I just watched Bloodsport, and I enjoyed it so much I want to do a Bloodsport-inspired scenario.

This is actually something that could be pretty cool under the Flailsnails paradigm.

Here's my current thoughts

- Is it going to be more like Mortal Combat, with the supernatural aspects of D&D, or a "Martial Class Only", no spells, no magic items, sort of thing?

- This screams for some sort of combat maneuver system. Ideally I'd cherry pick from a bunch of simple options and format/present them as a quick cheat sheet.

- Would NPC antagonists have abilities that PC don't have access to? i.e. a sumo wrestler with special fat-belly attack abilities?

- Armor or no armor?

- Bloodsport soundtrack music would be a must. KUMITE! KUMITE! KUMITE!

I still love that movie. I think it might be my favorite Van Damme movie, however one may rate that bar of acclaim.

Honestly? Dunno.

I went back to the 2e punch and wrestling tables -- after deriding it for years --  and found out their slice of madness actually kinda works. Tables are fast, quick to edit, and lets anyone tailor the move list per their favorite martial art style. With specialization and Complete Fighter Handbook maneuvers it was even cooler.

But is it good for the back and forth of cinematic arena combat? How does it deal with special moves? What to do with player desires to parry, dodge, counter, etc.? ... Dunno, might not work.

I'm thinking the closest I can do it would be to ignore new grafted mechanics and adjudicate modifiers on the fly like a fiend. That way players can focus on their trash talk yammering and wuxia descriptions while I try to desperately factor that stuff into game.

It'd help my workload to have two players go at it instead of PC v. NPC. Then I can just call out mods as I see fit.

How gritty to flash do you want it? From Karate Champ to Guilty Gear where do you want the look of the fight?

This is sort of what the Monk's promotion by combat was inspired by.

Well, not this movie, but by Enter the Dragon, which had something of the same plot (and amazingly enough, the same bad guy, he's almost 50 in Bloodsport)

Hmm...(A)D&D + Ninjas & Superspies mashup?  Yes please!

DnD is too abstract with AC and Hit points. Ninjas and Superspies is the first thing that comes to mind for me, because it actually has hundreds of different moves, finishing moves, and fighting styles. Monkey style vs Sumo? You can do that. Plus, because of the Dodge/Parry/Roll/Block rules, it's more like a cheesy 80's action movie (which is pretty much the point of the game anyway).

Also, Bloodsport is an awesome movie!

I don't know about Bloodsport, but Arrows of Indra has rules on wrestling and guidelines about fighting both wrestling matches and duels of honor in the Kalari Arenas.

RPGPundit

Quote from: JeremyR;620022This is sort of what the Monk's promotion by combat was inspired by.

Well, not this movie, but by Enter the Dragon, which had something of the same plot (and amazingly enough, the same bad guy, he's almost 50 in Bloodsport)

Well, Van Damme was making his version of Enter the Dragon so no surprise here. He reprised the theme again in Hero.

The complete fighters book has a maneuvers section, which you might be able to modify to create a purely martial arts set of options. Though I do have issues with it, the KO chart might actually work out kind of nicely for this as well. I would maybe tweak it though, to inject ome lethality. Maybe a a few results for "neck snapping" or "bone breaking".

Another option, since it is pretty much hand to hand here, is replace the various weapons with modes of attack (or just start from scratch). So you could just assign damage values to things like side kicks, jabs, etc (a side kick might be a d8 while a jab is a or d2). with 2E you can add in speed factor. Then use the weapon proficiency and specialization system (probably modified a bit) to let characters build up an arsenal of hand to hand attacks.

Well two fighters whaling on each other in a circle of sand is going to be pretty boring even if you spice up the mechanics a bit.

What I'd recommend instead is location. location. location.

Off the top of my head:
-Various teams are thrown into the arena naked. Other teams will start using the femurs of the dead as clubs as soon as is practicable.
-The audience enjoys throwing bottles and whatnot at anyone who annoys them/they notice casting magic.
-The participants get to fight on a series of rope bridges and platforms that are slowly being lowered into water with lots of alligators in it.
-Some of the platforms have things kind of like big diving boards that are extra springy for extra jumping.
-Every so often rabid monkeys are launched into the fighting area by mini-catapult.

Stuff like that. Tone up or down the goofiness as needed.

Quote from: Fiasco;620078Well, Van Damme was making his version of Enter the Dragon so no surprise here. He reprised the theme again in Hero.

That is certainly not the case.

Bloodsport is a partly exaggerated autobiography of Frank Dux. When Van Damme tried to remake it years later as The Quest, he and Frank Dux had a falling out over it.

Stylistically it may have been influenced by Enter the Dragon, but there's only so much you can do with a tournament martial arts film.

//Panjumanju

One of the big problems is how old school D&D is set up:
- length of a round is around a minute
- maneuvers are declared pre-roll (you'd have to pass notes for 'fog of war')
- singular initiative speed or segments don't translate dynamically
- not much in the way of pro-active defense tech (parry, dodge, counter, etc.)
- called shots for hit locations or maneuvers not as arena cinematic

And further is the nature of RPG processing speed itself. Generally few things can capture the adrenaline rush of real-time combat other than real-time combat. People may love Street Fighting video games, but even then it pales to the commercial drive of bloodsport.

There has to be an understood concession of expectations on the part of the players. This won't be UFC or boxing or whatever. And with the way gamers argue over the stupidest shit already, you'd need a pretty cool group to put their fan-wank away and cope with the realities of the medium.

That last part is perhaps the biggest hurdle of all.

We used to run a lot of Bloodsport / Enter the Dragon / Street Fighter style tournaments in AD&D 2nd edition just using those random tables for fighting maneuvers from the Player's Handbook (I think it was the PHB) -- the ones Opaopajr is talking about. We put a worldwide "dock fighting" circuit into the game world and had champions of the docks of each port town, then the champions of the towns would gather for a big tournament to see who was the baddest of them all. As you do. The fights were pretty random -- the charts in the PHB were like that -- but a lot of fun. If you have any 2nd edition books laying around, it might be worth taking a look at.  

That inspired me to do random fighting maneuvers for D&D on my blog a while ago: Fisticuffs in D&D. I went down to d6 tables so I could give each "style" of fighting its own character. It'd be pretty easy to make a bunch of these up. That's how I would do it.

Also, a couple years ago Zak S posted a D&D kung fu system to his blog. You might find his system more to your liking.

That's what I can think of for D&D.

Also, here are some random tables for character backgrounds for Street Fighter roleplaying that would be mostly usable as is for D&D characters. You might have to change some of the entries on the tables, but not too many.

Why do you fight?
Tell me about your Sensei

Another thing I can't help mentioning is Melee and Wizard / The Fantasy Trip, which was built specifically to allow duels, and which can handle fighters vs wizards. I noticed that somebody mentioned it on your blog post. That may not be as useful to you if you want to keep it to D&D, though.

Quote from: Opaopajr;620131There has to be an understood concession of expectations on the part of the players. This won't be UFC or boxing or whatever. And with the way gamers argue over the stupidest shit already, you'd need a pretty cool group to put their fan-wank away and cope with the realities of the medium.

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This, exactly.

That would not be a problem with my group

Lots of great ideas here, thanks!

Also take a look at the old Role Aids supplement Blood & Steel. It had something you might want to use.