Asian Horror?

Dauntless · July 2, 2003

I've been thinking of creating a game campaign that's part pulp-action, part martial arts, and part lovecraftian horror...think Big Trouble in Little China in the 20's. I might even push back the date and make it sometime in the late 1800's or early 1900's (think Boxer Rebellion).

Pulp-action is a fairly popular genre, as is horror, and martial arts, though a minor genre, has rabid fanatics. But what about Asian horror? Being part filipino, I grew up on a lot of asian cinema and lots of asian stories, and I've always been more intrigued by asian mythology and the supernatural. Combine the possibility of fighting with asian vampires, dragons, the Yama Kings of Hell, and summoning the mysterious powers of Ch'i, Ki or anting (a filipino thing) and I think it could make for some really cool gaming.

The trick is it can't be TOO overboard, otherwise it loses a sense of plausible denial. Big Trouble in Little China may have actually gone a little too far in that sense, as I would have made the 3 Storms' powers more subtle. Look at the Lord of the Rings movies for example...you didn't see Gandalf and Saruman throwing fireballs at each other. And look at the X-files for a case of its first two seasons giving you the willy-nillies because it seemed like all the cases could have been real...to the end episodes when they were dealing with ghosts and aliens. The ancient Chinese had a saying, "it's what you don't see that is the most provocative". From the popularity of the thread for the Asian Bestiary, I think there's at least a sizeable population interested in something like this.

So combine the mysterious supernatural with flying kicks and joint lock reversals set in a more quaint time period when automatic weapons were almost never seen, and the fastest transportation was a fast horse and I think it could be interesting. For a good look at the potential of this campaign setting, take a look at Mystic China from Palladium.

Markdoc · July 3, 2003

Personally I think it's a great idea, since I have a similar idea in the works, with the first few play-months of adventures written up. My emphasis will be India/China/Europe, but you could play such a game anywhere.

A couple of suggestions:

When I started thinking of the campaign, I also considered a 20's setting. I shifted it back to late Victorian for some of the same reasons you mentioned:

Reduced portable firepower (no tommyguns!) places more emphasis on fisticuffs, stealth and thrilling sabre duels rather than the players loading up with as much ammo as they can carry.

Poorer communications and poorer maps allows me to more plausibly insert odd happenings, lost tribes, etc, and slower international communications lets me keep the players where the action is happening (no, the next steamer out of Goa doesn't arrive for 12 days...)

It also lets the players get up to all sorts of shenanigans without immediately becoming front page news everywhere.

cheers, Mark

yamamura · July 5, 2003

That does sound cool. Being a fan of the Ring, I would like to see some the ideas An Asian Horror style campaign could bring.