Axioms and Game Design

 I have this piece of paper in my desk with three game design axioms written on it. I can't remember where I copied this from. Google search leads me to BX Blackrazor for the first one, and that's no surprise. But I can't find where I got the other two from. I assumed they were also from JB, but I haven't found them on his blog anywhere. I've had them in mind as I'm working on both Flying Swordsmen 2E (expect delays) and OSR Modern (play testing starts tomorrow). 

Here they are: 

Axiom #1: Good game design only incorporates rules integral to game play.  

Axiom #2: Good game design requires rules that set clear objectives for players.

Axiom #3: Good game design rewards behavior meeting the objectives of play. 

 

Trying to track these other two down gets me things in groups of three like: Laws of Function/Immersion/Balance, Goals/Rules/Voluntary engagement,  Mechanics/Gameplay/Experience. 

I also find a lot of the game theory stuff that I was reading a few years back, like Juul, Crawford, Salen & Zimmerman, etc. But I can't find where I got these other two axioms. 

 

Regardless of where they came from, I'm trying to design OSR Modern with these principles in front of me. 

What is the bare minimum of rules systems needed for this game? (Axiom #1) Some that I have more or less worked out and will be testing include: combat, NPC interactions, chases, shopping for gear, crafting/creating/upgrading items, dealing with security devices.  

Some that I have been working on but haven't completed include: investigation, computer hacking, vehicle stunts/combat, being wanted by the law.  

I think that may even be too much, but for now I've got simple systems for the above list and concepts for the below list. 

But do these set clear objectives for play? (Axiom #2) That's something I'll start investigating tomorrow. It will depend on the PCs the players create, and which systems we test out that they react well to. In addition to gaining levels for the better combat/ability boosts, each level gained comes with an opportunity to improve the abstract wealth level, so that may be enough to encourage adventuring play. We'll see.  

What I envision as objectives of play: action movie stuff (rescue hostages, get revenge, infiltrate and exfiltrate strongholds, car chases, bombs, etc), detective/spy stuff (gather information, work sources, search crime scenes for clues/leads, etc.), and car/chase stuff (competitive driving, vehicle combat, running from the fuzz, etc.). 

Maybe I'll end up focusing it just on the action movie stuff in the end, as that's probably the biggest inspiration. The detective/spy stuff and the car stuff also seem like they would be fun for play. However, that may muddle the game objectives.  

Are the various actions listed above rewarded in game play? (Axiom #3) Well, combat, chases, and NPC interactions, and security devices can award XP based on the opposition overcome (I have a bunch of stock NPC types, animal opponents, and locks/security systems with XP values). But for chases, at least vehicle chases, I'm not sure if just using the opposing driver's XP value is good enough reward. 

A few actions, like creating or upgrading gear, provide their own in-game reward, but I may find a way to award XP for that sort of thing as well.  Shopping provides its award with whatever gear has been purchased. I don't see the need to award XP for shopping. 

Computer hacking and gathering clues/leads both need a system of how they work developed (I have sketchy rules for both), and what sorts of awards (XP or in-game) they will provide. 

Being wanted should provide additional challenge (higher chances to be noticed, hassled by law enforcement, or even actively hunted down). I have the levels set, but I'm still sketchy on how they impact character actions and how to model raising or lowering them. I think these will definitely motivate play (axiom #2) but pretty much the reward would be limited to lowering your "heat". 

I have a placeholder "challenge" award system in the book to cover the areas that don't yet have their own set XP reward mechanics done, but it's vague and wishy-washy and really too mother-may-I for my tastes. It's a stopgap for play testing, and I hope to get more concrete rewards for each element of game play from these test sessions.  

Maybe I'll find out I don't need all of these systems, and I can simplify my games. Maybe my players will want more. We'll see. I'm looking forward to the test tomorrow to see how it goes.  

The Urge to Tinker

The clarification revision of Flying Swordsmen 2E is nearly done, though I haven't had a ton of time to work on it in the past week or so. I've been busy with work, family, and other duties, including organizing our local Busan Tabletop Gaming Convention (tentatively scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 30). More on that in a future post. 

Today, well, since yesterday really, I've had the bug to stop working on FS2E, and start a new project. Bad idea, I know. But Gamer ADD isn't just linked to wanting to run new campaigns and try new game systems. It has an effect on game design motivation as well. 

That new project? Well, it's actually an idea I've had in the back of my head for some time now. But my brain is telling me now is the time to work on it. And no, it's not the Castlevania megadungeon! I've got an odd sudden urge to try and reverse engineer an OSR version of d20 Modern. 

By that, I don't just mean take BX or AD&D or OD&D and add guns and cars and electronics. I want to take the ability score centered Base Class/specialized Advanced Class system of d20 Modern and peel away the skills, the feats, and limit the talents. I want to make something that has similar, but simpler, character creation, but gives the freedom to mix classes and backgrounds to be able to emulate nearly any contemporary (or recent past/near future) type of character. 

I don't think it would be that hard. I would keep some "skills" in the game, but they would be more like demi-human abilities or Thief skills in BX/BECMI. They'd be set by your Background and Class(es), and the Class granted ones would likely improve as you level. The Talents would be simplified, and would be used to specialize in the things that each class does normally. 

I know that Everyday Heroes gave d20 Modern the 5E treatment, updating it to play like the currently published version of D&D. I'd like to do the same, only going the opposite direction: a d20 Modern game that plays like old school D&D. 

I'll try to hold off on that urge for now. I do want to get this revision to Flying Swordsmen done, and then suspend my TS&R campaign for a month or two to play test it. Once that's done, maybe this OSR Modern idea can take up space in my brain. Either that, or (as some people have requested), make an "Arabian Nights" expansion to Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins. 

And thinking about it, would this OSR Modern game be an expansion to TS&R as well? I don't see why it couldn't. That would simplify many things for me on the design end.  

October Means Castlevania

 Last month, I replayed Castlevania Symphony of the Night. I'll probably replay a few more CV games over the course of this month, as we head towards Halloween. And of course, as I've mentioned before, some day I want to create a Castlevania megadungeon and run that campaign. I've made two abortive attempts at it in the past, and way way back, when I finally made my version of The Haunted Keep in Karameikos (BECMI Known World), the dungeon was heavily inspired by Castlevania. But it wasn't a big, sprawling, exploration-focused megadungeon. It was really pretty railroady looking over it these days.

While on my evening walk with my 11yo the other night, we were talking a bit about gaming (computer and table top), and he was asking about my SotN replay. I finished it off last weekend (I took a trip to Istanbul, maybe more on that in a future post). And I mentioned I'd like to run a D&D Castlevania game some day. But he suggested I should run it not with D&D but with d6 System. 

That's something I hadn't considered before. Besides D&D, I have considered RetroPhaze, the OSR game designed to emulate 8-bit and 16-bit JRPGs as the game engine. I think it might make a decent fit for the game. I've also considered modifying d20 Modern/d20 Past for the game. But honestly, I don't need to get back into the headache of running the 3E-era d20 system again. 

d6 System may be easy to run, but as I was saying in my previous post, one thing it (and many other games) lack is a good step-by-step procedural system for managing exploration. Star Wars d6 assumed you'd be running the game almost like an interactive movie, jumping from scene to scene. And while that would work if I wanted to emulate some of the NES CV games (and various remakes), if I want something like SotN, where exploration of the environment leads to hidden treasures and access to new areas, D&D is still the way to go. 

Or port some of those systems into d6, something I could do. I did it with 5E, and more or less it worked. I quit running 5E mostly because it's too focused on the simple core mechanic but with way too many exception-based special abilities. 

If I ever do this, it will still likely be old school D&D based. The monsters, character types, spells, mechanics, etc. are all there. I'd be going through and removing some options from what exists, rather than adding in new stuff that isn't there to begin with. That's always a lot easier to do. 

This is making me reconsider my revision to the first draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E. I've been going through it and streamlining the presentation. Simplifying my wording. Making the martial arts techniques simpler and easier to understand and hopefully implement. I'm nearly through the techniques, having about half of the Ku (black magic) techniques, the final set, left to pare down. I've done the Introduction, How to Play, Character Creation, and Skills sections. Once I get through with Techniques, I have Equipment, then GM focused stuff. As I revise and slim down my verbiage in the GM section, I may be putting in a few procedural systems for running exploration, NPC interactions/relationship building, martial arts training, etc. It's already there for Combat, of course. 

I've got a real good feeling about this revision to the draft. I think it may end up being my best bit of game design. We'll see.  

Gaming in Seoul: Perils and Princesses

I was up in Seoul most of this weekend (Sunday evening as I type this) for an academic conference. But I was free Friday evening, so stopped by Dice and Comics Cafe (formerly known as Dice Latte, which a lot of people still refer to it by). 

There was some sort of Western RPG in progress when I got there, but the owner told me that most pick up games start around 7pm. So I ordered some food and listened in on the Western game while I ate. I didn't interrupt to ask what game system it was, but it was definitely not Boot Hill. It had a mundane setting (no magic, undead, or steampunk from what I could tell), or at least the encounters I overhead didn't include anything like that. 

When other people started arriving, I joined them. There were two games brewing, a Call of Cthulhu game set in space, and a Perils and Princesses pirate adventure. I joined the Perils and Princesses game. Ian, who plays in Richard's online Call of Cthulhu games, was also in this game but all the other players were people I had just met. 

Perils and Princesses is an NSR type game, similar to Black Hack, Into the Odd, Mothership, PbtA games, etc. You play a princess with certain magical gifts, and need to survive adventures by wits, resolve, and sometimes swinging swords. 

Morgan was our GM. 

My princess was a knight/healer named Valerian.  

Ian played an alchemist/water mage princess named Talia.

Margot played a wild card/con man princess with a pet parrot named Whistle (the parrot was named Polly).

Oliver played a scholar/thief princess named Clara.

Riley played a barbarian/beastmaster princess named Fern. 

The adventure we went on was basically The Blues Brothers. The orphanage we were raised in (yes, we're princesses, but also orphans. Stop over-thinking) was in danger of being bought and torn down by an evil merchant. Luckily, we heard of these pirate ghosts with treasure in a sea cave south of town, and an old matron in town gave us a map if we promised to recover her family heirloom cursed dagger.

Well, after romping through town for a bit, we set sail for the caves, and avoided, fought and befriended various monsters. We recovered the dagger and other treasure to save the orphanage just in time. We literally played until the shop was closing, so had to wrap up the game in a hurry. 

It was fun, and like a lot of NSR games, it was easy to pick a character and just start playing. I'm not sure it would have a lot of long-term campaign value, though, as there only appear to be four levels to the characters (we were playing at level 2). 

_________________________________

In other news, I've almost completed my revisions to Flying Swordsmen 2E. I need to read through the monster section very carefully one more time. I've also been pondering ideas for a short campaign to play test the game with my local group. People in one of the RPOL games I play in have been asking when it will be available, so I should get to work polishing up and testing the rules.

In other other news, next weekend is the TTRPG in Korea Online SummerCon. I'm in two games on Saturday as a player. Justin is running Monster of the Week in the morning, and in the afternoon I'm in a Mothership game. On Sunday afternoon, I will run a TS&R(ish)* game, then in the evening play in a Dungeon Crawl Classics game. And then classes start on Monday...

 *I'm using my TS&R rules to run the game, but I found an old set of BECMI pre-gen PCs that I wanted to reuse, so Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling are classes for this game, and all the Clerics, Fighters, Magic-Users, and Thieves are Human. No Druids, Rangers, or any of that AD&D add-on either.  

A Tale of Two Play Tests

Yesterday, I was involved in two play tests. 

The first was my own game, Flying Swordsmen 2E. It was a focused affair, and I think I received some valuable feedback.

The second was for Jeremy's new Supers game that he's been working on. It was my third time testing out his system and while there is progress on that system, the session was a bit...meh.

So first off, for my Flying Swordsmen play test, I had four players: Flynn and Steven (my boys, age 17 and almost 11), Denis, and Charles. They've all played in my Star Wars campaign, so they're familiar with the basics at least of the Open d6 System. 

My goal for the session was to have the players each make a PC using a template, then have them each make a PC using custom design. I thought it would be a quick session. Turns out, it took most of the time to get the template PCs completed mechanically (we didn't create NPC Sifu, organizations, or important NPC relationships since I don't have my starting campaign setting ideas worked out yet). And instead of then turning to custom PCs (which we wouldn't have had time to finish anyway), we ran a practice combat, two-on-two. 

Denis had gone through the character templates the night before. He even called to tell me that he found around seven of them really interesting. That was a good sign. He hadn't read through the player rules packet, though. He ended up using the Beggar template.

Charles had at least skimmed the player rules, and had a few questions about them when we started. I don't think he had looked through the templates yet. He went with a Drunken Boxer template.

My boys were given a basic overview, and I explained the templates to them before we left to meet up with Denis and Charles. Flynn chose the Demonist Shaman template, and Steven went with the Street Fighter template. 

Denis took a bit of time to understand the difference between the suggested skills on the template and the skill dice that could be distributed. Charles had lots of questions about taking specializations of skills. There are a couple of skills that I might need to rename. I went with "Stance" as the name of what Star Wars calls Dodge, and this was confusing for them. I'll probably edit it to Dodge so it's easier to notice...but I like the flavor of the name Stance. 

Denis suggested that instead of walls of text, I could make a visual diagram of character creation, and that's a good idea. I'll get to work on that soon. Color coding a character sheet and putting notes in a sidebar with number references on the sheet should be fairly easy to do. 

My boys didn't have many problems. They've each made multiple Star Wars PCs, so they picked their templates, selected their skills, and were ready to go. 

In the combat, we found that for novice martial artists, it's fairly easy to get knocked out or wounded. Denis' Beggar went down first, then Flynn's Shaman was wounded. Charles' Drunken Boxer took a minor wound, then Steven's Street Fighter knocked him out, ending the combat. I want to run more combats like this, and put them up against some NPCs and monsters as well, at different power levels to see how things go. They had fun with this fight. Everyone had good things to say about FS2E afterwards. 

Later, after dinner, Flynn and I logged on to Jeremy's Discord to play test his Supers game. This was the third time, and I decided just before we joined the game (well, about 30 minutes before) to make a new character with different powers just to try out a few things. Most of the powers I chose weren't really relevant to the adventure he had us play through, but that's alright. He had no idea I was going to switch from a magic sword-wielding Thor/Warlord/Black Knight type to a technomancer. 

Flynn played Nova, the plasma-wielding hero from the previous session. Dustie played Maya, the gravity-manipulator she had played in the previous session. Jeff and Scott couldn't make it.

Jeremy has been struggling with a few elements of the design. In particular, he wants Stunts -- special or unusual uses of a power -- to be a big part of the game. But he's been struggling with how to model them. I still find the resolution a little unsatisfying, and I think Jeremy is starting to see where I'm coming from. He also has a very slow and painful advancement mechanic, but I can't seem to convince him that it needs to change. He did add in a new way to gain points towards advancement, but is keeping the glacial pace. 

Mechanics aside, the session was dull. In the first game, we had a mystery to solve (although it was mostly just RP, and didn't involve much mechanics), then a bunch of monster fights. Session Two was a bit of exploration (again mostly RP, a bit of mechanics for that), and a bunch of monster fights. Session three was ONLY a series of monster fights. 

The good thing about that was, as we mopped up all of the monsters except for the "Level 4 Psychic Entity" that was only there to monologue, Jeremy seemed to start to realize that 2d10 plus an ability score that is probably going to range from 30 to 60 (and could be more) isn't the best mechanic. Unless we roll snake-eyes, we're not going to fail much. Or the difficulties are going to be so crazy that a character like Jeff made, who has a lot of powers in the 10 to 20 range, is going to find it impossible.  

The bad thing was, we were just going through the motions. Jeremy started us out with the NPC bosses telling us to guard the area monsters would appear. Then he seemed to be fishing for us to do something else, but when we tried doing other things, we were discouraged from that. Then, when we had a break in the monster fighting, we tried doing something unexpected, and Jeremy had us quickly returned to what we had been told to do by his "Dr. Alchemical" NPC. And a few more monster fights took place. 

So yeah, a railroad adventure. 

Now, since it's a play test, I don't mind the railroad so much. What bothers me is that Jeremy was still trying to give us an illusion of freedom, then yanking it away. I'd have been happier if he'd just straight up ran us through the series of monster fights without pretending we had a choice in the matter. 

That's less a problem with the rule set, and more with Jeremy's skills as a GM. I know there are plenty of monsters in supers comics, but when I think Supers RPG, I want to face villains. Street-level bank or tech lab robbers. Teams of colorful weirdos like the Sinster Six or Flash's Rogue's Gallery. Organizations like the Brotherhood of Mutants, Lexcorp, Hydra, or the Injustice League. 

Sure, throw in a few monsters here and there. But where are the ticking time bombs in school buses? The choice to save your girlfriend or the group of civilians from certain death? The pair of nuclear missiles aimed at opposite ends of the country and only time to stop one of them? The crazy non-linear fun-house gladiatorial combat for an extra-dimensional TV personality? The choice between going out to stop crime or attending Grandma's dinner party? Having to make ends meet at a day job while constantly getting pulled away by villains causing chaos? 

OK, had to vent. Three sessions of nothing but fighting Lovecraftian monsters (if you know Jeremy's OSR monster/art books, you know what I mean) gets old.  

Gearing Up for a Play Test

 I've got the Flying Swordsmen 2E rules in what I think are playable condition. So, after today's Star Wars d6 game, I asked the guys if they'd be willing to try out these rules next time. They said OK, although Flynn, my older son, still wants to play more Star Wars while he's here for the summer. I can manage both of those things. 

 This evening, I copy/pasted the player facing rules into a new document, and edited it a little. I saved it as a PDF, but now I'm thinking, even though it's just a play test document, maybe I should add some art to it. Not all of my players have a lot of experience watching wuxia movies. Art could help. 

This will be mostly art taken from movies, because this document shouldn't be seen by anyone but my players. When I am closer to ready to publish, I'll have to make the decision to stick with public domain art like in 1E (probably recycle a lot of the art I did use there), or maybe try to run a Kickstarter or IndieGoGo campaign to fund some original art. I suck at self-promotion, so I'll probably save myself the stress and just use the PD art again. But we'll see. 

For now, I'm excited to share these rules with the group, see what sorts of PCs they come up with, and then form some adventures and test the rules in play.  

Progress on Flying Swordsmen 2E

 In the past few days, I've been pretty busy. My older boy is back in Korea for summer vacation. I'm working on my next research paper. I've also been painting some minis in my spare time to relax. Oh, and I've got the first draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E more or less finished. I still need to add some examples (NPCs, making adventures, a sample of how a game plays). But the basic mechanics for creating characters, training/improving characters, running the game, creating campaigns and adventures, setting rewards, and the setting information are all there. 

I will need to decide if I want to license art this time, or stick to PD images...

 

The past two days, I've been going through it with find/replace to make sure I'm consistent with names of the skills, powers, abilities, etc. including which ones are capitalized, in italics, and so on. I also have used some words too often. 

Ability is used for the six main stats of the game (Prowess, Might, Agility, Observation, Presence, Education) but I also have used it indiscriminately to talk about capacities. 

Power is used for the special martial arts stats (Qinggong [lightness], Neigong [internal], Dianxue [acupressure], Suan Ming [divination], Wu [white magic], and Ku [black magic]) that allow for the use of Techniques (martial arts maneuvers, spells, feats). I also talk about creature powers, power as in political or social clout, etc. 

Luckily, I seem to have stuck to using skill mostly for mechanical skills within the game. 

My document is A4, single column, mostly 12 point font. Obviously headers use larger fonts, and some of the tables and some notes I use 10.5 point font. The document is 147 pages long, including 16 pages with character templates (two per page). No art yet, other than my Zhongyang Dalu map from the first edition.

I've got 41 skills, 108 techniques, around 60 monsters, 25 sample magic items (with notes on how to design more), and detailed but hopefully simple rules for combat including actions, reactions, special maneuvers, improvised weaponry, special types of damage (energy, poison, etc.), and so on. I've got a system for training new skills, and one for learning new Powers and Techniques. These are similar, but not exactly the same. Skills are a little easier to learn than a new Power, but if your Power increases you can learn a Technique automatically. 

Once I get done with the terminology consistency passes, I'll make a separate document with just the player facing information and work up an adventure or two to playtest the rules with my group.

Monsters in Flying Swordsmen 2E

I've been writing up the monsters for Flying Swordsmen 2E. I have around 50 of them (monsters and animals, not stock NPCs) total, and around 20 left to stat up. I've been basing a lot of them off of the OGL d6 Fantasy Creatures book, but with some modifications to fit the system I came up with for FS2E. 

A lot of the descriptions have just been copy/pasted from the original Flying Swordsmen, but there are some places where I've made some changes. One thing I did with the dragons is to make sure they all have some sort of special environmental effects they can create to make fighting them more challenging but also more interesting. 

Having done that, though, it makes me realize just how similar many of the monsters are to each other. Similar dice codes for abilities and skills. There's not really a huge range. Most creatures have attacks and skills at around 4 or 5 dice. 

I have given special abilities to some monsters, and some also get martial arts Powers and Techniques (Powers are sort of like the Force Skills in Star Wars d6, Techniques are a combination of the martial arts maneuvers and spells from 1E Flying Swordsmen, with a few new things thrown in). That helps distinguish some of the monsters. But I think I need to go through and figure out ways to make monsters more interesting. I think human opponents and rivals will be primary antagonists of the game, but there should be interesting monsters to fight when you have to throw in a monster.

It's a Problem of Tone

 I've been reading over some of my draft of Flying Swordsmen 2E, and I'm not happy with it. 

Well, I'm happy with the d6 system, and the mechanics I'm using for the game. I'm not happy with the tone of my writing so far. 

I was hoping for a nice, friendly, guiding hand explaining the game and how to play. Similar to Frank Mentzer's tone in the old Basic Set. But reading it over, there are a lot of places where I'm slipping into "professor" mode and explaining concepts for the advanced referee and player, rather than for the new gamer. I've also got a lot of sections that are too much like 3E D&D's rules lawyery tone. 

Luckily, it's still the first draft, and I've just barely started in the section for the referee on how to create adventures and run the game. 

I feel like I need to go over what I've already written and simplify and clarify my writing. I also need to figure out the best way to explain some of the more detailed mechanics. I want martial arts battles to include strikes, parries & dodges, ripostes and reversals, just like in the wuxia source material. d6 allows for that, easily, but my explanations of the mechanics feel too technical in many areas, and over-explained in others. 

I know that good writing habits are to get that first draft done before going back to revise. But I think in this case, revising what I've already got and trying to give it a consistent tone will make writing the rest of the book much more enjoyable. And hopefully, clear and fun for the players and referees to read as well.

Looking Ahead

Happy New Year, everyone! I know it's a little early to wish everyone this, but if you look at my posting rate this month, it shouldn't be a surprise. 

2024 wasn't a great year over all, but gaming wise, it was pretty good. My TS&R Jade campaign is going well. Everyone is enjoying it. My side campaign of Star Wars d6 is also going well. We just played it yesterday, and had a good time. The Call of Cthulhu game was pretty fun, and hopefully it continues into next year [This one isn't actually a campaign, as we make new characters for each scenario]. And here and there, we got to try out a few smaller games as one-shots. 

In the realm of play-by-post, the long running 1E game had a reboot, with new PCs starting at level 1. It's not so bad, when the other option was the DM shutting the game down. I really enjoyed playing my primary PC in that game, but at times I was thinking it was time to retire him anyway. The one 5E game I still play there has been pretty slow due to the DM's real life schedule, and honestly, I keep forgetting to post there. I got into the ground floor of a RECON game, but different player styles/expectations frustrated the GM, and now maybe one of the players will take over. We'll see. 

The two games I'm running there, Gamma World and Star Wars d6, are moving along just fine. 

Looking forward into 2025, I see these trends continuing. Well, hopefully the 5E game picks up the pace a bit. Otherwise, things seem to be going well gaming wise. 

On the game design front, I'm plugging away at Flying Swordsmen 2E. Over the weekend, I made some character templates as the equipment chapter was kinda boring me. I'd been somewhat reluctant to get into the weeds of templates, but so far, it's been kinda fun trying to figure out the basics of different martial arts/wuxia stock characters within the framework of the game I'm creating. 

The other thing that's been on my mind lately is an idea I've had of converting the Isle of Dread for my TS&R Jade campaign. It would be a fairly superficial thing, but at the same time it would take a fair amount of rewriting. I'd want to change the Isle's native culture to be less Polynesian and more SE Asian in nature. And of course the wandering monster tables and a few of the encounter areas would need to be reworked to include more SE Asian style monsters along with all the dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. 

But do I really want to put the breaks on the local campaign to send the players off to a multi-session arc on the Isle of Dread? I mean, it's a fun module, but I'm not so sure it's the right thing for the group. Maybe I'll make some notes and then throw a few rumors/hooks their way. If they bite, I'll finish fleshing out the idea. If not, then I'll drop the idea.

Update on Flying Swordsmen 2E

Progress has been slow, but I am making progress on the game draft. 

I've got the first draft of the character generation guide. It's only two pages, so it's pretty basic. I plan to add a detailed guide to both picking a template and building a character from scratch later, once the actual rules and the combat system are nailed down a bit more.

I've got a list of about two dozen template ideas. Once I've got the rules stuff more or less complete, I plan to show what I've got to my various play groups (TS&R Jade, Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu), and ask them to help me test the system for character creation. Then I can use what they create for some of the templates. It will save me some time, and prevent some of my own character preferences from biasing the sample. (Can you guess I've been more focused on academics than gaming lately?)

I have write-ups for all of the system's basic skills. It's d6 system, so a referee could easily add more skills to the game as they wish. I don't have sample difficulty numbers yet though. I'll be cross referencing Star Wars and d6 Fantasy for that. And then when I finally get around to play-testing, I'll adjust the numbers based on whether certain tasks seem too easy or too difficult. One thing that I did try to do was to make sure that there is at least one skill useful in combat under each Ability. Star Wars has a lot of situations that don't involve combat, so there is room for the know-it-alls and the fix-it-up guys and the get-you-from-here-to-there guys to shine, along with the dedicated blow-you-to-bits guys. Wuxia should have plenty of non-combat stuff, but a lot of it in the source media is more managing relationships rather than testing your learned proficiencies. So combat should probably play a bigger part, and I want room for characters to specialize in evasive or manipulative techniques in combat, not just punchy punchy Street Fighter types. So I'm pretty happy with that. 

I also have suggested Specializations for each of the skills. 

I'm in the middle of writing up the special martial arts/mystical techniques. These are all inspired by the martial arts maneuvers, spells, and special class abilities in Flying Swordsmen. Mechanically, they work somewhat like the SW Force powers, or like 3E D&D feats. Or like special ability trees in a video game. There are six Powers, and getting trained in a Power grants access to its techniques. One die in the Power grants access to the Level 1 Basic technique. Gaining a second die in the power grants access to three to five Level 2 techniques. Gaining the third die grants access to Level 3 techniques, but only those based on the Level 2 techniques you have learned. 

I've drafted text (including difficulties) for the Qinggong (light step), Neigong (body power), Dianxue (acupressure), and Suan Ming (divination) techniques. I'm working on the Wu (white magic) techniques, leaving only Ku (black magic) techniques to get this section of the rules done. 

Some techniques are automatic ("always on") while most need to be used as actions. Some have unlimited use, others with more power are limited to a number of times per day equal to the dice in the governing Power, or just once per 24 hours for some really powerful ones. And some are unlimited in use until you roll a 1 on the Wild Die while activating it, then you need to wait for the cool-down period to finish before using it again.

In addition to all that, I've got a series of questions based on the Virtues of the Xia and general goal advancement which, similar to White Wolf games I've played, would need to be answered by players at the end of a session or adventure to gain Character Points. I've got guidelines for spending CP to improve skills and Powers, and spending them to gain additional techniques and learning new Powers. And, of course, they can also be spent from time to time to improve rolls. And a few high level techniques rely on spending some CP as a balance measure to prevent their abuse. 

I've got weapon lists, but I'm still playing around with them. I need to decide how certain weapon properties will interact with the combat system, especially around making special maneuvers like flips, blocks, holds, disarms, reversals, etc. I've got a basic Combat Resolution guide draft complete, but I need to add more detail, and especially go into those special maneuvers (and their difficulty numbers). 

The Education ability has a skill called Stratagems which in addition to covering battlefield strategy and tactics, allows for special maneuvers like those mentioned above. The difficulties for using a regular combat skill (like Sword Combat) to say disarm an opponent will be higher than for using the Stratagems skill. But certain weapons, like a hook sword, may allow you to attempt disarms at the Stratagems difficulty level. But then that all has to play well with the basic difficulties to hit with certain classes of weapon and with unarmed martial arts. So I've got a lot of number crunching and experimentation in the future, once I get the draft sorted out and a bunch of sample characters made. 

And there is a lot still to write. I've got to make monsters, magical treasures, update the FS 1E campaign world (or make a generic guide for "fantasy China" or maybe both), and write up the guidelines for creating adventures, interesting NPCs and locations, and challenges. 

And once all that's done (or more likely done piecemeal while working on all of the above), I should start working on a guideline for Wuxia. Probably not as extensive as those in Brendan Davis's Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate or Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades (which are both quite impressive!) but useful to players who might approach this game expecting D&D style hack and slash gaming, only to find a game made for martial arts soap operas.

Rise from Your Grave (again)

 Hoo-boy, it's been a minute since I've posted here. Well, I've been pretty busy with non-gaming stuff the past couple of weeks, but also a bit of gaming here and there. 

The big thing is that this morning, I pulled up my design notes for a revised, second edition of Flying Swordsmen, this time powered by the Open D6 system. I read through what I'd written, and made some edits and modifications here and there. In particular, I read through the notes on the 108 Martial Arts Techniques* and made some of them a bit more distinctive. Some were more or less the same mechanical effect with just different flavor text, which is boring.

I'd also done a simple character sheet, but I wasn't happy with it. I gave it a big revision, turning it from one sheet to two, and making more space for characterization, notes on your Sifu (master/teacher) or organization, your goals, your rivals, and the like. It's not just game mechanics and a bit of fluff now. I like it much better. 

Then, I wrote the first draft of a Preface, explaining the creation of Dragon Fist, Flying Swordsmen as a retro-clone of DF, and my dissatisfaction with both games, necessitating this new edition. It needs a bit of work as I can be overly wordy. 

And I just finished with an outline for the chapters in the book, and what each chapter should cover. Of course, this is also still likely to change as I actually get into turning my notes into actual text. And I've got to decide how much to update/edit the Zhongyang Dalu setting, or else just copy/paste that. I could actually get dinged for self-plagiarism if I do the latter, so I'll probably have to rewrite it. 

Here's what I've got so far: 

Introduction

-What is this game? RPG Basics

-What is wuxia? Background and Tropes

-Recommended Wuxia Media

-Getting the Right Feel

Playing the Game

-Abilities, Skills, Powers, Techniques

-Basic Action Resolution

-The Wild Die

-Combat Basics

-The Five Virtues and Advancement

-Example of Play

Character Creation

-Think of a Concept

-Select a Template (Simple) or

-Assign Ability Dice and Powers (Advanced)

-Assign Skill Dice

-Personality, Flaw, Background, Sifu, Relationships

-Example Character Creation

Abilities and Skills

-Ability Basics: Prowess, Might, Agility, Presence, Education, Observation

-Skills and Specializations

-Improving Skills

-Skill List

Powers and Techniques

-Powers Basics: Qinggong (Lightness), Neigong (Internal Power), Dianxue (Acupressure), Suan Ming (divination), Wu (White Magic), Ku (Black Magic)

-Training New Techniques

-Techniques List

Running the Game

-Creating Challenges

-Action Resolution (detailed)

-Combat (detailed)

-Training (detailed)

-Rewards of Play

-Creating NPCs

-Creating the World

-Using NPCs and the World as Challenges

-The Stages of Campaign Development

Monsters and Magic

-Monster List

-Magic Items

-Legendary Items

The Setting

-Using Quasi-Historical China

-Using Zhongyang Dalu

-Using Your Own World

-Zhongyang Dalu Overview

Character Templates

Break Time

I've taken a break from working on the Flying Swordsmen 2E the past couple of weeks. For one thing, I'm teaching English camps as I do most summer and winter breaks. They're fun, but exhausting. Pay really well, too. So no complaints, but gaming stuff (play or prep) has mostly been on hold. One more week to go. 

I also finally took Tallifer's advice and ordered the POD/PDF combo of King Arthur Pendragon from DriveThru. I'm still waiting on the print book, but during some breaks at camp I've been reading through the PDF. I really like it so far, but I was a big Arthur stan as a kid, so reading all the background information, the descriptions of the sources Stafford relied on and how he used them, and all that has been fun to read. But I haven't gotten into the nuts and bolts of the game aside from the character generation bits so far. I'll likely have more to say on it the more I read. 

And yes, it has already given me a few ideas for how to make FS2E more of a social relationship game, instead of just a kung fu game. 

Everyone is also pestering me to run Star Wars again, including Flynn, who would like me to run a game online so that he can play. I asked the guys about it the other day, and they seem willing to start early on a Sunday morning so that Flynn could join us. But that's for some time after camps. 

Oh, and when I asked the guys, it was a week ago, when Justin ran a game of Mothership. Man, that was a fun game! He's thinking of maybe running a longer campaign. We were all hooked, especially the way the session ended with three of four PCs dead, and the final PC given a cut-scene of the aliens creeping up behind, just like you'd expect at the end of a sci-fi horror film or short story.

Conundrum: Motivators of Play for Cathartic Games

As I continue to work on modifying the Open d6 System for a Wuxia/Tianxia* style game as a revision of Flying Swordsmen, I'm struck by a few thoughts that make me hesitate.

One, which I know I've discussed before in relationship to my Asian-inspired fantasy games, is that of authenticity or at least getting the tone and feel right. Yeah, I'm a White dude, born and raised in the Midwest, but who has lived more than half of my life in East Asia, learning the languages, the cultures, the ways of thinking. Obviously, I don't get it as deeply as someone born and raised here. But I think I do understand it well enough to get a passable game setting. But I still have those nagging thoughts that I'm just making another version of "D&D in Funny Hats" (which was what I was blatantly doing with TS&R Jade). 

The second, which is related, is how to properly set up game systems that will motivate play for this sort of game? While there is an aspect of monster-slaying and treasure-hunting in Tianxia fiction, and a bit of that in Wuxia fiction, the typical D&D trope of slay the monsters and take their stuff, XP points accumulate just doesn't work as well for the sort of game I want to run. Flying Swordsmen has always started out great, but the games peter out pretty quickly because players flounder without simple goals like "go get the treasure." 

The action may be what draws people to the source material (especially the films/TV shows), but it's the character drama that really makes Wuxia interesting.

There's a part of me that thinks the authenticity part is not so important anyway. It's a game. Games are meant to be fun. Catharsis is fulfilling, but it's not always fun. Escapism is nearly always fun. So should I just not worry about it, and make another escapist game with Asian tropes? I could, but I've already done that (and done it well, I think). 

This time, I want to get a game that actually rewards playing not just a cool martial arts mystical warrior, but playing up the rivalries with other students or sects, difficulties with dealing with your sifu who is really good at kung fu but a shit person otherwise, or having to be torn between your duty to society (or family, or the king, or religion, etc.) and your desires for how you want to live your life.

For people equally well-acquainted (or better acquainted) with the Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHCs, as they are sometimes referred to in academics), this won't be a problem. I can present the rules, they will understand the tropes, and be able to work them in easily as they wish. For people not well-acquainted, I'm either going to have to write a cultural treatise on the subject, or else simply find a game mechanic system that will encourage this sort of thing within the rules.

I don't think I am up for the whole treatise thing. It's not my real area of academic endeavor, and it would take a long time and a lot of the people who need it would probably just ignore it, or misinterpret it anyway. So it feels to me, as I sit here today, like it will be a wasted effort. Those who wish to learn this stuff can find all sorts of resources online with just a simple Google search anyway. 

That leaves me with game mechanics. 

What I've got so far, is copying games like White Wolf or PbtA where they have a series of questions for each player to answer at the end of a game session. How did you do this? Can you provide an example of that? Show how you avoided doing this? For each question the players can give that plays to the tropes of the genre or leverages these Confucian relationships, they will get a Character Point. For each example where they break the tropes or go against the social expectations that Wuxia fiction demands.

Of course, then we get into discussions of railroading, metaplots, quantum ogres, and all that sort of thing. I'm not going to get into that right now, but I will say that from my experiences with Star Wars d6, if the players know they are in it for the immersive emulation experience (they want to experience what it's like to be a character in the SW universe), they will put up with more manipulation by the referee than they might otherwise with a more sandboxy D&D game. 

Until I can think of a better mechanic to try to encourage play that is more than just "beat up that guy, take his stuff" in a subtle fashion, I think this is the way to  go.

*Wuxia is very human-focused, Tianxia is more fantastical

I've Been Away, and d6 Flying Swordsmen Thoughts

Last week, the family took a vacation to Japan. We met up with quite a few old friends, ate a lot of great Japanese food, and brushed up on our Japanese skills. I also found out that I've come to instinctually say thanks to people in Korean, which got a few confused looks and annoyed my wife (who is Korean). 

Unfortunately, my wife caught covid while we were there, and I got it from her after we got home. It's not too bad this second time around. The first time I got it, back in 2021, I was on my ass for a day and a half or so, and it was like a bad flu. This time, it's more like a cold, and not an especially bad one, either. Which is good. Anyway, I'm feeling better today. 

While I haven't been blogging much, I have been tinkering with ideas for a second edition of Flying Swordsmen, using Open d6. I mentioned that before. So far, I think I have the Abilities, basic Skills, and special Martial Arts Powers and Techniques all listed out. I based the Powers and Techniques off of class bonuses, martial arts maneuvers, and spells from the 1st edition, but the list is pretty slimmed down. There are a few new things on the list as well. 

The Powers are modeled on the Force Skills in Star Wars d6. For each full Die in a Power, you get a Technique (or two?). So far, I've got six Powers, each granting a basic Technique with the first die. When additional dice are gained, there are several choices like feat trees that players can choose from. Some techniques are limited by how many dice you have in the power, and by prerequisite lesser Techniques. 

I've been monkeying around with weapon stats, using Star Wars and d6 Fantasy as a basis. The two games have some different assumptions, so I'll end up going my own route with them. For now, though, I'm finding it a bit hard to differentiate some of the weapons. I think I need to sit down and work out the combat system in a bit more detail.

I decided one Ability will be Prowess, which covers melee weapons combat, with skills for different weapon groups. Thrown and Missile weapons are under Agility, while Kung Fu (unarmed strikes) are under Might. There's a Stratagem skill under Intelligence that I want to use for special maneuvers and the like, but certain weapons would allow certain special maneuvers with the base combat skill. So if you want to disarm someone and you're wielding a straight sword or a halberd, you'd need to use Stratagem. But if you have a hook sword or a double-stick (nunchaku), you could use your Sword Combat or Chain Combat skill, depending on your weapon, with a slightly higher Difficulty. 

I need to work out the Kung Fu skill in a bit more detail. It will combine Brawling and the Martial Arts subskill from Star Wars, so you can use it to pummel opponents, but also to try to pull reverses, throws, use your opponent's momentum against them, and all that sort of thing. I need to figure out what the standard Difficulties should be for those sorts of things, and how easy or hard it should be for the opponent to resist/counter the attacks. There's also a Stance skill (under Agility) that allows for dodging or avoiding attacks, and Stratagem could also be used to perform special attacks, as mentioned above.

It may take a bit of time to work that out, and then to test the system, but I think the flexibility of the d6 system will fit better with a martial arts combat game than the AD&D system that Flying Swordsmen 1E (and Dragon Fist before it) used. 

Oh, and I've got to work up rules for dealing with a Sifu or organization that trained you, rivals, backgrounds, missions and secrets. The real fun of wuxia fiction, which I think 1E FS didn't quite get, is in the character building and interplay. I have some ideas on how to make that a core driver of game play (because fighting monsters and collecting treasure won't work for this game), but it will need some work as well.

Projects Old and New

I've managed to finish up the semester, so I should have some free time over the next two months to get some gaming projects advanced, along with preparing my next academic research project for work. If any of y'all are thinking that teachers get to laze around all summer vacation, you're wrong. We've got stuff to get done before classes start up again in the fall. 

I've gotten some feedback on my TS&R Game Master Guidebook, but other things have been keeping me from getting to the final edit of that. I will be getting it, and the Rules Reference books for both Ruby and Jade, up on DriveThruRPG soon. 

The GMG is designed for game masters new to running games, or at least new to old school style exploration-focused gaming, including advice on running the game and creating adventures/campaigns, and optional or alternate rules. The RR books are a condensation of just the charts and rules that an experienced GM needs to run the game at the table. Other than having a few areas specific to the classes/races/spells of Ruby (traditional D&D) and Jade (Asian fantasy D&D), the RR books are nearly identical.

I also had a bit of an epiphany this evening, and started working on a framework for a 2nd edition of Flying Swordsmen, but using the Open d6 system rather than a Classic D&D system. I think it will work out better this way. The way actions in-game determine Character Points earned, and the way Character Points are used to develop Skills, will help give it that feeling of training up your martial arts. Having earning CP tied to upholding the Code of the Xia (act with courage, benevolence, loyalty, righteousness, and individuality) should help drive the emergence of wuxia style stories through game play. One problem with Flying Swordsmen 1E is that the mechanics allow for cool action scenes, but don't support the sorts of drama that set wuxia media apart from simple martial arts media. 

I think the basic mechanics are sorted out. I have my list of six Abilities, and what they govern. I need to decide on the actual lists of Skills under each Ability. I have several Powers that PCs (and NPCs!) can learn, and each will have a basic use, and Techniques that can be added as more dice are gained. Similar to the Force Skills in Star Wars d6, templates will have to put Ability Dice into Powers, but after that Powers will be improved with CP just as with Skills. New Techniques can be added with each full die gained in a Power. 

I think the Techniques will be sort of like feat trees, with prerequisites of either a certain number of dice in the Power, or certain lower level Techniques learned first. This will cover things like light step, Qi, divination, or straight up magic. I should probably get a hold of d6 Fantasy before I get too far into designing Techniques to see how they balance wizards compared to how SW balances Jedi. 

Once I've got the Skills and Techniques sorted (or at least a good first iteration of them), I'll create some templates of common wuxia archetypes and see how they look. 

I have no idea how much of this I might get done over this summer break, but I will keep you all posted! 

Operationalizing Honor

Last week, noisms of Yoon Suin fame wrote a blog post about a "single class paladin campaign" except he's not really talking about a single class paladin game, he's talking about how to operationalize honor for RPGs in a way that will facilitate and motivate a game built around honorable heroes doing honorable things. He admits that various character classes could be used in such a game, as long as the game revolves around matters of honor and correct, heroic behavior, rather than typical D&D "adventuring" or "murder-hoboing" or what have you. Instead of everyone being the Paladin class, they all are behaving by a code of conduct and in service to some greater power.

I was definitely interested in what he had to say, as it's something I've had to deal with with only limited success in Flying Swordsmen and Chanbara. Yes, FSRPG includes notes about the xia code, and what is expected of a wandering martial hero in Chinese stories/movies. But that's it. The XP system is still revolving around defeating enemies (of any type) to gain XP, and doesn't stipulate that the combats need to be won honorably. And granted, there are anti-heroes or those that skirt the line in wuxia fiction, and they don't necessarily need to be penalized. 

I think I got a step closer with Chanbara. I re-conceptualized the carousing rules from Arneson's original campaign. But instead of saying you're spending your hard earned treasure on drunken debauchery and flashy displays of wealth until you're broke and need to go adventure again, it's explained as donating that hard earned treasure to your various lords, patrons, and clan to aid them in their endeavors. That's a step up from "hey, just role play it!" but I admit it still leaves something to be desired. Collecting the treasure is still a necessary step in play. If we're really wanting to make our campaign seem like the legends of King Arthur and Charlemagne, or of honorable samurai loyal to their lords and so on, "getting the treasure" seems out of place.

So, what sorts of rewards could we offer in a game that would encourage players to play Captain America instead of The Punisher? Galahad and Percival instead of Fafhrd and the Mouser? That's not an easy question to answer. 

So what's been done before? Marvel Super Heroes, the old 4 color resolution chart game from TSR, had a huge list of dos-and-don'ts that could earn you Karma points, or take them away. The 1E OA book also had a big long list of "honorable and dishonorable" actions, which earned or reduced honor points. 

I'm not a big fan of this method. For one, it's fiddly and arbitrary. It also requires everyone to be paying attention to a level of detail in the game that can hurt immersion. Finally, it polices play, rather than encourages it. XP for gold and fighting monsters encourages play. It tells players what the goal is, but not how to go about achieving the goal. Lists of "Thou shalt not..." doesn't give you a goal, it just mediates your choices in game. And giving a goal of "be honorable" doesn't spur action the way "get gold" does. 

I don't have a lot of history with the Palladium or White Wolf systems, but from what I remember, Palladium has a lot of strictures for keeping your alignment a la the MSH Karma and OA Honor systems, but I don't remember if that had an effect on XP or not. It's been a while since I've done anything with that system. 

For White Wolf, I haven't played Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, or Changeling. I've played Trinity and Street Fighter. In both of these games, at the end of a session (and the end of an adventure that takes place over multiple sessions), certain criteria are given or questions asked, and determine how much XP each character earns. This, I think, may be a better way to handle XP for the sort of "all paladin" game noisms wants to run. 

For those that don't know, players get 1 xp just for taking part in the session, and then additional points if they can demonstrate that their character learned or matured in some way, a point for good role play, a point for sticking to the character concept well, a point for heroism (at least in Street Fighter, which I have). If I remember, for Trinity there was one criteria for using your powers to aid the mission. 

This seems like the way to go to quantify honorable behavior to me. Make a list of criteria. The Chivalric Code. Bushido. The Way of the Jiang Hu. The Cowboy Code. Klingon Batlh. Probably best to keep it to under six tenets (the Cowboy Code as often shared on the internet these days has lots of pithy sayings that basically boil down to the same few concepts). At the end of a game session, go through each tenet and ask each player how they felt they upheld that tenet. Award chunks of XP for each tenet they upheld. 

Of course, WW games use XP as a spendable currency to develop skills and abilities, rather than a measure of progress in class level, but that can be adjusted. If someone wants to keep the D&D class & level paradigm, either adjust XP values needed to level up down (divide by 100, maybe?) or tie the amount of XP awarded by the criteria to the level of the character.

Download some stuff!

Thanks to bhyeti for requesting my old Star Frontiers module The Derelict, a bunch of stuff I used to give away for free here on the blog is now back up and available for you to download. There's a new standalone page link at the top there for them. 

I had originally posted them to another blogger's hosting site (and it was so long ago, I forgot exactly who it was), but something happened and they let the site go down. And no one was clamoring for those files, so I just let them sit on my hard drive for years. 

Anyway, you can now get that SF module mentioned above, my Unique Magic Items series (weapons, armor/shields, wands/staves/rods), the compilation of my old Beast of the Week series, and some supplemental stuff for Flying Swordsmen or old school D&D games for free. Everything's hosted on my Google Drive now, so unless something happens to me and my family decides to scrub the web of my presence, they shouldn't be any more hiccups with hosting.

Finally!

Well, it took 10 years (over 20 if you count since the release of Dragon Fist), but I'm finally getting to be a player in a game of Flying Swordsmen! 

As luck would have it, I had a post on RPOL.net's GMs Wanted board asking if anyone would run a game of d6 Star Wars on there. I'm enjoying running the game for my group (our next session starts in about 40 minutes), but would like to experience it as a player. 

I went to bump that thread and saw someone else had posted asking for a GM to run Flying Swordsmen! I jumped in on the thread saying I'd like to play, too. And since my RPOL ID is Lord Gwydion, it took the OP all of about no time at all to realize I was the writer! Well, we found someone willing to run it (the Star Wars game, too!), so I've now rolled up my first Flying Swordsman player character:

Spitting Tiger Zhao, Outlaw Thief. 

The GM messaged me to sort out a few things, since he is new to the rules. I told him I'm happy to answer questions about my intent when I wrote the game, but it's his game so I'm happy to run with it the way he wants it to go.

Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings -- Movie Review

My family went to see Shang Chi this afternoon. I'm definitely going to have a second viewing (or more) of this, both because of the things I loved about it, but also because there were a few things I missed (the trouble with taking a 7 year old to a movie like this is he can't focus when things aren't action packed or funny, so I can't focus). There may also be a few plot holes. Pretty much, though, it's a solid movie. 

Also, mandatory warning on language (since my blog has "curse" in the title and Google directs parents here): There are quite a few minor curse words. My 7 year old loves that. Mostly from Awkwafina's character Katy. No F-bombs, but similar levels to those in Black Widow and The Falcon & the Winter Soldier. 

My initial, and spoiler free, impression of the movie is that I liked it. A LOT! If you know my RPG work, you won't be surprised. I was looking forward to a super-powered kung fu movie. I figured, since it's involving a villain mostly from Iron Man comics (although with alien tech "magic" rings), that it would be relatively grounded in the "real world" of the MCU. Nope! Don't want to spoil things, but it's more akin to Thor or Dr. Strange than Iron Man or Captain America. 

Also, the second half of the movie was very much like a game of Flying Swordsmen! So yeah, you can guess I'd dig it from that. 

It's Marvel Studios, so of course the production values were great, the action scenes well done (most of them were easy to follow, but one was a bit confusing for me -- but again that may have been because I had to constantly stop my younger son from kicking the seat in front of him or climbing on the back of his own seat). The casting was good. Nice to see Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh. Makes me want to rewatch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Jet Li's Hero. I haven't seen either of them in a while. 

Also, there are two helpings of shawarma. I was expecting one to tie in to The Eternals due to (spoiler) and because it's the next MCU movie to come out, but it didn't directly. The mid-credit scene was pretty funny, while the after-credit scene was just a short set-up for a future film. 

Are you an MCU fan like me? This one will wet your whistle. Are you a martial arts/wuxia fan like me? This one will deliver. Are you an Asian-themed fantasy buff like me? You'll be happily surprised at a few little things here and there. If you don't really like any of these things, why are you bothering to read this review?