Idolgirls

[ZenoForce88]

While I know there is an "Idol" type character presented as an example character within the book. I have been wondering...what would it take to do an Idol based game, that includes a "Popularity" Meter of sorts.

The idea is that you have to perform(most likely roleplayed out, with rolls being made over the course of the performance), with your Popularity either rising, falling, or staying the same, based on the collective results of those Performance Rolls(with Practice before the performance giving a bonus or two). The downside is the Idols are also secretly superheros(like magical girls, only with both genders), and so they have to work to balance performances with their battles against the forces of evil!

What I am having trouble with, is determining how to incorporate the Performance/Saving the World, balance without getting TOO Meta, as well as calculating exactly how the Popularity Meter should work. So if you awesome guys and gals could present me with some awesome ideas, I would be most grateful!

[Trailblazer57]

Short on time so i cant go into this too much at the time of this post.
I would add that in making this campaign your players should never have to decide between a performance and their duties as magical saviors. practices sure but not actual performances.

maybe even a fan meet and possible dangers.

as for a popularity stat, that should start at a set number and then certain events and actions should have a set negative or positive. whatever is would be just make sure it is consistent.

I'm sure you'll do fine. I love the concept by the way.

[sniffycrab]

Having them all in the same band would help to. I did a game where a Sentai group had being a J pop group serve as their cover story and hey traveled Japan fighting monsters and doing concerts.

You might consider non monster foes to the heroes as well. Like a rival performer trying to steal the spotlight. Maybe the Monsters are trying to control the music industry? Or maybe a paparazzo who is snooping on the Idols almost finds out about their super hero side?

[ZenoForce88]

The Magical Girl aspect could be dropped depending on my Players reaction to it. Though I was thinking of there being kind of a friendly competition within the band, and maybe Rival Bands type thing of thing. I have a hundred ideas, but all of them rely on some kind of Popularity Meter Mechanic, which I just can't seem to get any ideas or wrap my head fully around for how it would work, or what kind of Mechanical Effect it might provide.

[sniffycrab]

Well make popularity meter then. Every time they perform a good show, do a promo, etc. their popularity rises. Bad shows, negative press, and being inactive will cause it to fall. Make it a scale of 1 to 10 or so. As their popularity rises they get free Fame Dice and Wealth dice. But those go away if Popularity falls.

[Joe_Mello]

Clay might've just answered this on another thread. Instead of fighting an antagonist, have them use their skills against the crowd.

[Clay]

If you wanted to go the Popularity meter route, just treat it as an Ability in a similar way that I use "Trust" for Yuu. While it doesn't do anything, per se, it's a requirement for several of his pet monster's attacks. Your "Popularity" can function as a focus for Triggers, Suppressed Powers, Requirements, Passions, and so on. You could even go the opposite way, and low levels of Popularity result in Dependency penalties. (Though that kind of encourages a unstoppable spiral where a bad performance leads to less popularity which leads to being less able to do a good performance and eventually ensuring nothing but more bad performances.)

[Joe_Mello]

I so want to do a campaign of World Wide Wrestling, but do it as an idol show. :3

[sniffycrab]

Then your popularity meter would be called Heat and you could use the OVA Combat rules for matches. I toyed with a wrestling game in the first edition of OVA. This new edition could easily handle that type of game.