Otome Row: Appendices

Otome Row
Otome Row: System

Stats

Melee
Melee is used to hit or block things using martial arts, melee weapons or plain old brawliness. It is an important combat attribute at Close and Too Close range where guns can potentially be inconvenient and also serves as part of your health pool. Even gunslingers will find it very useful when caught up close. It can also stand in for strength or be used to break things in addition to people if fire or explosions aren't practical for the job.

Physique
Physique determines what a person can do with their body and how well tuned it is to do things usual or unusual. It is most important in dodging bullets and moving about but also forms part of your health pool, initiative, and can be used to throw things. Countless tasks that require physical reflexes often use or can use Physique as do ones that require precision (assuming Tech isn't more suitable).

Shoot
Shoot is the common person's superpower provided, of course, that you have a gun. It is the dominant offensive combat attribute from Short to Long range and usually works just fine up Close as well. Owing to cinematics, reloading is generally automatic.

Charm
Charm is the subtle aspect of social interaction that is useful for getting what you want without giving away what it is or who wants it. Seduction, subterfuge and trickery converge here. It can also stand in for Smarts for perception in a social context, though results may return as feelings of what to do rather than anything specific.

Presence
Presence covers performance, leadership and overall social forcefulness. Whether it is fast-talk, extracting favors from contacts, intimidating folks into a protection racket or defeating zombies with rock'n'roll, the target of a presence roll usually realises what is going on. Remember, respect is everything. Having a strong presence also lets you be stubborn as a brick.

Smarts
This is your perception, mental dexerity, quickness, cleverness and natural intelligence stat. It is also half of your initiative rating alongside Physique and the main contribution to one's social defenses.

Tech
This stat in practice will probably be mostly technology but can apply for any learned field with ivory tower potential, from mechanics to computer hacking to religious and occult literature. Many of the tasks related to it will have very high thresholds (such as aforementioned occult literature) when attempted without a supporting skill.

Example Skills

These are only examples. You can make up your own so long as they fall into the same level of specificity. Note that arranging this stuff under stats is largely artificial - you can roll any skill with any stat in the right situation.

Melee

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Fencing (<style>)
Jujutsu – A skill that originated from the close combat techniques of samurai. It is a soft martial art that allows grapples and throws.
Kagura – A martial art derived from the shrine maidens' sacred dance. It is a hard martial art centered around acrobatics and kicks and allows the fighter to dart in and out of range.
Karate – A fighting skill born right here in Ryunan. Karate allows the fighter to deal a lot of damage and break things, mostly with their bare hands.
Kenjutsu
Pro Wrestling – Unlike in real life, this shit actually works for some reason.

Physique

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Acrobat
Biker – The kind with a motor on it, naturally.
Blowpipe – Why the fuck not?
Breakdancer
Driver
Parkourist – The art of quickly traversing urban terrain on hand and foot. Actually called a traceur but nobody knows that.
Stealth
Throwing Knives

Shoot

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Revolvers
Pistols
Machine Pistols
Assault Rifles
Rocket Launcher
Shotguns
Sniper Rifles

Charm

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Actor
Animal Friendship – You never know when you'll need to calm a tiger in the back seat.
Art Sense (<type>)
Empathy
Etiquette
Fashion
Musical Sense

Presence

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Cosplay
Fast Talk
Gang Signs
Intimidation
Leadership
Singer-Songwriter
Performer (<type>)

Smarts

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Art Sense (<type>)
Concealment
Cook
Investigator (<type>)
Tactician

Tech

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Car Chopper
Chemist - A euphemism, naturally.
Electronics
Explosives
Hacker
Heavy Weapons
Particle Physicist - Never know when an understanding of the Vatican Large Hadron Collider will come in handy!
Software Engineer
Surgeon

Example Fate Tags

• Action Girl
• Addict
• Arranged Marriage
• Brutal
• But Grandma Kana always said that...!
• Coldblooded
• Cool and Collected
• Dark Secret
• Descendant of Leizen-Eld
• Drunkard
• Ecchi is bad!
• Everything is better with more ecchi!
• Fae Beauty
• For the lulz.
• <insert> the Flash
• Gardener
• Honest
• Hotblooded
• Iron Maiden
• Ivory Tower
• Just as planned.
• Leeroy Jenkins
• Meganekko
• Mother Bear
• Motorhead
• Murder Time, Fun Time
• Mysterious Hidden Power
• Nun
• Oops? :(
• Pai-check!
• Patron of the Arts
• Queen of Mahjong
• Queen of Rock
• Queen of <insert>
• Rabid Fangirl
• Raging libertarian
• Respect is everything.
• Sexy
• Some asshole's in my pool.
• Straight to Berlin
• Tall, Dark and Bishoujo
• Today's Experiment
• Trained by Kana
• Tsundere
• Two Hands
• Un-Ethical
• Wrench Wench
• You and how many of your...
• You'll never take me alive!

Experience

• The cost of raising any stat by 1 is 1000x exp where x is the current level of the stat.
• The exp cost of buying a skill is 200y where y is the number of skills you currently have.
• Buying a fate tag increases the fate pool by 1 each time but requires an appropriate point in the story as well as consistent roleplaying. The exp cost is 400z where z is the number of tags you currently have. If you need to go into debt, you may immediately do so but cannot buy anything else until it is paid off.
• Like tags, social links are primarily acquired through roleplaying, getting progressively more demanding to improve as they intensify. The costs for this are provisional. I may make them vary case by case instead.

D rank: 1000

D to C rank: 2000

C to B rank: 4000

Setting

Otome Row runs on an extension of the alternate timeline that Student Council Amahara previously ran on.

It is 2012 or Year 20 of Hinao Era – thirty-four years since the conclusion of the Sixty Years War and the start of the Cold War. Since then, most of the fallout zones left by the detonation of spin bombs have stabilised. Their reconstruction gave rise to the War Accountability and Reparation Provisions where entities both Amaharan and foreign are given unrestricted access in efforts of reconstruction. Owing to numerous legal loopholes, the exact sovereignty and jurisdiction within these areas remain uncertain to this day. Within the so-called WARP Zones, the rule of law is weak and competition is unforgiving. The difference between have and have-not can be stark as day and night and whether it is Hell or Heaven depends on one's position and attitude.

The largest, most important and most infamous of these zones is the Jura Megalopolis. Located on the southern shore of Ryunan, it is one of the largest cities in the world and its busiest and most important port. Though heavily spin-bombed and still peppered with anomalies, the territory's strategic location on the eponymous straits assured its revival and growth. A third of the world's shipping passing within sight of the shore and due to its international status, it is an infamous center of organised crime.

The territory is shaped roughly as a right triangle with edges 30km, 40km (the coast) and 50km long. The western border faces the Menden Republic, an exotic pot of a dictatorship tolerated because it opposes communism. Its border leaks like a sieve. The northeastern border faces the People's Republic of Ryunan, former Amaharan territory occupied by the PCLA turned communist hellhole. The border is heavily fortified and manned. Yet, despite iron curtain efforts, the human trafficking continues. Just across the strait lies the theocratic Emirate of Midena, a member of the Caliphate. The Francian imperial colony of Menden and several other states and remnent colonies (mostly small bits and islands) are also nearby.

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