EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

We talked about the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once on Wuxia Weekend. I was surprised by my reaction, having had much different expectations going in.  

Everything Everywhere All at Once was released in 2022, stars Michelle Yeoh and was directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. It also stars Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, James Hong and Jamie Lee Curtis.

There was a lot to discuss. You can hear what we thought here: 

SONS OF LADY 87 RELEASE UPDATE

I just wanted to keep people abreast of the latest surrounding the Sons of Lady 87 Campaign Book. Right now it is set for a November release date and is presently in the finishing stages of the layout. Here is some information on what you can expect in terms of pricing, content, etc. 

The final book will be 310 pages. I decided to use slightly higher quality paper because Lady 87 is very important to me and it might be the last print release for Ogre Gate (it is possible there will be more in the distant future but for now I am focusing on other projects). Because the price of paper and shipping has increased, the lowest cover price I can get on it is $59.99. It would have still been higher than normal even without the heavier paper, but this increased the price further. I feel bad, I really wanted to keep it lower and went back and forth with myself for weeks trying to balance affordability and quality. I hope people will understand the reason for the cover price. 

Art by Jackie Musto 

The book itself reflects a years long campaign I ran in the prefecture of Fan Xu within the 87 Killers organization. It is a very character-focused, crime campaign, and the material reflects that. But like Ogre Gate Inn it comes with a complete gazetteer filled with NPCs, locations, etc. The Gazetteer also includes cultural information, details on laws and law enforcement, an overview of each district, the district magistrates and locations inside the districts. 

As a campaign book it comes loaded with advice, notes about how I run Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate, an extensive appendix and a campaign set-up at the start of the book. You can run the campaign premise presented or just use the book to run sessions in Fan Xu Prefecture. It also has tools for managing sect wars. 

There is more emphasis on urban environments. It gives extensive coverage of the cities of Tung-On and Mai Cun for example. There is also a strong focus on sects and organizations. The 87 Killers get an entire chapter of their own. The other groups are covered in the gazetteer in their respective locations. 

Art by Jackie Musto

The Sons of Lady 87 Campaign Book may have the most NPCs of any book in the Ogre Gate line, or any book I have worked on. It is filled with a ton of characters so the GM has a real sense of full martial world. 

I organized Sons of Lady 87 in a different way to reflect how I run material for my own campaign. Instead of putting NPCs in a different section of the book, I include them in the locations they are most relevant to (so a sect leader or member would normally be found in their sect entry). This reduces flipping back and forth during combat. 

The book also has a large chapter of new Kung Fu Techniques and Profound Techniques. It includes two profound sects: Celestial Heart Sect and the Seven Blood Cave Alliance. 

As always there are plentiful maps, illustrations and tables. Some of the notable maps include a map of the City of Tung-On and Mai Cun, and a map of South Wind Manor (an elaborately trapped sect headquarters). And there is plenty more as well. 

I will keep everyone updated as we get closer to the November release date. 

WILLIAM PETER BLATTY'S FAITH TRILOGY

While there is a trilogy of exorcist movies (I, II, and III), there is an alternative trilogy that reflects the writer's attempt to grapple with the themes found in the first film and book: The Exorcist, The Ninth Configuration, and the Exorcist III). We didn't set out do cover the trilogy of faith intentionally but after we did Exorcist III, we ended up covering them in reverse order. The movies deal with questions around the existence of god, religious doubt, the problem of evil, the fall of man, etc. Each movie in the series is based on one of Blatty's novels (The Exorcist, The Ninth Configuration, and Legion). The Ninth Configuration and the Exorcist III are both directed by Blatty. The original Exorcist movie was directed by William Friedkin. The storyline of the Exorcist and Exorcist III are directly connected. The story in the Ninth Configuration is connected to the Exorcist by a particular thread but operates in a different genre and involves entirely different characters (with one notable exception). 

Here are our discussions of the movies on the podcast. I highly recommend all three films and the books on which they are based:

WONDERING HEROES OF OGRE GATE PART FOUR: THE EVOLVING KUNG FU LANDSCAPE

This is part of an ongoing series as I prepare to publish the Sons of Lady 87 campaign book for Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate. Mostly it is just me responding to questions I have seen people ask about Ogre Gate (or highlighting something in the rulebook people might be less aware of). You can see the previous entry HERE 

One of my favorite wuxia films is Lady Hermit with Cheng Pei Pei. The protagonist, Lady Hermit, is forced into temporary hiding after a nearly fatal encounter with Black Demon (a local martial bully), whose Shadowless Claw left her with a serious injury that she is hoping to recover from. She has spent that time devising a way to overcome his technique, and devises on of her own in response. It is based on shifting the weight in her body as she leaps and attacks, and she uses a cat falling and landing on its feet as a way to demonstrate to her pupil how the technique is performed. I won't spoil the film but this is a good example of something that comes up often in wuxia and kung fu movies, an extremely powerful master, technique or weapon presents itself and the heroes have to devise a clever solution (the solution might be a counter to the technique, a special device, or a tactic). This was the guiding philosophy with Kung Fu techniques and power levels in wandering heroes of Ogre Gate, explained in this passage: 

The game leans into the idea of having martial arts that are more powerful than others emerge. Even with techniques in the same Qi Level, there is variety in terms of effectiveness and power. But that effectiveness is only going to help a character for so long, eventually someone devises a devastating counter that makes the technique less safe to use all the time. 

The balance can come from the PCs themselves, or the NPCs. It shouldn't happen right away, but if a technique is very good, eventually one should emerge that can contend with it. A good example in the game is Blade of the Dancing Fox. This is one we knew from play testing was quite effective when used well and a lot of players ended up taking it. Eventually in my own campaigns a technique called Swift Reply of the Fox emerged. It specifically counters Blade of the Dancing Fox and does considerable damage when performed successfully. This is a technique that actually appears in the Lady 87 book. 

So Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate (and to a lesser degree Righteous Blood Ruthless Blades) takes an approach to balance that allows for spikes and dips in power. It is a game that embraces a lack of balance on the front end, knowing that this gets corrected organically over time when the Changing Kung Fu landscape approach is fully embraced. It is by design in order to emulate the kinds of movies that inspired the game. 

WONDERING HEROES OF OGRE GATE PART THREE: POWER LEVELS OF OGRE GATE AND THE OGRE GATE SETTING

One of the most frequent questions I get about Ogre Gate, and one of the most common questions I see about it online, is "what is the power level/what does it emulate"? I want to attempt to answer that here, as I know it can be difficult to gauge if you haven't played the system and are just looking at the book with the thought of running it for a specific concept. 

The first thing to understand about Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate is its primarily intended to emulate wuxia. But it takes a pretty expansive view of what that entails and it throws in other genres as well. One of the key models for me when I was making it was the 2006 Return of Condor Heroes series, the 2003 Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber and the 2008 Legends of Condor Heroes series*. Another of my primary concerns was being able to run a campaign emulating this take of Jin Yong's classic trilogy. 

However it was also influenced by classic shaw brothers movies from the new school wuxia era (beginning in the mid-1960s with films like Temple of the Red Lotus and Come Drink with Me). This was a much more grounded style of wuxia. And it was influenced by more high powered and over the top films like Web of Death, A Chinese Ghost Story and the Painted Skin movies. Journey to the West and films like A Chinese Odyssey and Journey to the West Conquering the Demons were also influential. Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio also had considerable influence (especially on entries like Ogre Gate Inn and the Strange Land of Li Fan). So I would say the range was meant to be from wuxia to folklore and supernatural to legendary levels like Monkey in Journey to the West, or immortals in the show Journey of Flower. 

An illustration of the Kung Fu technique
"Deflecting Dance"
By Jackie Musto 

One thing to note about how Ogre Gate is designed is the leveling system, while it only goes up to 24 on the XP chart (and that is divided into Martial Heroes, Profound Masters and Immortals), it is assumed this can keep going if the GM pleases. Many of the god entries, for example Supreme Judge Yu are meant to simply be much higher on that chart. Importantly this isn't fleshed out systematically in the book, so the options won't all be immediately available RAW but the idea was a GM could develop those things as needed (which is largely what I did in my own campaigns). 

My personal opinion on Ogre Gate is it works very well emulating wuxia to more over-the-top wuxia and even stuff at the level of Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain. But at those higher immortal levels it requires more work. A lot of that work is available in various supplements but it is scattered (Ogre Gate Inn has a few, The War of Swarming Beggars on this blog has some, the Profound Masters of Ogre Gate posts on this blog have many, etc.). 

To give you an idea of the power levels available the game has three tiers: martial hero, profound master and immortal. Martial hero is levels 1-6, profound masters are levels 7-12, and immortal is levels 13-24. Martial Heroes basically just have access to Kung Fu Techniques and a few other things (like magic rituals). Profound Masters have access to Kung Fu Techniques and profound techniques (which are considerably better). Profound masters get other benefits as well such as being able to increase skills to 4d10 (3d10 is the cap for normal characters). Immortal characters gain all kinds of benefits, including Immortal Powers, Insights, skills going up to 6d10, and being able to ignore the soft die cap of 6d10, so they can roll up to 10d10 in some circumstances. They also gain Immortal Abilities (agelessness, immunity, celestial weapon bearing, regeneration, etc).  

To give an example of different power levels, all Kung Fu and Profound Techniques have a Qi Level (and you have to be that Qi Level to use the technique). Normal Kung Fu techniques go up to Qi 6. Here is a Qi 1 ability: 

Compared with a Qi 6 ability: 

These are both external martial arts styles so here is an example of a Qi rank 4 Neigong technique to give more variety: 

And here is a Qi 7 Profound Technique: 

There are also evil kung fu techniques (some of which are very high level and only available to immortals). These usually give you demon flaws. Here is an example of such a technique: 

For context, characters all have a number of Max Wounds equal to their Qi rank times 2, plus 1. So a Qi rank 3 character has 7 Max Wounds. 

To understand something about what immortal power levels are like, here is a section of some of the immortal powers (they get to pick one each level): 

This is one area I had hoped to expand more in the game. There are 12 Immortal Powers in the core book and a couple more HERE. They are the sort of thing where I saw many as being tailored to individual PCs (so the GM is encouraged to make more based on what is in the book). 

Another key aspect of immortals, and one of my favorites, are Insights. These are gained if you succeed on attempts at going into seclusion and mediating. You can get up to four and they are rolled randomly. Here are the tables and some of the Insights: 

And here is an entry that is pretty representative of what Insights are about: 

There are also realms, monsters and immortals to consider. You can see a good example of how the power and setting level scales to things like Lunar Realm HERE. And below is the monster section entry on Supreme Judge Yu: 

It looks a bit rough I know because I had to extract it, but as you can see Supreme Judge Yu has a Qi Rank of 40 (and he is not the most powerful deity in the setting). And to give an idea of supernatural threats, here is one of my favorite monsters: 

So the scale of power is pretty large, but I would say there are portions where the game is more focused on (like the power scale from Martial Hero to early Profound Master levels). You can scale it into the high levels than that. It may take a little more work though because there isn't as much material in the core book (the books has a huge list of Kung Fu Techniques but much smaller lists of powers for higher level characters like Profound Masters and Immortals). 

I hope this is useful. If anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out through the contact page on this blog. 

*If you are interested in these series note these ones are not related, the proper follow-up to the 2006 Return of Condor Heroes is the 2009 Heaven Sword Dragon Saber, for instance. Also the 2008 Legend of Condor Heroes takes liberties with the story that angered some viewers. 

WANDERING HEROES OF OGRE GATE: THE FOOT FIST WAY PART THREE

From the Muye Dobo Tong Ji
Bruce W. Sims

This is an ongoing series of Kung Fu technique entries for Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate for unarmed strikes (mostly kicks and punches). You can see the previous entry HERE. I will be doing a range of techniques based on my own striking background. Right now I am still primarily covering ideas inspired from Taekwondo. 

Some of these were hard to distill into a clear mechanic. I like Kung Fu Technique entries to be crisp and logical. As time has gone on, entries have followed a much crisper format which I find works best in play. Taking a real technique and trying to reduce it to a particular set of mechanics can be a challenge. This is especially the case I find when your sense of the technique is informed from direct experience with it (there are so many nuances to something as basic as a punch of kick when they are used live). When in doubt, I erred on the side of going cinematic. These are definitely more grounded than some of the flashier Ogre Gate techniques, but I didn't want them so grounded in reality they felt like watching a normal fight. The other thing I tried to do with these is give them some tactical weight. 

As always with these, these are early entries. I may come back and revise them as I playtest more. 

COUNTERING SWEEP 

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Leg Strike against Attack Roll

Type: Counter 

Qi: 2

 

When your opponent lifts their leg to deliver any kicking attack you sweep them to the ground with a kick of your own by striking their standing leg. 

 

Make a Leg Strike roll against attack roll. On a Success you stop avoid the attack and trip the target to the ground (1 move to get up). On a Total Success the Target takes 1d10 Damage. 

 

This counter gains a +2d10 bonus against any high kicks like Axe or Crescent Kick. 

 

Cathartic: On a Success you trip the target to the ground (1 move to get up) and they take 1d10 +1d10 Falling Damage per rank of Waijia (so if you have 2 ranks in Waijia, the target takes 3d10 Falling Damage). 

 

CRESCENT KICK 

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Leg Strike against Parry 

Type: Normal 

Qi: 3

 

In very close quarters you bring your foot to the sky and strike your foe’s head in a confusing inward crescent motion. 

 

Make a Leg Strike roll against Parry. On a Success you do Normal Damage. All counter attempts against a Crescent Kick are made at -1d10. 

 

Cathartic: On a Success you do Normal Damage. All counter attempts are made at -2d10. 

 

TORNADO KICK 

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Leg Strike against Parry 

Type: Normal 

Qi: 6

 

You drive at your opponent with a powerful spinning kick, rotating like a top and striking with enormous force. 

 

Roll Leg Strike against Parry. On a Success you do Normal Damage plus 2 Extra Wounds. If your attack roll beats the Wits of your foe, they also suffer a -1d10 to any counter attempt. 

 

You can move double your normal movement in the round you attack. 

 

Cathartic: On a Success you do Normal Damage plus 4 Extra wounds. 

 

TRAPPING KICK 

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Leg Strike against Parry 

Type: Normal 

Qi: 4

 

You trap your foe in a wash of roundhouse kicks, using the leverage from each successful kick to torque your hips and opposing leg for another strike, effecting trapping them between both striking legs. 

 

Roll Leg Strike against Parry. On a Success you do Normal Damage. On a Total Success you can kick again against the same target with your opposing leg and you get the target in a Restrain. 

 

Cathartic: On a Success you can make an another leg strike against your target (you can keep attacking until you fail) and get the target in a Restrain. On a Total Success you do Normal Damage plus 2 Extra wounds. 

 

  

WANDERING HEROES OF OGRE GATE: THE FOOT FIST WAY PART TWO

Muye Jebo, 3rd page (Bruce W. Sims)

This is the next in a series of blog entries covering unarmed strikes for Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate, drawn on my experience in martial arts. You can find the first one HERE. 

These are based on my Taekwondo training. I leaned slightly more on traditional methods rather than sport here for the cinematic value (if these reflected the use in sport competition or live sparring they would be slightly different). The exception might be the Straight Punch (essentially a jab) and the Lightning Combination). I will do another set of Arm strikes and punches as I didn't have room to get into elbow strikes, backlists etc here. The tiger claw isn't meant to emulate the throat ripping in movies, but more of a strike that temporarily debilitates. 

STRAIGHT PUNCH 

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Arm Strike against Parry 

Type: Normal 

Qi: 1

 

You strike with your lead hand, often in a flurry to better gauge distance and weakness in your foe. 

 

Make an Arm Strike roll against Parry, on a Success you do 0d10 Damage and gain a +1d10 to your next attack against that target. On a Total Success you do 1d10 damage. 

 

Cathartic: You do Normal Damage, gain a +2d10 to your next attack against that target and can decipher one random technique that person possesses based on how they react to your attack. 

 

REVERSE PUNCH 

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Arm Strike against Parry 

Type: Normal 

Qi: 1

 

You strike with your rear hand, rotating your body and hips into the punch for maximal effect. 

 

Make an Arm Strike Roll against Parry. On a Success you do Muscle+Waijia for Damage. However, on the following round your turn order rank drops by 2.  

 

Cathartic: On a Total Success you do Muscle+Waijia damage plus 1 Extra Wound per Qi Rank. 

 

LIGHTNING COMBINATION 

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Arm against Parry 

Type: Normal 

Qi: 2

 

You deliver a flurry of punches hoping to create an opening when your opponent blocks or counters. 

 

Roll Arm Strike against Parry. On a Success you do Normal Damage. If your opponent counters and fails, you do 4d10 Damage. 

 

Cathartic: As above, except your opponent suffers a -1d10 to their counter attempt and you do 4d10 Open Damage if they fail.  

 

TIGER CLAW 

Discipline: Waijia

Skill: Arm against Parry 

Type: Normal 

Qi: 3

 

You clutch the throat of your enemy to debilitate them. 

 

Make an Arm Strike Roll against Parry. On a Success you do Normal Damage. On a Total Success you lower the Hardiness of your foe temporarily by half for 1 round. 

This can also be done as a punch if the user prefers, the important thing is debilitating by hitting the throat. 

 

Cathartic: On a Success you do normal damage plus 1 Extra wound. On a Total Success you lower the Hardiness of your foe by half for a week.