The Martial Art formerly known as Undercity Noir has been renamed, cleaned up slightly, its formatting improved, and it's Power-Up set improved to 20 points/level (on par with the "Big" pistol-based styles), with the new version of how we handle assault blasters integrated. So for those who you intent on playing a highly kinetic Asrathi blast-slinger, there you go.
I've had a question about the Rite of Luck, and how it was "constructed." Originally, it was a highly limited version of Higher Purpose with Preparation Required, Limited Use, Requires IQ roll etc, but eventually I realized it was just a classic example of the extremely limited bonus used under race circumstances. It's sort of a deferred "Occultism or Religious as Complementary Roll" with enough limitations placed on it that I felt it was acceptable to increase the bonus to a +2. I originally liked the idea of adding the bonus after the roll, but I thought this might be too powerful. However, on reflection, I've decided to give it a try: I've reduced it to a +1 bonus, but you're allowed to apply it after you've made a roll, but the ritual, whether you use the bonus or not, can only be used once per day, and it runs out after an hour. I think this makes for more interesting play, as you'll "say your prayers" before a big event, and it might do nothing, as there may be no roll that would benefit from a +1 improvement in margin, but if there is, well, it helps you luck out. We'll see how it plays.
There's a rule I've noticed about the Psi-Wars Community: if you mess with martial arts, you will get feedback. The community seems to love the martial arts, and investigates the details of the styles with a fine tooth comb, more than anything else except, possibly, Communion.
So I wasn't that surprised to see my inbox pop up with some thoughts and suggestions for more gun-fu and also more force sword forms. So I thought I'd cobble together the feedback into a single place and discuss it.
Existing Gun Fu
Generally, the Gun Fu I've released has been well-received.
Coda Resolute is surprisingly popular. I suspect it's the flavor and the low buy-in cost to be "cool."
Undercity Noir is also quite popular. I think it, as well as the Graceful Form, need a bit more work, though. Acrobatics is always a rather complex topic.
Imperial Markmanship hit with a dud as "Fine." This is understandable. It's meant to be an unglamorous workhorse style. I originally intended for it to be like Coda Resolute, with only two "levels," but the price proved an insurmountable obstacle. I think the fact that it raises both rifle and pistol at the same time also really slows progress, which is unfortunate. I would like to give it a "Mozambique Drill" style trademark move, however, so this style will see a slight retouch.
The Way of the Rim was accepted with less fanfare than I expected. It fits, and it's suitable, and people like it, but I don't think it really surprised people much. The schtick of aim-then-draw rather than the other way around was uncontroversial. I think it'll see a lot of use, but not as much buzz as some of the others.
Shineido was the big star, which didn't surprise me (that's why I released it last), but the level of feedback and love it got actually managed to exceed my expectations. In fact, a lot of the request from other styles came from Shineido.
I think it's worth unpacking why Shineido generated the excitement that it did. Of course, everyone loves Gun Kata, and everyone loves the idea of inserting it into a setting with Jedi. It's the sort of kitchen-sink crazy that every RPGer seems to yearn for. But I think there's more going on here than that.
The Martial-Arts-As-Power-Ups, in my experience, tends to highlight what a martial art can do. It's one thing to see a list of appropriate traits, and it's another to see a martial artist in action, especially when there are certain combinations that work especially well together. These Power-Up systems generate way more feedback than the previous martial arts I've done, even though they're based on the same martial arts I already did, precisely because they make what those styles can do more visible.
Shineido highlighted two things. First: the power of math! Thus far, the setting has focused almost exclusively on psychic abilities (and, by extension, Communion). We have cybernetics and, eventually, bio-mods, but by-and-large, if you wanted to be "cool" you had psychic powers. Neo-Rationalism, instead, focuses on the power of pure genius and cinematic logic to create nigh-supernatural effects, which is an exciting idea, especially as a foil for the "superstitious" psychic powers. It creates a nice tension. It's always been there, but Shineido makes it more obvious.
Shineido is also an explicity anti-space-knight style. You use it not just to cool cool in combat, but to duel with a space knight. The imagery of that is nice, but the idea of creating someone who can defeat a space knight, (The "Psi-Hunters" concept are we referred to them in Iteration 3) is an interesting one people seem interested in exploring further.
New Gun Fu
Are there are any plans for a gun fu style that utilizes psionics similar to psionic force swordsmanship? -KZRK
I haven't seen as many calls for new Gun Fu as I have for force sword forms, but there are definitely some calls. In particular, there's a request for a Psionic Gun-Fu style.
Now, I'm not shy about my love of the film Push, which is definitely a huge inspiration on Psi-Wars, and the moment he suggested it, I immediately thought of the TK Gun Fight from Push. I think it would do a lot to cement how different Psi-Wars can be from Star-Wars. There are, however, a couple of problems that need to be overcome.
The first problem is that Psionic styles are a nightmare. Psionic Force Swordsmanship needs another pass, and it was already one of the most difficult ones to design. You have to make a lot of assumptions about what characters are capable of. For example, if you take EK then while Psionic Force Swordsmanship still has some value for you, but a lot of its moves are locked away. What psychic power would Psionic Gun Fu use? TK? That's cool for the guns and moving them around, but it won't help you deflect blaster shots. EK? That'll let you deflect blaster shots and maybe super-power your gun, but it won't let you wave your blaster around in the air in a cool way. What about something else entirely, like an ESP or Telepathic Gun Fu style? See, it opens up a can of works, and whatever choice we pick, the psychic power creates a hurdle to overcome: if you don't have one of the powers associated with Psionic Force Swordmanship, the style is blocked off to you; but anyone can learn one of the other styles. Thus, this is inherently a niche style that most people won't care about and it takes more than the usual amount of work.
The second problem is where do you put it? We haven't hard "Free floating" styles since Iteration 4. Our styles have been grounded in the cultures that created them: Shineido is associated with Denjuku and the Shinjurai Royal Family. The Furious Form is associated with the Satemo of the Umbral Rim. Who would use this psionic gun-fu? It probably wouldn't be the maradonians, as they see the force sword as a badge of honor. You might see some psychic additions to the Coda Resolute, but aristocrats generally didn't settle their differences with that style. What about aliens? Well, we don't really associate the Ranathim or the Keleni with blasters. We might see a "temple maiden" concept for the Keleni, but they'll be closer to commandos than to gunslingers (though it must be said that telepathically linked commandos might be scarier than Combat Geometrics). The Asrathi are associated with Probability Manipulation, and that's worth touching on a bit more in Undercity Noir, but I don't think that's what KZRK had in mind. We have no PK- or EK-using aliens. So who gets this?
One concept I do want to touch on at some point are non-space-knight, non-sage psychics. I see Psi-Wars as a bit like Rifts in how it handles psychic powers: sure, there are mystics and knights out there, but there are also "mind melters," rare and unexpected talent erupting somewhere like an X-men, with the Empire trying to register and/or imprison them, and space knights trying to recruit, but powerful "rogue" psychics who lack force sword training or who don't live in temples or don't pretend to be witches should definitely be a part of the setting, and this style might suit them well. But other than these vague ideas, I'm not sure how to solidify it yet.
New Force Sword Forms
(H)ow about a force swordsmanship style that takes a more scientific approach similar to Shineido or Combat Geometrics? -KZRK
I think it speaks volumes for the popularity of force sword forms that when I introduce gun-fu, people use it as a platform to ask for more force sword forms. But there's more meat here than just "I want more force sword forms." As we noted above, Shineido highlights that you can gain "cool powers" from math, science and logic in Psi-Wars, and given that people use "cool powers" to upgrade their force sword fighting.
Using math to be a better fencer is definitely not the craziest idea. In fact, we already have a style that does it: La Verdadera Destreza on GURPS Martial Arts page 158. Of course, the math does nothing, but we could try to introduce some elements. We could borrow some of the elements from La Verdadera Destreza and mix them with the essential kendo that underlies all force sword forms and toss on some of the Math tricks of Shineido.
But where would we put it in the setting? The Shinjurai wouldn't use a force sword, and a Maradonian wouldn't use Neo-Rationalism? Where would we find such a character?
Maybe a branch of the imperial knights would work for the scientific
force swordsmanship, since the empire is governed by the same
philosophies that gave rise to combat geometrics -KZRK
There are actually several factions that would meld force swordsmanship and Neo-Rationalism. KZRK is correct in pointing out that Imperial Knights might do it. Another faction that might use it would be House Tan-Shai. After all, they are neo-rationalist to their core, and lack psychic powers (being anti-psi themselves), but need to be able to win force sword duels, as they've been tangled up in Maradonian culture.
This brings up another concept such a style would likely seek to explore: the Stance Breaker Form. A core element of Shineido is defeating space knights. This style might do the same, and wuxia is full of stories of a style that's built around defeating the elements of a particular style (or "all styles,"), a "Stance Breaker Form." Those who created this style would have wanted to beat space knights on their own ground, and would have had the data to do it. They would have analyzed all their styles incessantly and sought the weaknesses of each. This would make the style a bit like the Simple Form in that it seeks to understand all forms, though it would likely focus on Maradonian styles. I had a similar concept with the Skairosian styles, and I could borrow some of those ideas and use them here, but with more of a mathematical twist.
This puts the style into an interesting niche as a "Dark Mirror" style, which I always like: it's the style you would give to characters who are designed to defeat or mirror the PCs. If you are a Maradonian Space Knight (one of the most popular concepts), then a Tan-Shai space knight is your "Dark mirror" able to exploit the weaknesses of your style and shut down your psychic powers. Imperial Knights would also represent a good "Dark mirror" to the style.
And we even had a good idea what it would look like: the aggressive flexibility of the Simple Form, the anti-Maradonian techniques of the Skairosian forms, the mathematic schtick of Shineido, and echoes of La Verdada Destreza. I think it could work.
Back when I started working on the Frontier Marshal's update, I realized I needed to work on the Way of the Rim, and if I was going to work on the Way of the Rim, I needed to work on the other Blaster styles in conjunction, so I could define some niches. And no blaster style attracts more interest from the community than Gun Kata Shineido, the blaster art of the royal guard of the Shinjurai Royal family. Thus, I had to take my time with it and get it right. And so, it will complete our exploration of Gun Fu in Psi-Wars, at least for now.
I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I aim with my eye. I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind. I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart. --the Gunslinger, Stephen King
Here it is. The whole reason I started this deep dive into Gun-Fu for Psi-Wars was for the coming update to the Frontier Marshal, and if a Frontier Marshal can't sling his blaster, then what are we even doing here? Thus, the previous three styles were "practice" for this one. In principle, I should do Shineido first, but I expect that one will be the most popular of the Psi-Wars Gun Fu styles, but I could be wrong.This one is certainly likely to see more use.
This post isn't about one style, but two closely related styles:
For my second gun-fu style, like my first apparently, I went with something that I hadn't already done. I've been busy at work on the Way of the Rim and Shineido, and in my research, looked more closely at Double Trouble, and thought "You know, there's actually a lot I can work with here." This resulted in Undercity Noir.
One reader pointed out that they couldn't tell the difference between Double Trouble and, basically, all the other dual-wield styles. This is a problem with all of the gun-fu styles, because Martial Arts in GURPS are written as a list of options, and if everyone takes the same options, regardless of their sources, they look the same ("I use Guns (Pistol) and Dual Weapon attack from Double Trouble. You?" "I use Guns (Pistol) and Dual Weapon attack from Way of the West!" "Oh that's totally different"). But I find with my martial-arts-as-power-ups, I can greatly accentuate the differences and give the player a greater sense of what differentiates his style from another style, both by embedding the "fluff" of the move closer to the mechanics, and by presenting those mechanics in a context. For example, both Coda Resolute and Undercity Noir make use of Off-Hand Weapon Training, but the former focuses on using the blaster as an accessory to their force blade, while the latter actually uses Dual Weapon attacks.
So the thematic hook I hung my Double Trouble on was the idea of extreme mobility. I think that's the core of Double Trouble anyway: slow motion leaps while blasting your guns. There's also a strong mechanical benefit to high mobility, as noted in my discussion of gunslinger survivability: mobility gives you greater defense in depth, and lets you bypass other people's defenses. Another reader insists the best trick is to jump behind people and shoot them in the head from behind, where they can't dodge (or have a penalty). Naturally, I had to fold this into the style. I also wanted to give them Enhanced Dodge, but it turns out +1 Basic Move + Enhanced Dodge 1 is objectively inferior to +1.0 Basic Speed. So I gave them Trained by a Master (Evasion) instead. It suits them. I also continued on with making these 15-point power-ups, rather than 20 like force sword styles. I think that might continue: gun styles just don't demand as many skills as the force sword or unarmed combat do!
But where does it fit into Psi-Wars? The whole point of Iteration 6 and 7 is to fold these things into a defined setting. This was a high mobility style, and we already have a style for each "human ethnic group." So, an alien perhaps? I could give it to the Ranathim but, like, they get everything cool and alien. Also, the Ranathim would really seem to prefer to get stuck into melee. What other highly agile and flashy race do we have? Well, the Asrathi! They also fit well because they're, culturally, basically human. So, I made it a style associated with Psi-Wars' cat-folk and tied it up with the criminal elements of the galactic core and, to keep it from being too dominated by a single, relatively minor race, I let the rest of the Galaxy start to pick up on it. To justify it going to full Master status, I gave it a bit of legend and lore and some interesting characters for practitioners to moon over.
Then, uh, I had to give it a name. After much struggling, I came up with "Undercity Noir." I felt this captured the cinematic, criminal vibe of the style. I think the result is very true to the core inspiration of John-Woo-in-Space.
So, if you couldn't tell, in keeping with the exploration of the Frontier Marshal, I've been exploring Gun Fu in Psi-Wars. This isn't a new topic: I touched on it back in Iteration 4, but now we have a setting to tie these ideas to, and I have a new system for writing up martial arts. So, I wanted to explore some.
The first I want to reveal is the Coda Resolute, the Maradonian "Gun-Fu." This isn't the first I've designed, nor did it exist back in Iteration 4, and I don't expect it to be wildly popular, which is why I'm starting with it, because it's better to have a minor style torn apart by my readers than a major style. The others will be more detailed and more powerful: Maradonians are all about the Force Sword, and so would look on most forms of Gun Fu as a secondary concern at best.
When I created the Resolution-pattern blaster, the idea, even the name, was with an eye towards the dueling pistol or the flint-lock pistol common among swashbuckling pirates. Thus, it has a low Rate of Fire, little ammunition, and deals a lot of damage at once. I envisioned it as a side-arm for a space knight who wanted to blow a hole in a well-armored target who was too far for him to cut down with his force sword. I could also see it being used in duels, though it would have been in a different era than the present.
The Coda Resolute brings the Resolution into focus and emphasizes its role as a dueling weapon. Naturally, like many things Maradonian, it's a style that's more about style than substance: this is a style that teaches a false sort of accuracy, the sort that's best on the firing range or when showing off, rather than under the pressure of battle. Thus, I created a new technique called "Plinking," which improves your accuracy when there's no pressure on, when the shot is about showing off, rather than hitting an enemy. It's a style that also has a lot real accuracy: the weapon is high in accuracy anyway, and Dead-Eye (modified in Psi-Wars to simply give you additional turns of aiming, rather than complex rules with Precision Aiming which are too detailed for a space opera kung fu action game) that allows them to take their time and aim.
Those who are willing to invest more deeply gain access to even greater real accuracy and get to play with some of the neater tricks of the Resolution. I wanted to explore the idea of the "Cult of the Gun," so I created a cinematic option perk for the Resolution that makes it more lethal post DR, and makes the hot-shotted versions are less prone to failure ("It's the superior cladding; they made them tougher back in the day."). I wanted to make the style monomaniacal about the gun: like all things Maradonian, they think their stuff is better than everyone else's, and this sort of makes it true. It does make me want to explore more variations (a multi-barrel version, perhaps?).
As a dueling style, it's more of a curiosity, but if we have space-flint-locks, we should be using them to buckle some swashes. In 7th Sea, the most common things I saw players do was wield a pistol while they also had a sword, and this classic pose is covered in Ray-Gun Gothic. It allows the character to "dual wield," but the primary focus isn't actually dual weapon attack: I mean, sure, you can shoot while you swing, but most people will either shoot or swing, and the style reflects that. The other thing I saw a lot of people do is ask how many they could carry. The "coat full of pistols" was a common "twink" approach to 7th Sea. So why not embrace the crazy and give our Maradonian pirate-swashbucklers cloaks full of blasters? It's the sort of over-the-top expenditure that I could totally see a Maradonian doing.
It's alright offensively. Defensively, it obeys two rules from my post on Gunslinger survivability. First, it uses an actual melee weapon for defense, in this case a force sword. That makes it a secondary weapon and a secondary concern, but the style accepts that and is cheap as a result. The second rule is luck, as manifested in the Duelist's Courage trick. I struggled for awhile to find a way to make aspected Impulse Buy points work for me and I've finally given up and focused on Serendipity instead, which is probably what I should have used since the beginning: a single use of luck to do something specific. In this case, they get a last ditch "lucky" roll to not get hit, or a single use "This doesn't count as combat" moment, allowing them to use their full accuracy for some very cool shot even in combat.
The result is a noteworthy style that suits Maradonian culture and puts a nice lampshade on a weapon that I think not a lot of people notice. I doubt it'll be a must-have for many, but I've been surprised by the popularity of the Maradonian aesthetic before. But I think keeping this as a "minor" style is still important, given the secondary role of the blaster in Maradonian society.
Ages ago, I finished transcribing all the Force Sword forms over to the Wiki. I dusted off my hands, patted myself on the back and announced I was done. At which point, my Psi-Wars faithful said:
Right, I had forgotten that one. One especially faithful Psi-Wars faithful, calmquist, tried his own hand at it, creating his own updated power-ups. They were not that great, though, and when I finally settled down to take a look at his version, and the original version, I quickly saw why: it's not a good martial art; there's just not much you can do with it. Or, better, it's been made obsolete by the Serene Form.
The central concept of the Akashic Form (and Three-Eye Fighting, from which it draws many of its concepts) is the integration of precognition and Combat Sense into force swordsmanship. It's a nice concept, but that niche has been better filled by the Serene Form.
Want to use your precognition to better defend? Serene form does that.
Want to use your precognition to draw and attack the instant before your opponent does? Serene form does that.
Want to fight blind, relying on your psychic sense? Serene form does that.
The result is necessarily that the Akashic Form as written looks like an inferior copy of the Serene Form that requires you to be psychic while Serene Form doesn't.
Thus, I had to largely scrap most of the original concept and shift to a different focus, not on what the Akashic Form had been, but what it was evolving into. I noticed that it's original description had been about "layering over" Maradonian styles, and that became my central focus for design. It became a utility style, a bit like the Simple Form, where its moves and exercises folded the religious practices and insights of the Akashic Order into whatever Maradonian form you already had. This turned it into a "Super-form," a higher-level technique that characters might aspire to, rather than a basic style one might start the game with (though that's an option too).
As I designed the Labyrinth, I tried to add techniques and concepts for defeating creatures of the Labyrinth into the style. I may revisit it to further update them, to make Akashic Knights into natural "Labyrinth Hunters" as that's their obvious domain.
I've been a backer for Christoper Rice's (of Ravens and Pennies fame) patreon for quite awhile, at varying degrees of commitment, for a long time. A lot of Rice's material has made it into Psi-Wars, from Keleni Stickfighting (Ishen Denshin, from his pyramid article, Mind and Body) and the Dead Art (Thanatokinesis, from his article, Necro-Psi) as well as likely others that don't spring immediately to mind. He's not an explicit collaborator, but I borrow so much of his stuff that I sometimes think of him as one.
At some point, he saw fit to show me a preview of what became his Mind and Body martial art follow-ups, to give feedback. This was quite some time ago, so I went hunting for my notes on it, but could not find them. Nonetheless, I remember I was busy so I only really had time to discuss one, which was the Reaver's Hand, and I discussed it because I found it so profoundly engrossing and inspiring. It was, and remains, a martial art that I could see integrated into Psi-Wars (though I'm never sure how to integrate his patreon material into my game, as I don't want to reprint it, but I can't very well point to a pyramid article somewhere either), especially as an assassination technique for the Ranathim death cult.
To honor its release, I've written a version of the Reaver's Hand as an upgrade set (with Chris's permission). Now, as with all upgrade sets, I've taken some poetic license with it; in particular, I've focused on Steal Life as the primary psychic ability of the style, with Detect Life and the Reaver's Hand relegated to exercise and super-cool secret, respectively. I'm not covering the full scope of the style, and while you will doubtless get a sense of what the style is like, if you truly want to understand it (I will reprint no rules), you'll need to go get the original article itself, which you can do right now by becoming a backer. It will cost you $2 (two dollars!) to gain access to, so if this interests you, you'll have to make the sacrifice of an overpriced latte this month, but I think its worth it and, who knows, maybe you'll stick around and read more of his stuff. Poke around and see if you like what he has.
When I held a snap poll for the martial art most people wanted for their own space knight, the Simple Form won not only the Non-Maradonian styles, but proved the most popular style overall, handily winning the poll. This quite surprised me, as it was the newest of the styles, created in Iteration 6, exclusively for the Templars, who remain the main people who will use it.
With the Simple Form, I wanted to explore two major ideas. First, if we're going to have people learning multiple styles and integrating them together, I wanted a style that really exploited that. In that regard, I created Infinite Stance Mastery, which allows the character one "free" 5-point move from any style. Incidentally, this works much better in the power-up form, because you can just go pluck an existing 5-point move, rather than designing them yourself. Second, I wanted to reward players for exploring multiple styles. Originally, I gave them a "Style Mastery" perk, which let them upgrade their Style Familiarity from allowing them to ignore -1 in Deceptive Attack or Feint penalties to a full, outright +1 to defense. I had intended to give them a universal version of this, so they gained it with any style they had style familiarity, but I found myself thinking "They'd literally be better off with Enhanced Parry (Force Sword), or Higher Purpose. Hey! Not a bad idea!"
For the rest of the style, I had a couple of problems. First, most moves are built on a single trademark move and then whatever techniques required to make it work. But the Simple Form doesn't really teach techniques other than Feint. The whole point of its original trademark moves were to codify pretty standard tactics, like the basic attack, or the basic parry. I see the Simple Form as taking what new players to GURPS typically do ("I attack. I parry. I feint. Then I attack with everything I can.") and making them better at it. So, the only way I could do that in a move was by collecting all of them, and thus First Steps was born. Then I wanted to make them good at fighting in general. I pondered what most players generally did in addition to the basic moves (retreats, extra-effort, etc) and made those better in the style. Finally, I rounded it out with a few Judo tricks. One concept I still like, but didn't fully emphasize here, was something similar to the Fell Form's approach to Karate, only with Judo. Judo can, after all, parry armed attacks, so a character with Judo 20 is as good at defending themselves from Force Sword attacks as someone with Force Sword 20 (technically better, because they gain the +3 retreat bonus even without Chambara rules). I added the Warding Parry to answer questions as to whether you can parry a force sword with an unarmed skill (from what I can see, it's perfectly permissible, but some people might have some doubts, so, you can do it with a -1).
This is the bit where I explain that this might have drawn loose inspiration from a Star Wars ligthsaber form and then point out which one, but in this case, I was explicitly inspired by Form I, or Shii-Cho, especially their discussion about how most Jedi don't take it seriously, but people who master it tend to be extremely flexible and effective. Like all other lightsaber forms, you don't really see this in the fiction; even Kit Fisto, who is supposed to be a true master of it, doesn't seem to fight in a particularly distinct way, and doesn't seem especially impressive in any of his video-game outings. Nonetheless, I wanted to explore the idea of a force sword form that seemed unimpressive at first, something only worthwhile to students, but really profited those who invested deeply in it.
"I guess people really want Wuxia in space." --Nemoricus
The other major inspiration, natural from its description and other inspirations, are Chinese martial arts and the traditions around them. If the Serene Form is the epitome of Japanese swordsmanship, then the Simple Form is the epitome of Chinese Swordsmanship. My experience with many Chinese styles is that where Japanese martial arts often focus on perfecting a single move or a single tactic, Chinese martial arts tend to focus on the fighter in a holistic manner. This is where these "Miyagi"-style traditions of putting a martial artist through lots of training that seems to have nothing to do with fighting comes from. We get concepts like "Internal martial arts" from this approach: improving the fighter's core, endurance and "chi" and only then teaching them to express it through their "external" martial arts, or their actual combat techniques. This likely means people will ask if they can use some of these moves with other martial arts precisely because they're so broadly applicable, and I think the idea is valid, though I'm not sure if I'll migrate them to other, non-force sword styles n exactly these forms (the Simple Form needs to maintain some sort of niche, after all).
Given that it's evidently the most popular style, I hope those who came to love it back in Iteration 6 still love it in its Iteration 7 incarnation.
In my snap poll to see which Psi-Wars martial arts everyone favored for their personal space knight, the Maelstrom Form (aka, Psionic Force Swordsmanship) came in second for non-Maradonian styles... and second over all. Because, of course, the most complicated and difficult style had to be (almost) everyone's favorite and couldn't be quietly shuffled away.
A common complaint I hear about Star Wars when it comes to the Force and the Jedi (or the Sith) is that they don't do "enough" with Force while fighting. Indeed, we see entire discussions online about integrating the Force into combat moves in cool and tricky ways pretty regularly, one of which I, for the life of me, cannot find anymore (edit: Here it is), where someone posted a bunch of pictures about cool tricks and counter-tricks to defeat your opponent in a force-heavy duel.
Psionic Force Swordsmanship was meant to address this. If you have psychic powers, you expect you might use them to help you fight. The problem, in Psi-Wars, is that psionic powers aren't the force. The Force is probably closer to "magic" than as how GURPS handles psychic powers. That is, in Star Wars, anyone who can use the Force can use all of the Force, there might just be some things they're better at than others. In Psi-Wars, someone will have one or two powers, but rarely will have all: a Knight of House Grimshaw has Electrokinesis, but doesn't have Psychokinesis, and someone with Psychokinesis may never have Electrokineses. This means I can't write a single style for all users; I have to write several styles for a variety of possible users.
As a result, you can see Psionic Force Swordsmanship as roughly three styles in one: a psychic vampirism style, a psychokinesis style, and an electrokinesis style. I could probably explore a Telepathic style (though it would need to differentiate itself from Ishin-Denshen) or a Probability Manipulation style (but Probability Manipulation is considered a "Rare" power in Psi-Wars). That is to say, we could expand the style, but I have a limited amount of time to work with, and it's complicated enough as it is. I've tried to bundle the commonalities down and to make all three powers relatively interesting, but feel integrated into a cohesive whole.
This style has existed since Iteration 4, and has seen numerous rewrites, into the broader Maelstrom Form in Iteration 6, and now back into Psionic Force Swordsmanship in Iteration 7. It's a complex style with lots of moving parts and different ways to interact with it, so if you see mistakes in it, that's why. It's a fairly defensive, but also ruthless style, one suitable for a dark space knight, and we tend to see it more in the Umbral Rim than in the Glorian Rim (though a member of House Grimshaw who gets ahold of it is pretty cool).
If you're cribbing my material for Star Wars conversions, while I find the description of Form VI (Niman) vague to the point of uselessness, Psionic Force Swordsmanship (specifically, the Resonance Omen Moveset) works more or less how I picture Niman to work, as a fusion of psychic tricks and patient, cautious force swordsmanship.
Ugh, Electrokinesis
"Lightning, as it's written now, is only good for assassination" -- Lord Buss, paraphrased
This style, naturally, made me revisit Electrokinesis, and Lightning has been seeing some pushback, because people have to pick over every piece of Electrokinesis in ways that they don't over other powers (and I'm not sure why that is, other than perhaps people actually take electrokinesis, and it has a lot of crossover with actual gadgets). As I returned to the "Lightning" powers, I noticed a few things about them. First, I had originally edited out some elements from the original version that didn't seem to make sense (such as it stunning people) to save points for the fact that you don't draw your power from around you. After all, we picture Lightning as erupting from the hands of the space knight, not drawn down from nearby power-lines. But as I explored how Psionic Force Swordsmanship worked, I realized several things.
We tend to picture this lightning blast erupting from the hands of the character, and attacking someone relatively close by
We want to make this work sort of like a melee weapon, capable of feinting or making rapid strikes
We expect our target to survive a hit, but perhaps to be very much not happy that he got hit
The character can spend the whole fight doing nothing but lightning blasts
We expect lightning to work like it does in GURPS Magic.
This last is especially interesting. I went back and checked GURPS Magic, and discovered that the original description worked like Lightning in GURPS Magic, so I dutifully went back in and restored those values: longer range, the ability to stun the target, etc. With the removal of the channeling ability, this made it cost more, and I like the 12-point cost, because it means you can have ~6d for a single, 25-point power-up. So, I fiddled some more, reducing the damage to 3d-3 per level (to match the Lightning spell), gave it a 2-fatigue cost, and added a wait time to "power-up" the lightning blast. The way you should picture this the character channeling energy, and then zapping a powerful bolt of lightning that strikes a target very far away. This is a sniper shot lightning bolt, not an arc of electricity. So, yes, you primarily use it to one-shot people.
So, we need to make an arc of electricity. I called this "Electric Lash" and focused on smaller-scale damage: rather than buying it in big chunks of 3d at a time, you can pick it up for 1d per level. It's a Jet, it costs no fatigue, and it has a maximum (and 1/2D range) of 20 (chosen because that's the same range as TK-Grab in Psi-Wars). This comes to about 5 points per level. This is your more Star-Wars-like "casually toss off some electricity at a nearby enemy" sort of power, and it lets you do all sorts of fancy tricks, and this is the power that goes into Psionic Force Swordsmanship. I've also split the techniques up a bit, so that chain lightning and arc lightning goes to Lightning proper, and Painful lightning and Lightning Blast go to Electric Lash. I've also given the option for adding Electric Lash to Lightning as an Alternate Attack.
I've also created a TK-Hand, since people seem to like the idea of wielding a force sword with their TK, and the easiest way to handle that is some form of Extra Arm with the Weapon Mount option.
When I made my Snap Poll for my Patron's preferences for styles, the Serene Form came in third for non-Maradonian forms, though it did well in the Poll overall. I suspect the poll's results might have been misleading, because I know for a fact that several talkative patrons are very fond of the style (and at least one PC has used it), and perhaps if I held the poll today, it might do better.
I believe the Serene Form predates its inclusion as a Templar Form, and that I created it back in Iteration 4. It has seen quite some updates since, turning it into a beautiful, ceremonial style that focuses on meditation, introspection and connection with communion. This is because the style was inspired by Iajutsu and Iado, which are deeply tied to meditation in the cinematic tradition, for good reason, as it has a lot less sturm und drang than most fights, and thus artists who wish to depict it often front-load it with a great deal of introspection and anticipation.
Naturally, in Iteration 6, I saw it as a style associated with the Templars, because Iado's introspection and its willingness to draw it only at the last moment lend itself well to pacifism, especially Pacifism (Self-Defense Only), because you can avoid any violence until the last possible moment. So, naturally, with Tinker Titan Rebel Spy, the Dark Communion-associated Imperial Knight took it. His reasoning makes sense: Tyrants seek to intimidate, and this is a very intimidating style, one that exerts itself only when it intends to, like passing a sentence. This actually fits nicely with Iajutsu's bad reputation for "Cross-roads cutting," and so I created the Way of the Void in this incarnation. The inner peace of the True Communion form could be replaced with an inner emptiness of the Path of Death or the Void and turn it into a style that creates a bond between the user and murderousness itself. I was tempted to make it a three-fold path, but Dark Communion doesn't cultivate the selflessness necessary to really make this style work, so I shifted that idea to the Fell Form, which is known for its reckless rage. The Imperial Knight's player, however, counters that while it's true that the Paths of the Rebellious Beast, the Beautiful Fool and the Hungry Beast don't cultivate that sort of self-control, the path of the Mystical Tyrant does, especially in its Cult of the Mystical Tyrant form. It makes sense that Tyrants might use it, and use it form a deeper bond with their Path. That does make sense; so far, I've justified the connection with Broken Communion using the fascination that the Mystical Tyrant has with Broken Communion, but I'd like to revisit it soon for a "third way."
The style focuses on defensiveness, in defeating your opponent with his own attacks. This means we need to talk about Reflection, a concept I've been struggling with since I first began Psi-Wars, all the way in Iteration 1, thanks to the Force Buckler. See, the Force Buckler lets you reflect attacks back to the Attacker with a DX roll. My initial impulse was that this was "unfair," so I reduced it to an attack that you could make on your turn after being attacked. Since then, I realized that this ability was basically just the Reflection enhancement to DR on a piece of equipment, which means GURPS totally allows "free attacks" with Reflection. My my my! My current thinking is to allow it with both Force Swords and Force Buckler; you can use Precognitive Defense as your roll (making levels higher than 16 useful and interesting), the Force Sword has a penalty to reflect this way, and I've added some new options, first an optional roll for those who dislike the idea of someone reflecting all attacks this way, and a new All-Out Defense option that lets you focus on Reflection for the whole turn, a trick we often see Jedi do.
In general, the style has been a study in Precognitive Defense. I have a love-hate affair with precognitive parry and block. First, they're one of those "extra" rolls that happen before all defenses. For example, if you attack a Chambara Jedi, he might roll Acrobatics to see if he gets a +2, and then Precognitive Defense to see if he gets a +1, and then his actual parry value. That's THREE ROLLS per attack. Worse, there's no point in taking it above 16, as it never sees any penalties or bonuses; it works or it doesn't, and that's it. So I've gone in and tried to simplify some things: we get a no-nuisance rolls option, so once you hit Master you can just assume you succeed at precognitive defense unless you're doing something crazy, and that thing might be precognitive reflection (by handing the DX roll off to Precognitive Defense, we get a reason for crazy high values), precognitive fast-draw (because some people hate waiting a turn before getting stuck in) or for better bonuses to your precognitive defense rolls. I've also suggested folded Precognitive Defense rolls into Parry Missile rolls for certain situations. All in all, I hope it helps Precognitive Defense a bit.
Also, for those who get confused (the question comes up), Precognitive Defense replaces Precognitive Parry from GURPS Martial Arts, and Precognitive Block from Pyramid #3/9.
I built this style around how Obi-Wan fought in the original trilogy era. We see it showcased in the Cantina scene, but there's also a pretty good moment with it in Star Wars: Rebels were Obi-Wan faces off against a returned Darth Maul. Obviously, it primarily draws its inspiration from Iado, just as Obi-Wan himself does. In principle, though, this style should be similar to Soresu, or Form III, if you just want to toss all of this into a GURPS Star Wars conversion, though Soresu seems more interested in Precognitive Reflection than in fast draws.
When it came to the Non-Maradonian Forms, the Furious Form or the Fell Form came in dead last with zero points, matching the Swift Form in the Snap Poll for martial arts they personally would use as PCs. Like the Swift Form, I suspect this is because most players see it as a background form: something an NPC would take, rather than themselves. Where the Swift Form is iconic for the Maradonian Duelist, the Fell Form is iconic of the Ranathim Satemo of the Umbral Rim.
The Fell Form has been with us since Iteration 4 when I first put together martial arts. Originally, I called it "Rim Force Swordsmanship," as I saw it as the way "Rim Knights" might fight. Since then, I've given them "the Bastard Form," and when I wrote Domen Sonostrum, the Cult of the Lord of Rage. Since then, I've increasingly pictured this as a "Ranathim" style, this very distinct form unique to the Umbral Rim.
My original inspiration for the form was, of course, the way Ahsoka Tano fights. Her reverse grip lightsabers and her acrobatics and her kicks created a very distinct and visually pleasing style. Like Count Dooku or Yoda, it represented a form you could point to and say "That's a specific way of fighting." Of course, in Star Wars, it actually isn't (she evidently mingles some elements of Shien, or Form V, with Ataru, or Form IV), but I can make it so.
While building the style, though, I found it really profited from certain elements. I originally considered giving it Brawl (it was, after all, originally a street style) and giving the Destructive Form Karate, but the Destructive Form turned into the "form of being really strong," while the various elements of the Fell Form, from its acrobatics to its stealth, really made it something more DX-based. Furthermore, a lot of its elements really profited from Karate: reverse grip let the practitioner use force swords in Close Combat at no attack penalty, and less of a defense penalty if they used karate, and if we're going to emphasize close combat strikes to stun and disorient our opponents, then kicks and sweeps make sense. The net result is a style that turns every aspect of the fighter into a weapon: his feet, his fists, his blades, even his head! I liked that niche, and an interesting variation on the Fell Form would be to replace the +2 Force Sword in the Master level with +2 Karate. I'm not sure how many players would go for it, but with the Reverse Grip, it could be lethal!
As it became less of a street style and more "Taijutsu with Force Swords," I began to think of it as an assassin's style, and to more strongly associate it with the Ranathim. So, naturally, I drew a connection between the association of the style with a "rage cult," and Form VII's (Juyo's) association with anger. Why not give them a bonus when angry? I patterned it on Passionate Psi which is, itself, patterned on Drunken Fighting (though Drunken Fighting really requires you to accept penalties to everything else; it's not a free +2 to fighting; I've added something similar to Raging Warrior and I will add something similar to Passionate Psi). The result is a very "Sith Assassin" style, which fits the Ranathim nicely.
Finally, I shifted the original "Fell Frenzy" into a secret. It may or may not be "secret," but All-Out Attacks are usually a bad idea in a force sword duel, so I've couched it in a lot of cautionary notes and given it some special powers that make it a "berserker's art."
If you're cribbing notes for a Star Wars conversion, note that this form might provide ideas for Form V, the Shien variant, Form III (Ataru) and Form VII (Juyo; you're on your own figuring out how to get Raging Warrior to work with the light side and make Vapaad); it doesn't really fit any single, specific Star Wars form.
If you enjoyed my Martial Arts as power-ups series, and you're just now joining us, you can see four more worked examples for Psi-Wars, my Space Opera setting:
Today is the last of "set 1" of my Psi-Wars Martial Arts As Power-Ups series. Rounding off the Maradonian, we have the "ancient" style of the "Guardian Form," or "Knightly Force Swordsmanship", which was, in fact, one of the first styles I ever created or, better said, borrowed, as this is ultimately a worked example of Force Sword-and-Buckler from Pyramid #3/9 "Fighting the Future" by Kelly Pedersen.
The "Guardian Form" tied for "First place" among the Maradonian styles, and it didn't surprise me that it did so well. Where the other styles can point for lightsaber forms as as at least passing inspiration, Knightly Force Swordsmanship is a form far more grounded in GURPS. In GURPS, you need armor to really survive UT combat, so it emphasizes armor. In GURPS, we have force bucklers, so it has a force buckler. In GURPS, you can't assume people are going to stand around waiting for you to get into range, so it uses the force buckler and all that armor to protect the character as he moves into place. Dun Beltaine "used" this style before it even was a style, back in Iteration 1 before we introduced psionics or cool powers, because it let him "be a knight" without the "crutch" of the Force or Chi or something similar.
Thus, Knightly Force Swordsmanship is one of those styles that makes Psi-Wars feel like Psi-Wars. Sure, we've got high-flying space samurai with psychic powers, but we also have juggernauts with sword and board slamming into soldiers and then cutting them down. The well-armored space knight is perhaps one of the most important signature images of the setting, as it reminds the reader that, yes, Psi-Wars draws inspiration from Star Wars, but isn't Star Wars. It also feeds into the mythos and lore of the "Alexian Crusades."
Not everyone likes it, though. I haven't had the time or focus, and it was someone else's idea, but one of my readers proposed a variation that used force sword and force buckler, but dropped the armor (keeping, perhaps, a battleweave body sleeve). The idea is that by reducing armor, you reduce costs and encumbrance. This is especially pertinent if you're not using psychic powers and precognitive defenses, because a force buckler can, in principle, protect you from blaster fire, but only with a Dodge that benefits from the defense bonus of the shield. A typical character with Medium (-2) encumbrance and a Base Speed of 6 has 7 to 8 Dodge; with the shield, that improves to 10 or 11, which isn't great. With no encumbrance at all, that jumps to 12 or 13, which is pretty reliable. If you get hit, you're dead, but you shouldn't get hit. You could probably get a lot of mileage out of combining the high-flying acrobatics of the Graceful Form with the shield-focus of Knightly Force Swordsmanship. The Force Saber from the Swift Form also suffers with Encumbrance, so you can toss that on the pile of this "alternative hypothetical style."
If you're looking over my shoulder to steal these for your GURPS Star Wars game, note that despite being named "the Guardian Form," Knightly Force Swordsmanship really has nothing in common with Form III or Soresu. You'll have to wait for the Serene Form for something similar to that.
Today, I have the third force sword form in my series in Psi-Wars Force Swordsmanship style as Martial Arts Power-Ups. Of the "Maradonian styles," when I polled my Patrons about which style they'd personally choose, the Graceful Form tied for first. And I can see why: it's probably the most beautiful and romantic of styles. If you're going to be a Maradonian noble who duels, you'll probably want this one, just for the sheer beauty of the style. You can check it out here.
I created the Graceful Form to answer several problems. First, it seems like a logical conclusion for a Force Sword form to go after centuries of peace. The Swift Form represents the end-point of "Force Sword as dueling weapon," similar to modern fencing compared to real-world swordfighting, while the Graceful Form represents the other endpoint, where it becomes a beautiful "dance," similar to the sort of Wushu you see in films a lot. I also needed a place to put a focus on high mobility. After all, if you're playing a force swordsman, you need to close the distance between yourself and your opponent, and he's armed with the equivalent of an assault carbine. The Guardian Form represents one answer to that problem; the Graceful Form represents the other: cross ground swiftly! Star Wars assumes every Jedi will have Flying Leap, but Psi-Wars draws more inspiration from Wuxia and, like GURPS, assumes that you have to learn Flying Leap, and not everyone will as a matter of course.
Naturally, the final product errs on the side of cinematic effectiveness than pure performance (though I've included some rules for that, if you want). The result is a style that tends to outmaneuver its opponents: by getting behind your target, you spoil forward-facing defenses (like Deny Right for the Swift Form, the Defensive Grip of the Destructive Form, and the shield of Knightly Force Swordsmanship). If you're cribbing my material for a GURPS Star Wars conversion despite my repeated pleadings not to, note that the Graceful Form most resembles Ataru, or Form IV.
I've given it two secrets; one used to be a Patreon special, but the second is entirely new.
Continuing my series on the Psi-Wars force swordmanship styles as Power-Ups, when I put up the snap poll for "What force sword style would you pick for your character," of the classic "Maradonian" styles, the Destructive Form came in third. As before, this style is written with a house rule that halves the cost of techniques, to encourage technique proliferation.
Personally, the Destructive Form is my favorite style, and if I had to pick one style, that would be it. I designed it based heavily on how Darth Vader fought in the Empire Strikes Back, and in a large way, it's a style heavily informed by the qualities of the force sword itself. If one has the ability to casually lop off limbs, that may well turn into a major focus for how one fights. It's also a major aspect of the original Force Swordsmanship of GURPS Martial Arts, and the style that probably looks the most like actual Kenjutsu, with a focus on lines of attack.
If you're a Star Wars fan looking to crib my material, the Destructive Form is probably closest to Form V, or Djem So.
The Destructive Form also features a greater focus on strength than most styles, which is rare for a force sword style, as the force sword doesn't require strength to impact its opponent. To make this work, I've had to monkey around with how Beats work, but it's changes that I made all the way back in Cherry Blossom Rain. If you use default Beats from GURPS Martial Arts, all they really do is let someone who is extremely strong get a bit of a benefit when feinting, which is nice, but rare in a martial arts game as most people will focus pretty heavily on DX. Additionally, beats have some interesting side-requirements, like the fact that you need to parry or have been parried, which means that if your opponent can avoid contact with your weapon (feinting and evaluating, for example), he can prevent you from beating his weapon. Finally, realistically, one expects a beat to work exclusively against a weapon rather than a person (though I violate this concept with a Force Sword Shove, which is meant to simulate something we see often in Star Wars fights where someone unbalances an opponent through contact between force swords), so it's something you can also avoid by having multiple weapons. Taken together, I felt it fine to let Beat be a contest of ST vs ST, so that Beat-focused characters had a real edge over non-Beat-focused characters similar to the edge that Feint-focused characters have over high ST, low DX characters. I should state that it's ultimately an idea inspired by Icelander, from the SJGames forums (though I don't think he posts there anymore).
The original Force Swordsmanship from GURPS Martial Arts contains a targeted attack for the neck. I always liked this idea, but burning weapons don't get a benefit from attacking the neck, while cutting weapons do. This may well be a 3e holdover, because Force Swords used to inflict cutting damage. I think there's an argument for letting them do that again, especially as a force sword is a weaponized force screen, but I leave that up to you, dear reader, to decide for yourself. What I did do is give the players access to a perk that turns that option back on as an optional rule. If you think force swords should always just do that, reduce the cost of that move by 1.
Someone asked me if targeted attacks gain the benefit of a +1 defense if your opponent keeps attacking the same hit location over and over again. To that I say: "Sure, why not?" I would go further and say it probably applies to over-use of Trademark Moves too, but in both cases, you should probably be careful. Players pay points (often a lot of points) to gain access to targeted attacks and trademark moves, and the latter, especially, reward players for thinking ahead and speeding up gameplay by simply rattling off a pre-worked-out move rather than paging through books every time they attack an opponent. If you start giving your opponents a +1 to their defense because your players have Trademark Moves and Targeted Attacks, then you disincentive your players from buying them. I think the real intention of that rule is to keep fights from becoming stale and boring. If your players use the Reaping Stroke over and over again hoping for that one lucky hit, sure, give their opponents a +1 to defense, and start stacking it until the player gets the picture and stops doing the same thing over and over again. But don't do it if a player happens to use it twice in a long fight, IMO.
Maradonian Duelist Art by Kriz Villacis Owned by Daniel Dover
If you've been following my blog for awhile, you might remember my discussion of Martial Arts as power-ups. That was, in fact, born out of my desire to better explore the force swordsmanship styles of Psi-Wars, which I've been building since Iteration 4. So, you're likely familiar with the styles I'll lay out over the next few days, but I wanted to explore them as power-up structures. I wanted a player to be able to say "I'm an Adept at the Swift Form" and have it mean something. These power-ups have also been built into the structure of the Space Knight, but as you upgrade your character, it's nice to have an upgrade path, and I've provided that, for the Swift Form, here.
(One thing to understand before exploring it too much is that I've instituted a house rule in Psi-Wars where all Technique prices are halved. One point buys you +1 to the first level of a Hard technique, and +2 to all subsequent levels of a Hard technique, or all levels of an Average technique, to the listed maximum. This is to allow for characters to have a greater variety of techniques).
I ran a snap poll months and months ago where I asked my Patrons what Force Sword style they would choose as players. Of the Maradonian styles, the Swift Form came dead last with zero votes. I don't believe this is a condemnation of the Swift Form, so much as a preference for players to explroe something else. The Swift Form is, in many ways, symptomatic of the malaise afflicting Maradonian Space Knights, who have come to focus on courtly dueling over more practical battlefield applications. Thus, I imagine players might expect to face a duelist using the Swift Form, and expect to dismantle him with their other, more unique styles.
That said, the Swift Form is probably the "best" force sword style, if your focus is actually on fighting with a force sword against a single opponent. It's ruthlessly focused, great at hitting first (though the Serene style is competitive for the "first hit") and stacks up multiple advantages against a single opponent. It tends to do well against any style where it can dictate terms. It struggles a bit to get around the force buckler of Knightly Force Swordsmanship, and can be outmaneuvered by the Graceful form. The Destructive Form usually just lops the Swift Swordsman's arm off or punches him in the face, but modern Duelists wear an extra heavy gauntlet and a face-mask to prevent these tactics.
If you're a Star Wars fan looking to crib my stuff for your game, the Swift Form is closest to Makashi, or Form II.
