I've always been interested in the idea of an RPG that dealt with the genre of monster catching. A group of normal guys who happen to have a bunch of lethal monsters at their beck and call and just spend all day having battles (among other things) with them just intrigues me I guess (and if the popularity of such shows/games are any indication, I'm not alone). Now, no existing RPG that I know of is built to handle the kind of thing I'm looking for- namely, a game where you have a lot of monsters that obey you. (Well, there is pokethulu, but I'm not really looking for a joke game. There's also monsters and other childish things, but while that's a cool game it's not really what I'm going for either.) The problem is that almost every RPG is built around the assumption that you have one (or maybe two at most characters) at your disposal, and going against this assumption tends to either make the game a headache to keep track of or slows it way down.
In any case, I've been working on a game that lets you capture monsters and use them to battle other people who do that sort of thing. One of the major problems I've been having is how much complexity to have. I want it to be simple enough to run quickly (and more importantly, not to overload players who might have six monsters and a monster tamer) but on the other hand, I don't want it to be too free form (while I've got no problem with free form games, they tend to over simplify things, and one of the draws of the monster tamer genre is that each monster is somewhat unique.)

So i guess what I'm asking is, how do you get diversity without adding to much complexity? I'm open to anything at this point: I've been playing with the ideas of dice pools, point based, and a couple other things, but nothing really seems to be getting me that blend of easy and diverse.
Any ideas you guys might have as to mechanics or whatever would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hiya,

"Diversity without complexity" is the essence of a whole field of game design. I suggest checking out any of the games by the German designer Reiner Knizia. They aren't RPGs; they're competitive traditional games, but they really illustrate the principle you're aiming toward. His games are famous for seeming a little simplistic when you first read and play them, but then later revealing how tactical and subtle they can be once all the players have had some experience with them.

Modestly, I suggest that demon design in my own game, Sorcerer, is built on similar principles, although I don't rate myself with Knizia. The idea is not to describe the colorful effects of every imaginable demon ability, but rather to provide a relatively short list of mechanics effects - you come up with the notions about what your demon can do, and then choose any combination of effects that adds up to that. Therefore the game can produce "demon types" that I, as author, never even imagined.

That concept - that abilities or powers should be built by combining mechanics-based options and adding on the description yourself - is called "effects-first design," and not everyone likes it ... but the people who do, love it. It was pioneered all the way back in 1980 in the first version of Champions. Some interesting applications in later games include the magic system in Arrowflight and The Riddle of Steel.

Best, Ron

First of all I think this could be an incredibly fun RPG idea.  There's so many RPGs with pets and animal companions where the damn things are utterly useless, it also lends itself to a wide audience as it's easy enough to have a children's pokemon campaign while someone elsewhere is running the same setting in a far darker light, of course that all depends on if you're talking a generic multi-setting system or a game with its own setting.  Either way it could be done and it could work well I think.

Secondly I agree with Ron, get out of my head Ron.  Not only does giving mechanics that allow people to define their monsters on their own give you the possibility for enormous diversity, it also keeps things simple and doesn't flood your book with a million powers or premade monsters.  I own Sorceror actually and the demon design was one of the things I found most interesting, if you don't have it you might want to check it out just to get the gears grinding in your noggin even if you have something far more complex in mind.  I really don't know any other RPGs with a minion creation system or I'd point you to them.

Oh yeah, I just remembered - Dead of Night has a lot of pre-made creatures, but it also provides a system for making up new ones that is quite effective. In the last game I played, one of the monsters (made up by someone else) was a vaguely-defined mass of nasty skittering things that the mind's eye (or screen view) never quite saw, ever. The rules worked great for it.

Best, Ron

Thanks for the comments. It's true that trying to achieve diversity without complexity is the focus of much design, but that's because it's important, especially in a game where one of the main draws is having a diverse group of monsters. I've been debating for a while whether or not to use effects first design, but by now I've pretty much decided on it, for reasons such as the ones strongbadmun stated, like not having to have a ton of pre-made monsters and powers. I'll be sure to check out Reiner Kniza's stuff (I'm a big board game fan anyways) and I've been thinking about getting sorcerer for a while now, and now I'm pretty much over the top on it.

Anyways, if anyone else has any thoughts or comments, especially if they've played an RPG or other game with a good creature design system I might be able to draw inspiration from, I'd appreciate it if you posted.

umm ok well it's not monster creation but White Wolf's Aberrant and Guardians of Order's BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouth) both have creation systems I enjoyed, one for superheros and one for basically anything you can imagine.  They might be a bit more complicated than you want, (BESM char creation takes up like half the book) but they're another thing for you to peek at if you're so inclined.

i guess the complexity will come from how many monsters a single character could control during a single fight. Pokemon and other games like it are interesting with their dynamics, as each character has a bunch of monsters, but only uses one or two at any given time. Figuring out how you want the fights to flow up front with help you with your designing later one. If you're looking for two characters to have dozens of monsters between them fighting at a time, then that's why too complex.

Hope that jars some cool ideas!

-Oni

Oni makes a good point, however if your intention is something of a tactical RPG with minis and grid maps then you could concievably have a whole lot more monsters in play than if you're just sitting at a table with character sheets describing everything.  Either way it's really not a matter of the game's design as it's a matter of the individual gaming group's preference.  He could say "Tamers only use one monster at a time" and a game group could say "nah, let's use them all and go nuts".  Another question is whether the characters are combatants too or just their monsters?  Are we talking pokemon or would the Tamer be cracking skulls too, and if so are the monsters way stronger than a human or are they about equivalent?  This kind of thing has sooooo many yes or no questions to go over.

Exactly! And there are so many different ways to approach this type of project. I'll be following this thread closely, cause i can't wait to see what becomes of it. :-)

-Oni

Glad to see the interest!
Anyways, as to how many monsters a player could control at a time, Strongbadmun hit it pretty much on the head. While I'd probably have the default be each player having only one or two out at a time (although they might have many more), obviously I can't stop a gaming group from going wild and sending out all of them (in fact, I'd probably encourage it if that's what you wan to do). Depending on whether the group playing is more into tactics or if they like playing on a more cerebral level (also depending on how complex they want things to be, since running four guys at once is obviously more complex than running one or two) they can make some decisions themselves, although I'd say what assumptions should be used to obtain certain levels of complexity, each gaming group could also tailor it pretty easily to they own preferences.
As to the tamers themselves wading in and beating down on monsters "the old fashioned way" that would be something I'd include as optional, as it depends mostly on the kind of campaign you're trying to run. A game set in a pokemon-esque modern day world with kids and their monsters probably wouldn't have the teenagers and ten year olds duking it out with fire breathing frogs, but a game set in a fantasy setting with the characters being sorcerers who capture the monsters of the realm to go on adventures would be lacking a whole lot if you couldn't bust out a sword and go in yourself every once in a while. But again, if the group playing wants to give their modern day kids guns and let them have at it then they're obviously free to do so, but that does change the dynamics of the game somewhat, and I'd probably give some advice on how to handle that situation. (So that every battle doesn't end on round one when the monster mauls the tamer after running around their monster.)
Anyways, I'm still in the relatively early design process so any ideas or feedback would still be much appreciated!

A thought on the control part of the idea:

You could have a command skill/stat/pool/something that allowed you to issue a limited number of commands in combat. This would make one on one fights into action/counteraction duels while allowing for less subtle masses of pets duking it out.

Why will they fight?

I was kind of intruiged by the game Pokémon: The Evil Inside which is an action based game where all the pokémon in the pokémon world has been infected with a virus that makes them rabid so humanity is in a full scale war with them. Most of the game is about going around shooting them to gory death with your M4.

So what about conflicts having different seriousness + lots of social constraints. Like the codes of duelling in the real world, if you break them it's a huge shame (since duels are all about honour in the first place). Like, the civil duel is just having the monsters beat each other out cold or drawing blood or something but out in the wilderness you fight mercilessly against the wild beasts and poachers and bandits don't have any qualms about trying to go around the monster and killing the tamer outright.

That is a spot-on question.

whiteknife, I think that's the core to your whole design.

Best, Ron

Why they fight is indeed one of the big reasons that I wanted to do the game in the first place. The source material for monster tamer shows is usually aimed at the young kids market and as such the constant fighting is hand waved away as "for fun" or "they're just unconscious" despite what would really happen which wouldn't exactly be kid friendly. Indeed, social constraints are a big thing, since some serious restrictions need to be placed on someone to get them to hold back in any fight, even in one where they themselves aren't personally fighting. I've thought of a default setting for my game that I hope allows players to address (or ignore, if desired) some of these interesting issues. The setting goes something like this:

At first, everything was just a game. Kids of all ages were caught up in "monster mania", thrilling to the adventures of their favorite monsters and buying up all the merchandise they could get their little hands on. Then it turned out that the monsters were real. At first, this seemed great- after all, who wouldn't be happy to find out that the action packed adventures of their favorite toys, shows, and games were real? The kids, having extensive knowledge of the monsters habits, grew to be friends with the monsters and they had fun adventures and playful battles with their buddies. That didn't last long of course, as the idea of thousands of powerful slave beasts appearing from nowhere excited military agents across the world just as much as it excited the kids. Flashing forward to after the long and gruesome war that engulfed the planet soon after, the world stands much changed. The remaining population of the world is forced to flee to the few safe zones left after the war, but space within these zones is limited and even though the war is over, the people left are no less argumentative or violent than they once were.

Afraid of the assuredly apocalyptic results of another great war, the various nations propose a new idea in order to settle conflicts: a massive tournament of sorts, where children representing each nation are to travel the land in order to compete against each other in order to determine which nations will be favored in various disputes. Of course, such matters are not all fun and fair play, and despite a number of rules enforcing balance amongst the competition, many slip through the cracks and fall prey to "unlawful competition". Even if everyone you meet in the "tournament" plays by its rules, brigands, wild monsters, and monster hating religious sects abound that never even agreed to fight fair in the first place...

That's not the entire setting, but I think it gets the picture across. And hey, if you don't like it, I don't really plan on doing much if any setting specific content so you could set your game in whatever world you wanted.

As always, I appreciate feedback, and anyone who has comments or suggestions on the general idea, the setting, the rules, or whatever should post.

That's well and good for the in-setting justification of why these monster fights happen at all, but it's not quite the answer to the question as I saw it. Let me re-phrase and see what you think.

My version of the question is: why do these particular individuals fight? In other words, if I'm playing a character, what are some of the personal situations that could have led to being one of these kids, rather than just monster-less any ol' kid?

There are hundreds of conceivable answers, ranging all the way from "a monster picked me and I still have no idea why," to "only special kids who've undergone intensive training and have deep emotional drives to fight." What I'm saying is not to advocate any particular end or part of this spectrum. I am saying that it's probably a good idea for you to narrow it down a little, in terms of character creation.

Any thoughts on that?

Best, Ron

For most tamers fighting is at the simplest matter a question of being forced into it. Much like most kids go to school and have little choice in the matter, so to do tamers fight because the government and their families give them immense pressure to do so. Sure you could just not go to school or fail out of your classes, but there are punishments for that and your only other options are managing to get a crappy job or becoming a criminal since you don’t really have any marketable skills. It’s the same way for tamers, only with higher stakes. Instead of going to school in order to make the school look good and to get skills needed to get a good job, you’re battling pet monsters in epic and often very dangerous fights in order to make your entire nation look good and to earn enough government money to have the pay of a good job for life, but without having to actually do work. Also like in school, there are some kids who are driven to be the best in order to prove themselves or get an even better job (or in this case, rock star levels of cash). Along the way, tamers grow up, make friends, and all that other fun stuff, assuming they don’t bite it (not something particularly common, but similar to the risk of being one of those dangerous animal handlers you see on TV only with no formal and precious little informal training). Carrying out the school metaphor to its close, tamer abilities (The ability to have monsters obey you without months or years of training and the ability to have monsters not like attacking you) also have a time limit, as they tend to run out in the late teens.

Tamers personal goals and motivations are important too, but those are up to the individual player when they design their character. Also, depending on the exact nature of the campaign that you may be playing in the ever popular reason for fighting known as “in order to not die” may come up in varying degrees of frequency, although this tends to be a rather rare reason in the default setting, but it can be fun to break it out every now and then to ratchet up the tension.

Well, that was interesting. Thanks for the helpful question Ron and I hope I’ve answered it at least for the most part. This thread is helping me out a lot, so anyone who wants to comment on anything, especially this post should give some feedback. I just eat this stuff up.

From a development standpoint (and my own personal preference), I think the only part that I don't like is that in a world and setting centered around monster taming... only kids can do it. I'd say that everyone should be able to tame them or have the tamers only be a single class, with the adults having just as cool things to do, since everyone won't want to play a kid.

I think i'd still play the game either way, mind you. :-) But as a personal preference, i prefer to give the player as many options as possible.

Hope that helps at all with the development.

-Oni

Yeah, I was kind of wondering if that part was too restrictive myself. To be honest, it doesn't matter particularly much and I could change it pretty easily. The reasons that I put in there in the first place were pretty much just 1) genre conventions and 2) to add a minor wrinkle to the character's motivations.

As for the idea of having different ages able to tame in different ways, that was an idea that i was exploring as well. Adults could gain or re-awaken tamer powers by using cybernetics, which are widely available, but have the downside of some long term health effects (but chances are if you've bothered to go back into the monster fighting business you won't be around until age 90 anyways...). Also, a small percentage of tamers (say 5%) retain their abilities forever.

Seems like everyone has something constructive to say, and it's helping me out a lot Comments on anything, especially this post (does that sound like it frees up enough options or should I just remove the kid thing all together?) would be great.

The cybernetics thing sounds good, but still makes it too stressful to play an adult. And the only way to justify an adult without cybernetics would be to roll under 5% on a percentile roll. :-P

I wouldn't say remove the kid thing. I say remove the kid-only thing. But then, give them limitations. You could be, possibly, be a kid with the capability of taming a lot of monsters and controlling them all at once, since their their minds are fully open. As they get older, they are able to control fewer monsters, but with more accuracy. Or... you know... something like that.

Just an idea.

-Oni

You know, what's funny is that I already have a mechanic in the system that's a kind of stat with a sliding scale between two types of control: one where you're more emotional and have more trouble giving monsters routine commands but are better at getting them to perform above and beyond every once in a while, and the other where you're more strict and monsters fight better in general but don't pull off unexpected boosts in power very often. For some reason it never occurred to me to tie this in with age, but that actually makes a lot of sense and I think it'd solve some of my problems. Of course, you could still be a strict kid or a loose adult, but that could be the exception not the rule. As far as tying a mechanical thing in with age I don't think it's really a problem seeing as the setting kind of supports that.

So how about that? Does that seem like it'd solve or at least alleviate the problem?

It does for me. :-)

At the same time, don't feel like you need to change stuff for must one person. I'm just little old me giving my opinion. But there could be others who don't like the changes as well. It takes all types and you can't please everyone.

That said... you've definitely made ME like the idea more.

-Oni

I know what you mean. And to be honest, I think that what you said almost certainly applies to a lot of people (I mean, there's almost certainly more than just you who'd be upset with playing as a kid) and in any case, it's just the setting, its not the be all end all for the game. I mean, you could stick the game in a variety of settings, and this one should be pretty open if it's going to be a good setting anyways.

That being said, if anyone else has any opinions or whatever on anything post away.

How do you keep thing simple, but diverse?
Combinatorics.
Pick a small number of traits or attributes and rearrange them in every possible permutation and BOOM diversity.

A while back I was desiging a game where every monster had up four slots for 'element gems' (fire, water, earth, air). Each combination of element gems determines what sort of monster you get.

F
W
E
A
FF
FW
FE
FA
WW
WE
WA
EE
EA
AA
FFF
FFW
FFE
FFA
FWW
FWE
FWA
FEE
FEA
WWW
WWE
WWA
WEE
WEA
WAA
EEE
EEA
AAA
...and so on and so forth.

Also, I agree with some of the previous posters. I wouldn't want to play as a kid. Actually, maybe I would once or twice but mostly I'd rather play as a young adult.

That combining idea sounds pretty good, especially considering that i was going to have elements play a pretty large role in my games combat system. If I made each element have its own traits kind of like the colors in Magic the Gathering then I think that might be a pretty good way to up the diversity while making each one distinct...thanks for that, it sounds like something I'll incorporate into the game.

You know, I think this would be more interesting as a cross-genre game than a straight RPG. That is, I could see there being a trading card game and/or a miniatures game integrated into this to help convey the collection aspect.
Also, when you say that you want players to be in control of lots and lots of monsters, the first thing I picture is some kind of war game with lots of little pieces arranged on a grid.
You may not need to use miniatures though, I think a ton of dice could be used instead if you had some way of making each one distinct enough to be recognized as a different type of monster.
...
...a collectable dice game? Naw.

I'd have to disagree with Chronoplasm on the card game/miniature thing. I think the reason why i'm so interested in this type of RPG, is that i've not really seen this type of approach in an RPg before. Everything like it is already either a card game or miniature game or videogame. I'd love to see it well executed in RPG fashion.

That's just me though.

-Oni

I have to disagree with myself too.
This can certainly be done in an RPG.
If you do want to go the $$$$ route,
perhaps, instead of doing a "Monster Manual" type thing, you spread out the monster information throughout the core and supplemental books.

The non-existence of an RPG that does this kind of thing was one of my main reasons for making the game in the first place.

As for a collectibles thing, I can't really see myself doing that (it'd be cool, but probably a bit too expensive to be honest), but if players used pre-created monsters (say, all the monsters are from pokemon, DnD, or whatever) then I've got other people who've essentially already done my job for me. And as for a collectible dice game, there has been one of those: dragon dice by TSR which came out quite a while ago. I actually played quite a bit of that game myself, after picking up a ton of stuff for the game in a bargain bin after it went under (over supplying retailers combined with the high cost of making thousands of dice made the game tank and contributed to the fall of TSR). It was fun, but not really what I'm going for. I'm planning on having the "a bunch of monsters" thing be  a side system kind of like the mass combat rules in some systems rather than the base model for combat since not all players will have the resources/time that would be required to manage that kind of battle efficiently.

I think you're headed in the right direction... however, i definitely feel that, while the system needs to be really good, you shouldn't shirk the setting. From your previous post, you seem to give it a back seat, but i can't tell you that i own a lot of books that i bought for the setting only, whether or not i liked the mechanics. Just thought i'd say that. Right now the setting is very malleable and doesn't need to be the main concern while you building, but don't forget about it either.

Peace!

-Oni

Yeah, I haven't really worked on the setting that much yet, mostly because I want to get the mechanics hammered out first. I have a lot of ideas for the setting, but I haven't really gotten them solidified into one coherent whole yet. All I've worked out to that point so far are the parts of the setting needed to preserve the genre tropes. To be honest I'm not sure how much setting I should put in. On the one hand, having very little setting allows the game to be put into whatever setting the individual people want, but on the other hand an interesting setting can be what makes a game go from just OK to great. Right now I'm leaning towards a setting with lots of parts in it that can be taken in or out as desired or used as a whole.

So overall I haven't really forgotten the setting, I just haven't gotten to doing much with it yet. On the up side though, I'm making some good progress on the mechanics so hopefully I'll have some time to devote to the setting pretty soon.

Hi there,

Any news on how you're getting on with this one?

BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouth) have a suppliment called Super Fuzzy Animals which, if memory serves right, tweaks the superhero rules to fit in with furry critters, it is very closely linked the normal BESM rules, I've never really clicked with them but might be worthwile taking a look. 
It might also be worthwhile taking a look at Streetfighter RPG (yes I know its not all that but) it has X number of combat manouvers that when played in a sequence your character has 'trained' for gets better results but of course your opponents can find out about them.

A possible different tact could be have the critters as the main character and the tamer in the sidekick role?

Chris

Well, I had put this project on hold for a while, but I recently came back to it and made some changes. I had been having trouble with a lot of things, especially mapping the source materials to an RPG, especially considering that they were kind of diverse and didn't fit well with a group dynamic (for example, almost all fights in shows such as pokemon are one vs. one, which doesn't fit well in an RPG). Anyways, in order to iron out some of these issues, I decided to take a step away from the source material somewhat and create a new setting that promotes a different kind of play. Anyways, here's what I've got so far as to the new setting:

Man and monsters have never been on good terms. Monsters didn’t like how man abused nature and man didn’t like how much stronger the monsters were than them. For a very long time, man and monsters existed on uneasy terms, with the monsters keeping man inside a few isolated towns, and man trying to take as much land as it could from the monsters. However, one day all this changed when man invented a device capable of capturing monsters and transporting them into an artificial world where they could be reprogrammed into obedient pets and servants.

Almost overnight, man’s dominion grew to include the entire world; with monsters no longer an impediment to its progress. Hundreds of years later things have changed- with monsters no longer a common enemy to unite it the various peoples of man became isolated and split into various factions and nations. But even worse than that- a new problem has surfaced: vicious monsters (dubbed alphas) bent on destroying everything have begun surfacing, which while bad wouldn’t be much of a problem except that these “alphas” all share one vital trait- immortality. Whenever they’re killed they simply come back in a few days (or even hours) to wreak even more destruction. In order to combat this menace, teams of tamers have begun springing up, devoted to capturing these alphas in order to stop their rampages. But even when captured, alphas remain resistant to the mind control technology used to make normal monsters obedient, and are almost more likely to eat you than they are to do what you say.

Players play tamers- using pet monsters, heavy weaponry, and whatever else it takes, their job is to make things safe for the masses by taking out rampaging monsters, evil societies, or whatever else comes their way- hopefully without dying in the process.

So one of the things would be that you’d have your basic set of abilities- your guns, regular monsters, or whatever, and then you’d have the dangerous stuff- the big monsters you can barely control, but have power that far outstrips that of your regular stuff. So the question becomes- can you risk using the big monsters? Can you risk not using them? Other questions arise too, like: are these monsters really evil, or are they just (justifiably) angry that man has basically enslaved their race? Why are you a tamer? Is it a sense of duty? Do you want fame? etc.

So anyways, that's what I've got, I guess. The game changed a lot since I first came up with the idea, but I think that this version is a keeper. I'll probably post up some rules in a few days once I get it all together. Anyways, anyone who wants to leave a comment, good or bad should feel free, I always appreciate it.

Yeah, I was just about to suggest checking out that BESM sourcebook. It only adds a tiny handful of things rules-wise, but it does explore different possibilities within the genre a lot, including crazy stuff like kids confronting government conscription of their beloved monsters.

There's also S. John Ross' game Pokethulu, which is now available as a free PDF. It's a simple, traditional RPG. Its setting is basically Pokemon, but with a bit of Cthulhu mythos thrown in. Take note of the Aspects, Weaknesses, and Attacks of the monsters.

Pokethulhu's monster special attacks basically have a number of dice and an aspect, and that's it. I don't know how much detail you want to put into the monsters' special abilities, and in turn how much you want to get into tactical combat, but I definitely like using different elements, perhaps combined with attack types (melee, beam, cone, blast, entangle, shield, etc.).

I too would suggest not bothering with collectible stuff. That kind of product pretty much only makes sense if you're a company with enough marketing leverage to create a decent-sized fanbase. Non-collectible spinoff games might make sense, but unless you're overwhelmingly inspired I'd definitely concentrate on the RPG first. Besides, Digimon, Monster Rancher, and of course Pokemon already have CCGs.

(And then the forum told me there was a post while I was typing up this post)

So if I'm understanding this right, the game is going to be about people using trained monsters to protect humanity from more dangerous monsters? That does sound neat, and as you say, sounds like it would work better for the group dynamic of an RPG. Do you still want to include Pokemon-style one-on-one duels? It might not be a central thing to the game, but it might make sense for monster tamers to do that kind of thing to train for the real battles.

Yeah, I've checked out pokethulu. I thought they did a very good job on the attack/monster desgin system and something of that level of complexity (probably a bit more though, since this is less of a comedy and more action-y) is probably what i'll end up with.

Although I do enjoy me a good CCG, I'm not going planning to make any sort of collectible stuff, especially since I want you to be able to basically make your own stuff (or steal from an existing source if you're so inclined). Although I suppose that a non-collectible card game might be a possibility, it's not in the works or anything.

I would indeed like to include pokemon style one on one battles as at least a side thing, but I have no idea as to how to make that interesting for anyone other than the person fighting. If anyone has any ideas for that, they would be much appreciated. Also, if anyone has any ideas on how to handle training in between fights that would be cool too.

Yeah, handling duels would be tricky. At least within the source material, the monsters don't really do much beyond what the trainer tells them to do (and if they do, it's probably enough for the GM and/or some die rolls to figure out what), so having other players be the monsters doesn't seem terribly effective to me.

The only other thing I can think of is to do something like Fan Mail in PTA, or Dreams in the Japanese game Yuuyake Koyake. Dreams are like Fan Mail, but there's no limit to how often you can give them out (just one Dream per "thing" that happens in the game), and you spend them to improve connections rather than to be more effective per se. Still, in my limited experience with Yuuyake Koyake, it did give the other players an incentive to pay attention to the game even when they weren't participating. Maybe the other players could represent the crowd watching the duel?