplayer pictures are available due to technical difficulties.
I did drop by Kublacon this weekend, mostly to meet up with friends, and get in on a great game of Serenity. So I didn't do much exploring outside of the open gaming and the dealer room. Yes, one big room for the dealers and open gaming. One of the highlights of the con was I finally got my pitcher of dice.
Another highlight (besides the Serenity game I was in) was that I got to roll up a character for the Maid RPG. Maid RPG is the game that Ewen at Yaruki Zero is currently translating. I met one of his friends, Mike, at Kubla who had a table in the open gaming/dealer room. He didn't have a finalized copy, just a printout of the rules, so I'm not sure how the final product will look. Since I was pressed for time, I didn't get a chance to play or read through all the rules, but I did have a blast rolling up a character.
I'm not a big fan of randomly generated characters, but the randomness of the character generating system was really fun. My character was a really boyish, worthless maid, who only got her job due to distant relatives and probably only keeps her job due to the fact her boss really really likes her, and relieves her stress through prayer. Something that random definitely belongs in an off the wall anime series.
From what it sounds like, they plan on releasing the book at Gencon. I hope they attend Fanimecon once the book is released. I bet they'd be a huge draw in the 24 open gaming room. If not, maybe I'll run a game. It looks like it could be a real fun and fast game, kinda like Teenagers from Outer Space.
- The Gaming Grunts - gaming podcasts
- Scary Lemon - not always gaming, but always interesting.
- Yaruki Zero - good coverage of Japanese RPGs
Yeah, I'm not into random character creation myself, by Maid RPG does it the right way for the right reasons. The game generally embraces randomness all throughout, for that matter. (Though the same designer created Yuuyake Koyake, which is totally non-random). It's a bit TFOS, a bit Toon, and a bit of its own kind of twisted genius.
I actually finished the translation a couple weeks ago, so we're working on editing and layout now. Still, we are on track for GenCon, even if it's going to be on a tight schedule.
I had been thinking about doing something for Maid RPG at FanimeCon, but I was just too busy to be able to commit to anything ahead of time. I wanted to do a panel on Japanese RPGs too, but maybe next year.