Just to make this a fair and balanced review I have to admit I didn't actually buy this game. I read it in the store and made some notes. It's a tiny little thing, and vastly over priced.  All the artwork is by J. Richmond, presumably the author, and quite frankly is a little dull.

This has to be the most amusingly wrongheaded name for the game. Its like this, the name of the game is going to draw certain types of customers like flies. These customers will be very angry and disappointed by the game. Certain other customers will be very interested in the game, but never touch it due to the name and will never buy it.  This leaves the freaks who don't care and will use the game in a group circle jerk despite it's apparently honest intent to give people the chance to play japanese school girls in all seriousness... with a few anime elements.

To be honest, this is 'forge type' gaming, deeply interested in emulative narration or something. Characters are defined largely by traits, agendas, blood types, astrological signs and who their best friends and rivals are (at the table). Oh, and their five elements that give them their dice.  There is no 'combat' only 'conflict'... attempting to kill a demonic bad thing (which could just be a mean teacher) uses the exact same dice and mechanics as calling a girl a dirty japanese slut.  

But what about those mechanics? Well, its pretty simple, virginia. You have your five elemental traits (Godai), and you rate them from one to five.  If you are voted the most popular girl you get d10's to roll, if you are voted the least popular (or are psychic) you get only d6's. Everyone else gets d8's.  The target number, regardless of die type, is 5, and you can roll as many dice as you got in that trait... burning them for the length of the conflict.  Psychic's CAN use their power (being psychic) to roll d10's instead, but that makes the final boss more powerful (more dice) each time they do. You can add a trait to a dice roll (only one trait per roll) to up the die type by one.

Finally: your best freind gets to describe what happens if your dice succeed. Your rival gets to describe your failures. Yes, your rival can kill you if remotely appropriate. Psychics have their rival describe both success AND failure.  There is only one limit on who can or can't be psychic in the game: there has to be ONE non-psychic per party (to be the most popular I'd guess...).

That's it in a nutshell.  The person who starts the conflict goes first, and it ends when the person who started it choses to end it, then dice refresh.  There are some pages of GM advice, including how to run the 'big bad monster'... which is normally a demon of some sort, lists of traditional demons, pages of information on Japanese school life.


The biggest issue is the Name. The art and the writing are serious and non-sexual in nature.  This is a game that, according the the guy at the store, was ordered simply to make money off the creeps that frequent the place. Unless you happen to game with a group of actual Japanese schoolgirls, I wouldn't recommend playing this if you value your... er... non-creepiness?

So...
 
 
 
 
...it it fun?

This game sounds like ass.

Quoteintent to give people the chance to play japanese school girls in all seriousness

Uh...I think the above quote is the poster child for the definition of oxymoron.


Also, I'll second Matt's "Sounds like ass (and not the good kind)"...

Quote from: mattormegThis game sounds like ass.

yes, this has to be next most dumb RPG concept to Break the Ice.

Glad I could entertain you guys.  Sadly, of course, the game DOES exist and appears to be very serious... I don't get it any more than you guys, but I couldn't pass up the chance to spread the love...

Quote from: Spike

Glad I could entertain you guys.  Sadly, of course, the game DOES exist and appears to be very serious... I don't get it any more than you guys, but I couldn't pass up the chance to spread the love...

Do you have any ebola?

I'd rather have that.

I think I found my perfect gift for Secret Santa.

Quote from: McrowDo you have any ebola?

I'd rather have that.

I'll have to check my stockpiles of WMDs... if I can find them.:eek:

So this wouldn't be a serious contender against Sailor Moon RPG, then? Because I already happen to have an SM/Ravenloft campaign planned...

Quote from: GrimGentSo this wouldn't be a serious contender against Sailor Moon RPG, then? Because I already happen to have an SM/Ravenloft campaign planned...

Okay... now you gotta tell me more.  Not being a sailor moon fan you'll have to keep it to layman's knowledge of the show...

Sailormoon: Five young girls are endowed (hur-hur) with magical powers and teeny-tiny skirts.  They do battle with the minions of a far-future witch so as to ensure the present someday becomes said far future.

After I had managed to grab a cheap copy of The Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book, a Tri-Stat d6 game published by GoO back in the late nineties, it occurred to me that substituting Ravenloft for the Dark Kingdom and the Darklords for the Four Generals might work rather nicely. While I've never really cared for D&D as a system, some of the settings for it are intriguing, and in this case stripping away the customary trappings of high fantasy would be perfectly justified: no Greyhawk or Krynn or Forgotten Realms, and no dwarves or elves (at least in the usual sense), and most definitely no kender... It's Gothic dark fantasy all the way.

The Dread Realms haunt the world as we know it, occasionally snatching away those who are in pain and despair, and at other times sending their creatures to stalk in the alleyways of modern cities. The PCs are the reborn guardians of a long-forgotten civilization once destroyed by those same Dark Powers which tore the foundations of Ravenloft away from the mundane Earth eight hundred years ago. And so the ancient battle between the Moon and the Dark begins again.

Quote from: fonkaygarrySailormoon: Five young girls are endowed (hur-hur) with magical powers and teeny-tiny skirts.  They do battle with the minions of a far-future witch so as to ensure the present someday becomes said far future.

Or you might also say that they are the reincarnations of the princess and the royal guard from the Silver Millennium, an age of peace and wonder when the Moon was the heart of a vast interplanetary empire, later utterly eradicated by the machinations of a sinister parallel reality which now threatens the world in the present day. For such a cheerful and gaudy show, it sometimes has rather dark undertones, many of which were lost in the original American release when they were considered unsuitable for children (like the finale of the first season). I've always thought that it might have the makings of something much more serious.

Hey everyone, my name is Travis, I produce the CrossRoads of Eternity RPG (a Fantasy RPG). I did one piece of art for Panty Explosion, as well as did a in depth read through to spot editing mistakes and point out some issues of clarity in the development process (Jake and I work on a lot of things together); though I did not have anything to do with the design or marketing of this game.

I do agree that to people who do not understand Japanese pop-culture and anime at large, the title can be mis-understood and even off-putting, to those people who pick it up and expect something explicitly dirty, to hell with them if they bought it and are disappointed and angry, they should have understood what it was before buying, there are several free versions online of it and like you spike, people could have thumbed through it at some local stores before buying.

It occurs to me after repeated rereads of your review, that you actually do not complain about ANYTHING but the title (and the art to a more personal opinion sense). This is however a game review NOT a "is this a good name" review. So if you want to criticize the mechanics, the method of GM'ing, conflict resolution, or the story setting, then by all means, pony up to the bar and lay down you assessment, because so far all you have done is given a summary of how the game works, and said "by the way the title of this game sux".

I'll say right now that I myself don't care much for how the Forge does a lot of things, and while this game was put through a round of feedback this is not a "Forge type" game, whatever the hell that means. Just because a game takes a different approach to conflict resolution other than your standard D20 crap like most PDF stores sell, doesn't mean it needs to be pigeonholed into some category which you obviously like to stake negative connotations upon without actually elaborating for us as to what you mean by it.

Are you one of these creepy freaks you speak of? you say the store owner only bought it to sell to the freaks, and yet here you are thumbing through it, and now you state unsolicited that it does not have a sexual tone to it, once again implying that this is what you were expecting in it. I am starting to think that you are merely upset that it was not a kinky Hentai themed game and you wanted to warn others who would make the same assumption, but under the presence of a legitimate game review, which this so obviously was not.

While the summary was useful, it would make more sense to state specifically which elements of the mechanics you liked or did not like, and actually try one of the free copies of the game and run a game to see what you think. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised in how the GAME works, putting the title and assumed theme out of your mind. I myself think that 'Panty explosion' is an Ill-conceived title, but that's just my opinion, and it could have been that Jake and Matt deliberately named it this for a reason; perhaps to silicate a rise from people such as yourself, or perhaps for the benefit of those who would understand the implication of the title, who knows, maybe you should ask him.