Don't get me wrong cos I love Japanese history and all about samurais and all that... but what about chinese weaponry? I understand that a Japan sourcebook will be coming out in the future, but will there be any mention of Chinese stuff?

Just wondered... :)

I think they should be in the TROS Japan book. How else would you carefully equip the massive invading force that gets utterly destroyed at sea by the forces of nature?

What, like the Mongols? ;)

Malechi wrote: What, like the Mongols? ;)

Okay - sorry for the hijack, but weren't the 140,000 troops of the second mongol invasion in 1281 all chinese with chinese gear?

Add China to my list of Mini-Supplement requests. Short of Hong Kong action movies and The Art of War I know zilch about China, and I'm not enough of an enthusiast to learn more. Consider that an open invitation.

I'm a Tokugawa Japan addict, though, hence the Japan book.

Jake

I'd live to write a china supp but i doubt anyone would want to read it as it would be a cross between monkey magic and jackie chan movies as this is where i have gained all my extensive knowledge of china from. :)

I'm more of a japan person as well Jake

Hi folks,

To be honest, a chinese sourcebook would either be insanely massive, or very focused.

Let's not forget that these were folks who were pulling up the largest land armies in the world, had armor, written communications, large scale tactics and strategies, understood logistics for long term warfare, siege engines, and espionage, for a few thousand years.

Yeesh.

An interesting focus that no one to date has taken with dealing with ancient chinese warfare is the chinese focus on leadership and understanding character. If you read the Romance of Three Kingdoms, Heroes of the Water Margin, and other classics, the focus isn't on the armies fighting, but rather the politics and people leading the armies.

A lot of the stories revolve around being able to understand a person's character, choosing loyal and capable underlings, and knowing the morale of your troops and those of your foes.

Chris

kenjib wrote: Okay - sorry for the hijack, but weren't the 140,000 troops of the second mongol invasion in 1281 all chinese with chinese gear?

Hi Brian,

I didn't say they used everything all the time, or very well ;) The Chinese have always suffered from the bueacracy issues, and throughout history have had the same issues that the modern Russian military has had: A some really elite units, and a bunch of mediocre to crap ones mixed throughout, and bad management over the whole. Typically throughout their warfare it was a matter of good management at the moment, major overthrow, quick decline to poor management, repeat.

What was interesting, is that when the Mongols got ahold of Chinese siege engineers, they really became a threat to walled cities.

The highlights of Chinese military were in specific places and times, and not overall, which is why I mention that a sourcebook would either have to be massiver, or else focus on one or a few key periods.

Chris

I, in no way, have the knowledge or wherewithal to write this right now. Perhaps in a few years, once I'm in Grad School in EAS, and can sneak it in with my research.

However, if someone else is doing it, please let me know and I will be glad to pro-bono consult on early Han history, Chinese Mystical thought, and some other miscellany.

yrs--
--Ben

Jake Wrote:
"Short of Hong Kong action movies and The Art of War I know zilch about China, and I'm not enough of an enthusiast to learn more."


Ah... bugger. :/

I just love all their weird and wonderful weapons. I don't know enough about their capabilities, uses and damage capacities to write anything even approaching accurate.

Ah, well... ne'er mind, eh? :)

Brian Leybourne wrote: And Chris, don't harp on too much about early Chinese inventions. Their problem was that technical people weren't allowed to talk to the people in charge and visa versa.

Hi Jon,

I'd love to see some Warring States stuff covered. Every rpg gets focused on the crazy fantastic martial arts aspects when dealing with China, but the Warring States offers a very ROS-ey period, where the focus is on loyalty, brotherhood, sacrifice, politics, betrayal, etc.

Chris

But... but.. what if we want the crazy fantastical martial arts?

::grins:: I suppose you'd have to have an overview of much of the period, so that it can be played out with minimal additional research by those who are interested in different aspects of the setting.

It'd be quite a bit of work, I'll freely admit.. But I also admit a certain amount of apathy toward eastern settings, so...

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

Wolfen wrote: 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.

daagon wrote: 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 :)))

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

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...

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

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.

Bankuei wrote: 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.

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

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?

Jonathan Walton wrote: 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.

Good point, Gene. But there are also risks involved in mixing various eras/genres together, namely, Ben's point about Rokugan: creating a fictional "East" that only exists in our minds and has no basis in reality, which can end up supporting stereotypes and culural misunderstanding.

By the way (and I apologize if you get asked this all the time), you don't happen to be (or be related to) the Gene Ha who penciled The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix for Marvel Comics, do you? Man, that guy's great. "Ha," just isn't a very common last name, at least where I'm from.

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

Hey, I know I'm new to the forums here, but in answer to your inquiry, and regarding my rather limited knowledge of Chinese weapons, a lot of the more "battle-style" kung-fu weapons seem to be fairly close to western-style weapons. For example:

For the jian (straight, double-edged sword), I would use the stats for the cut-and-thrust sword.

Dao (Chinese "broadsword", or heavy saber), use the stats for the saber for the longer, narrower "willow-leaf" swords, and the falchion for the shorter, broader "ox-tail" swords.

For the two-handed jian, use either basterd sword, longsword, or greatsword - the few reproductions and examples I've seen of this type of weapon seems to have many varieties, so I assume its more of the individual warrior's choice if s/he wants a lighter, pointier blade or a heavier one.

Clubs are clubs, and I've heard of staves ranging anywhere from 6-9 feet, so both the quarterstaff and the shortstaff would be appropriate.

The halberd and pollaxe would both work for those long-handled axes you see on various martial arts equipment websites, and the bill could probobly work well for the "general kwan sword" or the "kwan dao" (think a falchion at the end of a 6-foot stick).

Hand axes would be appropriate (like the "double hero axes"), as well as the mace for those "mellon hammers". Something like the morning star would work for those "wolves' teeth clubs", but I would make it two-handed only, increase the damage and DTN by one, and make it a long weapon, but allowing perhaps some half-swording techniques like with the pollaxe.

Light cavalry lances, pikes, and all varieties of spears would be appropriate, except perhaps the short spear - all the ones I've seen are often 6+ feet in length and used two-handed.

Daggers, of course, would also be carried, I think more along the lines of a poniard than a rondell however. Throwing knives would also be fairly common, maybe not for battles, but perhaps for self-defense and/or assassins.

Short bows and crossbows, I think, are the most popular ranged weapons, along with said throwing blades.

In this listing, although drawn largely from what I've seen on martial arts suppliers' websites and some somewhat more "realistic" blademakers (cold steel, for example, www.coldsteel.com), these are all weapons that seem would be fairly appropriate for a realistic, bloody, gritty and not-too-flashy Chinese fighting system. If you absolutely MUST have stats for all those wierd arm-blades, edged rings, and hooked blades, I'd probobly use the stats for daggers or short-swords (depending on weight and/or reach) for those fire-wheel or hand-held bladed weapons, and cut-and-thrust sword for the hook-swords, but put them under something similar to the "case of rapiers" proficiency (something to cover a variety of double-blades, like double-jians, double-axes, and double-daos) and give the proficiency the "hook" manuever to fully utilize those axes and hook-swords.

If anyone has any major disagreements with this, feel free to criticiz. I'm new to the game (I have the main book and OB&M, but have never played the game yet), and this is my first post on this forum, so chew away at me boys and let me know what you think!

Kaelin

first post hey?? well i get to say welcome to the forum :)

Yeah i think you have pretty much summed it up though i think i have said before possibly in this thread that my knowledge of chinese weaponry is based entirely on Monkey Magic and cheesy hong kong kung-fu movies. :)

Thanks Edge. Yeah, I'll be giving an official "hello all" post in the near future.

Is Monkey magic a specific game or movie? Or is it a sort of myth/story I have just never heard of? In any case, most of my familiarity with weapons come from websites like Asian World of Matrial Arts (www.awma.com), a book I read some years back on ancient Chinese weaponry (I forget the name and author), and movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which, despite the wirework, I think was very TROS-y, in terms of the character's drives and goals. I would work the wire-work as a type of sorcery, and adjust the rules to reflect this in some way - like making "gifted human" mean someone who can bend the laws of nature, but not break them so much as a sorceror would, making aging less of an issue). I studied dragon-style kung-fu for about three months before deciding it just wasn't for me, but from what I got of it, I got the sense that it can be very hard and brutal, very ground-based, and capable of being reflected by TROS without going overboard into Jedi-knight-style flips and leaps and such. I am by no means an authority on Chinese martial arts, what I wrote are merely my take on what little I DO know. A lot of weapons are fairly universal to many cultures, or are similar enough to be reflected by European weapn stats in everything except specific appearance.

On another note, a correction of what I wrote before - the use of the falchion stats for the dao or "chinese broadsword" would be mostly appropriate for the heavier "Nine-Ring Broadsword"-type weapons, while the shorter, lighter daos are more scymitar-esque, and thus should use the same saber/scymitar stats as the longer, narrower daos.

Kaelin

My knowledge is possibly slightly more than i give myself credit for as i have studied Kung Fu and trained in couple of the weapons you mention.

Monkey Magic or more correctly 'Monkey' is a Japanese cult series from the late 70's about the 16th century epic called Hsi Yu Chi

I have to say that taking up a Chinese campaign world is not a small thing, and it's been screwed up so badly by so many games that I'm not sure I'd want to 'port TROS to China -- I'd be afraid of ending up with GURPS China (a horrible, horrible thing). So my basic advice is negative.

Still, I spent a godawful amount of time trying to design a straight China RPG, and I want to pass on some of what I learned as it might affect a TROS version.

First, a couple references (as in things to read, not my references for my remarks or something):

Barry Hughart, The Bridge of Birds and its two sequels. Brilliant, hilarious, and deeply informed. Full of sinological in-jokes, but those are really just icing on the cake.

The Journey To the West (Xiyouji, Hsi Yu Chi, etc.), trans. Anthony C. Yu. Very funny 16th - 17th C. novel, well worth reading. Lots of beating on people by Monkey and his pals. Fantastic in the literal sense: not much use as straight historical background, but useful for getting a feel for Chinese literature and notions of fantasy. This is a true fantasy novel, actually -- one of the earliest. Arthur Waley's translation Monkey cuts most of the book -- like 80% or more. Yu's translation is arguably the best translation of a classical Chinese novel ever.

The Three Kingdoms, trans. Moss Roberts. If you want to read this book, this is the translation to get. A fairly harrowing saga of people brutally slaughtering each other for increasingly no reason. Based on historical events. Excellent for getting the feel of Chinese warfare and politics.

Shui hu juan [The Water Margin, The Outlaws of the Marsh, All Men Are Brothers, etc.] I'm partial to the Dent-Young translation, because Alex is a close friend of mine, and the Shapiro translation is solid as well, but I think there's really no good translation of this.

Robert van Gulik, (The Judge Dee mysteries). Van Gulik was a scholar and diplomat, and his novels nicely reflect a kind of odd mid-Tang China through images that imitate the Ming. Lots of fun, and a good source generally. The Chinese Gold Murders and van Gulik's translation of Dee goong an (Di gong'an) are the most faithful but also the least enjoyable.

Jean Levi, The Chinese Emperor. A real masterpiece in its weird way. A novelization of the life of the First August Emperor, Qin Shihuang (Ch'in Shih-huang). Terrifying. A sinologist, Levi beautifully reconstructs ancient China, in all its depth. If you're going to do a China game, read this!

If you read these, especially the last, I think you'll see that a 'port of TROS into China is going to be a huge undertaking. It's the background and history that's hard, though, not the fighting.

Frankly, I suspect that when metal hits metal, TROS already simulates things just dandy. Weapon quality in China is going to be lower overall, for reasons I can go into if you really want but which Joseph Needham has covered well in his massive History of Science in China, basically having to do with manufacturing technology and poor mass-production. Few Chinese weapons are going to be drastically different from European ones: there just aren't that many combinations of wood and metal used to kill people that last well on the battlefield. Some martial arts weapons are different, e.g. certain chain weapons and flexible staves, but these aren't really for battlefield conditions.

If you look at Chinese representations of soldiers across the ages, you're looking at a guy in relatively light armor, with a solid helm and a medium-big sword. He's a footman, and has also been given a spear. Chances are, half the time, he doesn't actually have a sword because they ran out, and they've given him a bamboo stick and told him to tie his dagger to one end and pray. Admittedly, a sharpened bamboo stick 10' long is something to be very afraid of, but footsoldiers really didn't have the greatest deal. The elite soldiers would have had considerably better armor, and much better swords, but nothing really to compare to the samurai at his peak. A well-made katana is going to eat most Chinese weaponry alive -- Chinese warfare wasn't about single combat, unlike in Japan, so it wasn't quality but quantity that mattered.

The big difference from TROS, I think, is going to be mass-combat rules. If you're talking battlefield, the Chinese have this habit of BIG combats. There is excellent reason to think that some of the battles that ultimately felled the Han dynasty (ca. 220 AD) may have involved some 10,000 per side. Let me repeat that. 10,000 per side. The Huang Chao (Yellow Turban) rebel assault on Chang'an (modern Xi'an) in 907, at the fall of the Tang, ended with no structure higher than knee level and no surviving defenders. None. We have a general's awed description of his return a few months later to a weedy, burned rubble-pit with rabbits playing in the heaps. And when the battle started, this was the most populous city in the world, with the largest walls standing (roughly 40' high and 15' thick around the entire city, to say nothing of the actual defensive walls around the palace). Fundamentally, the scale of Chinese mass combat is just not something medieval-Europe-based games can handle sanely.

Jake, until someone hands you at least 50% of a really, really good manuscript, I recommend that you shelve the China idea. It's a well of horror you don't want to get into, I promise. I know -- I tried to write such a thing once, with full background, for a game I ran. Never again!

Chris Lehrich