Well the MRQ2 hack is interesting.

On the palladium damage thing ...I haven't seen the book in years but...yep it probably would be better if you weren't just using the same move over and over.  

Having one value for damage is the simple solution, but it might be more satisfying to mix it up a bit so there's more choices for PCs.  You could mix it up a bit by having them do fights on ball bearings where they can't Kick without falling over or occasionally having them break an arm so they can't double fist punch, but if you wanted to houserule it the other way...Palladium has a fairly wide range of possible damage values for melee weapons (a nonmagical hand weapon might anything from d4 to 4d6 or so IIRC) so the different damage values do work, you could just add some other modifiers to counter-balance the effects.

*kicks - do these ever count as more than one attack? (or is that just the basic HtH: Martial Arts version?): or you could add a penalty to strike/bonus to opponent parry for it being slow.

*one-finger strike: mostly just for using Atemi abilities, leave as is?

*punch: leave as standard attack?

*double-fist punch: maybe using this gives a penalty to parry briefly (compare to paired weapons, which costs you automatic parry completely)

*headbutt: briefly dazed if you fumble; lose next attack/action.

(and I've probably forgotten quite a few completely)

Quote from: Rubio;448786I only heard of this after it was long out of print. Do you have a link to a review or overview of some sort?

No, but let's see what I can find . . .
The blue page has one, but this here is interesting . . .
Someone posted a short description and the rules on Scrib'd. I took a quick look at it, and it doesn't seem like a rewrite or a summary. I think it's the same free pdf I downloaded back in the day. You might just want to take a look at it.

http://www.stargazersworld.com/2008/12/10/scribd-gem-dragon-fist/

GURPS Martial arts. If the game was actually combat focused I would use this.

I am quite unsurprised at the Ninjas & Superspies love. It's my favorite martial arts system as well, and in fact it's the only one I can claim any experience with. Also vying with Rifts for my favorite Palladium game, and like Rifts I have a love/hate thing with it.

I love it because it makes martial arts styles a meaningful choice (e.g. Shaolin Kung Fu is not the same as Ch'a Chu'an or Leopard Style) from a mechanical viewpoint, without getting mired in detail. I hate it because Palladium character generation drives me fucking nuts; also, skills and gear are hopelessly outdated, which makes it fairly difficult to run anything set after the 1980s, and thus it's not ideally suited for the Jason Bourne-ish game I had in mind.

Of course, these are mostly fixable (though updating the tech would require plenty of research), but I'm hoping to find a game the can give me the good (mechanically distinct martial arts styles without Rolemasteresque oodles of crunch), with less of the bad.

Feng Shui and HKAT I'm only vaguely familiar with it. Do they support "my Leopard style is unstoppable! Your Crane style is weak and obsolete!" type play, or do they handle styles abstractly?

I've read praise for GURPS Martial Arts before. Is it of any use for anyone not playing or running GURPS? How adaptable is it to another generic system, e.g. BRP or SW?

Pete, thanks for the suggest MRQII hack. This is fairly close to what I had in mind, and I'll give it serious consideration.

Thank you all!

Quote from: The Butcher;449106Feng Shui and HKAT I'm only vaguely familiar with it. Do they support "my Leopard style is unstoppable! Your Crane style is weak and obsolete!" type play, or do they handle styles abstractly?

They do. FS seems a little more abstract. HKAT! has different moves that do different damage. They're both pretty operatic. FS has you doing all kinds of enhanced stuff. HKAT! has you doing some resource management each round, as though you were choreographing the fight. Which, of course, in that game, you are.

GURPS and Hero can become a handful to keep track of if you aren't familiar with the systems. But as you gain familiarity, they aren't overwhelming.

Both RQ (Ninja) and RoleMaster (Oriental Companion) had fairly decent stabs at a martial arts sytems that sort of made sense. The only thing I recall about RM was that it had its own Martial Arts critical hit tables which were funny, even on the lower critical hit results.

I like how Palladium does it in Ninjas and Superspies/Mystic China.

RPGPundit

Monkey Journey to the West by Newt Newport.

If you don't like cards as a randomiser it's probably not for you but for everyone else it is a simple and fast moving Kung Fu actioner.

Qin is also pretty good, though its not so much "martial arts" as it is "ancient chinese weapons training + wuxia".

RPGPundit

I find Ninjas & Superspies interesting and Mystic China fascinating, but their actual play value has been limited to source material for other games, as I have tries multiple times to get characters generated for the game but never completed the effort.

I had an "Enter the Dragon" inspired game of Spycraft 2.0 called "The Island of Dr. Shang" that worked excellently, and I would like to investigate again soon some day.