Hooray! Now I finally have an excuse to stat the Utena cast in Dark Heresy!

Utena Tenjou (Episode 1)                                  Utena Tenjou (Episode 38/39)

Weapon Skill: 35                                              Weapon Skill:40
Ballistic Skill: 20                                               Ballistic Skill:20
Strength:30                                                      Strength:30
Toughness:25                                                   Toughness:50(x2)
Agility:40                                                         Agility:40
Intelligence:25                                                 Intelligence:30
Perception:10                                                  Perception:30
Willpower:35                                                   Willpower:50(x2)
Fellowship:35                                                   Fellowship:40
Wounds:12                                                      Wounds:15
Fate Points:4                                                    Fate Points:1
Insanity:0                                                       Insanity:10
Corruption:0                                                   Corruption:5

Skills:                                                             Skills:
Athletic Mastery                                               Athletic Mastery
Blather                                                           Charm
Charm                                                           Forbidden Lore(Dueling)
Common Lore (Ohtori Academy)                      Forbidden Lore (Ohtori Academy)
Common Lore (Princes)                                   Literacy
Literacy                                                         
                                                                     
                                                                     
Talents:                                                         Talents:
Leap Up                                                         Assassin Strike
Melee Weapons Training (Swords)                    Berserk Charge
Rapid Reaction                                               Blademaster
Sprint                                                            Counter Attack
Takedown                                                      Die-Hard
                                                                    Fearless
                                                                    Furious Assault
                                                                    Hatred (Akio Ohtori)
                                                                    Leap Up
                                                                    Lightning Attack
                                                                    Lightning Reflexes
                                                                    Melee Weapon Training (Swords)
                                                                    Peer (Student Council)
                                                                    Rapid Reaction
                                                                    Sprint
                                                                    Step Aside
                                                                    Swift Attack
                                                                    Takedown
                                                                    True Grit
                                                                    Unnatural Toughness (x2)
                                                                    Unnatural Willpower (x2)

Last edited by Orikan (01-03-2012 03:19:13 PM)

For some reason, it doesn't feel right to me to represent Utena characters with lots of numbers and stats. And now I feel a brainstorm coming on...

If I wanted to design an RPG system that was true to the nature of the series, there wouldn't be any dice rolls, and the only game pieces would be poker chips. The chips held by each player would represent their character's psychological/spiritual condition.

Three colors of chips would be used: white, red and black. White chips represent Hope. The more white chips you have, the greater your character's ability to overcome obstacles and personal flaws in pursuit of their ideals. Red chips represent Lust. The more red chips you have, the greater the strength of your character's base passions and selfish interests. Black chips represent Torment. The more black chips you have, the deeper your character's despair.

Characters would belong to a number of archetypes. A character's archetype would determine what chips they begin play with and how they can use their chips - the rules are different for each character type. The gameplay is divided into chapters, each chapter representing an 'episode' of gameplay.

Here are some very rough rules for some different archetypes:


The Prince begins with 10 white chips and 1 red. The Prince automatically takes 2 white chips from other characters each chapter, but if she realizes that she is doing it she will lose 4 white chips and gain 6 black. If the Prince's black chips ever outnumber her white chips, she is a Prince no longer and must become something else, but cannot leave the Academy. At the moment the Prince ceases to be, if she has more than 30 white chips and she has opened her heart to the Witch, she can give the Witch one white chip. No other archetype can do this.

The Duelist begins with 5 red chips and 1 white. A Duelist gains 2 red chips each chapter. A Duelist gains 1 white chip when he feels he is closer to realizing his goals. If he realizes that he is actually no closer to realizing his goals than when he started, he loses all white chips. If a Duelist can find 3 people who will accept red chips from him in a chapter, he can take a white chip from another Duelist. If a Duelist's black chips ever outnumber his red or white chips, or if the Duelist's white chips come to total more than twice his red chips, he is a duelist no more and must become something else, but cannot leave the Academy.

The Scholar begins with 10 black chips and 10 white. He can give other characters 3 black chips each chapter, and at the end of each chapter gains a number of black chips equal to his number of red chips. He gains one red chip every chapter. If his red chips ever outnumber his white or black chips, he is a Scholar no longer and must become something else, but cannot leave the Academy.

The Witch begins with 20 black chips and 1 red. For every 4 black chips a Witch holds, she can give 1 black chip to other characters. For every black chip she gives to other characters, she gets 2 black chips back. If the Witch accumulates 100 black chips and 1 white, she is given a choice: she can leave the Academy or return to her starting point as a Witch with 20 black chips and 1 red. If the Witch gets 100 black chips and doesn't have a white chip, she automatically returns to her starting point.

The Dark Prince begins with 40 red chips and 5 black chips. If the Dark Prince is given a white chip, he must immediately discard it and receives 3 black chips in its stead. If his black chips ever total half the number of his red chips, he must give them all to the Witch. The Dark Prince can change another character's white chips into black chips at will, but if another character realizes he has done this he can no longer be a Dark Prince and must become something else, but cannot leave the Academy.

The Fool begins with no chips. He can gain any number of chips during a chapter, but he must give them all away by the chapter's end, whatever the consequences for the other characters. He can give chips to any character he wants, regardless of the consequences. The player of a Fool can ask any other player their character's archetype in secret, and they must answer truthfully. No one can hide their archetype from the Fool. He can leave the Academy whenever he wants, but if he does a new Fool will take his place.

The Ordinary Girl/Guy begins with one chip of each color. They gain one chip of each color every chapter. If they ever hold more than 5 chips of one color, they are no longer Ordinary and must become something else, but they cannot leave the Academy. If they manage to divest themselves of all black chips, they can choose to leave the Academy.


An important note - players should not know what archetypes the other players' characters are. A character's archetype should be a secret known only to the player. Some archetypes' behavior patterns may give them away - or do they? A character who behaves like a prince could very well be a prince - or he could be an especially clever duelist.

I may develop this more in the future, if there's any interest.

Davine Lu Linvega wrote:

If I wanted to design an RPG system that was true to the nature of the series, there wouldn't be any dice rolls, and the only game pieces would be poker chips. The chips held by each player would represent their character's psychological/spiritual condition.

Three colors of chips would be used: white, red and black. White chips represent Hope. The more white chips you have, the greater your character's ability to overcome obstacles and personal flaws in pursuit of their ideals. Red chips represent Lust. The more red chips you have, the greater the strength of your character's base passions and selfish interests. Black chips represent Torment. The more black chips you have, the deeper your character's despair.

Characters would belong to a number of archetypes. A character's archetype would determine what chips they begin play with and how they can use their chips - the rules are different for each character type. The gameplay is divided into chapters, each chapter representing an 'episode' of gameplay.

Here are some very rough rules for some different archetypes:

Based on what you say about archetypes, it seems like it would either take far too long or be over too quickly, depending on what archetypes each player chose. Unless you're trying to simulate Akio and Anthy being 'stuck' in the cycle of duels?
I'm curious as to how you would have a character 'realize' something. Is it an event thrown out by the GM, or do the players decide when their characters have to throw up their hands and say, 'I'm getting nowhere'?

Last edited by Atropos (01-04-2012 02:23:33 PM)

Atropos wrote:

Based on what you say about archetypes, it seems like it would either take far too long or be over too quickly, depending on what archetypes each player chose. Unless you're trying to simulate Akio and Anthy being 'stuck' in the cycle of duels?
I'm curious as to how you would have a character 'realize' something. Is it an event thrown out by the GM, or do the players decide when their characters have to throw up their hands and say, 'I'm getting nowhere'?

The archetype rules I came up with were very off-the-cuff, I didn't have time to think of how they'd actually work in a game, but just wanted to illustrate how different archetypes would use the different attributes differently.

The basic idea is that the Prince has lots of hope (white chips) and can freely give that hope away to others around them. Duelists, who are kind of like hope vampires, want to steal away all the Prince's hope, and they have to fight to balance their hope with their lust (red chips). A Prince or Duelist will break down and become an ordinary person if they lose their hope and/or accrue too much torment (black chips). Black chips are bad for most characters, but for the Witch they're actually the source of her power. The Witch can give her black chips to other characters and also convert black chips into red chips to give other characters. If someone tries to give her a white chip, she will get three black chips instead.

Archetypes (a better name for them would just be "roles") are an important part of gameplay because SKU is all about the roles people play and how they transition between different roles. Saionji's fall from grace and reinstatement is a great example of this, with him and Wakaba briefly switching roles before he sacrifices her hope to get his old role back.

The GM decides what chips a player will receive and/or lose and how their character's role will change based on roleplaying. Characters 'realize' things through roleplaying. In the example of Duelists realizing that they've gotten nowhere, the GM will take away white chips if the character expresses that his efforts have been useless.

Characters do challenging things in the game by spending chips; Duelists would spend white chips to try and win duels and red chips to try and seduce/corrupt/control each other. Most characters cannot spend black chips to accomplish things, only lose them if they do things that will relieve their torment. But black chips are useful for the Witch, as described above.

Haha, an entirely unintentional side effect. But I'd have to come up with some rules for archetypes and chip exchanging that make sense if anyone wanted to play it.

Anthiena wrote:

I recall someone looking for the BESM Utena resource. I found someone who will be cutting up their books-all three of them. Funny how that sort of thing happens. See here:

http://ayeka.net/forum/index.php?topic=831.new#new

Until then, here is reviews of the first and the second

What happened with this? When I try the link I get a message saying "The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you."

I'm still planning on making a few tentative write-ups in a few systems as an exercise.

Last edited by 7scimitarroll (03-12-2012 10:09:41 PM)

I created additional rules on what Davine Lu Linvega wrote upthread. Tell me what you think!

The game requires a disinterested moderator. At the beginning of a game, the moderator assigns each player their character's archetype.
The game takes place on a Cluedo-styled Ohtori map. Locations include the Observatory, the Balcony, the School Building, the Rose Garden, the Dormitory, the Fencing Hall, the Kendo Room, and the Dueling Arena. Characters roll a die twice and can travel that many spaces. When two characters are adjacent to each other, they can use their abilities to adjust each others' attributes. Some of the players, such as the one who plays the Prince, do not know how they are affecting other characters. Simply take note of who they talk to in a chapter and then adjust the chip totals at the end.
At the beginning of a game, each player rolls a die; the highest number receives the Rose Bride to begin with. If multiple players have the same roll, you roll again with those players only until the problem is eliminated. Having the Rose Bride means that the player receives an additional 3 white chips every round. At the same time, the moderator should create a negative effect caused by possessing her.
All characters are assumed to be duelists(thought not necessarily a Duelist). If a duelist occupies the same room as the One Engaged, they can challenge them to a duel. Both characters go to the dueling arena, where they invest their white chips in the combat. Other players can give a duelist red chips, which count as white chips for the purposes of the duel. The victor is the duelist who accumulates the most white chips; however, they do not receive their chips back. The victor is sent to the Observatory, the loser to the Dormitory.
Once all characters have dueled at least once and the Rose Bride has exchanged hands 3 times(not counting the initial Engaged), the current Engaged may begin the Revolution. All the characters' archetypes are revealed to him(though not their chip totals) and he is allowed to distribute chips evenly across them. The character with the most white chips after this is victorious and is freed from the academy.
There is another win condition: if a character guesses the archetypes of all other players, he wins by default. They don't have to be exact words, but if they can explain the role each character fulfills, that is enough.

This turns it into more of a board game...which is how it came across to me.

Last edited by Atropos (12-28-2012 06:13:42 PM)