ThiagoMartell
2012-07-29, 05:05 AM
I'm a big fan of this game, one of my favorite roleplaying games ever. The combat system is so well done, it catches the feel of a Street Fighter match so well and the whole 'Hong Kong movie' feel to it's elements is amazing. It's just so much fun.
I find it funny that this game was probably more popular in Brazil than it was in the US. You see, SF StG was released here a long time after it was released in the US (around 2000? 1999? something like that) and they used official Capcom art in the book instead of the White Wolf illustrations (most of the custom WW stuff sucked hard).
It's curious how little information Capcom Japan gave to the designers, to the point where I wonder if Capcom Japan was even involved in the project. The background info in SF StG is mostly wrong when we take into account the official SF storyline, with some really weird stuff that mostly belongs in superhero comics (like the origin of the Sonic Boom).
Still, love the game and I'm starting a new campaign using this system soon, focusing on an Age of Apocalypse-like story, based on what would happen if Bison did take over Ryu's body in SF Alpha 3.
Anyone else has fond memories of this game?
Also, does anyone know of a homebrew Super Move rule that doesn't suck?
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EDIT: OK, people don't seem to know much about the game, so I'll explain the basics.
Atmosphere and Storytelling: The game uses flavor text very well to create atmosphere, as usual for Storyteller. You can tell plenty of stories in SF, but it is usually related to crimes (and Shadaloo), sci-fi (and Shadaloo), mystic secrets (and Shadaloo) and tournaments (and... Shadaloo). Shadaloo is the main antagonist, but it's easy to do more personal stories and not focus a lot on it (kinda like Pentex in Werewolf).
As common in Storyteller, there is kind of a noir feel to the game. It's hard to achieve complete victory against Shadaloo, so there is almost a feel of hopelessness. The fact that the World Warriors have actual stats doesn't usually help - you know your character has no chance against M. Bison (on a sidenot, Balrog is a wimp and a well built beginner character can beat him with a bit of luck).
The game gets a lot of inspiration from 80s martial arts movies and Honk Kong cinema as a whole. It was the beginning of the 90s - the martial arts craze was still fading slowly.
Every Storyteller game has it's factions - vampire clans, werewolf tribes, mage traditions, you name it. Street Fighter is no different - characters are divided by their fighting style. Funnily enough, many fighting styles that are popular now were not back then (say, Tae Kwon Do) so they are not present in the game. The game's version of Jujutsu is laughably inaccurate. They even called Ryu and Ken's style Shotokan Karate (not their fault - it's what Capcom of America called it) instead of Ansatsuken.
Not surprisingly, Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do is the One Style To Rule Them All. Not only does it get the best maneuvers in the game, it's the only style that can learn any maneuver (by paying 1 extra power point for it).
Combat System: You know how in Storyteller you usually need 4 rolls to solve one attack (roll to hit, roll to dodge, roll for damage, roll for soak), each with a firstful of dice? Forget that. In Street Fighter, there is only one roll per attack and you won't be rolling a lot of dice for it. There is no "to hit" roll - all attacks kind of autohit if you're in range. Instead, there is a Speed factor to all attacks (determined by Dexterity, the maneuver's modifier and other misc modifiers). The slower character starts acting first and the faster character can interrupt his action at any moment. If you interrupt a punch with a Backflip Kick, for example, you'll end up out of range and the slower character won't be able to hit you. If you interrupt any attack with a foot sweep or other maneuver that cause knockdown, the slower character won't be able to hit you, he'll just spend the round getting up.
When an attack does hit, it's time for damage.
Damage is calculated by adding Strenght (for physical maneuvers - mystical stuff like a Hadoken uses Intelligence) + Technique (Punch, Kick, Grab, Athletics or Focus - there is also a Block technique, but it deals no damage, and weapon techniques but those are mostly for villains) + Maneuver modifier (never gets higher than +7) - target's Stamina (plus Block, if he is blocking).
Example
Ken has Strenght 5 and Punch 6. He hits Zangief with a Dragon Punch (+6 damage modifier). Zangief has Stamina 7. So Ken rolls 5+6+6-7=10 damage dice against Zangief. If Zangief blocked, he'd add his 4 points in Block to his Soak, reducing damage to 6.
Whenever an attack hits for more damage than your Stamina, you become dizzy, performing no actions for a whole turn.
Tactics: Street Fighter is at the same time a highly tactical game and not. It's easy to build your character whichever way you want and not lag behind. It's a lot more rewarding to build an organic character, because as most Storyteller games, SF is not combat-only. There are going to be situations where a purely combat-focused character is going to be useless.
The tactical side makes SF a hard game to narrate. The Storyteller must familiarize himself with the NPCs so as to make the fights challenging. Some of the World Warriors are hard to play with (Dhalsim and Fei Long spring to mind), since they play range/Speed games. Some are easy - Blanka is very straight forward and so is Ken, for example. For tha players, knowing tactics for their PCs is easy - but the storyteller must deal with lots of different characters, so it gets complicated fast.
I particularly enjoy being a storyteller in this game for this very reason.
I find it funny that this game was probably more popular in Brazil than it was in the US. You see, SF StG was released here a long time after it was released in the US (around 2000? 1999? something like that) and they used official Capcom art in the book instead of the White Wolf illustrations (most of the custom WW stuff sucked hard).
It's curious how little information Capcom Japan gave to the designers, to the point where I wonder if Capcom Japan was even involved in the project. The background info in SF StG is mostly wrong when we take into account the official SF storyline, with some really weird stuff that mostly belongs in superhero comics (like the origin of the Sonic Boom).
Still, love the game and I'm starting a new campaign using this system soon, focusing on an Age of Apocalypse-like story, based on what would happen if Bison did take over Ryu's body in SF Alpha 3.
Anyone else has fond memories of this game?
Also, does anyone know of a homebrew Super Move rule that doesn't suck?
-------
EDIT: OK, people don't seem to know much about the game, so I'll explain the basics.
Atmosphere and Storytelling: The game uses flavor text very well to create atmosphere, as usual for Storyteller. You can tell plenty of stories in SF, but it is usually related to crimes (and Shadaloo), sci-fi (and Shadaloo), mystic secrets (and Shadaloo) and tournaments (and... Shadaloo). Shadaloo is the main antagonist, but it's easy to do more personal stories and not focus a lot on it (kinda like Pentex in Werewolf).
As common in Storyteller, there is kind of a noir feel to the game. It's hard to achieve complete victory against Shadaloo, so there is almost a feel of hopelessness. The fact that the World Warriors have actual stats doesn't usually help - you know your character has no chance against M. Bison (on a sidenot, Balrog is a wimp and a well built beginner character can beat him with a bit of luck).
The game gets a lot of inspiration from 80s martial arts movies and Honk Kong cinema as a whole. It was the beginning of the 90s - the martial arts craze was still fading slowly.
Every Storyteller game has it's factions - vampire clans, werewolf tribes, mage traditions, you name it. Street Fighter is no different - characters are divided by their fighting style. Funnily enough, many fighting styles that are popular now were not back then (say, Tae Kwon Do) so they are not present in the game. The game's version of Jujutsu is laughably inaccurate. They even called Ryu and Ken's style Shotokan Karate (not their fault - it's what Capcom of America called it) instead of Ansatsuken.
Not surprisingly, Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do is the One Style To Rule Them All. Not only does it get the best maneuvers in the game, it's the only style that can learn any maneuver (by paying 1 extra power point for it).
Combat System: You know how in Storyteller you usually need 4 rolls to solve one attack (roll to hit, roll to dodge, roll for damage, roll for soak), each with a firstful of dice? Forget that. In Street Fighter, there is only one roll per attack and you won't be rolling a lot of dice for it. There is no "to hit" roll - all attacks kind of autohit if you're in range. Instead, there is a Speed factor to all attacks (determined by Dexterity, the maneuver's modifier and other misc modifiers). The slower character starts acting first and the faster character can interrupt his action at any moment. If you interrupt a punch with a Backflip Kick, for example, you'll end up out of range and the slower character won't be able to hit you. If you interrupt any attack with a foot sweep or other maneuver that cause knockdown, the slower character won't be able to hit you, he'll just spend the round getting up.
When an attack does hit, it's time for damage.
Damage is calculated by adding Strenght (for physical maneuvers - mystical stuff like a Hadoken uses Intelligence) + Technique (Punch, Kick, Grab, Athletics or Focus - there is also a Block technique, but it deals no damage, and weapon techniques but those are mostly for villains) + Maneuver modifier (never gets higher than +7) - target's Stamina (plus Block, if he is blocking).
Example
Ken has Strenght 5 and Punch 6. He hits Zangief with a Dragon Punch (+6 damage modifier). Zangief has Stamina 7. So Ken rolls 5+6+6-7=10 damage dice against Zangief. If Zangief blocked, he'd add his 4 points in Block to his Soak, reducing damage to 6.
Whenever an attack hits for more damage than your Stamina, you become dizzy, performing no actions for a whole turn.
Tactics: Street Fighter is at the same time a highly tactical game and not. It's easy to build your character whichever way you want and not lag behind. It's a lot more rewarding to build an organic character, because as most Storyteller games, SF is not combat-only. There are going to be situations where a purely combat-focused character is going to be useless.
The tactical side makes SF a hard game to narrate. The Storyteller must familiarize himself with the NPCs so as to make the fights challenging. Some of the World Warriors are hard to play with (Dhalsim and Fei Long spring to mind), since they play range/Speed games. Some are easy - Blanka is very straight forward and so is Ken, for example. For tha players, knowing tactics for their PCs is easy - but the storyteller must deal with lots of different characters, so it gets complicated fast.
I particularly enjoy being a storyteller in this game for this very reason.