Ninja Gibbon - mechanics Q

[Ziggy]

Hi there.

I've been browsing here for a while, trying without sucess to get a game running (I may have some mechanics for this game in a few days). Meanwhile, someone wrote this on RPG.net's forums:

I can play a game about heavily armed chimpanzee martial artists with no attention to finance or resource management, where no one ever dies or suffers more than mild embarassment, and run it with my underpants on my head, and it's still a 'real' role-playing game. It's just one you wouldn't enjoy.

...and, to my irritation, I came up with a system for it in about ten minutes. So, here it is.

Character Creation
For a character sheet, you need a picture of a monkey and some blank space. On this blank space, write your monkey's name and its three statistics: Oook, Eeek and Grrr! You have 10 points to divide between these three attributes. Oook is used for thought and friendly communication, Eeek for fear and panic-related actions, and Grrr for aggression and intimidation.

Now go to the picture of the monkey and draw arrows to the body parts it uses; some suggestions are arms, hands, legs, tail, teeth, eyes and brain. Divide 30 point between as many of these as you choose to use.

Play
At the start of any active rounds (in which rolls have been made), roll as many D3 as you have points in each attribute. This result is the number of dice you have for each group of actions. Each time you want to take an action in the turn (initiative goes round clockwise), take dice from the related pool up to the number assigned to the body part being used (legs for running, hands to use tools, etc). Each 5 or 6 counts as a sucess, and the target monkey may use its dice to resist.


I know this is deeply silly, but that was sort of the point. What do you think of the system as system, though? And if it's workable, would it be adaptable to 'real' skills?

Thanks, and sorry for not making my first post less ridiculous,

Ziggy

[Mike Holmes]

OK, I'll bite.

What about difficulty in the case of a simian dealing with a non-simian. Or are the only rolls those made against other creatures?

Also, I don't see any rules for martial arts or being "heavily armed". Either put something in there, or take it off your creative agenda. Perhaps Grr can cover martial arts, and Ook can cover weapons somehow.

Also, I see no mention of underwear. I'd make players roll d2s for dice pools (instead of D3) when not wearing underwear on their heads.

Oh, also your game bears strong resemblance to Monkey Wrench.

On the subject of rolling dice to see how many dice you get to roll...I think it's interesting, but definitely needs playtesting. No, I'm not offering.

Mike

[Mark Johnson]

You definitely need special rules for flinging feces and penile fencing.  Also, what are your magic rules?  Spell points or slots?

[Thomas Tamblyn]

For the heavily armed part - howabout this.

Weapons have an attack value and a complexity value.  There are weapons lying around untended because of the... err... because there are.

The player decides what weapon they want (ooh I spy a rocket launcher!) but has to have their ape spend a turn and roll their ook versus the weapon's complexity as they find out what it tastes like and which buttons make the fire come out of what end.

If the ape fails the check, they have no clue and have wasted a turn.  If the ape botches (I assume there's some kind of botch mechanic) you shoot yourself.  If the ape passes, it adds the weapon's attack value to all Grr checks for the rest of the scene.

Because apes have prehensile feet (and sometimes tails) they can wield up to 3 weapons at once.

Note the tactical considerations - a one-off payment for a continuous bonus.  Is it worth it?  It depends.