summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2010-08-04 10:56 am
summercomfort) wrote2010-08-04 10:56 am
扶桑武侠伝 Character/Setting
So I picked up a martial arts role-playing game at Akihabara. It's called 扶桑武侠伝. Today I flipped through the Setting/Character stuff. It's... very specific.
SETTING: Basically the land of Japan with a martial arts twist. There are 4 islands, one in each direction (how convenient that Japan has 4 islands!). There is a mountain in the middle called 不死山, which conveniently transliterates to "Mt. Fuji". There are two dynasties, an eastern one and a western one, and there is extensive history and chronology for them.
What I find interesting is that they have 6 martial arts schools: 2 that are "Righteous" and support the government, 2 that are "Chivalrous" and wander around helping the poor, and 2 that are "Evil" that are trying to rule all of the schools, overthrow the govt, etc. They each have extensive histories, an account of their current situation, a martial arts specialty, and 3 existing characters (the school leader, the rebel, etc). On p.65 I also found a chart that sorts the schools by complexity of roleplay: the Sword Saints and the White Tigers are particularly easy to play because their special moves are easy to employ and have relatively straightforward missions/characteristics, the Open Sky and the Astrology are medium, and the Dashing Clouds and Malevolent Gate are the most difficult to play, because they use difficult weapons and require more creativity.
In addition to the 6 schools and 2 dynasties, there are some additional groups that just exist in the world. Basically, your standards: Beggar gang, Shaolin monks, Salt Gang, River Gang. They also have a short history and a defined leader character.
CHARACTER BUILDING
This seems to be mostly done with card randomizers. There's actually 2 parts. One half is just the basic physical characteristics, and the other half is all the fighting stats. For the fighting stats, you actually get to decide whether you want to follow a "standard" "original" or "master" character creation track. Standard means you just decide your school and copy down a set number of stats. Original and Master means that you get to look through pages and pages of moves and positions and choose a-la-carte.
I was kind of amazed at the number of charts there were, many of them sorted by suit AND number AND a second suit.
Anyway, I tried my hand at creating a character. Unless otherwise indicated, most of these came from card draw randomization.
School: White Tiger (Decided on my own)
Nickname: Moon Shadow (Decided on my own, with some examples on p.147)
Name: 元 明月 (combination of card draw and 2D6)
Family origin: Descendent of the 48th emperor who "disappeared" in 1033 with 7 Sword Saints during a period of terror and rebellion. (Only necessary if you got a "special" last name)
Age: 26
Age Impression: I look a bit younger than my age.
Height: 185 cm (6'1")
Body Impression: Charismatic. (other options: buff, skinny, seductive)
Skin color: 青磁 which is... celadon, which is...bluish?
Tattoos: Birds and beasts, dragons and tigers
Eye color: blue
Eye impression: kindly
Hair color: Midnight blue
Hair style: Very pretty braid/top knot
Unforgettable Memory: When I was a kid, in the autumn, just as the leaves were turning red, at a retirement ceremony, a hero from the Sword Saint school, in a battle to the death, took the position and wealth from the young me.
Clothing: (I can buy it with my money, but right now I'm just wearing standard. See below)
Carried objects:
Money: 11 silver 60 coins
生き様 (way of life): #37 Diamonds-- I love my family, I protect the weak, I am attending a friend's marriage ceremony...?
It's picked from a chart of trigrams:
And this is the actual thing:
Character: p.75, White Tiger standard character, which means I have 14 in body strength, feelings, and martial strength. I have 8 in my charisma and self-knowledge, and 1 in wisdom, cleverness, and spirit...? It's this cool wheel of 4 yang qualities and 4 yin qualities.
I also have 5 White Tiger special moves, and 2 normal moves. My weapons are my hands and a metal staff. I wear a bamboo hat, cotton pants, hemp jacket and hemp shoes.
Unfortunately, the next 2 chapters is about fighting and actual game play, and as a result, has much more finessed Japanese than my crude kanji+katakana can properly decipher, so I'll have to poke Jono about it, or find some other 日本語できる人
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
- Division into the righteous, the chivalrous and the evil
- Pre-established schools for players and then other existing organizations
- "basic" vs. "pro" character creation process
- The "way of life" thing is pretty cool.
- The yin/yang thing is pretty cool.
SETTING: Basically the land of Japan with a martial arts twist. There are 4 islands, one in each direction (how convenient that Japan has 4 islands!). There is a mountain in the middle called 不死山, which conveniently transliterates to "Mt. Fuji". There are two dynasties, an eastern one and a western one, and there is extensive history and chronology for them.
What I find interesting is that they have 6 martial arts schools: 2 that are "Righteous" and support the government, 2 that are "Chivalrous" and wander around helping the poor, and 2 that are "Evil" that are trying to rule all of the schools, overthrow the govt, etc. They each have extensive histories, an account of their current situation, a martial arts specialty, and 3 existing characters (the school leader, the rebel, etc). On p.65 I also found a chart that sorts the schools by complexity of roleplay: the Sword Saints and the White Tigers are particularly easy to play because their special moves are easy to employ and have relatively straightforward missions/characteristics, the Open Sky and the Astrology are medium, and the Dashing Clouds and Malevolent Gate are the most difficult to play, because they use difficult weapons and require more creativity.
In addition to the 6 schools and 2 dynasties, there are some additional groups that just exist in the world. Basically, your standards: Beggar gang, Shaolin monks, Salt Gang, River Gang. They also have a short history and a defined leader character.
CHARACTER BUILDING
This seems to be mostly done with card randomizers. There's actually 2 parts. One half is just the basic physical characteristics, and the other half is all the fighting stats. For the fighting stats, you actually get to decide whether you want to follow a "standard" "original" or "master" character creation track. Standard means you just decide your school and copy down a set number of stats. Original and Master means that you get to look through pages and pages of moves and positions and choose a-la-carte.
I was kind of amazed at the number of charts there were, many of them sorted by suit AND number AND a second suit.
Anyway, I tried my hand at creating a character. Unless otherwise indicated, most of these came from card draw randomization.
School: White Tiger (Decided on my own)
Nickname: Moon Shadow (Decided on my own, with some examples on p.147)
Name: 元 明月 (combination of card draw and 2D6)
Family origin: Descendent of the 48th emperor who "disappeared" in 1033 with 7 Sword Saints during a period of terror and rebellion. (Only necessary if you got a "special" last name)
Age: 26
Age Impression: I look a bit younger than my age.
Height: 185 cm (6'1")
Body Impression: Charismatic. (other options: buff, skinny, seductive)
Skin color: 青磁 which is... celadon, which is...bluish?
Tattoos: Birds and beasts, dragons and tigers
Eye color: blue
Eye impression: kindly
Hair color: Midnight blue
Hair style: Very pretty braid/top knot
Unforgettable Memory: When I was a kid, in the autumn, just as the leaves were turning red, at a retirement ceremony, a hero from the Sword Saint school, in a battle to the death, took the position and wealth from the young me.
Clothing: (I can buy it with my money, but right now I'm just wearing standard. See below)
Carried objects:
Money: 11 silver 60 coins
生き様 (way of life): #37 Diamonds-- I love my family, I protect the weak, I am attending a friend's marriage ceremony...?
It's picked from a chart of trigrams:
And this is the actual thing:
Character: p.75, White Tiger standard character, which means I have 14 in body strength, feelings, and martial strength. I have 8 in my charisma and self-knowledge, and 1 in wisdom, cleverness, and spirit...? It's this cool wheel of 4 yang qualities and 4 yin qualities.
I also have 5 White Tiger special moves, and 2 normal moves. My weapons are my hands and a metal staff. I wear a bamboo hat, cotton pants, hemp jacket and hemp shoes.
Unfortunately, the next 2 chapters is about fighting and actual game play, and as a result, has much more finessed Japanese than my crude kanji+katakana can properly decipher, so I'll have to poke Jono about it, or find some other 日本語できる人
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
- Division into the righteous, the chivalrous and the evil
- Pre-established schools for players and then other existing organizations
- "basic" vs. "pro" character creation process
- The "way of life" thing is pretty cool.
- The yin/yang thing is pretty cool.
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