THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION Isekai Nikki is a Journaling Game that uses a standard pack of cards to come up with prompts to create scenes and uses tables to make keeping track of characters, settings and objects part of the story writing process. Marwood's Diary is a fictional journal which will serve as an example for players to write their own journals, and also provide a series of tables to roll against if the players wish to do so.
Character Creation/ Starting Table
Classes
Draw a random card, the suit which you draw will be your class.
- Mage (Clubs)
- Thief (Diamonds)
- Fighter (Spades)
- Healer (Hearts)
By default your player character will be named Marwood and the diary will be written in the first person but no character including Marwood himself will mention Marwood's name in the narrative. Roll on the following table to determine Marwood's, your player character's role, starting Map, the important item in the player character's inventory and an event in the character's past back in the real (i.e. Not in the game world). Your diary's author is called Marwood but at no point should your first person narrator or other characters say his name... Marwood has been stuck in a Virtual Reality RPG. Marwood's goal is to finish writing the story journal which will allow him to escape from the game.
- Starting Location (Spades)
- 2 Roman/Greek City
- 3 Demon Lord's City
- 4 Not-Japan City
- 5 Not-German City
- Past Event/Character Background (Hearts)
- 2 Reporter (slogan: Always write in a neutral objective tone)
- 3 Creator (Programmer) of the game world (slogan: All for a castle in the sky.)
- 4 CEO/Factorio Player (motto: Capital is the motor of history, not human desires. Increase production at all costs.)
- 5 Hikki-NEET (motto: There is no honour in work. To work is to lose. Riajuu Bakuhatsu Shiro!)
- 6 2D Otaku (motto: Three-dimensional women haven't been invented yet.)
- 7 Handyman (motto: Do It Yuaserufu.)
- 8 Military Geek (motto: Total fires superiority is the right of all free persons.)
- 9 Janitor (motto: Everything shall one day be cleansed forever.)
- 10 Detective Novel Otaku: (motto: Observe. Deduce. Do drugs.)
- J Game Modder (motto: This R-18 mod is necessary for gameplay balance.)
- Q Idol/ Idol Otaku (motto: Insult my Oshi and I will gut you like a pig.)
- K Old Sci-Fi Otaku: (motto: One small step..."For you")
- Character Role/Job (Clubs)
- 2 Adventurer
- 3 Political Leader
- 4 Celebrity
- 5 Artist
- 6 Religious/Cult Leader
- 7 Homeless/Beggar
- 8 Trader
- 9 Fortune Teller
- 10 Detective
- J Criminal
- Q
- K
Stats are unnecessary but if you really need them draw a random card from each suit to determine the four suit's stats.
- The value of the cards goes from A>K>Q>J>10>9>8>7>6>5>4>3>2 where the Ace has the highest numeric value of 13 and 2 is the lowest.
Example stats sheet used in Marwood's Diary:
- ATHLETICS(Spades): QUEEN OF SPADES
- HEALTH(Hearts): JACK OF HEARTS
- MAGIC(Clubs): QUEEN OF SPADES
- CUNNING(Diamonds): EIGHT OF SPADES
Exclude Aces and Twos when drawing cards so that there's always a chance for success and failure. LEVELING UP. After every ten journal entries you may increase the value of a stat of your choice by one up to KING level. You may also choose not to level up if you feel like your character is getting too OP. DEATH AND REBIRTH: Every death sends the player back into the past to the previous SAVING POINT and reduces a random stat by one. Draw a random card to decide which suit stat will go down by one. Stats don't go lower than two. There is no player death as the player is stuck in a video game, the player just gets sent back to the previous save point. The SAVING POINT occurs at the end of Chapter 10, 20, and so on.. Your player character feels the game saving somehow. In this game, if you fail while playing in chapters 11 to 19, you will be reset to chapter 10. Similarly, if you fail in chapters 21 to 29, you'll go back to chapter 20, and for chapters 31 to 39, you'll return to chapter 30. This system ensures that players always have a specific checkpoint to return to, allowing for a smoother gameplay experience while still providing a challenge. END GAME: The game ends when all your stats reach KING level and the player character is going to be able to choose whether to leave the game world or stay in it. Whether it is a happy ending or not it's up to you. [COME UP WITH A BETTER IDEA TO DETERMINE WHETHER END GAME IS A HAPPY END OR NOT]
Generating prompts for Entries
Pick a card at random from each suit. Refer to the table for your starting Map. Spades represent Locations, Hearts are events, Diamonds are Non-Playable Characters and Clubs. If you pick the joker then that means your character will be leaving the current map to a map on a higher or lower level but if you haven’t got any other maps or would prefer to stay in the same map that's fine too. Story is king 👑. Your Characters can move freely between maps at any time as long your story allows for it. Personally, however, I would advise players to spend at least one entry on each of the maps when moving through them rather than just teleporting/jumping through maps. This, I hope, will help establish a both a sense of distance and location placement.
Writing Diary Entries
Each entry should be about 400 words long. If you want you can date and title them but it's enough to title them as "Entry 1... Entry 2... Entry 3..." so that you can keep track of them. The reason for the short length/small word count per entry is that I want to keep things snappy and events flowing. I also prefer short web novel chapters. Entries should be in the first person and in past tense because that's how you would write a real diary, which in my opinion makes entries both easier to write and read. Imagine your character writing the diary at the end of his day/event recounted. I would only use one set of cards per entry, that is to say use only Zone, one Random Event card, one NPC Card and one Object Card per Diary Entry. Start with the Zone card. Think of how your character ended up at this location. And then work through the prompts one of the time. Of course if you can write a whole entry you don't need to worry about going at it methodically but a scene might not immediately pop out in your mind.
Scene difficulty:
Draw a random card. You will face a challenge to your stats on that suit. If your suit stat meets or beats the card then you character will undergo a positive outcome in that scene, if you fail then it'll be a negative outcome for your character. Whether positive or negative it will affect something related to that suit's stat. You may only lose one HP for a failed Health card draw, no matter the value of the card drawn.
Generating Map Tables
As you write your journal you will want to create your own maps to keep track of new NPCs and Locations.
Prompt Tables
Prompt tables come in the form of Map tables, as in tables with a list
The Starting (City) Map
The starting city map is what you should use at the start until you have generated enough items to create maps of your own.
Locations (Spades) ♤
On Oracles
By oracles I mean those tables used in solo journaling to answer yes and no questions. I have found that they get in the way, so if you have to answer a question like that then answer with how you feel is more likely. However if you are totally out of ideas then randomly draw a card. If the card is a red one then the answer is yes, and if it's a black one then the answer is no.
- Yes: Hearts and Diamonds.
- No: Clubs and Spades.
Example:
- Question: “Will I get the job I applied for?”
- Drawn Card: 7 of Hearts (Yes)
Don't write questions in the Journal cause it's going to break your flow of writing.
Group Journaling Rules
- Each player controls their own character.
- Each turn lasts one entry (I.e. four cards, each from one suit).
- The order you play is determined alphabetically from the player character's name. I.e. A character named Alphonse goes before another called Marwood. Alternatively each player will draw a card and the one with the higher value will play first, then the player with the second highest value will have his turn, and so on till the players have all had a turn in this round. If there's a tie in value then the players with the same value will write entries which chronologically happen simultaneously. Or alternatively you may decide a Trump suit which gets the initiative over other suits. This way even if two players picked the same value card it'd be clear who would go first.
