What about Chinese!?

[Jonathan Walton]

Nobody's really done a game based in the Spring & Autumn (like 800-450 BC) or Warring States (like 450-200 BC) periods, both of which are pretty well documented.  The only problem would be that it's late-Bronze/early-Iron Age in China.  The weaponry is badass and looks really cool (I just found some cool pictures, here: http://www.geocities.com/ycgf/museum.htm), but I don't think we really have a strong sense of how they were actually used, which would be critical in writing for a game like TRoS.  There are a lot of pieces (like the Shang Dynasty axes) that people suspect might have mainly be ceremonial and decorative, though some of them were definitely practical combat tools.

If you wanted a parallel to the "golden age of chivalry," the obvious choice would be the Tang Dynasty (which is like 600-900 AD), which is generally reguarded as one of the high points of classical Chinese civilization.  By then, you would have had most of the various weapons forms developed (like for all the weapons pictured here: http://www.wahlumdenver.com/types_of_ancient_chinese_weapons.htm).  Me, I'm a big fan of double hook forms, and you certainly wouldn't have them in the Warring States.  However, this would mainly be martial arts for their own sake.  Not especially practical for the average military swordsman, though they would definitely know some sword forms.

But I also admit a certain amount of apathy toward eastern settings, so...

No joke.  Me too.  Not apathy so much as eye-rolling.  Especially with "Eastern" fantasy settings like L5R and the like.  When they aren't horribly offensive they're just... boring.  Unless you can really get into the exotification (which I have a hard time doing anymore) there's not really much point.  

Can you accurately portray an Asian setting with players who don't have the background?  Probably not.  And the "Yes, grasshopper" schlock just doesn't do much for me anymore.  The key task would be trying to convey enough information so that you could find a mode of play that wouldn't just end up reinforcing stereotypes.  If you want martial arts, I think people should be able to have them, but if it's starts getting Fu Manchu, I'm going to bail.  You can always do The Matrix if you want all the kung fu and none of the surface-deep "Asian" personalities (well, there was Seraph...).

Maybe the Warring States would be a good choice then.  It's really early, which means it's back before China had most of the things that people think of as "oriental."  No kung fu.  No Buddhism.  No imperial system with magistrates.  Daoism and Confucianism are just beginning and haven't gotten all esoteric and full of BS.  Very little that you can really exotify too terribly.

[Ben Lehman]

If I can offer my 2 fen--

I think that a good China book would have guidelines for multiple historical periods.  Including (at least) Warring States, Three Kingdoms, Tang Dynasty, and magic/abstract/allegorical.

yrs--
--Ben

[Lance D. Allen]

I can see your points Jon, and can understand your disgust with common eastern settings. But you have to understand that these settings are so popular because that's what a lot of gamers want.

Consider how many people use Weyrth. Now consider how many of them do actual research to make Weyrth more "realistic". The numbers are there, and not insignificant, but the case is more for the fantastic side of things. I use Weyrth, but my Weyrth is probably much less "real" than Jake's Weyrth.. I learned that I just wanted to tell stories and have adventures, rather than history lessons. I'm sure my stories would be that much richer if I actually included some more historical elements.. but it's too much effort for too little return, in my book.

Any China supplement would have to be flexible enough for those who want a historical accurate China (your Warring States China) and for those who want "crazy martial arts" China.

[Jonathan Walton]

Maybe.  But is TRoS really made to support crazy martial arts?  The impession I had was that it's main selling point was Spiritual Attributes and an ultra-realistic fencing system.  I know it has magic, but if you get too crazy with your martial arts (like trying to mimick wire stunts) you're going to lose that realism.  I don't think a single combat system can handle both complicated ground fighting techniques (Fist of Legend, say, or Drunken Master) and flying-through-the-air wuxia craziness (Crouching Tiger, Hero, or Shaolin Soccer).  In the former, the audience is really watching for the details (every flick of the wrist, every twist of the hips).  In the latter, the actual moves don't matter as much as the emotions they generate (awe, for instance).

However flexible TRoS is, can it really support that kind of variety?

[daagon]

I think Martial Arts should be included, but not "crazy" martial arts. TROS should have real world martial arts. There is no place for wuxia in the TROS rules, in my opinion (and it's only my opinion, guys :)))

If you want wuxia, then I could suggest Exalted or Feng Shui, two fine games...   in my opinion ;)

But really, I'd be happy to see some accuracy stats for chinese weaponry and I would be a happy man. I'm REALLY looking forward to TFOB and the Japan supplement though.

[kenjib]

The book could also focus on historical TROS-style grittiness for combat then have a large-ish appendix on rules alterations and new combat styles for wuxia style craziness.  That way you get it both ways but the primary focus is still in the TROS spirit.

[Ben Lehman]

Any China supplement would have to be flexible enough for those who want a historical accurate China (your Warring States China) and for those who want "crazy martial arts" China.

BL>  There is a difference, though, between a "reasonably accurate crazy martial arts setting" (most modern Chinese martial arts movies / novels, say) and stupid bullshit cooked up through years of a quasi-imperialist martial inferiority complex.

Go 1.  Not 2.  That way lies only madness and Rokugan.

yrs--
--Ben

[Ben Lehman]

I think Martial Arts should be included, but not "crazy" martial arts. TROS should have real world martial arts. There is no place for wuxia in the TROS rules, in my opinion (and it's only my opinion, guys :)))

*psst*
Hey, you...

Want "realistic" martial arts in TROS?
Hard Style -- Add "Expulsion," "Evasive Attack," "Block Open and Strike" and "Double Strike" to Brawling.  Remove "grapple."  Use lots of power strikes.
Soft Style -- Add "Counter" and "Block Open and Strike" to Brawling, and emphasize defensive grapples and grappling to trap.

Also, change kicks so that they suck slightly less -- either get rid of the activation die or lower the difficulties.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  If you really like, design each "style" seperately, in regard to the techniques it has access to.  But, really, the differences between "schools" (say, Karate and Tae Kwon Do) can really be just a difference of stances and tactics.

[Bankuei]

Hi guys,

Realistic martial arts?  Easy.  Take somebody, and train them for several years.  If the period is filled with war and strife, the person most likely comes out of training with a lot of CP, and plenty of points spent towards Attributes.  If the period is peaceful, the person may come out well trained as above, or crappily trained but with a big ego.

As far as the fantastic styles, I think it would totally break from the TROS feel.  I mean, Western countries have their fantastic tales, aside from Sorcery, TROS doesn't try to model everything("The Green Knight lives after his head is cut off?  I want to know that style!").  Instead the attitudes and atmosphere is taken up, along with a healthy dose of realism.

Chris

[Jonathan Walton]

So guys, I was thinking a bit more in depth about how you could model "real" martial arts (no wire-fu), and it struck me that a really, really critical piece (at least, in the bit of kung fu that I know) is figuring out how to combine moves in succession, especially in combat situation when you're not doing form and have to adapt based on what your opponent is doing.  Just like in boxing, there's a lot of setup in the Chinese martial arts that I've done (and, I'm guessing, most "hard" martial arts, really).  You can't just jab someone in the face and then go straight into a butterfly kick.  It's about working the fight, manuvering your body and your opponent's body into a position where certain moves can be applied effectively.

In fact, forms seem to be set up mostly to let people practice transitions.  If you know like 80-some forms (the minimum, probably, for a decent martial artist trained in kung fu), you know that you can go from stance A to attack X,Y. or Z and have a whole set of choices layed out in front of you.  You can just pick whichever one seems the best idea at the time. In some ways, it's like playing Virtua Fighter, or something.  There are the button-mashers who just pummel away at thin air, and then there are the guys who lay in wait, setting up, and then pull off a killer move when nobody's looking.

Since I don't know that much about TROS, I don't know if it's set up to handle that kind of complexity (and I'm not sure how you could make combat run quickly in the face of so many details like body positioning).  Though perhaps if you were making a game that was mainly about kung fu, you could base it on a list of standard stances (horse stance, high horse, cat stance, etc.) and try to use those as transitions.  So from cat stance you have the choice of transitioning to certain moves and then have to decide on how you want your body to end up when the move is over (and there would be certain moves that would have required resolutions), assuming success.  If you got hit, that would limit your choices, maybe you'd have to roll to recover and choose your stance, otherwise your opponent might get to choose some inopportune positioning that they managed to force you into.

Different styles then, might have slightly different stances and transitions to choose from.  Some style might let you shift between moves in different ways (or you could develop that skill), so you could surprise your opponent with something unusual.  Also, perhaps you could try a non-standard transition at a penalty, just to keep things unpredictable.  Then, there would be the intentionally confusing styles, like how Drunken Style might let you transition from "Punch the Guy in the Face" to "Lying Down on Your Back" to "Kick the Guy's Kneecap" in an absurd fashion.

Anyway, just typing out loud...

[Bankuei]

Hi Jon,

The nice thing about TROS is that the average "move" in combat is an abstract thing.  You state how many dice out of your pool you're willing to commit to offense or defense.  

So a 7 die attack could be a powerful stab with a sword, roundhouse kick, smack with the butt of a spear, etc.  Although the numbers change a little bit based on which "weapon" you are using, effectively the abstraction makes the specific move irrelevant to game effectiveness.  The Manuevers are more specific, but also pretty abstract, so that Counter, is always Counter regardless of the specific methods in which you use to Counter.

And on terms of focus, when you look at the Warring States or the Three Kingdoms eras, you find a wealth of drama, politics and conflict on par with the Romans.  If we're going to have a sourcebook, it should actually cover more than common knowledge I can pull from the video store.  

Chris

[Jonathan Walton]

Thanks for the clarification, Chris.  That makes more sense.  Still, do players always get unlimited choices on what specific "weapon" to use next?  It's pretty hard to follow up a kick with an elbow or headbutt, just because of range issues.  Is that degree of detail too much for TROS?  Like I said, I don't really know how it plays.

And on terms of focus, when you look at the Warring States or the Three Kingdoms eras, you find a wealth of drama, politics and conflict on par with the Romans.  If we're going to have a sourcebook, it should actually cover more than common knowledge I can pull from the video store.

No kidding.  Personally, I'm beginning to prefer the Warring States period more and more (but that could just be from watching Hero again last week).  I mean, you have 7 main kingdoms (plus the smaller ones), tons of politicing going on, a striking-but-ambivilently-evil "villain" in the Qin Emperor, advances in technology (chariots, archery, iron weapons and armor), high culture and philosophical discussions alongside peasants toiling in the fields, a complex society going through a chaotic restructuring, strong family relationships, ancestor worship and folk beliefs at the core of religious life, and a close connection with what we might call "prehistory" (the Xia, Shang, and Zhou cultures).  Plus, if you decided it had to be a fantasy setting, there's plenty of mythology to draw on as well.  All in all, a time period tailor-made to be a roleplaying game.

[Bankuei]

Hi Jon,

The basic system includes the above, plus modifiers for range, my point being that the system is very flexible and at just the right level of abstraction to allow for nearly any fighting style without adding on tons and tons of rules.

In regards to the setting: Exactly.  The periods of city states up to the Three Kingdoms has to be some of the best periods for conflict and just really fascinating history.  Although you can see elements of things which would later solidify into Taoism, Confucianism and Legalist philosophy, its really a feudal free-for-all, at a point where survival takes precedence over ideals and "justifications" for military action.  

In other words, a perfect place to find the Riddle...

Answered in a calligraphy drawn in blood :)

Chris

[daagon]

But what if all you want (reffering to my original post) is the stats for chinese weaponry?

I'd probably create my own campaign world based on China rather than have to wade through tons of history on various peroids.

Will Chinese weaponry appear in TFOB?

[MrGeneHa]

The fun part would be picking an era and a genre.  Do you do pure-historical Warring States period?  Do you wait until kung fu is fully developed, which is much later, after Buddhism comes to China? Do you focus on the disciplined warfare of career soldiers or the flashy moves of martial art forms? How fantasical do you let things get? Etc.

In the spirit of TRoS, you would make it a mishmash of your favorite parts.  After all, our history doesn't find pagan hoplites and Teutonic knights in plate mail living in the same period.  So just figure out a way to let all of your fave bits of Chinese history coexist.

By the way, the 'Mongol' horde that sailed for Japan was not majority Chinese or Mongol:

"Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan and the founder of the Yuan dynasty, after subjugating the Koryo dynasty of Korea, demanded that Japan render tribute and establish diplomatic relations. After failing in this attempt, he dispatched a force of roughly 28,000 men, consisting mainly of Koryo soldiers, to make an invasion landing at Hakata Bay."
http://www.seinan-gu.ac.jp/university/english/living/mongol/genko.htm

The Mongols have never been a populous folk.

Gene Ha