RangerWickett
Legend
Fill me in, please. How does the system work, if it has one?
What is Hong Kong Action Theater?
- Thread starter RangerWickett
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RangerWickett said:
Hi!
In Hong Kong Action Theatre (HKAT), the players create actors with skills and perks. Each game (or every few games), the Game Master starts a new film production and has the actors bid for the available roles. The films are then roleplayed HK movie style.
As an exemple, let's say a player wants to have a "Jackie Chan" character. That player will take on appropriate skills (such as martial arts) and background (like a stunt team). Each new movie, the PC will have the same basic set of skills (you will always expect Jackie Chan to perform some stunts), but will add new ones depending on his role (such as "wire-fu"- martial art moves requiring wires).
I can't go much into details on the system as I haven't played in a couple of years, but it uses the Tri-Stat system (body, mind and soul): 2d6 rolled under a target number, with modifiers such as skills, powers and circumstances. It's simple, but allows you to keep the action moving forward.
The company's website is at this adress:
http://www.guardiansorder.com/
but I couldn't find anything on HKAT!
This is all I have time to write at this moment. I hope it helps.
valn
Volaran
First Post
The idea is that you're a Hong Kong film actor, and every adventure you play in is a different movie. Ability scores carry over from film to film, but skill sets change. For instance, if you're a hard boiled cop in one adventure, you'll have a completely different skill set from the last session, which was a period martial arts piece.
Experience, as I recall, eventually lets you influence the GM/Director and demand things like script changes in order to avoid terrible die results, or even just change the plot. Players can buy things like a particular theme music or prop that they become identified with, and ups their abilities temporarily.
As Pirate Cat said, HKAT! shares a lot in spirit with Feng Shui, and I happen to prefer Feng Shui. However, I've made good use out of some of the the HKAT! sourcebooks for generic information.
Experience, as I recall, eventually lets you influence the GM/Director and demand things like script changes in order to avoid terrible die results, or even just change the plot. Players can buy things like a particular theme music or prop that they become identified with, and ups their abilities temporarily.
As Pirate Cat said, HKAT! shares a lot in spirit with Feng Shui, and I happen to prefer Feng Shui. However, I've made good use out of some of the the HKAT! sourcebooks for generic information.
RangerWickett
Legend
Ah, nifty. I like that sort of meta-storytelling; I had the idea once to run a campaign set in a high-tech virtual reality MMORPG, where you play a normal person in the real world, who is himself roleplaying in this fantasy world. It'd be a great format because, if a player can't show, he just had to log off. It's easy to introduce new characters, and if we get bored, we can just shift genre to a different server.
I had this idea back in 1999, well before .Hack came out.
So, I know Tri-Stat (I've played BESM a couple times), but what about Feng Shui? How does its system work? The closest I got was the card game Shadowfist.
I had this idea back in 1999, well before .Hack came out.
So, I know Tri-Stat (I've played BESM a couple times), but what about Feng Shui? How does its system work? The closest I got was the card game Shadowfist.
CCamfield
First Post
Feng Shui doesn't use the "actor" concept. Characters are based on archetypes like Killer, Everyman Hero, Old Master, Sorcerer, or Cyborg. Every archetype starts with some base attributes and skills and you get to customize these and pick schticks (sort of like feats) and of course your character concept and background. There are gun schticks, martial arts ("fu") schticks, sorcery, arcanowave, and creature power schticks. So you can have gun experts who are great shooting two pistols from Both Guns Blazing or taking out lots of "mooks" (wimpy enemies for whom damage isn't tracked) with the Carnival of Carnage schtick. Fu schticks are divided into many paths, some of which are relatively realistic and some aren't. You get some which do extra damage, make it easier to dodge, there's drunken boxing, but then there are some shadow-based schticks (see in the dark, hide in the shadows, create a knife of pure darkness), fire-based ones, and a few other weird ones.
What the game has in common with Shadowfist is the world background - different periods of time are connected through the Netherworld, and each period is dominated by a faction. The players are heroes (Dragons) out to put an end to these factions or at least take them down a notch. But the game works fine even if you don't want to use that; the most recent FS game I played in was a 2-session adventure set in a mystic Japan.
The system is pretty simple - take your skill total in something like Martial Arts (or anything else, like Medicine or Seduction), and roll 2 different d6. One adds to the total, the other subtracts. 6s are re-rolled, giving a result of 6 plus the reroll. Anything stylistic in an attack (acrobatic maneuvers, diving for cover, whatever) incurs no penalty if it doesn't give some game-mechanical bonus.
What the game has in common with Shadowfist is the world background - different periods of time are connected through the Netherworld, and each period is dominated by a faction. The players are heroes (Dragons) out to put an end to these factions or at least take them down a notch. But the game works fine even if you don't want to use that; the most recent FS game I played in was a 2-session adventure set in a mystic Japan.
The system is pretty simple - take your skill total in something like Martial Arts (or anything else, like Medicine or Seduction), and roll 2 different d6. One adds to the total, the other subtracts. 6s are re-rolled, giving a result of 6 plus the reroll. Anything stylistic in an attack (acrobatic maneuvers, diving for cover, whatever) incurs no penalty if it doesn't give some game-mechanical bonus.
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If you are going to play HKAT, I highly recommend you try to find the first edition rules, before they went to GoO and the tristat system.
The concept was the same, actors in a studio, but the rule set was hilarious, simple and easy to learn. How many games do you have, where you have a stat for how cool you are? And a primary ability at that.
I have no idea about the tri stat version, but the first set of books included a compendium of HK movies with cast lists and synopses. An absolute riot to play and run.
zen
The concept was the same, actors in a studio, but the rule set was hilarious, simple and easy to learn. How many games do you have, where you have a stat for how cool you are? And a primary ability at that.
I have no idea about the tri stat version, but the first set of books included a compendium of HK movies with cast lists and synopses. An absolute riot to play and run.
zen
d4
First Post
i only have the original edition, so i can't say if it's better than the Tri-Stat version. all i can say is that i love the version i have.zenld said:
in how many other games is your chance of hitting an opponent directly related to his importance to the plot?
(i.e., mooks = easy to hit; BBEG = hard to hit)Similar Threads
