Martial Arts: Cinematic Combat

Cinematic Combat

Faster Combat

You can run extremely detailed fights using Martial Arts and the Basic Set, but most gamers find quicker combats more fun! Below are tips on how to speed up battle. They’re advice, not rules – the GM should use only the suggestions that suit his gaming group.

• Limit options. Let the players choose only those options that suit the kind of game you're running: realistic or cinematic, emphasizing unarmed martial arts or weapon styles, etc. Politely but firmly forbid the rest.
• Encourage options that lower defenses. Deceptive Attacks, feints, Ripostes, and Stop Hits add complexity...but reduced defenses increase the odds that a blow will land and end the fight. This keeps battles from taking forever because nobody ever fails a defense roll.
• Make a "cheat sheet." List modifiers and page numbers for all the optional rules you intend to use. An index card is ideal for this – and doubles as a handy bookmark for a page of frequently used rules.
• Work out everything in advance. Somewhere on the character sheet of each PC or important NPC, note such things as allowed movement, modified skill, and damage with attacks; jumping distance; slam damage at full Move; and crippling thresholds (damage over HP/2 and HP/3).
• Require speedy decisions. Tell each player to have his actions ready when his turn comes. If he doesn't, he must take some "default" action agreed upon in advance: All-Out Defense, Do Nothing, repeat his previous action, etc. "My PC is a kung fu master! He'd know what to do!" doesn't hold water. A second is still a second, even for a kung fu master. There's plenty of time to weigh options while others are taking their turns.
• Encourage "trademark moves." Have each player work out a few "standard operating procedures" in the form of an entire turn's worth of actions calculated in advance; e.g., "Committed Attack (Strong) and Rapid Strike: thrust to the vitals at skill 13, then a Deceptive swing to the torso for -2 defenses at skill 12." These are good "default" actions for the player who can't make up his mind!
• Hold players responsible for remembering options. If you let the players use a specialized rule, make it their job to remember its details and location. If they can’t remember the rule, their characters decide not to use the tactic.
• Have major wounds end fights. An NPC should flee or surrender if he takes a major wound (or crippling wound), unless he has a serious mental problem like Berserk. Don't keep going until everyone on one side is unconscious or dead. It takes forever and isn't especially realistic or cinematic.

Fiction usually depicts combat dramatically, as either a heroic contest or a violent ballet. Often the bias is subtle, with the storyteller extending the benefit of the doubt to barely possible feats but otherwise hewing to reality. This is typical of the gossip of real-world martial artists when they relate tales of how their style pushes the limits! At the other end of the spectrum are epics that pit the superhuman techniques and unlikely weapons of the heroes against those of the villains, with little regard for physical laws.

Termed "cinematic" because it's most familiar to us from the movies, this dramatic approach isn't unique to the silver screen. This is the world of heroes from earliest myth and legend, battling armies, monsters, and gods; swashbucklers from romantic novels, dueling all comers to certain victory; comic-book ninja and commandos, using sheer skill to make up for small numbers; and masked wrestlers on television, taking hard hits from the top rope and still walking away from the bout.

In campaigns in this vein, the GM should consider using most or all of the optional rules in this chapter that aren't strictly unrealistic but that are possibly optimistic. These fall into two main categories:

• Rules that speed up actions or make extra actions possible (or easier), such as Quick Sheathing, Multiple Fast-Draw, Quick-Shooting Bows, Rapid Fire with Thrown Weapons, Rapid Strike with Thrown Weapons, Multiple Blocks and Parrying with Two-Handed Weapons.
• Rules that make fighters more mobile – especially if they involve acrobatics! These include Acrobatic Stand, Feints Using Non-Combat Skills, Acrobatic Movement, Acrobatic Attack, Flying Attack, and Retreat Options.

None of these options is absolutely cinematic. Used conservatively, they might even be realistic. Nevertheless, a campaign that features a large proportion of these rules will feel cinematic, while one that omits most of them won't – regardless of the GM's intent!

Some optional rules offer additional detail that doesn't suit a fast-and-loose cinematic game, the worst offenders being Postures, Hit Locations, and Techniques, Fast-Draw from Odd Positions, A Matter of Inches, Close Combat and Body Morphology, More Actions After a Grapple, and Fencing Parries. Harsh Realism for Unarmed Fighters and Limiting Dodges are meant for realistic characters, and would ruin the fun of cinematic warriors. Finally, Untrained Fighters doesn't suit PCs (even untrained ones) in a cinematic campaign – although it's a good option for "cannon fodder" NPCs!

Below are additional rules that can help build a cinematic feel. Except for Multiple Attacks, which appears here because it refers to several superhuman advantages, most of these are strictly cinematic. Use them in a realistic campaign at your peril!

Multiple Attacks

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