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GURPS Martial Arts expands Karate and Judo from the basic book into over fifty styles from Orcish Smasha to Praying Mantis Kung-Fu. In addition to the number of real-life and fictional styles, it includes notes on the history of martial arts, weapons and equipment for a martial arts campaign and running a martial arts campaign.

The basic rules for martial arts seem sound. The manuever system allows a character to do any martial arts trick in the style that he chose and the genre (realistic or cinematic). All sorts of cinematic manuevers and skills allow a GM to run a campaign with amazing chi powers. It adds quite a bit of complex detail to character creation and some extra complexity to combat, both of which seems in genre and not excessive.

The extra detail that fills out the book is well thought out and often useful. The history of martial arts is detailed and informative, while not excessive. The equipment covers all the ninja and Asian necessary; in fact it's a bit excessive for me, especially for a Martial Arts book. The last chapter is campaigns, covering possible Martial Arts campaigns, crossovers with other GURPS books, and adventure hooks. As always, an interesting and occasionally useful chapter. One problem: Martial Artists won't stand up against Supers in a Supers campaign.

All in all, an extraordinarly useful book. For GURPS players, it is one of the essential books, up with GURPS Magic and Psionics. The martial arts rules seem to be fairly compatable with most GURPS worldbooks. Martial artists can show up in any campaign, and with the apropriate genre choices, can be viable and realistic characters.

Cover by Jeff Koke; courtesy of SJGames

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)