I've been meaning to design a martial arts game for a while now. Looking for some feedback on some of the basic concepts.

First, I don't want it to be so narrow that it is only wuxia or so broad that it is the entire action genre. I am really looking to do something set in a medieval fantasy setting, that can accomodate anything from Gordon Liu, Bruce Lee, Sonny Chiba, Tony Jaa, etc (obviously the setting places some limitations on the context, but I want the martial art content to have some breathing space).

Second, I am trying to decide from the beginning if I should just go with straight analogues in the setting (a region that vaguely resembles the Khmer Empire, another that resembles Imperial China, etc). I am curious what other peoples' expectations are in this respect.

Third, core rules will draw on the network system (which I've used for Terror Network, Horror Show, etc) but will add radical changes. For those not familiar it is skill based and your skill rank equals a d10 dice pool from 0-3 (have 2 ranks in Kick, roll 2d10 for your attack against the opponent's Block/Parry Score, take the highest single result).

There will be three skill groups: Non-Combat and Combat (which are both dice pools) and Defenses (which are static target numbers). For combat skills I want to cut them up into individual types of attack. So you would have Kick, Fist, Elbow, Knee, Throw, Headbutt, Light Blades, Heavy Blades, etc. It would be pretty extensive to help add in some flavor. And characters can take specializations in their defenses so it will matter which attack mode you use (I may take a specialty in Knee, giving my Parry/Block score a +1 bonus against Knee attacks).

On top of skills there will be techniques (spinning heel kick, flying elbow, etc) that give your attack a small damage or attack boost when you can pull them off.

Beyond that there are going to be Special Moves and Combos. These can be used when you roll a ten on your attack roll and these create special effects (stunning, weakening, etc).

At the very top are the Secret Techniques. Characters will only ever learn a handful of these. They require the use of Chi (see below) and allow characters to perform nearly supernatural feats: heal, drain skill points, etc.

All characters in this game start out squishy (non-martial artists more so). A martial character can take two wounds before being incapacitated (which starts the dying process). A non-martial artist can only take one. However as characters increase in power, they acquire up to 8 Chi points and those can be spent to absorb damage. This enables a master to mop the floor with a nobody, but still keeps things gritty for those who are working their way up.

In addition to Chi, characters will have a Karma Score. This is rated 0-6 and goes up very slowly over time. It is a dice pool used to call in favor from spirits, allies, etc. But it also impacts how many powers your backup character has.

Anyways those are my initial thoughts, before doing any playtesting. A lot of this could slide up or down, be streamlined, etc.

EDIT: Also this is to be a small PDF only game (possibly revised and released in print down the road). Realism is not the aim here.

First question: If realism is not the aim, then why historical-analogue setting riffs?

Go big or go home, Brendan.  And I say that as a cheerleader.

It sounds to me like your aim is a little realistic -- the techniques are 'secret', after all, I don't get the vibe you're going for 'running on a stream of bullets' type stuff.

Second question: Is full compatibility with Network a design goal, or just "mostly compatible"?  I'm imagining the plug-and-play works in reverse, ie I wouldn't be able to insert one of these Martial Artists in my Terror Network game, but I could take guns from TN and add them to a Martial Arts game.

Quote from: VectorSigma;488596First question: If realism is not the aim, then why historical-analogue setting riffs?

Go big or go home, Brendan.  And I say that as a cheerleader.

Thanks. I appreciate the cheerleading:)

I should probably clarify a bit here. Realism isn't my aim, but I also don't want total fantasy. I want something familiar to fans of martial arts movies, but something where I am not beholden to a genre or history (there are people with way more knowledge of Chinese history and culture than me, and I don't want to veer too deeply into that territory).

For setting I want camp over realism. I guess I see the historical analogues as vaguely inspired by the real thing but full of stuff you'd find in martial arts movies.

I guess I am kind of shooting for a middle ground if that makes sense.

But I am still in a place where I can rethink and reframe the objective it is looking too muddied. Really what I want is a game that suits my tastes as a consumer of martial arts stuff. And my tastes are a bit all over the map.

QuoteIt sounds to me like your aim is a little realistic -- the techniques are 'secret', after all, I don't get the vibe you're going for 'running on a stream of bullets' type stuff.

Definitely not going for the stream of bullets. I want it to be possible to include some Wuxia elements, but I also want to run something like Enter the Dragon (which isn't realistic, but it also keeps things fairly plausible--no running on a stream of bullets).

With the techniques, I see the secret ones as straying from realism (because they are somewhat supernatural). However you are spot on here, I have a martial arts background (mostly in full contact stuff though like Muay Thai) and do want to have some of that inform my design choices. But at the end of the day, I also don't want to worry about being totally realistic (as I think that would drain out some of the fun for the players and just cause me to second guess myself all the time (when you start breaking down how fights work and this and that, or at least how I have experienced them to work, I think things can get crazy and convoluted fast).

I've sort of set up the rubric of: can I imagine this in a Bruce Lee Movie, A Gordon Lui Movie, A Chuck Norris Film, A sonny Chiba Movie and a Tony Jaa movie. I kind of want to have my cake and eat it too. I want Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but I also want Way of the Dragon.

QuoteSecond question: Is full compatibility with Network a design goal, or just "mostly compatible"?  I'm imagining the plug-and-play works in reverse, ie I wouldn't be able to insert one of these Martial Artists in my Terror Network game, but I could take guns from TN and add them to a Martial Arts game.

Fully compatible has never been one of our design goals (especially since we don't see our different settings as connected). You can certainly take characters from one and put them in another (there is enough cross-over for that in most cases). But things won't be balanced out. I would say our goal has been with the modern games, keep them mostly compatible when possible. But with a game like this, I deliberating gutting things out and adding things on to suit the aim of the game.

Weapons are another problem. I have taken an entirely different approach to weapons and weapon damage in our pre-modern games. You can pretty much use a gun in Terror Network and Crime Network. However starting with Servants of Gaius (where there are no guns) we had to mix things up with melee weapons to create some texture (otherwise the range just wouldn't be there).

Vector, since you are familiar with our products, I should probably mention this is part of a new line (tentatively called Bedrock-lite) that is PDF only and intended to be more experimental. So stuff we know we couldn't get away with in our print line because it either strains the game too much or goes into territory we've that is a little outside our zone.

Having looked into martial arts game extensivly in the past, I think the two biggest pitfalls to the subject matter are Over-simplification - every RPG has martial arts, and it is never done properly - and Over-complication. Finding that balance is the most difficult aspect of the design.

Also, I would be thinking - what am I doing with an MA game that hasn't been done before, better, elsewhere, by someone with more time and resources than me? As in, finding the unique perspective that will make it fun and engaging in its own right, and not just a reconfiguration of often-todden notions.

Just some ideas.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Panjumanju;490064Having looked into martial arts game extensivly in the past, I think the two biggest pitfalls to the subject matter are Over-simplification - every RPG has martial arts, and it is never done properly - and Over-complication. Finding that balance is the most difficult aspect of the design.

Also, I would be thinking - what am I doing with an MA game that hasn't been done before, better, elsewhere, by someone with more time and resources than me? As in, finding the unique perspective that will make it fun and engaging in its own right, and not just a reconfiguration of often-todden notions.

Just some ideas.

//Panjumanju

You can also shoot for doing what's been done before, only better/in an interesting combination. Upsides and downsides to all.

The big problem with martial arts systems usually is that there isn't any reason to do one attack over another. One is always superior.

When real people fight, they sometimes do little attacks like jabs instead of hay makers because a hay maker can't always hit. In gaming, you make one attack per round, its always a hay maker or whatever is best, based on DPS.

If someone has a higher knee attack than punch, won't they just knee all the time unless they fight someone immune to knees for some reason?

Hey crane. Yes. My plan is to include defense expertise to characters can have better defenses against types of attack. So you could take a Parry expertise in knee, making knee less ideal against your chatacter.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;490087Hey crane. Yes. My plan is to include defense expertise to characters can have better defenses against types of attack. So you could take a Parry expertise in knee, making knee less ideal against your chatacter.

As a suggestion, include one or more "Analyize Style" skills.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;490087Hey crane. Yes. My plan is to include defense expertise to characters can have better defenses against types of attack. So you could take a Parry expertise in knee, making knee less ideal against your chatacter.

Right, but kneeing guy is just going to be elbow guy when he fights him. I just think it is more interesting if there is nothing in the way of, or better - reason to use different attacks in the same fight.

Quote from: Cranewings;490112Right, but kneeing guy is just going to be elbow guy when he fights him. I just think it is more interesting if there is nothing in the way of, or better - reason to use different attacks in the same fight.

That is a good point and one I am having a little trouble getting around without getting too complex. I tried accounting for range but haven't been able to come to a good mechanic on that yet (at least for hand to hand combat).

Also the damage and accuracy of each mode of attack will probably be different.

Hmm...For keeping combat varied, how about, when you use a move in a fight, you put, say, X check-marks beside it; as the fight goes on you cross out check-marks. You get a penalty to each manuever based on the number of "active" check-marks; this represents people in the fight being ready for you to use that manuever again.

The GM, of course, could decide against any enemy, whether or not they actually are ready for the manuever and, when the fight is over, you erase all the check-marks.

Narf that is a pretty cool idea imo. I like to keep book keeping to a min in most of my games but I really like that suggestion.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;490224Narf that is a pretty cool idea imo. I like to keep book keeping to a min in most of my games but I really like that suggestion.

Thanks. Feel free to use it; that's why I posted it.