RolePlay onLine RPoL Logo

, welcome to City of Heroes and Villains

19:13, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Hikaru Notes Go.

Posted by CoX AdminFor group 0
CoX Admin
GM, 81 posts
Head of the game
Banhammer
Thu 2 May 2013
at 21:11
  • msg #1

Hikaru Notes Go

-Mundaity (Hikaru no ghost)
-Starting age 10-15
 (Note: You age out of Insei at age 18 in Japan)
-Nationality?
 (Setting: Japan. Nationality: Optional)
 You can be American, Italian, whatever.
  Maybe I'll play
-Tokyo (Maybe Kansai?) Osaka?
-Japanese Go Association (Nihon Ki-in) is where our characters would meet for Go.
-Go Salons
-Restaraunts
Mittens
GM, 76 posts
Master of powershifting
Currently lvl 50 fire/kin
Fri 3 May 2013
at 02:27
  • msg #2

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

- Take a page or two from that "Host Club" anime.  For example, parentage and family prestige plays an important part in the lives of the kids.
- Perhaps go with a small town or one not renowned for its Go players to give the PCs the challenge of putting it on the map.
Kori
player, 1 post
Fri 3 May 2013
at 06:12
  • msg #3

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

The main reason to have it set in Tokyo is that the Nihon Ki-in (Japanese Go Association) headquarters is located there, and that's where insei study sessions are held. One becomes an insei by catching the attention of a professional player. That pro will sponsor you, and once you pass an entrance exam (administered by the pro in charge of insei studies), you then enter the insei league where you play round-robin to establish rank.

Many children who become insei either live in Tokyo already, have to commute at great cost from nearby areas, or their family actually relocates in order to accommodate the possibility of their child becoming a pro.

That's not to say that we couldn't have our RP set in a middle school or high school go club, but Tim and I were just thinking that the sense of battle would be greater if the kids were already insei. It also gives you a bigger age range to work with. Kids from as young as 6 and 7 all the way up to 18 play in the insei leagues. And since Tokyo is so metropolitan, you can basically make up any background you want for your character as far as city or country of origin.
Kori
player, 2 posts
Fri 3 May 2013
at 06:53
  • msg #4

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

Japanese Go Term Glossary

Go/Igo - A game played on the gridpoints of a 19x19 square in which players attempt to surround more territory than their opponent.

Goban - Go board.

Goishi - Go stones.

Goke - Bowl for holding go stones.

Gokaijou - A club where people of all ages can come to play go for a modest fee. Some are even sponsored or owned by high-ranking pros, who drop in from time to time to play with customers.

Kifu - A written record of a go game.

Kyu - Basic ranking system. Players with knowledge of the basic rules start at 30k and progress down to 1k.

Dan - Mastery ranking system. 1k players move to 1d when they achieve basic mastery of Go. Rank progresses upwards as high as 9d. A 6d amateur is about as strong as a 1d professional, which is notated "1p".

Nihon Ki-in - Japanese go association.

Insei league - A study group and round-robin tournament between young aspiring pros who have been hand-picked by Japan's go professionals.

Shidougo - A teaching game. The stronger player usually plays moves that test the weaker player and guides them through proper play.

Okiishi - A handicap. Unlike most games, go uses handicaps heavily in order to make games between opponents with drastically different skill levels beneficial to both players.

Kami no itte - The Hand of God, or Divine Move. This is a move, unseen by anyone but the person who plays it, that is so innovative and decisive that it sways the entire game into a sure win for that player.

Titles - There are 7 major titles (and several more minor and women's only professional tournaments) in Japan. Kisei, Meijin, Honinbou, Judan, Gosei, Oza, and Tengen. Honinbou, in particular, is important because it was originally a school of go as far back as the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 1600's. Titles were actually names taken on by the best go players in the school, like Honinbou Shuusaku (whose original name was Kuwabara Torajiro).

Please ask if there's anything you think I left out, or anything you want to know more about. Wikipedia has a handy-dandy list of in-game terminology that is a little too long for me to delve into. It also requires at least a basic understanding of the flow of a go game, so take a look if you're interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#
Mittens
GM, 77 posts
Master of powershifting
Currently lvl 50 fire/kin
Sun 5 May 2013
at 19:00
  • msg #5

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

I'm eager to start mostly because my character concept is weird.  Mittens is my signature character but she's usually in epic fantastical settings where at the very least she's battling air elementals all the way up to going toe-to-toe against elder dragons, gods, and saving the world from alien invasions.  To put this very adventurous and eccentric character into a down-to-earth setting has my wheels turning, and I'm looking forward to getting started.

Tokyo sounds fine, but because I so strongly prefer "player characters vs. non player characters" over "player vs player" (PVP) I would much rather at least start out in a school Go club that competes against other schools rather than start in an insei league where (judging from the anime at least) team play is non-existent.  Or to put it another way, I love RP that encourages forming friendships much more than RP that encourages rivalries.  I think rivalry will form just fine in a team setting and at a manageable level without having a "only the top 3 players of the annual tournament will graduate" Sword of Damacles hanging over everyone's head.
Kori
player, 3 posts
Mon 6 May 2013
at 04:11
  • msg #6

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

So I've been wondering how we're going to handle the game aspect of this rp. Will we have stats, and actually roll for attacks and such? Or will the GM simply determine wins/losses? Will we all start at level 1 (30k)? Or will we start at different skill levels? The mechanics end of this has the potential to be really interesting. I'm definitely not opposed to starting out in a school go club--we can really get some interesting camaraderie going that way. However, if you have plans for this to go into the insei or pro level, it's not very likely that more than one kid from any given school would be good enough to even train to become a pro. But maybe that's what will make our story worth telling, eh? 3 kids from the same school all become good enough to go pro together? I'm willing to overlook a break in the "realism" of this universe in order to create a cool story. I'm really getting excited for this, and I've been doing some character sketches. Right now I've got 2 potential characters, but I'm going to keep going until I find something that really clicks.
Mittens
GM, 78 posts
Master of powershifting
Currently lvl 50 fire/kin
Mon 6 May 2013
at 14:45
  • msg #7

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

Game system for Go RPG?  Uh...  *Does a quick internet search*  N...  nope.  Not finding anything.  I'm guessing freeform is the only way to go.  What came to mind was an old DBZ MUCK that Tim and I belonged to where you would gain XP and consequently power level by fighting and / or training.  Well since I had a boring job I was training my character constantly.  Within a week or so I had out-leveled the veteran players simply by doing lots of push-ups.  This of course left a sour taste in Tim's mouth.  Because in-character it was like my character accomplished in a week what his had in over a year.  When you introduce game mechanics into a competitive RPG you're gambling that any one character will become a BMX Bandit compared to another that became an Angel Summoner.  (I think we showed you the video I'm referring to.)

This can even happen in a cooperative game system.  Tim and I were in a D6 Star Wars game and I had built a super combat character mostly to prove how broken the game system is.  Well the GM's wife had built a "face" character focused on persuasion.  Whenever our characters were in a negotiation her character shined, but during combat she had to run and hide or die.  And the story had a LOT of combat.

On the bright side, she would gain the same XP as the rest of the team and could then choose to improve her combat skills.  Maybe an ultra-simplified D6 system could work.  Where there's only 1 skill we track and after each match every character gains the same XP.  We'll be guaranteed to be on the same level win or lose, but there'll still be some randomness and unpredictability who wins any given match.
CoX Admin
GM, 82 posts
Head of the game
Banhammer
Mon 6 May 2013
at 14:59
  • msg #8

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

I'm thinking we go freeform unless there is a strong preference for having a system. Still, I *am* excited at the idea of tracking the characters' progress. We should all start as 30k and make our way up as RP goes on. This is where Kori will guide us all a bit and explain how fast kids NORMALLY progress from 30k to 20k to 10k and so on.

As for likeliness or unlikeliness of progress, don't forget there is always the option to introduce new characters as the story progresses. I was considering, for instance, playing a younger sibling to one of you guys. Obviously, as a younger sib, the character wouldn't go to your school until you guys are on your last year, but go-wise, the character could be on par with you two.

I have several characters in mind, but we'll see. I know I wanna play as a boy in this setting for the most part, but there is a girl or two I have in mind who would be fun and interesting to throw in there. Being the GM would mean I could get away with playing any character as an "NPC". For now, we'll all play characters in the same school. Again, I always liked the "watching the character grow" aspect, so we should start out either first year of middle school, or the latter years of elementary. You guys' call.
Kori
player, 4 posts
Tue 7 May 2013
at 01:28
  • msg #9

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

So by freeform, I take it you mean no game mechanics, just pure roleplay? That sounds fine to me. I'm thinking in the spirit of HnG, we should start it in the final (6th) year of elementary school. As far as the speed at which people progress, everyone has their own growth rate. Some people are meteoric, they just blast up to the single-digit-kyus within a couple of months and then duke it out for a few more until they hit dan level. Others it takes them longer, usually a couple of years of dedicated play to get that strong. Still others never make it that high at all and they have to struggle to understand some of the basic concepts, slowly climbing up into the mid-kyus and never going much higher than about 10k. Kids generally progress faster than adults, especially those in the tweens and early teens. It's pretty well accepted (in Asian cultures at least) that if you haven't made it to pro level by your 20's, you're never going to be much stronger than 3-5d amateur.
Mittens
GM, 79 posts
Master of powershifting
Currently lvl 50 fire/kin
Tue 7 May 2013
at 01:50
  • msg #10

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

Correct.  Generally the disadvantage of freeform is the lack of "balance."  Meaning there's little other than the ire of other players to prevent a player from simply declaring that their Mary Sue always wins and never loses.  Of course there's lesser offenses like almost always win and rarely lose.  But this rarely is an issue between Tim and I because we've developed an understanding for each other's expectations.  I don't expect there to be any issues playing freeform with you, we'll just have to be a little more deliberate in communicating how successful we expect our characters to be in any given match.
CoX Admin
GM, 83 posts
Head of the game
Banhammer
Tue 7 May 2013
at 17:09
  • msg #11

Re: Hikaru Notes Go

One of my character concepts was to play my boy genius Eli, but he loses most of his matches. This actually excites him because most everything else comes easy to him, but since Go is both a spacial, right-brained game and a left-brained puzzle-like game, it challenges his very left-brain self.

Kori has also mentioned a Go proverb that goes something like this: "Quickly lose your first 100 games" which I probably misquoted, but the point is EVERY beginning Go player is going to get their butts handed to them nonstop, but that is how they learn.

.....just that while you two are starting to win often, my genius will still be on his losing streak for a while and him winning a game will be cause for celebration.

Of course, I have other ideas too (Such as the extreme irony of playing someone like Osaka from Asumanga), but still.

I figure we could plan out number of successes and number of failures ahead of time. Vs each other, we will have equal success/failure rate (unless I play Eli, who will always lose). Vs NPCs, we'll just say that for NOW, anyway, it will be equal vs opponent of equal skill, and lose vs stronger opponents so those opponents can give "advice"; the classic after-game mentoring. :)

Unless there are more thoughts on how to proceed, we wanna discuss character concepts?

link to another game
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:19, Tue 07 May 2013.
Sign In