GAMEMASTERING WUXIA: LETHALITY AND BALANCE IN OGRE GATE AND RBRB

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate and Righteous Blood Ruthless Blades both take an approach to design that embraces lethality and kung fu techniques that vary considerably in power (even at the same Qi Rank). Balance is not the point of the techniques. This can be contrasted with the parent system, Sertorius, where balance was a goal (and many of our earlier games before that as well). The reason for this shift was two-fold. First, we wanted to emulate the carnage you see on screen in wuxia films like Golden Swallow and Killer Clans. Second, less balance proved more fun in playtest. This was something we initially realized when working on the the first Book of the Archon for Sertorius, where we created a spell expansion that had spells unrestricted by balance consideration. We found they made the game more exciting and when players were offered the balanced versus the unbalanced option, they almost always chose the unbalanced one. It is also much more emulative of the source material. In wuxia and kung fu movies and novels, there are spikes in power. Some characters are amazing, others are not. And we wanted to capture that. None of this is to say there isn't a kind of balance in the game, but for the most part, what balance exists arises organically in the setting and still largely unforgiving. 

Related to this is a central concept introduced in Ogre Gate: The Evolving or Changing Kung Fu Landscape. This is meant to reflect what you see so often in wuxia media: the martial world going through periods of chaos and disruption then returning to equilibrium as new Kung Fu emerges to contend with powerful techniques that upset the balance. Here is the text from the core book:

And I clarified this point further in the Sons of Lady 87 Book here: 

A perfect example of this in the books, and in my own campaigns, is the technique Blade of the Dancing Fox. This was very powerful and players quickly discovered how useful it was. When it first emerged, and started to become known in the campaign, not only did several players start taking it, they soon found NPCs were emerging who knew it as well. This is one way balance can be achieved (a technique simply becomes more ubiquitous as its fame grows and sects covet it). But eventually someone devised a counter: Swift Reply of the Fox (this technique appears in War of Swarming Beggars). Usually that is what begins to occur. The martial world evolves over time, so that there is a natural balance in the world. This doesn't mean characters don't get killed by super powerful technique or some characters don't have better techniques than others, but it means eventually even the most powerful hero with a great technique like Blade of the Dancing Fox, eventually meets their match or eventually the presence of their power alone attracts enemies in larger numbers (whether it is heroic sects uniting to deal with a threat, or challengers seeking to prove they can beat the most powerful people in the martial world). 

As you can see this is crucial to managing powerful techniques in the game. And this is meant to emulate something that happens in both wuxia and Kung Fu: a powerful martial arts technique or weapon is introduced that rocks the martial world by creating a huge power imbalance, but eventually a solution arises to nullify or counter the technique. For this to work the GM needs to understand this principle and be open to new techniques emerging from player characters and NPCs in response. 

Another thing the GM should keep in mind is the sects and NPCs. Many of the more powerful Kung Fu techniques belong to equally powerful sects. So even acquiring them, puts a player character in danger, and using them once acquired can attract the attention of the sect. This doesn't mean the GM is meant to simply spam problems at a player because they have a good technique, but it highlights an important aspect of power in the martial world: everything has consequences and power itself can become its own headache. This by the way was an aspect of Sertorius as well. Players becoming powerful is not really a problem. It can be fun, even its own source of adventure. But the GM needs to understand how it produces complications, as those complications will be things that become a focus in the campaign. 

Characters in wuxia and kung fu films are not always equal in power, some are very weak, some are very strong, and while sometimes this is due simply to the point in training a character is at, often it boils down to individual martial arts techniques being much better or worse than others. The game also doesn't assume or guarantee that characters become great heroes of martial artists. That is often what protagonists in wuxia are, but my approach has been more to emulate the world of Condor Heroes or Heroes Shed no Tears, not the plot lines. One of the things I enjoy about playing is finding out who the players are over the course of the campaign. Do they become one of the greats like Guo Jing, a villain, or simply someone who dies, perhaps giving others reason to get revenge? 

While both games lean into drama, neither leans into story structure, so what this brings in terms of emulation is not a guarantee that your character will survive as a hero or survive to die spectacularly at the end. It does mean, because death is on the table, there are ample opportunities for drama. Death almost always produces drama. A good way to think of it is you never really know who or where you are in the story. You could just be a bit player meant to die under a henchman's sword, and that might launch the real story of your brother coming for revenge. It isn't about story structure it is about situations, drama, bloodshed, etc. 

Take the Venom Mob film Crippled Avengers as an example. At the start of this movie, the entire party of characters is maimed in some way. One is deafened, the other blinded, another has his legs cut off, and one is even made into an idiot when they crush his head in a vice. This all happens at the start of the movie. It is essentially a TPK with an asterisk. And it launches the heroes on their path to training around their new disabilities so they can confront the father and son who maimed them. That is how lethality operates in a Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate or Righteous Blood Ruthless Blades campaign (particularly the later where maiming is probably more common). Now there is no guarantee they will survive, this is very much a play to find out what happens kind of system. But whatever it is, it will be a solid evening of swordplay. It is also why back-up characters are crucial. 

Generally Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate is more forgiving than Righteous Blood Ruthless Blades, because it is a bit easier for players to gauge how many more hits they can take in a given fight, but this isn't always the case. Character deaths happen for all kinds of reasons in campaigns and this is something built into the game's design. I am not personally a fan of giving PCs plot armor, and that is something that has been constant in all our games (whether it is Terror Network, Servants of Gaius or Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate). Sometimes that means characters meet anti-climactic ends because the system is not loaded for only dramatic outcomes in that respect and the GM is not supposed to tip the scales. You are playing to discover what happens, which I think is more exciting and also acknowledges that this is a game using random dice rolls. Fighting against random dice to achieve story goals can be a terrible exercise in frustration for all. 

There is another element that these games embrace, particularly Ogre Gate, which is some of the gonzo quality in many wuxia. Everything in wuxia feels heightened, the characters, the battles, the situations, etc. Some movies and books leans into this in a very heavy way, like Web of Death or Holy Flame of the Martial World, and those influences are certainly there. But it is also present in more typical examples like The Condor Heroes trilogy or Smiling Proud Wanderer. Or take some of the film versions, like Swordsman II* or Brave Archer Series. One of the things that makes these films so exciting is how wild and inventive they are, and the kind of plot turns they lean into. 

Something I discovered taking this approach from the early playtests to now (with Ogre Gate in particular as that is the primary system I run week to week), is this really lends itself to long term campaigns. And making long-term, sustainable, wuxia campaigns was a major goal from the outset. When you get out of the mindset of plot armor and hinging the story on a single character, even if their stories are important while they live, it opens the game up to more durable sources of fuel and attention. A total party kill for example is not the end of the campaign, it is a great beginning. An important character dying, can mean an exciting new direction for the campaign. A character obtaining an overpowered technique puts them at the center of conflict in the martial world, the adventures start to write themselves as other clans seek to deal with that person. Characters who find themselves weak or feeble, have solid motivation for finding a solution to that weakness. They may seek out a powerful technique/weapon or die trying. When you combine this with many of the other classic elements I have discussed before (sect conflict, wuxia dungeons, etc) it has given me campaigns that last for years. 

I will talk more about Gamemastering wuxia campaigns future posts based on my own play at the table. Feel free to send me a message or comment about something you would like to see me discuss.

*By part III of this series the movies deviate wildly from the books, so I mention this one as it is well regarded by many fans because it was marketed in the west as a stand alone movie under titles like The Legend of the Swordsman.