Hearts of Wulin Discussion

[chuangdangjianghu]

The rulebooks finally got sent out! I just finished it and love it. No clue when/how I’ll get to play (life isn’t easy for TTRPGers in China!), but still, awesome stuff.

I had some questions for how people might use the rules system to deal with certain story elements that are extremely common in wuxia, but whose mechanical resolution I’m not quite sure how to manage.

• Poison! Poison is a huge part of wuxia stories. My gut says that this should be treated narratively, rather than mechanically? But poisoning is such a huge part of so many wuxia stories, and doesn’t get too much treatment in the rules. Am curious how people deal with it at the table!
• How to deal with “neigong” type injuries. Again, these come up a ton in wuxia stories…where for whatever reason, someone needs special intervention or they will die (condor heroes) or be incapable of wugong (@edige23’s beloved laughing in the wind is a classic example of this!). I imagine again it can just be a plot thing, where it makes sense…it could perhaps even be rolled into the process of gaining scale? But also, these really are super common in the stories, so curious.
• How to deal with meridian manipulation. This sort of thing is also super common…there are many characters in wuxia that don’t necessarily have amazing wugong, but they’re really good at hitting meridians to disable much stronger foes (protagonist of Handsome Siblings is an example, but meridian stuff is super common). For this I imagine it could be seen as “another type of attack”? Like, use the normal combat, but even for a stronger foe, if you get an outcome where you escape, perhaps your escape is because of meridians. But it’s also common to have situation where you “get the drop” on someone and use meridians to incapacitate them etc.

I’m familiar with pbta systems but am not an expert, so I imagine there might be some well tread ways to expand rules systems to deal with things like this that I just don’t know. I appreciate the patience!

[edige23]

So let me run through how I’ve handled these details and give some options.

First: Poison. Yes, poison’s a classic element-- and you’ll notice the Deadly Venoms move actually deals with that. Generally that’s used when an NPC gets poisoned. If someone chooses that move, then I try to have several different kinds of poisoners and poisons. That’s handled pretty much fictionally.

Poison can also be part of the fictional descriptor-- a player could have that as part of how they describe their style, though that would seem like a more corrupt or unorthodox approach, but I can imagine a reformed villain as PC trying to use that for good.

If Poison’s an element of an foe, how can you use that. The easiest part of that is as part of the fictional positioning-- that’s how they’re fighting an dealing damage. In this case the damage is quick and can be dealt with after the scene, so it functions as any other weapon, though more sinister. But Poison’s also a cool add-on for a Hard Move or a cost (for Duel or Overcome vs. a Poisoning foe). You have a couple of options: a) have the player mark an element, but note that they cannot clear it until they go to see someone who can treat it. b) give them an ongoing effect-- like they’re sleepy or blinded until they can get a cure. Then future hard and soft moves can revolve around that. Alternately, “You’ve been poisoned and will die in three days, unless…” is also a great hard move which presents some new story options and choices.

If you want to make a poisoning foe more threatening, you can borrow a step from the Fantastic section and have players mark an element when they engage a foe. If you do this, make sure the players know beforehand so they can make that choice or come up with a way to counter it. If you have someone Study a poisoning foe for scale, you might also add in that their character realizes that if they fight their foe, the poison’s a real challenge-- and that a 7-9 result on a Duel will have a specific effect rather than player choice.

Again that presents this as a thread, but one the player’s aware of. The only time I’d surprise a player with a poison effect would be on a hard move.

*I’d handle neigong injuries much the same way. In this case I might offer as a cost or impose as a hard move that they can’t use on of their playbook moves until it’s taken care of. These kinds of effects are classic for PCs narrating how they want to reduce the scale of a foe. It’s a good way to frame the things they learn using the New Technique move.

So, generally again these are details of the fiction which we can roll into the narrative rather than having a large set of sub-systems.

Meridian manipulation also falls into this class. It can be a New Technique or perhaps it’s an Overcome move done to affect the opponent’s scale for someone else. This is a good Hard Move if done against a PC-- perhaps until they get that cleared up, foes which would normally be on their scale will be above.

The rules are written broadly enough to let you roll those fictional details into your descriptions: of combats, foes, strikes, techniques, etc.

I hope that helps a little.

[chuangdangjianghu]

This helps a ton. This connects a lot of dots about how to leverage the rules system to fit different types of action. While I’ve read a lot of PbtA rules, my actual play time has largely been D&D and other more simulationist systems so sometimes the jump can still be hard. This totally makes sense though, and I appreciate it.

This game is so cool!!