Running kiddie anime game - HELP!

[Psion]

Okay, my daughter got a hold of my BESM d20 and read things like magical girls and monster trainer classes, and now she wants me to run a game of it.

But I have no earthly clue how to run such a game.

The best I can think of for plots are:

- Lots of histrionics
- Bumbling self-defeating villains (inspired by Team Rocket. I'm thinking a squad of bumbling wannabe ninjas)
- A semi competant but suppremely arragant and effette villain (inspired by whatever that prick is on Yu-Gi-Oh that always sneers at him.)
- Toss it all in with lots of cute monsters and a scooby-do plotline.

Any other ideas? Either for a game or how to keep from slittling my wrists?

 

[mroberon1972]

1. Do NOT make them face anything that looks like your avatar.
2. Avoid truly evil villains. Everyone should have redeeming features of some kind. Even the 'overlord' villains have some kind of honor code that stops them from rolling over the villian.
3. Avoid sub-plots beyond the minimal.
4. Keep villians around and alive. They make the players feel like they have an old friend to torment.

Hmnnn...
Later...

John Bowden

 

[Von Ether]

no offence, but are you sure your kid is going to sit through all of that BESM AND d20 stuff to make a character?

I bought Mecha Morphasis so I could run it with my son and I am having second thoughts.

 

[HellHound]

Von Ether - I am running a BESM d20 game for a team of 12-year olds. They LOVE it.

Psion - rent some Sailor Moon stuff. Or even buy them. The movies are available on DVD cheap. I'm running a mix of Sailor Moon season 1 with a bit of Pokemon and a touch of Feng Shui (the RPG).

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

hey, illithids are cute! anyway, I agree with a lot of what is said here. Another good thing to throw in is some kind of theme music. Be sure to make colors and sounds play a large role as well. You also need some romance or some sort, innocent of course. Do it right and you will be the hero of the little girls at school. Also think about anthropomorphs, if done right they can be great for kids. I always wanted to run a winnie the pooh game. Also, depending on what kind of girl she is think about dressing up. Little simple things can go a long way to make a kid a complete devotee of rpgs. There was also a very interesting rpg out a while back that used stuffed animals as miniatures. It look ed really fun but I can't rememeber the name.

 

[Alzrius]

Psion, just how old is your daughter? I find that by the time kids hit double-digits, they can handle some relatively mature stuff as far as violence and malevolence goes. Relatively speaking.

 

[WizarDru]

I think the two most relevant questions are:

1. How old is your daughter?
2. What kind of game/story is she looking for?

Number 1 should drive your content and complexity. Number 2 should drive your setup and story. If she wants to play as a Pokemon trainer, that's easy enough to do, and plenty of reference material is available. As an idea, let her create her own pokemon, and then you can stat them out. If she's looking for more of a 'magical girl' story, there are plenty of options there. Sailor Moon is a popular variant mixture of the 'magical girl' concept mixed with the Sentai show (i.e. Power Rangers).

If the game is just going to be her alone, then you could try going for something more akin to Snow Fairy Sugar, with her being or having a magical friend. More traditional 'magical girl' shows usually have the main character as a young girl who can transform into essentially a 'fairy superhero', usually with a magic wand or the like, who doesn't really fight, but often uses her powers to help her friends out, like changing shape or granting wishes, and so forth.

If you want to go for a different feel, an older daughter might like Angelic Layer, where a girl joins a what is essentially a fighting league for dolls. Essentially, the girl chooses her doll, then customizes it based on her personality, and then bonds and trains with it...it's a little bit Pokemon, a little bit Barbie and pretty good.

Another choice might be to do something like Princess Nine, one of my daughters favorite anime, in which an ambitious principal at a girl's school gathers a baseball team of girls to attempt to win the pennant against the boy's teams in Japan's most prestigious school tournament (think high school world series). The main character's father was once a great pitcher, and she's inherited his devastating fastball...but learns about teamwork, friendship and family.

If you're more concerned with the tropes of the genre, you need to be more specific about the subgenre of anime. While there are some conventions that apply broadly, many do not, and many are purely visual sight-gags that won't apply. Still others won't mean much unless you already understand them, and some won't be appropriate. Explaining that male virgin gets a nosebleed when he thinks lascivious thoughts is a classic example of those.

 

[Stormfalcon]

Still others won't mean much unless you already understand them, and some won't be appropriate. Explaining that male virgin gets a nosebleed when he thinks lascivious thoughts is a classic example of those.

I dunno...Sasami from Tenchi Muyo gives us a classic response to the situation. "You're a naughty boy, aren't you?"

I already mentioned this in the rpg.net sister thread to this, but another series to toss in for inspiration would be Card Captor Sakura. Nicely blends the magical girl and pet monster genres with less emphasis on combat and more on problem-solving and friendship. As I also said on rpg.net, and cannot repeat it enough, avoid avoid avoid CardCaptors (the dub version). Horridly chopped-up and rewritten, not to mention incomplete (video releases were canned partway through as the original sub versions outdid it in sales).

 

[Aaron L]

You HAVE to have a Tuxedo Mask type boy for her to gush over, a mysterious boy in a mask or hat who comes and helps her out. And a masot, a cute furry bouncy mascot. Maybe a bunny that turns into a robot or power armor. And a gaggle of friends for her to gossip with and go to school with.