>>18837867
Led by their most powerful girl named Luminia, the Magical Girls made it possible for the entire world to immediately recover from all the damage the Scetzolg Empire caused. Some nations were slower than others to accept aid, but inevitably came around when they saw how the Magical Girls turned the worst Third World countries into veritable Gardens of Eden.

Problems like world hunger, famine, pollution, and incurable diseases disappeared overnight in a wave of miracles. Life was better than ever, and the masses started worshipping the ground the Magical Girls stepped on.

That’s about when things went to hell.

>>18837890
Lumina and her “Love Shines,” we nicknamed them, warned humanity about how the Scetzolg Empire was still around but in hiding; that the empire was able to overtake the world so quickly from the start because our most powerful leaders had secretly been under their power. Whatever doubts we had of this were erased when the Prime Minister of the UK was exorcised by Luminia herself on live, national television.

>>18837937
It became mandatory to get checked for lingering Scetzolg influence. People diagnosed with “dark hearts” were dragged in front of a Love Shine to be purified. Mental asylums, prisons, and even juvenile halls were deemed breeding grounds for dark hearts, and were opened up to Love Shines to just waltz in and work their magic.

One moment you would have a deranged sociopath, and after a Love Shine flashes them with hearts, stars, and horseshoes, that person would put Mr. Rogers to shame. Ironically, we started calling those purified “Jolly Rogers”. If you ever see a Roger, you’ll know them by the unnatural sparkles permanently twinkling away in their eyes.

>>18837963
Welcome to the present, where the world is under the “benevolent and loving” rule of Queen Luminia. The sky is perpetually blue and sunny, and there’s always a rainbow in sight. The streets are clean, crime is near non-existent, and we never have repeat offenders.

We’re more terrified than ever, but we’re forced to hide our fears under brightly-colored uniforms and gilded smiles. We go to bed each night and pray that we aren’t dragged from our homes by the Cheer Squad to be taken to a re-education center, or worse, to Happy Hill.

No one ever comes back from Happy Hill.

>>18837987

This needs a game of paranoia. Also posting in epic thread.
>again, suredura

>>18837987
We live in a child’s coloring book. True human emotion has been muted in exchange for superficial love and kindness, and the never-ending search for true morality has been repressed in exchange for life lessons you’d learn on a Saturday morning cartoon. We’re dolls in a little girl’s playhouse. I’m sick of this world, and I’m not the only one.

>>18838026
We’re going to fight back against the Love Shines and their magic with the darkest kind we can find. We’ll dull out there sparkles with miasmic clouds. We'll wilt their lucky clovers with the most hate-filled hexes. We'll shatter their rainbow powers with reality's true hue.

Welcome to the fight. Welcome to Black Light.

Luminia is mai waifu

This has potential. Tell me more about this, Black light.

>>18837987

Minor nitpick, she'd probably call herself Princess Luminia. Because ponies.

Scetzolg Empire probably had tech or genetic engineering, to create monsters. Is that an option?

>>18838096
And that is the setting. Any suggestions to tweek it?

Just scoured the archives and got the idea to try and create something with a grim Magical Girl theme

>>18838193
Throw in some cyberpunk lite, and I'm down. When's the first game and what happy happy sunshine landmark/magical girl palace are we blowing up?

>>18838193
Id be all for a Black Light Quest.

>>18838176
Actually, yes. My original idea was to create a setting where you use technology/genetic engineering from what remains of the Scetzolg, but instead of fighting monsters, you hunt Magical Girls as the technical "monster" in the world.

Basically, light becomes evil, darkness becomes good.

>>18838193
I dig it, quick question though. How do they know if you harbor a dark heart? Is it an innate ability, because if so, we're screwed. For that matter, what constitutes a dark heart? Being evil? How evil? Where's the line drawn between Barron Von Naughty and Prince Puppy Kicker and your regular "I stole a candybar" or "I secretly like elves" level of evil?

>>18838255
So, what rules are their for putting monsters together? Can you do the whole "Make my monster GROOOW" thing?

>>18838257
There never was a thing as "dark hearts." It was a lie made by Lumina and the Love Shines so that they had an excuse to start taking control and "purifying" people.

Really, if you get accused of having a "dark heart," you just get dragged away to be re-educated into a Jolly Roger.

>>18838209
This was just me trying out some writefag practice, sorry. Not really confident to do a quest yet.

>>18838257
Combine Mirror's Edge with the red scare and WH40K burning hate for heresy.
BURN (Purify) THE WITCH (Guy who is totally so evil, I swear I'm not just doing this for attention because I'm eight)

While I am all for this setting, be prepared for the inevitable "Hurr, your just using this as an excuse to beat up little girls you sick freak."
Figure out an explanation that is concise and well written because, yes, in a sense, you are technically beating up little girls, regardless of whether or not they're legitimately evil monsters covering everything in pastel porcelain.

>>18838314

Gotcha. That makes sense. And now I'm going to make Prince Puppy Kicker the BBEG for the game I'm running for my 9 year old niece and her friends.

>>18838255
So..genetic engneering plus humanity's military equipment(which would probably be to much to destroy at once).

Or I could be apart of bikers who have a pack like mind link, in order to stop the Jolly Rogerings. If one mind goes, the other reboots it with a back up. Or something.

This reminds me a lot of those Left Behind sequels...

MST3K style snark can be found here: http://lawfulgoodwonk.blogspot.com/2011/04/book-8-kingdom-come-liveblog.html

And yes, the bad guys / strawmen are called The Other Light.

>>18838314
Too fucking late jackass. Next step is to start up one of those "Roll x and the fact you post is true" world creation threads to put the setting together, put together some light crunch stuff and run a game in IRC, then post to /TG/.
Soon after, develop, publish and become critically acclaimed because of "Magical Girl Cyber-Puncher 2024"

>>18838334
The Magical Girls don't have to be human at all. An explanation could be that the Magical Girls are the true monsters who use magic to hide their real appearance.

Or they could really be the Scetzolg, and everything that's happened has been a part of their plans.

>>18838314

Dude, this shit's good

Go write a page to start and get rolling; it only gets easier.

To avoid potential accusations of sexism due to the fact that the main antagonists are magical girls, I suggest you also add the male equivalent masked fighter archetype.

While the Magical Girls are the "face" of the new regime, it is the Masked Boys who make sure that "justice" is enforced.

Now you have a setup for Power Ranger death squads and Kamen Rider assassins.

>>18838392
The people demand Magical Girl Cyber-Puncher 2024.
Better get a better name for it though.

>>18838502
When Children's Shows Go Bad.

>>18838209
Not cyberpunk, magicpunk. The Magical Girls went and took out a lot of the tech because it led to people getting dark hearts, the internet being the first thing to go. Without a way to communicate quickly and discretely it got a whole lot harder. While the world lives and works using cheap and clean MagiPower the Black Lights take solace in the one thing that makes them different, technology. Using the tech to fight the magic.

>>18838478
'Magic Knights' could be the shock troopers.

Come in a variety of colors and explosions. Some ride cycles and others use giant mechs. Knights could be humans, forcibly converted by the mg. Sort of like the Combine do in Half Life 2.

Magical Girls would be the political and magical power.

>>18838478
With you PCs playing Monsters of the Week? That has potential.
>>18838502
>>18838402
>>18838383
Alright, guess I have some more work to do. I'll try to work something small and manageable out of this.

>>18838478
Alternatively, Pretty Cures on the hit-squads. Those girls can punch with the best of them.

>>18838558

Monsters of the Week or the "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME JOE!" organization.

>PCs are running a weapons operation to arm fellow rebels.
>In order to make dissenters stand any kind of chance against MG's, weapons will mutate them, however tends to make user physically unstable.
>First shipment of weapons delivered to warehouse.
>Suddenly, 5 Magical Knights dynamic entry through warehouse windows.
>Massive fight, defeated rebels using weapons explode.
>PCs flee a la main villain's useless goon squad.

It's like my childhood all over again!

>>18838558
Damn straight you do. We'll see you tomorrow night. Same /tg/ place, same /tg/ time.

>>18838554
Psycho Rangers/Evil Rangers would be magic knights who broke their brain washing.

There has to be some kind of resistance movement. I know that if either group tried shit where I live there would be hillbillies with bolt-action rifles and shotguns making life on earth Hell for them in the woods for years, if not decades.

And we're not even talking about fucking Switzerland.

>>18838735
Of course there'd be resistant movements. There'd probably constant fighting, but the magic girls would 1984 the entire place.

>>18838558
Would it be possible for some of the Magical Girls to rebel? It would be pretty cool for the PC's to find allies among the Magical Girl hierarchy, although you should ban them from playing such girls imo. It would ruin the flavor and it would make playing a Mary Sue Sailor Moon knockoff too enticing.

As for characterization I'd look towards Puella Magi Madoka Magica because I'm a weaboo faggot. I see girls/guys who fight not because they want to but because they have to from a moral standpoint. They'd fight and make Rogers in fear of what the old world was, even if they don't agree with the current dystopian conditions. Swaying them would be a matter of making them see the darkness as a better alternative than the light. There could even be cool anti-Magic Girls that grow because of that.

This would all depend on the nature of Magical Girls of course.

>>18838785
Hell, there's always the whole "Dark Magical Girl" thing to consider.

>>18838785
Well there was Dark Mercury in the Live Action Sailormoon, and Chibi-usa got turned into an evil hot chick.

...

Not that I watched Sailor Moon.

>>18838735
>And we're not even talking about fucking Switzerland

... Can we talk about fucking Switzerland? I'm interested here.

>>18838841
You are among friends here so feel free to let out all the weaboo you need to get your point across.

>>18838785
You could do some interesting things with the magical girls themselves as they grow up. Maybe they start to realize the problems in their world, maybe they don't and end up horrifically emotionally stunted...I suppose it all depends on whether or not they have the right voice whispering to them.

>>18838847

It's fucking hard to invade Switzerland, them Alps man.

>>18838865
We could also induce the 'shonen hero' archtype. Young men who are shared magic powers of a magical girl. Different from the magical knights, these people are allowed to keep their mind. The stronger their determination, the more their and as an extension so does the magical girl's.

So someone like Simon and Kamina would be a target by the hiearchy.

>>18838925
Power grows*

And mons would be captured monsters from the remnant s of the Setzolg Empire and transformed similar to Jolly Rogers.

Okay, retooling the original idea so that the "Good Guys" rule the world with an iron fist while the "Bad Guys" try to free it. I'm definitely going to keep the Magical Girls as the main rulers and villains of the world, but I see ideas I like about:

Magical Knights as public enforcers
Sentai/Power Rangers as the military
Metal Heroes/Kamen Riders as mercenaries and bounty hunters

And this is going to be a quest?

>>18838925
>targetting anyone like simon and kamina

well that's a great way to lose

>>18838918
That's a point. But at least some of the magical girls can fly to some degree. Because they're MAGICAL. They'd have less trouble with the terrain than any mortal man.On the other hand, though, this talking has me thinking in another direction...

The Swiss were well-known throughout the renaissance for having some of the best mercenary pikemen around, enough so that the Germans imitated them in the cheaper, less scrupulous Landsknecht.

What if the Swiss rebellion, bereft of more advanced technology by the forced demilitarization, fought back against the magical girl abominations with the push-of-pike and shitty homemade guns? Pike and shot in the modern day?

>>18838985
Or Yusuke, Goku, etc, etc. People with 'fighting spirit'.

>>18838970
I wouldn't mind it if you made this a quest. That would only flesh the world out more and THAT would make it easier for me to stea-, I mean borrow the concept for a story of my own.

>>18838985
Simon and Kamina are the Good Guys and in this world those are the real enemies. Would it really be a way to lose? Simon/Kamina archetypes could be minibosses or something.

Resistance groups can act as mooks for the players; they can take x amount of people who will sacrifice their lives just to give the PCs a chance to take down a Magical Girl or to destroy an objective.

That's another thing; you can have very public, flamboyant attacks in the open that distract attention for a team of saboteurs to steal intel or magic equipment or to free prisoners or whatever.

>>18838970
>"Bad Guys" try to free it
>Metal Heroes/Kamen Riders as mercenaries and bounty hunters
HAHAHA YES. I could imagine the Shocker Great Leader saying that the so call "Monster" of Shocker are actually Resistance Fighters who volunteer to get their body modified to better fight for freedom.

Idea: The Pastel clad oppression is far from monolithic. Magical girls are just as prone to drama and whatnot as teenagers are. So there are many factions of magical girls. Publicly, things are all sunshine and smiles. In private, the knives come out.

>>18839042
Of course they would. And in public, the lead girl will force others to 'unite their powers' to finish off an enemy. When in reality she is taking their powers.

>>18838998
'Oh dear girls, this monster is waaaay to powerful. I need you to give me your power in order to stop it!'

>FFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU-

final bump for the night.

I am far too sleep deprived right now to think of anything cool, but this setting deserves further attention.

That and I LOVE antagonistic sentai teams in my games.

>>18838998
Surely you mean "pike and shota"?

>>18839968
>Imperial Hapsburg armies, the invincible military juggernaut of their day, were famous for their deployment of pike and shota squares called 'tercio'.
>Its success was based primarily on strict drilling and 12 year olds.

I see the Metal Heroes/Riders more like: Those people with a true heart of justice are the only ones who can be transformed into them. However, they're kept heavily drugged/sedated and brainwashed so they never realize the nature of those they fight along side and their methods.

It harkens back to the original stories of the Riders, where the evil organization wanted to brainwash them and use them as shock troopers, but the Riders broke free/broke the brainwashing and started fighting back.

>>18839968
>>18840012
>pike and shota
Seriously, /tg/? Seriously?

Why do you fuckers always hit my funny bone just right? And why in the wrongest of ways?

>>18840068
We aim to please.

....
Interesting, very interesting. A setting where you are normal people on the run from magical girls who want to force their idea of utopia on you.

About the magical girls, should we have them age or not? Part of me does like the idea of 'magical women' but to have them not age would make them more... unsettling.

>>18840136
Use yer shotas boyz! Waaagh! Dakka dakka dakka!
Bring out da bigga shotas, lads! Waaagh!

>>18840147
>shotas and choppas
>oh lawd

What system do we want? Magical Burst is already extant for magical girls, but it's kind of designed to work the other way. And we still need fluff for what exactly the PCs are, although basically they'd have to be on par with (for example) a Desertrian General: Each powerful in their own right and capable of making a monster of the week, either from people with "dark hearts" or some other way.

>>18838785
>Would it be possible for some of the Magical Girls to rebel?
You just reminded me of Pretty Cure.
The girls in that show are controlled by their magic powers - When they transform, they shout a certain phrase. When they touch each other's hands, they shout a phrase and make their finishing attack. When an enemy attacks, they instinctively break physics to use a certain fighting style. They are actually very weak when not using their predetermined movements.

Now think what would happen if they tried to work with the "evil" guys. Just imagine their powers taking over, forcing them to fight. Imagine the horror these girls would live through and how much they would start hating their powers.
Perfect motivation for finding a way to change sides.

>>18838985
That's not the issue.
It would be suicidal to target their friends, though.

>>18840147


How about anachronistic mishmash, everything flintlocks to hovertanks?

>>18840188
I think it would be interesting to have them use either mundane (albeit very advanced) tech or become monsters of the week.
Look at Sacred Seven for an inspiration. Watch the gg version because it's hilarious. (The show itself is pretty bad)

So what kinds of magical girls are these?
Are they exclusively the sunshine and rainbows "Purify monsters" kind, do they have the more freeform approach of Nanoha or Madoka or are they fist fighting like Pretty Cure (Purification may or may not be part of the package)?

The PCs come across something similar to Guyver units?

>>18840263
For an RPG, maximum potential variety is ideal.

>>18840270
So powerful armor of unknown origin?

I like the idea of them finding weird artifacts, then utilizing them to make themselves stronger. For example, a way for attaching cybernetic limbs and making them superhumanly powerful or some kind of alien powered armor. Bonus points for customizing everything.

>>18840145
One of the things we could do is have the Magical girls be forms of something a bit more sinister.

Also they should recruit from 'promising' candidates amongst the population.

>>18840292
>have the Magical girls be forms of something a bit more sinister.
In my opinion this deviates too much from the premise.

>>18840145
Either unaging or they stop being magical when they get older. Magical women (or adult men) turns this into a more generic "ubermensch overlords" situation.

>>18840136
>>18840147
>>18840177
So... If the revolution in central Europe is using shotas and funky schizo tech to fight the magical girls, is this fucker from that Westerfield series about diesel/fleshpunk World War I going to show up too?

And on the note of schizophrenic technology, will the rebellion overall be one big mashup of past military traditions, saturday morning cartoon villains and horrible shoggoth/deep one/insert-abominations-here, all illogically mishmashed from whatever the populace could bring together to fight against the varied legions of anime stereotypes? And that's before you get into the side-switching dynamics of not-yet-power-blessed mundane fanatics and repentant magical girls & other animu things (only converted mundanes, of course, since all the True Magical Girls are inhuman abominations) who saw that they were actually supporting a horrible Orwellian nightmare rather than a utopia?

And in fact, that phrasing, True Magical Girl, gave me an idea. This is basically a just-barely-not-worst case scenario of the fae monsters from beyond the Hedge, but all anime stereotypes, somehow staging an organized invasion of Earth, with Changeling, Delta Green, Exalted and all manner of system & universe ideas rolled into one to form a ramshackle resistance of the mundane and unnatural.

>>18840310
>>have the Magical girls be forms of something a bit more sinister.
>In my opinion this deviates too much from the premise.
Leaving it open to interpretation may be the best way to go, but the default should lean towards as Grim Bright as it can

>>18840031
Another thing in the Metal Heroes/Riders/Sentai. Would they all look similar/their suits be from a common mold archtype? Alot of times the evil riders and whatnot all look exactly the same, it's only those who have managed to break their conditioning that take a unique form.

>>18840349
There are only five or six in any given region, and those all have identical or almost identical costumes. But each regional group can look very different from the guys nearby. So there might be Power Ranges in Texas and Riders in Louisiana.

>>18840374
They'd have to operate differently too then. The Texas Rangers working more as a team based force that's always together, while the rider territory is all work alone types that can solo a monster/multiples.

>>18840349
If we're going on the lines that Heroes/Riders are brainwashed/drugged then their differences come from their generation, region and their own personal affinities. I do like the the idea of the Sentai be SpecOps or Task Forces so them being the same makes sense, but the same rules apply between each Task Force. Riders and Sentai should have difference foci in what they're meant for though as if the villainous Riders look more cookie cutter, then that could be explained as the Resistance trying to reverse engineer the suit and getting as many out as they can.

>>18840400
Like I said, I see the resistance based Riders more along the line of those who have broken free from some sort of control. They'd be rarer on the resistance side in general, but the freeing of a Rider/Metal Hero could be seen as a major victory.

Originally the Riders were just Monster Generals who had managed to avoid getting brainwashed and started fighting back, after all.

Here's an idea: What if we have our generic force of darkness as the source of the PC's powers, and they can do mustache-twirlingly evil shit to restore/gain power, like with Infernals in Exalted. If we do them with no powers then they'd end up a lot like the Equalists in Legend of Korra, which is a valid play style but I feel it misses out on some valuable themes.

>>18840320
I think you're focusing on the least important aspects, but I'd consider a near future setting to be ideal, with anachronistic technology used due to scarcity of modern weaponry.

Mmm, Riders and other sentai as renegade outlaws with bounties on their "heads," roaming around to combat the good and shine the Black Light.

You know how Power Ranger bases are always secret? The megazords are hidden underground, the facilities are far out of the way and kept hidden from everyone? They already fit into a world that has turned against them! The only difference is that the Magical Girls will be actively searching for these terrorist cells of resistance.

This is a really great idea. I like this thread.

>>18840433
>>18840417
So far there's three types of PC we want: Mundane, supernatural cartoon villain, and renegade Sentai. The Mundane one seems like it would be at a lower power level, though. We need to figure out what his strength is.

>>18840461
I'm thinking he makes bombs and robots, hacks computers, and generally does guerrilla or cyberpunk type stuff.

This reminds me of that Mary Sue dystopia trend we had a while back.
I created a story with many magical girls, had some gun with Acronyms.

Combat oriented Magical girls (COMG)@ e.g. Magic Knight Rayearth

Partially Animalised magical girls (PAMG): (but everyone calls them PZP, petting zoo people) e.g. Tokyo Mew Mew

Barrier Projecting Magical girl (BPMG) e.g. I got no examples, I don't watch that much anime.

Elemental magical girl (EMG): e.g. Most of the Sailor Moon cast.

I don't care if you use my classifications or not and I do get the idea of leaving the types of magical girls vague.

>>18840461
>>18840469
What if the Magical Girls had a kind of magical sensor system in place that could detect "evil hearts" because they had magic, or transformative items on them? A Mundane could ignore that and *more easily* pose as a regular human in the world's society. They'd be more in tune with the social situations of the age. Kind of like social spies or rogues, who can also do things like make bombs, hack computers, shoot guns...

Here's what I'm thinking: Three main stats, one for each character type. Each character has his main stat, which he uses in combat.
Rogue Sentai has Might, Cartoon Villain has Magic, and Guerrilla has Moxie, or Tech, or something like that. This is essentially the character's power level, and it decides how many dice the character rolls to attack or defend.
Then the player would pick things along the lines of the Magical Effects in Magical Burst, and possibly also things like element and magical power from the same game. Non-combat abilities could use skills or they could use similar feat-like things acquired in the same way. It's probably best to have at least a "cool, aggro, sharp, social" suite of skills, but I don't think we really need more specific ones. Not sure on the mechanic for those though.

Thoughts?

>>18840534
I'm thinking of a way to detect dark hearted people.
The lower the stat the harder you are to find.
There are ways to decreases your dark heart stat but the more you do the less options you have, you won't be able to steal at one point and when you have none you'll have to turn your dark hearted buddies in to the proper authorities.

On that note it is possible to gain more dark hearts, the more you do it the more questionable acts you'll be able to do without hesitating or regretting but of course this means you'll be easier to detect. Perhaps you'll develop a taste of blood.

It's all right to have a bit of dark heart in you but if you have none you won't be able to control yourself anymore. Too much and it's the same problem only more obviously evil.

Balance is the key.

>>18838174
>because ponies

Not just MLP, the creators of the show made them Princesses because Disney has inadvertently set up little girls to see Princesses as good, pure, holy, heroic, etc... But Queens as evil, spiteful, vengeful, etc...

MLP may be perpetuating Princess fetishism among girls but they didn't start it.

>>18840566
More power making you easier to detect works for fluff since it gives the GM a good reason why there's more and more powerful enemies. But in terms of crunch we don't want to force the players to keep their power level low. It's okay to do something there but we don't want it to be too crippling. I'm not sure on specific mechanics now. We could give the Guerrilla a "doublethink" or "hidden heart" ability that lets his power not be counted for the purposes of being detected. And this should only mechanically come into play when trying to be stealthy, I think.

Wait, were you thinking of this as a WoD-morality type of a thing? That seems non-ideal to me.

I think Monster of the Week should be a fourth character archetype. It'd be different, though. You'd expect the Magical Girls to destroy you every game session, and you'd create a new Monster of the Week every session you were. This would rely on the creation rules for Monsters being elegant, quick, and fun, but the payoff comes in being Gigan one session and Megas XLR the next.

Perhaps every Mundane can be terrible in combat (as they generally are in most shows or comics of this genre) but the player can also create a Monster to control and fight against the Magical Girls's forces. Every session he could create a new monster to use. Perhaps the monsters are killer robots, or giant killer robots, controlled from a computer console in-base, or on the character's wrist-mounted supercomputer. Maybe the Monster of the Week is really a Monster, and the Mundane can MAKE HIS MONSTER GROOOOOOOW.
The idea is to provide a contrast between the persistent human "Mundane" character who prevails in matters technological and social while sucking in combat compared to everyone else, but allowing his player to control a big powerful Monster that he can expect to be destroyed every session. He can then make a new one every session or two and explore all kinds of different setups that way.
Monster of the Week creation rules would have to be fun and relatively quick.

Evil geniuses could be Mundanes, this way. The Mundane could also be the one most expected to use technology -- a Rider uses his powers, a supervillain uses his Magic or whatever, a mundane uses anti-air missiles to shoot at flying Magical Girls.

Finally, and I don't know where to put this, Goldar would be a magical supervillain, because he is recurring. He wouldn't be a Monster of the Week.

>>18840263

Girls like Nanoha wouldn't last in the false utopia much. That girl is fucking genuine paladin material. They'd either start working rogue or die in a blaze of glory trying to take down the dictatorship.

Which could make them pretty good allies to PCs, actually.

One last idea before I turn in:
Perhaps those who use Scetzolg magic are warped by it. Mages could have an Overcharge system like the Magical Burst one. Let them roll or choose a change, and it persists from when they accrue the OC until some time after according to how much OC they have. And if it goes past a certain point then the change is permanent and they have the change permanently. Then you can have things like claw hands or devil wings or just one evil eye that they usually hide behind their hair.

>>18840607
Sort of WOD morality, however I was more thinking along the lines of think too goody two shoes and you'll become the enemy, be too evil and you'll become detestable and deserve the attention of all the good guys who want you 'Jolly'

As for power itself... hmmm, I suppose the way you'd limit the players is with the following.

You see the higher level characters get they can either get abilities that make them stronger or abilities that hide their power level.

It'd be an economy of self control.
You could invest in a skill that makes you punch harder or you could get one that helps you control your breathing etc.

I'm assuming the player would start with a bit of both types of abilities.

Kamen Riders for example have decent fighting power and the great ability to hide that power in the sense that they have to unlock it to use it via transforming.

This also brings up another point.

What if you had character who were ALL POWER ALL THE TIME?
Then you'd have the opposite, weak but good at hiding things, so good that they could hide other people?

So the guy who smashes everything could still be in the party and not wreck everything as you'd have someone with damage control powers etc.

Not entirly sure how it'd work but it's a though.

>>18840668
We could have something like that for everyone. Like maybe the Sentai/Rider has suit power, so he could have double HP but his abilities diminish it.

>>18840630
What about characters who are not monsters of the week, but monsters of the arc? Does that edge into supervillain territory, but with inhuman form, or can there be distinction?

And honestly, these Scetzolgs. Are they real, or were they the magical girls in disguise all along? Or are the magical girls ALL Scetzolgs? Or are they a twisted creation of the magical girls, which the rebels occasionally, horribly, splice themselves with, resulting in more human superpowered 'villain' types and new Scetzolg-like Cthuvian monstrosities?

>>18840717
That's a strong mechanical thing though, while the other thing is mostly aesthetic. I guess those changes could have effects, but in most cases it would make sense for their mechanical effects to be positive, and even if they weren't it's a temporary/permanent mismatch.

>>18840729
I'm thinking the Scetzolgs were real. But regardless, there's some sort of dark magic that the evil wizard archetype can tap into.

>>18840717
>>18840668
I like these ideas. And then the Guerrillas wouldn't have any limitation on his powers but his powers wouldn't be quite as strong.

>>18840729
Not exactly. People naturally want to play the same character session after session. "Monster of the Arc" would just be a Monster of the Week that didn't die. Like Rook here, or that creepy magician guy from earlier on in Kamen Rider Kiva who wasn't killed but appeared later. Whatever happened, the Monster of the Week survived, and is used again for the next sessions. Maybe upgraded, maybe not.

The monster is almost solely focused on combat, while all the social, mental, and other physical requirements (and limited combat ability as well) for the character is put into the player's persistent, like-a-regular-PC Mundane or Guerrilla character.

>>18840761
Hurp a durp forgettin' the pic.

The monster of the week summoning its a pretty good idea.
I was thinking along the lines of having corruption meters like 40K RPG's. You could have two corruption meters i.e. A Dark Hearted and a Bright hearted one but you then run into silly situations where you can be both Bright and Dark Hearted, perhaps if that happens disorders and negative modifiers come in.
Also we can have something were Kamen Riders have to be careful as becoming more and more Dark Hearted diminishes their powers. Like shadowrun,

>>18840801
Why not have the corruption meter start in the middle, with one end being "Light" and the other end being "Dark" so that if you fight too hard, you become the monsters, or have to turn to light to balance things out?

Heck, we could use multiple morality bars as fuel for various effects - you can take the "friendship" bar, and use the dark archetype - isolation, say - so that the magical girl doesn't get backup, but it means you have one less point of darkness you can take without disfigurement. The Jolly Rogers would be people who were forced to use up all their light archetype points, so now they can't help but act that way...

>>18840801
I like the idea of a Monster Creator as a character. Physically weak, but can create a huge monster that has a limited existence and some large weak point.

Robot engineers, bio-engineers, summoners, etc could all be part of this class.

This is a damn good thread

>>18841128

One idea for the 'monster of the week' power is that Magical girls are hardwired to fight them.

>i.e. The PC's are getting away and the Magical >girl hit squad are just a room away. The >Monster summoner PC stops running and >successfully creates a 'Monster of the week'
>The hit squad, upon seeing the Monster must >make saves otherwise in order to keep >pursuing the PC's. The Magical girls fail their >saves, take poses and fight the monster >leaving the PC's to get away.

OP here

If the thread is still around this afternoon, I'll take a shot at writing potential fluff based on some of the ideas I've seen.

>>18841447
Hopefully we can get a set of rules going, or at least a good system to run this off. This would be awesome as an RPG/adventure.

>>18841263
Basically, the Monsters of the Week are the tank class, heh heh heh.

Anyone got any ideas for magical girl factions and types? All the better to play them off against one another.

>>18841517
Well if you are pressed, I did have a fun with Acronyms moment >>18840476

Oh, and I have got yet another idea.
For magical characters, we can add a Changeling: The lost bent to it.

Magical girls/Riders don't reproduce the same way we do (sex is icky) and instead take people to turn into one of them.
If someone has a sufficient will, taken by a careless Magical girl/rider or just plain lucky then can escape before they are fully changed.

The thing is the more Pure Hearted they get the better powers they obtain, however if they reach 100% Pure heartiness they turn into a True Magical girl/rider also their bodies are resist to Dark Heartiness so magical characters have precious balancing act to follow.

>>18841582
Maybe for the Magical Girls, but that doesn't really make sense for the Sentai/Riders/Toku/Whatever. I thought we were avoiding the "Horrible Elder Being from Beyond disguised as a little girl" thing too.

>using genetic engineering and dark magic
>2012
We need one faction that doesn't deal with monsters and magic, using only SUPER SCIENCE: exoskeleton suits, mecha, artillery barrages...

This reminds me of a fic I read once called "Magical Girl Hunters"....

I've forgotten most of it, but I distinctly remember two guys with shotguns; a pervy, leather-suited Sailor Scout with a whip; and a Camo-befrocked /k/ommando gun-nut magical girl busting in on a mass magical girl swearing in where 64 kindergartners were each given a magic, spark-spewing crayon and matching, colour-coded talking baby chicken and told to go fight crime.

>>18841607
Yea I suppose.... we are sort of going for a Crapsaccharine World rather then going GRIMDARK!

Manly tears were shed.

Haha, just kidding you guys. I don't watch Sailor Moon.

Yeah.

>>18838096
This is casual tier.
if you want to read about fighting magical girls and their evil plot go here
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6892672/1/Haigeki

>bad guys as PCs
>here, have a Venom-vampire dating a magical girl

She thinks we spend our time together on dates. We do, sometimes. I'm not so cruel to completely lie to her, and it gets very lonely, sometimes, mesmerizing her with my eyes into the sleep-trance and leaving her on the floor of my room to slumber while I drain her energy. She's one of them - sucking enough life from her to kill a human leaves her dazed and hapless the next day, but not dead. I feel guilty, sometimes, when I see her stumbling through classes, teased for her lack of focus and clumsiness. Then close my eyes, and think of the boy in my writing class who was taken away one day and never returned, and the dark thing wrapped around my heart and spine shivers with hunger.

While she trance-sleeps, in the evenings, I go out and hunt her sisters. I'm not as strong as them, not like this, having to hide what I am, but they can't find me, and I can always find them. I just have to find the one hanging back, the one who'd not sure of herself, and drag her into the dark with my shadows, and spike a blast of fear and doubt into her with my eyes. Then with a touch I drain her. "I could have killed you," I say, as she shivers, her transformation broken. "Would your leader show mercy?" And then I vanish into the darkness.

One of them has come to us, a slip of a girl who wears all black, now. The thing on my heart aches. I think it wants to spread to her.

>>18841607
>I thought we were avoiding the "Horrible Elder Being from Beyond disguised as a little girl" thing too.
>>18841743
>we are sort of going for a Crapsaccharine World rather then going GRIMDARK!
Things can be kept Crapsaccharine while implying that the Magical Girls aren't quite as human as they appear to be.

Exactly how far from human they are can vary; they could be anything from normal girls who threw away their essential humanity in order to become "magical," or living imposisbilities that exude sugar-coated corruption.

Queen/Princess Luminia is obviously something other than human; it shows from just how the world's enviroment from the sky to the grass has been rendered anime-ish to fit her concept of a perfect world. Whether she had been human once or had always been some "other" will remain a mystery, but what is certain is that her power has increased ever since people have began worhsipping her.

Magical Girls are supposed to get stronger when people put their hopes and belief in them, right?

>>18842632
Yeah, as long as it doesn't deviate too far from the premise. Making them horrible fae from beyond doesn't really work and this should lean toward Grim bright as much as possible.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/18837867/

ok ok, I did get a bit over enthusiastic about the fae idea but I suppose we all can agree that if your alignment/corruption meter gets 100% in either direction your character gets removed from play.

I wonder if we should have classes or go for one without classes. While you might expect magical girls to be rigid in respects to training, resistance members won't.

Perhaps we should have a class-less system with a magic/summon system that encourages specialization, or something.

>>18841730
DUDE. I remember that series. Holy shit, and here I thought nobody remembers anything longer than five years on the internet.

NO NO NO NO NO!

This thread was hair-raising awesome personified, until I started to hit the "Magic Girls are actually evil monsters who lied about everything" idiocy.

They ARE the heroes. They DID defeat evil. They are pure-hearted human girls who learned to use their magical gifts to defeat the evil empire.

And THEN they had to live in the world that followed. With vast powers, and no foe to fight, they tried to fix things. They didn't turn corrupt - they're in it for the right reasons, and only their relative inexperience and naivete lead them to do all these unethical things. They truly, honestly, want what is best for everyone.

Also: when it comes to fighting one of the Magic Girls, the players need to feel like they have a fight on their hands. We're talking, a bunch of underground rebels trying to wrestle Wonder Woman.
Keep the Girls in the background - on posters and television, constantly talked about, maybe seen streaking across the sky in a blazing rainbow - but almost never met face to face.
They have to be awesome, fearsome, beautiful, glorious, and terrifying.

Guys. GUYS. GUUUYYS.

On this debate between "eldritch monstrosities that just LOOK like magical girls and were just fooling around with us all along because they thought this combination would be the most disturbing and awful of all forms they could take" and "honest to gosh magical girls who just turned cockish and accidentally made a horrible Orwellian society of midnrape when they didn't have any REAL evil to fight and were extremely dumb."

Pic related?

>>18842632
>Things can be kept Crapsaccharine while implying that the Magical Girls aren't quite as human as they appear to be.
I guess theoretically it's possible but why would we want to?

>>18843286
No reason we can't leave it up to interpretation, but I agree with you entirely.

How about we compromise and say that the majority of the magical girls really are pure-hearted heroes who are just running an orwellian empire because they think it's the best for humanity, but their LEADERS are the ones that are horrible eldritch abominations in disguise?

Pic totally related.

>>18843445
I'd rather not. Really, I think anything that turns the game into a variant of Changeling is missing the point.

>>18843472

Ok then. So we're keeping the Magical Girls as just misguided Magical Girls?

>>18843502
Yea, I'm the guy who came up with the changeling angle and in hindsight I think that's a stupid idea.

Having it dark it just cliche

Ugh. Its too cliche and Western for the magical girls to simply be evil and conspiratorial. I'd be much more excited about this idea if they had a legitimate reason to try and take over the world, but lost themselves to power along the way. It's a very human thing for immature young women given abilities no one else has.

That and the evil is good, good is evil idea is just so cliche. Why even have black and white in the first place? Its a much more effective method to just make both sides ambiguous. I can't imagine every single magical girl would believe the same things were good for humanity without any dissension. They were human in the first place after all.

>>18843564
This. And there's no reason the PCs couldn't be considered as evil as they'd appear to the Magical Girls, or even as evil as they'd seem to many mundane humans.

One thing we should do is that the 'powers of darkness' are not at all misnamed. The forces the PCs draw upon are indeed evil, and more than that, stupid, self-defeating evil.
Like PCs who draw too much upon their shadowy forces should have to roll to resist gloating and explaining their plans, or killing their subordinates for failing them.

>>18840630
I think that you shouldn't play as the monster of the week, but rather the big bad that keeps throwing them out.

>>18843564
By that note I'd add if you wanted to have magical girls on the PCs' side, they could be the stereotypical "dark" magical girl, akin to Fate in Nanoha before she was befriended, except she never changes sides. They tend to be more brooding and less trustful of others, and don't have the same passion for "love" and "justice" the heroic magical girl does. Making them into protagonists in this kind of story makes plenty of sense I feel.

>>18843582
I was thinking that gloating and whatnot could actually make things easier for the PC by restoring their "mana", or using the plan in >>18840668
then by reducing the overcharge/magical corruption that they take.

>>18843590
And then the PCs could be in the sticky situation of seeing that this girl is pretty clearly depressed, but are worried that helping her will make her change sides?

>>18843604
...Yeah that does sound a lot better.

>>18843564

Here's the thing. The Magical Girl empire is bad because it sees darkness and doubt and negative feelings as inherently evil and must be repressed or lobotomized. You are either the purest of the pure heroes and good little civilians, or you are an evil monster and must be purged.

We know that real life isn't black and white, and what the resistance is attempting to do is to give voice to the dark sides of humanity that are necessary to be human in the first place. We're the people who say it's okay to scared, it's okay to have doubts, it's okay to be angry and to get hurt and to take risks in life. Because that's how we learn from our mistakes and become better people, it's how we learn to truly recognize what is good in life, not because we've been forced into those lessons, but because we've come to those conclusions on our own.

Just remember, objects in real life aren't defined by big black broad outlines. They're defined by CONTRAST. And we are the shadow of humanity that the magical girls have attempted to erase. So yes, we'll hide in the darkness and do things that we're not proud of, and destroy things that make people happy. Not because we enjoy it, but because it is NECESSARY.

It goes without saying that some of the 'Black Light' forces really ARE crazy evil and would be even worse than the magical girls, were they in charge right?

>>18843590
The problem with that is it doesn't leave us at liberty to make Magical Girls substantially more powerful than PCs, which we'd probably want to. It should take a whole party to take one down, and that's at the level that they can take down Sentai and Riders with ease.

>>18843644
Would they be worse than the Magical Girls? I don't think that's a question we need to answer, from a game design perspective. It's better to leave that up to players. They definitely have more working against them, since they're using the elemental magic of puppy-kicking, but that doesn't mean they can't conform well to some positive political ideal.

>>18843642

And even though you may justify doing bad things out of necessity at first, the further you get into it, the harder it is to not also justify doing those same things unnecessarily. It's a slippery slope, and takes a person of great willpower to remember their purpose and hold to their ethics even as they immerse themselves in the darkness.

>>18843672
I'm just saying that the Black Lights shouldn't be homogenous and that every group has its bad eggs and the bad eggs for Black Lights should be people who want to eat souls or turn the world to eternal light, or do unethical experiments to create the perfect being.

>>18843644

The magical girls represent one extreme. The forces that the PC use also can be taken to extremes and prove just as harmful, if not worse.

>>18843698

The thing is, that those Black Light people who go off the deep end not only end up harming other people, but also further justify the Magical Girl's rule over the world. It's saying "hey there really ARE corrupting forces that we're saving you from!"

>>18843729
And you're saying that's a BAD thing?

>>18843735

I guess not.

If we're going for a theme of "shades of grey" here, then it would make sense that the Magical Girls themselves are not all entirely selfish fascists, and that originally their powers were meant for good.

The deeper you go into the darkness, the more likely you shal lost in it. But the more you stare into the light, it may blind you.

One must find balance.

>>18843642
I think that idea sort of misses the point of magical girls in general, shoehorning them into the position of Orwellian dictators awkwardly. There are plenty of magical girl concepts that make the idea of suppressing human freedom and desire in favor of constantly happy emotions seem ill-fitting. If you really want to maintain their flavor, you'd be better off making them ambiguous, as why even bother with the magical girls if they're just going to be one-dimensional "happy is good, sad is bad" rulers?

Stereotypical magical girls are the protectors of things like love, friendship and happiness. None of those things can exist without human beings being given the freedom to decide for themselves. If you want to pervert that concept, make the magical girls create an establishment that abuses its power, and have some magical girls behave worse than others. Some believe that humanity's instincts must be controlled; they're completely lost as far as the classic magical girl ideology goes, but still maintain the same miraculous power. Others are nothing more than glorified thugs. Still others have degenerated to insanity and truly believe that they are helping humans become happy by lobotomizing them, etc. The greatest strength of a magical girl, like the tokusatsu hero's idealism, is her purity and innocence. Let her keep her powers, but remove that innocence, or pervert that innocence for evil goals. What would *really* happen if children gained powers and were forced to grow up too quickly?

>>18843286
It would have to vary. Some of the MGs in the lower ranks would probably believe fully that what they do is right, while you'll find others higher up on the ladder that just love the power.

The original MGs/Love Shines have probably gone full Calligula and believe that they're goddesses.

Also, there should probably be some ethical question to fighting Jolly Rogers. Do you hold back against them because they're brainwashed, or do you do whatever it takes to fight for freedom?

>>18843651
And I dunno, if Dark Magical girls are what they are because they refuse to partake in whatever horrors power the real ones, then it stands to reason that they should be weaker. The Dark Magical girl's purpose after all is to present a mirror image to the heroine that seems evil at first glance, but either dies saving her or becomes a friend. That means that going against the grain in this sort of society as a magical girl is a near death sentence, and they would be marginalized from any sort of power source the magical girls have access to.

This reflects my bias however, as I'm contemptuous of powers that epitomize an idea like "evil," or draw on such things. Better to leave those matters ambiguous and make the magical girls draw upon an unexplained and dangerous power source others, like the heroes can only use a corrupted and weaker version of.

>>18843784
>Stereotypical magical girls are the protectors of things like love, friendship and happiness. None of those things can exist without human beings being given the freedom to decide for themselves. If you want to pervert that concept, make the magical girls create an establishment that abuses its power, and have some magical girls behave worse than others.

So you would rather have the magical girls as a general term for anyone with these powers instead of a tightly regimented organization that usurps control of the world's governments like we were discussing earlier?

>>18843865
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe in the concept of the magical girls actually having the unity to *all* participate in the same regime. "Magical Girl" in this cause could be construed to mean any girl who has access to the same power source as the regime, but most should be part of that regime, as independent ones would probably be locked out of that power source and killed pretty quickly. Those independent ones are Dark Magical girls.

In the regime itself though, unity is merely an illusion. Some believe in the ideals while others merely want to watch others suffer out of bitterness. I figure the most convincing way to turn a magical girl antagonistic is to have her childish mind be betrayed by the ideals she believes in. Maybe the magical girls genuinely protected the world but were horrified to find that nothing really changed, and took matters into their own hands.

I suppose there is another reason behind the magical girls motives. They have been given powers to fight an enemy that only they can fight.

I guess that almost all of them would have a hard time with the idea that their quest is now over.

A lot of them are trying find darkness in anything so they have something to fight.

>>18843819

In some ways this creates a sort of paradox.

On one hand, you can't TRULY have things like honor, friendship, and kindness when they're forced upon you, they just become hollow rote motions instead of the positive emotions that we experience now. The military dictatorship that the magical girls imposed makes it impossible for human beings to truly be free because they conform to this shallow idea of happiness out of fear of punishment, not because they're actually happy.

So the PCs and others who take up the mantle of the "bad guys" do so in order to tear down the establishment so that people can be free to honestly embrace those positive emotions. But by creating a dark side in opposition to the magical girls based on the shadows that they've tried to repress, you give the magical girls something to fight again and further cement their power. It justifies the reeducation camps and the autocratic control of people's lives to try and prevent those monsters from being created.

And in the end, if we are the monsters, we must inevitably be defeated. Because that's what magical girls and saturday morning cartoon heroes do, is save the day. It's almost like failure is necessary.

>>18843964
This is one of those scenarioes where a Gainax ending would be a good thing.

>>18843991

Well we're using this scenario to address some pretty deep questions about ethics and human nature, ones that are extremely difficult to answer in a satisfying manner without either resorting to cliches, or making an ending that isn't really an ending at all.

Both sides believe they are in the right. Both are fundamentally opposed to each other, and yet both are necessary on some level for the universe to exist as we know it. Destruction vs. preservation, entropy vs. order, passion vs. balance.

There's a lot at work here. And I think to make this a viable setting, some compromises will have to be made to make it fun to play or read about, to give a distinct side that we can root for to succeed.

I may have just missed this, but what about those who have power based on a sort of "fighting spirit" that has nothing to do with justice, honor or other concepts the magical girls uphold? Raw life force, the power of nature red in tooth and claw, or blazing green in other cases.

>>18843942
Yeah, this is a good concept and thematically appropriate for magical girls. I'd be willing to be a lot of real children don't actually believe that happy all the time would make the world a better place. That just seems like the magical girls were never human to begin with, which makes fighting them lose its pathos.

But the whole idea of magical girls is very similar to "chuunibyou" stereotype in fiction writing where a useless, no good person becomes a special person through sheer coincidence and luck. Magical girl series tend to avoid this, but there's still the idea of pandering to the viewer's sense of power fantasy. I think a lot of kids who are unsatisfied with their lives find the idea of becoming special or having super powers with no effort to achieve them for themselves appealing. Many magical girls have boring, normal lives and see themselves as having no amazing or special talents/qualities, then suddenly they're given magical powers and are the star in their own story. Madoka is sort of a reversal of this, as Gen's writing shares a common theme of "the more special you are, the more extreme your suffering," whereas normal magical girl series seem to assert that being special just makes everything in your life better.

Before they gained powers, they were nobody, but things are different now! They're on a different level than normal, pitiful humans without magical abilities. (etc.)

>>18843964
Yeah see, I like this idea. Not opposing the magical girls to uphold some esoteric "force of darkness" that is necessary for good to exist, but merely fighting them for freedom and naturally falling into occupying the role traditionally held by the monsters of the week and objectively evil guys magical girls in anime tend to fight. Nobody but the heroes knows that they're not just some shallow bad guys the magical girls fight against and beat for the good of humanity, and nobody knows that the magical girls themselves keep this up because if they didn't, they'd lose purpose.

Just because they wear brightly colored frilly dresses and smiles instead of black coats and grim faces don't make them any different from any other tyrant ever.
People would, SHOULD be fighting against this tooth and nail.

Also, what the hell is this thing about letting shonen heroes in on the Revolution? Aren't they the enemy, too?

>>18844243
Some of them are good, some of them are bad. The same as everyone else we're discussing.

One of the games I played was more or less like this. Except we, or rather, the combined armies of the entire planet, were the monsters they fought. They lost spectacularly: 43 million dead magical girls against 150,000 soldiers and 340,000 civilians lost.
Turns out ceramic + kevlar is quite resistant against their attacks, and bullets kill them dead.

>>18841730
I remember that. It was good until it started being about political plays between otherdimensional beings instead of two guys killing magical girls.

>>18844243
Don't you know boys are icky and not in any way, shape, or form pure of heart and mind?

These girls are perverted forms of wish fulfillment and would not be interested in letting someone who could be interested in "needless violence" and the like into their super special happy fun time club for girls only. Thus the rebellion.

Though the boys would be watched *very closely* if they were allowed in. Potential time bomb, etc.


Also, I am working on a little writefaggotry for this. Typing it up before I post it so I can machinegun it properly.

>>18844347
Girls, specially magical ones, are cute. Boys like cute girls. Boys would consider these girls worthy of protection for any reason (fucking chivalry and all that) and they would become masked protectors for them, in the hopes they could score points with them.

And for the rebels, a second set of targets.

So the people who transform into monsters, would be like Devilman?

>>18844517
Devilman, Skullman, this suave motherfucker, etc.

>>18844517
People transform into monsters the moment they say 'no more'.
People transform into monsters the moment they shed their brightly colored uniform.
People transform into monsters the moment they stop being afraid and fight.

>>18843942
>>I guess that almost all of them would have a hard time with the idea that their quest is now over.


Traditionally, their powers usually get burnt out/sacrificed/turned-in/taken away at the end.

For inspiration on "act dumb-evil for your own benefit", check out the Limit-reduction rules in Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals.

Limit, in Exalted, is something that builds up when you resist mind control or suppress your own Virtues (major personality aspects). When it maxes out, the counter resets and you go into Limit Break, which restores your Willpower but leaves you in a drastically mentally altered state (like berserker rage, or insane martyrdom, or incredible sloth) for X amount of time.

Infernals can vent Limit by acting in B-movie- and comic-book-villain ways, like forcibly marrying enemies, leaving people in deathtraps, or monologuing about their plans. This way it's never forced, but you as a player are subtly encouraged to set up that kind of thing whenever possible in order to help keep your Limit down.

>>18844616
Dumb-evil characters in saturday morning cartoons/magical girl series usually lose, and we can't afford that.

“Why do I fight them? Because Lumina took everything from me. She stole my friend, she stole my heart.. Thanks to her, I have nothing but hatred and revenge left.” Gary took a short sip from the moonshine that he had in a cup in front of him. A ragged gasp and slight cough at the strong alcohol broke into his story before he set down the cup and looked across the room towards the other members of Black Light.

“I may be young, but I know what I know,” the teenager continued as he looked down at the table. In front of him was a half-assembled pipe bomb. Glancing up at his compatriots a cold little smile came across his face. “It was about three years ago. I was fourteen, and the Sparkleskirts were making their recruitment rounds in the middle schools. You all know how they like to recruit young. Well, I had taken a fancy to a young girl; Sonya was her name. Brunette with eyes as green as grass.. Oh just looking at her made my young heart race with thoughts I hadn't felt before.”

Gary picked up a pair of pliers and idly snipped off a length of wire, stripping it's ends with the practiced grace of an expert. It was scary what you could pick up hanging out with the wrong crowd. “Anyway.. The Sparkleskirts came across her and decided 'Oh, hey! She'd make an excellent Magical Girl! All pretty and loving, Sonya here could help protect the world from evil!' That evening, I came and spoke with her. Oh, I broke curfew something fierce but I figured they wouldn't give me grief because it was in the name of young love.” He actually laughed a little at his own naivete now that he reflected on it. “She came out and we sat on her front porch. We talked of young life, of things we had in common, of how it would be nice to be closer to one another... Sonya gave me my first real kiss.”

>>18842082
figures no one would respond or even care,
leave it to /tg/ to abandon a giant list of every evil thing you could probably do with magical girls.

Makes me wonder why people on /tg/ act like they like Magical Burst.

“The next day, the Sparkleskirts came for her. Snatched her right up out of class like a whirlwind of pixie dust. Cooing and capering on like they'd found a long-lost sister, they took her out into the hall and spoke with her.. I don't know what they said to her, but it must have been something she didn't like because she came storming back in and sat down at her desk with her arms folded and a grumpy expression on her face. They came back in after a minute and apologized for disrupting the class, and left. At lunch we were sitting together when the squad from Happy Hill came into the cafeteria and made a beeline for her.”

Attaching the wire length to the half-finished bomb as he continued, he paused and looked back up at his comrades again. Some of them looked normal, some of them were showing the wear of the long fight, some were showing their own souls slipping into the shadows. Not a single word was escaping them as they sat and listened to him. He'd never shared his story, but they'd finally coaxed it out of him and were hellbent on hearing it all. Finishing his moment's work on the bomb, he waved the pair of pliers in his hand in a vague gesture that could have meant a thousand things.

“She fought them. You all would have been proud to have seen it. It was a useless gesture, of course; I mean, you've all seen the Hill squads. But God in Heaven she fought. I think she even managed to take out the eye of the first one to grab her. All the while she held onto me with one hand while she struggled with everything she had. Sonya slipped through my fingers and it was probably only the fact she fought so hard that the squad didn't try to take me too for trying the stop them.”

>>18844652

The point with a rule structure like that is that you can pick and choose when to actually do it, and can find ways to incorporate it in ingenious ways into things you're already doing, though.

For example, use deathtraps and monologuing to distract an enemy while your second team sneaks up from behind to ambush them.

Another wire piece got snipped as Gary turned back to the bomb's creation for a moment as he gathered his words, fought back the tears that threatened to fall. It wouldn't do to have them see him as weak. “Now, they say that you never see anyone who disappears to Happy Hill ever again. That's a lie. Five months later, Sonya came back. The Sparkleskirts had their sister.. If you knew where to look, you could see the scars right at her hairline.. Yeah, those scars. She was changed. Not the Sonya I knew. All she cared about now was purging the world of 'evil' and 'darkness'. I managed to get her to talk long enough until she started tripping over her own words and ideology. I.. I had managed to break something in their programming of her. In the end, she was a tearful wreck. They'd already had her out on missions to 'clean up the evil in this world', and she finally understood what she'd been doing. Those green eyes... They shone like dew-covered grass as she looked me in the eyes and told me things.”

“I won't ever repeat what she said. Those words are mine alone. But at the end of it, I knew what I had to do. I.. I got a knife from my hunting gear.. I got it and I did what had to be done; what she asked me to do for what she'd done in Lumina's name. That's one body that will never be found; I swore to he that I'd keep it hidden and safe so they could never use their powers to 'rescue' her from Death. Some of the stronger ones were capable of that, she said.”

“So yes, I'm a murderer. I'm a bomb-maker, and a terrorist, and a source of darkness in this world. But I have come to understand what this world is supposed to be. This world is too bright for my liking. Without the shadows, how can you tell where the light is? One day, Lumina will pay for what she's unleashed on this world. Then I can stop myself. Then my struggle can end and I will pay for my own crimes.”

“Now pass me that soldering iron and the solder. This rig isn't gonna make itself...”

>>18844243
Because most people are comfortable in a world where problems have been solved.
Most people will just live their lives, and never notice, and always just assume when somebody was taken it was a "preemptive measure", so its never questioned.
The "worst part" is that its a utopia. So long you behave properly(you will even get help just before you tumble down a depression), you won't even run into any trouble. Its not a dystopia, but rather a place where a minority has some objections.

This is not the battle of evil vs good, but rather the battle of those who question if the current society is right, or have experienced the downside.

>>18844760
>>not a question between right and wrong.
If you subscribe to the sane view of ethics it's objectively wrong to build a society that does stuff like the following "subjugate women/men/otherarbitrary demographic for no reason etc" the thing is you can build a society just like the one you mentioned that does just as much as you said, everyone lives in harmony and is happy, except for jews and homosexuals, we slaughter those people mercilessly. just because everyone who's not homosexual or a jew doesn't care doesn't make the society right or fair, just popular. It's the difference between Freedom and fairness, to tyranny of the majority and mobs.

>>18844702
Pal you don't walk into a thread like this and say
"Fellas, this idea is awful. I hate it. Read my fanfic that does the same thing okay?"

>>18844857
The status quo right now isn't fair or just, but popular anyways.

>>18844063
I think it's too far from the core concepts of the setting and thus shouldn't be included.

>>18843942
>>A lot of them are trying find darkness in anything so they have something to fight.


Usually the familiars are the ones giving them the powers, so.....

That means the familiars are frantically trying to take away/turn off granting powers.

Because something is up, and very wrong behind the curtains if other girls are giving other girls powers, and not the familiars.

Dear Diary,

I worry about the new generation. They've grown up with nothing but peace, sunshine, and sparkles, and while the world is nicer than it used to be, it's...I don't know.

Let me be clear: the Scetzolg Empire was bad. Terrible. Every action we took to wipe them out was perfectly justified. But now that they're gone, the newer warriors are...weaker? I don't know if they have the same courage we had. They always pack a huge advantage over any pockets of darkness that crop up, and quash it under their boots. Where's the courage in that?

They all look up to me. They treat me like I'm some goddess, because of the role I had in the war. And I put on a cool and controlled face for them, because that's what leaders do. Luminia does it, too. She's just as sure of herself as she ever was. But I'm not her. I never have been, and I never was. Back when we first fought each other, I wasn't sure of myself, and I'm still not sure now. They all marvel at how little I say, but...it's not because I'm wise, it's because I don't know what to say.

The bits of darkness are getting stronger. I can feel it, in that mark they left on me so long ago...but it's still nothing like what the Scetzolg used to have. They're not going to pose even a remote challenge to the new warriors, not without something big happening. And those new warriors will remain as they are, just...empty shells. Sure, they say they're courageous, but what have they done to deserve that took courage?

Perhaps...

Hm. Now there's a thought.

I'll tell you some other time, diary.

Can't have you blabbing to everyone else, after all. :3

>>18844652
Yes we can. The PCs should generally lose a lot - but still win enough that their evil plans can come to fruition.

>>18844760
>problems have been solved
They haven't. The magical girls are still running the show as they please and don't think there will be consequences.
Most people just live their lives, yes. Afraid one day the Cheer Squad will suddenly visit your house. Afraid one day you'll find out one of your friends, your family, your neighbor next door, was sent to Happy Hill. That's not life.

>>18837963
>>18844760

Do realize that the nature of the general public means that people will jump on the "treatment" like crack addicts. Think about that like abusing over-the-counter/prescriptionless drugs.

Soccer moms and "think of the children!" types would be all for it.

>>18844941
>>18844939

Food for thought:

Why are the familiars not around? Not even the newer cheer squadders have ever seen, or heard of one, much less remember.

In b4 the familiars are working to dismantle the new establishment.

>>18844702
They might just not be in the mood to read a whole fic. And although I read the first part, I figure I'd need to sit down for a long time to fully enjoy it.

Anyway, I figure most people on here don't have a lot of familiarity with actual magical girl anime, judging from their plot ideas. It's a shame because it has a lot of promise, but personally, I really thing the strong Orwellian theme is inappropriate. It's cool to the guys who play a lot of military/resistance campaigns, like the stuff in that bit of writefaggery there, but personally I've seen enough of that. Like for instance this post >>18844314 That campaign sounds extremely boring to me, no offense, just because Magical Girls lose their distinctiveness as a story theme if they're made to be single-minded and inhuman, or weak enough to be killed en-masse like mooks. It's not milking the potential pathos of the scenario for all its worth. That's fine, but I think it could be better, thus I made some suggestions.

I would love such a story if the real focus should be on what power does to children who grow up too fast. It's been done before, but I never get tired of it. A billion brilliant stories could be written out of a setting in which godlike teenagers and children rule every aspect of society and can bend reality to their will.

>>18844857
>afraid
Nonsense! That stuff only happens to people with dark hearts. If you're a good person you have nothing to fear from Magical Girls.

All arguments that people use to justify gun control, online invasions of privacy, and other such totalitarian measures in real life are easily also applied to the Magical Girl society. And you'll notice that in real life normal people don't live in fear.

>>18845027
>>familiarity with the actual material

Yep. I suggest we ask the Latinfags and Flipfags, they got lots of exposure to the material.

>>18845027
>I really thing the strong Orwellian theme is inappropriate. It's not milking the potential pathos of the scenario for all its worth.
I concur.

>>18845068
Also, you know, weeaboos in general. I think I'll go link to here in the Pretty Cure thread that I'm sure /a/ has going now.

>>18845027

The issue with that is that it's more suited to a book or a story than a game. In a game, what do you do when a child-like being re-writes reality itself so you never existed because they're upset with you? They're not going to want to grow up or mature or anything. They're gonna want to stay put and keep playing with their toys.

>>18844857
>>18844972
>>18845001
>>18845053
What part of "Grim Bright" don't you understand.
Instead of appealing to the cynic, appeal to the doubter. Nothing is wrong, and this is a utopia.
You keep on searching, but nothing is wrong.

What makes this a nightmare is that nothing is wrong. Just like a anarchist will doubt the state for being a monopoly of power, this only bothers the people who still can't stop themselves to question.

The fuck do you guys want?

>>18845068
I'm not going to claim to be an expert, but I've watched a few series and I do have some familiarity with the themes. I made those comments because it seems like rather than magical girls, it's just a "oh look, good guys are evil and bad guys are good" story wherein the good guys could be any sort of frequently stereotypical light-sided character archetype, like paladins, elves, mary sues, etc. And the game then allows players to enjoy the satisfaction of baby kicking them to defeat, or struggling to anyway.

But then you really have to wonder, why even bother to use the archetype if you're not going to do anything interesting with it? Has there ever been a magical girl series which just downright asserted sadness and negative emotion are objectively evil? Why would magical girls create a society in which they would punish people for living in the very way they were sworn to protect?

>>18845102
Fuck, they were talking about PreCures pissing in each others mouths and circlejerking about pissing in each others' mouths. Maybe we should stick with people who don't know quite as much about magical girls.

>>18845158
I think this guy
>>18845102

Wants genre familiarity for this setting?

You know guys, you could do yourselves a favor if you go and immerse yourself in the material instead of doing the equivalent of Super Mario Bros. The Movie.

>>18845107
The "Evil" should consists of the paranoid who could not be cured, anarchists, actual minor evil who wants to run amoke, the chaotic neutral who wants to do something far beyond todays control, and people who sat down and figured out that "having a utopia is wrong" or "not leeting people decide for them selves is evil".
Your goal is to fuck up the world, even if you don't intend to. And be aware of that there is very few people you, most people do not doubt for there is no reason to. If there was doubt during any historical period, tis currently at the lowest humanity will ever achive.

>>18845158
Some people want GRIM DARKNESS.
Some want Grim Brightness(me).
Some people just want a mild dystopia.

>>18845165
I've got familiarity with the setting, namely the stuff that aired in the 90's.

>>18845158
Well, the most basic question:
Why do bad guys in magical girl anime be bad guys?

>>18845181
I've had enough grimderp, to be honest. Grim Bright sounds like an interesting change of pace.

>>18845173
With what exactly? Not every magical girl is the same and if anything Precure has more in common with Super Sentai and Kamen Rider than it does to other magical girl shows.

>>18845168
It's shitposters just ignore them.

>>18845181
I think most of us want grim bright. But there's disagreement on how exactly to go about it.

>>18845178
That's why we were supposed to bring in experts but... well...
>>18845168
I don't think we want experts.

To have an argument about ethical dilemmas poorly disguised as discussing fluff for a potential new setting.

>>18845226
Sorry that was in response to this post
>>18845158

>>18845104
If you take the time to stretch the creative muscles of your brain, you can easily think up a solution to this.
Why are the magically empowered tyrants not able to simply will all dissenters out of existence? Maybe because the force they have access to works on a degree of collective consensus, or others have some degree of sensitivity to the power. Obviously you can't have the antagonists led by someone like Sakura who can just rewrite reality as she wills; only the fact that she's so improbably good keeps her from abusing such godlike power.

You also underestimate the maturity of magical girls. A lot of such characters are forced to age mentally quicker because of the challenges forced upon them. But by and by they're still immature, and that's why tragedy happens to them. It's the biggest reason why this whole "magical girl" establishment doesn't work unless there is difference of opinion within. Magical girls in anime usually fight to protect things that are important to them, not to eliminate evil. But what that important thing is *can* vary. There has to be at least some form of humanity within them instead of this Happy Hill and Love Shines crap, otherwise why would we be inclined to believe they're anything but aliens from another dimension?

Hmm, that in itself might be interesting though...

>>18845181
>>18845221

The whole thing about piss was a running joke because of name rhyming. That's pretty much it.

>>18845158

Some of us wanted Orwellian Grimbright where good is nothing but a façade people created out of fear of what would happen if they didn't conform to the ideal.
At least one guy won't shut up about what it'd be like if we gave kids magic powers.
And now a load of people are angry because apparently going Grimbright on Magical Girl stuff isn't what we're meant to do.

>>18845259
>Tsubomifag, would you let David pee in your mouth?
>Yes.

>>18845245
I actually really like the idea of them being the actual meat behind the Scetzolg Empire's takeover plan.

Maybe it's just the fact that I love 20th Century Boys talking, but the idea that the "Good Guys" and "Bad Guys" are the same people working on part of a larger plan is something I find really appealing.

>>18845284
The issue isn't that Grimbright is wrong, it's that focusing too much on regulation and stuff is sort of missing the thematic point of using Magical Girls.

It's basically a case of one stripe of Grimbright versus another.

>>18845314
Can't both flavors of Grimbright co-exist? Maybe it's one stripe in some areas and the other in other areas?

World's a big place, after all.

You guys over analyze things more than we do. I didn't think that was possible.

>>18845335
Welcome to /tg/. Enjoy your stay.

>>18845326
Yeah, I reckon so. Shitty little island dystopias like Britain and more lawless places like the wastes of Texas.

Personally I like the idea that members of the Black Hearts can start off with:

'Hey, wait a second. Forcing people to act nice with brainwashing is restricting our freedom of choice! That isn't right! But I can't protest without getting carted off... I know! I'll spray anti-MG grafiti on walls and use other ways to get my message out!'

To turning into carttonish villians not all to certain whether they are creating giant monsters for freedom, power or simply for evil.

Of course then again I'm not all to certain on the conventions of the Magical Girl genre and have been imagining things based on the idea that these girls are akin to Mary Sues but with more cuteness and naivety.

>>18845335
When building a game you have to think things through all the way. And you have to figure the thematic elements properly because they're going to characterize the play experience of everyone who uses the game. Of course, in most cases GMs will mostly or partially ignore your themes and do what they want anyway, but many of us are GMs too so we think about it from both angles. And quite honestly, the little games we make here are unlikely to be run by people who didn't have a hand in their creation anyway.

>>18845245

The thing is, so far in this thread it appears all the Magical Girls are coming from one direct source. Let us assume that this source is in itself has been corrupted in some shape or form, or that whilst being taught they are brought to believe certain things- Such as to protect the love and hope of all, they need to get rid of Evil. Evil can come from anywhere. Anybody with a Dark Heart can very easily bring Evil into the world, so we should get rid of the Dark Hearts before they make Evil, right? So by doing this they're making everything better, right?

...Hm. You might be onto something, actually. Give the girls a rather naive look on things and suddenly a lot of this stuff suggested seems a lot easier to create. It also gives a good reason why the older ones get 'retired' how they do- After a while, they start to mature and wise up, so need removing before they potentially cause issues.

>>18845335
We have exploited physics in games to create railguns powered by peasants passing a rock.

We almost all have the "Slightly crazy" flaw though, but it gives us +6 to any one skill

Magical girls are dangerous creatures, and some of them might even have the ability to slowly alter the thoughts of people around them.

>>18845377
Do be honest the only thing we ever over analyze is the motivation of the big bad.

>>18845402
Well that's actually something we'd like around here.

Why DO most BBEG in magical girl shows go bad?

With that we could flesh out the Black Lights or Dark Hearts or whatever we end up calling the resistance movement.

>>18845349
>these girls are akin to Mary Sues but with more cuteness and naivety.
That's essentially true. They don't have the "I and only I am important" thing, though, which is a pretty defining trait of mary sues, at least in the way /tg/ uses them.

>>18845391
No one in this thread is exploring or questioning the idea of the absence of familiars, or their lack of presence/cooperation in "getting rid of Dark Hearts"?

>>18845434
Well if you've got some ideas spit them out. I think we'd rather get the sides clear before we toss those guys into the mix though.

>>18845391
>Let us assume that this source is in itself has been corrupted in some shape or form
I would rather assume that the corruption is more or less directly born from the nature of a little girl.

>>18845349
Yeah, that's what I've been arguing against for the start. People are seeing this as a repeat of Mary Sue-topia, and while there certainly are some characters in MG shows that fit this stereotype, it's hardly the rule.

Reading the first few posts, I was totally on board until I reached "Happy Hill" and the Jolly Rogers. Perhaps my biggest issue is that the idea that magical girls would create a society akin to Brave New World is flawed because no magical girl I've heard of fights forces of negative emotion and evil for the sake of it. Evil and good aren't inherent virtues in a lot of anime regardless, but even in magical girl shows, the focus is on protecting the family and friends of the magical girl from harm, and then secondarily, normal people as well. It seems inconsistent for them to make a dictatorship to eliminate unhappiness. I could see a magical girl who became disillusioned with the world creating such a dictatorship, to make the world a place *worth* protecting in her eyes.

There should be several subfactions on each side.

At least one group of resistance wants to brainwash magical girls and use them as weapons.

>>18845434
perhaps whatever force created the MGs (Why do I always thing machine gun when I see that abbreviation?) was in a war with the empire? a war that it was losing, and thus essentially just threw the power our way as a last desperate attempt to stop them?

so it never created the familiars, and we were a last desperate gamble for what was a doomed force?

>>18845158
We want to kill a few boatloads of magical girls in horrible ways while cackling like Saturday morning cartoon villains for the good of society and the continued existence of free thought. With, hopefully, some sort of justification for doing so.

The society cannot be perfect, but neither outright Orwellian. It has to be a median between the two. If it's perfect, then what's the fucking point of the anti-hero/villain gittery? The PC's would just be assholes to be assholes for no reason. Which is where the Orwellian elements come in, but they needn't be the norm. Merely a horrible, horrible common occurrence.

But some people want this to be about children given superpowers, and the terrifying ramifications of this. And that's cool. But then some people supporting this position also don't want the Orwellian themes, even though, as in stories of similar premise, this is often the problem, albeit in a petty childish moron way instead of a sociopath oligarchical faggots way, because of asshole kids wanting everything to be their PERFECT VISION now that they have superpowers and torturing, mindraping and unmaking everyone who gets in the way of that.

>>18845346
>Magical girls that brainwash unhappy people
>Britain
Good lord, there'd be no one left!

>>18845481
Good cripes this got tl;dr, I'm going to have to break it up further into one more post.

And then there's the debate on whether they should be all True Fae inhuman facsimiles of children, or merely coincidentally be as horrible and illogical because fundamentally they're children and not actual monsters, merely figurative ones. And then some people want BOTH. And it's a whole big mess because the premise is magical girl killing to FIGHT THE MACHINE, but there's disagreement on whether there should be a machine worth fighting or if it's just because the PC's are faggots who doubt for the sake of doubting. And I don't think the latter can work; whatever the magical girls are, the society still needs to have dystopian elements seeping through the saccharine exterior for there to be a plot.

>>18845465


Good job gentlemen.

We're gone full circle to Witch Girl Adventures, if anyone remembers.

>>18845494
The original concept as laid out by OP was basically Delta Green, but with more rebellion, funky weapons (fucking pike and shota, god damn it) and weaboory & horrible monsters derived from such. And I think we should stick closer to that, because that's what we're bloody building off of! "HURR DURR THE PC'Z IS NOT THE VILLAINS BUT THEY REALLY ARE" is a shitty way to go about it and no one will feel good about slaughtering magical girls if it really is a utopia and not a flawed utopia with a dystopia seeping through the cracks. The setting just won't work; first the PC's are bad guys, but they're actually good guys, but then they're bad guys again.

It's stupid. You can only do so many moral twists before it gets fucking retarded, and that usually amounts to 'one.' No one will want to play if you're going to flip-flop on what is what in the setting, so we have to settle for something solid to base ourselves at, and I think that, while elements from all the varying concepts are very much integrable, the OP's base is the safest place. And that's firmly rooted in twisted gits fighting for what's right against misguided childish cunts with black-and-white morality and superpowers in a gray world, and abominations playing everyone and preying on everyone thrown into the mix, with the PC's being dull light to grey to black and the magical girls being simultaneously pure black and white.

>>18845402
In this thread, sure. But we commonly go off on weird biological or economic tangents on other settings, and spend ages discussing politics. Even on off-topic stuff this is true, do you remember the threads we used to have about whether the South was justified in seceding?

>>18845484
>Magical girls stop the rain and reveal the sun
>all of the isles die of sunburn

>>18845422
>Why DO most BBEG in magical girl shows go bad?
My knowledge in MG villians is rusty, but:
_ They were always evil.
_ They fear humanity will become a threat to their [species, race, faction]
_ They are oppossed to the [species, race, faction] of the MG's familiars
_ They need something only humans have to get something else. Souls, metaphorical hearts, feelings, stuff like that. The thing they want is usually power, or the means to get something (usually a beloved one) back, or the power to get the means to get something back.

>>18845425
They *aren't* though. As I mentioned in my post about chuunibyou, the whole idea of magical girls is that they're some useless little girl who is probably a bit cute but kind of a ditz and lacks any sort of real talent. Then they get powers and suddenly everything in their life becomes better. There have been dozens upon dozens of subversions and deconstructions of this, but generally a theme of magical girl anime is that girls are useless and suck when they don't have powers. That's something that could potentially open another can of worms, but putting that aside, they don't have that aura of inhuman perfection that a Mary Sue does. They appear that way design wise, but MG wouldn't sell quite as many toys or be nearly as popular with young girls/creepy old men if they were too perfect to relate to.

>>18845422
Well some of the villains are evil just cuz, one was an AI basically decided his creators were too weak to do anything for themselves, one was the physical embodiment of sadness and wanted to destroy the world so he could finally die, and the manga said one of them wanted to turn earth into his new home planet but that doesn't come across in the anime. I haven't seen Yes! 5 so I don't really know what their motivation was. Oh I'm talking about Precure by the way. Does that work?

>>18845434
I figured they would basically be hanging around Magical Girls and acting like fluffy dunces without interacting with the normal populace much, sort of like in pretty much all Magical Girl shows.

>>18845517
>>18845517
>_ They fear humanity will become a threat to their [species, race, faction]
>_ They are oppossed to the [species, race, faction] of the MG's familiars

huh. You know, if it weren't for Humanity being the target, this makes them seem less evil, and more Realpolitik

>>18845505
I dunno about you, but I've been trying to get away from the "good guys and bad guys" paradigm from the start. That's why I keep trying to talk about what is essential to the theme of magical girls, rather than using them as cardboard cutout, two dimensional villains. And the PCs should not be such villains either. Nobody needs to be the clear bad guy or good guy to make an enjoyable campaign; is this just some kind of Western conceit?

>>18845434
In a staggering majority of Magical Girl shows/material, there is a familiar, or some sort of authority figure/mentor that chooses and grants the girls their powers.

Now in this setting, this wouldn't have happened or gone out of control if the familiars or magical mentors were around. But suppose they are, and they've switched over to the resistance. They know that something is really, really wrong if other magical girls are granting other girls powers, and on a large scale.

So it's up to the familiars and mentors/otherworldly beings to try and shut down rogue magical girl powers. The problem is that the rogues are basically now "the establishment" and there's way too many of them.

>>could see a magical girl who became disillusioned with the world creating such a dictatorship, to make the world a place *worth* protecting in her eyes.

This could be one of the resistance leaders/founders

>>18845529
Yeah, I'm sure they're not planning anything.

Damn you, OP, just a couple months ago I was working on a story about an extremely similar concept. Got all the way to the end of chapter 2 before it ran out of steam.

>>18845575
madoka is shit

>>18845481
>We want to kill a few boatloads of magical girls
No. That's not how the power structure should be working. A single magical girl should be a threat to an entire party of high level characters. We have riders and Sentai for lower levels. Slaughtering MGs like cannon fodder shouldn't happen until the PCs are god-tier.

>>18845556
>>is this just some kind of Western conceit?

Surprisingly, YES.

>>18845581
no u

>>18845494
>>18845494
>the PC's are faggots who doubt for the sake of doubting. And I don't think the latter can work;
It's possible for two groups to have opposing but still legitimate viewpoints.

>>18845562
What if familiars are bound to the will of the Magical girl, either voluntarily or not?
What if they were the instigators of the regime?

>>18845529
Clever Magical girls could use them to scout, or as dark heart detectors. Normal people usually can't see them, so they are perfect for this job.
But humanity is clever. Humanity knows familiars exists, and while they can't see them, they know animals, like dogs, can.
Familiars can't hide from cameras or thermal goggles either. They are also very vulnerable to being squished.

>>18845575
Maybe they are in your game! But I don't think it should be inherent to the setting.

>>18845628
They're not. Usually the girls' powers are bound to the will of the familiars.

>>18845628
>What if they were the instigators of the regime?
I like that idea. It neatly sidesteps the issue that Magical Girls mostly just care about people they have personal connections with, while invoking the tendency of familiars to be very pushy in recruiting magical girls and getting them to fight evil.

>>18845628
>>What if they were the instigators of the regime?

Or not. If girls with powers are running around without oversight of those familiars, then something is up. Something or someone else big is behind the curtains granting powers.

>>18845594
I suppose the all-pervasive totalitarian paranoia obsession is one too.

It'd be nice to see some original material that doesn't involve soldiers, resistances or oppressive governments taking the main stage in the story. Or I could just get off my lazy ass to write it myself.

Course I've got work in an hour.

>>18845425
Good to know I'm not barking up the completley wrong tree then, thanks.

On another note, how would these Magical Girls affect society as a whole? What is life like for the average person?

I keep on imaganing these girls as capable of basically making anything they want if they put their minds to it- so what would the average person do in a world where everything from the fuel source of their car to the food they eat somewhere allong the line could be provided by magic? In a society where the government could provide for literally everything with little to no effort could a non-magical person even get a job?

What I am trying to ask is whether Magical Girls would use their powers to give everyone what they 'want' (according to them) or would capitalism still work as it does do now?

(Yes, I know, totally unrelated but whatever, I like pretending to be clever.)

>>18845676
I think that would undermine the main themes, though. If we go "lol the demon king of Scetzbolg was behind them all along" then the opposing viewpoints are basically irrelevant.

>>18845677
>I suppose the all-pervasive totalitarian paranoia obsession is one too.
That's not western in general so much as American/British specifically. And the American form and British form are quite different.

>>18845695
>capable of basically making anything they want if they put their minds to it

Not really, they have specific power sets, of which is not geared or "themed" for mundane use.

>>18845586
Say, what makes magical girls so dangerous or so superior to our capabilities or so immune to our weapons that we simply don't have a chance against them?
In every magical girl anime where I remember weapons were used against magical girls (Madoka and Twin Angel) the MGs were completely powerless against them.

I am going to assume these MGs aren't all Nanohas, but more typical run of the mill seifuku-wearing pose-striking and pseech-churning magical girl that stupidly exposes herself to a barrage of high speed hot lead doing any of those actions.

>>18845676
Personally, I'd even be okay with the familiar being a creation of the magical girl for once.

Usually a familiar takes the role of a listening ear in a lot of magical girl series. Magical girls who are angsting about something will whine to the familiar because they're the only one to know their secret, usually. Sometimes they even give advice. I think taking out that outlet could be used as a narrative device while trying to explain why magical girls lost their way and sought to control society. They may appear to have their own will and personality, but really the magical girl is just "creating" her own friend. Maybe at one point, familiars emerged on their own as a side effect of the process that creates an MG, but now that there are many MG, there's no need for mentoring or companionship from a familiar, and real ones are rare. Most are just roving, constantly active spells that hunt their enemies down.

>>18845712
Madoka magical girls are liches, not magical girls.

>>18845712

Obv. the magic creates enough protection to shrug off anti-materiel and .50

>>18845715
And where would "real" familiars come from? Probably too busy trying to put down the "fakes".

>>18845712
Well, to be honest, if you shot a Madoka MG, they would probably not even be truly injured.They'd feel the pain, but their body is just a tool. It's likely some could even regenerate a whole body if their soul gem was left intact. But they're pretty unorthodox as far as MG go...

The average MG could probably die to conventional weapons, but there are all kinds of magical girls with protective barriers, superhuman speed and sometimes even the ability to change reality that would interfere with killing them in that manner.

Personally I err on the side of what that guy's fic suggested, which is their ability to distort reality gives them a kind of idea-driven invulnerability, which prevents them from needing to clean themselves, eat or be injured/die. Untouchable so long as their enchantment remains.

>>18845556
Agh. Fuck. The tl;dr just keeps coming. Why is it a silly setting about killing evil magical girl monsters the thing that sets off my "FUCK BREVITY, WIT IS FOR BITCHNIGGAS" button?

No, we were trying to simply SUBVERT it, with some tinges of moral grayness. If, sir, you are a sane individual, then you should understand that a government this perfect is assuredly NOT perfect, and it must, in fact, be a lie, and so it must be torn down for enforcing atrocity after atrocity upon numerous individuals and groups for straying from the childish mindset of these demihuman THINGS. As such, the moral grayness only goes to the level of "magical girls are inhuman abominations preaching pure white fuckery when actually being blackhearted psychopathic tyrants in their actions and the PC's are a bunch of misfit madmen who took to styling themselves after cartoon villains and do awful things to prevent worse things from happening." Hence, black and gray. Not gray and gray. Just black and gray. The very base of the setting, OP's post, includes Orwellian elements. Who are you to try and push this so far away from where we started, baselessly?

>>18845676
So here's another idea:
What if there are no familiars?
What if the MGs are appearing because of something the Scetzolg Empire did - inadvertently, mind - which is causing all these children to get these magical powers.
And what if some of the higher-up MGs know this, which is why they're so overzealous in trying to do good - because they know that they only got their powers because of all the monsters and nightmares, and now they want to prove to themselves that they are a force for good at heart.
Maybe I just haven't seen enough MG anime, but that's my take on this setting, anyway.

>>18845732
>.50
We step up. 20mm. 30mm. HE. Thermobaric. Biological.

Something has to work, LOLMAGIC or not.

>>18845779
If the magical girl government is a tyrannical all-controlling oligarchy, which it is in the embryonic canon we have, or perhaps HAD, before this argument began that NOOOO THE ORWELLIAN ELEMENTS INTEGRAL TO THE SETTING HAVE TO GOOOOO, it goes the fuck down to preserve the ability of people to not become unthinking moronic drones through either complacency in the perfection of this utopia, slowly breeding Earth into oblivion now that there's no war, no conflict, no imperfection, leading to a Mouse Universe situation, or because the oligarches are MAKING them into unthinking moronic drones. Whether the magical girls are actively malevolent or misguided and idioticly naive, it is established by the OP that they are committing atrocities.

They are awful. There is a clear moral precedent for the rebellion, which may lead to moral grayness, but we do not START there. There is no "HARP DARP THE PLAYERS ARE REALLY JUST A BUNCH OF ANARCHIST FAGGOTS FROM /POL/ & /STORMFRONT/ EVERYTHING'S MOSTLY OKAY ASIDE FROM THE FACT THAT SOCIETY IS GOING TO COLLAPSE INTO JUBILANT INSANITY AND EVERYONE'S GOING TO DIE HORRIBLY FROM THE COLLAPSE OF THE INCOMPETENT CHILD-MINDED GOVERNORS MAGIC OR NOT." No. Even if the party is actually composed of idiots from /pol/ and /stormfront/ fighting solely for the sake of FUCK WEABOOS and COOONSPIIIRRAAACCCYY, FUCKING MAGICAL JEWS STEALING MY HARD EARNED BEER MONEY, they're less awful than the things from the OP who RAPE MINDS.

>>18845794
Can we not respect the base laid out by the OP? Running away with the initial idea in a manner entirely contrary to its intent, when not used for comedic purposes with an idea that was going nowhere in the first place, is a shitty practice, and not to be done, or you are no gentleman, sir. It's missing the point to make the government truly perfect, because otherwise THERE IS NO STORY. No exceptional rebels, no reason for Power Ranger and Rider types to rebel, no reason for the PC's to get anywhere, even the littlest bit. There is no plot. The PC's are doomed to get fucked over within the first session because the governments' stranglehold is nigh absolute and they don't have enough rebellion to deal with from not dragging people off to the reeducation center.

Why are you so intent on twisting it in this funky way towards traditional magical girl gittery if they happened to form a government and everything is PERFECT save the niggling bits of doubt, when the original idea was that there wasn't just doubt, it really was fucked up to its very core and not much better than the previous government and the magical girls ranged from idiot puppets to horrible monsters?

>>18845794
dude.

calm down.

Repeat after me: It is JUST a conversation on the internet

>>18845786
I like this idea, mostly because I think the story would be better if both the MG and PCs were good in some essential way and bad in others. To the ranting guy: you can keep your Orwellian elements, it was never my intention to suggest they should go. I just think that focusing on them excessively is a waste. And another thing, why did it become necessary for every setting to become evil vs evil ala 40k, if not good vs evil? Why even bother trying to judge each faction? Just think of some objectives for each and see how you can get them to come into conflict. Thinking about who is more moral or not is meaningless. Players can decide who they think is more sympathetic for themselves.

>>18845829
>>Rider types to rebel

Yes, Rider types are the first to rebel against the SHINY RAINBOWS government. Sentai would not.

>>18845832
I am calm, sir, but I CAN'T CONTROL MY TEXT. I DON'T KNOW WHY THIS SILLY MAGICAL GIRL SETTING AND SOME OPPOSING IDEAS ON WHERE TO GO WITH IT HAS DONE THIS. IT JUST KEEPS GOING AND GOING AND GOING AND JESUS CHRIST SOME ONE SLAP ME I'M OUT OF CONTROL WITH THE AUTISTRY

HELP

ME

>>18845829
This post doesn't do anything but confuse me. Do you WANT to keep things exactly as they are in OP's post, or not?

Nothing I've suggested so far does anything to remove plot elements from OP's post. I'm just advocating reduced emphasis on certain elements and added emphasis on others, because I actually know what an MG is, unlike him.

>>18845848
HE CHUCKLEFUC, ONLY ONE GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING GROUP AND ONE MOTHERFUCKING INDIVIDUAL IS ALLOWED TO USE GODDAMNED CAPSLOCK YOU FUCKING PUSSYMUNCHER

>>18845838
While I do like the idea of giving both the MGs and Black Light good points, I'm also very much in favor of giving the PCs the option to become monsters (perhaps using leftover Scetzolg tech) because (they think) they have to.
Maybe because that's just how you fight MGs.

>>18845840
I've been itching for a story or setting in which tokusatsu heroes face off against Magical Girls. It would be surreal to see Riders fighting against an establishment of Magical Girls because ostensibly the MG have similar goals to them. They would probably be perplexed and amused by these costumed men fighting a desperate losing battle against people who have so much in common with them. But the only true loyalty a Rider has is to JUSTICE.

>>18845894
Oh, the PCs should definitely look *thematically* evil to varying degrees, but as to whether or not they're truly evil, they should do good and bad things. There's no reason to go overboard with the grimderp and make both factions thoroughly unsympathetic.

>>18845900
That's very plausible if only for the fact that riders are inherently anti-hero and/or chaotic good.

Also that there are riders that are purely technological.

>>18845894
>that's just how you fight MGs.
No. That's how villains fight in MG series. Guess what happens to them.
If you are not versed in MG lore, I'll tell you: they lose.

>>18845900
This I'd play the hell out of.

>>18845955
Or MG use Scetzolg to transform humans to fight them as monsters, in order to keep up the charade.

>>18845860
I want to keep things largely in line with the OP's post, and significant moral grayness which is frankly heavily in the magical girl's favor towards the white end (since nothing's really wrong with the society in thine embryonic canon compared to what we had before) is not so. This,

>>18845107
>>18845181

This is what I'm critical of. You seem actively against any grayness coming from the magical girls in the form of gittery like the Cheer Squad and Happy Hill. They militantly fear negative emotions for some reason or another. Maybe they've been manipulated, maybe there's an actual reason, but they do inhuman things because of it to stamp out anything that is too DAAARK for their tastes. If you remove this, it's not the same setting anymore. It is fundamentally different to go from grimdark disguised as noblebright to just noblebright/grimbright/kawaiiuguubright with some people who think it's grimdark for no good reason, those people being the PC's; it places the player characters in the position of two-dimensional villain, rather than the original two-dimensional villains. It just won't work in my opinion, and it's extremely contrary to what we started out with.

>>18845869
Fuck off, oldmemarine. Learn to type properly with that capslock and maybe I'll pay you some more mind.

>>18846008
Wasn't that already implied by the OP? Where the British Prime Minister was 'exorcized' by Lumina and 'revealed' as a Scetzolg?

>>18845955
Perhaps they are only mistaken for monsters as a result of propaganda. In reality the Scetzolg tech is similar to Guyver or KR. But it looks fearsome in comparison to those pink petticoats and giant bells, and they probably fill their ranks with antisocial and borderline psychotic types to stand a fighting chance, so it's not surprising they would have bad press.

That's another thing. What if the MG did not actually establish a visible dictatorship? Rather, the world's governments continued to function on the surface, but the MG secretly pull the strings in every nation to reshape society as a place where there no longer is war or conflict? Of course, they do so through some pretty disturbing methods.

>>18846074
Well, that wasn't me. Anyway, I don't think that making the heroes two dimensional is any more right than making the magical girls not magical girls. I've never once suggested they won't do fucked up stuff to keep society in line, only that there may be some with reservations, and that they need a deeper, somewhat sympathetic underlying motivator just as the protagonists do. It won't fully excuse the brainwashing and systematic murder, but at least you will feel like you're fighting real MG, not standard issue villains.

>>18846078
MGs aren't fond of puppeteering. I don't think they are smart enough to do that.

>>In reality the Scetzolg tech is similar to Guyver or KR. But it looks fearsome in comparison to those pink petticoats and giant bells

Sounds cool to me. Let's give them the Nitroplus look to top it off.

>>18846125
But they are smart enough to rule a society? I dunno, I feel like they would be better off manipulating the higher echelons of power and allowing adults to take care of the tedious busywork, while they remain firmly in control.

This is again moving with the assumption that they have a legitimate reason to get out of the "protect mommy and daddy" mindset of the usual MG and have decided they need to control the entire world to keep us from killing ourselves, even at the expense of our self-determination and free will.

Guys, chill out. This is Equilibrium with Magical Girls.
You're the little citizen that just had enough of pretending that everything is all right and wants to open the eyes of everybody. That's all.

Welp, I'm going to bed now. This thread had better be archived by the time I'm up.
Either way, I've definitely got me some ideas for future games...
Cheers, /tg/

>>18846108
>that wasn't me
WELL... ERRR... STOP SHARING PARTIAL OPINIONS WITH PEOPLE WHO WANT TO DO SHIT CONTRARY TO THE SETTING, THEN MAYBE I WON'T FLIP TWELVE SHITS OVER NOTHING

I apologize, then. I suppose I aggregated a few nonoffensive opinions and a few gittish ones into one aggregate viewpoint on where to go with the setting, in order to rationalize a standpoint to argue against both, but focused too much on the gittish which wasn't even a viewpoint of the man I was arguing with.

Even so, I don't think we need to focus too hard on making the magical girls sympathetic. They're, by and large, little girls. Little girls who just want to do good. Who happen to be puppeteereed by psychotic assholes and employ lobotomized sparkly gestapo who commit horrible mindrape against anyone who seems to, just the slightest bit, offend the party line. That's tragic enough to garner some sympathy. Though they still have to be blasted into gristle until the world is free again.

The excuse is simple enough. Everyone got played by that fucker Lumina, who was actually the main Magical Girl style villain all along pretending to be the protagonist, spreading strife and dystopian fuckery just because she's a bitch like that and it amused her to do so, corrupting everyone and feeding into her powers of bitchiness. Sure, they're all complicit in supporting the regime of magical girl Hitler, or actually, really, worse, magical girl STALIN, but that doesn't make them all Stalin themselves. Just poor fuckers who had to follow his ass if they didn't want to get executed by the magical girl Chetniks.

>>18846226
None taken. I simply want to make suggestions. It's entirely OP or anyone else's business if they want to have them. I don't particularly care if people think it's inappropriate to do so or want me to "chill out" as I think I've been pretty relaxed. I felt some aspects of the idea of MG would make for good storytelling, so I brought them up. The best way to create a good setting is to really pick at and tease through the initial concept until it makes sense to a lot of people and seems like fun to play in. You can't do that without throwing a lot of ideas at it. No concept is perfect from the start.

I've got plenty of other ideas, but I won't bother sharing them yet as I'm out of time and I have to go to work.

Questions, possible plothooks for GMs. What did the Scetzolg Empire want with Earth or with Humanity?

What, outside of power, do the magical girls get from being Big Sister?

>>18846177
MGs don't manipulate. They go themselves and fight the evils of this world. In this case, those happen to be whatever doesn't adjust to their ideologies.

As to if they are smart enough to rule a society, they most likely aren't. They just know what they do is in the name of love and justice and is therefore right, and nobody knows how to protect love and justice better than Queen Luminia, who has to be obeyed without fail.

>>18846319
I still like the idea that Scetzlog was something set in motion by Lumina, or Lumina was set in motion by Scetzlog to take control.

We don't need people other than the guys at the top to be bad.

>>18846325
Geez, I really gotta get going. But one little shot in: Perhaps the source of magical girls' powers has something to do with will. Maybe they gain strength from their fanatical loyalty to Luminia.

>>18846319
The Scetzolg Empire wanted whatever evil organizations want. Shocker in Kamen Rider wanted to use cyborgs loyal to the Great Leader to take over the world. The Zangyack Empire in Gokaiger wanted to conquer the universe. Horrors in Garo wanted to devour humanity. Stuff like that. Someone needs to protect the little guy, and magical girls protected the civilians from the Scetzolg Empire, and when there was no Scetzolg Empire, they decided that the civilians can't protect themselves, and as the beloved guardians of humanity, guided by her majesty Queen Lumina, they are protecting humanity from the evil inside their hearts.

Also, the Magical Girls think that they are right. They don't do this for power, they do this with their infinite love for humanity. They want people to smile, they want people to be happy, they want people to be safe. Who in their right mind wouldn't want to smile, be happy, and safe?
The problem lies in the dichotomy of freedom/happiness. MGs offer you happiness without freedom. The evil guys offer you freedom without happiness.

>>18846404
Luminia and her original little gang are the only really evil ones who know what's going on. The other girls are as duped/brainwashed as anyone, they just want to stop the Dark Hearts infection from spreading, and so are too caught up in quelling whatever targets they get to really question it. A few do in time, either turning to the resistance as dark magical girls, or throwing in their lot willingly with those in charge.

Also, am I the only one to imagine Luminia and her cohorts as being older MG's than the others, like in their mid to late teens?

>>18846528
Dangit, meant to phrase that as a suggestion, not a fact

>>18846528
Older. Grittier. More hardened, but still beautiful and 'pure'

So, these MGs want to rid the world of evil, right?

and they do this by means of applying lasers and magic to evil, right?

are the Balkans even more of a never-ending warzone now?

>>18846588
>lasers
More like rainbows, sparkles and hearts.

>>18846613
so... the Balkans are completely untouched then?

>>18846623
Nope. That's how a MG intervention looks like.

>>18846661
So it IS a warzone, just a very pretty one.

More of a warzone I mean

>>18846682
Pretty warzones. That's one scary thought.

Wow, this thread sure became shit while I was gone. Why not just leave these paltry details up to the GM and build a system like we were doing when I left? Damn.

>>18846806
When were we building a system? Like... Ever?

Because I don't see any mechanics discussion.

>>18846822
Up here:
>>18840534
And on for a bit.

>come back to the thread
>read all the posts

...I'm definitely making this shit. Also I have some things to rethink.

While interesting, it kind of feels like a lot of people are using this thread as a 'FUCK YOU JAPAN, I WANT TO SLAUGHTER LITTLE GIRLS AND STILL BE THE GOOD GUY!'
which is just... why?
Why even use magical girls if you're not going to bother maintaining any fidelity beyond appearances?

So people have been saying that normally, magical girls (and other Japanese heroes) lose their powers after defeating their final enemy?
But in this setting, not only did they retain their powers, but are actively creating more?
The simplest option would be that the 'familiars' who typically grant the powers were members of a different imperialistic alien race, and the magical girls are their easily-manipulated forerunners.

>>18846958
Or that they still have their powers because they think they still have to cleanse the world of dark hearts?

Just dropping a few ideas for the setting here, take em or leave em. I'm not the most familiar with Magical Girl anime, but these are things that if I were running this might be kind of cool

1) Magical Girls somehow derive a degree of power from the happiness of those around them, and while they may have originally tried to make the world a better place, they eventually realized that it's easier to just brainwash the unhappy people.

2)Magical Girls will, in most circumstances, "age out" of their powers after a certain period (seems like the 'prime' ages are from about 10 to about 15). Obviously certain Important characters have found a way to prevent or postpone this aging process.

My personal opinion is that I'd have the Magical Girls be simply TOO GOOD for humanity. It seems like in DnD terms humanity as a species tends to run to the true neutral, and when you have a government that's neutral or even lawful good and as powerful as the Magical Girls seem like they'd be, then you have a reason for fighting. Not because you're evil. Not because the Magical Girls are intentionally oppressive, but because their very presence is slowly stripping away some intrinsically human qualities.

>>18846958
>>18846528
I have an idea.

Magical girls under Lumina, have their outfits and weapons resemble 90's magical girls, and all the other magical girl manga that's ever been published in Nakayoshi (google for it). Additional design basis could come from Winx and WITCH. Basically, more whimsical and cartoony.

Magical girl resistance, "true magical girls" (as in ones that have a legit familiar as handler), resemble a little close to Nanoha style MGs, Umakoshi-style Precure, and possibly Saint Seiya-style. Alternatively, we can also go with Kurogin-esque ('booru for him) designs for the oufits and gear, AND, we can look to Korean fantasy/scifi designs as well.

Male resistance forces who get familiar power-ups would get the TSAB/Nanoha FORCE/Eclipse Driver look.

This should make a neat dichotomy of appearances to tell apart who's who.

So guys, do you want to make a Steam group? Or we could join the Meta Quest steam group for efficiency's sake, since a bunch of the posters in this thread are from meta quest and have been writing splats for it.

>>18846822
Would GURPS be a good idea to start with?

>>18847414
I'd rather make the setting and factions and just make it compatible with any system.

Bump for interest.

>>18847303
Make it. Now.

>>18847446
I agree with this. Don't bother with the system until the setting has been nailed down. Even if that means that a specific system is never made it's better to have one thing that is finished rather than two projects left hanging.

Besides, if people see a cool setting with a system they don't like and a cool system with a setting they don't like they will just strip out the good halves of both and slam them together anyway.

>>18847554
Ehh. Just look for Metaquest on Steam groups.

>>18847575
Frankly, one could easily use either Mutants and Masterminds or Savage Worlds + Rippers (for monster grafting rules) and Necessary Evil (for character inspiration and Magical Girl powers) if you really needed a system

Bumpity bump.

>>18847414
Not particularly, no.

>>18847228
We always need to take in mind that there are not enough familiars and engineers to give magical gear/powered armor to people, so most have to be doing guerilla-style urban combat.

GURPS CAN do it, but there's better pirpose-designed systems available.

>>18846958
Wait, much better idea.
Like most magical girls were pretty normal before they got their powers, but once they receive their magic, their willpower is boosted incalculably. Sure there are occasional relapses, but by the end of the series, they are willing to face death to protect those they care about.
What if that's due to the source of their powers, that in addition to magic it gives them a desire to stomp out all injustice.
That's why magical girls typically lose their powers after defeating their enemy (who is the biggest source of evil, and thus what she focuses on), the familiar who granted it then covertly takes it away, because the familiar knows that there's no such thing as a retired magical girl who still has her powers.
The light shining within her would compel her to eradicate the next biggest source of evil and so on and so forth.
That's why magical girls weren't allowed to retain their abilities, because if they did, they wouldn't be able to stop.
And the system worked until Lumina showed up. I don't know what her deal was, maybe she had a sucky family and friends who only valued her because of her power, or maybe the familiar was sloppy enough to get caught taking her powers away, but regardless, Lumina slew her familiar and, using the familiar as a conduit, gained control of the source of the magical power and became overwhelmed by it.
Now the magical girls have been blinded by the light that fuels them, to destroy all they deem evil.
The only way to make them stop, is to either kill them, or... give them a clearly more evil threat to focus on.

>>18847926
>>18847446
The original idea was to have underground factions recovering what remained of Scetzolg technology to fight against the Magical Girl regime.
However, innovation would be needed to improve the equipment to avoid losing as spectacularly as the Scetzolg Empire did.

Despite drastically different appearances on the surface, human and Scetzolg tech can be blened together if one is skilled enough to do so. The end result would be weaponry imbued with an enigmatic power with an opposite "charge" the MG magic. The charge would be hard to maintain in a pure form though. No automatic MG killing laser cannons.

>>18848216
>Scetzolg tech
I wonder what this is like. I imagine long guns that look like the gun part of a flamethrower, adorned with skulls and grinning evil faces, spitting green balls of plasma around that explode and terrify the populace.

So let me see if I have this straight here. Magical Girls went "bad" (extremist?) because they:
1) Saw that people wouldn't stop squabbling and generally being petty jackasses and tried to "fix" things.
2) If they did start to doubt themselves, then their familiars, which in this are extensions of their subconscious or possibly superego, convinced them that it was alright and the idea of "Dark Hearts" comes from the subconscious rationalization of doubt.
3) Had no real capital-E Evil to fight, and thus never really developed emotionally as people.
The problem that results from these is that MGs are two-dimensional, both emotionally and morally, due to having magic bullshit powers and not having to deal with conflicts that make them grow as people. So, in a sense, it creates an inverse relationship between power and maturity. For example, on one end of the scale we have Princess Tutu the well-developed MG who can't do shit outside of dance ballet and occupational therapy and on the other end we have Magical Girl Children of the Damned.
Perhaps there's even a tangible link between magic bullshit and maturity. This has the handy-dandy property of explaining why Dark MGs have less sheer power than their "good" counterparts, and why Pretty Cure types use mainly preprogrammed moves, or even why only extremely dull little girls can be magical girls, as the more developed and individualistic you are, the less powerful your magic becomes.
Though that would mean veteran MGs who fought Evil would lack power as they grew older and had to mature, forcing them to rely on resourcefulness more than power. Hmmmm...

>>18848216
So only Scetzolg/human weapons can kill magical girls?
Would normal weapons be effective against their minions?

>>18848326
TL;DR Magic is more powerful the more cardboard-cutout you are.
>Captcha: kinda oreiller

>>18848216
>with an opposite "charge" to MG magic.

In terms of factions, I imagined a common theme among them would be to take on ironic villainous personas in contrast with the fake, shining image the MGs like to project of themselves to the public.

Ghe largest factions would be those formed by everyday citizens who have had enough of living under tyranny and fear, and want to return true peace and freedom to the world. Nothing morally complicated about them; they just want their children to see a world where citizens aren't bombarded with propoganda tellign them that "Queen Luminia's shining love" is needed to keep the world safe.

On-the-fringe factions would probably be those organizations who want to return "evil" and darkness to the world. Some will be level-headed and reasonable, others will be made up of raving anarchist who emulate what they remember from Saturday morning cartoons.

>>18848446

Any comments on combining the posts in
>>18847228
>>18847926

A limited quantity of magically-boosted/power-armored/reverse-engineered resistance alongside a mostly mundane, AK-47-toting guerillas?

Why not run this in Strands of Fate?

>>18848323
In all honesty, I have NO idea what Scetzolg technology would look like. I don't imagine it would be too grimdark (ex. something out of 40K). Grimbright seems to be the prefered setting, and giving people the ability to spray fluorescent acid all over little girls and tweens would be the fastest way to ruin it.

>>18848356
>Would normal weapons be effective against their minions?
Earth Vitality Insurrectional Liberation technology (or EVILtech) is the only thing that has a real effect against MG minions because they share the same, albeit weaker magic as the MGs, but it works fairly well against them. That would not be the case with MGs themselves though, as they are still the world's ultimate power.

Don't just think you and your friends can get your hands on some EVILtech and take an MG head on; it would end with her posing cutely in front of your burning, sparkly remains.

Is the thread autosaging?

>>18848771
I think so.

>>18848771
yes
at 340 posts

>>18848681
So only a weapon from a dead civilization merged with the most powerful devices by the best minds humanity can provide wielded by the Chosen One who was born during the Universal Alignment from a virgin mother has a fighting chance against the MGs?
Doesn't that make the MGs a bit overpowered?

Yes, I'm not saying every kid with a slingshot and some stones should be bagging MGs left and right, but the other end of the spectrum isn't right either.

>>18848960
The MGs are overpowered. That's why they always win.
Also, that's why the Evil Organizations target (most of the time) the people, and just one retarded or really zealous Evil Commander fights the MGs.

>>18848681
>Earth Vitality Insurrectional Liberation (EVIL)
Magnificent name.

So the mundanes get EVILtech as their abilities. The wizards use Dark Magic (less generic name? Maybe or maybe not) and the Rogue Riders get ass-kicking powers from their suits.

>>18848960
No, presumably the tech that Scetzbolg had also worked to a degree, and there's also the options that the other character types have access to. But normal weapons don't do shit.

And MGs are supposed to be powerful as fuck.

Do we just want to divide this up into "playstyles"? Kind of like how you can have Pink Mohawk or Mirrorshades with Shadowrun.
We could have different sections of the fluff for different tones and just let people mix-and-match them.
For example, the Magical Girl Motivations could be how they think, and have different fluff for things like "they're naive children who just want to fix things", "the familiars are manipulating them", "their power causes them to get OCD, but instead of things like cleaning, it's justice", or even "they are lobotomized and/or trapped in their own bodies"
Then, this could be mixed-and-matched with things like PC Motivations (Fighting an orwellian government, ideological issues, or just looked around and thought the world needed fixing), PC Type (Gurillas, Cackling Mad Scientists, Extremists Turned Biomechanical Horrors, etc.) and such.
Hell, if we felt like it and this setting became a thing, we could get a little wiki with pages for all the categories and a random setting generator, though I doubt we'll get that far.

>>18849147
Oh my god. I just realized that this setting is pretty much reverse Flex Mentallo. This is amazing and I love it.

>>18849057
I want to believe we are better thinkers and warriors than a typical MG villain.
Also, the overzealous Evil Commander often defeats the MGs in a straight fight. It's not until they get an upgrade that s/he loses.

>>18849147
Considering the differing opinions on how the setting works it's pretty much mandatory that there be different styles, but I don't know how explicit we're gonna get.

If nobody else has done so by Friday when I'll have time, and this is still going, then I'll work on getting a full system made up and formalized with a 1d4chan page at that time.

>>18849112
>normal weapons don't do shit.
I have yet to hear a good reason for this, other than 'the real powerful ones change reality to prevent them from dying'

>>18849147
I guess that's the best option. It keeps everybody happy. Maybe things will get ironed out in another thread when the stars realign.

>>18849285
I'd say go for it. I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to actually pulling something coherent together, so it would take me another thousand years to do it.

>>18849360
Because Magical Girls are too badass.

>>18849277
Beating a low ranking MG could be possible if you have a high enough level/stats, but it would still be a challenge. You'd probably want to think twice about doing so though, just to avoid attention from stronger MGs.

Defeating one of them would set an alarm off among all of them.

>>18849360
Let's make a "Delusion engine".
The Delusion Engine warps reality around the Magical Girl. The more deluded they are (and the young ones are really easy to delude), the more powerful they are. Real weapons don't work because magical girls can't even fathom that a gun could ever hurt them, and if they are hurt by real weapons, then they can use the power of friendship/love/cornyness to heal themselves.
The only way to really harm a MG is by ending her delusion. That justifies the "evil speeches", the "harming people" and the "being evil just because".

>>18849535
Nah, I ain't feeling it. It makes fluff too explicit, first of all, and making newer ones tougher goes against the usual tropes of the genre.
Plus there's no reason normal weapons should work anyway.

We need another thread, seriously.

>>18849649
There wouldn't be as much interest