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[PDQ#] Schwertkämpfer und Gelehrte: Wuxia-Adaption für PDQ#

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Nocturama:
Und dann noch ein bißchen Wuxia-fluff. Wird je nach Beobachtungen von mir erweitert. Falls jemand noch mehr Klischees kennt, bitte, immer her damit.

Below, you will find a list of Wuxia tropes. Not all tropes appear in all settings, so feel free to use them as an inspiration and dismiss those you don’t like or that don’t fit your gaming style.

Fighting Tropes

Shaqi

A stone-cold killer does not need to show of. He has an aura auf “death wind”, shāqì (杀气), which other fighters recognize and makes normal people uncomfortable. Hate and willingness to kill will cause the Shaqi to rise, calmness and happiness causes it to go down. Can be used to measure how dangerous an enemy is.

Acupressure attack

In Wuxia, the human body is very similar to a machine – just push the right buttons and the most amazing things will happen. Acupressure attacks target specific “qi” points in an opponent’s body. Aside from just hurting the other guy, acupressure attacks can instantly knock their target out, paralyze the whole body or just one limb, lock the “inner power” and thus preventing the opponent from using supernatural powers or more bizarre things.
If you want to incorporate the stranger effects of acupressure attacks, best handle it the same way as S7S handles magic: if you want to do something above normal attacks, pay for it with style dice.

Wuxia-crash course

The road to master Wushu is long and painful – or is it? More fantastic movies feature the “crash course”: A master hits a student’s (or unwilling victim’s) pressure points and transfers his own knowledge and Inner Strength. Books depicting a certain style might also be used as a crash course, but those often also involve a training sequence. One Wuxia TV-show features magic tattoos granting special techniques when read…

Ultimate Technique Book

So you did all your training, learnt to be a Gaoshou, but word’s out about the ultimate technique – either your own school’s or just a very powerful technique. A reclusive teacher on some remote mountain is not the only way to learn that technique. A book, or a scroll, is just as well. Finding that book might just include a long sub-plot…

Injury Tropes

Discoloured Lips
 
If a character is close to death or severely wounded, his lips will turn either pale or very dark (black and white in cheaper shows). Black lips sometimes also indicate that a character has been poisoned, is drugged or in some rare cases, crazy.

Spitting Blood

After having received a horrible blow, characters will often spit blood. More accomplished heroes will stand for an I’m-okay-second and THEN gush out blood. Same goes for acupressure healing of poison, which is instantly regurgitated.

Suicide

Suicide in Wuxia stories isn’t the ritualistic kind of samurai tales. Yes, it is often connected to shame, but an angry, emotional shame. Equally often, suicide is committed to protect somebody or to not longer burden them, as is suicide out of spurned love. A discarded lover might just jump into a well.

(Self-)Mutilation

Loosing a leg or – more likely – an arm is not impossible in the Jianghu. It’s not the end of the world, either, as you can just refresh your One Armed Swordsman Style and go on doing what you do (just dump your Double Snake Style for it).
When faced with a poisoned limb or the impossibility to control the own killing urges, the strong-willed xiake chops it of with his own hands.

Other Tropes:

Zamen he yi wan! Let’s drink a bowl!

Drinking is not a vice in Wuxia stories. Well, sometimes it is, but they still drink a lot. Not necessarily a bad thing if you are a drunken master or a poet, who get’s pissed as hell and then writes his best calligraphy.
Asking your enemy to first drink together is perfectly acceptable. You drink using flat bowls, really small bowls with a teapot, or a three-legged bronze vessel.

CSI: Tang Dynasty

If you believe certain stories, ancient China’s investigation technique was strangely advanced: you could identify poison by the structure of burnt bones, pour a certain liquid on the ground to make bloodstains visible or put herbs on a dead body to see where it was hit.

Advanced Medicine

In the same vein of the CSI methods mentioned above, ancient Chinese medicine can do some wondrous things in Wuxia stories. Use acupressure or acupuncture to expel poison. keep a dead man alive for some more minutes or supercharge a patient’s senses, make facial reconstructions and roll pills that cause an artificial coma.
As with acupressure attacks above, if you would like to use really advanced medicine, I suggest to handle it like gifts and magic in the S7S-setting.

Musical Dialogue

No, not a musical, a dialogue through music! Whatever is on somebody’s mind can be transmitted through music. The most famous example is the Warring States composer Bo Ya, whose close friend Zhong Ziqi could read the images on Bo Ya’s mind while listening to his music. There’s even an expression based on that idea: Zhiyin, “understanding the music”, which refers to a close friend.
The same trope sometimes appears in Wuxia stories, where characters will converse or understand another’s thoughts and motives by playing music together, especially the Qin.

Overly Complicated Backstory

“So he first kills a tiger and becomes a constable because of killing that tiger – which was very dangerous – and than he meets his brother, who is very ugly, but is married to a very beautiful woman, who was forced to marry the ugly guy because her former master made advances and she didn’t want to. So she tries her luck with the strong brother, who turns her down and then drops a stick on some other guy who also wants to do her and she actually also wants to, so they have an affair. The husband finds out, they kill him and tell everybody he was sick, but everybody knows what was going on. So the strong brother comes home and slowly discovers the murder complot. He forces the neighbours into his brother’s house, forces the murderers to confess and then kills them. But because his superior likes him, he isn’t sentenced to death for his crime and instead exiled, after which he joins the bandit-rebels.”
Something like that.

Tragic Romantic Death

Oh, how they love those. I can hardly remember when I last saw an Wuxia movie or tv show where the happy couple survived. In a western action movie, it’s a good for survival to be the hero or the heroes love interest. In Wuxia, it’s a death sentence. Killing a PC for this trope isn’t the best idea in a campaign. Stuffing the love interest in a fridge (killing it) is totally fine, even if I personally hate this particular trope.
A subtrope is the self-sacrifice of a loved one: throwing his- or herself in the enemy’s blade, going back though he or she knows they will kill her, suicide as not to hold the hero back.

Nocturama:
So, bisher habe ich vor allem was für mein Setting getan und kämpfe gerade mit mir, wieviele NSCs und Organisationen es braucht...

Erstmal ein "Duel Tweak", der bei Wuxia einfach rein muss. Gehört zu denen, die man einmal frei einsetzen kann und die danach einen Style Die kosten.

Additional Duel Tweak:

Into Harms Way*

The villain’s sword aims straight for the hero’s heart. Death is imminent – if not, in the last second, the hero’s love interest would jump in front of him, taking the brunt of the damage. Meaning, one SC can accept the damage ranks aimed at another SC. As this is extremely Good Form (and very appropriate for lovers), it should gain the SC a Style Die.


Und dann noch was zu Giften. Die waren in unserer Proberunde zwar vorhanden, aber nicht so dramatisch...


Poison in Wuxia

Poison is a regular feature in Wuxia. As in most genres, it is Bad Form for the heroes to use such cowardly measures, barring the instances where the poisoner is tricked into drinking his own concoction or cut by his own poisoned weapon.
Most poisons start with the second category under “The Purposes of Poison” (PDQ# p.28). A regular “Poisoned” Plot Hook can be healed with a Challenge using an appropriate Forte like Doctor, Daoist, or even Wushu (after meditation, special exercises or some self-inflicted acupressure).
Wuxia poisons, as they are part of the historic “super science” of most Wuxia settings, can lead to more fantastic results than just bodily harm. Victims can end up in a coma, find themselves unable to use their Inner Strength and thus their Wushu Forte, have their memory erased, or go into a berserker rage. Additionally, some poisons can only be healed by a specific antidote, often resulting in a sub-plot. Such “special” poisons count as “Vexing Misfortune”, net three Style Dice and a Plot Hook, e.g. “Poisoned: Inner Strength Locked” or “Poisoned: Can Only be Healed by the White Mountain Water”.


Box: Locking the Inner Strength

As mentioned in the description of acupressure or poisons, in some Wuxia settings it’s possible to “Lock the Inner Strength”: Taking away somebody’s ability to use the Wushu Forte. Some players are less than thrilled to effectively loose one of their edges, so don’t just push that kind of Vexing Misfortune on them. Give them the opportunity to say “no” and if they do, switch to a more moderate form of poison. Of course, this doesn’t count as Vexing Misfortune and doesn't net any Style Dice, so feel free to use those Style Dice as a form of bribe. And don’t forget to lessen the pain through more Style Dice as the story progresses. Think of the Story Hook as a form of temporary Foible.

Laivindil:

--- Zitat von: Nocturama am 25.02.2011 | 14:39 ---Into Harms Way*
--- Ende Zitat ---

Grundsätzlich eine tolle Idee, und, ja!, das muss in ein Wuxia-Setting - eigentlich muss das in jedes Swashbuckling-Setting.

Ich verstehe nur folgendes nicht:

--- Zitat von: Nocturama am 25.02.2011 | 14:39 ---Gehört zu denen, die man einmal frei einsetzen kann und die danach einen Style Die kosten.
--- Ende Zitat ---

Dh, wenn ein PC vor den anderen springt, um den Schaden zu nehmen, muss er/sie beim 2. Mal dafür einen SD zahlen?
- Würde es nicht ausreichen, diese Aktion einfach nur als Beispiel bei Good Form zu beschreiben?

Und:

--- Zitat von: Nocturama am 25.02.2011 | 14:39 ---The villain’s sword aims straight for the hero’s heart. Death is imminent
--- Ende Zitat ---

Sterben läuft ja ausserhalb des normalen Schadenssystems. Dh, selbst wenn beim PC alle Stärken ausgeschaltet sind, ist er ja nur Größtenteils Tot; und ein gesunder Held kann (theoretisch) quasi sofort sterben, denn lt. S7S-Regelwerk stirbt ein Held ja nur bei extremer Dummheit (das ist keine Lava!), durch einen Erzfeind (Nimm das!) oder nach "Vereinbarung". Wenn das in der Szene der Fall ist, wäre ja kein Schaden zu vergeben, sondern nur der Todesstreich übernehmbar (nicht, dass das nicht eine Gelegenheit für hoch dramatisches Rollenspiel wäre), sprich: danach ist der einspringende PC tot (und nicht nur Größtenteils).
Oder habe ich Dich falsch verstanden?

Nocturama:

--- Zitat ---Dh, wenn ein PC vor den anderen springt, um den Schaden zu nehmen, muss er/sie beim 2. Mal dafür einen SD zahlen?
- Würde es nicht ausreichen, diese Aktion einfach nur als Beispiel bei Good Form zu beschreiben?
--- Ende Zitat ---

Stimmt eigentlich, das war von meiner Seite intuitiv unter "außerhalb der Norm, deshalb SD" gefallen. Im Grunde kann man es aber als normalen Duel Tweak lassen und wenn's anständig ausgespielt wird, gibt es noch einen SD.


--- Zitat ---Oder habe ich Dich falsch verstanden?
--- Ende Zitat ---

Ja - das war schlicht und einfach dramatisches Geschwurbel  :D Die Aktion kann man immer machen, wobei sich die klischeehafte Anwendung bei einem schwer verletzten SC findet, das kennt man ja. Im Quellenmaterial ist das in der Regel ein richtiges Selbstopfer und der/die ist danach hin - aber das fände ich für's Rollenspiel unpassend.
Aber da sieht man mal, wie Mißverständnisse entstehen  :P Die Formulierung ändere ich dann bald.

Laivindil:
Es ginge (wenn man es zuließe) auch spontan mit NPC:

* der Spieler schafft einen benamten NPC (1 SD), zB die Tochter der Magd vom Familienhof, die schon in Kandertagen in ihn verliebt war, und zufällig hier arbeitet / Kräuter sucht / als Gefangene gehalten wird
* er lässt diese NPC sich für den Char opfern (2 SD; major fact)
Beim ersten Spieler würde ich das zulassen; wenn das zum normalen Manöver würde, hätte ich etwas dagegen. ;-)

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