The Complete Series
Day 2: What is an RPG you would like to see published?
Roleplaying Games have an overwhelming amount of combat rules. Unfortunately, I think most of them are merely adequate.
Jim McClure’s Reflections (and Tobie Abad’s A Single Moment, if we’re talking genealogy) establishes a foundational history–friendship and conflict–between two warriors. It’s a game about the reasons why two friends came to blows after a few critical moments in their shared past. I love the idea and the execution of this mechanic because it raises the stakes in ways I didn’t realize was possible before I tried it out. It was deeply satisfying to find out the story beats that lead to a conflict. But the actual combat (inspired by the Japanese quick-draw technique, Iaijutsu) is practically an afterthought. As the game says, the whole history of conflict between these two samurai boils down to a single moment.
I want an RPG that carries this dramatic undercurrent over into a drawn-out, swashbuckling battle from the silver screen. I want to have that emotional framework for a 1-vs-100 battle a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s fight in the tavern. I want a system that combines passionate enmity with the strategic, deadly combat of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA). Without sacrificing the emotional element, I want to play a game that lets me do this:
Watch how often a defensive parry is redirected into a strike. Notice how often the momentum from a momentary loss is turned into a new attack. One of the core elements of HEMA is very much like Iaijutsu: every strike strives to deny your opponent every option but to be struck. Eliminate their options and you win.
It’s one of the reasons why I’m so excited about Clash of Steel, a card game from Ben Dutter that I recently backed on Kickstarter. It’s not a 1:1 translation of HEMA-style combat, but it approaches combat from a perspective that’s close enough. Pick your weapon, pick your attack and your target, then throw yourself at your enemy to see who had the better tactics this round. Disarms and grappling are both possible. Range and speed are considerations. All this without taking up more than 30 minutes. Sign me up!
A recent Twitter conversation with Eric Farmer gave me another puzzle piece for this system, which I may very well build myself someday. Eric was watching an old Shaw Brothers kung fu movie and had some great observations about what fuels the violence in these stories.
While I'm watching The Battle Wizard, you want to talk about Kung fu and RPGs? #rpgtheoryJuly #battlewizard
— Eric Farmer (@ericmfarmer) July 14, 2017
I highly recommend giving it a read. Combined with what I’ve learned from Reflections, Clash of Steel, and HEMA, the core of the system emerges:
- Motive and Relationship are critical elements of character creation and gameplay.
- Combat is furious and quick in the moment, but forms a substantial part of gameplay.
- Offense is about denying options to your opponent, not about overcoming their defense.
- Defense is about preserving your options in the moment, not about absorbing blows.
I prefer lean rulesets, so I think turning this core into an elegant, concise system will be a fun challenge.