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HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?


Steve Long

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

For genre bit I would like to add that in most Martial Arts movies, in a skill vs. strength, it is the skills that win. And in a related note, this is usually shown by having a hulking brute bad guy. The bad guy is shown picking on the little guy, and can outlift our hero, but in the fight it is the hero that wins. Bolo Yueng anyone? I could have missed this point, by looking to much at the mechanics of this instead of the special effects. Granted, this is not prevalent in all subgenres, but I do think that this deserves a paragraph or two about this.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

Just a little update (for those of you who haven't already seen the news via my Facebook posting of a few minutes ago) -- I just finished up Chapter Five, the genre-by-genre chapter (which I tackled first since it is the biggest single chunk of all-new writing in the book, I think). Ended up with about a dozen new genre-specific Martial Arts styles, and 8 example NPCs.

 

And since Surbrook just turned in his chapter on Martial Arts Abilities two weeks ahead of deadline, I'm going to go ahead and tackle Chapter Three, that being the other really "new" stuff (though a lot of it's not truly new, just presented in a better, expanded sort of format).

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

I don't disagree with this as a philosophical premise at all. But I think applying that to HSMA' date=' or any other book really, would distort the book past the breaking point. This isn't "the book of any and all types of HERO System combat, anywhere." It's about [i']martial arts.[/i] Social combat is an interesting subject -- one I'd enjoy tackling sometime in the appropriate venue -- but it's well beyond what HSMA is intended to cover. ;)

 

Besides which, given all the sturm and drang the subject of social combat generated the last time I remember it coming up in any serious way, I'm pretty sure it will need its very own discussion thread when the time comes. :hex:

 

No argument here, I was just saying that because someone else brought it up.

 

I agree that it's definitely APG material.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

Oh one thing that I use alot from Nonja Hero 4th was the sheet to write up new manuevers with. It could be alittle better, perhaps two columns, one positive elemnts, and one for negative elements. But I think it would be a nice addition to the book. And yes I do have Hero Designer and I still prefer to do things by paper and pencils.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

A passing mention (and no more) of "woodchucking" as a ranged Martial Art would be priceless. ;)

 

Well, weren't we promised the addition of "woodchucking" with 6e 1&2?

 

I don't think that HSMA can feasibly fit that into it and include the Key Lime pie coupon.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

The only thing I want to see is ranged Martial Arts being treated as equals of HTH Martial Arts.

 

The same maneuver elements should be purchasable for a ranged MA as for a HTH MA. Cost might be different but I can see no logical reason that all maneuvers usable by a Martial Artist with his muscle power could not be used by a Martial Artist who happened to have TK or the force or whatever instead of muscle power.

 

e.g. a Jedi master could use nerve strikes, martial strikes, throws, killing strikes, chokes, shoves, trips, disarms, blocks et cetera et cetera.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

Will HSMA have martial arts related weapons like UMA did or will they only be in the equipment book?

 

HSMA will have a weapons list. Ordinarily my 6E plan would be to reduce the weapons list significantly and then put the full list in the EG, but since the EG is a ways off I'm making an exception in this case.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

The only thing I want to see is ranged Martial Arts being treated as equals of HTH Martial Arts.

 

The same maneuver elements should be purchasable for a ranged MA as for a HTH MA. Cost might be different but I can see no logical reason that all maneuvers usable by a Martial Artist with his muscle power could not be used by a Martial Artist who happened to have TK or the force or whatever instead of muscle power.

 

e.g. a Jedi master could use nerve strikes, martial strikes, throws, killing strikes, chokes, shoves, trips, disarms, blocks et cetera et cetera.

Agreed.

 

Now that I think of it, I don't think I have ever seen the Half Move or Full Move elements for a Ranged Maneuver, but now that we have Strave, I think that there could be a "Moving Shot."

 

On the other hand, don't forget that TK allows you to use any purchased martial maneuver at range.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

Under equipment, I like to maker the suggesteion that marbles should be rewritten up using the change enviroment power. I feel that it is better than the previous ways of doing things, expecially the active cost if you were trying to put it into a variable power pool. Incidentally this was one of the main reasons that I bought Fifth ed. ! : )

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

One combat option probably worth a paragraph or two is the possibility of self-injury from hitting something that's harder than you think it is. In literature I've generally seen this happen only in comedic stories (such as The Inferior Five and Not Brand Ecch) but it can happen in reality as well, or in a comic moment in an otherwise serious story.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

If there's no room for Stujutsu' date=' then there better not be room for chucking! Stujutsu is a higher priority![/quote']Thus the suggestion of limiting it to a passing mention. (Now that I think on it, "Stooge-fu" and American Football could also get passing mentions.)

 

By this I mean a sentence like: "The GM can use these maneuvers, or others of his creation, in building his own Martial Arts for just about any purpose, including American Football, 'Stooge-fu,' or even Woodchucking." And that's it.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

I'm still searching Cleopatra 2525 for the stunt I referenced earlier, but I found another one (one I've brought up before) at 12:50 in this episode (an episode which, for other reasons, I wish I'd paid more attention to in the context of TUV; it has a couple of cool vehicle-based ideas as well that I don't recall ever seeing anywhere else, at least in precisely the same form):

 

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

One idea that I thought of while reading this thread is to use the number of maneuver one character knows and what the other character knows and use the difference as a bonus for Analyze or say for every 5 points of difference in the number of maneuvers one knows above another gives them a +1 to either OCV or DCV. It would be one way to reflect being more knowledgeable.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

One idea that I thought of while reading this thread is to use the number of maneuver one character knows and what the other character knows and use the difference as a bonus for Analyze or say for every 5 points of difference in the number of maneuvers one knows above another gives them a +1 to either OCV or DCV. It would be one way to reflect being more knowledgeable.

 

I think that that's just simplistic and elegant enough to work!

 

I suppose that the only problem might be that it rewards martial arts styles with more techniques, but I suppose there are three things to observe:

 

1) If a style has more techniques then that can represent greater diversity and depth.

 

2) Points spent for more maneuvers are points not spent towards other things like STR, PD, SPD, OCV, DCV, CSL's, etc.

 

3) It's probably better off as an optional rule (perhaps a toolkit), but I like it nonetheless.

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Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

 

One idea that I thought of while reading this thread is to use the number of maneuver one character knows and what the other character knows and use the difference as a bonus for Analyze or say for every 5 points of difference in the number of maneuvers one knows above another gives them a +1 to either OCV or DCV. It would be one way to reflect being more knowledgeable.

 

That's certainly worth considering -- if nothing else it's an option worth throwing into the pot, since the entire discussion of this issue is likely to be more a presentation of possibilities than a hard-and-fast "it's this way" sort of thing. ;)

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