The Jade Throne War

[jhkim]

So for AmberCon NorthWest, I'm running a variant Amber game set in the Jade Empire inspired by wuxia films. It's using all the standard Amber Diceless rules, but with a different background.

The idea is mainly that the Empire is the center of all universes - specifically the Imperial Capital and the Forbidden City - with the Pattern within it. Those with imperial blood are peculiarly gifted, able to travel the realms, leap great distances, and have tremendous martial skill.

This is mostly a brainstorm of what kinds of things you'd want to have in the game - to give me ideas.

For my own tastes - Clearly there will be mysterious shapeshifting rebels, and conflict over succession, fights in rooftops and trees, and at least one pitched battle.

[jibbajibba]

So for AmberCon NorthWest, I'm running a variant Amber game set in the Jade Empire inspired by wuxia films. It's using all the standard Amber Diceless rules, but with a different background.

The idea is mainly that the Empire is the center of all universes - specifically the Imperial Capital and the Forbidden City - with the Pattern within it. Those with imperial blood are peculiarly gifted, able to travel the realms, leap great distances, and have tremendous martial skill.

This is mostly a brainstorm of what kinds of things you'd want to have in the game - to give me ideas.

For my own tastes - Clearly there will be mysterious shapeshifting rebels, and conflict over succession, fights in rooftops and trees, and at least one pitched battle.

When I have done Amber at Cons I pregen the characters with a description paragrpah and illustration on a master sheet.
I then create a few special positions, captain of the guard, Ambassador etc
And a couple of artefacts.

Then I give the players 10 points to bid on which character they want. They only get a sheet with description paragraph and illustrations, the name of the position and the artefacts. You bid from your pool of 10 and whatever is left becomes an ablative good stuff pool so you can over bid and get ablative bad stuff as well.
Keeps the amber feel but cuts chargen to 20 minutes and the characters positions and artefacts all have backstory/plot hooks/secret objectives so the adventure just springs into life.

So in a Wuxia setting you might have Captain of the Imperial Guard, Warden of the Imperial Library, Master of the Emperor's Stables. You might have a sword called the Opal Flame or a magical steed or whatever

I would separate out some of warfare/strength and have martial arts as a partial power tree so you could learn Northern Iron Fist style and from there take a range of combat options. The options would just stack ontop of warfare strength but with a power world like instant effect. So a guy with 30 warfare + 45 points in Martial arts as a Power would be able to use the combat moves he has learnt as someone with 75 warfare. But treat them like Power Words in that after use the superior warrior will be able to counter them.
I assume you will use pre-gens so you don't need to make up a vast number of these things just create a few and present them in the pregen sheets like they are part of a entire holistic system.
I would do this just so you could have the conversation ;
"So you have learnt Eastern Mantis. Well see if you can deal with my crystal dragon strike, damn you..."
Agree its in the territory of new rules.

I would probably also create a movement partial powers tree as well and put in there the leaping, wall running, water dancing stuff.

Replace Power Words with Mantras so continuous effect rather than instant effect so long as you keep chanting.

Finally Dog soldiers. I always loved Monkey (aka Journey to the West) when the enemy bandits turned out to be Dog Spirits or tiger spirits or some such. Basically bog standard mooks but with Chaos rank, combat and endurance and some animal sense powers.

[Croaker]

Jibbajibba: AWESOME idea with Martial Arts. I'm stealing this! Or at least, I'll be trying.

[jhkim]

Luckily, at AmberCon NorthWest, I'm in email communication with the players in advance. What I have right now is three players, one of whom is incommunicado.

PCs:

1) Mimi - A travelling entertainer with a hidden mission to permanently deal with bandits and other threats.

2) Po Dan - A crusading young official whose father and brother were honest district judges wrongly convicted and executed for corruption.

I'll also be making NPCs/pre-gens:

3) "Demon Carver" Hin-hung
   A powerful official known for corruption in casual matters, but loyalty to a powerful central government. He has a religious title that he gives paper-thin service to, but mainly indulges his vices while dealing out harsh justice.
He was the one who executed Po Dan's father and brother, but Po Dan doesn't know if he was involved in framing them.

4) "Flying Snow" Feixue
A rebellious swordswoman who has been traveling with the army, teaching weapon mastery. She is angry over her father's death in the emperor's army.
Mimi suspects her of involvement with bandits, and has been investigating her.

5) "Iron Arm" Cai Fu
A dependable admiral of no particular ambition beyond his province and navy. He is an ally of Mimi, working against bandits and pirates.

6) "Swift Strike" Sanniang
An older woman who has mastered more of the arts of chi and trump, but whose loyalties remain mysterious. She is a colleague and contact of Po Dan.

The players will be doing point spending in advance.

I would separate out some of warfare/strength and have martial arts as a partial power tree so you could learn Northern Iron Fist style and from there take a range of combat options. The options would just stack ontop of warfare strength but with a power world like instant effect. So a guy with 30 warfare + 45 points in Martial arts as a Power would be able to use the combat moves he has learnt as someone with 75 warfare. But treat them like Power Words in that after use the superior warrior will be able to counter them.

Hm. If martial arts can be countered, wouldn't 75 Warfare be clearly superior to 30 Warfare + 45 martial arts?

I had been approaching this that all Warfare is martial arts. Leaping and so forth is Strength. Maybe for another iteration I'll modify powers more, but I've committed to standard rules for this run.

[Panjumanju]

I love the idea of a Jade Empire, and I think it lends itself particularly well to the system as written. However, I agree that the Attributes do not well match the setting. Perhaps just including "martial arts" as a fifth Attribute compromise between warfare and strength is about as close to the chest as you'd get.

//Panjumanju

[Doughdee222]

I remember reading a similar question decades ago.
The easy reply was: "Nazis, lots of Nazis."

If you like the TV show 24... how about toss in a "ticking time bomb" scenario. The Queen has been kidnapped, by Nazis! They want a billion gold coin else she gets it. But that's only the opening gambit. Little does anyone know but the volcano next to the Royal City is set to explode and bury the countryside! (Thus hiding all evidence of the Nazi blackmail. After they transport away all the gold of course.)

[Arref]

Include the 1000 Hells and the incredible diversity of demons.

[RPGPundit]

Sounds like a great concept. I ran something similar once, years and years ago.

[jhkim]

Sounds like a great concept. I ran something similar once, years and years ago.

Thanks, and thanks for the various ideas. I've done some more work, but I'm off to AmberCon NorthWest shortly. I'll report next week.