If you don't want to bog down combat, don't keep trudging down the road of complexity. The stuff you have shared so far seems complex enough that you would be better served by something already tested.

At that juncture, GURPS 4e would be a good game to look at. You can learn techniques to eliminate maneuver penalties. It handles cinematic martial arts with over-the-top skills and techniques (like trained by a master and pressure points) or less fanciful approaches. The listings of styles are thorough. There is a PDF for the Fairborne Combat System if you like. :-) GURPS already has fatigue and a somewhat gritty yet playable hit point system. If I had a group that wanted "realistic feeling" combat and martial arts, I would pull out GURPS 4e.

Also, GURPS 4e Martial Arts covers other combat options as well like bleeding. So it not only covers Kung-Fu but all aspects of martial combat. You can add as much detail as you can handle.

Also note one of the guiding principles of GURPS; play-able realism. When the rules would get in way of what they consider play-able, they err on the side of play-able. So, the system has crunch, but it's not so cumbersome as to be useless at the table (at least from the testimonials of those who play it on the GURPS forum... :-)

Quote from: trechriron;822460If you don't want to bog down combat, don't keep trudging down the road of complexity. The stuff you have shared so far seems complex enough that you would be better served by something already tested.

At that juncture, GURPS 4e would be a good game to look at. You can learn techniques to eliminate maneuver penalties. It handles cinematic martial arts with over-the-top skills and techniques (like trained by a master and pressure points) or less fanciful approaches. The listings of styles are thorough. There is a PDF for the Fairborne Combat System if you like. :-) GURPS already has fatigue and a somewhat gritty yet playable hit point system. If I had a group that wanted "realistic feeling" combat and martial arts, I would pull out GURPS 4e.

Also, GURPS 4e Martial Arts covers other combat options as well like bleeding. So it not only covers Kung-Fu but all aspects of martial combat. You can add as much detail as you can handle.

Also note one of the guiding principles of GURPS; play-able realism. When the rules would get in way of what they consider play-able, they err on the side of play-able. So, the system has crunch, but it's not so cumbersome as to be useless at the table (at least from the testimonials of those who play it on the GURPS forum... :-)

Huh, I never thought of what I was doing as that complex, for some reason at the table it plays out at about the same speed as stock OD&D. We don't go into that much detail for damage from actual HP versus Fatigue, save that it requires more resting time to heal and Fatigue can be largely restored by short rests. Using fatigue in combat mostly boils down to expending it to get a flat bonus on an attack or damage roll. Nothing more than a bit of extra bookkeeping.

Either way I will give Gurps 4e a look, I had a handful of Gurps books in the early 2000's but I don't recall what edition they were nor did I read them that much.

Quote from: Arkansan;822467Huh, I never thought of what I was doing as that complex, for some reason at the table it plays out at about the same speed as stock OD&D. We don't go into that much detail for damage from actual HP versus Fatigue, save that it requires more resting time to heal and Fatigue can be largely restored by short rests. Using fatigue in combat mostly boils down to expending it to get a flat bonus on an attack or damage roll. Nothing more than a bit of extra bookkeeping.

Either way I will give Gurps 4e a look, I had a handful of Gurps books in the early 2000's but I don't recall what edition they were nor did I read them that much.

I'm not all that familiar with GURPS but what you describe as fatigue sounds a lot like what the HERO System (Champions) calls Stun & Endurance.  HERO has an equally well developed Martial Arts system that you should consider looking at.

Yeah it's just a little a homebrew modification I used for older editions of D&D. I will check out the HERO system.

Quote from: grimstav;822379Now if you missed the Driftwood publishing run of The Riddle of Steel in 2001-2003 I am not surprised. It was put together in co-operation with ARMA (the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts) and while based on an earlier Polish RPG and with a strong hint of swords play and a narrative mass combat system, it is the best at capturing the real feel of combat I have encountered.

The downside is that "real combat" can be rather brief and messy... but in the case of unarmed combat as in real life there is a lot more room for seasoned opponents to dance before the final blow... also the last Companion in the run featured both martial art schools and cinematic rules to bring out that 70's Hong Kong Kung Fu vibe...

Now if I could only find something in print!!!

/delurk

There was a pseudo-2nd edition of TROS that came out a year or so ago called BLADE OF THE IRON THRONE. It fixed a lot of the wonky stuff at the edges of TROS while recasting it much more strongly into a Sword and Sorcery vibe. For purchase here:

http://bit.ly/1NlbVQB

I wrote a longish review of it here:

https://rpggeek.com/thread/1203290/dethroning-pretenders

I played a lot of TROS and loved it, and think Blade is better in pretty much every way. While the focus of both is on swordsmanship, I think it does unarmed striking and grappling pretty well.

For the OP's purposes though, Blade is probably way too complicated. You may want to check out:

Jolly Roger's SWASHBUCKLER (1998). As the name implies, kind of three musketeerish, but the concepts would translate into unarmed easily. It would appeal to you because it has an excellent system of out maneuvering your opponent -- if you do X, then they really need to do Y, because to do Z would be desperate and stupid. Maybe a little crunchy for your goals but nowhere near Blade.

Prince of Darkness' ETERNAL CONTENDERS (2013). As written, a GMless story game set in the fantasy Asian worlds of video games like Soul Caliber and Samurai Shodown. However you could easily ignore all the scene-setting stuff and just use the basic system to run a traditional game. This would be good because it's not super detailed yet it deals with fatigue and such. The system does a really good job of finding the balance between boringly random (where no matter how many good decisions you made previously in the fight, the winner is the first one to land a lucky shot) and boringly deterministic (where the first one to land a blow then immediately fights defensively until the other guy bleeds out). You can always come back but you have to play smart.

Sirlin Games' YOMI (2011). A card game, not an RPG or storygame. The epitome of RPS fighting games. It feels random at first but you quickly learn that it is a game of hand management, which simulates the fatigue aspect. You can play online for free at //www.fantasystrike.com. There's also an app (not free).

Hope that helps; if you have any followup questions please ask!

/relurk

Quote from: grimstav;822379Now if you missed the Driftwood publishing run of The Riddle of Steel in 2001-2003 I am not surprised. It was put together in co-operation with ARMA (the Association for Renaissance Martial Arts) and while based on an earlier Polish RPG and with a strong hint of swords play and a narrative mass combat system, it is the best at capturing the real feel of combat I have encountered.

The downside is that "real combat" can be rather brief and messy... but in the case of unarmed combat as in real life there is a lot more room for seasoned opponents to dance before the final blow... also the last Companion in the run featured both martial art schools and cinematic rules to bring out that 70's Hong Kong Kung Fu vibe...

Now if I could only find something in print!!!

Welcome to theRPGsite!

Say I wanted to check out Ninjas & Superspies, should I look for the original version or revised?  Ebay has both in my price range, and I know nothing about the game.

Quote from: Saladman;822873Say I wanted to check out Ninjas & Superspies, should I look for the original version or revised?  Ebay has both in my price range, and I know nothing about the game.

I've only ever owned Revised. Probably no big difference.

I have the original and have at least seen Revised, though not for awhile. The main difference I think is that in original Dedicated Martial Artists got 3 forms, Worldly got 2, and others had one the option of getting one. In revised Dedicated got 2 forms and Worldly Martial Artists got boned. I expect there may have been some specific problematic powers that may have been modified, and there's a section on converting to Heroes Unlimited in the revised book that I don't remember seeing in the original book.
Overall I think I prefer the original but its close. Either way, hey its Palladium you're going to have to figure out patches or DIY rules for a few things in any case.

Funny thing about N&S is how some forms required such intense dedication as to count as two styles: Ninjitsu and... Muay Thai.

Cue 30 years later a Muay Thai gym in every corner.

Erick was a great RPG writer but his writing on martial arts hasn't aged gracefully, to say the least. Admittedly, his biases are the biases of nearly every book written in the 1980s, and the extent of his research is impressive (first even heard about Wing Chun here), but alongside the technology/gear chapter, this is another reason I'd love to see a new edition of N&S.

Quote from: The Butcher;823029Cue 30 years later a Muay Thai gym in every corner.

I would like to add that it must have been the traditional foot-stomping straight-from-Thailand Muay Thai that Erick Wujcik was referring to, not the modern - and considerably less focused - style so popular in western kickboxing/MMA gyms today. It's hard to get a westerner to jump over a freshly planted tree every day.

What I'm saying is - the martial arts themselves have changed. So, of course the reference is, in some cases, dated. Not to say there were not also mistaken interpretations from third-hand sources in Ninjas & Superspies - there were, but generally I think it was an impressive list of martial arts.

//Panjumanju

The Riddle of Steel. Everything except the combat system is shit, but the combat system *feels* like an actual struggle. There's positioning, out thinking your opponent, taking big risks for big rewards. I actually created a stand alone gladiator game based on RoS.

Quote from: Panjumanju;823058I would like to add that it must have been the traditional foot-stomping straight-from-Thailand Muay Thai that Erick Wujcik was referring to, not the modern - and considerably less focused - style so popular in western kickboxing/MMA gyms today. It's hard to get a westerner to jump over a freshly planted tree every day.

What I'm saying is - the martial arts themselves have changed. So, of course the reference is, in some cases, dated. Not to say there were not also mistaken interpretations from third-hand sources in Ninjas & Superspies - there were, but generally I think it was an impressive list of martial arts.

//Panjumanju

Straight from Thailand muay thai is pretty sport oriented though. It is a sport there. Has been for quite some time.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;823065Straight from Thailand muay thai is pretty sport oriented though. It is a sport there. Has been for quite some time.

I'm sure you know more about it than I do. My understanding is only academic, and from some enthusiasts I've met. However - I think the fact that Muai Thai has a changing face even in Thailand is even more indicative that we need a new and updated edition of Ninjas & Superspies.

//Panjumanju

It hasn't changed much since the book in question was written. There is an older form of Muay thai that still gets practiced there and is experiencing something of a cultural revival, and there is also an older form the sport version that doesn't use boxing gloves with slightly different rules and that gets used for special events and occasions (it is comparable to the difference between modern boxing and bare knuckle boxing). But most of the Muay Thai gyms in the US (at least the ones I have been to in Boston) are run by guys who trained in Thailand and have ties with boxing camps there. The drills are largely the same. The big difference is you don't have boxing camps in the US with stables of fighters. And there also isn't the enthusiasm for Muay thai here so there are not nearly as many opportunities to fight. It is a big sport in Thailand with several Muay thai stadiums. Here Muay Thai is seen as supplementary training for MMA (at least in terms of its practical utility). There people love the sport and if you do Muay thai its your job and life (though it is still mostly the poor who become fighters). Here most people do it as a hobby or take pro fights if they are really good.