Okay, how many of you are sick of hearing me blather on about realism? (Raises hand.) Me too. So right now I'm going to talk genre. While the default for the Tarafore System is gritty, some of the games certainly tended toward the cinematic. Needless to say, the normal combat system (as shown in Column Four: How Do You Do?) was a really poor fit.

I had it in my head to make a cinematic or swashbuckling system for a while, but I never really got around to it. Partly this is because of real life, partly because I'm a little lazy, and partly because the campaigns I ran didn't need it.

Cinematic “Tournament Anime” Martial Arts for the Tarafore System

I was inspired to finally write this by the Naruto homebrew thread and related threads on the RPG Design and Development forum here at RPGnet.

My goal (for this sub-system, at least) was to make a system for use with anime-style games in which fights escalate for a couple of “sounding out” blows, then end with a spectacular move or combo. I've been told that the end result of this system looks a lot like an episode of Inuyasha, and that seems a fair analysis to me.

What I needed:

I knew I needed some new concepts that weren't in my standard combat system, and the RPGnet threads helped supply them. Here's a basic rundown of the ideas.

Stamina. To allow characters to be knocked around without actually being hurt. I'd really be thankful to anyone who came up with a better term for this. “Stamina” has a solid real-world meaning, and while it works, I wish I had something better.

Mooks. Minor NPCs can be taken out without separate Stun and Wound tests

Conviction. characters fight harder/better when something dear to them has been threatened.

Fire. Rising action, ending with a spectacular, game-ending combo-attack.

Cooperative Action. Gives bonuses so the lead fighter can get an Exceptional Hit & take the guy out.

Resilient Villains. Typically have higher defensive than attack scores, so they're hard to hit, but don't just face-slam the PCs at the start. They also tend to have tons of Stamina.

Improvisation. Characters can “find” or “improvise” items in the setting, allowing players some editorial control over the setting and the flow of the combat.

New Rules and Characteristics:

Stamina:

When important characters get hit, they lose Stamina instead of suffering Stun/Wound Tests. Characters who have run out of Stamina suffer Stun/Wound test as per the usual combat system, as do characters who suffer Exceptional Hits. (The Exceptional Hits get their full normal Stun/Wound bonuses, so an Exceptional Hit is still very likely to take a character out).

Stamina is equal to Toughness for humans, though some characters have powers that increase Stamina (some villains and monsters and such have a LOT, and so you have to “build up” to get an Exceptional if you want to have a chance to hurt them).

• Unarmed attacks do 1 Stamina Damage.
• Weapons add +1 Stamina Damage.
• Special or “Named” weapons add +2 Stamina Damage
• Characters with 19 or greater Strength gain a bonus of +1 Stamina Damage to all of their attacks.

• Basic hits and Ties do the base amount of Stamina damage.
• Special hits do twice as much Stamina
• Exceptional hits ignore Stamina and cause Stun and Wound tests as usual.

Mooks:

Munchkins, Mooks, Henchmen, minions, flunkies, etc. (most characters without Stamina, in other words) can be disposed of easily, without bothering with separate Stun and Wound Tests. Treat the to-hit result as the Stun result, and don't worry about Wound results unless it's actually important to know how badly hurt the character is.

• A Basic Hit causes a Lose Next Action result
• A Special Hit causes a Stunned Result
• An Exceptional Hit knocks the Mook out.

Conviction:

When something dear to a character is threatened (one of the character's main motivations, or someone very important to the character), that increases his power and gives him a “second wind” in the fight.

In game terms, this allows the character to “burn conviction” once per fight IF the appropriate motivation is present. If, for example, he's fighting to rescue his sister, he can use that conviction to “burn,” gaining 3 Fire and regaining half of his lost Stamina (round up). If he's fighting for a cause he believes in, he can “burn” that once per fight (a character should probably only be able to “burn” once per fight, unless it's a major, campaign-ending climactic battle). The fight has to be directly related to what or who the character believes in. If it's a stretch, it doesn't work.

“Burning” Conviction has an element of risk to it, though. If a character “burns” conviction for a fight and loses the fight, it leads to a serious personality crisis, because his faith that the rightness of his cause will see him through and his faith in his own abilities as a noble-hearted warrior, will be deeply shaken.

Fire:

Each turn, each PC gets 1 Fire, which can be spent to gain bonuses or complete combos. Fire is best spent in conjunction with a big “cooperative action” Combo to get a huge bonus and trash the villain with an Exceptional Hit. The details of special combos should be colorfully described in over-the-top ways – that's part of the genre.

Fire goes away at the end of a fight, not at the end of a scene. So if the characters fight a few guards at the entrance to the sorcerer's evil temple, any accumulated fire is gone by the time they bust into the inner sanctum to stop his diabolical ritual.

Special Combos.

• Characters must burn “Fire” to fuel these.
• Roll to-hit more than once and take the highest (1 reroll per Fire); or
• Add to-hit (+2 per Fire); or
• Add damage (+3 S/W or +1 Base Stamina per Fire)

(Characters can combine these: say, reroll once (roll the dice twice), add +4 to hit – that's a “3 Fire” combo).

Stamina Multiplier Attacks. Basic does x2, Special does x3, Exceptional does x5, Stamina Damage. Exceptional Hits still affect Stamina, rather than “punching through” and causing wounds. It costs 3 Fire to activate this Feature, and it CAN be combined with other “features.”

Special Anti-Mook combos. 2 points: 1/3/5 (Basic hit – 1 mook. Special – 3 mooks. Exceptional – 5 mooks).

This is a “Chain Attack.” In addition to taking out 5 mooks, an Exceptional Hit gives the character 1 of her “Fire” points back, so she can do the Special Combo again next turn (since she'll get 1 extra Fire at the start of next turn anyway).

Some characters may have special abilities that reduce the cost of certain Combos, or allow them to be used at unusual times.

A high-price combo with multiple rerolls and huge to-hit and damage bonuses, preferably one put together by the contributions of the entire team (see “Cooperative Action” below) is the in-genre preferred way to take out a massive monster or super-powerful boss.

Cooperative Action:

Any reasonably applicable skill or Trait can be used to boost the “lead attacker's” attack roll. Each person makes a skill roll, and the bonuses all add together.

If the characters are fighting some monstrous beast, and the team's researcher finds its weakness (Research or Hidden Knowledge roll) in a magic book, then shouts “hit it in the third kneecap!” That's worth a bonus.

The way fighters can work together is pretty obvious.

The team's sniper might shoot at a bulletproof villain's head, knowing the show-off would catch the bullet out of the sky. But a good enough shot would distract the villain long enough for the lead fighter to attack him while he's showboating.

Bonuses or Penalties given to the Lead Attacker as a result of the Supporting Characters' Skill or Trait tests:

• Exceptional Failure -1
• Special or Basic Failure +0
• Tie or Basic Success +1
• Special Success +2
• Exceptional Success +3

If they are all fighting together using martial arts that allow the use of “Fire,” cooperating fighters can pool their “Fire” in order to get an even more massive combo. However, to add “Fire” in, each character must succeed in the “Cooperative Action” test (just as above). This adds the same bonuses as above, but also determines how much Fire each assisting character can add (the acting character, usually the lead fighter/hero type can add everything she or he's got).

• Failure: No Fire
• Tie: 1 Fire (and the +1 bonus for Cooperative Action)
• Basic Success: 2 Fire (and the +1 bonus for Cooperative Action)
• Special Success: 4 Fire (and the +2 bonus for Cooperative Action)
• Exceptional Success: All the Fire the character has (and the +3 bonus for Cooperative Action)

Resilient Villains:

The villains should have high parry/dodge scores (possibly higher than their attack scores), and tons of Stamina, but not necessarily super-high Toughness. The idea is, in-genre, that the super-special cooperative combo should actually do the guy in if it works.

So even if the villain is massively huge, don't give him a 30 Toughness, or it will just be frustrating and not fit the genre. Just give him tons and tons of Stamina.

It's a good idea to give the major villains and monsters so much Stamina that just “nickel-and-diming it away” won't work, and the effective way to defeat said villain is to put together an awesome cooperative combo.

Improvisation:

Characters have a "Combat Sense" or "Improvisation" skill. Using the “Combat Sense” skill counts as the character's action for that turn. A Basic Success gives you 1 option, a Special gives you 2, and an Exceptional gives you 3. An option can be used to state one detail about the scene, get to that detail, or get your action back.

So, if a character was looking for a weapon and was in an executive office being attacked by that executive's ax-wielding bodyguard, she might roll Combat Sense to find a weapon. If she rolled a Basic Success, she could say "There's a sword hanging on the wall behind the desk." If she rolled a Special success, she'd say that and say "and I backflip over the desk and draw it." If she rolled an Exceptional Success, she could do all that AND still have her action left over.

Or, she could use the extra Options from the Special and Exceptional Successes to specify more details about the area - it's all up to the player.

Setting and Characters for the Playtest:

The setting is a fantasy empire with a mid-low-ish tech-level, sort of Conan-esque, but with MesoAmerican-style stone-cut engineering marvels. Society is mostly peaceful farmers, but within the cities they do have a designated arena for duels, trials by combat (not all trials will be by combat), and executions (all of these are public).

These mechanics might not give the experience I desire unless the stats for the various actors involved are managed a certain way. So here's my idea:

The PCs:

For the moment I'm going to pigeonhole the characters by "archetype." For this type of game, this works a LOT better than just going through the Subjective Character Creation process (at least for a group that's used to extremely varied, individual, and difficult-to-work-into-a-game PCs).

• Heroic Fighter types (usually the young star of the show/group)
• Prowess Outstanding (around 19)
• All other Traits Good (around 13)
• Any other skills, etc - 13 or lower

Most often the lead is a guy in these type of things, but there's no reason not to go the Buffy/Xena/Red Sonja route and have her be female.

In our playtest, the lead fighter was Treyan Sisneros, a “strong, silent, noble type” with a tendency for sarcasm. Based to some degree on a female version of Himura Kenshin and Saito Hajime. She wielded a Named longsword, Mist-cutter.

The "supporting characters" below could be combined - if you wanted, you could have a character who's sort of an Indiana-Jones type scholar/thief or have an extremely muscular scholar or archer or such).

The Big Guy (HUGE, muscular bruiser with a heart of gold, supporting character. Possibly played for comic relief, especially if female, like Aisha Clan-Clan from Outlaw Star)

• Prowess Very Good (around 16)
• Strength Outstanding (around 19)
• All other Traits Good (around 13)
• Any other skills, etc - 13 or lower

In our playtest, the Big Guy was based on Maeda Keiji – 6'8” (2 meters) and very muscular, he was a mercenary who loved to fight. Once he gave his allegiance, he stuck with that side with a fierce loyalty far beyond what mercenaries typically display. The girl who was missing was the daughter of an old employer/friend of his, and his loyalty still ran deep. He wielded a Named pole arm with a crescent-moon shaped head and a weighted butt (I don't recall what the player called it).

Archer/Sniper (also a supporting character. If female, possible a love interest or sister or mother-figure to the young hero)

• Prowess Very Good (around 16)
• Archery, etc. Outstanding (around 19)
• All other Traits Good (around 13)
• Any other skills, etc - 13 or lower

Thief/Scout (also a supporting character. If female, possible a love interest or sister-figure to the young hero. If male, possibly a little brother figure. Possibly the rogue or anti-hero)

• Prowess Very Good (around 16)
• Awareness Outstanding (around 19)
• All other Traits Good (around 13)
• Any other skills, etc - 13 or lower
• May have a Very Good Rogue Trait as well, if s/he's really smooth-tongued

In our playtest, the scout was Rhiannon “Rhia” Diadron. The player summed it up better than I ever could. “In essence, a spunky female ninja-type with a big mouth, few filters, and an opinion on everything. She's the type that's either highly amusing or highly annoying.” She was the only one without a “named” weapon, but that didn't really slow her down. Though she could handle herself in a fight, combat was not her niche (not in a group like this one). Scholar (also a supporting character - could be anything from a love interest to group's mentor to a geeky sidekick)

• Prowess Very Good (around 16) (Could be lower, but specialized up to 16 in Defense/Dodge)
• Various Knowledge Skills relevant to the campaign: Outstanding (around 19)
• All other Traits Good (around 13)
• Any other skills, etc - 13 or lower

The Opposition

Keeping in mind that the main heroes would have 19 Prowess and supporting cast would have 16, here is the basic NPC rundown.

Ok, To begin with we had four-ish categories of NPCs. I'm breaking up the lowest one, “mooks,” into three, for a total of seven.

For “Munchkins,” “Mooks,” and “Henchmen,” the to-hit roll serves as the Stun roll, so a Special or Exceptional hit takes them out of the fight. I didn't figure this out until after the playtest, but a Basic Hit gives them a "Lose Next Action" result. We had some terrible rolls in the mook part of the fight, but it still worked out.

Munchkins. Really weak and almost pointless. “Bad (7)” ratings in Prowess and anything else that matters. Not even a threat in large groups.

Mooks. Weak, not a real threat to characters of this power level. “Average (10)” ratings in Prowess and other important Traits.

Henchmen. “Good” (13) Prowess & Strength. Other Traits from 10 to 13. Not much of a threat, but with the right rolls, they can wear down the PCs' Stamina a bit. These were the weakest villains we fought in the playtest.

Lieutenants. These have traits only slightly better than the mooks (Good to Very Good Prowess and Strength), and have a few (4-10) Stamina. They're there to provide a little more challenge, but basically fill the same niche. In our playtest, we didn't actually fight any of these.

Villains or Sub-Bosses. Traits and Stamina on par with the PCs (usually equal to the Hero's Stats from the previous post). The evil priest was at this power level, but was killed by a sneak attack from our scout, Rhia (an Exceptional Hit, so his Stamina didn't come into play).

Monsters or Main Bosses. Big, horrible monsters and super-tough villains (sorcerers, etc). These are much more powerful than the PCs, and require the use of Fire and usually teamwork to defeat. Gugalanna, the Bull of Heaven, was the "Boss" in our playtest adventure.

The first draft of Gugalanna's Stats were:

• Prowess 18, Defend 22 (so it's hard to get an Exceptional Hit on him)
• Strength 19, Toughness 15 (so the Exceptional Hit will take him down)
• Awareness 15
• Stamina 60 (too high to just "whittle down his hit points") All attacks do 4 Stamina (he is considered a "Special/Named Weapon," and gets the +1 Stamina Damage bonus for having 19 Strength). He had basic “unarmed” (considering his size and inhuman body type, “unarmed” is something of a misnomer) and flame breath attacks, and I probably would have thought of something else given time.

Looking back, I think these Traits would have worked:

• Prowess 19
• Strength 19
• Awareness 15
• Stamina 60
• Attacks do 4 Stamina (flame breath or unarmed)

The high Prowess would have made non-"Fire" Exceptional Hits unlikely to happen, and the higher Toughness would have made non-"Fire" Exceptional Hits unlikely to drop him. I'd like to play through with these Traits and see, because that would make designing Boss monsters easier.

Shounen Sword GM's Notes, Part 1

The main things I found about making the playtest run were:

1. Keep the genre in your mind at all times.
2. Make sure the NPCs have the right stats.
3. Don't carry over Fire from fight to fight. (Leftover Fire from the mook fight made the Boss fight go too quickly.)

Otherwise, it went quite well. The adventure was a short rescue with a little sneaking, one mook fight, and one boss fight. It was more of a playtest than a full-fledged roleplaying session, but it was a very successful one, and everyone involved had fun (or lied and told me they did) :).

Since then, the alternate combat system has been used for a swashbuckling Pirates game, with pretty good success. It wasn't designed to quite fit the swashbuckling genre, but it did the job pretty well. I wasn't there, but the overall reports were favorable. I do plan on making a combat “version” that's more focused on Swashbuckling, and perhaps I'll post that in the future.

As far as how this fits with the “common language” idea ... well, sometimes the common language system doesn't quite convey what you want to “say” (cinematic combat with a gritty “realistic” combat system just falls flat). But with a well-designed core, you can add a new dialect instead of having to learn a whole new language (or new game system, as the case may be), and I think that's better for everyone