Maid RPG is a very simple tabletop roleplaying game for people who like anime and hate rules. Gameplay is extremely simple: all rolls are something d6 (usually 1d6), character creation is almost entirely random, and there are only six stats that cover all checks. It also has a lot of support for groups that want to just pick up and play it, without doing any preparation. If you do want to prepare a campaign in advance, though, I have some things you might want to use…

Crib Sheet

Meido has so few rules, you can basically fit them onto a single page…

[Crib Sheet]

Custom Item Table

The Meido handbook comes with a list of 216 items for instances where you need to randomly roll an item. That being said, the table is kind of hit-or-miss; a lot of them are just absurdly powerful, and a lot of them are just not interesting. Thankfully, coming up with your own items is really fun… so with a little help from my friends, I’ve done just that! Generally when I have a player roll a random item, I compare the official item with that number and the unofficial item with that number, and let them pick. This also covers cases where one of the items is so absurdly powerful that I just can’t give it to them; they just get the other one, or if I still want to give them a choice, I’ll pick an adjacent item over the OP item.

In conjunction with the custom item table, I like to include some mechanic by which players can spend favor to roll a random item. For instance, there could be an item shop in the mansion, or a gachapon machine. Usually I make items cost 3 Favor, but this can be adjusted depending on circumstance. I’ve also gone through and tagged all the items (original and custom) with a rarity corresponding to their power level, if you wanted to make items cost different amounts depending on their power. The rarities are:

  • [C] Common, for items that may or may not have some mechanical value.
  • [U] Uncommon, for items that are pretty useful to have, but not overbearing.
  • [R] Rare, for items that are very powerful, but won't completely destroy your game's balance.
  • [SR] Super Rare, for items that are extremely destructive. I would think twice before handing these out.
  • [UR] Ultra Rare, for items that are completely beyond the pale. If you introduce one of these items to your game, be prepared to completely throw out anything you had prepared; you're playing the item's game now.

[Download]

Stands

I swear these are somewhere in the Meido handbook, but I can’t find them. It doesn’t matter, because you should never play Meido without them. Having a stand is incredibly fun, and gives you a use for your Will stat, which otherwise is basically useless. For those who don’t know (which I’m guessing is not many people, at least in the Maid RPG playerbase), stands are a type of magical creature in the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure series. Characters with extremely high willpower can manifest a stand, which is an extension of their own self: somewhere in between a spirit animal and a feat of bilocation. Personas from the Persona series are a popular analogue.

Stands have their own name (typically named after a song or band), magical abilities, and character design. Stands are highly personalized, with unique powers and designs that reflect their user’s inner self. In Maid RPG, stand power is directly proportional to your Will stat; you roll Will to do things with your stand, including combat, and a character with a high Will stat will generally have much stronger stand powers.

Magic

This is a pretty minor house rule, but it’s one I like to play with. For characters that can use magic, the Affection stat is used for light magic, and the Cunning stat is used for dark magic.

Potions

Another niche house rule, but lots of fun. Maids can roll to brew potions, either from the item table or from a special potions table. (I have no idea who made this table – credit to them, whoever they are!) When brewing an unknown potion, have the player roll Luck, and roll the potion qualities yourself, rerolling or adjusting them to fit with the player’s Luck roll where appropriate. Once a player has brewed a potion before, they know its recipe, and can attempt to recreate it with a Skill roll. When brewing from a recipe, a poor roll may result in strange tastes or smells, undesirable or unusual side effects, or in the worst case, an entirely different effect! Of course, if the player wishes to learn the recipe for their messed-up potion, they’re free to do so.

[Potions.txt Mirror]

Butlers

One of the lesser-used sections in the Meido handbook, at least in my experience, is the alternative character types. Of course, every campaign has a Master (played by the DM), but there are also rules for making Head Maids and Butlers. However, the Butler rules are very different from the Maid rules: they have much higher attributes, don’t take penalties for removing their uniform, and roll different tables in character creation. In exchange, however, they suffer a number of debilitating drawbacks: they gain less Favor from lowering stats, automatically lose combat against Maids and the Master, and cannot roll random events (not that players tend to do this very often, in my experience). Even worse, Butlers cannot go into a Stress Explosion: if they go over their Spirit, they must spend Favor to decrease their Stress. To add insult to injury, they don’t recover Stress over time!

In my opinion, this all makes Butlers less well-suited to longer campaigns, although they are very unique. Maid RPG already suffers somewhat from power creep when played in a campaign, since players with enough Favor can increase their stats to the point of trivializing many situations. For a Butler, whose stats can start extremely high, this greatly exacerbates the issue – add to this the ticking time bomb aspect of Butlers’ Stress, which can force them into retirement, and I can understand why some players/DMs would be hesitant to play them.

For players that want to play a Butler but don’t want to endure the harsh realities of Butlerdom, I’ve homebrewed some tweaks to the Butler character creation, to make them play like Maids:

  • Butler Types: The official Butler Types are all upside. To make them like the Maid Types, you can use these replacements: Shadow (+CUN -AFF), Elite (+SKL -WIL), Monster (+ATH -CUN), Partner (+AFF -SKL), Gothic (+LUC -ATH), Veteran (+WIL -LUC)
  • Butler Powers: Roll one power corresponding to one of your types (your choice; you may choose after rolling). If the sum of your stats is less than 9, roll two powers instead.
  • Attributes: Roll 2d6/3, rounded down, just like with Maids.

Custom Character Sheet

The character sheet template included in the Maid RPG handbook is… somewhat lacking, in my opinion. I’ve made some alternative versions.

Better Maid RPG Character Sheet: [Transparent] [Opaque] [PDN file (with layers)] [PSD file (with layers)]
Meidogen Character Sheet: [Transparent] [PDN file (with layers)] [PSD file (with layers)]

Character Generator

Although I highly recommend doing PC character creation by hand, sometimes you just need to generate a random Maid (as an NPC, because somebody needs to roll a new character, because you only have 30 minutes to play, etc.) For those situations, I created Meidogen, the Maid RPG character generator. This character generator is unfinished, and will probably remain that way for the foreseeable future. At the moment, the generator rolls but does not display powers, and you cannot easily change the Maid’s name. At the bottom of the page is an importable, which you can copy paste into your choice of text editor; by editing this importable, you can change the name manually and re-import it. You can right click the generated image to save it.

[Meidogen]

Tabletop Simulator Models

For groups playing over Tabletop Simulator, I highly recommend using Rokem’s 2D Figurines to create custom character models for PCs and NPCs. I tend to use the two-sided template. I’ve also created my own version, which combines the wide image of the wide-base template with the regular base of the regular template. Mine is also two-sided, for consistency. To use these models in Tabletop Simulator:

  1. Create a new model by going to Objects > Components > Custom > Model
  2. Set the MODEL/MESH value to your model of choice. For the COLLIDER value, use the regular two-sided model, even if you're making the wide model!
  3. For the DIFFUSE IMAGE, upload the template file, filled out with the image and base color(s) you want to use
  4. Leave NORMAL/BUMP blank, Non-Convex unchecked, and set the type to "Figurine"
  5. Under the Material tab, choose "Cardboard" (alternatively, pick something else to get different shader effects)
  6. Click import to finish creating your model

Big thanks to Rokem for making the original model, and to my boyfriend for doing 90% of the work creating the custom wide model.

Rokem’s Two-Sided Model: [Model] [Template]
Custom Wide Model: [Model] [PNG Template] [PDN Template] [PSD Template]