brainstorming magical girl system options

[morgantha]

I'm having a hard time picking a system for a magical girl themed 2-3 session campaign for a group of people I play with over zoom once a week.

Elevator pitch for the campaign is that a trickster demon is disrupting the local town where the PCs live. I want them to have one to two brief encounters with this demon that lead them to the mall. Once there, the demon transports the mall to it's personal demi-plane and turns the game into an escape room with a combination of open-ended environmental puzzles and more linear escape room type puzzles.

My players have only played dnd 3.5 and 5e, but I really don't think either one is well suited.

Some specifically magical-girl flavored ones I considered were Princess: the Hopeful, which I think might be too complicated for them to learn for only 2-3 sessions, or Thirsty Sword Lesbians which has such a strong emphasis on relationships that I think it would be better suited to a longer campaign with more focus on RP.

Right now I'm thinking of using Monster of the Week and just dropping the magical girl flavor or completely rewritting the playbooks myself to fit my vision, even though I'm not really a fan of the loosey goosey combat.

Anyone got any advice for me?

[Strange2099]

I’ve never played this but you might want try Madoka Magica: https://terraray.weebly.com/madoka-magica-the-rpg.html

It’s a free, fan-mage TTRPG based off an Anime, which seems to fit the bill for what your looking for.

Madoka Magica: The RPG is a Tabletop Role-playing game to the tune of other games such as Dungeons & Dragons, Savage Worlds, and Numenera. It is based of the popular Anime series "Madoka Magica" owned by Studio SHAFT, Aniplex of America, Manga Entertainment, and Gen Urobuchi. This game is simply a fan-made attempt to bring the world that they have created into the Tabletop setting, and is NOT for profit.

Based on The Madoka tabletop RPG is a traditional RPG system based on the anime series P​uella Magi Madoka Magica​that carries a heavy emphasis on Role Playing. Players are encouraged to utilize the flexibility of the character creation system to design unique, personal characters with diverse backstories, motivations, and alignments.
Though the specifics of any one campaign are up to the whims of the Incubator (in other systems known as the Dungeon Master or DM), the overall goal of the game will usually revolve around successfully carrying out your duties as a Magical Girl and keep your territory safe from Witches, Wraiths or other sorts of malefic magical beings. Players will form a cooperative party of magical girls who come together to eradicate the scourge of the Witches while also completing the objectives of the campaign set forth by the Incubator.
This guide will assume that both Players and Incubator’s will have some basic experience with tabletop RPGs, such as Pathfinder, Dungeons and Dragons, Savage Worlds, Dark Heresy, and many more. It also assumes a fairly extensive knowledge of the M​adoka Magica f​ranchise and lore, at least on the part of the Incubator. A more comprehensive guide may be put forth in the future to explain how to form parties, what numbers are acceptable and general tabletop discussion.the Introduction in the free rulebook, you might have a minor difficulty of you’re not familiar with the series, and you would have to learn a new rule set but it seems simple, enough, especially as it’s based off the megapopular D&D/PF genre.

[Auron3991]

I think Overlight would work well (as long as you're willing to handle modifying the fluff). The book takes a bit of getting used to, but the system itself is simple enough once you orient yourself and the virtue system has some of the feel of the lighter magical girl series.

[morgantha]

Thanks both of you!—and sorry for taking so long to respond.

I’m not really familiar with Madoka Magica, but after reading over the rules I’m really curious to watch it. The rule set is really interesting. I’ve never seen a game where the dice you roll is determined by your stats. That’s pretty cool.

[MagePcfan]

BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouths), is a system for anime games. I've never played it but one of my friends has great love for it. Anima Beyond fantasy is also an anime system. I've only played it once and the rule book is... dense but it might serve your needs to check it out.

[girlplay]

Mutants and Masterminds. It's a surprisingly flexible system and if you want girls with magical powers, this seems like a natural to me. Most people think it's just about the standard-issue superhero characters. But you could do thinks like... literally play a D&D-style game, or just about anything else.

[Letmos]

You know. Someone recently brought up risus to me again and thinking about a strong genre with a lot of room for silly (or not) risus has a lot of pluses as a genre neutral lightweight system.

[orcbane]

You might try Turn to Love
https://maraj.itch.io/magical-girl-c...g-turn-to-love

[Seeks]

Weirdly enough, a buddy of mine elsewhere had designed a magical girl class for Pathfinder 1e, complete with archetypes. Somehow. It's a weird one where you start at 11th level, but it seems structurally sound regardless. It's also built in a way that means its abilities and any magical items are built into the class itself. Imagine if you will a very glittery Monk that is setting-agnostic, able to be played in both fantasy and a modern setting with little to no tweaks.

The guy has been playing PF1e for a long while and has done a few homebrew house rules for campaigns in the past. On the off chance this concept seems intriguing enough, I could ask him for permission to share his class (the Pretty Soul) and its archetypes. Of course, dedicated systems for magical girls would probably be a better fit. But given the prompt, I felt compelled enough to offer.