Tagged: BBW!

January 18, 2017

Under the Hood: The Skills of Art of Wuxia

Li Gezhao demonstrates his lightness skills in Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei

This time we look at skills used in Art of Wuxia Many of them are old favorites, some are altered and a couple are brand new. DWD Studios’ games BareBones Fantasy will be referenced as BBF and Covert Ops as CO.

Alchemist: Alchemy, Diagnose, Wound Mending, Surgery
Detective: Detect Clues, Interrogation, Shadowing & Trailing, Connections
Diviner: Hunch, Foresight, Reading, Identify Convergence Point
Leader: Battle Commander, Guardian, Leader, Warlord
Mystic: Chi Focus, Harmony Sense, Spirit Training, Wards
Scholar: Diplomat, High Scholar, Historian, Signs & Portents
Scout: Animal Handling, Navigation, Stalking, Survival
Sorcerer: High Sorcery, Low Sorcery, Raw Talent, Enchantment
Thief: Deception, Security Systems, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
Warrior of the <insert kung fu style> Style: Martial Training, Deadly Skill, Combat Defense, Kung fu

Sleeve Dance from House of Flying Daggers

The Detective from CO, and the Leader, Scholar and Thief from BBF remain unchanged from the games they first appeared.

The Alchemist is a combination of abilities from the Enchanter (BBF) and Medic (CO). The abilities have been altered to fit the genre.

The Diviner is a new skill, which shows up in many wuxia stories. This skill has some really cool abilities that make it seem like the Diviner can actually tell the future. This skill has been very well received in playtests.

The Mystic is the other brand new skill. The mystic is like a detective of the spiritual and magical worlds. They are able to sense things no one else can and are good at fighting demons and spirits. A person with this skill also harnesses more chi than others.

Yan Sinniang, master thief in Strange Hero Yi Zhi Mei

The Scout has been altered in only one way. Tracking has been changed to Stalking. You still use the skill when tracking but now the skill expressly includes stealth in natural environments.

The Sorcerer at first glance is much like the Spellcaster in BBF but it is actually quite different. For starters, the skill uses WIL not LOG as its ability score. Sorcerers bend the forces of nature, the elements and other powers to their will. Sorcerers have the ability to enchant magical objects. Lastly, they gain one spell with each new level. They will have to find other spells as they adventure. This encourages Sorcerers to seek out magic in old tombs and trap filled ruins.

The Warrior skill now represents as many different skills as there are kung fu styles. For example you could have the Warrior of the Way of Honorable Thunder Style, the Warrior of the Golden Fist Style, or the Warrior of the Soaring Dragon in the Sky Style. Each is treated as a separate skill on your character sheet. However, if Warrior is a primary or secondary skill, then all warrior skills you take will be primary or secondary. If that much of your talent is directed towards fighting, it will apply to all fighting skills you have.

Since this is wuxia much attention is given to the warrior skill. As you character gains levels in warrior they will learn new kung fu techniques of their style and their damage with weapons and unarmed combat will increase. They will also become better at defending against attacks. You can still use the warrior skill untrained but, you won’t do much damage, you’ll always use DEX to resist physical attacks and worst of all, you won’t know any kung fu.

Multiple warrior skills may be learned. Do you become a master of one? Or do you learn several to diversify your abilities? That is up to you!

Why no assassin, cleric or monk skills? Yes, assassins, clerics and monks in Art of Wuxia abound! But they are not represented by their own skill. The skills in Art of Wuxia have been carefully chosen to represent unique sets of abilities. The warrior skill, warrior and thief skill, thief and sorcerer skill etc could represent an assassin. The same goes for clerics and monks. These archetypes are best represented by the unique abilities of other skills chosen to suit your vision of what they are like in your setting. For example, a monk of the Wodan sect often has levels in sorcerer and warrior, while monks of the Bowing Dragon sect have levels in mystic and warrior. A cleric might have levels in mystic and leader or might have levels just in scholar. It all depends on what you have in mind for your faction or sect.

Next Under the Hood article will look at kung fu in Art of Wuxia.

January 4, 2017

Art of Wuxia Design Guidelines, Part 4 Mysticism

Before beginning work on Art of Wuxia I developed a list of things that I wanted out of the game. Before every writing session and play test session, I take that list out and read it. My rule is that the list must absolutely be followed to keep the design of the game focused on its most important parts. The next few articles will cover this list and explain why I feel each of these guidelines was important for Art of Wuxia.

Wuxia is a broad genre category. There are many sub genres, some that don’t have any magic at all and others where nearly everyone has mystical powers such as magic or chi. Art of Wuxia has magic in it at about the same level as BareBones Fantasy (typical fantasy RPG fare) but there are notes in the GM section showing how to add more fantasy and magic or remove it entirely. We want to give you the tools you need to play the type of wuxia you want to play which means providing lots of options.

Design Guideline: Magic should integrate. BareBones Fantasy already has an excellent magic system. For Art of Wuxia, some spells were dropped and others added and a few altered to fit the genre. Genre examples are given wherever possible so players and GMs have ideas to work with. Alchemical items are right in the Equipment lists to purchase and the rules on spell acquisition altered so that finding old magic tombs becomes very desirable thus promoting exploration into dangerous old trap filled tombs of ancient evil sorcerers.

Two new skills are added to Art of Wuxia that specifically address wuxia mysticsm, the Diviner and the Mystic. A diviner can see the future and it has been a real hit with play testers. The mystic is like a detective for the occult, sensing aura’s, evil and even areas of chi. These skills add a lot to the flavor of Art of Wuxia. They can also be dropped if you are looking for less magic in your game.

Design Guideline: Chi should be baked into the system. Chi is absolutely an essential element of wuxia stories. Chi act a bit like hero points in other games but are designed to enforce the tropes of the genre. Most everything chi is shown to be able to do in wuxia stories is possible in Art of Wuxia. Chi can be used to heal someone, expel a poison, add extra effort to actions, leap over walls and more. Sworn brothers/sisters can even share their Chi pool. I’ll talk more about that another time.

Design Guideline: Lightness skills should enable huge leaps and running or skipping across water. Wuxia wouldn’t be wuxia without highflying action. And highflying action in wuxia comes from lightness skills. In Art of Wuxia lightness is a chi ability granted early on by internal kung fu styles and later on in external kung fu styles. Players love the tactical options it provides and GMs are encouraged to make their battle encounters three dimensional. Bad guys should be knocked off balconies and there should be sword fights on rooftops or atop torii gates.

Design Guideline: There should be demons & spirits. Ghost stories and plots around evil spirits or sorcerers summoning demons show up in many wuxia tales. Most creatures encountered in Art of Wuxia are either normal animals or some sort of spirit. Some spirits can take human form. Truly evil spirits become demons and are consumed by their hungers. The creatures and sample setting provide many adventure hooks for integrating them in play.

THE META GUIDELINES

These last two guidelines don’t really fit in any category but they have shaped every aspect of Art of Wuxia.

Design Guideline: If it isn’t fun, get rid of it. This guideline is really the ultimate arbiter of what goes in the game and what stays. This has been the most important guideline of them all. Art of Wuxia is about wuxia and that means great action and drama. If these things aren’t fun, there isn’t any point to playing. I have no qualms about throwing out pages of hard work if it doesn’t contribute to fun at the table. If it is part of the other guidelines, of course we try to make it work but ultimately no one wants to play a game that isn’t fun. And if something isn’t fun, it is dropped.

Now is this subjective! Absolutely. No group of people can agree about whether everything is fun. There will be differences. But still…if you like the tropes of wuxia, and your game supports the wuxia style with ease and gets out of the way and your players are smiling and really getting into their characters I think you have found your fun.

Design Guideline: Unofficial Litmus When watching wuxia movies or tv shows or reading wuxia books I constantly ask myself, “can Art of Wuxia do that?” Actually, now my play test group players are doing that. They see things in movies and then try to pull them off in the game. It is working very well. That feeds back to the fun guideline.

From Wuxia Edge Website, http://www.wuxiaedge.com/, Click for Animation

I’m not promising that Art of Wuxia will be the ultimate wuxia RPG for everyone. I can confidently say it is my favorite RPG and I think it is measuring up nicely. I can’t wait till it leaves its kung fu school and makes its way out into the world and into your hands. I cannot wait to see what it becomes as others take it in new directions.

December 21, 2016

Art of Wuxia Design Guidelines, Part 3 Tropes

Donnie Yen kung fu fighting — Donnie Yen in Wu Xia

The tropes in wuxia are very strong. I’ll write another article on wuxia tropes later on but for now I’ll focus on my design guideline list.

Design Guideline: Anything can be used as a weapon. I have seen everything used as a weapon in wuxia movies and TV shows and the books are even more over the top. Built right into the weapons table in Art of Wuxia are improvised weapons. So if you can imagine using something as a weapon, you can.

Design Guideline: Unarmed attacks should be almost as good as armed attacks. Heroes in wuxia tales are usually as good with their fists as they are with their swords. The same thing is true in Art of Wuxia There are certain cases where having a weapon is better than not having one but it isn’t overwhelmingly so. One of the kung fu styles in the game doesn’t even teach weapons.

Design Guideline: Armor needs to be limited. Nearly every hero you see in wuxia stories doesn’t wear armor or if they do it is something light. You’ll still find armor in Art of Wuxia but the damage reduction it offers is variable, and it is expensive. Unarmed peasants (minor NPCs) don’t stand a chance against armored troops (minor NPCs). But if they have some heroes defending them…

Design Guideline: There should be a poser turn. I’ve talked about this one before. It is a favorite at my game table and at the convention games I’ve run. Just as in wuxia movies and TV series occasionally the heroes pose and the camera zooms in on them at a dramatic moment, so too this will happen in your game. It is a moment where the action pauses and something cool to help the PCs happens before the next turn begins.

Design Guideline: Adventures should include love and vengeance. Here is where the wuxia genre really departs from traditional fantasy. I can’t think of a wuxia story where these two elements weren’t a key plot element. The GM is encouraged (if the players are up for it) to provide romantic entanglements for the PCs to get involved with. These come with plot complications (he’s the son of the governor and she’s an outlaw) and can lead to further adventures. This is not forced on anyone and is an option if you really want to embrace the genre. After each adventure the GM goes over a checklist to see if anyone will seek vengeance for some slight, or harm caused by the PCs. Beware murder hobos! Beware!

Design Guideline: There should be wuxia examples and quotes. To help players and GMs get into the wuxia genre we are putting quotes by famous NPCs in the book. The quotes are designed to reinforce the tropes of wuxia and possibly give GMs adventure ideas. We’ve also listed examples of what spells look like for that wuxia feel and even specifically spells cast by certain sorcerer sects.

These guidelines were created to help ensure that wuxia tropes would be integrated into the rules. Yes, there is a list of wuxia tropes in the introduction but that would be useless if they weren’t reinforced throughout the rest of the book. Tropes can be shown with NPCs, items, skills etc. but the rules or “game verbs” of the book need to solidly support them.

You can see how strong the tropes of the wuxia genre are for yourself. Go to the Downloads page, download, and print the wuxia bingo cards. Then play wuxia bingo with friends while watching a wuxia movie. Remember to yell “WUXIA!” when you win.

December 14, 2016

Art of Wuxia Design Guidelines, Part 2 Adversaries

Nothing defines wuxia heroes more than the adversaries they face.

Design Guideline: Bad guys should come in several flavors; crunchies, villains and master villains. Wuxia heroes wade through crunchies, have duels with villains and have epic battles with master villains. The D00Lite system (of which Art of Wuxia is based), already differentiates between minor NPCs (crunchies) and normal NPCs (named villains). We’ve added Master Villains to the game and they are designed to battle a whole group of player characters. In fact some of their stats are related to the number and power of the heroes. These are used at the end of major adventures. Heroes must come prepared to face such a challenge and give their all.

Design Guideline: Unimportant NPCs should be able to be fought by the dozens. Wuxia heroes are clearly cut of a different silk. They may start out weak but once they come into their own they can take on hordes of minor NPCs and not take a scratch. As mentioned above we already have minor NPCs and they are not much of a threat to heroes. Art of Wuxia lets you take it further and with the spending of chi, player characters can take out a dozen or more minor NPCs in one turn. Even more if you use the Battle Fu option.

Design Guideline: Most adversaries should be human; some will be demons/monsters. A strong trope of the wuxia genre is that these are human stories about human deeds, emotions, desires and actions. A guardian monster might play a role. A demon might be a powerful opponent but ultimately it must be about humans. The guardian monster is guarding something for a human. A human summoned the demon or otherwise let it loose for their own failings or ambitions. Art of Wuxia does have a monster section in it for GMs that want more fantasy in their game but adventure generation tables and published adventures will focus on the goals of humans. Wuxia stories are personal stories and the main villain is seldom if ever a nameless monster.

Pai Mei (played by Lo Lieh), master villain of Executioners from Shaolin.

Adversaries are crucial to good wuxia stories and Art of Wuxia, by having genre examples of several different strengths and types, has you covered for any wuxia story you want to tell.

December 7, 2016

Art of Wuxia Design Guidelines, Part 1 Kung Fu

Before beginning work on Art of Wuxia, I developed a list of things that I wanted out of the game. Before every writing session and play test session, I take that list out and read it. My rule is that the list must absolutely be followed to keep the design of the game focused on its most important parts. The next few articles will cover this list and explain why I feel each of these guidelines was important for BBW!

Design Guideline: No real world martial arts. I think there is no better way of starting an argument than trying to codify which martial arts is better, has more historical impact, has the best fighters etc. The best way to avoid that is to not use real world martial arts. Besides, this is wuxia. The wuxia genre is filled with made-up martial arts techniques and styles and they can become a great way for a GM to express their creativity and world building.

Design Guideline: There should be a big list of kung fu styles. Players and GMs need to have choices and there are countless kung fu styles portrayed in wuxia stories. We have almost twenty kung fu styles in the game with some guidelines for GMs to make up more. The general feel of the style, common weapons and a collection of kung fu techniques defines these kung fu styles. Styles are also noted as internal or external, which determines what extra chi abilities are available at lower skill levels.

Design Guideline: You should be able to learn a style with multiple methods. By this, I mean there must be several ways in which a kung fu expert can learn their style. In Art of Wuxia, you can learn a style from your teacher. You can be a self-taught one-weapon wonder. You can also learn a style from a secret kung fu manual. Art of Wuxia has you covered. You can learn a few techniques from other styles and add them to your own. You can even learn more than one kung fu style and can mix them or switch between them if the need arises.

Design Guideline: You should be able to discover a secret weakness of a kung fu style. A common trope of wuxia stories is of the heroes gaining an advantage over their opponents if they know of a secret weakness of a kung fu style. If a kung fu style is widespread, someone, somewhere has found a method to defeat it. Secret weaknesses are typically found in special kung fu manuals written by long dead masters. Many a battle and adventure is based on the acquisition or protection of such a manual. If you learn a secret weakness of a kung fu style, you will always have an edge over an opponent using it.

Those are the design guidelines covering kung fu for Art of Wuxia. It has been very fun seeing Art of Wuxia kung fu in action and has been a big hit at convention games.