TH is looking for a kung-fu story (M looking for mostly F players and GM)

Started by Thufir Hawat, March 26, 2014, 03:35:14 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Thufir Hawat

Recruitement closed due to the general lack of interest.
I haven't played a longer-lasting wuxia game around here, and I'm a fan of the genre (as well as of related "martial hero" genres from chanbara to swashbuckling and boxing dramas). So I decided, hey, why not try my luck?
(Sure, the odds are low at best, but trying never hurts IME :P).

Setting:

Obviously, it would be at some period in China...or not. Another Asian or non-Asian nation is fully workable. Ong Bak, anyone?
So, it doesn't have to be kung-fu, we might play with Silat. Or Capoeira. Or fencing. Or fencing, silat, kapoeira and kung-fu meeting sambo and muay thai and cleaning a Yakuza-owned bar together!
The latter would be easiest in a modern setting, admittedly.
And yes, it can be modern or even sci-fi or fantasy. Looking at it from the right angle, Star Wars jedi are just sci-fi martial heroes, and Fist of the North Star is post-apocalyptic martial hero, and Avatar (the animated series, not the abomination that was called a movie!) is obviously a story of fantasy martial heroes. And Sha Po Lang as well as Fist of the Blue Sky and countless other HK action movies prove that modern and nearly-modern settings are fun and entertaining with extra large doses of kung-fu ;D. That's before we get to SE Asia cinema, which I admit to not knowing all that well.

In short, wuxia is to me a genre. Setting is independent of that, as long as it supports the genre (intergalactic wars fought with long-range guns between computer-powered ships tend to be a problem when you want wuxia, unless most of the action is in court and duels are an important part of it).

Several possible options - you'll notice they're setting-independent again, but here are things I might play.


  • A student in a highschool for young martial artists. (Obviously subject to site rules!) This one might be mixed up with all the following ones. You don't have to be a Sifu in order to care about a younger student.
  • A student of a renowned martial arts school who gets entangled with the wrong woman. She might be married (punishable crime in historical China), have an influential husband (pretty much anywhere) or be unavailable for other reasons - too bad social standing, or from a family much over his own standing!
  • A martial artist gets entangled with crime when a niece is kidnapped.
  • A wizened old master realises his student has gone bad and sets out to find the reason. The reason can be an woman, or a man, drugs, illness, obligation... I'm pretty sure we can work a female character you'd like into a conflicting role there, now, can we >:)?
  • A martial artist is trying to organise a revolution in a steampunk setting powered by mystic jade. (Yes, I'm thinking of Jadepunk here ;D!)
  • ...I'm going to skip the "martial artist in the Old West" trope. Fists and swords don't compete well with guns, barring surprise, because distance (and gunslingers didn't practice less than martial artists). And I'm not interested in playing someone who has a martial gun style. It's fun, but I'm not in the mood for it. Let me continue.
  • A martial artist has a terrible secret: he turns into a wolf. Why? He suspects it might have something to do with a battle where he was hurt. And now he hears a martial artist, renowned both for her beauty and for bringing death to were-creatures, is coming to the region. In fact, he's expected to give her hospitality!
  • A student in a martial arts school notices the more experienced students are called for a ceremony, but when they go out, they're no longer the same person. And the new person is lacking in the empathy department! Is this the work of demons, or the influence of powerful Corrupt techniques?
  • A student in a martial arts school has to run to a new land for the crime of loving, which allows for the channelling of a dangerous amount of power. It's banned here as well, but she can find people willing to revolt. And one of them has never been conditioned not to love, it seems. (Spellbound Kingdoms is what brought this idea.)
  • A tournament! He's a competitor, or maybe he's just in the stable of one of the potential champions, or he's a journalist trying to make a story about it and masquerading as a sparring partner. She might be in the stable of another contestant or the same one, helping them as masseuse, or be an undercover cop, or might even be another contestant. Whatever the case is, someone would try to remove her - in order to preserve secrecy, or to ensure better odds for the betting.
    For that matter, someone might be trying to remove him, and she might come to the rescue. Either way, they'd have to run afterwards!
  • A kung-fu assassin is sent to dispatch an important figure. She might be his ticket for approaching the target, or she might be there to prevent that. Instead of natural enmity, some attraction blossoms.
I can go on, and on, and on... but let's just say that if you've got another idea, I tend to - hint, hint, hint - read PMs regularly O:)!
Keep in mind, we'll have to discuss themes for the story - so we may well end with a kung-fu story instead of a wuxia one (the two genres tend to be confounded, but they're very much Not The Same. Basically, it depends on whether Confucian or Daoist values would provide the main source of  conflict).
Spoilered Big Picture

Of course, all of the above can be played with anthropomorphic animals as well. Although I admit to not having much experience with that, but I'm willing to try new stuff.


What am I looking for?



  • A partner or partners to play with (including a GM unless we're planning to go GMless). Since my character is going to be a hetero male, obviously I'm looking for someone to play a hetero or bi female character or characters! Sexuality-wise, almost everything else is negotiable, but don't expect my character to be a sub. I just don't find it fun.
    On the other hand, you should feel free to play anything that doesn't lead to instant combat. I mentioned partner or partners, because I don't mind it becoming a group game. In fact, I'm planning to post it in both the Group Games and the One-on-Ones forum
  • I'm not planning to run the game. Again, GMless is the closest to that I might go. This is equally non-negotiable.
  • Of course, I'm also looking for a partner/s that share my preferences about the kind of stories I like to play and the way I like to play them. For example, I play to find out what happens, and I use systems. Both Tianxia and Jadepunk provide excellent roleplaying material, and they've been recently published.

What do I offer?
Well, obviously, I offer to play! Why would you care?


  • I've read or watched quite a bit of genre-related material, so maybe I'm not such a poor choice for a player?
  • I always have characters with goals strong enough to drive the whole campaign to a natural conclusion. Basically, you don't need a plot. A plot will emerge, I promise you - but we both might be surprised by it.
  • I seldom if ever leave a campaign. In short, I tend to be the last man standing. Now, that doesn't guarantee you I'm going to post fast, but most of my posts would be trying to move the action forward.
Systems:

As stated above, I use systems. In fact I admit that it was Tianxia, Jadepunk and Legends of the Wulin that drove me to suggest this. In fact, I'd very strongly prefer it if we used one of them! Hey, the settings are cool (and one of them offers a mix with steampunk and westerns).
But in general, if a system does wuxia, I probably own it already. If it's not the default genre, bit  well-suited for wuxia, I probably own it as well. This includes games like River and Lakes, Qin, Tibet the RPG, and a lot of games that aren't meant to do only wuxia, but can - like RuneQuest 6, Sorcerer, Shonen Final Burst, Reign and lots of urban fantasy, swashbuckling and swords and sorcery games. Seeker, Spellbound Kingdoms, Better Angels and Jaws of the Six Serpents immediately come to mind (and probably High Valor, but I'm yet to read that one ;D).
I'm most interested in Tianxia, Jadepunk or Legend of the Wulin, but if you want something else, feel free to suggest it, even if it's an adaptation of a more-or-less generic system. If it's not class-based and I own it, I might well enjoy it - and I've got lots of generic systems.
In fact, it's probably easier to list the stuff I don't own (and hence, I'd rather avoid it). The major systems I don't own are Ironclaw, Jadeclaw, Yusagi Yojimbo, Palladium's TMNT, the Hong-Kong Action Theatre, Sengoku, L5R and Bushido. Yes, it's easier to list those - many of which aren't wuxia systems, per se - than to make a list of what I do own. Guess it was already clear I'm a fan of the genre?


Well, if anyone is interested, post here!
Join The System Gamers List
Request thread 1 Request thread 2
Request thread 3
ONs and OFFs
"Love is a negative form of hatred." - Roger Zelazny, This Immortal

A&A thread!

Thufir Hawat

Join The System Gamers List
Request thread 1 Request thread 2
Request thread 3
ONs and OFFs
"Love is a negative form of hatred." - Roger Zelazny, This Immortal

A&A thread!