Character creation is simple. Choose one perk for your kid. This determines what makes them special. The Party Pooper gets 2 traits, to make it fair.
- Rich: you get twice as much cardboard to work with
- Creative: your cardboard creations can be three steps more complicated than normal
- Handy: +2 on rolls to successfully make something out of cardboard.
- ADHD: you can make something out of cardboard in only one time step

Cardboard is measured in boxes. At the start of the game, every kid has 5 boxes worth of cardboard (rich kids get 10), and no cardboard creations. The first thing you'll probably want to do is to make something out of cardboard.

But first, let's talk about time. Time is measured in time steps. Every time step, each kid has to do something. In what order? Whoever says what they do first goes first. Many actions take two time steps: when you do one of these, skip your next turn.

Making something out of cardboard requires you to have at least one box of cardboard. Simply say what you want to make and roll a d6 to see if you can pull it off. On a 1 you completely destroy the box without accomplishing anything this turn. On a roll of 2 or 3, you have trouble doing it: you lose your turn, but not your cardboard. On a roll of 4 or higher, you succeed: you'll have to spend the next turn to finish it off, but you've successfully turned your box into whatever you were trying to make. If your kid has ADHD, you don't need the extra turn. If your kid is handy, you get +2 on that roll.

But wait, what if I run out of cardboard? Go bug your parents. Bugging your parents takes two turns, and gives you 5 more boxes of cardboard when you're done. If you're a rich kid, you get 10.

Okay, so what can I make out of cardboard? Well, you'll want to start with a chasis or a body. Other cardboard parts need a chasis or body to attach to. A chasis can support 4 (7 for a creative kid) parts, while a body can only support 2 (5 for a creative kid).

And now, parts:
Base:
- chasis
- body
Movement:
- wheels
- rocket engine
- legs
- periscope
Weapons:
- dinosaur head
- laser gun
Defense:
- invisible force field generator
- spikes

Movement parts let your creation move. It's okay not to have one: it just means your creation is a fort: just make sure you say where it is. If you do have a movement method, you can spend one turn to move anywhere it will let you go. Wheels and legs let you go anywhere on land. A rocket engine lets you go anywhere in space. And a periscope lets you go places underwater. If you have a movement method but it won't go where you want, then you might still be able to get there. If two kids who are already there say you can come, you can spend a turn to get there even if you use the wrong movement type.

Weapons parts let your creation attack things. They are all functionally the same, so don't worry about it. Defense parts help you protect yourself from attacks. They too are all the same. How attack and defense work will be covered a bit later. You can have up to two weapons parts and up to two defense parts on the same creation: any more don't actually help.

So, what's the difference between a chasis and a body? A chasis needs your kid to actually be inside it to work, whereas a body does not. Obviously, your kid can only be in one chasis at a time. Each turn you can have any creations based on bodies spend their turn however you like. Your chasis, however, requires your kid to spend the turn piloting it.

Note that a kid can stay inside a chasis and do other things, like making other cardboard creations. The only task that requires a kid to completely leave is to bug their parents for cardboard.

So, say you want to attack something. You need a creation with a weapon part, and that creation needs to spend its turn attacking something. Obviously, the thing you attack must be in the same area. And, as per usual, using a chasis takes the owner's entire turn. Expect the defender to initiate a nahuh/ahuh here. A successful attack destroys its target.

Nahuh/ahuh.
When a kid does something that effects your kid and you don't like it, you can initiate nahuh/ahuh to attempt to stop them. Grab a few d6s (numbers explained later) and roll them while proclaiming "nah-uh!". The other kid then rolls some d6s and proclaims "a-huh!". For every 5 or 6 he rolls, he can remove one of your dice from the conflict. Respond by rerolling your remaining dice and saying "nah-uh!" again. For every 5 or 6 you roll, remove one of his dice from the conflict. If you can remove your opponent's last dice, you win the conflict and get your way.

Normally, each side will get three dice for a nahuh/ahuh session. If you are personally present at the location of the conflict, get another 2 dice. In the case of cardboard contraption combat, the most common reason to start a nahuh/ahuh, you only get these bonus dice for a creation that your kid is in the chasis of.

Additionally, for cardboard contraption combat, you may have parts that add to your nahuh/ahuh potential. Each weapon (up to a max of 2) adds a dice for the attacker (ahuh-er). Each defense part (up to a max of 2) adds a dice for the defender (nahuh-er).

So it's playing pretend about playing pretend?

Imaginary friends.
Making up an imaginary friend takes two turns. Your imaginary friend can pilot a chasis for you, allowing you to treat it like a body. However, your imaginary friend does not get bonus dice unless you are at the same place as hm. If so, he only gets one, not the two you'd get if you were piloting the contraption yourself.

Vigor.
Each kid starts out with 5 vigor, a measure of their willingness to keep playing these games. Each time a kid's creation is destroyed, their vigor is reduced by 1. When they reach 0 vigor, they get bored and go home. The Party Pooper starts with 10 vigor.

Spoilsports.
If you have no cardboard creations and still have cardboard, you must try to build something. If you have no cardboard creations and are out of cardboard, you must bug your parents. If you refuse to do either, you are a spoilsport and you'll have to go home.

No Bullying!
Every time a kid is attacked, they get an extra dice to protect against further attacks that round. So a kid who gets attacked three times in one round has +1 dice for the second attack and +2 dice for the third.

Winning
When the party pooper goes home, everybody wins. When everybody else goes home, the party pooper wins.

Making stuff up.
Is encouraged. Do it. All weapons are identicle, all defense systems are identicle, and all movement systems for a given area (land, underwater, space) are the same, so relax and make whatever you like.

Example play.
Todd - creative
Sally - handy
Max - rich
Tyler - ADHD
Dennis - rich, ADHD, party pooper.

Everybody starts in the back yard with 5 cardboard boxes, except Max and Dennis, who are rich and have 10. Rather unsurprisingly, everybody spends their first turn making a chasis. Tyler rolls a 4 and Dennis rolls a 6, so they both succeed. Sally rolls a 2, but she's handy and that bumps the roll up to a 4: she succeeds too. Todd rolls a 2 and fails, while Max rolls a 1 and fails miserably, trashing a cardboard box in the process.

Next round, Sally is still working on her chasis. Tyler and Dennis are already done thanks to their ADHD, so Tyler starts working on adding a rocket engine to his chasis, while Dennis starts working on a set of wheels for his, and both succeed. The others all try to make a chasis again, and succeed this time.

Next round, Sally has finished her chasis and starts working on a periscope, Tyler heads to the moon, and Dennis heads to the North Pole. The others are still working on their chasises.

Let's zip ahead a few rounds. Todd has a spiked, shielded, walking, dinosaur-headed contraption with a laser cannon. Sally has made an underwater base with a pair of shields and laser cannon, and has a submarine with a laser cannon. Max has been rolling poorly and only has a race car with a dinosaur head. Tyler has a setup much like Sally's, except on the moon. And Dennis has finished his arctic fortress and started to send rocket robots with rocket launchers to assault Tyler's moon fortress.

A pair of Dennis's rocket robots attack Tyler's moon fortress. The first shoots him with its rocket launcher, and Tyler says "nah-uh!" rolling 7 dice (3 + 2 shields + 2 for Tyler being in the fortress). "Ah-huh!" : the robot only has 5 dice (3 + 2 rocket launchers) but rolls well and knocks out 3 of Tyler's. "Nah-uh!" : Tyler rolls his 4 dice and takes out 2 of the robot's. "Ah-huh!" : 3 dice, takes out 1. "Nah-uh" : 3 dice, takes out 1. Eventually Tyler wins. The next robot tries, but thanks to No Bullying Tyler gets 8 dice this time, and he wins pretty handily. Still, more robots are coming and Tyler is in trouble.

Because Todd is creative, he can still manage to put parts on his crazy contraption, so he starts building a rocket engine for it. Max starts adding another head to his race car in preparation for the coming battle, while Sally starts making up an imaginary friend to man her underwater fortress while she's gone. Once Todd gets to the moon, him and Tyler agree to let Sally's submarine and Max's race car come to the moon, and start to help fighting back the swarm of robots.

Okay, done.

Comments? (Other than about how poorly organized it is, I mean.)

>>2695958
Yeah!

>>2695958
... Ow my Pretend Mind.

I Like it. Nice concept.

I think this whole "Make a game in a week" Thing is the best thing to happen to /tg/ in months.

>>2695975

How about a game where you play nerds that play a roleplaying game?

Hmm... Well, it looks simple, it looks fun, and it looks like I can play as a little girl.

100%.

>>2696007
Maybe. I could probably make it work. The thing is... you can't really play with cardboard boxes now that you're fullgrown, since they're not such convenient sizes anymore. And more importantly, we play roleplaying games because the lack of rules in imagination games made them degenerate into nahuh/uhuh and stop being fun.

So ultimately, despite being about pretending to play pretend, it'll be more fun than just playing pretend because the rules make it possible to get somewhere.

>>2696010
Oh dear.

Wow. I LIKE.

Now it just needs playtesting. Man, this looks really fun through its simplicity.

>>2696007
what game are the nerds playing?

>>2696116

The OP's.

>>2696133
Playing pretend about playing pretend about playing pretend.

>>2696116
If I was making it, you'd probably be able to switch what game your characters were playing on occasion.

The selection of games would be something like...
Dungeoncrawl - The game where you play a group of heroes who go into a dungeon and try to kill things and take their stuff.

The Angstening - The game where you play a bunch of emos with unwanted supernatural powers and try to end up in the most improbably tragic situation possible.

Exclamation! - the game where you play robot dinosaur ninjas and try to one-up eachother

Pretentia - the game where you play abstract concepts and try to make the game so convoluted that the others can't keep up with what's going on

I heartily approve of this

>>2696154

That's DEEP.

>>2696173

Make that Tragic: The Angstening.

>>2696173 emos

>>2696173
Oh. And
Dee'emispissed (it's German or something) - the game where you play a bunch of bunnies who live in a darkly humorous dystopia run by incomprehensible cosmic horrors, and try to survive as long as possible

>>2696173
So... D&D, Vampire, Exalted, Nobilis and...
>>2696208
Bunnies And Burrows / Paranoia / Call of Cthulhu?

>>2696219
D&D, GURPS, and every fantasy heartbreaker.
Everything WoD
Exalted, Spirit of the Century, and my own Metal Slug System
Mostly Nobilis, yeah.

And... yeah, you nailed that last one. I also really want to play that last game now. Sounds awesome.

Bump for my ego.

Any more comments on the system?

>>2696484

it's a fucking retarded waste of effort, to be honest.

>>2696495
agreed. The OP will maybe manage to badger a few people, and impress a few dumbshits more into running a playtesting game or two, and then it'll fuck up because they're just pretending to play pretend.

Awesome. in a pure, refined form.

>>2695937

I feel it'd make an awesome board game. Saying it's a roleplaying game is stretching things a bit. First of all, it has an ultimate win objective. Kill the pest, win the game. That's not very RPG like, unless after you kill the pest, you have to take on the neighborhood bully, or something.

>>2696741
An ironically unimaginative understanding of the nature of RPGs.

Yeah, making it a board game might be a good call. I think it's a good idea and could provide some wacky fun.

>>2696999
But there'd be no board, and in many senses less limitations than you have in the average RPG. I don't understand how it'd be a board game.

>>2697047
Perhaps he meant "board" in the forum/messageboard sense?

Cause that could work.

>>2696741
>>2696976
>>2696999
>>2697047
What difference does it make? The game exists with the mechanics given. You can call it an RPG or a board game if you like. Adding a board would likely just mean making movement annoying, and adding typical RPG conventions like a proper DM would just muddy the question of what the players try to do.

It needs more grimdark.

LOOK THE POINT IS, THE GAME IS DONE AND COMPLETE AND THEREFOREBETTER THAN ANY OF YOU GODDAMNF UCKING ANON FAGGOTS. /TG/ HAS GOTTEN SHIT DONE, AND YOU FAGGOTS CAN FUCKOFF

>>2697924
what about this shit! it's done i just don't have the rest.

>>2698328
Don't have as in haven't finished, or just can't find the rest.
'cause I'd like to see the rest.

rolled 3, 3, 5 = 11

>>2697906
NAH-UH!

rolled 6, 1, 5 = 12

>>2698437
hmm, could we have some sort of NUH-UH breaker, say if a NAHU-UH/UH-HUH goes for 10 turns, parents get shitty and both units pull back?

Also, I think the ADHD perk may be a little overpowered. Perhaps a roll to shorten something from 2 turns to one, say:
3-6: Shortened to one roll.
2: Failed, one turn's work done.
1: Failed, kid is chasing a spider through the hallway.

>>2698459
It /shouldn't/ go on forever. I mean... even at 1 vs 1 there's a 1/3 chance of ending it with each roll. That'll come up pretty quick

>>2698513
Honestly, I think it's about on-par with handy. If there's balance problems, I think it'll be that rich is weak, and that creative doesn't really effect the same thing as the rest of them at all.

ITT: Meta.

Handy seems overpowered. Other characters have a 50% fail rate, with a 17% chance of actually losing stuff, while Handy has a 17% fail rate with no chance of fucking shit up. I would reduce it to a +1, so that theres a 33% fail rate, still no chance of fucking shit up.

Here are some other traits I thought of...

Meticulous - automatically succeeds at creation, but all creations take one extra turn (three turns total)

Stubborn - when engaged in nahuh/ahuh, he remove dice on a 4, 5, or 6.

>>2698648

forgot to note that the Party Pooper can't take both Meticulous and ADHD, they are exclusive traits.

>>2698328

wow lol

about the sheet there is one but it seens I didn't save

>>2696173
>The Angstening - The game where you play a bunch of emos with unwanted supernatural powers and try to end up in the most improbably tragic situation possible.
...I'd play it.

>>2698705
Hey, you're that fuckup who was stalking Edward. Congratulations on reaching a whole new level of pathetic.

>>2698766

not the samefag you idiot

bump for more kid traits

The game of playing nerds playing a game is Rec Rooms & Role Players.

It does not actually exist.

But it should.

>>2698648
>Stubborn - when engaged in nahuh/ahuh, he remove dice on a 4, 5, or 6.

Wouldn't it make more sense for a stubborn kid to resist 5's than to remove on 4's? Stubborn is more being resistant to arguments than being effective at arguments yourself.

I guess that could be a little broken, though, since it doubles your defense instead of giving a mere 50% increase in offense. Maybe you can only resist a certain number of 5's per round or argument? But that might be needlessly complicated. I dunno.

BOXES

This is fucking awesome.

>>2702284
In before toddler Chaos Lord screeching about cardboard boxes.

>>2702323
No, actually, I'm feeling only mildly annoyed and disheartened. In this case, the children are the greater problem.

>>2702329
SHUT UP, DAD! He was talking to ME!

>>2702342
>>2702323
Get a drawfag onto this, I will set it as my desktop.

And play this game nightly.

Saging to avoid thread Necro.

>>2702278
Maybe just give the stubborn kid a chance to force a couple of dice to be re-rolled?

PAPER BOXES!

For flavor reasons, I'm going to rename "rich" to "spoiled". For balance reasons, I'm going to change the benefit of rich to making it so you never run out of boxes.

Also adding bratty, worth +1 dice to all nah-uh/ah-huh sessions.

wow... this was a let down... I thought this thread would be about retarded kids in boxes ramming each other...

This is making me flashback to my days of cardboard box jousting as kid

and later to my Changeling games where we basically used Cardboard boxes as described by the OP

This topic wins