Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine vs Smallville Roleplaying Game

Compare Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine and Smallville Roleplaying Game side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine	Smallville Roleplaying Game
Genre	Fantasy	Superhero, Modern
Tags	Cozy, Narrative, Diceless, Collaborative, Character-Driven, Worldbuilding, Drama, Fiction-First, Roleplay-Heavy	Licensed IP, Superpowers, Character-Driven, Drama, Narrative, Collaborative, Worldbuilding, Roleplay-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Strong GM Support
Core Mechanic	Diceless. Intention equals skill minus Obstacle; spend Will points to boost Intention above zero for success. Players drive play by selecting quests and earning XP through genre-specific actions (Pastoral, Gothic, Adventure Fantasy, etc.). Three XP types: Action XP (shared group pot), Emotion XP (earned by evoking specific emotions in other players), and Bonus XP (from quest tasks). Quests combine into eight color-coded Arcs. The GM is called the HG (Hollyhock God). Characters fade into the background after XP actions, rotating spotlight.	Roll a d4–d12 pool built from one Value and one Relationship, with an Asset die if applicable. Add the two highest dice. Dice showing 1 are Complications and never count. Plot Points can add dice to the pool before the roll or include more rolled dice in the total afterward. Tests normally pit your roll against the GM's Trouble pool. Ties go to the GM. Contests exchange action and reaction rolls until someone Gives In or fails to beat the previous total and takes Stress. Giving In concedes the opponent's demand but avoids Stress.
Dice	Diceless	d4–d12 dice pool
Complexity	High	Medium
Availability	Paid	Out of print
Runnability	Book tools not listed	4 of 5 book tools
License	Proprietary	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	No verified route found
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Eos Press (Jenna Katerin Moran)	Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd.
Year	2014	2010
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who want collaborative, slice-of-life storytelling in a whimsical Ghibli-inspired setting: where wishes, friendships, and personal growth drive play instead of combat.	Groups who want superhero stories driven by relationship drama, where the player characters' convictions and loyalties clash with each other as often as they face villains.
Highlights	Genre modes shape play through XP incentives: different genres reward different player behaviors, Emotion XP ties advancement to evoking specific reactions from other players, player-driven quests shift narrative agency from HG to group, eight Arc types support stories from pastoral slice-of-life to cosmic fantasy	Challenging a Drive triples its die for one roll but steps it back for the episode, turning a crisis of conviction into Growth. Group character creation builds a shared map of people and places that supplies material for later episodes. When an opponent fails to beat your action result, they take Stress rather than concede your demand, making Giving In a separate choice.
Considerations	Multiple overlapping XP and quest tracking systems require bookkeeping throughout play, Will resource and Intention math replace dice but add calculation per action, characters have Skills Connections Perks and Arc Traits that interact across multiple subsystems, fading mechanic forces characters out of the spotlight after XP actions	Creating an original cast through Pathways takes a few hours of group work before the first episode. Episode preparation centers on conflicts between player characters rather than a unified party's shared objective. Winning a Contest cannot kill a character by itself, because killing in a Contest requires that character's player to Give In and accept death.