Spent a bit of time reading through the rulebook for Maid: The Role-Playing Game today. It’s an interesting one in that the actual core rules for the game only take up about 20 or so pages of a 200+ page book, so it’s pretty straightforward to play; the remainder of the rulebook consists of “replays” (apparently a common inclusion in Japanese role-playing game books, essentially taking the form of a transcribed game session — a good means of getting a feel for how everything works) along with scenarios and optional rules to make the game more interesting than it already is… which is very interesting indeed.
What’s most intriguing about Maid is that it offers the potential for a wide variety of experiences. Most role-playing games can boast this owing to the fact that they’re essentially improvisatory theatre with a bit of dice-rolling involved, but in many cases they’re tied to a specific style of play. Dungeons and Dragons, for example, is geared very much towards Western-style fantasy (and, in the case of 4th Edition in particular, a very combat-heavy experience), while Vampire: The Masquerade is designed for modern-day intrigue and role-playing, with combat being somewhat more incidental. Maid, meanwhile, is flexible enough to cater to pretty much any setting you can think of, and to involve scenarios that range from the mundane to the ridiculous. It is indeed possible to play Maid as a straight-up simulation of being a maid for the master of a household, but I get the impression it’s a lot more fun when you start throwing in some of the more ridiculous elements.
Even this is flexible, though; you can put in some lightweight nonsense purely through the character creation process, which provides the opportunity to create everything from demure gothic Lolitas to hammer-wielding robot women with sexual perversions that would make the Internet blush. You can jack up the ridiculousness by including some of the optional rules — such as the “Seduction” rules, which allow maids to gain “Favour” points from sources other than the master of the house through… umm… various means — and truly take things to the max by including the rules for random events. The game explicitly warns you that using random events is very likely to throw anything vaguely pre-scripted completely off the rails, and indeed it’s even possible to run a complete game purely through random events if you see fit.
Chaos appears to be a central part of Maid, and it’s often player-led. The aforementioned random events can be triggered by players when they spend the “Favour” points they’ve earned throughout the course of the game, meaning that the players can wilfully cause chaos for the poor GM almost at will. It’s part of the character and theme of the game — it’s supposed to be inspired by wacky, slapstick anime comedy, and indeed maid-type characters in this sort of show are often somewhat chaotic in nature, with strange things happening around them. (In the optional rules, the chaos of the maids is sharply contrasted with the orderly nature of the Butler character, who isn’t allowed to trigger random events and is often penalised for certain things that maids might be rewarded for — like taking advantage of the Seduction rules.)
I’m really interested to give it a go at some point. Question is, will I be able to find players open-minded enough to explore it with me, or will it be a case of some Skype-based sessions with my Final Fantasy XIV/PAX friends, whom I know all appreciate it for what it is…?
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This sounds great. Exactly the sort of light, fun role playing that I’ve always been after. I’ve often wanted to get involved more in the traditional role playing side of tabletop gaming, but I’ve always found the dourness of D&D and it’s ilk a major turnoff. You know how I am with things that take themselves seriously (let alone TOO seriously), and expect me to do that same. I’d definitely love to play this.