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Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Maid RPG 

I wish I'd attended Gen Con this year. People are talking about an indie RPG that debuted there, Maid: The Roleplaying Game by K-Neko Design. It's an English translation, by Ewen Cluney, of the Japanese Maid RPG, designed by Ryo Kamiya and originally published by Sunset Games. My ears perked up when I heard someone describe it as "PARANOIA in maid outfits."

At this writing, the Maid website is only a placeholder. On his blog in April 2008, Cluney (who has already published many anime-inspired games) described the Maid premise:
In Maid RPG, the players take on the role of maids who serve a Master who lives in a mansion. That’s the basic setup, but what ensues is often an excuse for the most bizarre chaos imaginable. This is a game that embraces randomness. Characters have random Special Qualities, ranging from Freckles and Glasses to Stalkers and Cyborgs. During the game, characters earn points of Favor by pleasing the Master, and one of the things they can spend Favor on is causing Random Events.

The English version of Maid RPG is going to be a compilation of the core rulebook and both supplements from the original Japanese version. That means it’ll include not only the core rules, but optional rules for butlers, randomly generated masters and mansions, seduction, costume changes, and special items, plus a grand total of 17 scenarios and three replays, and more besides.

Cluney's blog also recounts the Maid Gen Con debut.

Going by the description, it sounds like Maid plays less like PARANOIA and more like My Life With Master crossed with TOON or Teenagers From Outer Space and maybe a bondage manga. Still, I'm intrigued, in a non-otaku, non-fetishist way. Anyone care to comment on Maid, specifically the PARANOIA comparison?
Posted by: Allen Varney / 3:20 PM

Comments:
Er... Actually that's a list of games I've started on, not published. It's first and foremost a way for me to keep track of my projects, of which there are usually way too many.

I suspect the heart of the Paranoia comparison comes from the way the Master serves as a constant and often irrational authority figure, but as you say, it's much more like TFOS and Toon.

This thread from Story Games gets into some of what makes the game so nifty, especially Mark W's post. The master/maid relationship leads to all kinds of things, and the seduction and random event rules are strokes of genius. PCs can spend points to add random events to the game, and with the optional seduction rules in play they can effectively become another character's "Master" with a successful die roll.
# posted by Blogger Ewen : August 20, 2008 4:05 AM
 
Speaking as far as the "Paranoia" comparison to me, there are plenty of items and abilities in Maid RPG that can encourage player vs player antics (as well as favor gaining game goals that can be set up), yet unlike Paranoia, if you decide to help your fellow employees you're not really "doing it wrong" unlike Paranoia where the backstabbery is a given.
# posted by Blogger Unknown : September 15, 2008 5:33 AM
 
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