Super Mario RPG

There's been a couple campaigns run in the past, and everyone seemed to love it.

>>50744012
I've watched a group play this online and it looked really delightful. Probably a fun time to play with a group that's willing to go in for the proper tone. Would play.

>>50744012
It is the only one just for me.

>>50744012
I played it. It was okay, except the GM and other Players ran it EXACTLY like D&D, including the lack of roleplaying or character interactions. And the system isn't robust enough to make a purely mechanical approach fun.

>>50745285
I don't think it was ever designed to be the best mechanical system out there. There is a specific time and level of freeform you should expect when going into the game.

>>50745584
I agree, my issue was with the group, not the system.

I'd like a PDF of the rules for convenience. I think I had them at one point, but I must've lost them.

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>>50747841
I'm pretty sure PDF rules were attempted at one point, but they were never formalized.

Also, hi. I'm the lead (read: only) dev on SMRPG.

>>50747887
Makes sense.

I like the system, seems very simple and easy to get. I want to try and run it for my group if they want to, and it makes sense to gather the rules into 1 doc. I can do that in my own time.

>>50748077
If you do, let me know.

>>50745285
Yeah, you really needs a group willing to play to that paper mario tone the game's going for.

>>50748173
Mario RPGs in general are very light-hearted and are known to be silly on a regular basis.

>>50748173
You know, having paper abilities might be a nice addition. Mainly like the ones in TTYD, you know?

>>50748222
The rules aren't meant strictly for Paper Mario-esque games.

>>50748222
I would put that as a Perk that is granted by the Game Master in a specific scenario.

>>50748401
Yes, but I meant like adding them as options, should you choose to play in Paper Mario form. I know if I ever GM something like this, I'll be doing in paper.

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Guy who wanted a PDF here.

I decided to run this off today when I saw the thread. The only trouble with this PDF is that the background ran away. Is there a way to do a fancy watermarked background on pdf?

>>50751114
What's with the Inventory formula?

does this game allow for qpu movement?

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>>50751756
I don't...think so. I mean, you could play a princess if you really wanted to. Is that the same thing?

>>50751600
Just thought it made sense. Your physical might and your endurance are both factors in how much you carry. Of course, it could just be you don't have a limit, or need a specific item to increase it. Something from another player's homebrew that I thought might work and give power a little love.

>>50752020
I wasn't considering an inventory size mechanic, but it makes sense the way you put it. Still, having an arbitrary inventory limit can be inconvenient. I pull my hair out dealing with Paper Mario's 10-item limit as it is.

>>50752034
Yeah, it's reasonably strict but Paper Mario's inventory is quite severe on what you carry. Could be an optional rule for 'authentic Paper Mario experience.'

I think apart from that this char sheet is pretty good for the basics of what the Paper Mario RPG is about. Don't know if I should do something with that white space or leave it as is when I figure out how to put a nice background image in.

I remember playing on Roll20 a long while ago as a female boo, was quite fun while it lasted.

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PDF guy here. Have a prettier character sheet, with a fancy new background.

Would love to run a game of this. I have some vague ideas. Since I'm fairly new to tabletop games myself, only having started a couple of years ago, my basic idea was 'treasure hunters stumble across something they really shouldn't have and now must save the world.' Along the way, they must deal with various nasties, fashion and towering pillars of hats.

I tested it out with a friend and it was sorta fun but we couldnt build interest for an actual campaign beyond the two of us.

We played a couple go-kart racers that had the genius idea of salvaging some of Bowser wrecked tanks that were left over after Mario had just trashed them on the way to rescue the Princess again. We ended up fighting with some other territorial scrappers that had the same idea and sent them running we did our thing then got scared away as a horrific super-powered monstrosity in green overalls smashed through solid stone before unfurling its cape and following the same path Mario had went in. We swear he was 12 feet tall he flew like a bolt of green lightning and we are pretty sure he had a fire spiting piranha plant for a tongue

>>50751813
>Is that the same thing?
No. Get woke.

https://youtu.be/kpk2tdsPh0A

>>50753477
I don't know what's more ridiculous: that the guy made a 25 minute video explaining how he completed a stage using a very small number of A presses or the fact that I watched the entire thing.

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>>50753719
The most ridiculous part is all the memetic shit.
That was *the* staple /v/ joke for like 2 months.

>>50753719

I really enjoyed that video and hope he does more in the future. I didn't really even understand how it got the memetic status, I'd just like to see more like that.

>>50753899
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm watching his other videos at this moment. But christ. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised, but it just caught me of guard

>>50745207
Underrated post.

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A different, new and improved Character sheet. More boxes, including Traits and Perks and a flashy new Mario font! Everything you could ever want and more!

Would you say it's colourful enough, or should I add more colour?

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Just bumping the thread with an image from an old game I participated.

>>50754679
Also Daisy best princess.

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>>50756462
Bumping with old OC you say?

I recall making a Boo seem female was hard, I think that is the only reason she is pink

>>50745207
When I play the game I get lost in a phase
(That song is the shit)

>>50758146
Just give her eyelashes and a more catish smile, I pretty much took sprites from paper mario to make mine.

>Boonevere

A pleasure, Boo-bette. Other players ended calling her "boob et", thats why the space.

>>50758415
Don't forget hair ornaments. Nothing screams female in Mario like a bow or two on the head.

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>>50760344
The easiest way to identify someone as female is to give them notable eyelashes, extra tufts of hair, or hair ornaments.

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Character sheet update!

Again.

This time around, I made a couple of major changes. Added a status box so you always know what status your hero is at, as well as doing away with the hard limit of 10 in each stat. Easier to write your number down and then total up how many points you gain. The other big change is that I added a character portrait area. Apart from that, some boxes were enlarged, a couple of colour corrections, things are still in the swanky Mario font - what's not to like?

>>50761323
Weapon and Armor are hard to read.

>>50751114
>>50752473
>>50754925
>>50761323

The spacing is distracting.
The gaps, in particular.

>>50761141
>>50760344
Isn't birdo a dude though.

>>50767103
Yyyyyyeah. It doesn't help that his Japanese name is Catherine.

The less Western audiences know, the better.

>>50767374
>Wears visible jewelry
>Does ballet and other dancing
>Works as a lounge singer at times
>Acts like a diva

How would you handle stickers in this system?

>>50774799
Consumeable attacks, I guess?

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>>50767058
>>50761365

Char sheet guy here.

A couple of minor improvements - made some text a bit easier to read, got rid of the gaps so now everything fits smoothly together. Apart from that nothing's really changed.

>>50776368
Much better.

>>50744012
could I play as a shygirl?

>>50780055
Only if you can draw a good, small shygal sprite.

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>>50780055
>>50780071

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>>50780055
As long as you're not weird about it.

>>50780428
You know we will get weird about it. Theres no way. Everyone will end being a shygal, and it will turn into Super shygal sisters . I'm not complaining.

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I love Paper Mario to death, but I'm not actually too sure how it would translate to an RPG. Does anyone have a good pitch of what a game of SMRPG looks like?

Can I still cheese the system with the best badge combo known to man?

>>50781578
>Best combo known to man
That's not Danger Mario

>>50781978
Danger Mario is too risky for me
I want to be the best without having to be good at games

Played it until GM disappeared. It turns out damage reduction through toughness is overpowered.

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>>50756462

Agreed.

>>50744012
The mechanics don't really match the tone. This needed to be super cozy and silly, instead it's literally a reskinned Shadowrun.

>>50787553
What's not Mario-esque about scoring hits on a test?

>>50787597
It's every other RPG I've ever played. It's the bog-standard model that everyone uses when they make up their first RPG, one built around being murderhobos trying to get the highest stats. There's none of the weirdness that you find in the actual Mario games, and there's nothing made to fit the intended tone.

>>50787684
Mario games are very mechanically straightforward and simple. They have to be, what with being entry level games (RPGs in particular). The system is intentionally designed to be as simple and freeform as possible.

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>>50787749
There's a big difference between "simple" and "standard." People's standard understanding of what an RPG is includes a lot of cruft that can be cleared out. This system has all kinds of stuff in it that looks like the designer only put it in because he thought he was supposed to.

>>50788416
Then what would you see trimmed or otherwise changed?

>>50788728
Get rid of counting XP, racial stat modifiers, and the focus on building up stats and amassing equipment, badges, special moves and perks. That's stuff that was thrown in because somebody thought it was mandatory. Even then, they stopped short of making a semi-crunchy Savage Worlds-style thing by having no rules for NPCs or other challenges.

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>>50790238
I'll consider it.

>>50792272
Oh shit, it's the man himself. I was unaware.

If you want to keep some kind of equipment, instead of having a weapon/implement, clothes, and multiple badges, maybe borrow from Mario & Luigi and limit everyone to one badge and one pair of pants.

With something like this, you could even add some kind of manual dexterity/card-slapping component to take the place of timed hits.

>>50792391
With the current system, I was going for a "you are what you wear" style of equipment. One badge and one set of overalls work for M&L because the brothers are mechanically identical: they have the same weapons, they use the same items, they wear the same clothes, they get their upgrades at the same time, and so on. This is not the case for PCs in this game: everyone is unique from each other, so the equipment they wear and the stats they use as part of their equipment reflects this.

>>50792470
And yet as things are, people's stats, specials, and perks are entirely independent of what they have on. If you really want people to be what they wear, you could follow through and have each character just be a few equipment slots and have all specials, perks, etc. come from equipment. Instead of leveling up, you'd get better stuff. Power-ups could be especially fragile hats.

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>>50792645
There's two levels to a character: who they are (stats, perks, traits, intrinsic specials) and what they use (equipment). What you use dictates the overall functionality of the character: it affects certain stats, and it dictates what stat(s) you use in combat. Literally making the equipment the character sounds like shit you'd see out of Paper Mario: Sticker Star/Color Splash, and last I checked, those games aren't very popular.

>>50792743
You only need one of those two, though. If you want to stick religiously to how Super Mario RPG worked, I have bad news for you: that game did not succeed by virtue of its FF1-style mechanics, which were boring even for its day. It succeeded by being charming and very good-looking.

>>50792822
To be clear, I'm not trying to emulate any actual Mario RPG. I'm trying to maintain the overall ease and feel that you could get from any Mario game. The game is explicitly designed to be lightweight and freeform, not at all an intimidating system.

>>50792866
>>50792822
Well, from what I've seen of the system, it's a highly modular one that encourages imaginative use. You could, theoretically, stat every single enemy that Mario's ever faced and then put it into a great big Mario Enemy Book, but that's kind of boring. Want to make a system where costumes give you better stuff? That's good, nobody's stopping you. Characters have specific weapons that they use a lot and do well with. There's no weapon proficiency, so characters can pick up hammers or magic wands and use them pretty well. Specialists do better, but they have to specialise.

A dice pool system, where your amount in a certain stat determines how well you do anything, is simple. Percentile would be even simpler and less prone to imbalances, but then again, there's one of my favourite parts of Mario RPGs:

Action Parts.

You know, when you enter the correct sequence of button presses or press A at a specific time, you do more damage? I like that. Exploding sixes or doubles emulates that feel as well as you can in a tabletop. Pretty much every Mario RPG has that mechanic. Helps add to the charm.

Mario RPGs are good because two characters can team up together to do moves that would otherwise be extremely difficult, as well as the humour and the different storylines from normal Mario. RPGs are where the creative team can write about somebody other than Bowser doing naughty things. The Thousand Year Door is still a great game because of its great story and sense of humour, good characterisation and simple yet robust combat system.

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LLong story short, last year I ran a homebrew based on this system, but unfortunately it's in spanish.

Here's the Character Sheet I made, hope it's useful for any of you guys

>>50794347
Exploding dice feel kind of passive, though. If you don't want the tabletop version of Mario RPGs to involve real manual dexterity, maybe critical effects happen if you make some kind of difficult prediction about exactly what you're going to roll and it turns out true.

>>50781578
http://akey.ca/gbrp/
It's an archive of one of the earlier games in the system.
This is probably the best example of the system, and one of the few games that was actually archived.

Also, are any of the people involved in the one "evil" campaign that had Dayzee David Bowie and the mechanic shy guy in it still around?

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>>50790238
>Get rid of counting XP

I wonder who could be behind this post

>>50767103
Birdo is a drag queen.

>>50767374
Preferred name.

>>50756462
That looks lovely. I hope I'll get to play this some time, the Mario RPG's are super charming.

>>50767103
Same with Vivian

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>>50805589
In the English script, it's never directly stated, only scarcely hinted at. It's more blatant in other translations.

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>>50805623
In other words, whether or not Vivian is female depends on your localization. I personally go with her being female, since her sisters are already needlessly cruel to her.

As a side note, taking the form of a Shadow Siren or something similar is one of the example traits you can take when building a new Boo PC.
>A Boo can change shape into a more humanoid form. The most common references are to another race (most often their original form in life), a humanoid figure similar to Vivian and the Shadow Sirens, or even the human form itself. "Ghostly beauty" can take on a whole new meaning.

>>50804077
Mhm, it was quite nice, if short. I wish to play some more, maybe redo the character, or make a completelly new one. It's a problem to find games of it tho. Also a little problem is that stuff like >>50799982 and /aco/ made me slowly get attracted to boos after the rpg.

>>50806793
Doesn't sound like a problem to me.

>>50806808
It's more if I slip and start fetish fuelling my character, like adding some kinky clothing and whatnot. And the mario games help me, as there are Boo bunnygirls and some with arm fishnets.

>>50794347
I agree, in a way. I like the system as it stands - it's very fun and simple, in a nice way - but I was yearning for something that had 'action commands', as they're called. The problem is, there's no real good way to make an RPG system with 'action commands', as far as I could tell in my research.

So, long story short, I spent a long time tinkering with an action RPG system that could capture the fun of Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi, and so on. What I did was first break down exactly how the Mario RPG games create exciting and fun action commands - because many 'action RPGs' have simply boring ones, like Costume Quest - and then I also looked into tabletop gaming for any possible connections.

Action commands in the Mario RPG series fall under four rough categories. (Helpfully, the categories are hinted at in the manual for TTYD, but I fleshed them out a bit.) Here's the four:

>TIMING
This is about rhythm and muscle memory. Your basic Jump and Hammer commands for Mario are almost always Timing based. For Hammer, you hold back and release at the right moment. For Jump, you press at the right moment. In M&L they're both press-based, IIRC.

>SPEED
This is about mashing buttons or repeating motions, often to fill a gauge. For example, Koops' Shell Slam requires you to repeatedly flick the control stick to the left.

>REFLEX
This is about responding quickly to information. For example, almost all of Vivian's abilities require you to press a button quickly upon it being displayed.

>MEMORY
This is about being briefly displayed information, then having it disappear. You have to remember the information. It also is about identifying patterns. For example, attack patterns in M&L - where you observe enemies and determine what their 'tell' is - are a form of memory challenge.

Continued...

>>50807799
These four divisions are important to the Mario RPGs because they mean that different skillsets each gain value in the game. In addition, they also reflect the personalities of characters. For example, Koops is a bit neurotic and simple, so he gets Timing based challenges. Vivian is mysterious and appears and disappears at will, so she gets Reflex. In addition, the buttons that characters are associated with varies. Koops is associated with the control stick; Yoshi with L and R; Vivian with all of the buttons; and Bobbery with just A. Etc...

So, that's the videogame side. Next, the tabletop side. Some key issues I identified:

- You want objective tests of skill, which is difficult for some actions. For example, how do you objectively measure reflexes or speed without a stopwatch? How do you measure timing?

- You want the game to be playable without action commands - just as the Paper Mario series roughly is - but you also want them to be important. The idea is that people who just suck at action commands shouldn't be punished. The game has to be at least acceptable without them. This means the rewards action commands give should not be unique, and perhaps are even relatively minimal.

- You want the game to be about roleplaying, first and foremost, yet you're also testing the skills of your players. The reason games use dice or, in some rare cases, wagering of resources, is because that is basically luck. That severs the connection between the player's talents and the characters. The dice are supposed to serve as your 'proxy' for skills you do not have. For example, you make someone roll the dice for intelligence, or for charisma; you don't make them remember obscure Nordic lore, or convince an ornery king, themselves! However, a tabletop RPG with action commands inextricably ties the player's skill to their characters' success, which ain't cool.

Continued...

>>50807924
- We don't want competition between the players and the GM. Some times a solution that seems obvious - such as playing 'Slapjack' - requires the GM to compete with players. This means the GM has to simultaneously be better than all the players (in order to ensure they can pose a challenge if necessary) and have control over their skill level (in order to not always be at the maximum level of difficulty). That's, to put it simply, too much to demand from a GM.

- I want the 'action commands' to be a skill. In the games, you develop a sense of timing and muscle memory for many of these challenges. You get 'in the zone' over time, figure out optimal strategies, and so on. I want there to be a level of practice and, eventually, achievement, when it comes to action commands. Remember, it's a minigame, and so like a game, it should have both progress and mastery.

- I want players to be under pressure and excited - so it needs a time limit - but I also want it to be ideally be strategic and require thought (like Art Attack in TTYD)

-I want the mechanic to be 'accessible'. Easy to learn, quick to explain, to understand, and to do. It shouldn't distract from the main game.

- In the games, all the action commands are tied together with a controller. Likewise, in the tabletop, I wanted to rely on a small set of tools common to many people. I don't want people to require specialty tools - such as dominoes - in order to play this game. Ideally, all it would require are six-sided dice, or a deck of cards, etc.

To be continued:

>>50808116
So those were all my goals. Here are the ideas I came up with:

- Hell for Leather's "dice tower" where you try to roll your dice close to the center of the board, without knocking over a tower of dice in the center. Thing is, that mechanic really emphasizes a mood of growing tension and doom, which doesn't fit Mario.

- "Dice nudging", where you roll dice one at a time and can roll a dice AT dice you don't like, in order to try to reroll it. Dice are just too hard to 'nudge' though, and it's just not strategic. This also relies too much on individual dice weight, roundedness of corners, and so on.

- I tried playing Jacks / Knucklebones with dice. You rolled a dice pool, then could choose to play a game of Jacks. Basically, you threw your final die into the air, then pick up any die you want from the pool and catch the thrown die before it lands. You then gain 'Style Points' for each die you have in hand, then roll them. This lets you reroll bad results, but if you want to take a gamble, you can just pick up more die to get more Style Points. I thought this system was really promising and interesting, but it turns out that six-sided dice are just way too easy to play Jacks with (it's really easy to pick up 2-3).

Unfortunately, if you're just shooting for numbers, it's REALLY easy to farm style points. But if you're trying to pick up SPECIFIC dice (in order to reroll them) it's near impossible to pick up more than one or two. I felt this was too swingy. However, it was my most promising mechanic yet.

Continued...

>>50808204
- The last suggestion was the most promising. You have X seconds to reroll your dice pool, and your goal is to match a certain set of dice on your 'action cards'. So basic actions would have broad requirements, while more powerful ones get more specific.

The problem with this system is that action cards would have to be exceedingly balanced. For example, if all of your action cards want 6s - just a varying amount - then the 'strategy' is just to reroll anything that's not a six. You'd need the distribution of numbers and patterns to be relatively exclusive across cards, so that there's actual choice on what to shoot for.

---

None of these ideas even got close to having four 'categories' of skills being tested. I wanted a main mechanic that could be broadened into a variety. For example, Hell for Leather's "dice target" system had such promise:

1.) Throw as many dice into the ring past a certain point in 30 seconds.

2.) Throw a single dice and get it as close to the center as you can.

3.) Get as close to these specific points on the ring as you can.

Etc...


I also experimented with more exotic methods that had no randomization - such as Loony Quest, where you try to draw a path across a maze on transparency sheets, then overlay it onto the maze and see if you 'hit' any walls or obstacles. The problem with that is the action command becomes required to play, which displeased me.

So... yeah. It's a tough nut to crack. In the end, I gave up. The action card system, and the dice target systems, were my favorites. But I just didn't like them much.

>>50808240
If any of you all want to resurrect the attempts at an action command tabletop RPG, please, be my guest. But I just found, over time, that the concept of dexterity tabletop RPG displeased me. For one, it's impossible to playtest online; for two, it's troubling for disabled players; and for three, it just unfairly tests players when the game should be about their characters.

I tried to address this by making action commands optional for players - letting them buy a trait that gave them a "passing grade" on all of their action commands, and letting people spend resources earned by RP to automatically get the 'flourishes' that action commands provided - but at that point I just felt that it might be more trouble than it's worth.

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>>50807799
>>50807924
>>50808116
>>50808204
>>50808240
>>50808268
Short version: no real-time events in meatspace, since they're fundamentally unfair. You can't replicate Action Commands in this way on the tabletop.

>>50808617
I'm not that anon who did that writeup, for the record.

>>50808617
>>50808641

Yep. I went through the whole process just to address any possible counterarguments by showing I did my research - and also because I hope that at least some parts of my process could be inspiration for something - but it basically boils down to the fact I could never address the issues of player/character separation.

Of course, it's arguable whether you need such separation. Dread does fine for itself, for example.

>>50808617
If your players are all in a huff about "fairness," you probably should be playing a less casual game.

You want to make this into chess, but even chess has a timer. I bet you think a timer would be unfair to the slower players.

>>50808793
Again, it's not my writeup; it's the observations of that other anon.

>>50808793
While fairness certainly is a little part of it, I'd expect that all players who would want to play this system would also have fun with the dexterity, or else they wouldn't be playing. And again, I had measures in place to make it more fair, like a character trait that let people auto-pass, and ways to get around the need for action commands.

So, unfairness was not the issue. The issue was player/character separation, the fact that you as a player are being tested for skills your character should have. That always has weirded me out when GMs do it, and I didn't want an entire system that revolved around it. Why should the player's skill with this arbitrary minigame reflect their character's success?