For a number of years now I have been attempting to craft a wuxia space opera game. I've been back and forth on this idea like a tennis ball. It always struck me as one of those ideas that sounds great, and it is.
However when translating it into the idiom of a roleplaying game it starts to fall apart. I have struggled to make the idea work. I'm sure better minds than mine can do it.
It seems to me that it's the kind of setting or genre that works best as a visual medium. Like Star Wars it relies on showing and nto telling. If SW was presented as a game without the movies/established setting to work with I think it too would struggle: but we see the movies/cartoons and that's all that matters. We don't need to know how things work, what they are for, what each race's strengths and weaknesses are etc because we see them. But in an rpg it's not enough to list things, it seems to me there has to be a reason for their existence. What good is picking 'race: Mon Calamari' if it just means you look like a squid?
Roleplaying games demand more as products, things have to have a reason or a purpose in some fashion. At least that's the problem I have.
Also there is the problem of moulding fantasy/myth sensibilities into a tech setting. What use is kung fu against an army of laser gun wielding robots? That's a rather basic example, but the sensibilities of a wuxia setting are rooted in a distinctly earthy non-technological culture, porting those sensibilities over requires insight I have yet to acquire I think.
Some might point to what happens in the likes of Exalted, or the video game Asura's Wrath where some guy runs an entire planet through with a sword, or the main hero punches armies of robots in space (or something). BUt again, that's a visual thing. How do you provide rules for the Martial Art of Skewering Planets? It's such a ridiculous thing that only works because it's so over the top visually that it would be imposssible the rule. Plus, that's a power level I don't care for. People leaping around and delivering the touch of death to a starship isn't going to work for me. Maybe that's the problem.
It's an appealing idea, kung fu in space, because it's so iconic, but I don't want a resource management game that's obsessed with pure kungfu like weapons of the gods, nor do i want a game that depends on technology so much (tech in place of taoist sorcery for instance) that it becomes tedious. But then without the technology you might as well just design a fantasy game.

Anyway that's my problem, there you go. The woes of game design.

Back in the cave! Keep writing!

(This humble message brought to you by someone also writing a Wuxia Space Opera game!)

The thing is it needs to be something that isn't just 'kung fu and spaceships', it's about the synergy, otherwise you just have what is essentially Star Wars.

There is also an aspect of technology that doesn't translate into an exciting or interesting game experience.  In fantasy magic can be shrouded in playable rituals that sound exciting, dark or mysterious, dealing with spirits and ghosts. That doesn't really need explaining because...it's fantasy.

In an SF context what do you have, computer systems and hacking ai's etc. Then it becomes either hideously complicated (like Eclipse Phase) or just boring. That's the problem Shadowrun has always had with regard to cyberspace, making it interesting.

The only thing I have to contribute would be the advice to just lower the power level. Make it Crouching Tiger in space, which would focus on the characters and use the wuxia and space elements just as flavor and backdrop (and sometimes fun things to do) rather than the point. So no skewering planets or starships with swords or anything, but boarding actions would be cool Plus, swords and such make more sense in ships that might get holed by guns, although the occasional gun-fu might not be bad either. Maybe with non-lethal rounds ro some sort of lower-power energy to keep the penetration down. Make more action centered on planets, or even just make it one planet, no interstellar travel, but still sci-fi with computers, fancy TVs and clothing, robots, and cybertech. Make the "magic" based on bio and cyber tech instead of "magic". That's all I got.

Maybe the issue is you have been docked at th initial design stage too long. You may want to try jumping in and just designing what you can without worrying about the final product yet. Just get something down and play it. I bet during play, you will figure out how to resolve some of the issues troubling you. This works for me. Most of the best design emerges from play at the table.

Thanks for the feedback.

I think, at best, this will be my magnum opus. Maybe one day it will get finished: it's the project I keep coming back to. But for now I'm going to explore some other ideas.

I have decided to grant (aren't I benevolent) access to the google document here. People can comment, but they can't edit (if i've gotten that right). For now it will enter the shelf of unfinished ideas. I'm not sure whether it's a project I can deal with on my own right now. Perhaps i should get more experience doing other, easier/smaller, projects first.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;528205Thanks for the feedback.

I think, at best, this will be my magnum opus. Maybe one day it will get finished: it's the project I keep coming back to. But for now I'm going to explore some other ideas.

I have decided to grant (aren't I benevolent) access to the google document here. People can comment, but they can't edit (if i've gotten that right). For now it will enter the shelf of unfinished ideas. I'm not sure whether it's a project I can deal with on my own right now. Perhaps i should get more experience doing other, easier/smaller, projects first.

I hope you come back to it, it sounds cool as hell.

Thanks, but I can't reconcile the 'tech vs magic' angle without either a) more work than is humanly possible b) it becoming just a boring port of wuxia myth into space (it needs to be its own thing, otherwise you're just naming sci fi elements with chinese sounding words) or c) I don't really want to have hacking in the game, quite honestly. I don't think computer hacking really works in an rpg in that classic cyberdecker character trope. At best it's just a simple skill roll like any search mechanism. It's boring. This shoudln't be boring.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;528205I think, at best, this will be my magnum opus. Maybe one day it will get finished: it's the project I keep coming back to. But for now I'm going to explore some other ideas.

Exploring other ideas is often the best way to make progress, it stops you getting stuck in the box.

Quote from: jadrax;529227Exploring other ideas is often the best way to make progress, it stops you getting stuck in the box.

This is true.

Here are some new ideas in the twisting saga of the wuxia idea. Even if I wanted to, i don't think i could let the idea go. It's just a question of rearranging the pieces into the correct order.

Cybernetics are the mainstream prosthetic technology in the galaxy. Wu Engineers are a cult that has long plundered Tien science to advance that kind of technology. Consequently their cybernetics, known as Neitech, are much more powerful. The disciplines of Wu Engineering are esoteric and secret, but they also spawn many factions; groups that seek to dominate Tien science.
In ancient times the Tien built a vast galaxywide computer network called the Heavenfield and programmed artifical intelligences known as Hsien – Ancestor Intellects – to oversee the system from within. Those that served the Heavenfield well were patterned and stored as new Hsien. The greatest of the intelligences created by the Tien was the great master of the Heavenfield known as Feng Du, in time he would grow corrupt and seek freedom from the restraints of even something as powerful as the Heavenfield. From there he would engineer an escape into the real world. Thus would begin the doom of the Tien and the wars between his forces and the Golden Emperor, final and greatest of the Tien’s sovereigns.
In the modern age the River takes the place of the great Heavenfield. Like so much that has evolved in the wake of the Tien, it pales into comparison with their works. This computer network encompasses the Ten Thousand Stars (whose own borders are dwarfed by the empire the Tien encompassed). Lost to the River are the now-disparate surviving nodes of the Heavenfield; datacores filled with knowledge coveted by many, not least of all the practitioners of Wu Engineering.
The River comprises many Ancestor Intellects using code taken from found Heavenfield nodes and Tien systems. These are mere shadows of the Hsien of old and, until the rise of Imperial Iron Qin (following the Chi Wars), lacked the technology to transfer consciousness into the River. Iron Qin found that means and used it as part of their great expansion, dominating the River. They met resistance from renegade AI. With the rise of the Hell Worlds, Iron Qin sealed its borders and ceased expanding. It engaged in a vast purge of its systems: any AI not ‘worthy’ enough of serving the empire’s Lotus Junzi aristocracy and the Iron Emperor was expunged. Most were destroyed, but some managed to escape; outside help bore them away from River networks and nodes controlled by Iron Qin system. Many of those are lost still, however a few are secured and some have found a way to return to the real world. Using Hsienforms (again developed from Tien technology) they can act autonomously within drone constructs. While the Lotus Junzi have taken to calling their slave AI systems after the Tien’s own Hsien, these particular Ancestral Intellects call themselves Wandering Hsien and the greatest seek to take the fight back to the Iron Emperor calling themselves the Immortals; with the help of friendly Wu Engineers Wulin mercenaries and Daoist Sorcerers they have incorporated portions of Tien code into their software to become powerful and now stand between the tyranny of Imperial Iron Qin and the resurgrent machine monster Feng Du.