"Weapons at best are the tools of bad omen, loathed and avoided by those of the Way"
-- Lao Tzu, in the Tao Te Ching

So, of course, the followers of the Way have no need for things as crude or ineffective as mere as weapons -- they use their bodies and their minds to kick ass!

I'm looking for brilliant/cannonical ideas about what a bunch of elite, somewhat mystical martial-artists (think the guys in Street Fighter Video Games) in current-day Southern California might do.

Clearly there are some basics

* Fight each other to see who's the best -- either formally, in the Kumite or just go at it on muscle beach
* Find and train with Enlightened Masters (how else are you gonna learn Dragon Punch?)
* Spy on other schools to learn their secrets
* Fight organized crime
* Pursue personal vendettas (especially that guy who killed your father. Also the dude who took out your bro... the kids who used to beat you up in class, etc.)

Also, what kinds of drama would be appropriate for a school / team? The obvious events would be

* Schism/Treachery!: A senior student quits to go form his own school(bad)  or (worse) join a rival school
* New student turns out to be a spy / mole for a rival school
* Guys from a rival school show up looking for a fight
* Your teacher decides to have you do a demo in the mall
* Intra-school rivalry (fighting over who's better, or competing for a favored spot)
* Inter-school romance (One of the student's in love with those Capulets down the road... this is definitely gonna end in tears...)

What basics / cliches am I missing? What trophes that aren't cliches but should be should I be considering?

Also any other insight, advice, etc. would be appreciated; I'm putting a game together in the next few days.

Cheers,
-E.

QuoteSo, of course, the followers of the Way have no need for things as crude or ineffective as mere as weapons -- they use their bodies and their minds to kick ass!

Actually Taoist tend to do things like wait for the ground to kick the other guy's ass when he falls down. Or just wait for the other guy to run himself to an early grave.  Wei Wu Wei.

Highly recommend you read the rest of the Tao Te Ching, there are a number of good translations with commentary. The Tao of Pooh is pretty good too, don't be fooled by it's childlike appearance. In fact that makes a good first lesson.

Quote from: blakkieActually Taoist tend to do things like wait for the ground to kick the other guy's ass when he falls down. Or just wait for the other guy to run himself to an early grave.  Wei Wu Wei.

Highly recommend you read the rest of the Tao Te Ching, there are a number of good translations with commentary. The Tao of Pooh is pretty good too, don't be fooled by it's childlike appearance. In fact that makes a good first lesson.

Those guys from Street Fighter (possible exception: Ryu) probably didn't read very carefully and might have missed some of the more subtle points...

Although wasn't there one game where if you just stood in the far corner the opponent would never hit you? That would be pretty Taoist... You'd always tie, but hey: I'm gonna out last the arcade machine...

There's a number of good translations on line actually. Thanks for the pointer about Pooh, though... I've heard of that, never knew if it was any good...

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.Those guys from Street Fighter (possible exception: Ryu) probably didn't read very carefully and might have missed some of the more subtle points...

Yes, I suppose. :keke:

You seem to have covered more or less everything -E. All I can do is suggest you watch some Sony Chiba movies (esp the Street Fighter movies) to steal characters and plot ideas.

Regards,
David R

Another thing to keep in mind is WHY.
A highly policed society that jails or kills anyone with obvious weapons.
This is the root source of many martial arts.

Now in your case.
It was "The Big One". The quake that almost toppled California into the ocean.
Now the National Guard are everywhere, but so are the gangs and criminals.
Things are so bad that the National Guard has "shoot to kill" authority, but they can't be everywhere.
You and your friends have to protect yourselves and those you know, while not being caught doing it.
=

Quote from: GreentongueAnother thing to keep in mind is WHY.
A highly policed society that jails or kills anyone with obvious weapons.
This is the root source of many martial arts.

Now in your case.
It was "The Big One". The quake that almost toppled California into the ocean.
Now the National Guard are everywhere, but so are the gangs and criminals.
Things are so bad that the National Guard has "shoot to kill" authority, but they can't be everywhere.
You and your friends have to protect yourselves and those you know, while not being caught doing it.
=

Interesting point; when I look at source material (video games, kung fu movies, etc.) the general assumption seems to be the stories take place more or less in the modern day (maybe with somewhat less availability of guns than you'd find in your average action movie, but not totally without them).

My approach is to have characters that are reasonably powerful compared to unskilled trigger-men (so an elite martial artist should be able to take on a small group of thugs with hand guns and win). I'll run the somewhat-post-apocalypse idea past the group: I think it's a good one, but it might take the game in a direction we hadn't planned on.

Still: "Why" is an important point -- if we assume that the number of super-elite guys running around is low (but concentrated in certain areas... like Santa Monica / Venice Beach, where the game takes place), then there ought to be a set of motivations for these guys...

My assumption going into this was to assume anyone who reaches that level of mastery is

1) Driven to perform, advance, train, etc.
2) Seeks to continually validate themselves against opponents (so would seek out challenges at the edge of their ability to handle)

I'm not likely to use a system that formalizes character motivations much, but maybe recommending that the characters choose some kind of social motivations like

* Seeks justice
* Thrill seeker
* Protects the innocent
* Make money fast
* Etc.

would help explain why the characters get involved in any situations that don't have to do with training... (I think I stole at least the first three from the old DC Heroes game... which is interesting... is the superhero/super villian paradigm the right one to use with marital-artists? Clearly a lot of the characters are more 'gray' than white... but there's no question that the uber-fighters on the big screen spend a lot of time beating up criminal thugs...)

Anyway, good stuff -- thanks,
-E.

To take a lead from Monty Python's Doug and Dinsdale Pirahna, Doug made use of sarcasm, pathos and parody. His brother nailed people's heads to coffee tables (he was a harsh man, harsh but fair).

Keep in mind that if guns are available and there is nothing to prevent them from being owned, they will be used.
They're even being used in schools today so, very quickly at least the opponents will be armed to the teeth.
Something has to suppress the usage of weapons if you want to keep it focused on Martial Arts.

Underground "Fight Clubs" may be another option but even then guns will show up as the losers take revenge for their loss (or their friend's loss.)

Those may be acceptable exceptions though.
=

How about fighting some guys who think that weapons, at best, are used to kill people who don't use weapons.

And they are good at using them for just that.

"Your dragon-discipline is strong, mon-ami...but prepare to face my Naginata of Endless Fury!"

Quote from: GreentongueUnderground "Fight Clubs" may be another option but even then guns will show up as the losers take revenge for their loss (or their friend's loss.)

:ponder:

Guns don't function here

There are mundane but secluded places in the city where firearms don't work. Certain abadoned factories. The basements of churches. Maybe even in that quiet house in the suburbs.

Wait let me start earlier. Like many of you I was stuck.This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time

The pcs are bored and frustrated white collar workers aimlessly sleepwalking through life.

I prayed for a different life

All this changes when they are rescued by a strange middle aged woman who they later discover....

"Flowers I arrange and sell flowers"

...owns a flower shop which of course is more then just a flower shop.

This is how I discovered GreenFingers

Everybody calls the florist Miss.Green and beneath her shop, in the sprawling catacombs, she trains men & women in the martial arts.

After Greenfingers we all started seeing things differently

She exposes them to a  secret world of underground fighting, where different "trades" battle it out in tournaments held in certain sacred places where guns don't work and the only thing that matters is the fighter's skill with body & mind.

She had a plan, to what purpose, in Greenfingers we trusted

Recently Miss.Green has been encouraging her students to establish contact with fighters from other "trades" and take back their small piece of the world from the corruption and stink that has taken over it.

You were looking for a way to change your life, you got it.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: GreentongueKeep in mind that if guns are available and there is nothing to prevent them from being owned, they will be used.
They're even being used in schools today so, very quickly at least the opponents will be armed to the teeth.
Something has to suppress the usage of weapons if you want to keep it focused on Martial Arts.

Underground "Fight Clubs" may be another option but even then guns will show up as the losers take revenge for their loss (or their friend's loss.)

Those may be acceptable exceptions though.
=

I recall attending a martial arts tournament years and years ago, when I was in college -- the school I attended was hosting the tournament.

One of our teachers -- the one collecting the money -- was wearing his karate uniform, as he usually did, but with a *massive* .357 strapped to his thigh.

We (the students) stared at it for a moment.

Sensei: "Would *you* try to rob a karate tournament unarmed?"

It was a good point. Later we all agreed that upward of 70% of the people in the place probably shared the fantasy of facing a bunch of unarmed robbers.

So: basic agreement.

My resistance to your initial suggestion is that it introduces a bunch of elements (a huge earthquake, a massive, and oppressive martial law presence, a post-apocalypse vibe, etc.) that I think would take the focus of the game away from where I'd prefer it.

It seems like a huge change to accomplish something that (I hope) can be achieved with less... fictional infrastructure.

As I see it, the guns issue comes in two flavors

1) Limiting the PC's use of weapons
2) Explaining the (relative) absence of NPC's using weapons

I aim to achieve #1 by making the characters a bit more powerful than, say, a guy with a 9mm pistol. Their "super powers" could include throwing Qi fireballs (so there are ranged attacks).

Now, the characters won't be more effective than upper-end light arms or even, say, shotguns. And, frankly, if the in-game situation warranted it I wouldn't object to the characters arming themselves (this sort of thing has happened before). Moving exclusively to armed combat, however (or choosing to 'go armed' without sufficient provocation) would be a breach of the 'social contract' -- with the group I'm playing with, I don't think this'll be a problem...

Provided: I don't continually throw opponents at them that they'd have to be stupid to fight unarmed.  Which brings us to point #2...

#2 is a bit trickier. Unarmed mobsters would strain credibility without some kind of explanation. The cops in anything approaching modern-day-reality *certainly* carry guns. I take a dual-pronged approach: the first one is to posit a world much like this one but with stricter gun control, policies and culture. This is subtle -- it certainly doesn't eliminate firearm crimes, but it does make it... less common. It also means that most bad-guys with guns will be significantly less skilled than they might otherwise be: lots of rounds miss (which is, I believe, fairly common in reality but not the way most games work out).

The second approach is to make the PC's more powerful than lightly (gun) armed opponents. This puts the PC's at the outer edge of mundane martial arts credibility, but it fits the fiction and it allows a fictional backdrop that's closer to reality than one where all sorts of rules have been put in place to explain the absence of firearms.

Note: I've done these kinds of games before in various configurations. Gun escalation *has* occurred... the approach I've outlined above is far *less* failure-proof than your suggestion; I'm taking a risk using it... But given the level of trust in the group, I think it's a calculated and acceptable risk.

If things start going pear-shaped, I'll drop an earthquake on them and see how they like martial law

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: David R:ponder:

Guns don't function here

... snipped good stuff...

You were looking for a way to change your life, you got it.

Regards,
David R

Interesting:

I'd already figured there was a street-fighter "scene" -- an underground combat circuit. I'd also been playing around with the idea of masters / schools with agendas beyond simply honing one's combat skills (in fact, my assumption is that most schools would have these kinds of agendas).

This demonstrates a nicely integrated set of ideas in a very game-able way--I like it! (It's also a cool articulation; I like the way it reads and builds toward the climax / situation).

Thanks!
-E.