Alpha Write-Up Together As One An RPG about Kids and the things that fight for them First off, "Together as One" is a game that is meant to emulate most of those corny settings where you've got some kids and their partner toy, monster, robot, or whatever, and there are lessons about friendship and togetherness and the power of the heart. Think Digimon, Medabots, Beyblade, and those sort of shows. These are sometimes referred to as the Proxy Battle Genre. A type of cartoon where there can still be high stakes, but the lives or well-being of the child characters is never directly threatened, because they do battle by commanding another creature or toy to battle for them, but that creature or toy is also their friend and comrade, so there's often an emotional connection there, as well. For this game, each player makes a character in two parts: A Kid and their Partner. The Kid serves as the fluff, the personality, and the face of your character. They make friends with other characters, get into trouble, compete tournaments, and pick fights with other Kids. The Partner is, well, their partner in all of this. Depending on the setting, they could be some sort of artificially intelligent battle robot, a digital life form, or some sort of ancient beast spirit trapped in a children's' toy. The Partner acts as the combat equipment for the Kids, standing in for them in battles against other Partners, since it would be in bad taste for the kids to fight the monsters and robots by themselves. In standard RPG fashion, this game is supposed to have a few players and one person who gets to run the game and decide what sorts of challenges and obstacles the players will go up against. The person running the game is called the Referee (because I like giving unique titles for this sort of role) and everyone else participating will be referred to as a Player while their characters, both Kid and Partner, will be referred to as Player Characters (PCs). As a universal rule, the perfect group size is going to be somewhere between 3 to 5 players and 1 Ref. The Referee will have control over the world and the characters in it, but not the PCs themselves. To some extent, they might define things around the PCs, but it is not the Referee's place to play a person's character for them. If anything it should be encouraged for the Players to contribute and add to the world by suggesting things to the Ref, like what sort of places are in their neighborhood, who their family members are and what they do, and things like that. Not necessarily full blown narrative control, but some narrative influence. I'll have to get into the fiddly nature of running a game once I've made you more familiar with the rules themselves. There's only so much hypothetical gameplay I can explain without explaining gameplay. Keep in mind, however, that these rules are largely dependent on what sort of game you are playing. Certain rules and materials will have to be changed or renamed to better fit the setting. The next couple sections will be a basic run down and explanation of the rules, followed by an example setting, and probably a few others to follow that. What you'll need: A few d6s for each player, some paper, and pencils. This ain't rocket science. [Character sheet goes here!] Some shit that needs to be said about all these "points". During the process of creating a character you are going to come across the idea of Points to spend on your different stats and abilities and parts and all sorts of different stuff. There are a TAO Page 1 spend on your different stats and abilities and parts and all sorts of different stuff. There are a handful of rules that you should keep in mind. ○ All points must be spent. There is no saving points for later or waiting until after game has started to decide if you want your character to have a certain score. ○ Points are non transferrable. Points can NOT be spent between sections. If you have 5 points for your Attributes and 6 points for your Combat Stats, you cannot spend a few on one section and give the rest to the other. ○ Most Scores start at 1. If it isn't explicitly stated, it is assumed that most scores, before points, start at 1 and go up by one for each point spent. This is not always the case, and it should be stated otherwise when things are different, but when it doubt, assume this default set up. Game Settings Just something to keep in mind is that the sort of setting you end up using can change certain aspects of your game, altering the flavor of mechanics, altering the way you create your character or upgrade your partner, or just what sort of options are available. These aren't drastic changes, but it does matter for reasons that will, hopefully, become more clear the more you read. PLAYER CHARACTERS KIDS When it was mentioned earlier that each player character is made up of two parts, I meant that somewhat literally. A kid and their partner will each occupy distinct sections of their character sheet, but they aren't meant to be two separate entities. They are meant to be like to halves of the same whole. A kid and their monster, a battler and their robot, a pilot and their mech. Connected and interdependent, but separate in a way. Seeing as I'm taking so much inspiration from anime, in particular, it kind of has to be a kid. Those wacky Japanese absolutely love shoving the weight of the world on the shoulders of children. Always sending kids out with naught but toys or cards to stop a world-threatening conspiracy, or to reseal the evil spirit of an ancient tyrant, who also happens to play the same children's game. But I digress, you need to make up your own kid. One who will have get their own partner, whatever that may be, make friends, fight against evil, probably compete in a few tournaments, and go through some crazy adventures. THE DETAILS To begin the character creation process it's best to ask yourself just who your Kid is. Formulate some sort of concept for them. This is a good step for any RPG as it always helps the character creation process go a little bit faster. Even if you just want them to be some sort of archetype, like the gutsy shounen protagonist, or the cool, calculating strategist, that works just fine and it gives you something to build from. In the [char sheet area] you'll find a place to fill out most of these details. Some of these are a little superficial, but they all work towards defining your character, which will make them easier to play. If you're having trouble coming up with some of these details or you just don't feel like thinking up some on your own, you'll find a few charts on the next few pages to quickly fill out most of this section of the character sheet with just a few rolls. If you want, you can also just browse the tables and pick some that you like, since these are largely superficial elements. Name: Pick one. A name can say a whole lot or very little about your character. You can pick something with some sort of secret meaning that reveals something about them or you can just TAO Page 2 something with some sort of secret meaning that reveals something about them or you can just pick something you like. Try not to pick something stupid. Age: Roll 2d6+3 or just pick something you feel would be appropriate. Maybe have the group decide on an age and just have them all be friends in the same grade if that's easiest. Appearance: Roll or choose Hair and Eye Color, then roll twice or pick a few Distinct Features off the chart on page ##. Otherwise, you can just have them look however you want. This is to distinguish your character and give them just a bit more personality. ATTRIBUTES Next up, you've got something a little more numeric. On this [char sheet area] of the Character sheet, you'll find the spot for your attributes. These are a measure of your Kid's most basic and innate talents and also have a few different applications during gameplay. Additionally, they help you define your character by allowing you to numerically rate some of their characteristics. These Three Attributes are: Brains, Heart, and Guts. Brains is how smart and clever they are. Heart is how compassionate they are. Guts is how courageous and brave they are. For Character Creation, you start with 5 points to distribute between these three Attributes, all of which start at 1 and go up by 1 for each point. Meaning you could raise one of them to 6, while leaving the others at 1. And, since we're not a bunch of silly idiots, you have to spend all of your points during character creation. No saving them for the middle of a session. That should go without saying at this point. A score of 1 in any Attribute would be considered weak or below average, while a score of 5 or 6 would be considered above average or extraordinary.