(Interest Check) Black Castle: An OSR Campaign You've Never Seen Before

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Doc Sammy

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Alright, I've been wanting to do this idea for a while and so here it goes....

I want to run a modified Basic Fantasy campaign inspired by the Yaoi genre of anime and manga called Black Castle. It is a game of Grimdark Low Fantasy and Yaoi Anime Romance. For those not in the know, Yaoi is a genre of anime and manga centered on romanticized same-sex love between two males, generally written with a female audience in mind (though some males such as myself do enjoy the genre as well). Yaoi can be sexually explicit, but does not have to be (and in this campaign, it won't be explicit. Remember kids, when in doubt, always Fade to Black!)

This game is a mix of Sandbox-style wilderness exploration, gritty Gothic survival horror, Chivalric bravery, grim and perilous melodrama, doomed heroic quests, and tragic yaoi anime romances. It is dark and grim, yet also beautiful and tragic. It is a project I've been wanting to do for a while, even if it is extremely niche. And if you do play, you don't have to pursue romantic interests or chivalric romance quests, though you can if you want to.

This campaign is a bizarre mix of tongue-in-cheek and silly mixed with grimdark and serious, so it can get strange at times. Sort of like a Tragicomedy. You have been warned.

Rules are from the Basic Fantasy corebook but with some modifications.

1. All Hit Dice and Weapon Damage are measured in d6's

2. Humans are the only playable race, and you can only be a male character for now. Females and Demi-Humans are reserved for NPC's only. This is not due to sexism or misogyny, but rather a reflection of the reduced role many female characters play in yaoi fiction. I sincerely mean no offense by this.

3. The core classes are Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, and Thief and they function exactly the same as they do in the Basic Fantasy core rules, except they all have d6 hit die.

4. All characters must be between the ages of 18-26 at the start of the game and everyone starts out at Level One.

5. If you want, you can select a Body Type for your character to describe their appearance and give a small mechanical bonus. Again, this is entirely optional.

The body types are as follows

Bishonen Male: A typical good-looking, albeit somewhat androgynous looking anime male character.
Ability Score Bonus: Choice of either +1 Wisdom or +1 Charisma
Examples: Haruka Nanase (Free!), Eren Jaeger (Attack on Titan), Tamaki Suoh (Ouran High School Host Club)

Bara Male: A buff, imposing, and generally more masculine-looking anime male character
Ability Score Bonus: Choice of either +1 Strength or +1 Constitution
Examples: Ryu (Street Fighter II), Gladiolus Amicita (Final Fantasy XV), Kouga (InuYasha)

Moe Male: A cutesy-looking anime male character that is generally feminine in appearance, sometimes even passing for female.
Ability Score Bonus: Choice of either +1 Dexterity or +1 Charisma
Examples: Bridget (Guilty Gear), Honey Haninozuka (Ouran High School Host Club), China (Axis Powers Hetalia)

6. Starting Gold is 3d6x10 and Ability Scores are 3d6 in order

Everything else is the same, and the setting is a grim and Gothic medieval fantasy world with anime tropes and a few cues taken from old-school gonzo 1970's D&D.

So, would anyone be interested in this bizarre grimdark anime romantic tragicomedy campaign?
 
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