Roleplaying the Spiel

This weekend the Europe's largest game fair, the Spiel, took place in my neighborhood. Since it has proven impossible to fully describe events that cover several days, I will focus on the Roleplaying Games I met on the fair this time. Of course, there are many others I didn't get to know enough about even to mention them, but here's a report on the bits I learned.

Meikyu Kingdom: I had one more chance to try what calls itself a "cynical pop dungeon fantasy" with an experienced GM. The setting is a world consisting in its entirety of a massive dungeon and full of every random eclectic cliché of fantasy you can imagine, only even a little weirder because Japan. Characters are rolled together to produce absurd, but somehow consistent combinations. This time I was a butler called "Champion of the Messe" who had a constant itch for fighting. The system is confirmed for hilarious, random story driving and fun adventuring. In a long run, the party should also get to "make" the kingdom, dealing with its politics and securing its stability. Strangely enough, there is still no official translation, while fans work intensely on theirs. Ulisses Spiele has declared interest in developing a German version sometime. Let's hope it keeps coming.

Shinobigami: A new release from the same "Adventure Planning Service". While the ninja theme clearly calls for a somewhat darker setting, the game does not lack over-the-top anime bombasticism. Ninja clans conspire to resurrect ancient yokai and settle old blood feuds in the shadows. Nowadays they appear as armies, families or even high schools (of course!). What's most interesting, however, is that the system supports fights among player characters. I should certainly try this out some time. The official version is pre-releasing on kickstarter, it seems some fans have been making progress as well.

#urbanheroes: I only came to hear a brief introduction to the setting, but it sounded quite interesting. In a tradition that follows the broken heroes of Watchmen and Civil War, the game imagines superpowers in a contemporary environment, entangled with actual politics and global events. "Heroes" in this context are media personalities financed by obscure interests, so that it's pretty hard to do the "right thing". The system is quite detailed and very customizable, but I'd have to give a test run to know if it isn't overly complicated simulationism. The feature that sounds truly amazing is the fact that the game has spawned an on-line social network used internationally for roleplaying the virtual level of its world, thus creating a macrocosm that truly connects all individual campaigns. As it seems, if you want to play something approaching contemporary superheroes, this is the place to be.

Time Stories: One of the nominees for "best advanced game" this year was actually an RPG. As time travelers, your consciousness is sent from the future into the body of a person from a crucial moment in time. The system works with fully illustrated cards that deliver events and flavor texts, plus a board which visualizes all game mechanics. This makes the game visually involving and quite self-explicative, besides allowing to play without a GM. The downside is, the box only contains one adventure, and you'll have to buy extra cards to play again.




Oh, and there's also a Love Live RPG where you play teenage idols. I don't really wanna know...