MAHOU TRPG game ideas

So, at the beginning of the game the GM determines a 'tone' for the setting: grim or noble.  This will change how the suffering mechanic is responded to

when magical girls take damage (or bad things happen because of their failure), they test against suffering, using a virtue of their choice (though the choice should be justified in character).  A failure results in the suffering affecting them personally, by ripping at their virtues.

In a grim game, a failure results in an accumulation of black marks.  Black marks must be placed over an existing attribute 'dot' of the player's choice, and represent that virtue slowly being subverted.  When a virtue fills up, the character suffers a 'break'- the virtue is in danger of being compromised.  The character's virtue becomes corrupted.  tests to the virtue are at a penalty, but at any time the character may spend points from the virtue for bonuses to a roll.  This removes the penalty and the virtue becomes normal again, but points of virtue spent are gone.  If a character reaches 0 in a virtue, they are removed from the game (thematically, they've died, or suffered a crisis of faith).  If all a character's virtues become corrupt, they are removed from player control and become an antagonist (consumed with frustration, they decide to seek destruction rather than creation).  If, somehow, a character reaches 0 in all virtues at once?  They burn away with whatever act they chose as their last. (Grim is Madoka Mode)

In a noble game, a failure results in an accumulation of purple ribbons.  purple ribbons must be placed over an existing attribute 'dot' of the player's choice.  Successes are made more difficult the more purple ribbons a character has, and if a character has every attribute filled up with purple ribbons, they are removed from the game (though with much less dire in-universe reasons for it.  they've been hurt, they may not be a magical girl again, but they're more of a veteran than a casualty.)  On the OTHER hand, successes allow characters to rally.  The player can spend all of the purple ribbons on the chosen virtue for bonuses on their next action.  NOTE: Under noble rules, your characters don't suffer the same sort of virtue degeneration as under grim rules.  Penalties to attributes only last until the ribbons are removed. (Noble is Nanoha mode)



NOTES BELOW HERE DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS








Suffering = HP damage?
Determination = HP?

Determination tests vs raw HP?


Virtues instead of attributes?

Dad: action without intent, naturalness/simplicty, compassion, moderation, and 'not daring to act as first under the heavens' respectively
Dad: the last usually being simplified to something like humility, though the wording probably emphasizes the avoidance of leadership roles in the chinese sense
Dad: the latter three are usually called the three treasures
Dad: because of the passage from laozi that they're taken from