Re: [DL] Martial Arts balance

[Chris Nelson <chris2@pre-press.com>]

Martha Frey wrote:
> 
> Let me apologize for the angry tone this message may
> take in advance, but this is something I feel pretty
> strongly about.

You've hit home on a couple of drawbacks to the martial arts system. 
Here's a few facts one should take into account when allowing them in
Deadlands:

The rules were written by Robin Laws, of Feng Shui.  In an interview I
did with him, he admitted that he played the games he was currently
writing for, but not much else.  This means that he did NOT play
Deadlands much before he wrote the system, and since he's a very busy
man (he's got a body of works longer than, um, a really long thing), he
probably didn't do much playtesting.

Now, I don't know how much the PEG guys were able to put Robin's rules
through the wringer, but considering the volume of material, I'm betting
they didn't have much time.

That being said, it's still a brilliant system.  It's simple and yet
intuitive.  But all I need to prove "unbalancing" is the potential
damage of a bow-weilding, muscle-bound Kung Fu Sifu with Abundance of
Pecking Birds at high levels.

> You get a
> regular old brawler in there, I don't care how good
> her or she it, and they just can't compete.

Well, that makes sense, though.  Also consider this:

Robin Laws' take on Martial Arts in Deadlands is inspired from a Chinese
movie genre called "Wuxia" (sp?), which directly translated means
"Flying People", I believe.  The common shtick is martial artists on
wires, flying overhead and shouting out the names of their attacks.  The
movies are waaaaay over the top, and often times ridiculous, but usually
quite beautiful and exciting.  Try "Iron Monkey" or the "Once Upon A
Time In China" series (especially the last one, where Wong Fei-hung goes
to the Wild West!), or really anything recently directed by Yuen
Woo-Ping.

Uh, where was I?  Oh yeah.  These fighting techniques are used
exclusively against other, equally bad ass martial artists, and little
attempt is made in the rules to balance with fighters of lesser ability
(read: anybody who isn't Asian).  For the most part, a
fresh-from-creation character is going to be able to handle his business
in any fight with anybody, much less several opponents at one time.

Now, that's good and that's bad, depending on the style of game you're
planning on running.  Obviously.

> I would
> imagine that they, like the Indians, are knowledgeable
> and adept at dealing with spiritual forces at work in
> the Weird West.

From having personally experienced (and having experience in) Kung Fu, I
can tell you that it's... different.  And, in some areas, way the hell
out there.

> it takes.  In addition, the tradition surrounding
> learning martial arts can severely limit their
> background and make it nearly impossible to learn new
> arts.

While it's true that Martial Artists have very little ranged attacks,
Monkey Goes to the Mountain allows them to leap tremendous ranges in one
action, so that helps to negate that penalty.  Sure, they won't do any
sniping any time soon, but wait until your Posse figures out the "Shoot
our martial artist, and let him Seize the Pearl of Death at an opponent"
combo.  Although you get poor marks for letting them get away with that
one :)

> Here's my point, if you've suffered through this far:
> they seem unbalanced.  Systemically, they don't suffer
> the potential problems that other arcane background
> have to deal with (backlash, loss of faith, oaths to
> spirits / appeasement, ...), combined with a cheap
> start-up cost (one point of Edge).

Although they do require serious bounty and fate chips to keep up their
Chi pool, it's no great price to pay for their powers.  Also, compared
to Hucksters and especially Mad Scientists, they don't suffer much at
all.  Whereas Hucksters and Mad Scientists are guaranteed to go crazy
and become unplayable unless great care is taken to keep them mentally
balanced.

On the whole, the only advice I can give a Marshal, after dealing with a
party containing between 2-3 martial artists at once, is: make shit up. 
If the Posse has a Martial Artist, have them fight against one
occasionally.  Or, throw more badguys at them and have the badguys
center on the Martial Artist (do you think nobody in the Wierd West
knows about these guys yet?)

As advice to another Posse member, having to stand in the shadow of a
Martial Artist who's stealing the show, try to work with them, not
against them.  See my Seize the Pearl of Death cheat above.  Also, try
to ask your fellow Posse member to keep his or her Martial Art shticks
to himself, in a seperate fight.  No Frag stealing, so to speak.

Any questions?  Comments?  Did I cover everything?  Sorry for the
length, BTW.
-- 
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                      Chris Nelson <cnelsonweb@hotmail.com>
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