Day 20th: YoRHa no.9 Type A, NieR: Agaku
Day 20th: 9A, NieR: Agaku
And we're back for the 20th day! I know I keep saying this, but time really do fly back quick, huh? Basically two third of the challenge done already! For this week starting on Sunday, I knew I wanted to try out games I haven't touched yet or at least haven't gone has far as making characters in, but I ended up having a mini-theme of adaptation over the last few characters too! Starting with Sunday's Army of Darkness and yesterday's The One Ring, now with NieR: Agaku! We got a movie, a book and now a video game, guess I should try for a TV show tomorrow! And maybe I should pull the Green Ronin's DC Adventure game to cover comic books, though it's just Mutants&Masterminds 3e with Superman in it. Anyway, unlike the others, ELH's NieR: Agaku is not officially licensed, but maybe it's for the best. Looking at the official Dark Souls TTRPG, some things should just be left to actual fans rather than business interest, even with TTRPG being as niche and basically indie as it is. And yes, I do mean the Japanese version, not the D&D5e adaptation. It's a pretty rough game, though part of my problems with it may be from the French Translation.
Art by Txnuki on ych.commish.com
I keep talking about other stuff, the train ride home was jam-packed and has left me scatter-brained! As I was saying, NieR: Agaku is a very indie fan game, with only ELH being credited in the book, though it seems the system itself was from someone else and adapted! The game is still in an early release state and hasn't been updated for just short of 5 years, but feel free to check it out over here on itch.io. Character creation is pretty straight forward and the system is light-weight, though I'm not super sure it has anything that really makes it fit for NieR: Automata. Mechanic aside though, the text does make an effort to push the theme of NieR: Automata forward, so no complaint here. It's a dice pool system using d12 in large enough amounts that my starting character, though built using higher amount of point meant for one shot rather than campaign plays, throws 12 dice for attacking! So large amount of dice to throw in a type where you'll only get one per set of dice and that's unlikely to find in pack of multiple like you can do with d6 and d10, that's a strike against the game for me. Now, it's not as terrible as Ragnarok: Gods of Metal basing their system around d4s for a funny joke and then making the most disappointing and incomplete system I've ever had the displeasure to buy. Physical copy too, so even in the possibility that they fixed and updated the pdf, I would need to buy the game again to have it playable. I'm glad I never see it recommended!
Art by atris013 on ych.commish.com
Ok, ok, I'm back, I'm calm now. So back to NieR: Agaku, your stats doesn't just tell you how many dice you get to roll, but it also sets the number you gotta roll equal or under to gain a success. The GM then gets to adjust the difficulty by setting the number of success needed. It's functional and there seems to be a few way to play with it, so it's purely a me not liking big dice pool system kind of thing. One of the fun thing is that your stats are actually separated into two sets, on one hand you have your Styles, a series of adjective describing how you approach a situation, reminding me of Fate: Accelerated, which is the value you need to roll equal or lower on a d12, going from 1 to 10. On the other, you have the 6 actions, literally the mechanical actions your character can take and the number of dice you roll when attempting said action, going from 1 to 12. Then you have a chart of the various Styles and how they interact together, potentially gaining extra dice or losing some when acting with a certain style against someone using another style. There's also weapons giving a bonus to your target numbers if your using a weapon with a matching style or a penalty if the style goes counter to the weapon, like using a small, graceful sword to Attack Powerfully. I like the system enough despite not liking dice pool, I think it would be fitting for play by post or VTT where you can jury-rig a dice roller to give you the number of success swiftly.
Character creation is pretty swift, you have a number of points to distribute in your six actions and six styles, the game gives two set of value depending if you're going for a One-Shot or Campaign play, with One-Shot providing a greater starting scores. You then get to pick your android Type between A, B, D, E, G, H, P and S, each letter corresponding to that task your android is best at. I picked A, the attacker model specializing in close-range combat and with basically a berserk ability. I decided on it rather than the updated B type because then I can name her 9A and it sorta sound like the name Nina. That's the whole reason for her name. Aside from distributing rating to Actions and Styles and picking a Type, character creation also ask you to pick one starting program for your YoRHa unit's POD, the cute flying cube robot that accompanies every YoRHa unit on the field. In the actual game, PODs are mostly used for your range attack on top of special skills from programs, but not here for some reason. If you want to attack at range, you need to actually pick a ranged weapon! The Program is a once a scene ability, I picked A120: Repair to heal back the health damage I take when going berserk. Finally, you get to pick two weapons out of a few choice and give each of them a mod to add a special ability. I gave 9A a Light Blade representing a Rapier, then a Chakrams for a range option that's more fitting an Attacker type than a gun would be. As a finishing touch, I gave her a simple personality and notice the character sheet had a field for Operator. I pulled my trusty d30 to determine my operator is 23O and I went online to randomly generate a few character traits for her, two positives and two negatives.
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