It seems I am crazy enough to run a LotW game. Just barely. If there's a strong demand. The premise I'm considering is a MK/SF-style tournament, where vaguely menacing forces have gathered the best wuxia under heaven, or anywhere else, to compete for a prize so wondrous as to make the offer suspect. Not an arena game. Character entanglements and life in the setting locale will drive most of the plot, and there might be more fighting outside the tourney than in it. Mysteries and red herrings guaranteed. Cgen will be collaborative. Plot details will be fitted to the cast, as the book recommends. If there's a strong demand.

So is there? Can I get some dire warnings from people who've tried to run this system on a forum? Tips for making it go smoothly? Special setting elements anyone would like to see?

In reply to Aidhogan (msg # 1):

I was once a Black Adder, now I'm this. Anyway, don't know if this is the most preferable premise for me, but I really do want to play LoW.

Well, I'm not about to do anything crazy like start with a crossover. This is something I expect to be short and straightforward, so I can polish up how I run wulin over PbP. If it goes well, I'd probably use it as a first chapter to something more extensive.

In reply to Aidhogan (msg # 3):

Ok, that sounds fair.

I'm interested. Collaborative chargen sounds like a good idea, as does the concept, and chapter style.

*edit* and while I'm thinking about it; Half-Burnt Manual, yay or nay?
This message was last edited by the user at 04:55, Thu 18 Aug 2016.

I like this premise. I've always enjoyed the plot skeletons of fighting games like MK and SF and the way they portray a sort of modern wuxia fiction. Would you be setting this in the "traditional" LotW time-period or more of a modern pastiche like the fighting games you mentioned?

Traditional time.  Traditional setting almost entirely, in fact.  I'll add a couple of societies and major players, during the cgen process.  But I don't have it in me to write a solid twenty loresheets to build a new setting with, at the moment.

Half-burnt Manual is a probably.  I have a lot of respect for those fan editors, and their material on http://wulinlegends.pbworks.com/w/page/48630360/Portal is almost always allowed.  But it's been a while since I read the Manual, so I can't promise something didn't bug me real hard about it.  Give me a couple of days to confirm this.  But probably.  I remember it having a lot of good ideas.

Proviso: If the interested players are not already pretty familiar with the system, I'm not bringing in sweeping revisions like HBM, at all.  Wulin is already a lot to keep track of.  It could be worked into any subsequent campaigns, though.

Or we could just have three interested parties who all sound as though you're system buffs.  That would make it easy to include.  Plus, I almost always use all the homebrew material in it, anyway.

Half-Burnt Manual is in with tiny provisos to the hotfixes:
* I'll check destiny spent before chi used when resolving contradictory laugh/fear rules
* the universal Lightfoot ability means there's no penalty to break Cover Ground with a skill
* using the wrong weapon for a style gives you the weapon benefits but doesn't let you use the advanced techniques of that style
* improvised weapons let you use those techniques but don't have any numerical benefits themselves


Three is enough, so I'm going to give this IC until next week to drum up another 1-2 players and get something written.  If you three want to knock around ideas for characters, name factions you especially want to get involved with, or propose specific locations for the game, I'll keep up with this thread and make use of the results.

Playing around with the little idea of a Roman-equivalent man who came from the west into Shenzhou. I don't know whether or not he'd be affiliated with a faction or not.

Edit: Looking at the Ghost Legion Internal Style from the WulinLegend, still debating appropriate External Styles.
This message was last edited by the user at 23:43, Sat 20 Aug 2016.

Well, we're not actually allowed to discuss potential characters in a Interest Check thread. We'd need to be added to a game forum to discuss that.

Still, I'm really glad to see this possibly taking off.

Oh, whoops.  Well, in that case, please feel free to discuss setting elements that would be especially effective in securing your eager participation.

Well, if we're going for a street-fighter/Mortal Kombat vibe, I'd like to place a bit more emphasis on some of the setting's overtly mystical elements. While the majority of the characters should probably be human (or very close to human), both of those series are definitely punctuated by the inhuman characters the heroes have to test their skills against.

I'd be really curious to know more about what sort of shadowy power might be arranging a tournament of the Wulin, and for what purpose. The original Mortal Kombat's Shang Sung was always a great villain in that regard. His desire/ability to devour the souls of powerful warriors to steal their techniques made him a great foil to a group of martial artists.

At this point, I'd like to see one (or two) of the Heaven Sword Alliance, Falling Leaves Society, Liquid Metal Delegates, or Black Lotus Society be relevant at the start of the game - which depends on group composition.

Hey, why not all of them? Add in the business maneuvers of the Eagle Talons, the expansion of the Southern Dragon Clan. All sorts of intrigue and plots building up.

Well, I think the societies, while numerous, should be a little paired down. Putting them all in is a bit like being the guy who says, "I'm up for anything" when people ask what they should have for dinner. It might seem helpful, but it doesn't actually make any progress towards a decision.

I'd suggest we focus on one society per player, plus up to one rival society per player. That puts a lot of actors in the mix without making things too muddled.

I might be interested as well, especially after having read some of the custom loresheets in the Manual. (Thank you all for introducing me to this material, by the way. I'd only ever used the core book!)

I was particularly drawn by the Rootless Clan and the Sword Devils, but it's not a big deal if they're out of the big plot of the game. One of them should work fine just as a backstory element for my (potential) character.

* The Heaven Sword Alliance is definitely going to be central to the plot.  I think, in fact, that a Legendary Weapon would make for a much better prize for the victor than some random MacGuffin or hazy wish-granting prize.  So it would be basically trivial to work the Sword Devils in at the edges.  Maybe the specific weapon is one they crafted.

* There will be two Banes strongly represented.  I'm keeping the details to myself, for now, because this is going to be something of an intrigue game.  Because that's always what I do.

* I also always go for the flashy–stupendous end of the realism scale, so @Norwood, you're in the right place.  The shadowy figure, on the other hand, will come to life in cgen and basically be made of everyone's dangling plot hooks.


I think I have an idea of the consensus desire, at this point, so I'll create the game today.  I'm about to start both grad school and a new job, tomorrow, so I might be a little slow in filling in all the appropriate blanks, but I'll be sending invitations and potentially making an IC thread by the end of the week.  Then we can get into the meat.

If it's not too late, I'd like to express interist.

Hey folks. I might have dearly underestimated the work involved in grad school, right off the gun. Did. Definitely did.

Right now, this is an interest check. Your names and interest are carefully noted. As clearly poor form as it is to raise the option and decline to produce, it would be far worse to actually create the game, start the process, and have to cancel then. Wulin is not a lightweight game, and I'm pretty sure that would happen. I will rMail you all if my situation changes.
This message was last edited by the user at 04:37, Sat 27 Aug 2016.