ManGa

Welcome to the world of martial-artists, aliens, and other high school students. Maniakku Gakusei (maniac student) is an easy-to-use game system letting you play students or undergraduates through stories in the style of Ranma 1/2 or Urusay Yatsura.

The game mechanics are extremely simple and focus on story telling. However, this needs a game master (GM) who is versatile and can improvise.


Character creation

Every character is defined through his attributes. They are also his trademarks like a high IQ, superman-like strength or the ability to fly. Normal statistics you may know from other RPGs simply doesn't exist.

Example: Peewee has the following attributes: Procuring 7, Cuteness 3, Intelligence 2, Inventing 5. According to these attributes, Peewee is neither strong nor athletic. He is best in class, though, and surely skipped a year. He always wears a fur-cap, in which he kept his stuff (Procuring) and makes him look sweet (Cuteness). His age is set to 12.

Each player character (PC) gets 10 points to distribute on the following attributes:

Coolness
Nothing can distract the character. With a value of 1 he is simply cool. With 5 he immune to normal high school madness (remember, high schools like Furikan or Quagmire High). With 8 UFOs could land in your frontyard and you will bid them in for tea. Coolness is useful to defend against the effects of other attributes.
Example characters: Kasumi Tendo
Intelligence
The IQ is above average. The character is a real egg-head and states theories and formulas at the least possible moments. A person with intelligence 1 has skipped a year in school. With 5 he is best in school and a lightning calculator. He is the nightmare of every professor because he knows more and shows it off. With 8 he calculates the orbit of all planets in the solar system for the next fifty years (tolerance under 0.01%).
Example characters: Ami Mizuno, Washu
Strength
The chracter is a real muscle man. He needn't to look very strong but can lift weights and bend steel bars without problem. A value of 1 defines a normal weightlifter. With 5 you enter the realm of A-ko. And with 10 you can make arm wrestling with a Saiyajin (he'll beet the pulp out of you after that, anyway).
Example characters: A-ko, Son Goku
Looks
Describes how beautiful/handsome a character is. Snap one's fingers and the other sex lies to your feet to serve you. With a value of 1 one wins some beauty contests. From 5 on the character has her/his own fan-club. With 8 or more one can demand the impossible. As long as she/he is present, she/he is the centre of attention. The attribute can have a touch into the sexual: the followers live in form of slave-like dependency or are prone to severe nose-bleeding.
Option: Naturally a player can declare his character is attracting his own sex with his looks (willingly or unwillingly...).
Beispielcharaktere: Ail in his disguise as Seiyuru Ginga, almost every main character in an anime show
Popularity
Similar to looks, though, not focused on the appearance but on what the character does or is. Maybe he is the local football star or a leadsinger of the school band. Another difference to looks is that it affects both sexes simultaneously. With value of 1 a character is a really nice guy (but not more). With 5 his parties are must-be-there event. With 8 he is the lead singer of the most successful band in school.
Example characters: The Starlights in their human disguise
Emerging
The character has the ability to be there where something interesting or exciting happens. The higher the value the more secret this happening can be. The kind of emergence can vary: beaming or Teleportation, crawling out of a trash bin or a locker.
Procuring
The character carries all possible and impossible around. A herring, an encyclopaedia, a pet and the like. With a value of 5 or more one has to choose an appropriate container wears he can stuff his belongings (a coat, a cap, or a satchel). With Procuring 1 a character has a note block, a pack of handkerchiefs, some sweets, a pen, and other little goodies. With 5 he can have some books, video games, a notebook, a teddy, a ventilator, and similar things. With 10 things like a flagpole, a dog or a Workstation are no problem. With 11 come the oversized things like a full golf set, a mainframe or a copier.
Authority
This attribute should only be available to NPC characters like teachers or office-holders. Authority gives the ability to order commands.
Combat techniques
The character is a martial artist like Ranma or Ryu. For every point over 4 the character has a special technique. Some example techniques:
Other possibilities are techniques so powerful you need a minimum value in combat techniques (i.e. 8 for Kamehameha) or techniques which are progressive developments (see the techniques 'Bladedance' and 'Great Bladedance' in the description of the Musashi High).
The combat rules are described below.
Focus
With this attribute the character possesses supernatural abilities. Every point over 4 grants one ability. A value of 4 or less means undeveloped potential which can't be used yet.
Example characters: Lum, Rei Hino, Lina Inverse

This is but a small selection of possible attributes. Others are inconspicuousness, do-the-innocent, cuteness, wealth, inventing, and many more.
Remember the lack of normal stats. A teacher don't need values in Math or Physic. He just gets his authority attribute. A lead singer gets wealth and popularity. That he can a least sing is assumed.
Additionally a character can have some special attributes. They can't be developed and have a static cost to acquire them (given in brackets).

C-ko syndrome (2)
The character is kind of an airhead. Additionally his voice can becomes a weapon. Upon yelling all other person are diving for cover as fast as possible. This special ability can be combined very good with cuteness.
SD character (1)
The character can change at will between his normal form and an SD (super-deformed) form. In his SD form he retains all his other abilities but has only a quarter of his height. In this form no one takes him too serious giving him some more freedoms in his actions.
Procuring of ... (1)
A specialisation of the standard procuring. With this special attribute only one item can be fetched out of thin air. Oversized mallets or swords are popular things but not limited by this ability. Normally these things can’t be used to harm a person they can be shocked or stunned for short time, though.
Ranma syndrome (-1)
When the character is doused with cold water his body transforms into something new. Normally this can be the opposite sex or an animal. Hot water cancels this effect.
Magical Girl-syndrome (-2)
The character can use his special abilities only in his secret ID. He has to keep his ID secret so he must search a secluded place for transformation. This special attribute isn't limited to girls. Boys with magical girl syndrome are the typical Tuxedo Mask.
Reputation (-1)
The character has a bad reputation about one special thing. This can be a bad habit (being lecherous like Ataru Morobishi) or a skill (cooking like Akane Tendo).
Disadvantage(-x)
Be creative. Good examples are Son Goku incredible ingenuousness or Linas inability to cast spells when she has her menstruation. However, remember they shall be funny.


Game systems

A test on an attribute is resolved by rolling 1d10 and adding the demanded skill to the result. The GM can use every other die type he likes but must consider that the higher the die type, the more luck plays into the rolls. This is best shown at an opposing test on an attribute (see below). A character has an attribute on 5 and another one the same on 10. It is obvious that rolling a d20 makes it much easier for the latter to win than rolling a d6.
As stated above normal stats are not necessary. Normal things succeed always. Every person is normally able to kick open a door or climb a rope. However the GM may always inspect a characters attributes to make a decision. For example a geek or nerd (with intelligence) can be defined as a weakling if you use Option 1. Peewee, the example character from above, is such a guy who will be unable to open doors with such a brutal method.
Now, the GM decides the door is reinforced additionally. This implys that even normal persons are unable to break it open. This is reserved to the ones with strength.
Example: Peewee and his friend Tanaka are both trapped in the haunted house. Their only exit is locked with a bar. The GM tells both players to open this door a successful test on strength is needed with a difficulty of 4. Peewee doesn't have this attribute so he is not able to try it. Tanaka on the other hand has strength 2. He rolls his d10 (7) giving a result of 9. He not only breaks the door but takes it a short distance with him before stopping.

Tests on attributes are neccessary if two or more characters are doing something opposing or exactly the same.
Example: Peewee is competing in an intelligence contest. His opponents have results of 3 and 6. His intelligence attribute is 2 and he rolls a 5. When the first is still thinking and the second just manages to open his mouth Peewee already presents the solution.

The attribute coolness is necessary when one tries to oppose another's attributes. A character can try to resist the effects of looks, popularity, authority, do-the-innocent, and cuteness. Both are rolling a die and add their appropriate attribute. The higher result wins. With restrictions coolness can be used the resist against Focus (i.e. charm or hypnotising spells) and the special attributes C-ko syndrome and reputation. The difficulty is set by the GM.


Combat rules

At the very beginning of a fight all combatants are calculating their combat prowess (CP). It is either their value in combat techniques or – optional – half (rounded down) their value in strength.
At the beginning of each combat round both opponents announce if the wnat to use a special technique. Then they roll their d10 and add their CP. The one with the higher result wins this round damages his opponent for 1 point. The looser decreases his CP by the damage for the rest of the fight. On to the next round.
If one fights against several the latter add all their CP together and roll only one d10. If the solo fighter wins a round he decides who of his enemies is hit and loses one point CP. If he loses he is only hit once (1 point of damage/CP loss). The group must be careful not to use special techniques together which are mutual exclusive (i.e. one casts a fireball while his companion creates an ice blast). Only techniques which are similar in description are possible to use simultaneously (energy projectiles, punch attacks, area attacks, etc.).
A character whose CP drops to 0 or below is unconscious (it's a student game, remember). After a short period of recovering his CP is fully restored. With a high Strength or combat technique one can break holes in walls or split the earth open but he can't hurt people mortally.
Out of these rules one can derive that even a bunch of people – each with a CP of 0 – doesn't stand a single round against a martial artist. Even if he has only a value of 1. Note to special techniques: as in every good anime or manga they can be used only once per fight because they are very strenuous. If a fighter blows his special technique because his opponent has a higher result then this is bad luck for him.
Here you can see an example of combat.


Gaining knowledge

After the successful completion of a scenario the GM grants some experience points. How much is up to him depending on how fast the characters shall progress. Getting a new attribute to 1 costs 10 points and raising an attribute by 1 costs the actual value squared. Again, the GM decides how many new attributes may learn how high they can be raised.

Finally, remember Fun comes before rules. A really good session can be played without rolling the die once.


Additions


Notorious schools

Other systems


written by Cédrik Duval ( gandalf@informatik.uni-bremen.de)

The copyright is holded by the author. It can be copied freely without fee as long as the original text remains unchanged. Changes are to be reported to me immediately.