Oh yeah, boy! do I empathize. Or however that last word is spelled.
My group is perhaps even worse than your group - not only are we
rules lawyers, but most of the other guys are munchkins. I munchkin
out of defense - I'm usually the GM, and when I need to, I munch better
than the others :-) So they don't usually try too much when they see
that I'm starting to get annoyed... ;-)
The best Street Fighter campaign I ever told (you don't GM when it is
Storyteller, do you) - at least from my point of view, and with the
current gang - would be the campaign where I pregenerated the PCs. This
allowed me to insert a series of little roleplaying hooks - for instance,
one of the player characters was a stock broker turned health freak with
Boxing as his style, while another was a hippie turned mystic with
Kabaddi as his style. It wasn't enough to get the player characters to
realistically come to blows, but enought that their differing
philosophies, both when it came to fighting and when it came to personal
style, made a few memorable moments.
Furthermore, when YOU, as the GM, create the characters, then you're
about as sure as you CAN be that the players are on an even footing when
they start. I usually (but not always) create player characters that
have one strong suit and one weak suit, and create hooks that are
consistent with this. For instance, the starting lineup (without stats;
I really don't have the opportunity to work on my web site these days)
was:
* Cameron Weller, western kickboxing. A truck driver turned fighter, he
was the closest the group came to a "true" street fighter. A couple of
dots in Sensei, and a few good starting techniques and combos, he was
the most well-rounded fighter of them all. His disadvantage was that
he was (mostly) one dot shy of being the baddest guy on the block - he
had, for instance, 6 dots in Willpower... 7 being a breaking point.
He had 3 dots in Athletics, 2 dots in punch and 3 in kick - and a decent
starting combo incorporating Flying Knee Thrust and Elbow Smash - yet
he lacked that IN YOUR FACE maneuver.
* Bonedaddy, Kabaddi. Slacker extraordinaire and weed smoker, he was
tutored by his "spiritual mentor", a Kabaddi ghost (Sensei ****).
Perception low (too stoned to care), Dex abysmal (coordination not too
good after years of substance abuse) and Str laughable (same as for Dex),
he wasn't exactly an, shall we say, IMPOSING character on the arena.
However, he DID have an odd aura, and he DID know Fireball - Fireball -
Fireball as a combo, plus Regeneration. Low Willpower but high Chi, his
weak point was that once he was done blowing smoke (and fire), he usually
was nigh useless in a fight - his first XPs were sunk into physical stats,
punch, and near the end of the campaign he got the Head Butt punch
maneuver.
* Funky, a black man with an afro the size of Nebraska, and enough fake
gold chains to kill a rhino, he was a capoeirista with a twist'a. Ok, lame
joke, but still - he was the quintessential black man from the seventies.
And a reporter for a gutter rag similar to National Enquirer in scope and
truthfulness. Not too bright, though, he was fairly focused into
Athletics.
* Ricky, a hispanic stock broker turned health fanatic boxer, he was the
most imposing of the motley crew - physically speaking. VERY good at
boxing - but not much else. Some block, but little athletics... and
nothing at all in Focus, Grab, and Kick. His disadvantage: not very good
at anything else but boxing. Did have a couple of ok combos at the start,
but no one big power punch.
* Damien Fury - think Brian Fury, only not as nice. Special Forces, and
the most skilled in a fight. Spinning Knuckle is THE special maneuver when
starting out. However... skill-wise, he wasn't much to shout about.
And a couple that weren't used:
* an Aikidoka with Mob connections
* an Icelandic wrestler with issues when it comes to fighting women
In my case, I made a couple extra characters, and then let the players
choose (high roll go first) from the character pool - not letting them
read the character sheet, but reading them the capsule.
I then made a training centre to use as their common ground, as well as
letting a couple of dots in Manager for a few of them be enough to lend
them a place on the Circuit. Their first fight was against a few punks
that tried to mess up the training centre - then, they were introduced to
their first tournament.
Try to give the players hooks like this to play with. Build them up a bit
to begin with - and then kick them in the nuts later. For instance, later
on the punks had gotten hold of a couple of the higher-ups in their master
gang - Soldier Boy and Freaky Fred - and my players still have nightmares
about those two. Freaky Fred's nipple piercings and pink ballet tutu might
have something to do with that, as well as his nasty tendency to
projectile puke (Acid Breath is just SO... bulemic). That Soldier Boy and
Freaky Fred were holding hands when they came into view of the player
characters might also be a factor :-)
Hmm... I think I'm ranting - I'd better cut this email off right now.
On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Robert Zen wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Hello folks. I go by Ambrose Kalifornia, and I want to your friend.
>
> I am a Street Fighter GM out in Sunny Southern California, and I figger
> role-playing geeks love giving out their two cents for free so...
>
> I am going to start a game based out of San Diego. Alas, I have several
> problems. First up and possibly most important is that I have no character
> sheets. Well, actually I've got some really great ones but they've been
> photocopied so many times it's really hard to read. The maker had the
> template to make these but that was a few computers back, so that leaves
> making a character sheet from scratch, as I don't get talk to him much any
> more. So I need to know how to make a sheet. Any ideas?
>
> Secondly, I've got a bunch of wacky animal hybrid ideas so any information
> on that would be cool. Mostly gonna go with the standard
> underprivileged-victim-gets-new-powers-so-what-do-they-do-? (kill)type
> storyline at first and maybe play up the differences in class and the whole
> haves vs. have-nots thing. Tech level will be higher than normal to
> accommodate the existence of artificial hybrids and cyborgs. Other than
> that, normal good ol' 1998 U.S. of A. So what would you throw in?
>
> And last for now, I've got a group with ...maturity problems. There all
> sorta D&D geeks so they know HOW to play RPGs'; just not especially well
> y'know? I don't write the most highbrow of games (Hey, it's Street Fighter,
> to use too little camp is to do it disservice!) but they don't seem to be
> capable of too much more than dungeon crawl. The Vampire games we play
> always devolve into threats, gunfire, and more threats. So how should I keep
> them occupied if they (or their characters) don't grasp the plot?
>
> I appreciate you reading this, and some response even a hearty "Fuck off"
> would be great. I've tried to insinuate myself into your ranks before, now
> I try the direct approach. I ask for new friends!! Or at least new Street
> Fighter geeks who will understand my pain.
>
> Thanks for your time, and I hope to here from you all.
>
> Ambrose Kalifornia
>
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---
Jens-Arthur Leirbakk
leirbakk@...