A few days ago I soloed my way through Kagegami High (168 pages). This d6 dice pool system is described as a comedic role-playing game where you take on the role of Japanese schoolgirls at a strange, surreal high school. I used OSR Solo (DriveThruRPG) as the solo engine. Here are the highlights. So, I started with one character and started the first day: initiation ceremony. The next day was the first day of classes. During the evening, Shigeo was checking out the library and discovered a secret passage. She was trying to avoid detection, but was seen by Izumi. The two of them explored the passage, talked to a spider, and Shigeo was attacked by a four foot long poisonous centipede (there are no creature stat blocks and no rules for poison). Her stress went to zero (there is no dying, you “freak out”). Izumi dragged her out of there and Yoshiko Serene the NPC healed her (check out the attached image of her – artist has the same name).

On the third day, Shigeo bought an occult knife used for occult rituals. She killed a six inch centipede later in the day. On day four, nighttime, Izumi’s roommate was possessed by a ghost. She was acting like she was carrying a lit lantern. My two characters followed her to the docks. Shu then waved her lantern and a ghost ship appeared and came to the dock. She got onto the ship and my two characters got on also. The ship had several adventures and the two PCs just watched. They could not interact with the crew. Eventually the ship sank and the PCs (now three) were pulled under the water. At this same time, the school club, Apocalyptic Death Cult, was performing a ritual with a deep clawfoot bathtub filled with water. Bellatrix reached into the water to pull out Death. They had some questions for him. Instead, they pulled out Shigeo, followed by Izumi and Shu. Cool. The three of them did get into trouble for missing the classes on day five.

Give this a try! One hundred of these 168 pages contain random tables which are perfect for solo play.

This looks like a fun ruleset that worldbuilds through the use of extensive tables. In some ways, it's far more engaging than chapters and chapters of lore to memorize, and it seems as though it would complement solo and small-group play very nicely, since the book acts as a gamemaster in a lot of ways already. My only concern and question to the author is this: can students team up to do a task and how would that work mechanically? I know that Risus has a system that allows multiple characters to fight together, with one person assigned as the leader, and the others basically rolling only for 6s to add to the score. Disbanding costs one or more dice per person, which could be stress points in this system. A simpler approach could be D&D 5E's "help" action where, if a character is suited for the task, they can help another by using the help action and giving the other player an extra "advantage" roll. Perhaps each character helping could allow one die reroll each? I'd like to know how to handle an action such as multiple students working together to open a large, heavy door into a haunted cellar. If forming a team is not possible, another way to approch this might be to assign various aspects to the door that must be solved before it will open, allowing the characters to act as a team, but mechanically individually. I'm rating this a 4/5 for now but will reconsider my rating if I'm able to get a grasp on the teamwork aspect. A big thanks to Ewen Cluney who has been hard at work for many years, providing us with all sorts of zany games, rules translations, and roll tables.

This game is nuts and I am loving it. It should fit perfectly with the zany antics my gaming group tends to gravitate towards. The charts alone are nuts (if you have ever read it, think the charts in the Human Occupied Landfill supplement, "Butter Wholesomeness" but with less emphasis on "edgy" 90s grossout humour).

If you are looking for a truly ridiculous game that is primarily made up on the fly by rolling on numerous different charts for every applicable situation, this is the game for you. It is not something that you or your group will likely take overly seriously...and that's OK! Not every game is going to go into deep politics, heavy emotions, or life and death combat. The rules are very loose and largely exist just to resolve conflicts and move the plot along. If a player wants to do something, its up to them to ask the GM and see if their PC could do it. It will rely HEAVILY on the players just getting into its bizarre world and running with whatever crazy gets thrown their way. Its going to require the GM to be pretty on their toes, but that can also (in my experience at least) be a very freeing experience. You'll probably not get a very long campaign out of it, but as far as ways to spend a Saturday afternoon with friends, pizza, chips, soda, and beer go, it shouldn't disappoint, and might be a good way to take a break from a more emotionally heavy game of something like "Blades in the Dark", "Unknown Armies", or "Call of Cthulhu".

In terms of absurdity, I'd put this solidly up beside stuff like "Tales from the Floating Vagabond" and "Dinosaurs...in Spaaace". Its worth getting the book just to read, because I've had a good day chuckling at all the random insanity inside (in what other RPG can you generate a character named Wana University who has a television for a head, purple hair (?), and is also a Kamen Rider?).

Setting-wise, the book actually does a great job of throwing a HUGE toolkit of NPCs, locations, factions, and events into the GM's lap to play around with. Also there's a chart to generate over 1200 variations of the author's name. I'm not entirely sure why, but the book also contains a randomized pun generator, so that's just the sort of experience you're in for. Still, it gives you everything you need to bring the eponymous Kagegami High to life and generate a wonderfully nutty world for the players to immerse themselves into.