Outlaws of the Water Margin

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

I always liked The Marvel Superheroes RPG's use of the term "Judge", as it implies impartiality and analysis (or, at least to me, anyways).

IME, it doesn't matter what a book says, players are just going to call 'em "GM", but I've heard the acronym for so long I often forget that it stands for such a grandiose title.

I guess I've been out of role-playing for so long that my first reaction to 'GM' is that it stands for 'genetically modified' -- and I'm not all that keen on that either!

Judge is pretty good (and would sort of suit China). I can't remember what term Marc adopted in the Judge Dredd RPG.

 

[Panzerkraken]

The Shapiro translation is pretty good (certainly better than either Pearl Buck or J H Jackson), but I do think the more recent version, The Marshes of Mount Liang, by the Dent-Youngs, has a livelier style, which suits the story better.

I'll give it a look. The Shapiro was on Kindle for just $6, so it won the "I don't really know which to get" prize.

 

[AsenRG]

I guess I've been out of role-playing for so long that my first reaction to 'GM' is that it stands for 'genetically modified' -- and I'm not all that keen on that either!

Judge is pretty good (and would sort of suit China). I can't remember what term Marc adopted in the Judge Dredd RPG.

I like Referee and Judge better because it shows, to me, an expectation to impartiality absent from GM/ST.
In practice, I never use "judge", because that's the word for a soccer referee and I don't need to hear the kind of popular chants regarding those that even non-fans know.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

I like Referee and Judge better because it shows, to me, an expectation to impartiality absent from GM/ST.
In practice, I never use "judge", because that's the word for a soccer referee and I don't need to hear the kind of popular chants regarding those that even non-fans know.

'Judge' to mean a ref? Weird. Where are you in the world? As I understand it, the official term for an Association Football referee is ... 'referee'. (Or
Fußballschiedsrichter, arbitre, arbitro etc if you want to be pedantic. But in English: referee).

And all the popular chants I know on the topic use the term 'ref' or its more technical equivalent: 'Who's the bastard in the black?'

 

[AsenRG]

'Judge' to mean a ref? Weird. Where are you in the world? As I understand it, the official term for an Association Football referee is ... 'referee'. (Or
Fußballschiedsrichter, arbitre, arbitro etc if you want to be pedantic. But in English: referee).

And all the popular chants I know on the topic use the term 'ref' or its more technical equivalent: 'Who's the bastard in the black?'

I'm in Bulgaria
It's called "football judge" as opposed to "referee". Mind you, the word referee is still used for other sports, from chess and fencing to swimming, just not for football (that people from the USA call "soccer"). I'm not sure about the other ball-based sports, now that I think of it, never was much of a fan myself.

Keeping to the good tone, let's just say the attitude towards football judges has been fuelled by a string of, ahem, contentious decisions and is akin to (or worse than) the one towards politicians.

Amusingly, there's much less of a negative attitude towards actual judges, but I wouldn't count on that unless I was planning to run the game in toga!
Which I'm not going to do, of course. I mean, it might fit a Roman campaign, but not a Chinese one!

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

I'll give it a look. The Shapiro was on Kindle for just $6, so it won the "I don't really know which to get" prize.

Shapiro is well worth $6!

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

Amusingly, there's much less of a negative attitude towards actual judges, but I wouldn't count on that unless I was planning to run the game in toga!
Which I'm not going to do, of course. I mean, it might fit a Roman campaign, but not a Chinese one!

It's all in the hat! Get one of those funny magistrate's hats with the wings, and you're away!

As Elrod the Albino said: 'Mind your manners, son, I've got a tall, pointy hat!'

 

[AsenRG]

And here I was considering running the game in my Chinese style training uniform (which should still fit me)! But that would identify me as member of he jianghu/wulin, not a magistrate of the Empire, wouldn't it?

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

And here I was considering running the game in my Chinese style training uniform (which should still fit me)! But that would identify me as member of he jianghu/wulin, not a magistrate of the Empire, wouldn't it?

Twenty years ago, when I still had a lot of this stuff in my head, I would have replied with a historical tract about when certain styles of clothing were adopted in China.
Thankfully, it is no longer so readily accessible, so I will simply express my regret that I never ran a game dressed in one of my spinky-spanky silk taiji outfits.

 

[AsenRG]

Twenty years ago, when I still had a lot of this stuff in my head, I would have replied with a historical tract about when certain styles of clothing were adopted in China.
Thankfully, it is no longer so readily accessible, so I will simply express my regret that I never ran a game dressed in one of my spinky-spanky silk taiji outfits.

It's never too late!

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

I've just been rummaging through my files to try to get the original of the China map so I can update it, and I was surprised to find a letter from Ed Simbalist from 1998, confirming that I was chief contributing author on Dragon's Throne, the name adopted for C&S China. I'd completely forgotten that. Why on earth I agreed, I have no idea, given that my ideas on role-playing had drifted a very long way from C&S by 1988, let alone 10 years later. I guess I must have just been feeling nostalgic. Looking at the legal stuff, it's hardly any better than GURPS (which I noticed I ranted about in the Outlaws manuscript).

Luckily I still have the map, and even more luckily, Illustrator appears to be able to import CorelDraw files.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

Now that the momentum is building, and I'm really getting stuck in, I'm grasping why I never finished the game the first time. Take travel, for instance. That's the thing I'm working on at the moment. For me, it's an important matter. The modern world has made us blasé about what travel entailed in history. Travel was an adventure and a privilege (perhaps coronavirus is reminding us of some of that?). So I've been trying to figure out my rules for travel. And just for kicks, I tried looking through the travel rules of other role-playing games I happened to have to hand... and noticed, what travel rules? No one apart from me seems to think this is significant! So, if I end up, as I may do, knocking together some simple travel rules, with a few Swiss cheese-style holes in them: there's your reason.

Every game has holes. Every single one. Good games are the ones where you forgive the holes, and paper them over. Bad games are ones like Indiana Jones, where you laugh fit to burst when you discover that if you tie someone up, put a stick of dynamite in their mouth and light the fuse... it won't kill them. My problem is the quest for perfection. I started the redesign on Outlaws because having played it (OK, let's say 'playtested' if that sounds better) for many years, I became intimately acquainted with the holes. Not the kind of holes you can paper over with a rewrite. Fundamental holes in the system. In retrospect, I should have recognised that, as I say, every game has holes, and these don't actually impact that badly on the game experience.

Nevertheless, what is happening at the moment is that a particular one of those holes -- time -- is looming large. If I still edited a fanzine I would be writing a detailed article about the whole notion of managing diegetic time. Thank god I'm not. So instead, Dave Morris and I are hashing out a slightly new approach to timing in combat... while still trying to leave the combat system virtually intact. When I designed Outlaws, I recall sitting watching cinematic wu xia combats, analysing what happened, timing it, and trying to make a system that allowed it. What I missed was the rhythm of combat. I was still too wedded to the traditional D&D combat round. I said that a combat round was an elastic measure of time, but in fact this has no impact on players' perceptions of the rhythm of combat. So now I'm going to say that time is measured in... units of time. In principle, an action in combat takes 1 second. But stuff might take longer. And furthermore, there will be occasions which break off the flurry of blows (I think flurry is going to become an important new game term). So instead of just being the same old slanging matches, combats can be a bit more like my cinematic models: flurries of blows, interspersed with periods of jockeying for position, attempts at intimidation etc. Is it going to work? I hope so. But the guiding principles will be: i) keep it as simple as possible, and ii) make it so that it provides interest in combat.

At this rate, I may even end up playing role-playing games again. Even if it does mean getting up at 3:30 am!

 

[Voros]

Only The One Ring's Journey rules seem to really take travel in consideration as both a mechanic and a part of the game.

 

[TristramEvans]

Only The One Ring's Journey rules seem to really take travel in consideration as both a mechanic and a part of the game.

Ryuutama is a game entirely focused around travel.

 

[TristramEvans]

Now that the momentum is building, and I'm really getting stuck in, I'm grasping why I never finished the game the first time. Take travel, for instance. That's the thing I'm working on at the moment. For me, it's an important matter. The modern world has made us blasé about what travel entailed in history. Travel was an adventure and a privilege (perhaps coronavirus is reminding us of some of that?). So I've been trying to figure out my rules for travel. And just for kicks, I tried looking through the travel rules of other role-playing games I happened to have to hand... and noticed, what travel rules? No one apart from me seems to think this is significant! So, if I end up, as I may do, knocking together some simple travel rules, with a few Swiss cheese-style holes in them: there's your reason.

Every game has holes. Every single one. Good games are the ones where you forgive the holes, and paper them over. Bad games are ones like Indiana Jones, where you laugh fit to burst when you discover that if you tie someone up, put a stick of dynamite in their mouth and light the fuse... it won't kill them.

I kinda look at it this way - an RPG is essentially a form of structured dialogue, and the rule system used establishes the framework for that discussion. What gives the framework utility isn't it's complete ability to preanticipate every topic brought up on the discussion, rather how flexible it is in accomodating the tangents of the participants.

Nevertheless, what is happening at the moment is that a particular one of those holes -- time -- is looming large. If I still edited a fanzine I would be writing a detailed article about the whole notion of managing diegetic time. Thank god I'm not. So instead, Dave Morris and I are hashing out a slightly new approach to timing in combat... while still trying to leave the combat system virtually intact. When I designed Outlaws, I recall sitting watching cinematic wu xia combats, analysing what happened, timing it, and trying to make a system that allowed it. What I missed was the rhythm of combat. I was still too wedded to the traditional D&D combat round. I said that a combat round was an elastic measure of time, but in fact this has no impact on players' perceptions of the rhythm of combat. So now I'm going to say that time is measured in... units of time. In principle, an action in combat takes 1 second. But stuff might take longer. And furthermore, there will be occasions which break off the flurry of blows (I think flurry is going to become an important new game term). So instead of just being the same old slanging matches, combats can be a bit more like my cinematic models: flurries of blows, interspersed with periods of jockeying for position, attempts at intimidation etc. Is it going to work? I hope so. But the guiding principles will be: i) keep it as simple as possible, and ii) make it so that it provides interest in combat.

At this rate, I may even end up playing role-playing games again. Even if it does mean getting up at 3:30 am!

I wonder how much actually specifying the length of time matters? If the players have options that encompass significant events, then it seems like the significance of those events seems more important than the actual amount of seconds in-game they require or model except in the very loosest sense. To try and explain, what I mean, if one combatant initiates a flurry of blows, this is going to be a fast-paced exchange between them and their opponents. If in contract, another opponent initiaties an attempt to "jockey for position", this may be a slow circling of opponents warily and some maneuvering. It may take three times as long in the game world for this to complete than the first, but in both cases it's simply one opponents attempting to gain an advantage over the other , whether that's an advantage of injury or opportunity. But in game terms, both are utilizing their "turn" in a way that feels equal.

 

[dbm]

For a more simulationist take on travel, check out Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. It has some fairly extensive rules for navigation, foraging and so on.

 

[TristramEvans]

simulationist

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

Only The One Ring's Journey rules seem to really take travel in consideration as both a mechanic and a part of the game.

Makes sense, really. I get Cubicle 7 emails, but I haven't ever got any of their games apart from the Doctor Who one, and I'm not sure why I got that, as I'd already stopped gaming.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

I wonder how much actually specifying the length of time matters?

I should have mentioned that one thing I had already determined was that the actual elapsed time only matters when there is some parallel event: a spell duration, for example, or someone else showing up at some point that has a bearing on the action. So diegetic time doesn't have to be worried about in other cases. And it was this that made me realise that rather than obsessing about time, we should be thinking of rhythm.

If the players have options that encompass significant events, then it seems like the significance of those events seems more important than the actual amount of seconds in-game they require or model except in the very loosest sense. To try and explain, what I mean, if one combatant initiates a flurry of blows, this is going to be a fast-paced exchange between them and their opponents. If in contract, another opponent initiaties an attempt to "jockey for position", this may be a slow circling of opponents warily and some maneuvering. It may take three times as long in the game world for this to complete than the first, but in both cases it's simply one opponents attempting to gain an advantage over the other , whether that's an advantage of injury or opportunity. But in game terms, both are utilizing their "turn" in a way that feels equal.

Absolutely. But our problem is that we became obsessed with gamey words like 'round' and 'turn', and used them to measure time. (Obviously I emphatically include myself in that 'we').

Original D&D had one-minute rounds. The idea was that there was loads of jockeying for position, exchange of blows etc, but each combatant only had one chance during that minute to get a significant result. It was an interesting idea, but utterly disastrous, because no one ever thought about it like that. And it's noticeable that later games reduced the length of the combat round and ditched the idea that there was all this unmentioned 'other action' going on. This trend continued until some bright spark took the combat round down to 1 second in his historical Chinese game. I got that 1 second by, as mentioned previously, actually watching wu xia movies, and timing how long between significant actions. So I guess the thing was that I was going to the opposite extreme from D&D by specifying everything. Curiously, my revision to the game entailed effectively returning to the notion underlying the 1-minute D&D round.

Still, the thing about RPG combat is that it's an aesthetic experience in itself. On the one hand, it provides a 'game' pleasure, no different to any other form from chess onwards. But at the same time it provides a 'dramatic' pleasure, because it is enacting a story (or, more strictly speaking, an action sequence). Many of the stories we tell about games we've played derive from these fused pleasures. But the pleasures derive from the specification. Stuff that's ignored, as in D&D, might as well not exist. The problem is that over-specification (I'm looking at you, GURPS and C&S) undermines the aesthetic experience by burying that dramatic pleasure under book-keeping (and very rarely providing a superior 'game' experience).

And that's why Dave and I will be working on providing a relatively simple way of expressing combat dynamics. At present, it is based on two main thoughts: one is the distance between combatants (separated, in melee, or grappling), and the other is that a flurry of blows in melee lasts either for a number of exchanges (I'm debating between 5 and 7) or until a blow is landed, or until one combatant initiates a separation.
Time taken will depend on what actions are being taken at what separation (so for example a melee combat round is 1 second, a grappling round is 6 seconds, while a pause while combatants are separated will range from 6 seconds to much longer). But as you noted, these times are only important when there is a parallel process going on.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

For a more simulationist take on travel, check out Dungeon Fantasy 16: Wilderness Adventures. It has some fairly extensive rules for navigation, foraging and so on.

I'd be interested in that, but ... GURPS.

 

[dbm]

I'd be interested in that, but ... GURPS.

I’m not suggesting you get a tattoo

More, looking at how other people have addressed a topic might give you food for thought. Creating in vacuum is one of the classic causes of the ‘heartbreaker’ and no one begrudges creators being well read of other products.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

I’m not suggesting you get a tattoo

More, looking at how other people have addressed a topic might give you food for thought. Creating in vacuum is one of the classic causes of the ‘heartbreaker’ and no one begrudges creators being well read of other products.

That was exactly why I was having a look. Unfortunately I don't have too many games here at home. Come to that, I don't have too many games full stop.

I did find it significant that while I consider travel to be something important to systematise, my feeling is apparently not shared by many RPG designers. So that alone turned out to be a useful revelation to bolster me against heartbreak.

 

[TristramEvans]

That was exactly why I was having a look. Unfortunately I don't have too many games here at home. Come to that, I don't have too many games full stop.

I did find it significant that while I consider travel to be something important to systematise, my feeling is apparently not shared by many RPG designers. So that alone turned out to be a useful revelation to bolster me against heartbreak.

I always found the lack of chase rules in most RPGs rather odd as well. It did lead me to porting the Victory Games' 007 chase rules into a lot of other systems over the years.

 

[AsenRG]

Now that the momentum is building, and I'm really getting stuck in, I'm grasping why I never finished the game the first time. Take travel, for instance. That's the thing I'm working on at the moment. For me, it's an important matter. The modern world has made us blasé about what travel entailed in history. Travel was an adventure and a privilege (perhaps coronavirus is reminding us of some of that?). So I've been trying to figure out my rules for travel. And just for kicks, I tried looking through the travel rules of other role-playing games I happened to have to hand... and noticed, what travel rules? No one apart from me seems to think this is significant! So, if I end up, as I may do, knocking together some simple travel rules, with a few Swiss cheese-style holes in them: there's your reason.

Every game has holes. Every single one. Good games are the ones where you forgive the holes, and paper them over. Bad games are ones like Indiana Jones, where you laugh fit to burst when you discover that if you tie someone up, put a stick of dynamite in their mouth and light the fuse... it won't kill them. My problem is the quest for perfection. I started the redesign on Outlaws because having played it (OK, let's say 'playtested' if that sounds better) for many years, I became intimately acquainted with the holes. Not the kind of holes you can paper over with a rewrite. Fundamental holes in the system. In retrospect, I should have recognised that, as I say, every game has holes, and these don't actually impact that badly on the game experience.

Nevertheless, what is happening at the moment is that a particular one of those holes -- time -- is looming large. If I still edited a fanzine I would be writing a detailed article about the whole notion of managing diegetic time. Thank god I'm not. So instead, Dave Morris and I are hashing out a slightly new approach to timing in combat... while still trying to leave the combat system virtually intact. When I designed Outlaws, I recall sitting watching cinematic wu xia combats, analysing what happened, timing it, and trying to make a system that allowed it. What I missed was the rhythm of combat. I was still too wedded to the traditional D&D combat round. I said that a combat round was an elastic measure of time, but in fact this has no impact on players' perceptions of the rhythm of combat. So now I'm going to say that time is measured in... units of time. In principle, an action in combat takes 1 second. But stuff might take longer. And furthermore, there will be occasions which break off the flurry of blows (I think flurry is going to become an important new game term). So instead of just being the same old slanging matches, combats can be a bit more like my cinematic models: flurries of blows, interspersed with periods of jockeying for position, attempts at intimidation etc. Is it going to work? I hope so. But the guiding principles will be: i) keep it as simple as possible, and ii) make it so that it provides interest in combat.

At this rate, I may even end up playing role-playing games again. Even if it does mean getting up at 3:30 am!

Just a question: are you familiar with how initiative in Feng Shui works?

Also, I agree that the concept of "jockeying for advantage/putting the enemy at disadvantage" is under-utilized in RPGs (along with the concept of counters and more realistic initiative, and grappling - which are all related). I mean, that's fine for really abstract games that don't distinguish between tiredness and real injury () but not so for anyone else...
I'm glad I'm seeing more and more games that don't fail at this, though. You might want to check the Metahumans Rising Martial Arts thread where I really grilled the poor author about it, and he suggested some rules that would fit my vision better!

And I'm glad you might return to the fold of the practising roleplayers!

Amusingly, the only games with travel rules I can name are both Tolkien influenced: The One Ring and Age of Shadow!
My own suspicion is that JRRT was trying to convey the idea that "travel is adventure" to his kids. Many modern readers have missed the point, though.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

Just a question: are you familiar with how initiative in Feng Shui works?

I have Feng Shui, though I think it's at the office at the moment. I remember it being idiosyncratic, and although my review of it (which I've just cheated by reading) was a demolition job, I did find some of the systems admirable. But my review failed to mention initiative...

I will say, however, that ditching initiative was a very deliberate move on my part. I don't like it aesthetically, and I think it warps the way combat is presented.

Also, I agree that the concept of "jockeying for advantage/putting the enemy at disadvantage" is under-utilized in RPGs (along with the concept of counters and more realistic initiative, and grappling - which are all related). I mean, that's fine for really abstract games that don't distinguish between tiredness and real injury () but not so for anyone else...
I'm glad I'm seeing more and more games that don't fail at this, though. You might want to check the Metahumans Rising Martial Arts thread where I really grilled the poor author about it, and he suggested some rules that would fit my vision better!

If nothing else, I should go over and have a look at it to see how I can protect myself from such a grilling!

And I'm glad you might return to the fold of the practising roleplayers!

Amusingly, the only games with travel rules I can name are both Tolkien influenced: The One Ring and Age of Shadow!
My own suspicion is that JRRT was trying to convey the idea that "travel is adventure" to his kids. Many modern readers have missed the point, though.

I have the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings movies, and I still insist on calling them the 'Extra Walking' versions...

But it's like a joke among those who played in my game, as they often involved interminable journeys over a number of game sessions, with various things happening en route, rather than the traditional role-playing 'After travelling for a month, you arrive at the Site of the Adventure...' as the opening gambit of the session.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

I always found the lack of chase rules in most RPGs rather odd as well. It did lead me to porting the Victory Games' 007 chase rules into a lot of other systems over the years.

And surely it's not like writing chase rules is difficult? I mean, it's essentially just a simplified combat even in a system that doesn't have an obvious way of handling it.

I think the contents of games say a lot about their designers' attitudes to gaming, and what they expect to happen. When I was reading my Feng Shui review I noticed myself slamming Mystic China. It was an exemplar of the kind of orientalist games that started to come out especially during the 90s. The designers clearly had no interest in the people and cultures of the countries they were raiding. The perfect example of this is Kevin Siembieda saying he didn't want his Japanese RPG to simulate Japan 'right down to the Japanese people'. But more than this, the stuff people put rules for tells you what they expect their game to be used for. So many games are essentially designed for combat (often subterranean: there has to be a Freudian reason for that, right?), and gloss over everything else. Yet although Outlaws is overtly designed to reproduce combat-heavy Chinese action movies, I can't imagine this being at all satisfying without the superstructure that gives those combats meaning. Read a Jin Yong book and your head explodes at the complexity of relationships, which means that crucial moment when the hero has to make the decision to strike the killing blow or not all the more powerful.

Anyway, all this ranting is just an excuse not to have to tackle: i) The combat overhaul, ii) The travel rules, and iii) The descriptions of housing and other buildings in the Song (no floorplans, as were originally intended, I'm afraid). Not to mention a few words on those gods that are currently no more than stray headings.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

Just a question: are you familiar with how initiative in Feng Shui works?

I got in to the office today, and in between photocopying travel rules from C&S, Ars Magica and Qin, I had a look at my copy of Feng Shui. What was it about the initiative system you thought I should notice? I may have read it too quickly to catch the key point, but it looked to me just like a standard 'roll the die for initiative and act in order' system, which was exactly what I wanted to get away from. All the fights I was watching in Hong Kong movies felt simultaneous rather than sequential.

 

[dbm]

looked to me just like a standard 'roll the die for initiative and act in order' system, which was exactly what I wanted to get away from.

Are you familiar with the One Roll Engine? It (as the name suggests) compresses a whole lot of stuff including both initiative and success into a single roll. Consequently, it’s a lot more simultaneous in play. Here’s some info from the author.

 

[TristramEvans]

Are you familiar with the One Roll Engine? It (as the name suggests) compresses a whole lot of stuff including both initiative and success into a single roll. Consequently, it’s a lot more simultaneous in play. Here’s some info from the author.

That's not something you could adapt or pilfer without completely overhauling the dice system in the game though.

But the basic idea of success in combat roll determines initiative between opponents I thought already existed in Outlaws?

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

That's not something you could adapt or pilfer without completely overhauling the dice system in the game though.

But the basic idea of success in combat roll determines initiative between opponents I thought already existed in Outlaws?

Er yes... That's exactly what the current system reflects. There is 'initiative', but it's built into the combat roll. One could even describe it as a 'one roll' machine, locomotive, system, mechanism... something like that.

No disrespect to Greg, of course, who contributed to Alarums & Excursions at the same time as I did, in fact at the same time as I was publishing Outlaws write-ups in the zine.

Now, back to A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China by Charles O Hucker, which I always wanted in the old days, but never got, and of which I have just downloaded a PDF. Some things do seem to be easier nowadays.

 

[AsenRG]

I got in to the office today, and in between photocopying travel rules from C&S, Ars Magica and Qin, I had a look at my copy of Feng Shui. What was it about the initiative system you thought I should notice? I may have read it too quickly to catch the key point, but it looked to me just like a standard 'roll the die for initiative and act in order' system, which was exactly what I wanted to get away from. All the fights I was watching in Hong Kong movies felt simultaneous rather than sequential.

Well, the initiative rules in Feng Shui 2 (I think they're the same in FS1) create exactly this sense that everything happens at once, in my book. Both sides are rushing to attack, but the faster one might get several strikes in before the slower one could even move. Putting the opponent on the defensive to swarm him with attacks is a fair and expected option. And towards the end of the round they all usually start exchanging strikes, with the faster strikes being rolled with (that's what you're basically doing when you "dodge" an attack that would hit anyway, but it reduces the damage), and the weaker ones often being ignored to speed up your counter...
All because you see your enemy's initiative slowly approaching yours, and know that he's going to start attacking as soon as you can't keep the initiative. And some of his actions might trigger your own special abilities, but going for a slower next action might allow him to get another shot in, and with exploding dice that could be very, very bad!
Yes, it's got rounds...but it's also got several actions and defences in that round, with the number and proportion of those being a tactical decision and depending on the circumstances and the opponent's capabilities. I'd say that's about as good as most initiative systems get.

Same thing in ORE, where everything really happens at once. The system just told you who (if anyone) got a strike in first, whether that's enough to spoil the attack, and how much it hurt. Striking first to strike last is a very valid core tactic in it, as I can confirm...having run an almost 3-years-long wuxia campaign in it. (Though I usually say it was more like 6+ years, given that almost all sessions have been at least twice as long as the average session people talk about online).

 

[Panzerkraken]

I pulled a copy of Hucker's dictionary too. Amusing what you can find just flipping through it:

279 chăo-ān shĭh 招安使 SUNG: Pacification Commissioner, ad-hoc assignment for an official who was, literally, “sent out to summon (rebels, bandits, other disaffected groups) to peace."

Also, the thought I was wondering about (what were they saying when they'd use the term "Instructor" as an honorific for the Heroes who were previously teachers for their division?) kind of led me to this gem, which is so typical of asian languages..

7841 wŭ^yu 武諭
SUNG: abbreviation of wu-hsŭeh hsūeh-yŭ (Instructor in a Military School).

SSoS, am I right to think that Sung vs Song is just different romanization?

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

SSoS, am I right to think that Sung vs Song is just different romanization?

Sung is Wade-Giles, Song pinyin.

I originally did the game in Wade-Giles, but switched to pinyin as I felt that the Wade-Giles not only put me out of kilter with the way Chinese is predominantly written, but had a sort of distanced/archaic/orientalist effect. Overthinking as usual, probably.

 

[AsenRG]

Sung is Wade-Giles, Song pinyin.

I originally did the game in Wade-Giles, but switched to pinyin as I felt that the Wade-Giles not only put me out of kilter with the way Chinese is predominantly written, but had a sort of distanced/archaic/orientalist effect. Overthinking as usual, probably.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with an archaic romanization system in a system based on an archaic* Chinese novel. Always assumed that was a conscious decision, too.

*By Western European measures, not Chinese ones!

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

Personally, I see nothing wrong with an archaic romanization system in a system based on an archaic* Chinese novel. Always assumed that was a conscious decision, too.

*By Western European measures, not Chinese ones!

As I say, I did use Wade-Giles for a while, because that was how I recognised the names. But in a way you've hit the nail on the head: the novel isn't archaic. One of its distinctive features, as I recall, is that it's a relatively rare example of an old Chinese work written in a vernacular, rather than a literary style. So it reads in quite a 'fresh', 'modern' way.

When I wrote my Judge Bao novel, I not only used pinyin, but I made a deliberate decision to avoid 'archaic' or 'historic-feeling' writing. To the people living in it, the Song Dynasty was modern times, and that was what I wanted to convey. I have the same feeling about the Water Margin. The Dent-Youngs did the same thing in their translation, which is my preferred one.

 

[AsenRG]

As I say, I did use Wade-Giles for a while, because that was how I recognised the names. But in a way you've hit the nail on the head: the novel isn't archaic. One of its distinctive features, as I recall, is that it's a relatively rare example of an old Chinese work written in a vernacular, rather than a literary style. So it reads in quite a 'fresh', 'modern' way.

When I wrote my Judge Bao novel, I not only used pinyin, but I made a deliberate decision to avoid 'archaic' or 'historic-feeling' writing. To the people living in it, the Song Dynasty was modern times, and that was what I wanted to convey. I have the same feeling about the Water Margin. The Dent-Youngs did the same thing in their translation, which is my preferred one.

Yeah s for courses and personal tastes galore...or galloping?
I like the archaic sounding translations. I mean, the people at the times of Qin Dynasty considered those contemporary as well, but they were no doubt speaking differently from our contemporaries,and those are speaking unlike those that are going to consider us archaic-sounding in a couple centuries.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

Yeah s for courses and personal tastes galore...or galloping?
I like the archaic sounding translations. I mean, the people at the times of Qin Dynasty considered those contemporary as well, but they were no doubt speaking differently from our contemporaries,and those are speaking unlike those that are going to consider us archaic-sounding in a couple centuries.

Of course, it's an aesthetic decision. When Van Gulik did his Judge Dee books (which I love), for example, he not only made them archaic-feeling, but he adopted the Ming technology and society from when the stories were written down. I thought that was slightly perverse.

But then there was a time when I was working on a modern version of the Water Margin story itself. It was going to start with the souls of the heroes being released by Red Guards vandalising the temple. And the main part of the story was going to coincide with the democracy movement, and climax in Tiananmen square. So you can see what my preferred approach is!

 

[Panzerkraken]

A month goes by, the conversation buried under a thousand others. Does the scholar toil? His fans await.

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

He toils.

I've tidied up significant chunks of the core system, and made a slight modification to the combat system to handle manoeuvres a bit more like I always intended. I've recognised that I have to drastically cut down what I wanted to put in the game. Despite that I have some new material about the geography of China, and I'm currently working on housing.

Funnily enough, though, I seem to have rather a lot of work-related stuff on at the moment!

 

[Sleepyscholar of Shentian]

I will just trail the combat modifications.

As the game maybe shows, I always wanted to have a combat system that had the dynamism of Chinese movies. The problem is that additional rules rarely increase dynamism. They are more likely to slow it down.

On the other hand, dynamism derives from variation, from choice.

So I've taken an aspect of the game that was already there, and tried to arrange it more systematically. It's based on the idea of distance between combatants. If you are at range, then your only interaction will be voice and missile weapons (and magic, I guess, but that's another chapter...).

Close the gap a bit, and you are facing off. Not yet close enough to hit each other with melee weapons, but close enough to be 'in combat'. And here you have three choices: attack, withdraw or manoeuvre. (Two reasons for only 3 choices: i) it keeps things simple, and ii) it allows you to use the authentic original version of scissors-paper-stone to declare actions simultaneously).

I'm not going into all the consequences of this, but obviously both withdrawing puts you at range. Both manoeuvring means you make an opposed roll for advantage (but no damage etc is done). Attacking pitches you in to clashing, which is when you are actually engaging each other with weapons.

It's also then possible to get closer with grappling, which is pretty much as in the original rules.

From clashing you can go back to facing off if: one character is stunned or fatally injured, combatants get the same score in their combat roll, or one combatant deliberately breaks off. So you get that rhythm that you see in movie combats of a flurry of blows, combatants breaking off and manoeuvring (catching their breath, too, to recover shock), and then pitching back in again.

In the new version I'm being more careful to point out that all the complex options are just that... optional, so the above isn't really necessary. But it does provide a bit more variation and decision-making for those who want it. Hopefully not at too much cost in complexity or additional time.