2D Fighter-world RPG?

[Rixx]

Something I've always been interested in brewing up is a tabletop game set in the world of Capcom and SNK fighters - Basically, a world where people can call upon their inner strength and energy to perform feats of superhuman power. These games all do seem to happen in the same universe - a universe where you can propel yourself indefinitely through the air by kicking and nobody would really think much of it, and even the weakest joke of a fighter can project energy from his hand at least three feet away.

The ultimate goal for this project is for a set of rules that can describe any fighting game character with relative accuracy.

Fighting game gameplay tropes that'd need to be inherent in the system:

- Differing power levels of attacks (Light, Medium, Heavy) and what they mean to damage and defense. Perhaps doing a more damaging attack will leave you more open in the next round?

- Guarding and playing on the defensive

- Combat on the Y-Axis: jumping, rising and falling attacks, etc.

- Special moves that can be performed at any time - they have to be powerful enough to be worth doing, but with enough drawbacks that the character still has incentive to use regular attacks.

- Different kinds of special moves. Projectiles (midair and ground traveling), rising attacks, rapid-hitting attacks, and different speeds and power levels for all of them. The ultimate goal is for any special move in a fighting game to be describable by the rules.

- Character speed vs. power balance.

- Rules for throwing - not necessarily grappling, as most fighting games have a "throw" mechanic that executes automatically as soon as the character is grabbed.

- Super combo moves, and perhaps a system of various selectable ways of building up for them and performing them, a la Street Fighter Alpha 3 or Capcom vs. SNK 2


Fighting game story tropes that should be encouraged:

- Fighting tournaments as fronts for plans by sinister organizations.

- Character rivalries, friendly or otherwise.

- Dangerous forbidden techniques and evil spirits, as well as cruel, unnatural super-science and experimental engineered "ultimate fighters".

- Typical fighting game temperaments (Stoic, cocky, cheerful, calm, wrathful)

- People being master martial artists in their spare time


Is there any game system already out there that can be tweaked to fit these guidelines, or is this the sort of thing that would require a homebrew, ground-up system?

[Gralamin]

Based on the Martial Arts chapter for Mechas and Manga for Mutants and Mastermind, I think you could pull it off rather easily. Obviously my suggested system is Mutants and Masterminds.

[Rixx]

What I'm thinking is it can use a system similar to the d20 system in how it handles attacks and damage - light, medium, and heavy attacks get different bonuses and damage dice (light attacks are easier to hit with but do less damage - the opposite goes for heavy attacks). A character being faster but weaker or slower but stronger can translate as a universal bonus/penalty to attack rolls and damage rolls (+1 to hit and -1 damage for slightly fast characters, for example).

A character's AC should be dynamic, though. Performing certain actions should lower or raise your AC accordingly - for example, doing special moves might leave you open, lowering your AC, but taking evasive action and staying on the defensive instead of attacking should raise your AC. Furthermore, being hit should lower your AC temporarily, making it easier for your opponent to land more hits on you. Missing with attacks should also lower your AC, translating as leaving yourself open to attack - a more severe penalty could apply for heavier attacks.

And to distinguish between slow-but-durable and fast-but-fragile characters, a bonus/penalty to AC and HP (more AC and less HP for a fragile speedster, for example)

I'm thinking that percentile dice would be a better choice than a d20 for figuring out to-hit.

[jmbrown]

Mutants and Mastermind's not only does everything you're suggesting, it does it right out of the box without having to homebrew anything. The game was designed to let characters teleport halfway across the world, sacrifice their defense bonus to increase their attack bonus, mentally toss an airplane, then teleport back.

Seriously, check it out.

[Dairun Cates]

Try to find a copy of the Street Fighter system by White Wolf.

It's old, but it has some interesting mechanical ideas. It's definitely not a "diplomacy-based" system, but the battle system manages to capture some of the feel of a 2-D fighting game in a tabletop setting. Some people don't like it, but all around it was a pretty critical success (just not monetary). Also, it has the whole "Capcom Feel" pre-built in.

Basically, you have maneuvers that have speed and range and players and enemies pick their moves before a round. Highest speed goes first, followed by others. Fast character generally can't take a hit to save their life, but can usually get out of the range of their opponents attacks. Meanwhile, heavier characters take and dish out a lot of damage, but usually act last. It's actually quite brilliant in its simplicity.

[Rixx]

I really should give both of those a look! I'm just worried that a generalized system won't have a lot of variance between characters. Since everyone's basically of the "close range hand to hand fighter" class, it doesn't seem like there'd be much difference between characters like Ryu and Terry Bogard, let alone Ryu and Ken.

[jmbrown]

I really should give both of those a look! I'm just worried that a generalized system won't have a lot of variance between characters. Since everyone's basically of the "close range hand to hand fighter" class, it doesn't seem like there'd be much difference between characters like Ryu and Terry Bogard, let alone Ryu and Ken.

In Mutants and Masterminds, you have "powers" which cover a broad range of abilities. You can modify powers with feats and restrict them with flaws. You can basically build two characters entirely differently using the same set of powers but different flaws and feats.

For example, the hadoken is a "blast" power that could "counter" other blast powers (since hadoken destroys other ranged attacks). Ryu's shoryuken would be a "strike" power while Ken's fire shoryuken would be a "strike" power with the "fire" descriptor attached to it and "stun." You could make it so that it sets the opponent on fire as well.

[Knave]

As said by Dairun, there is a Street Fighter II Story Telling game made by White Wolf that is probably very much like what you are looking for.

However, the game is dated, and doesn't really give you as much flexibility as you'd imagine... It's also very imbalanced. Regardless, it's a good starting point.

I'm bumping this topic because I'm working on a kind of "remake", using it as a basis anyway, and this seemed like an appropriate place to start gathering interest.

((Well, it hasn't been more than 1,5 months but it's off the first 3 pages... in fact, it's off the first 10, apparently as I couldn't even find this topic normally just through a google search. Hope this doesn't count as threadomancy...))

[Squangos]

Thrash (http://dsg.neko-machi.com/thrash.html) is a freely available, public domain RPG based off White Wolf's Street Fighter game and some other things. Version 1.8 seems to cover more concepts than all the supplements for the Street Fighter RPG put together.

[elliott20]

you can emulate this to a limited amount through ToB as well, actually.

But yeah, the SF2 game by WW is probably a good place to start. Personally I hated it since a single punch took like, 4 rolls to resolve plus it was incredibly broken. But it's a place to take a look.

I would like to echo the M&M suggestion though.

[Knave]

After reading it, Thrash is pretty good. There are some things that irk me about it, but they are probably just personal. It took steps in the right direction regardless, and made lots of stuff I thought of making (grooves, for example).

[drkrash]

Hey there! I am a total brand newbie to these boards - my google-fu brought me to this thread based on its topic. I'd like to think that I can help out the OP.

I have no doubt that M&M can do a kickass Street Fighter campaign. But as a quasi-universal system, it can't do genre emulation.

For all those who like fighting video games, especially those who actually enjoy the characters, stories, and settings of those games, there have been few options to translate that experience to tabletop role-playing. Even though you can recreate the experience with any number of different systems, character generation often presents difficult restrictions and combat systems hardly ever come close to feeling like the action contained in a video game or even in the anime or manga based on those games.

Fight! The Fighting Game RPG seeks to address this with a role-playing game aimed firmly at genre emulation. Character generation and combat are intended to replicate the feel of the source material, instead of an appeal to real world martial arts, realistic combat, or character designs with a bunch of skills that are irrelevant to world-traveling martial artist adventurers.

The full rules for Fight! The Fighting Game RPG will be available in early 2010 from Divine Madness Press. Enjoy the playtest combat for now. Comments welcome!

Christopher Peter
Divine Madness Press


http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AekXA69sPgglZGNqcTg0djNfMHFtcDJ3ZDk&hl=en

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AekXA69sPgglZGNqcTg0djNfMWRnM2Z6Y2Zx&hl=en

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AukXA69sPggldGppeHhVODFYZ0FfcFhzUWJuNmFSW nc&hl=en

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AukXA69sPggldFRodzBOSDk4RmxacmZFSENsN2I5Y kE&hl=en

[Rixx]

...Huh! These rules are quite intriguing - they seem to replicate the feel of a 2D fighter pretty well. I'll have to look into them further.

[drkrash]

Check this out:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=485958