Turning Rabbit and Steel into RP

[Polyedit2000]

Please note this is not intended as a review or guide but instead as an attempt to convert a game into a RP.  This may take multiple posts.

Rabbit and Steel is advertised as a "raiding roguelike" where you play as a bunny girl checking out the dark aura of a nearby kingdom.  The enemies and bosses will use attacks that are more similar to a MMO's raiding mechanics while you try to whittle down their health.  The game can be played solo or with other people, which alters the playthrough experience due to how the mechanics work.

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Choosing the Playthrough:
There are four difficulties.  Each difficulty adds another mechanic to a fight as well as a increase in the enemy's health.  In addition, the easier difficulty adds more HP and full heals after each battle while the harder difficulties places an enrage timer (where the enemy will shoot unblockable mechanics  after some time).  The higher difficulties are unlocked after you have defeated one boss of a lower difficulty.

In addition, the players can choose which part of the kingdom to start in, more unlocked when you complete that stage.  When you have cleared the five stages, you can choose a "random" part that gives you more starting gold.

Player:
The player has 5 HP on the middle difficulties.  The HP is lost if hit by a mechanic and can only be regained fully in a shop or by 2 HP after selecting a treasure (usually before each Boss).  There are some items that can increase the amount of HP you have and even recover them after a battle.

The player can choose 5-10 classes (to be discussed later).  Each class has a Primary attack, a Secondary attack (usually weaker with more range), a Special (stronger attack with cooldown) and a Defensive (brief invulnerability, usually erases bullets too among other benefits and on a countdown); the four skills can be altered through a Shop.  Skills possess attack power and global cooldowns (the amount of time to use any other skills, as opposed to normal cooldowns that prevent the use of the same skill for a period).

Trinkets:
These are collectibles that are unlocked through objectives or luck, not really giving a boost yet visibly changing based on some condition.

---

Upgrading the Player:
Progress:  Things like classes, Treasures and music are locked behind objectives, but you can also beat a certain number of bosses as an alternative.

Levels: Each level raises the player's power of attacks by a percent.  Mainly gained through fighting the enemies but can also be bought from the Shop repeatedly. 

Treasures:  You gain two in the Prologue stage and one before each Boss in a stage.  Each set of 8 treasures has a "theme" that ranges from extra buffs/debuffs and hits to trading extra attack for slower movement.

Shops:  The gold required to buy from the shop mainly comes from battles.  In addition to refilling health and buying levels, there are two other sections.  You can buy up to 3 Potions that last for the stage and have straightforward benefits like damage increase.

You can also buy a Gem-encrusted Skill to increase your DPS.  The five types  of gems are Opal (alternate playstyle), Sapphire (faster), Ruby (stronger), Garnet (boosts other skills) and Emerald (simplify the skill rotation).

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Stage Layout:
The first stage (Kingdom Outskirts) alternates between Enemy-Treasure-Enemy-Treasure-Enemy.  Enemies are scouting from different parts of the kingdom and uses simple patterns.

From that point on, the stages will take place in different parts of the kingdom ruled by sects of animal girls.  The flow of these stages will be Shop-Enemy-Enemy-Miniboss-Treasure-Boss.  While the enemies have simple patterns, the miniboss will have more HP and 3-4 cycles of different patterns, including the region's special mechanics.  The boss has two phase: the first phase is more of a review of the enemies you've fought, then the second phase after you removed enough of their HP will cycle between their attack phase and intermission phase (which can be a whole new mechanic as well).

Also, it seems that each region has a theme that unites the mechanics used there.
Dragons- Once the rulers of the kingdom before they were overthrown, their mechanics means dodging big attacks.
Mice- They may look weak but they attack in numbers, so their mechanics will try to limit your space.
Frogs- They are artists first and foremost, so their mechanics look like a dance.
Crows- They seek to spread their knowledge while aiming for the stars, with their mechanics likened to a puzzle.
Wolves- They like a good fight, and their mechanics are based on dodging their attacks.

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Single/Multiplayer:
So if you're playing single player, there will be a lot of mechanics to avoid.

If you're playing multiplayer, things change drastically.  For starters, players that lose all their HP will have a revive timer before they can choose to rejoin the fight (but it will be a game over if all players are dead).  In addition, players that choose the same Treasure will have to roll to win it, prompting the other player to choose a different treasure.  However, the biggest change is that some of the mechanics will not be fixed in place but rather be tagged onto the players, which is more akin to how raid mechanics work.  For example, a circle mechanic requires a single player to get into the circle in the center of the screen, but the multiplayer version can require all players to gather over the one or two players holding the circles, and these mechanics can even tag dead players.

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Classes:  Each class gives players a different playstyle.  These five are initially available while the later requires defeating certain bosses on Hard or defeating plenty of bosses.
Wizard- Set the magic circle down to cast quickly, making this a mostly stationary class.
Assassin- Their biggest damage comes from Vanishing and getting behind for their strongest skill.
Heavyblade- They get close to the action with strong attacks.
Dancer- Their skills charge each other and even resets a third.
Druid- They lay down attack zones on the battlefield.

???- This class can shoot a strong attack or fill up on a different attack.
???- This class can buff to deal double hits.
???- Buff to hit faster, useful for spamming their slower attack.
???- This class can erase bullets but needs to build that ability up through other skills.
???- This class attacks through their pet.

[Flashlight237]

I looked into the game myself. Looks to be a bullet hell-type game just based on the trailer, although it seems to play as loosely with bullet hell logic as Undertale does. Looking over this, I see a grammatical issue.

If you're playing multiplayer, things change drastically.  For starters, players that lose all their HP will have a revive timer before they can choose to rejoin the fight (but it will be a game over.

I think the parenthesized part is supposed to say "but it will be a Game Over if all players lost their HP".

Update: Started playing the game myself. Yeah, it played just how I wrote it. I first found danmaku (that bullet hell nonsense) when I got to the third opponent and even then, the attacks are telegraphed pretty easily.

[Polyedit2000]

Okay, though I forgot to say that for the enemies (at least the ones after the prologue), they will use one of two patterns so that playthroughs through each stage isn't so static.

Anyway, let's start with replayability: why would you run this game over and over again?  Well, there are things you can unlock in the game like any other roguelike, so here are the things:

Difficulty:  In the beginning, Hard mode is locked and you can unlock it by defeating a Boss on Normal mode (this means getting past the Prologue stage and defeating the last girl in the following stage). Then there is the Lunar mode which is unlocked by defeated a Boss on Hard mode.

Classes:  There are two methods to unlock the later five classes. The first method is by defeated up to 50 bosses to unlock all of them.  The quicker way is to defeat certain Bosses on Hard mode.

Treasures: Again, you could kill a lot of bosses, though the quicker way to unlock them is to perform various tasks like defeating an enemy very fast or holding a lot of buffs at once.  These tasks don't really need a difficulty though some are easier to achieve on Easy or Normal difficulty.

Music: Music is probably the last things you will unlock by defeating 3 digits of bosses.  They also possess the harder challenges ranging from Normal and higher difficulty runs with conditions to no-damage Lunar playthroughs.

Colors:  The rabbits have an array of colors, but two more colors can be unlocked by completing Hard and Lunar mode with the associated rabbit.


Trinkets:  Further customization for the rabbits.  While some of them can be unlocked with certain conditions, a number of then can drop randomly; some that are definitely acquired in Lunar can randomly drop in Hard.  Also, one set of trinkets is unlocked by wearing a certain trinket and not getting hit for the whole run on increasing difficulties.

Story: There is a sort of story in this game if you're playing offline.  This is done by talking to the girls and shop during the shop phases.  Looking at the map can tell you which stages have these story bits and it can be done on any difficulty.  

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Next, let's cover the Treasures.  When you find a Treasure Box, its color determines what Treasures will be presented.  Each Treasure has 8 kinds of Loot which share a theme and does one of two things.  Generally, you can expect at least half of the Loot to affect one of the skills.  So here are the Treasures you'll be working with:

Arcane- Loot applies Curse (enemies receive more damage) and gains bonuses from placing debuffs.
Night- Every few seconds, something will happen.
Timespace- You gain Haste (global cooldown is quicker) or your Cooldowns become shorter.
Wind- These focus on making the Primary and Secondary abilities, mainly making them faster.
Bloodwolf- Inflicts Bleed (extra damage from you) and likes to attack from behind.
Assassin- Prefers adding or boosting extra hits.
Rockdragon- Either boosts power at the cost of extra cooldown or adds on invulnerability.
Flame- Adds Burn (deals delayed damage equal to amount dealt) or provides big boosts as long as you don't use yor Defensive.
Gem- If they're not granting invulnerability, these Loot will provide big buffs but breaks permanently after getting hit a number of times.
Ligntning- Has a chance to deal damage to all enemies.
Shrine- Buffs with Smite (deal more damage) and gain benefits with buffs.
Lucky- Improves Luck (increases skill/loot activation change) and other things based on random chance.
Life- Gains and regains HP, and may have you standing still.
Poison - Poison deals damage over time.
Depth- Enjoys helping cooldowns or long battles.
Darkbite- Skills are stronger but smaller.
Timegem-Longer cooldowns means more power.
Youkai - You gain more power, either sacrificing or enabling randomness.
Haunted - Provides Ghostflame (deals big damage when applies and expired) at the cost of skill power, and can set damage to fixed amounts.
Gladiator- A skill gains cooldown so that another skill becomes more powerful, though cooldowns can empower skills too.
Sparkblade- Applies Spark (damage over time to all enemies) and does something after dealing damage with skills and debuffs a number of times.
Swiftflight- gain benefits after moving a certain distance.
Sacredflame- Attacking will buff a certain skill.
Ruins- Can negate damage or boost skills a lot, but will also make the player slower.
Lakeshrine- Can enhance certain skill or gain benefits from standing still.

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Status Effects are separate for players and enemies.  On the Player side, some of these status effects are acquired from the loot, though some of the effects can be replaced when upgrading the skill.  In fact, some status effects are unique to their classes.  It should be noted that same status effects don't stack so try to pick loot with different status effects if possible.  

On the Enemy side, it depends on which mechanics they are using.  Most of the time, the mechanic is applied to the player such as chaining them to another player or restricting their movement to a lane.  There is no need to worry about damage over time or increased damage from enemies, and they only apply such states as a mechanic, not from damage.

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Speaking of mechanics, here are some of the things you'll have to worry about:
Small bullets: They can be erased and take multiple shapes.  However, some enemies can through a lot of them.
Puddles and Exaflares: Giant bullets that can't be erased, only go around.
Line/Circle Donuts: You have to stand inside the safe zone because it'll explode outward for damage.
Beam: A stretch of area will be filled with damage.
Knockback: It does no damage but moves you away instead, though you still have to be careful about flying into other attacks.
Chains:  You are limited to moving in two directions.
Linked: You will be limited by the position of the enemy or another player.
Rotating Beams: Arrow will show which way they will spin.
Boxes: Only the box is visible before it shoots four beams.
Colors: A donut mechanic where you have to be in a matching color.  May also occur in sequential order.
Multi Explosions: The initial explosion is numbered and will increase in size based on the number.
Fields: Usually with dual enemies, players will be restrict to one of two halves of the field.
Turbulent Wind: Players will move in huge leaps
Slices: A huge section of the field will be attacked.
Teleport: A numbered line will count down, and the player will be teleported to the other point.
Tethers: Players need to move away from a point.
Multiplayer Spread: The player won't be affected by their own explosion but can be hurt by other people if they overlap.

===

I will convert this data into RP terms later.

[Flashlight237]

Yeah, so far, I've played through Normal a lot, to a point where I've gotten used to the crows' patterns since I always picked them first.

Side note: I beat the game on my first Co-op try on Normal Difficulty.

[Flashlight237]

So uh, I managed to beat the game on Normal difficulty. Part of that was me not getting the Dragons (thank god; the hardest foes to deal with are the third dragon and the area boss) and part of that was a powerful combo.

[Polyedit2000]

Alright, time to convert that info dump into RP terms.

First, let's use the DnD standard of 6 seconds per turn and capable of moving 30 feet in that timespan. The issue is that the average global cooldown of a primary/secondary skill can be 1.2 seconds, so that is 5 attacks per turn. Now, the issue about multiple attacks per turn is how skills work with each other: some skills will charge up other skills and some skills will have a chance to charge up other skills. For example, the Dancer's attacks will give 2 charges to the other attack and has a 30% chance to reset the Special. And speaking of which, the cooldowns for the Special and Defensive can range between 8 to 15 seconds on average which could be 2 turns, though some cooldowns could go up to 24 seconds or 4 turns. In Hard mode, the enrage timer depends on if it's an enemy or boss but I think it was around 90 seconds which can translate to 15 turns.

There's also the 30 feet to measure; the game has a measurement in rabbitleap with 3 rabbitleaps to activate one treasure and approximately 15 rabbitleap to refresh another treasure. The main issue with movement comes from one of the frog mechanics know as "stop and go" where players have to stop or keep moving in addition to other mechanics going on. Also, some skills and treasures may slow down players while others may stop the player while attacking.

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Okay, so it's probably more manageable to do one skill and one movement per turn, experimenting with each space being 3 rabbitleaps apart. We'll experiment with letting players move 3 spaces per turn, capping speeds at 1-5 spaces. No global cooldown in this case, but if a skill has any cooldown, there's at least one turn after it's used before it can be used again, with most Specials/Defensives probably taking 3 turns to be usable again. The Defensive is noteworthy because it provides a 1-turn immunity plus it can remove adjacent small bullets. If a player falls, it depends on difficulty but perhaps a 3-turn penalty before reviving at 1 HP.

Well, now comes the tricky part of movement. If we use a board game, it's pretty simple to have tokens representing the players, enemies, and mechanics. However, let's assume we're just using the forum and words. For the stop and go mechanic, we simply see if the player is moving or not during that mechanic. For simplicity, we'll try using the 2D board to determine distance between players and enemies. Here are some mechanics to pay attention to:

Linked: The player can only be adjacent or on the same space as the linked area/player. Ideally, the players should move in the same direction to optimize their movement.
Turbulent Winds: The player can only move 2 spaces regardless of movement speed.
Chain: The player is restrained to that space for a few turns.
Rotation: Type one is to fill one side of the board. Type two requires the player to move to the other side of this point to avoid damage.

Of course, setting the enemy mechanics seems easy in practice. As mentioned before, the enemies employ a simple 1-2 pattern, and minibosses/bosses generally have a preset chain of attacks before their enrage timer hits. And depending on the "difficulty" we're using, the enemies can use an Enrage timer where they abandon their attacks and alternate between charge and unavoidable (that Defensive cannot immune).

===

Next time, I will dissect the classes to use in other games then.

[Flashlight237]

Okay, so right off the bat, I can tell you that DnD mechanics are not designed for a bullet hell where we'd be mauled by bullets if we choose to just walk as implied with the distance and timing here. I mean, movement is a helluva lot different between the game and DnD. I mean, you wanna know how big a rabbitleap (which, where's your source?) is? Look at the size of the freaking moon here!:

Assuming the moon has a radius of 1737.4 km, punching the numbers, I got a distance of 2386.7 km from where the rabbit girls are to the moon:
   
These mofos traveled 382013.3 kilometers in 60 "rabbitleaps", which makes a singular "rabbitleap" 6367 kilometers. You're way better off winging it like we did in past roguelike RPs (Gooey Gamble 2 and Anonymated Rubbery Processing Rooms) than trying to set a distance limit of any sort.

[Polyedit2000]

You do realize there is at least one bullet hell board game out there, but I digress. As a quick reminder, each class has a strong Primary attack, a weaker Secondary attack that can hit from a distance, a Special that hits very hard, and a Defensive that can evade an attack while buffing. Each class plays differently from another, so here's a closer analysis.

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Wizard:
Primary is a strong spell that explodes the enemy but is slow in both casting and movement. Secondary deal light damage and Charges the Special (Charge makes the affected skill do 1.5x damage). Special has the biggest explosion and damage and has a chance of getting reset by Primary. The Defensive places a circle that grants a 15% damage boost if you stay in it and has 2 uses that refresh on every cooldown.

With the Wizard, you ideally want to cast the Defensive and try to stay within the circle for the damage boost. You will mainly be casting your Special for big explosions, using a Secondary to buff the next one and as many Primaries until you can cast your Special again.

Assassin:
Primary slashes twice and has a chance of resetting the Defensive. Secondary throws 3 knives and will reset the Defensive if it has 5 seconds or less remaining. Special can be held up to two times and deals plenty of close range damage, more if done behind the enemy. Defensive will apply Vanish that lets the player evade attacks and deal 30% damage (Vanish will normally disappear after an attack is used.

Ideally, the Assassin's two goals will be to use Vanish from Defensive for that damage boost and try to get behind the enemy when the Special comes up. For this reason, it's best to use Primary up close and Secondary either when far or when the Defensive is close to resetting.

Heavyblade:
Primary deals slow and wide damage. Secondary shoots the blade and Charges both Primary and Secondary, but is also slow. Special adds some invulnerability and jumps to the target dealing a spin slash, holding up to two uses. Defensive places down a circle that prevents anyone in it from taking damage.

The Heavyblade is about dealing big damage so it's best to use Secondary to charge up the other skills and use both Primary and Special. Keep in mind that the Special is a double-edged sword that can jump you to the enemy but also into some mechanics. The Defensive can be used to help nearby allies.

Dancer:
Primary and Secondary are both weak but using them gives two Charges to the other skill. Special deals a lot of damage in a wide area and has a chance of being reset when using Primary and Secondary. Defensive will buff allies with 20% more damage.

To maximize the damage after using the Defensive, you should be using Special when it is available and alternative with Primary and Secondary.

Druid:
Primary fires a bullet. Secondary places a circle where the enemy and attacks 6 times over the course of its life; placing a new circle erases the older one. Special places down a "turret" that shoots the enemy four times, lasting long enough that a second turret can be added. Defensive boosts everyone's movement speed briefly.

This class is designed so that its Secondary only needs to be reapplied if the enemy moves and the Special can be used anywhere, so the Primary will be the main damage dealer until those wear off.

Spellsword:
Primary atttacks up close. Secondary is a slow spell that hits the target and adds 5 Darkspell (up to 9 can be held). Special shoots a beam and regains 3 uses per cooldown. Defensive will hit all enemies and apply a Hex debuff that makes the enemy take 10% more damage. Also, Darkspell is spent to make each skill hit twice.

Ideally, you want to have Darkspell up at all times so you want to cast the Secondary first and when you are running low on it, and also have Hex from Defensive to weaken the enemy. Ideally, you will shoot a lot of Special beams, resorting to Primary when you run out.

Sniper:
Primary fires a strong arrow with a cooldown, but the cooldown disappears if the arrow hits the target. Secondary will apply a Snare that that deals damage, and when the debuff wears off, the Special resets. Special fives 3 arrows at the target from anywhere and stores up to 3 uses, but one special is gained per cooldown. Defensive will Supercharge the Primary (Supercharge gives the affected skill 2x damage).

Technically, you are running two strategies here. The Special part requires applying Snare from Secondary so that you can gain an extra use of Special. The Primary is mainly used if you are lined up with the enemy with the Defensive boosting it whenever possible; the Primary should be used when the Special has no uses.

Bruiser:
Primary deals heavy but slow damage and can hold up 4 charges. Secondary deals a short range jabbing and has a chance to charge the Primary. Special will grant Berserk that shortens the global cooldown a lot as well as giving 2 charges to Berserk. Defensive quickly moves the player and gives one charge to Primary.

Unlike the other classes, Bruiser's biggest damage isn't from their Special but rather their Primary. The main idea is to gain Berserk through Special and then wail on Primary before the buff ends. When not on Berserk, use the Secondary to build up the next Berserk/Primary onslaught.

Defender:
Primary thrusts 3 times and charges Secondary, building up to 5 times. Secondary is a long range attack. Special has no uses upon starting but gains 2 uses after 5 other abilities are used and can hold up to 5 uses; it deals a lot of damage in a large radius and also removes bullets in a smaller radius. Defenses quickly moves and applies invulnerability to yourself and nearby allies.

The Defender has one of the most effective Specials, but you won't be able to use it from the beginning. Thankfully, you'll be gaining those Specials since you'll mainly be using charged Secondaries while refilling them with your Primaries. The Defensive is useful to protect allies from a mechanic.

Ancient:
This class has a "pet". Primary has both you and the pet attacking. Secondary makes your pet jump towards the target and holds 2 uses and a short cooldown; each use will reduce the Special by 4 seconds. The Special will have the pet attack in a large area but this skill will start on a long cooldown. Defensive will make the pet follow you and also restores a Secondary.

So the pet would be the main damage dealer, so the Secondary will be used to move the pet for optimal damage. For this reason, it's best to have the pet use the Special when the pet is in position, with the Primary used to fill the damage between the cooldowns.

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Next, let's design the Gem upgrades. It'll be a long list if I explain them all, but here are what each gem generally covers using Assassin as an example. Keep in mind that you might not have all four of the same gems so you may end up mixing them:

Opal- This gem can be considered an alternate playstyle. The Assassin's Primary will no longer randomly reset Defensive and instead resets it after attacking 5 times. Secondary will reset the Defensive at 7 seconds. Special deals more damage and is now a ranged attack. In addition, the Defensive will also send an attack

Sapphire- This gem either adds more hits or reduces cooldown. In this case, Primary cuts 4 times and Special hits 3 times. Secondary becomes automatic but it activates every 10 times you deal damage. The Defensive Cooldown is 3 seconds shorter.

Ruby- This gem simply aims for a bigger burst of damage. Primary's damage and size are greatly increased even though it hits once, at a cost to global cooldown and speed. Similarly, Secondary deals more damage once and has a cooldown. Special will no longer deal extra damage from behind but it inflicts Burn instead, which copies the damage from the hit. Defensive replaces Vanish with giving Supercharge to the Special (a comparison of 2x Special to 1.3x any skill).

Garnet- This gem is designed to give benefits to other skills. Primary has a greater chance at resetting Defensive. Secondary resets both Special and Defensive as well as giving a bit of speed, but it no longer deals damage and has a cooldown. Special and Defensive have a chance of resetting themselves when used.

Emerald- This gem will usually simplify the damage rotation. Primary and Special will not break Vanish. Secondary no longer resets Defensive but insteads become a cooldown button to shoot the target over time. Defensive will replace Vanish with a stronger version called Ghost, granting 60% more damage.

===

For Treasures, most of the loot follows a similar structure. This may not be true for all Treasures but it'll give you an idea how to build them.

A) Half of the Treasures usually deal with Primary/Secondary/Special the same way. Defensive may be used similarly or have a related effect. There is also a skill that deals damage or applies the status effect every couple of seconds.
B) The Treasure shares similar activation effects, usually in synergy with the other half of the Treasure.

For example, the Arcane Treasures have all skills apply Curse (10% extra damage), an AoE that applies Curse and damage every ten seconds, and the other three Treasures will increase damage for certain skill, with two of them resetting Special or Defensive and one increasing the damage of debuffs placed. The Night Set focuses more on the B side as most of the loot activates every number of seconds either automatically or through a skill; more emphasis on Special gaining damage, invulnerability and Omegacharge (3x damage) followed by Defensive (resets and shorter cooldown including loot).

There is at least one set that doesn't follow the B rules since it is technically two opposite mini-sets in one unlock.

===

Next time, we'll cover Enemies and Stages.

[Flashlight237]

Stages are probably the easiest to recall, I mean there are five normal stages (one for each species), one introductory stage, and one final stage. They are what I recall as the following.

Kingdom Outskirts: This stage is the one that you always start in. Enemies here are a selection of three out five species. From personal playthroughs, I got the following.

Stage 1: Either a frog or a crow
Stages 2 and 3: Either a dragon, church mouse, or wolf.

There isn't too much to work with lorewise, and mechanically the enemies here simply introduce you to the kind of stuff you're expected to get through in each of the kingdoms.

After that, you go through three stages, the first one being selected by players and two random. The selections are...

Scholar's Nest: This stage is essentially a town-sized university where crows are found preaching knowledge from the stars. The head honcho, Twili, is a bit hellbent on her studies (as noted by one of her battle lines, "I shall know it all."), almost like Odin from Norse Mythology. Generally the crows revolve around puzzle mechanics, which allows their attacks to be most easily telegraphed once you get the hang of them. When outside of their home, crows tend to spread a bunch of proverbs, which nobody really seems to listen to.

Emerald Lakeside: This stage is where the frogs reside. The frogs here spread the beauty of song and dance, and is noted to have toxic positivity by the shopkeeper. Their head honcho, Avy, is pretty much their main idol. Some rhythm game mechanics can be found here, although "rhythm game" is putting it very loosely.

Red Darkhouse: These mines are where the dragons went into hiding after Shiro defeated their head honcho: Ranalie. The dragons are all quite prideful of their heritage and hold Ranalie in high regard. It is noted that Ranalie wishes not to fight after being defeated by Shiro. At the same time, it seems the dragons hold the most disdain towards the rabbits out of the five species. I have no idea how to handle the attacks here.

King's Arsenal: The wolves here are suffering from internal discord, as they can't seem to decide whether to band with their head honcho, Merran; or go solo. Merran is a wolf who seems to be most interested in a worthy opponent out of the bosses in the game. The wolves generally use slash attacks, ranging from screen slices to slice-based energy waves.

Churchmouse Streets: This is probably the place I've been through the least, but iirc, the mice here are basically forced to band together. Matti is the head honcho of these mice.

Then it ends at one final stage that is split into two because of how far away the final boss is from everything else in the stage.:

The Pale Keep: Really, not much is to be said here besides the fact that this is where Shiro resides after being taken over by the Dark Aura. The enemies are just weapons controlled telepathically by Shiro herself. Once you get to her, Shiro, having become the Moon Rabbit itself, will fight you in her domain. Shiro is the only enemy with an attack that is unavoidable, forcing players to use the Defend command.

I was only able to find mythology ties from the Scholar's Keep (Odin and his ravens from Norse Mythology) and the Moon Rabbit (Japanese folklore dictates that there's a rabbit on the moon).

[Polyedit2000]

Well, that's one way to analyze, though I was thinking a different direction.

So first, stats and classes. The GM will set a difficulty for the RP:
Cute- 7 HP and full heal after every battle.
Normal- 5 HP and Treasures heal 2 HP when opened. Also have at least 2 HP after battles.
Hard- 5 HP and Treasures heal 2 HP when opened. Enrage timer added.
Lunar- 3 HP and Treasures heal 1 HP when opened. Enrage timer added.

The Enrage timer means that the enemies stops attacking normally and charges up an unavoidable attack multiple times.

For me, I will probably choose Hard so that fights do not drag on indefinitely.

Next, there are 5-10 classes in the game. If the RP is repeated, it'll probably work to start with 5 classes and unlock a new class after defeating the area's boss. Otherwise, we can start with more classes. For abilities, let's assume that the normal attacks can be used each turn while cooldowns require at least one or two turns between the next use, with some skills or buffs allowing another attack in the same turn.

Anyway, in the beginning, the GM can offer two entry points though areas after that are up the the GM. If the GM decides to only have one possible route, the Dragons and the Mouse seem to have a more direct lore with Shiro while the Crows are closer to the cosmos.

As for the enemies, they tend to follow these kinds of patterns:

Enemies: They will use one of two sets of patterns. Said patterns tend to alternate and repeat.
Miniboss: They may have 4 phases before enraging/repeating. Each phase attacks a few times.
Bosses: They have two parts. The first part is similar to the miniboss where the phases have a few attacks before switching to the next. Around 1/4 HP, the boss transitions to their beast form where they alternate between "attacking" and "defending", each phase being different. Attacking ensures that they'll be on screen while defending means players need to be focused on surviving the mechanics (usually aided with the boss leaving the screen).

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Anyway, how do we deal with damage? For the player, their HP will go down if hit though they have a grace period after being attacked, and if they get knocked down, they can still be targeted for some mechanics. I suppose that using a Defensive can allow players to avoid most attacks, with a chance for other players to avoid it (if bullets are erased).

On enemies, however, the game likes to use big numbers. This allows for critical hits, percentages and variance, with HP mainly based on their level. It's recommended to use a spreadsheet or calculator to create these numbers.

Alternatively, the game can use smaller numbers like dice rolls. The system can either have a fixed damage when using the skill or have a dice roll based on the size of the attack (which affects the likelyhood of hitting or missing).

[Flashlight237]

The spreadsheet model is a new way to approach a roleplaying session. I've only used it in one DM RP, and that's mainly for keeping track of character stats and information. I'll put this up in case people couldn't exactly afford to use Microsoft Excel for spreadsheets: https://www.openoffice.org/

Yeah, I can see how high the numbers can get. One of the sets get unlocked when you deal 2500 damage in a single hit. In a Normal difficulty solo run, the first enemies have ~5k HP, Twili (who is usually the first boss in my runs because I like going down that route first) had around 69k HP give or take, and Shiro's HP exceeds 190k. It's honestly crazy.

When it comes to variance, I decided to analyze the damage ratings a bit. The Assassin has 100 damage by default with their primary attack, but when smacking the dummy around, I got values ranging from 85 to 115, meaning there's a ±15% variance in damage. Critical hits seem to have a 25% chance of happening, and when they do, they deal 1.75x damage by default.

Personally, I think the most important aspect of this is communication, as spreadsheets work best with effective communication between players.

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Now how will we go about loot collection? From the game itself, all the loot we see or collect appears in the log. Trinkets, however, are unlocked and grabbable from the start. Thing is the log is a menu item in the game.

From what I recall, back in the older incarnation of this forum, you ran a forum RP called Gooey Gamble, and the second Gooey Gamble RP is the one where you went for a roguelike approach. I recall there being an impenetrable display case where the treasures we've collected are displayed for us to see. I think that is the closest we would have to the part of the log where we can view the loot we've gotten.

Now, trinkets? They're usable, but they're mostly aesthetic. The fluffy tail is probably the only exception as it is used as an indicator as to whether a run is a no-damage run or not. Would be a little weird to explain how trinkets got there in a roleplaying session, though.

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Side note, I checked the Steam page and supposedly there's an upcoming Toybox feature. No idea what that's supposed to do.