Profile Comments

[Valamir]

Hah, Bailey.  I never thought I'd find anyone else even willing to admit they'd HEARD of the Street Fighter Story Telling game.

That game rocked.  A far better use of WoD mechanics that any WoD stuff.

[Bailey]

Yeah, I've been working on my own version of it for quite a while, off and on.  I've tried Thrash, but it just wasn't the same.

[Le Joueur]

I never thought I'd find anyone else even willing to admit they'd HEARD of the Street Fighter Story Telling game.

That game rocked.  A far better use of WoD mechanics that any WoD stuff.

I was so disappointed that they never finished bringing the Darkstalkers sourcebook for it to market.  Anybody know anyone on the 'inside' who could get me a galley or just the rough?

Fang Langford

[Bailey]

There's one for Thrash, but like most of the pamplets for that game it's not much more than a few character write ups.

Never heard of a Darkstalkers supplement in the works from WW though.
Damn, I gotta get my fighter game together RSN.

Edited: because I can't spell "my" somethimes.

[Rich Forest]

It's almost the only game my group plays.  With the exception of one-shots where we try out other things (recently Donjon and Sorcerer and Sword), we've played Street Fighter almost every week since it was published.  That makes three major campaigns, each lasting years of both real and game time.  In fact, our current group is nearing the World Warrior tournament, which will mark the climax of the series and perhaps a change to another game.  

When you have played the game, what kinds of adventures have you played?  I'm really curious as to how other people approach Street Fighter.  We've gone from a heavily gamist, tournament-every-adventure kind of thing in the first campaign to a more simulationist, world exploring, story-arc filled anime-style game.  This is more like what we're doing now.  The one major thing we've done is push aside the official game characters.  They are still there, of course.  They're just not treated as much like the central figures.  There's more room at the top, so to speak-- the player characters are the center of our series, after all.  Game characters do provide a common pool of NPC's, and all of the PCs have developed various friendships and grudges with different Capcom characters.  

We've used a couple of Darkstalkers characters as well.  Donovan, Huitzil, and Jon Talbain (in human form only) have made appearances so far.  We've entertained doing a Darkstalkers campaign or a couple of adventures, and we've thought about the same with Samurai Showdown.  

And, of course, we have house rules.  Over a hundred pages of them in various states of disorganization, primarily Styles and new Special Maneuvers.  

Street Fighter.  Fun.  

Can you tell I'm a fanboy?

Rich

[Jürgen Mayer]

Streetfighter - I never really looked at this before (despite being a Streetfighter II geek in my younger years). What's so good about it? Besides the background information, is there something in the Streefighter book what makes it preferable to Feng Shui or HKAT for a similar approach?

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I'm with Jurgen.

How does the Storyteller dice system work for the topics/actions of the game - is it "pure" Storyteller or tweaked?

I do have a copy of the game and will spend some time now, looking it over carefully. We might get some real meat out of this.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

As far as mechanics go, Streetfighter is a pure gamist romp.  Most of the people play Streetfighter 2(3, Alpha, EX, etc) as a gamist experience(fight, win!) and Streetfighter wholly supports this.   As far as setting goes, Streetfighter also manages to inject some background ideas and things ripe for characters and conflict.  

While Feng Shui(my favorite game.  Period.) has better resolution, it's Fu Schticks do not compare to the amount of strategizing you have with each individual maneuver.  Likewise with HKAT.   The moves list is equivalent of giving fighter's their own version of the spell list.  Pure gamists delight right there.

Chris

[Rich Forest]

I think Chris has the strength of Street Fighter nailed down: strategy.  The Street Fighter video game series, and martial arts tournaments, are to a great degree about "winning," which is what makes the Street Fighter RPG's gamist approach so appropriate.  And as far as I can tell, no other martial arts roleplaying game really focuses on strategy.  My group, well, we've all loved martial arts tournaments for a long time.  We used to run them as kids playing Marvel Super Heroes, and we did the same thing with AD&D.  But as a player, you really didn't have much strategic control.  Streetfighter gives you a lot more of this control.

In answer to Ron's question, it's definitely tweaked.  The core mechanic is still that 1st edition Storyteller thing, so the effects of the "rule of 1" are still there.  But combat plays differently.  For the most part, everything is reduced to a single roll.  Attack/Damage aren't split into separate rolls.  There is no initiative roll and no soak roll.  Soak is just subtracted from the attack/damage roll before the dice are thrown.  Search and handling time is greatly reduced, leaving you more time to focus on your strategy.

Initiative is really where the gamist aspects start to shine.  It is a set number based on the character's Dex and the speed of the maneuver.  Because it is a set, predictable number, players can guess at the best cost/benefit ratio for speed and damage (these are balanced out in the maneuvers).  Higher speed is good, but you often get it in return for a loss of damage, and if the maneuver doesn't have a special effect that hinders or cancels the opponent's move, speed is not so important (unless you'll do enough damage to dizzy or KO the opponent).  

Movement is the other predictable part of strategy in Street Fighter.  Hex maps are used, and by controlling for your speed and movement with respect to what you think your opponent's speed and movement will be, you can control who does damage first and sometimes who does damage at all.  

The abort rules also add to the strategic options.  Basically, you can spend a point of willpower to abort to a Block, which greatly reduced damage from all attacks except Grabs.  

Grabs do some interesting things too, and their effectiveness (doing damage without getting damaged) is pretty high, but their movement is limited, so a smart opponent can often avoid them while getting a hit off.  

There's more to it, but those are some of the basic things going on.

Ironically, it's the Storyteller die mechanic that I feel is most detrimental to the strategic aspects of the game.  The rule of one does weird things to success probabilities when more dice appear, taking some of the predictability (and thus some of the control) away from the player.  I was ready to update this to the more consistent new rule, but my players insisted on the old.  Why?  They liked the fact that you can NEVER be sure.  Sometimes, even World Warriors make mistakes.  Including the PC's.  It slightly increases the uncertainty, and it means that even if you are getting beat up, there is still a chance of turning it around, however slim.  Of course, your opponent could do the same to you...

Now, what's the game about?  For my group, it is about the road from fledgling martial artist to the final world warrior tournament and status among the martial arts legends of the world.  Because you control every aspect of your character's fighting improvement with the XP system, and the categories are broken down fairly specifically (Punch, Kick, Block, Grab, Athletics, Focus, and then you buy special maneuvers in these various categories), part of the strategy in Street Fighter is building the best martial artist possible.  Support for gamist play? Check.  

For those who want really wild action, however... I'm not sure Street Fighter supports that.  It's much more strategic, even though the actual actions are things like Flying Fireballs and Rising Dragon Fists.  Combat, in general, is not heart-pounding, adrenalin-filled chaos.  It's more of a contest.  But you get invested.  You have so much control over how you win or lose that you really care whether you win or lose.  You feel more responsible for your character's success or failure in a fight.  And as a player, you hate to lose.  You want to get back at the NPC who has beaten you.  And, since the game has no rules for character death and you recover from damage very quickly, you can always live to fight another day.  You improve yourself (cue training sequence) and challenge the guy (or gal) who beat you.  

I think I rambled a bit in there,

Rich

[Valamir]

Thats exactly it right there Chris.  Each move is like a spell complete with effects, resource costs and prerequisites.  Some moves are pure damage, some combine movement with damage, some take the combat "aerial" and can only be countered by "aerial" counters.  

Setting up the right selection of moves for your character is basically the table top equivelent of knowing how to hit "up, up, up, down, up, left" to trigger some maneuver combo.

I've never played a campaign with it, just an extended "Bloodsport" style tournament, but it was great fun.  My only wish is that there'd been a Gurps: Martial Arts style "real world moves" supplement as well.

By comparison HKAT is fun to play as long as you realise you're actors in a movie.  But the combat system is very shallow by comparison (and totally broken if your a Gamist looking to min max).

As far as Feng Shui goes....I've heard ALOT of people rave about it, but I couldn't get past the setting which did not interest me at all (truth be told I thought it was pretty lame) so I never played it to get a feel for the mechanics.

[Bailey]

Rich got it.  My campaign featured masked Mexican Wrestler Superheroes who somehow face off with the villains in tournaments.

It's not crazy but it's what I've always wanted in a superhero game.

A Ruleset that doesn't require juggling disadvantages for maximum effect.
A tight focus on the type of heroes (martial arts heroes instead of a Super Friends grab bag).
A list of powers that fit without having to pile on modifiers.
Low handling time.

[Sidhain]

I ran Streetfighter for a group of friends, and while it it full of gamist elements. Like any game it can serve passably well for other styles. For example I took the V&V Module "Search for the Sensai" and used it for Streetfighter. The idea of of SFTS is that players know of (or learn of) this Sensai, he is kidnapped and his daughter comes to the heroes for help.

    The game involves lots of investigation, a red herring possibility, and hunting down a Tong (criminal gang organization) who count a number of "specially powered" people among them. Most of them had silly names and took a significant amount of adapting to be used in Streetfighter.



   Adapted for Streetfighter it ended up with the heroes rescuing the Sensai, destorying the Tong leaders special gear (basically powered armor that let him walk) and discovering the links of this Tong to M. Bison, and Shadowloo/Shadowlaw.. The Sensai agreed to train them, and help keep them in shape, for their tournaments.

[Jürgen Mayer]

Sounds to me that it is a good adaption of the video game. Still not sure if I'd like to play it. Heck, if I ever see it in some bargain bin, I'll maybe give it a closer look...

[Rich Forest]

I've been thinking about what the mechanics do to support what the game is supposed to do, and there's something else that has an interesting effect on the game: Glory and Honor.

Glory is less interesting than Honor.  It increases when you do impressive things, like beating opponents without getting hurt (the classic video game "Perfect").  It also goes down if you act cowardly, etc.  It isn't rolled much, except perhaps to see if somebody recognizes you.

Honor is more interesting.  It's harder to raise than Glory and easier to lose (in our experience).  To increase your Honor, you often have to choose not to do things that would be of immediate benefit in a fight.  For example, you lose honor if you hit a dizzied opponent (very unlike the Video Game), but if you don't hit them, you lose a chance to do a lot of damage.  

But that's not all.  Honor is what you roll between fights in a tournament to get back Chi and Willpower.  And Chi and Willpower are necessary to utilize most of the really powerful special maneuvers.  So, sometimes you are faced with a dilemma like, "Do I hit this guy while he's dizzied, thus winning the fight for sure but losing precious honor, or do I not hit him even though he's beating me."  I've seen players make this call either way, and it's usually not easy.  

Also, villains tend to do things that cause honor loss.  This is no problem for them, because often they aren't in the tournament at all.  They're bosses.  You fight in order to get to them.  It does give them a dangerous edge in fights.  They'll hit you when your dizzied.  You know it.  NOW, do you hit them if you dizzy them?  I've seen players go both ways with this one, even after they've already been hit by a villain while dizzied.  That's when the desire to hit 'em back really manifests.  But I've seen people resist it.  

I know the idea of Glory and Honor came from Werewolf.  I'm not really familiar with how it worked in that game, but I had the impression that Honor is more interesting in Street Fighter than equivalent scores in Werewolf.  I could be wrong.  

Rich

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I usually say Wraith is the best game by White Wolf.

But then, I always forget about their red-headed stepchild, Street Fighter.

Ressurect this puppy, sans the license (!) and I think it would do well. Release it as a kind of street-level "Fight Club"-esque combat game, tweak the mechanics to do more with the whole Honor/Glory thing and it would do VERY well.

Hell, I'd buy it again.