roseembolism (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
roseembolism) wrote2014-09-01 10:21 pm
roseembolism) wrote2014-09-01 10:21 pm
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Actual Play, Golden Sky Stories: The Little Shirne in the Forest
Golden Sky Stories: Actual Play, "The Little Shrine in the Forest"
"Not that I care or whatever, but this is the story about me, the most important character in the story, and how I, OK, with the help of some other animal spirits, saved the world- make that a town- OK, a strawberry patch. And made a young girl's life better. Not that that's important to me you see. Because I'm a cat. And I just do what I want, just because." Mako, the black cat
This last weekend, at a small "Not going to Pacificon or Celesticon" NonCon, A one-off game of Golden Sky Stories happened, with five players who had never played GSS before, and a GM who had hadn't run a game in years.. This is the story of what happened, as related by Mako. The Most Important Character in the Game.
Golden Sky Stories is a game rather different from other role playing games. Rather than wandering dungeons, slaying monsters or the like, the players take the role f minor animal spirits who help the people in a small rural town in Japan. They help with minor crises, that are still quite important to the people involved. This is best described as a slice-of-life supernatural story, in the vein of Japanese anime such as Natsumi's Book of Friends, Totoro, Kamichu, Pon Poko, and Gingitsune. The emphasis is not on violence, but on solving minor problems in a heartwarming fashion.
I had a quick run-through of the rules the night before, and I was a bit doubtful about how they would run in practice. The system is diceless, and I was uncertain that the attributes would match the difficulties. I also wasn't sure how quickly the attributes of Wonder and Feelings would fill; which was important, because those supplied the points for things such as powers and changing shape.
Character creation
Sandy started off with the setting: It's the small town of Ichigodani (strawberry valley) in the mountains of Japan, devoted to small family farms that grow vegetables, especially strawberries. We were a group of local animal spirits that were friends, and quietly helped around in small ways in the local town. She took a couple minutes to explain the spiritual aspect of Japan (skipping a lot of the very sweet text). And then it was actual character creation time. We were given our choice of animals, and I naturally grabbed cat, because you know, awesome. Our reference sheets for each animal had a selection of six unique powers with varying costs to activate, which we wrote down on our character sheet. We then could chose two weaknesses, which would give associated powers. I chose Selfish (associated power: Stealthy- justify seeing any scene that happened within my lifetime) Not a Swimmer (associated power: acrobatic). I promised the group I would avoid the raging torrent of Death in the middle of town "Actually, it's just a stream really, it's only-" RAGING TORRENT OF DEATH. We then went on to what is really the most important part of the game, the connections we had with other people. Connections determine two important stats- Wonder and Feelings. We had an immediate connection of two points with the town, since we were locals. We also had a two-point connection with each of our friends- I mean the losers I hang around with for no good reason. Because I'm a cat, and I can do that if I want.
Already I was getting a sense of my character's personality.
Connections come with different emotions that can be represented, such as admiration, respect, etc. Also notable is that they are a two-way street, in that while how I feel about others fuels my Wonder, how others feel about me fuels my Feelings. I decided right off that I would have a rivalry with the fox (because shes snooty and has a temple, not that I'm jealous or anything) and the dog, because well, canines. Fox naturally decided that rivalry would be a good thing, while dog chose to love me. Because dog loves everybody. Damn he's annoying. I decided I liked the tanuki, because she's silly and fun (and is good at dumpster diving), and was protective toward bird, because nobody was going to eat bird before me. I didn't REALLY like him, I was just waiting for him to get bigger. Tanuki liked me back, and bird I think respected me. Weird.
As part of this, we had to settle on names. I chose Makkurokurosuke. Because I like the name, and not because some human thought I as a kitten looked like a black soot. The rest of the group unaminously dicded I was "Mako". the others were Suzune the Fox, Tomo the Dog, Bunker the Tanuki and Pixel the budgie. Dog started with a more Western name, but at some point chose a more Japanese style name. Sandy pointed out that dogs in Japan could have all kinds of names, even western; that's when I stated I would be calling him "pochi" (the Japanese equivalent to Spot.) Next came appearance. I had been thinking of relatively casual clothing, like the example cat, but then I decided on something different, to emphasize my weirdness. OK, black cat, so my human form wears black. So a black sailor fuku. In the old, 1950s,-1960s style. Black stockings, black shoes. Not sexy, not attractive, but odd and creepy. I added straight black hair, ruler-striaght bangs, and an expressionless stare. Like that a cat disguised as a human. Mako knows a lot of stories about demon cats, and no, she's not embarrassed at ALL about the stories of bakeneko, so shut up. The fox took the old temple maiden appearance from the game example, and the tanuki player drew a sideway's "What happened" selfie for her picture.
After that, it was totaling up the Wonder and Friendship points. With four friends at one dot, and the town at two, we started off with six Wonder and Friendship. Except for Tomo the Dog, because he took the "Loves Everybody" flaw, er, power. That idiot had 9 Wonder. Not that I'm jealous or anything.
And then were stats. There were four attribute stats in GSS:
Henge: How good you are at the spirit stuff (Suzune the fox was best at this- not that I care)
Animal How good you are at animal stuff, like hiding, climbing, etc..
Adult: How good you are at things like hiding one's feelings, operating technology, etc.
Child: How good you are at playing, making up stories, etc.
Everyone had 8 points to distribute among the attributes. I chose Henge 2, Animal 3, Adult 2,Child 1. So I was good at animal stuff, and bad at child stuff. This fit into my growing impression of Mako as being completely deadpan, with no expression of humor or friendship. She has no need for anyone, and if she expressed something like friendship, it would be by doing something. Really. She's just always around these other henge, because, that's why.
Next: the first Scene! Rivalries will be enacted! Shrimp and strawberries will be eaten! Rocks will be thrown!
"Not that I care or whatever, but this is the story about me, the most important character in the story, and how I, OK, with the help of some other animal spirits, saved the world- make that a town- OK, a strawberry patch. And made a young girl's life better. Not that that's important to me you see. Because I'm a cat. And I just do what I want, just because." Mako, the black cat
This last weekend, at a small "Not going to Pacificon or Celesticon" NonCon, A one-off game of Golden Sky Stories happened, with five players who had never played GSS before, and a GM who had hadn't run a game in years.. This is the story of what happened, as related by Mako. The Most Important Character in the Game.
Golden Sky Stories is a game rather different from other role playing games. Rather than wandering dungeons, slaying monsters or the like, the players take the role f minor animal spirits who help the people in a small rural town in Japan. They help with minor crises, that are still quite important to the people involved. This is best described as a slice-of-life supernatural story, in the vein of Japanese anime such as Natsumi's Book of Friends, Totoro, Kamichu, Pon Poko, and Gingitsune. The emphasis is not on violence, but on solving minor problems in a heartwarming fashion.
I had a quick run-through of the rules the night before, and I was a bit doubtful about how they would run in practice. The system is diceless, and I was uncertain that the attributes would match the difficulties. I also wasn't sure how quickly the attributes of Wonder and Feelings would fill; which was important, because those supplied the points for things such as powers and changing shape.
Character creation
Sandy started off with the setting: It's the small town of Ichigodani (strawberry valley) in the mountains of Japan, devoted to small family farms that grow vegetables, especially strawberries. We were a group of local animal spirits that were friends, and quietly helped around in small ways in the local town. She took a couple minutes to explain the spiritual aspect of Japan (skipping a lot of the very sweet text). And then it was actual character creation time. We were given our choice of animals, and I naturally grabbed cat, because you know, awesome. Our reference sheets for each animal had a selection of six unique powers with varying costs to activate, which we wrote down on our character sheet. We then could chose two weaknesses, which would give associated powers. I chose Selfish (associated power: Stealthy- justify seeing any scene that happened within my lifetime) Not a Swimmer (associated power: acrobatic). I promised the group I would avoid the raging torrent of Death in the middle of town "Actually, it's just a stream really, it's only-" RAGING TORRENT OF DEATH. We then went on to what is really the most important part of the game, the connections we had with other people. Connections determine two important stats- Wonder and Feelings. We had an immediate connection of two points with the town, since we were locals. We also had a two-point connection with each of our friends- I mean the losers I hang around with for no good reason. Because I'm a cat, and I can do that if I want.
Already I was getting a sense of my character's personality.
Connections come with different emotions that can be represented, such as admiration, respect, etc. Also notable is that they are a two-way street, in that while how I feel about others fuels my Wonder, how others feel about me fuels my Feelings. I decided right off that I would have a rivalry with the fox (because shes snooty and has a temple, not that I'm jealous or anything) and the dog, because well, canines. Fox naturally decided that rivalry would be a good thing, while dog chose to love me. Because dog loves everybody. Damn he's annoying. I decided I liked the tanuki, because she's silly and fun (and is good at dumpster diving), and was protective toward bird, because nobody was going to eat bird before me. I didn't REALLY like him, I was just waiting for him to get bigger. Tanuki liked me back, and bird I think respected me. Weird.
As part of this, we had to settle on names. I chose Makkurokurosuke. Because I like the name, and not because some human thought I as a kitten looked like a black soot. The rest of the group unaminously dicded I was "Mako". the others were Suzune the Fox, Tomo the Dog, Bunker the Tanuki and Pixel the budgie. Dog started with a more Western name, but at some point chose a more Japanese style name. Sandy pointed out that dogs in Japan could have all kinds of names, even western; that's when I stated I would be calling him "pochi" (the Japanese equivalent to Spot.) Next came appearance. I had been thinking of relatively casual clothing, like the example cat, but then I decided on something different, to emphasize my weirdness. OK, black cat, so my human form wears black. So a black sailor fuku. In the old, 1950s,-1960s style. Black stockings, black shoes. Not sexy, not attractive, but odd and creepy. I added straight black hair, ruler-striaght bangs, and an expressionless stare. Like that a cat disguised as a human. Mako knows a lot of stories about demon cats, and no, she's not embarrassed at ALL about the stories of bakeneko, so shut up. The fox took the old temple maiden appearance from the game example, and the tanuki player drew a sideway's "What happened" selfie for her picture.
After that, it was totaling up the Wonder and Friendship points. With four friends at one dot, and the town at two, we started off with six Wonder and Friendship. Except for Tomo the Dog, because he took the "Loves Everybody" flaw, er, power. That idiot had 9 Wonder. Not that I'm jealous or anything.
And then were stats. There were four attribute stats in GSS:
Henge: How good you are at the spirit stuff (Suzune the fox was best at this- not that I care)
Animal How good you are at animal stuff, like hiding, climbing, etc..
Adult: How good you are at things like hiding one's feelings, operating technology, etc.
Child: How good you are at playing, making up stories, etc.
Everyone had 8 points to distribute among the attributes. I chose Henge 2, Animal 3, Adult 2,Child 1. So I was good at animal stuff, and bad at child stuff. This fit into my growing impression of Mako as being completely deadpan, with no expression of humor or friendship. She has no need for anyone, and if she expressed something like friendship, it would be by doing something. Really. She's just always around these other henge, because, that's why.
Next: the first Scene! Rivalries will be enacted! Shrimp and strawberries will be eaten! Rocks will be thrown!