Thursday, May 7, 2015

PROFOUND MASTERS OF OGRE GATE

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate has six levels of Qi characters can achieve. Once you reach Qi rank 6, you are pretty much at the apex of human potential for Kung Fu. At this point you are almost a force of nature. 


It takes some time to reach Qi rank 6 and it is no small achievement. To rise that high in the martial world you have to defeat many foes more powerful than yourself. But once characters do attain this level of mastery there are still places for them to go. 

When we send Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate to layout, we start work on the next book: Profound Masters of Ogre Gate. This will not only be expanded rules for Immortal characters it will also enhance the mythical and fantasy elements of the game, taking things to a whole new level. Right now we are thinking of Profound Masters as supplying play inspired by sources like Journey to the West, Madame White Snake and Chinese Paladin 1&3.

It is still in the early phases of planning, but likely it will contain the following: 

  • A chapter dedicated to Profound Kung Fu Techniques
  • A chapter dedicated to Immortal Powers
  • An expanded monster section
  • An overview of the different realms
  • GM advice
  • New Objects of Power
  • Sample Adventures

More will certainly come as we work on it. This is just what we've discussed at this stage. 

12 comments:

  1. Already excited! That sounds terrific. I do love me some Xian Xia and more support for Ogre Gate is never a bad thing.

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  2. Glad to hear it. We are probably going to give it a solid year after Ogre Gate before releasing it (because I want to run a full Xian Xia level campaign in order to playtest all the concepts). Ogre Gate is going to edits in the next couple months, then layout. If our artwork is all done by the end of summer it should be ready for release (we are taking our time though, not rushing any step, so can't say for certain).

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    1. Could you make a post going into detail about pressure point techniques sometime?

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    2. What would you like to know about them?

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    3. I assume they focus on crippling opponents, of course! But does this prevent said opponents from using certain skills or techniques, or is the effect more direct in wounding them? I assume you have a bit of both, actually, but you haven't spoken at length about them, and you might have a wholly new perspective to offer on pressure points that makes me think about them a little differently. I'd also like to know if they weave into the maiming rules (for perhaps Fist of the North Star-style bloodshed)!

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  3. Mainly what they do is debilitate foes in various ways by messing with peoples meridians and internal organs. Often this takes the form of skill penalties (but not always). Some are quite lethal however. They can also be used to help people heal.

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    1. Thank you! I knew there would be a few here and there that would be quite lethal, just because that's what they do in popular fiction!

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    2. Maybe not a pressure point technique but I immediately thought of the deadly and dramatic Shaolin King Kong Palm ! (from Iron Monkey).

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    3. That's actually a good question: would that technique be waijia, neigong or dianxue? It doesn't strike any points specifically, but it's basically a kind of dim mak because of the poisoning effect, right?

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    4. Iron Monkey is awesome. In our system it would probably get filed under either Dianxue or Neigong. Most of the techniques like that have been under Neigong but there are exceptions. There is some cross over and flexibility when categorizing.

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  4. Interested in how your high level characters play out. I'm currently writing a adventure module where normal mortals battle normal mortals then get embroiled in supernatural conflict - very like the start of Zu Warriors, or going from The Water Margin to Journey to the West.

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  5. That could certainly work, though in our system (at least where things stand now on immortals) the mortal characters would be at a huge disadvantage. However they could probably hand groups of weak immortals. We do have lots of different "realms" in the setting and those are flexible, so you can create them as needed to fit what you are going for. When we release the Profound Masters book we intend to flesh those out more.

    Right now I have one significant realm fleshed out for exploration in my campaign.

    We are giving ourselves at least a full year to work on the Profound Masters of Ogre Gate supplement though (because we want to have time to fully playtest it in actual campaigns). I expect to be done entirely with the core Ogre Gate book early summer (at which point it goes to editing then layout). At that stage we start work on the immortal rules. The core book right now has some basic information on immortal level play, but these are just starting points that we will expand upon greatly in the next book (for example it has a few key immortal powers, profound techniques and about 6 or 7 immortals with stats).

    That sounds like an interesting module. If you end up liking the Ogre Gate system, we are very welcoming of third party modules, hacks and supplements (this information may be of interest: http://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/wandering-heroes-of-ogre-gate-meant-to.html).

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