Not all good gaming books are meant to be gaming books. Sometimes, a fine book will crop up outside the gaming ghetto. Asispac Books has produced a series of good books for use in gaming, usually for the GM (though players of thoughtful PCs will find them useful), and one of them is a translation of
Secret Art of War: The 36 Stratagems into a graphic novel.
The 36 Stratagems is a book about military strategy, but (as with Sun Tzu's The Art of War) the stratagems are as applicable to the political realm as the military. (Argueably, the only difference is in the tools used to achieve those aims.) This means that this book is a good one to use when a player or a GM is in need of a plot. While there's plenty of useable plots in this book alone, it is best employed in conjunction with other books on strategy and politics. That said, you can do just fine with just this book and some creative adaptation.
The book focuses on the use of deception, subterfuge, and hidden tactics to achieve military objectives. (Yes, all you Scorpion Clan fans out there ought to pay attention.) It also stresses (repeatedly, and with good reason) that the general must reach and maintain a take on the situation that is clear and objective, that he must not copy blindly, and that he must be flexible in his actions so he may react swiftly to changes in the situation. In many ways, this seems to be common sense, but they aren't. (Otherwise, the History Channel would never be able to make a series out of military blunders.) Once these two premises are taken to heart, the 36 stratagems become quite the fertile seeds of imaginative plotting.
The book divides itself into six parts, with six stratagems per part: Stratagems When In a Superior Position, Stratagems For Confrontation, Stratagems For Attacking, Stratagems For Confused Situations, Stratagems For Gaining Ground, and Stratagems For Desperate Situations. Before these is a prologue, which points out the two key premises I mentioned above. Each stratagem teaches through the device of a historical parable, which concludes with a recap that shows how the stratagem worked and why it worked. It repeats the two key emphasises before going on to the next stratagem, thus drilling into the reader the need to maintain an accurate assessment of the situation while using deception to win.
Of the 36 stratagems, the last 18 (confused situations, gaining ground, and desperate situations) are most applicable to your average group of PCs because they are often the underdogs. For the villains that most GMs use, the first 18 (superior position, confrontation, and attack stratagems) are the ones most applicable because these characters usually have the upper hand against the PCs.
Some of these stratagems will be familiar to readers. One of them, "Beseige Wei to Save Zhou", received attention in Dragon many years ago. This one states that, instead of attacking a united foe in haste, bide your time and attack the foe while he is divided for maximum effect. Another, the last, is "When Retreat is the Best Option"- one that every gamer should read, especially those that have a hard time knowing when to back down, because it clearly articulates that retreating is not losing so long as it allows you to regroup and come back to win.
There's a lot more to this book, and to military strategy in general. You will have to exercise some creativity to make the concepts fit to your specific needs--like I said, this isn't made-for-gamers book--but the results are worth the effort. Check it out today; if your local game store carries comics, as mine does, this ought to be damned easy to get on special order.
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