Roleplayer #22, November 1990
Zen and the Art of Game Design
Martial Arts Designer's Article
by C.J. Carella
The long road toward Martial
Arts began on a Saturday night, while my players were
creating characters for a super-spy campaign I was running. "My character
is a trained Thai Kickboxer," said one player. "Fine, get the
Karate skill," was my reply. "I don't want Karate, I want Thai
Kickboxing!" quoth he.
My player ended up buying the Karate skill and writing it in as Kickboxing.
This event, however, inspired me to work on ways to expand the martial arts
in GURPS. The system was already well ahead of
other systems (the ones that dump all Asian techniques in the Martial Arts
box) by separating Brawling, Judo and Karate; I figured it would not be
too hard to add some more detail.
At the same time, I had developed a set of cinematic martial arts for my
home-brewed Supers campaign. When I heard that
SJ Games was having problems with the Supers
book, I sent in my rules, and appended the Cinematic Martial Arts rules
as a proposal for a Roleplayer article. Some time later Loyd called
me; my Supers proposal was out, but he wanted
to include the Cinematic Martial Arts rules in the Supers book.
He also wanted to know if I was interested in developing a whole Martial
Arts worldbook. Would I be interested? Do flies fly? Do Trekkies
beam up?
Research and Realism
SJ Games wanted both historical and realistic martial arts material as well
as the combat rules I had been working on. Fortunately, I live only a blow
away from one of the largest library systems of the country. Soon I was
swimming in martial arts and Asian history books. I now had a perfect excuse
for renting every kung fu flick at the local movie rental place, but I cut
them with a healthy dose of serious movies like Kurosawa's great samurai
films. At the end of my research, I had a list of some 25 styles, several
dozen new maneuvers and skills, and many rules and optional rules.
The first obstacle in designing the book was style differentiation. Like
anybody who has practiced more than one martial art, I knew that each style
has its own characteristic stance, moves and techniques. Describing those
differences in game terms was difficult. I wanted to add as few new rules
as possible; wherever I could I would extrapolate from existing GURPS
rules. My first system involved giving each style a different
set of maneuver bonuses (they worked like the Alertness advantage). I drew
a long list of martial arts maneuvers, from Jump Kicks to Head Butts, assigned
point costs to each style based on maneuver bonuses, beefed up the cinematic
skills that appeared in Supers with several others,
and tried to beat my deadline.
Playtest and Point Costs
Some time after sending in the first draft, I traded in my Mac for a PC-clone
and a modem. I contacted the Illuminati BBS; in the midst of my bliss (nothing
like connecting to a gamers network) I began receiving feedback on the book
through the bulletin board. At first, I was oversensitive to criticism,
but have since become more thick-skinned. Somebody said once that a writer
must "murder their darlings." I realized that some of my be-loved
rules needed tinkering.
Then the playtester comments landed on my living room -- several pounds
of typewritten, laser-printed, handwritten and scrawled comments. After
reading them and consulting with Loyd, I changed the maneuver bonuses system
(it was too linear) and replaced it with a similar skill-based system that
should be more balanced. Some rules, like maneuver penalties, were judged
to be point crocks, and executed summarily. I got more information on new
styles and weapons (I particularly thank John Arruda for sending reams
of material on the martial arts; he definitely qualifies as having
gone "above and beyond").
Another problem was the point costs I initially suggested for beginning
characters. In the first draft, I had discouraged 100-point characters for
martial artists, suggesting a campaign with 200+ points. Several playtesters
reacted negatively to this. When designing the second system for martial
arts abilities, I set a new goal: the new system should allow me to create
a 100-point ninja character (Ninjutsu being the most expensive style found
in the book). When I could do this, I was satisfied. I still hold that higher-point
characters work best in Martial Arts, particularly
in a cinematic campaign, but now nobody has to use them.
After making all changes, running the manuscript through my brand-new spell-checker
and fixing any protruding springs or loose bolts, I electronically wrapped
up the manuscript and sent it on its way. I could finally stop reading,
thinking and breathing martial arts material. Now if only those darn ninja
nightmares would stop . . .
GURPS Martial Arts will be released in late October.
(Back to Roleplayer
#22 Table of Contents)