I Try To Become Mayor!

Just when I thought I saw the smallest RPG in the form of One-Page RPGs, along comes Clones, An Arnold RPG made by Erika Chappell of Newstand Press. How small is it? Well, the rules are all explained onto one business card.

Yes.

A business card.

I knew I couldn’t pass soloing this game, so here we go. The plot is that I’m a clone of a person and that I’m wanting to take over the world. Now, the game is meant to be played with multiple people, as each of them would give a list of skills for you to do, but since I’m playing solo, I’m gonna change it up a bit.

The Voyager Goes On A Fantasy Trip

So, going into a journaling kick, I’m gonna play the Fantasy Trip solo engine. Now, I looked at the gaming system based off this engine and sufficed to say, I’m kinda interested. Now, I’m using the “In the Labyrinth” rule set, which expands a lot on the Fantasy Trip game.

Creating a character for this seems pretty straight forward. I have three stats, Strength, Dexterity, and IQ, to which I can spend eight points to increase. Going with a human Jack of All Trades with a 10 Strength, 10 Dexterity, and 11 IQ.

Each stat has different purposes, but if you’re familiar with OSR-style games, they’re pretty easy to understand. Strength (ST) is your health, spell slot, encumberment, and fortitude. Dexterity (DX) is your initiative, attack bonus, and reflex. IQ is your perception and willpower. However, IQ has something different, which is why I gave the remaining point to IQ. Effectively, they determine the feats and spells you acquire.

It’s a long story, but the point is that I have 11 IQ points to spend on any talent that isn’t higher than 11 IQ. Now, if seeing the ST, DX, and IQ acronyms make you think of GURPS, don’t worry. It’s not a coincidence. This system was made by Steve Jackson Games, who would later go on to make GURPS. One can even consider this the prototype of GURPS or even GURPS liter than lite.

This gives me some confidence in playing this game, as a gripe I had with some OSR games is that you don’t have any sort of choice in creating your character.

A Long War! Let’s Try Out Plot Armor!!

So, this is me trying out plot Armor, a journaling game based on mecha anime. As a fan of Power Rangers, it naturally bleeds into me being a marginal fan of mecha, especially mecha RPGs like Bliss Stage. I also like “episodic RPGs”, roleplaying games that break themselves up into episodes. An example of this is Primetime Adventures. It’s a huge reason why my solo system for campaigns plays them out like a TV show.

So, naturally, this hit my interests. Though, I decided to browse around for some context behind the game. This was made in a Game Jam where the theme was lite emotional mecha. If this game interests you in any way, I highly recommend you guys check out the rest of the games sent to the Jam, as some of them are also solo games or can be modded to be solo games.

As such, I understand some of the mechanics of the game, such as its one-page format. Now, I played some one-page RPGs before, like Six Hours to Midnight, and got a lot of mileage out of it, so perhaps this game, despite its small size, will grant me that same sort of play.

The premise is that it’s a journaling game about a protagonist of a mecha anime who has plot armor, meaning they cannot die by any means because of plot. In spite of this, the protagonist will die by the end of the show’s 32 episode run.

We can pick any setting we want, provided it involves Mechas known as Armor and involves mecha fighting. Whether this means mechas fighting monsters or other mechas, we don’t know. Also, difficult situations and an optional hot springs episode.

So, for this idea, and to tribute the fact that a certain fan favorite show is set to end this month, I decided to turn Westeros into a mecha anime setting where our protagonist not only has to fight against ice-themed monsters and dragons, but also against other mechas who care more about who gets to sit on the Iron Throne.

Our protagonist is Taro Yuki, bastard son of Ryubi Shokan. He has a foolish prospective into being the pilot for the Knight’s Watch. Without further to do, let’s begin Episode 1, which details how the story begins: