Magical Girl RPG Concept

[PastelPopPrince 6]

Okay, so I want to take on a second game, soley because of the fact that I can't work on Angry Gay Makeup Exam because it's a For Fun pet project between me and a friend and he got upset that I was doing too much work? So I gave him the job of mapping so I get long breaks before I have to do things. 

That being said I really want to do a Magical Girl themed RPG and I had a character sitting around and decided to build a story around her.

 

[No Title Yet]

Story

(Warning, Alot of things don't have names yet, so I'll put them in quotes)

 

So basically there is a separate plane of spirits that are create through strong emotional energies. I'm going to call them fairies. They have a physical form that cam be seen my humans, it could be a statue, a fox, a tree, even things like a cloud or rainbow. These fairies are kind of in a political fight regarding humans. While the "King" wants to embrace humans, even in their advancing technology, because they are a huge source of energy/emotions. The rebellion hates humans and want to wipe them out because they are destroying things that the faeries are. And even though there are things fairies can do to prevent being harmed (protection spells, etc.) sometimes a fairy dies from it.

 

And with political disputes, there comes war... but without the ability to harm eachother (as they can't die from their own magic, humans have been their only source of death), and a lot are too abstract or protected to be destroyed simply by human's fucking up. (like how to you kill a rainbow?) So they invented a thing; Magical Girls (Boys//People aswell) Where they could channel their magic through a human's soul and give them the power to basically eradicate eachother.

 

The king's younger sibling "Butterfly" doesn't exactly agree with either side? He tends to visit the human's plane and is very in love with them, so he doesn't want to see them wiped out. But his older sibling speaks for him to their people and they makes a lot of fairies out for his head. Not only that, but his older sibling is also very abusive/manipulative towards him because they want their views on him, since he is next inline.

 

 

He basically follows a human named Mari, around and is completely infatuated with her. And after an attempted attack, he decides that yes, he wants her to protect him. He approaches her in his more human form, but instead of being honest he tells her it's to protect humans from demons. And partly because he's acting like a runaway teenager, he stays with her a bit and indulges in 'human' life.

 

Later they're both confronted by the "King" and the king's weapon "Plasma". Though they get away, the truth's out and Mari is obviously very pissed. She then decides that they should side with the King and fight for them. 

 

After fighting with the Rebellion, Mari's opinion starts to change and she starts to side more with the rebellion. Around the same time she also becomes more and more aware of the abusive relationship Butterfly is stuck in and empathizes because of her own.

 

After an encounter with The Rebellion leader and their weapon "Unicorn", Mari decides to fight for them and their cause.

 

Eventually Mari learns that the Rebellion is also corrupt and their plans to rid of humans wasn't to protect themselves but for their own personal gain.

 

She and Butterfly then attempt to make a third party, one that doesn't destroy humans but makes an effort to have them stop their shit. But due to them not exactly having a plan of action, they aren't taken seriously.

 

The story basically ends in Mari and Butterfly doing a double suicide.(An important detail is that a weapon and a fairy fuses, so if the weapon dies, the fairy will too) Which is like really bittersweet up until Mari is dying and Butterfly regrets a lot of stuff.

 

 

Characters

 

Mari

Age: 19

Gender: Trans girl

Pronouns: She / her

Power based from: Lamb

"Butterfly"

Age: Young for a Spirit

Gender: ???????

Pronouns: He/him

Species: Butterfly

(Left)

The King

Age: Ancient

Gender: Agender

Pronouns: They/them

Species: Geode

(Right)

Rebellion Leader

Age: An Elder

Gender: Agender

Pronouns: They/Them

Species: Pond/Water

(Left)

"Unicorn"

Age: 14

Gender: Cis Girl

Pronouns: She/Her

Power based from: Unicorn

(Right)

"Plasma"

Age: 17

Gender: Cis Boy

Pronouns: He/him

Powers based from: Plasma

 

Gameplay

 

This is a very ???? area. I know a mechanic I want is "Transforming" when you are in magical form, you're on the alt. plane and that affects puzzles/ getting through maps. But I'm not exactly sure what to do to make this unique/fun. I want it purely powers based so no armor/ weapons. Think like the weapons are Pokemon. I also want different attack combos to do different things maybe?

 

Setting/Feel

 

 

 

But yeah critiques, ideas, thing you'd wanna see, etc, is this idea even worthwhile? Please tell me.

[Whiona 310]

I would be interested in playing this! Your art is very pretty and I love the character designs, especially Mari's. It's nice to see a diverse cast as well. The story mostly seems good, but I don't like the ending. The plot is cut short by Mari and Butterfly committing suicide and a lot is left unresolved, which may leave players feeling cheated. In stories that end with the protagonist dying, their death needs to contribute to the plot somehow, or else it just feels gratuitously sad. Also, if the King is agender, I feel like it would make more sense to give them a gender-neutral title, such as the Monarch.

Edited August 19, 2015 by Whiona

[lonequeso 1,921]

You have a very unique story there. A far cry from hero vs. evil tyrant and/or demon. I like wars where both sides have noble intentions; neither side is completely right or wrong. It's a lot more realistic. The story idea is worthwhile. There one thing I'm a bit confused about. When you say the fairies are channeling human souls, it sounds like they're essentially using live humans as puppets. If I'm inferring that wrong, let em know. (also skip down to the next paragraph.) If that's the case, wouldn't people start noticing friends/co workers/loved ones acting strangely, and wouldn't people start dying in these battles? People would be witnessing people seemingly randomly fighting to the death or trying to kill a tree or a rainbow. That would cause widespread panic. Are you going to address how humans react to this or have humans (other than Mari) get involved, or are you going to kinda gloss over all that to help maintain the fantasy element? Fantasy games don't necessarily have to be 100% realistic.

 

For game play:  With transforming is the player going to automatically transform when the enter the alt. plane or are they going to be able to transform back and forth? Also, are there multiple transformations? A combination of the latter two would provide the most options for making fun, complex puzzles. 

 

For example: There's a large, destructible wall in the player's way. The wall is reinforced by steel bars. There a switch in the floor to retract the bars, but it's across a pit. One player transforms in something that can glide over the pit to press the switch, but the switch is stuck. The player transforms into something heavy (like Kirby turning in a weight) to activate the switch. They transform to glide back. Finally, they transform into something large and strong to destroy the wall.

 

If you want the player to transform in combat, there should be a custom script for that. All the other stuff can be done via eventing.

 

 

 

Think like the weapons are Pokemon.

 

Do you mean the attacks? Like Pikachu using Thunder? Or do you want the player to be able to equip certain skills in place of a weapon? If your looking a PP type system like in Pokemon, there's a custom script for that, too. 

Attack combos are pretty easy to set up. Going with the Pokemon examples, let's say "Water Gun" does damage and puts a state on an enemy. Let's call it "Wet" (super creative, I know). "Thunder" deals double damage against a "Wet" target. In the damage formula for Thunder, you can make a conditional branch to check if a state is applied. I'm not at home, and my syntax sucks, but it looks something like this:  

 

if b.state(1 _{the state ID}) = true ; a.atk * 4 ;  a.atk * 2  

 

I'd be amazed if that's the correct syntax. You get the idea, right? 

 

As for setting, what kind of look are you going for in the alternate dimension?

[Kayzee 4,032]

Yay for magical girls! And fairies too?!? I will provide fairy dust! *sprinkles lots of dust everywhere around this topic*

Though I dunno if I agree with your portrayal of the "fairies" though, even if they aren't really faeries the same way I am. It's way too... human. I like the whole non-binary gender thing, that's a huge thumbs up in my book, but their motivations and organization seems way too political and split into two central camps. I would have them be much more varied chaotic and strange. Maybe the "king"'s group wants to work with humans and another wants to destroy them, but maybe some others maybe even fetishize humans to a very creepy degree, others want to make humans their slaves, and a vast number of others don't care at all. I would make it increasingly obvious as the game went on, how little and unimportant the conflict really was, and how alien and strange these "fairies" ended up being, maybe even to cosmic horror story levels. And in the end Mari completely fails to make anyone really care about humans and She and Butterfly commit suicide together... which turns out Butterfly is mostly going along with because she wants to do something human, and is just reborn afterwards and is really really confuse when Mari isn't. Or maybe Mari IS reborn as a fiary and spends the rest of forever depressed and killing herself over and over again. I mean if you wanna do something real real dark, personally I rather some sort of happier story but eh.

 

As for the gameplay... well honestly I wonder if it would be fun to have lots of different transformation forms that depend on what powers/magic you have absorbed from enemies? Instead of normal weapons and armor, the abilities you absorb change the appearance and effects of your magical transformation or something. Bit like SaGa Frontier and it's shapeshifting monsters, only for someone's outfit.

Edited August 19, 2015 by KilloZapit

[PastelPopPrince 6]

@Whiona

Thank you! I was originally going to have Butterfly explain that it was what if roughly translated to because I couldn't think of something gender neutral! Monarch is much more fitting, thank you!

Okay so different ending ideas

- The Monarch is killed in battle and the Rebellion leader has been slowly dying because of humans (pollution and they probably eventually gets drained? Or maybe he's been allowing certain humans to survive off of him because of a drought and he slowly gets used up.) But this leaves no leaders and really they've lost a good chunk of their population.

And the options are

-Butterfly takes over and even though he's not a very good leader he's just trying to pick up the pieces?

- The wreckage is still horrifying and with stress of all the deaths, they go through with the suicide, but a fairy is born from the intense emotion of it and it hints at them being able to help things.

 

 

@lonequeso

Thanks~ Uhm The humans aren't puppets, they fight of their own will! Not only that but they disappear from the human plane when they transform into their Magical Person forms, so people wouldn't be able to see it. Though! I should explain the deaths! Because the humans souls just kindof get obliterated and their bodies drop dead or they go missing entirely. I might have Mari see news reports and huge investigations as the unexplainable influx of deaths start to happen. 

 

The transformation is them just going into their Magical Person Form (Costumes and such~) and it automatically takes them to the alt. Plane, and untransforming takes them back. What magic each character can do, Mari being able to turn into a lamb, so maybe I can do something that?

 

And yeah like Thunder! I want her to be able to learn attacks not equip them. And yeah like uhm She uses water gun and then thunder and not only does it deal more Damage but it changes the attack all together playing on circumstance.

 

 

For the setting, that's what I want for alt. dimension! Like Surreal nature. The normal one is like a semi modern feel to it? Like the setting itself it Japanese coded the building look alot like dollhouses and kindof have a studio Ghibli aesthetic? 

[PastelPopPrince 6]

@KilloZapit

!! Oh they aren't really fairies! They are spirits! Think demons but very Neutral, uhm they are based from Youkai! I thought fairies was a close title because of their nature of like being formed from plants and animals and nature in general

 

 And I don't exactly want to go dark, I want to go bittersweet with the ending? Like I know the game has some dark undertones with war and all, but nothing I would consider too abnormal for adventure?

 

Though, as spirits, there should be less organization because power dynamics are weird when rules were hard to enforce anyway? I might make separate parties of ones who don't pick sides, just kind of stay as far from the war as possible and protect them self if needed, and maybe more bored chaotic ones who just kind of wanna fight?

 

.o. ! Oh and Butterfly uses he/him

[Kayzee 4,032]

How is ending with the main character's suicide any form off sweet? I guess really multiple endings would be the best way. Maybe the best one is Mari just gives up and goes home and lives her life happily.  Or one where she does turn into a spirit too, and forgets all about her mission, but lives happily after that.

 

But yeah, I was thinking of a less organized anarchistic mob who happened to ban together in something more like loose collections of like minded people then actual political groups (though maybe there is no difference), and they don't actually take their causes  very seriously. Basically it's all a amusing game to them. But maybe I am just describing myself? Mari of course wouldn't realize this and actually takes everything way too seriously, until people get tired of the game and wondered off to do something else. I donno.

 

I guess I just tend to think like that about war, that it's kind of pointless. Not even in a "war is hell" or "everyone should strive for pease" sort of way, more like in a "look at these two ant holes fighting so hard after a few scraps of food" sort of way. And what if both sides in a war knew that, knew that it was pointless and just did it for their own amusement? And what if the one soldier who actually took it seriously were to discover that no one else did?

Edited August 19, 2015 by KilloZapit

[zebaroth 6]

i have seen a few magical girl rpg maker games (1) and would love to see more as magical girls are one of my favorite anime types

[PastelPopPrince 6]

How is ending with the main character's suicide any form off sweet? I guess really multiple endings would be the best way. Maybe the best one is Mari just gives up and goes home and lives her life happily.  Or one where she does turn into a spirit too, and forgets all about her mission, but lives happily after that.

 

But yeah, I was thinking of a less organized anarchistic mob who happened to ban together in something more like loose collections of like minded people then actual political groups (though maybe there is no difference), and they don't actually take their causes  very seriously. Basically it's all a amusing game to them. But maybe I am just describing myself? Mari of course wouldn't realize this and actually takes everything way too seriously, until people get tired of the game and wondered off to do something else. I donno.

 

I guess I just tend to think like that about war, that it's kind of pointless. Not even in a "war is hell" or "everyone should strive for pease" sort of way, more like in a "look at these two ant holes fighting so hard after a few scraps of food" sort of way. And what if both sides in a war knew that, knew that it was pointless and just did it for their own amusement? And what if the one soldier who actually took it seriously were to discover that no one else did?

It's really bittersweet because they're really happy when they die? Like the suicide is cathartic and they're comforted because they're going out together? 

 

And there are roadblocks to Mari just going on and living happily, sadly? Like she's in an abusive home situation and her and Butterfly are completely emotionally depended on eachother. 

 

ACTUALLY Mari doesn't take anything seriously and the leaders are too serious (I guess as ancient angry spirits it fits). But she's constantly making fun of their demeanor (The Rebellion Leader more so because she thinks they're ridiculous)  Though she does have good intentions in mind. 

 

But I'm going to keep my whole political system but I will add on anarchists cause that makes sense/sounds fun.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Hehe okay. I don't tend to think like that about suicide, but we will see. I wish you luck whatever you do! *sprinkles  more fairy dust on you*

[lonequeso 1,921]

Completely changing what the skill looks like and does would require a script. I'm 99.99% useless when it comes to that. I'm not sure if there's already one out there that'll do what you need it to do. If not, you can always ask for one. People on here are typically willing to do so. 

 

What else.... Mari turned into a little lamb little lamb little lamb Mari turned into a little lamb with a fleece as white as snow.

The only thing I can think of for that is the ability to jump over fences. I'm not sure if that idea is really stupid or really ingenious.

Actually, I do have another equally stupid or ingenious idea. Butterfly can ride Mari to move faster or escape from enemies. Butterfly would literally be "on the lamb" when escaping. Hey! I warned you! Maybe there's some puzzles that require faster movement like a bridge or door that only stays open for a certain amount of time. 

 

Are both Mari and Butterfly going to fight in combat? If so, Mari would fight as either a human or a lamb depending on which plane the player's on. Naturally, that would give her different skills. That's also assuming the earth-bound plane features combat. Lambs aren't exactly adept at fighting. Maybe she's in more a support role in that form or maybe can't fight at all. 

 

I was kinda hoping the humans would be puppets. Only because I got a really funny mental image of what a battle would look like to an onlooker. I imagined

someone walking down the street and seeing a man doing what appears to be his best impression of a hadouken from Street Fighter aimed at a tree. The magic is invisible and the tree is a fairy so the onlooker sees nothing of the battle until the tree suddenly explodes into a million pieces and disappears. He just stares, mouth-gaping completely dumbfounded and desperately trying to process what just happened.

 

Now that'll never happen cuz you had go be all like "No! The humans aren't puppets! They go to another plane!"   

[PastelPopPrince 6]

yOUR PUNS GIVE ME LIFE.

 

And the fairies don't have the ability to fight, so that's why they gotta use humans.

I like the speed thing though! 

 

And I mean, humans can still hunt down the tree or whatever that the fairy is on the normal plane and just start aggressively punching it outta spite. 

[lonequeso 1,921]

 

 

And I mean, humans can still hunt down the tree or whatever that the fairy is on the normal plane and just start aggressively punching it outta spite. 

Yay! Lmao! You know you absolutely have to put that in the game now. I could be part of the news report. The reporter is on-scene where a rash of disappearances are occurring. As their talking, someone in the background flies in out of nowhere, bull rushes a tree and starts wailing on it. The report just keeps talking normally not realizing what's going on behind them. This conversation literally made me laugh out loud. Well done! That leaves no doubt in my mind that your idea will become a great game.

[zebaroth 6]

the idea of the main chacter killing her sleff dose fit in the concept of a magical girl if it

was done destroy the big bad 

[Mysticphoenix 8]

[Tsarmina 2,612]

MysticPhoenix, please don't post spam (sorry if it isn't spam, but I have no idea what that picture means   )

[PastelPopPrince 6]

MysticPhoenix, please don't post spam (sorry if it isn't spam, but I have no idea what that picture means   )

It's from a magical girl anime, it's not spam, just a reference,