Gone Gaming

So far I have yet to find a role-playing game that viscerally “got” a real feeling of martial arts combat, allowing blocks, dodges, and counters, and integrating that with grappling.

I feel like Jade Empire kind of got it, but that’s a video game, which allows real time fighting you just don’t get in a pen and paper. How do you capture the rolling flow of a brawl at the table top?

Perhaps it’s fundamentally impossible, but I’d like to think there’s a way. I like Spycraft’s use of feats that grant stances and tricks, which allows for techniques you mix with each other, but that fit well with each other and a style of fighting.

Grappling also works well in Spycraft as a contested skill check, as I feel grappling tends to be very much a “one side winning - one side losing” situation, unlike exchanging blows where both sides can be getting hits in. Grappling usually involves one fighter putting themselves in a superior position, and the other trying to either find a way to reverse it or waiting for an opening to exploit for a submission.

The only catch is that I’m not a big fan of the whole “level” thing, preferring a more organic growth of the character by parts.

I’ve been tossing around doing something involving cards, maybe using them as stunts the players can do from a particular stance, or the like. Obviously I’m not going to do this in a game that is not revolving around the martial arts, but I’d like to run one that had it as a motif, and I’m just not particularly fond of what I’ve got available to me.

In terms of pure flexibility there are games like Amber that are completely dice-less, but I know many players who prefer to have some framework to work from. I really feel like I’m talking myself in a circles when I try to think of a solution, but I really want to find something that works.

Sigh. I’m going to come back to this again later, it’s something I’ve been tossing around for a while now, and I don’t think I’m likely to resolve soon.

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