Showa-era kaiju RPG stats?
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2021 7:50 pm
I have been working on a free, fan-made adaptation of the Showa-era kaiju, for a popular role-playing game system. The monsters' individual powers and morphology are easy enough to write up, but deciding their attribute levels (dexterity, intelligence, etc.) is where I cannot make up my mind.
I believe there are two solutions: either adapt stats from someone else's work on the subject (which means I'd be limited to the versions of the monsters they chose to present), or come up with a set of criteria for reviewing the source material and judging which instances warrant an adjustment to a given attribute score.
My searches for other game adaptations have, thus far, uncovered attempts in the d20 System, GURPS, and Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP), but always piecemeal, left unfinished, or showcasing the wrong era of kaiju. I had hopes, also, for the Monster Island RPG, but I'm having difficulty figuring out which of its monsters are meant as stand-ins for (or combinations of) famous movie kaiju; plus, its point-based design system means that some monsters get shoehorned into a given tier.
With the "official" statistics for kaiju weight being so odd and inconsistent, I've taken to calculating a reasonable alternative using models extracted from video games. The few Showa-era models that I have been able to find, I have scaled to their official heights and taken volume measurements from that. Being that the various kaiju are unique, there is no consistent way to deduce musculature from volume alone, but it can be enlightening when it comes to monsters wrestling with, or even lifting, each other.
Suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
I believe there are two solutions: either adapt stats from someone else's work on the subject (which means I'd be limited to the versions of the monsters they chose to present), or come up with a set of criteria for reviewing the source material and judging which instances warrant an adjustment to a given attribute score.
My searches for other game adaptations have, thus far, uncovered attempts in the d20 System, GURPS, and Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP), but always piecemeal, left unfinished, or showcasing the wrong era of kaiju. I had hopes, also, for the Monster Island RPG, but I'm having difficulty figuring out which of its monsters are meant as stand-ins for (or combinations of) famous movie kaiju; plus, its point-based design system means that some monsters get shoehorned into a given tier.
With the "official" statistics for kaiju weight being so odd and inconsistent, I've taken to calculating a reasonable alternative using models extracted from video games. The few Showa-era models that I have been able to find, I have scaled to their official heights and taken volume measurements from that. Being that the various kaiju are unique, there is no consistent way to deduce musculature from volume alone, but it can be enlightening when it comes to monsters wrestling with, or even lifting, each other.
Suggestions are welcome. Thank you.