The genre is almost perfectly structured for a ttrpg (arguably better than western fantasy) and yet there are basically no games that use a Xianxia setting. What gives?
>>98875311Name one Xianxia novel popular in America.That being said, I would also like to know about any Xianxia novels or settings that I can investigate for useful ideas. I like the Xianxia genre in concept but have no idea how to approach it.
>>98875311As someone who has more than once tried to design a game that fits the xianxia mould there are three reasons:1) I'm lazy and incompetent and have a half finished rpg sitting in my google drive.2) It's a niche of chinese fiction which is itself a niche in the western world - who are by far the primary consumers of tabletop rpgs. So interest from developers is low and potential marketability is low.3) The genre is so tied with daoist/chinese folk cosmology that it's too exotic to have appeal to the average western fantasy enjoyer.
>>98875311There's Exalted and a few niche games like...Fuck, I can't remember, but they used a "River" mechanic and loresheets. I think it was Weapons of the Gods. They are not, however, fun to play.
>>98875358Er Gen is a genre defining author and has a lot of popular works (e.g. Renegade Immortal, A Will Eternal, I Shall Seal the Heavens). Coiling Dragon and Desolate Era are also very good, and good as starting points.That said my favorite Xianxia novel by far is Reverend Insanity. The world building is top notch and it has a ton of great ideas that you could mine tor your own uses.But it’s very different from most Xianxia novels and not a good representation of the genre. It’s closer to a deconstruction than anything. You would probably only appreciate it after becoming familiar with more usual novels.
>>98875361>The genre is so tied with daoist/chinese folk cosmology that it's too exotic to have appeal to the average western fantasy enjoyer.Meh. Not everything fantasy has to be related to Tolkien for people to understand. There are elements you could simplify without necessarily ruining it.
>>98875311It's not perfectly structed for TTRPGs, arguably it better suited for something like a deck building vs game. The genre is all about an ever-growing power set and continuing to increase that power set in a solo pursuit that would have the players if they played into the genre stereo types tearing each other apart for the 1 of 1 cultivating enhancers.
>>98875311My guesses is Anti-Orientalism. There is a distinct mentality in the TTRPG dev scene that western genre fans don't have the right to base settings on the "Far East" without consulting "Asians." Adventures in Rokugan (the 5e D&D L5R setting) suffered heavily from 2nd and 3rd gen Asian-American consultants (that didn't even have Japanese descent) in what was supposed to be a samurai game.For a Xianxia TTRPG to get off the ground you need a publisher to ok the idea and they would then hire a bunch of DEI consultants with little knowledge of the genre outside their "ancestry" to tell you what to include. This does not make for a good game.>>98875361>The genre is so tied with daoist/chinese folk cosmology that it's too exotic to have appeal to the average western fantasy enjoyer.Being exotic is exactly what made and makes Oriental settings appealing. 1e D&D actually had a major surge when Oriental Adventures released.
>>98875311I ran a xianxia game in Worlds Without Number. I think the system is ok at it with a lot of squinting and elbow grease.>>98875358If Cradle counts as xianxia it at least was consistently on the NYT best seller list**which is a meme list
>>98875456It's xianxia in setting but shonen in terms of main character and fights.
>>98875475A perfect mix! Honestly the series feels like it was written as a 'response' to Desolate Era.>If I wrote the story I'd do it like this! And then he did.
>>98875413Only if you are focused on solo rogue cultivators. If you focus more on Sect based content (even Demonic Sect based), teamwork becomes more prevalent.A Sect based Xianxia game would have the following as adventure hooks:>Treasure hunts>Tournaments>Secret Realms>Sect Wars>Realm InvasionsPCs would likely have these "classes":>Sword Cultivator>Saber Cultivator>Spear Cultivator>Fist Cultivator/Body Refiner>Spell Cultivator>Mutant Spiritroot Cultivator>Special Constitution CultivatorWith these secondary specialties>Artifact Refinement>Talisman Crafting>Formation Mastery>Pill Alchemy>Corpse Refinement >Cultivation Method Development
>>98875490Forgot a few more classes and secondary specialties:>Puppetry>Hidden Weapons>Poison>Ghost>Dual Cultivation
>>98875490So >>98875361 here that's where I was going with my rpg, I was going to focus heavily on the sect element (with players generating their sect during character creation). Rather than classes they'd have a lifepath at character creation (because I like lifepaths) and they'd use exp to buy points in skills, techniques, qi pool, and cultivation levels during gameplay.Where I fell down is the creation of techniques and balancing them against each other and the costs of levelling up.
>>98875311nobody actually likes cultivation
>>98875594I'm somebody...
>>98875311Can you give a QRD of the setting you would like to see? What does cultivation mean in this context?
>>98875616Not him. Xianxia/Cultivation is a Chinese fantasy subgenre rooted in fables, folk daoism, and video game mindset. The primary driving force in xianxia is cultivation, the spiritual practice of absorbing ki, gems, exp, poison, whatever the fuck the setting uses as its excuse to give a character super powers. More and more super powers, eventually characters become gods who live for 10 quadrillion years and punch galaxies but the character started out as a piece of shit sifting mood for spirit gems on the ass crack village in the ass crack planet of the universe.
>>98875311Anima beyond fantasy
>>98875644So it's Bootstrap mythology but for chink peasants ruled by market-socialist overlords rather than for hick rednecks ruled by corporatist oligarchs, gotcha.
>>98875644That sounds pretty cool. I've never heard of it before.
>>98875668The best bit of social commentary in xianxia is most settings are onion peels. The pond scum protagonist who spent his entire life getting stepped on by people more powerful than him becomes a literal god and kills his bully and 9 generations of his family and goes off to the realm of the gods where he gets stepped on and bullied by those way more powerful than him until he becomes a literal god^2 and kills the people who bullied him and 9 billion generations then ascends to the realm of the gods^3 where he is treated as pond scum...
>>98875311Gay azn midgets literally aura farming in dresses just does not make a compelling fantasy for straight White peopleIf mexicans played tabletop it might work
>>98875490If you're doing sect shit you still suffer from the one guy needs to be the super guy on top that's uplifting everyone else style writing in those stories, you've just offloaded that from any of the player characters on to a DM PC sect leader who you're doing all the busy work for at which point you can just do a Xianxia game in just about any dungeon crawling/small scale skirmish system that suits your fancy. Hell, you could probably do a convincing Xianxia game by just using multiple editions of Dnd to represent realms of power.
>>98875311Reddit meme
>>98875644So, is Dragon Ball for edgelords?
>>98875698>If you're doing sect shit you still suffer from the one guy needs to be the super guy on top that's uplifting everyone else style writing in those stories, you've just offloaded that from any of the player characters on to a DM PC sect leader who you're doing all the busy work forThe PCs would basically start out as the Elite Senior Brothers/Senior Sisters with the crazy good spiritroots, special constitutions or ring grandfathers. >Hell, you could probably do a convincing Xianxia game by just using multiple editions of Dnd to represent realms of power.4e D&D pretty much covers all the stages on on its own. Heroic is Qi Condensation to Core Formation. Paragon is Golden Core to Spirit Severing. Epic is Void Refinement to True Immortal.>>98875764Dragonball is more Xianxia as comedy. The Journey to the West is one of the primary bases of the genre.
>>98875311>How come there are no Xianxia tabletop gamesAnima : Beyond FantasyAlso D&D whenever your character would do it.>Name one Xianxia novel popular in America.Dragonball.>>98875400>It’s closer to a deconstruction than anything.As scholars have pointed out over and over again, the whole Chinese martial arts fantasy genre is highly ironic and aware of its meta-implications. It's why System-type fiction's so popular in the first place.
One reason reverend insanity works so well narratively (vs other xianslop) is fang yuan's power is constantly getting sucked away from him every arc and he has to come up with completely new ways of powering up. Players would hate that though.
>>98875311There is one, it's pretty old.
>>98876007Playoids could accept it as long as you masked it well. E.g. instead of deliberately taking something away, just make it so that lower level techniques are ineffective at higher levels.
>>98875503>Dual CultivationAnybody can DC its just literally fucking someoneNo need for a dedicated class/subsect. That would just devolve into low levels trying to ERP with high levels and stealing their core and shit like a freaky chinese succubus.You're better off suggesting stuff like the Demonic-forms of all the existing classes as their own classes with rules about breaking the orthodoxy tradition. Its basically a paladin but you break all the rules to stay one and you will have the orthodox Heavenly-fucks so far up your ass your levels would be a testament to either their neglect or incompetence at getting rid of an unorthodox cult
>>98875393>There's ExaltedPeople need to stop. Exalted ISN'T wuxia/xianxia, it just has some vague elements very loosely taken from it. That would be like saying Exalted is mecha because of warstriders.
>>98875311Legend of Ghost Mountain is fantasy Wuxia so it is kind of a Xianxia setting.
>>98875406NTAYRTA lot of Chinese shit makes reference to daoist stuff and doesn't explain any of it at all while assuming the audience just intrinsically knows what the fuck they are talking about and why the combination of shit being done makes sense to the point a lot of it comes off as random bullshit.
>>98875311as you can see, people don't even know what cultivation is, and think shit like naruto and exalted qualify because they have some vague asian themes
>>98875311Meme genre that no actual human enjoys.
>old fucks control all resources and information>go to a newly discovered dungeon (inheritance), one of the few things not already divvied up>5 million young masters also at the entrance trying to get in>dead guy who made the inheritance put like 50 different traps and false leads, 95% chance of death 5% chance of getting anything>old monster waiting outside to steal any loot you get>have to contribute half of the loot you get to the local gang/sect anyways unless you are the sect leader's son or an outlaw>you can't even do any of this if you don't hit the 0.01% chance to have any talent in cultivation at all>will still lose to richfag's son or some lucky retard no matter how hard you workit's too realistic
>>98875311It could work as a solo rpg but it would be difficult to adapt into a party game due to how ego-centric the genre is. Remember that cooperation is seen as weakness in Xianxia. Independence is the ultimate goal of cultivation.MCs being narcissistic to the point of solipsism is a major theme in cultivation novels. To the point that it is often considered an integral part of the power system.I recently stumbled on a xitterfag attempting something similar (I think its called 10,000 Swords Against Heaven) but it they turned out to be a retarded communist so I lost interest. Cool art tho.
>>98875668>Bootstrap mythologyNever heard of that term before, can you explain?>>98875687You type like a nigger.
>>98875953Dragonball is not Xianxia.
>want to go on an adventure>first, I must spend 17 game sessions cultivating power>whole group gets bored before I can even tell someone they are courting deathJust do some good old-fashioned YOUR KUNG-FU IS WEAK hijinks instead.
>>98877301There are definitely ways to have players team up without turning it into a pvp game. "Sworn brothers" is an extremely common trope. Not to mention all the usual reasons people would team up in a ttrpg (mutual interest, necessity, skewed/limited powers, etc.).Even if you wanted to run self-interested demonic path PCs, there are almost always oaths or other mechanics that allow mutual agreements and teamwork because these things are useful to stories. Trying to come out ahead of your teammates while being beholden to the party agreements can be a fun dynamic.
Just binged Dragon Canon to the latest chapter, really enjoying itI think I'll just jump straight into binging another novel, maybe ISSTH, only read Beyond the Timescape from Er Gen so far, or maybe Reverend Insanity since it's one that gets brought up a lot
>>98875616Xianxia is what happened when you take Confucian face culture, Taoism, Buddhism, HFY, Might Makes Right ideology, and some existentialist philosophy sprinkled in, then blend them all in a wok. Its an extremely flawed genre, but if you peel off all the unnecessary gunk it has the genuine potential to be great at its core.>>98877355You have a point but some issues still remain, such as resource scarcity and extreme power disparity between stages. These are staples of the genre but present a difficult challenges for co-op based game. For example, if one member of the party lags behind the others in cultivation that person is basically useless until they catch up. And if a resource is found that allows one to jump up a realm sone players would definitely argue against wasting it on the weak link, creating friction that may just end ending the game right there.
>>98877320Calm yourself Pablo, the White people will never take you seriously when you melt down so easily.
>>98877377Check out a Regressor's Tale of Cultivation. Its worldbuilding and story are the same quality as RE without the major downside of the cartoonishly evil bugman protag.
>>98877301This is almost identical to Tenra Basho Zero stats
>>98877335Dragonball, unlike Secret Journey or Gensomaden Saiyuki, is a cultivation setting and directly based on Journey to the West. Doesn't get any more Xianxia than that.
>>98876267You still have specialists who use it to heal others, lifedrain and allow for partnership techniques. I was thinking of it as more a secondary specialty.
>>98877477RToC is not even in the same league as Reverend Insanity.
>>98877458>And if a resource is found that allows one to jump up a realm sone players would definitely argue against wasting it on the weak link, creating friction that may just end ending the game right there.Which is why many resources become useless to those a bottlenecks. Temporary stall outs that let others catch up is part of the genre.
>>98877575Dragonball and Xianxia have literally nothing to do with each besides the vaguest association with JttW and the high stakes fighting. That's it. Saying they are the same is like saying 40k is hard scifi because it has space ships. Its the most secondary tourist take ever.Dbz doesn't even have the most basic qualifications of Xianxia which is the autisticaly detailed stratified power system based on chinese internal alchemy and conceptual esoteric bullshit.>>98877597An opportunistic dual-cultivating sex pest is a pretty funny character idea, but it would probably get old pretty quick.
>>98877606Yeah I agree. Its much better.
>>98877670 (you)you're going to need better bait than that
>>98875311We've looked at games that are all about power escalation and decided that they do not deliver an experience that could not be handled better by videogames
>>98877689Opinion not bait. I read them both and vastly liked RToC over RE. Not that the later is bad or anything, its still better than 99% of modern chinkslop.
>>98875393You're thinking about Legend of the Wulin.Good system, if your group takes the time to sperg out and write their own, balanced, loresheets.
>>98877664>An opportunistic dual-cultivating sex pest is a pretty funny character idea, but it would probably get old pretty quick.The flip side is that "literal heal slut" and "poisonous honey pot" are valid female character archetypes with their own playstyles.
>>98875311They all are, cultivation is just another way to say XP.
>>98878432xianxia is just the end result of writing a story about gold as exp
>>98878432nah, progress in a single stage doesn't make it cultivation
>>98877458>...a tyrant, an oppressor, a bourgeois, a capitalist...Let me guess, this is a page from a Mork Borg inspired Cyberpunk rules lite game of grotesque body horror, distributed for free as a 'zine by a heavily tattooed American Northeasterner wearing a black denim vest with patches. These guys make cool stuff but they can't resist dropping in those eye-rolling political shibboleths. >>98875456Cradle was honestly a good bit of fun but I felt like it was consciously "for westerners" if that makes sense. Like it sanded down a lot of the more "alien" tropes of cultivation stories in favor of something that an American teenager could immediately identify with. In fact, I think that's why it's so successful, by making an existing genre palatable to a whole new audience. But then, I can only imagine how frustrated actual Chinese cultivation fans would be if Cradle became the new standard, right? To see their "thing" macerated by the tastes of the mass market? Maybe I'm projecting. I liked Cradle.
>>98875400>Reverend Insanity's world building is top notchMmm, yes of course. Definitely there's not just [millions of whatever random beast] that happen to be around by author's fiat whenever they're handy. Look man I like it too but let's not pretend there's anything good about it that doesn't start with the initials FY or HRDV/GLIV if you prefer.
>>98875608Courting death
>>98875616Cultivation is usually depicted as focused meditation where someone touching you could cause you to spit blood and suffer irreversible harm, where you take something into your core (sometimes it's something not naturally found in humans and sometimes it's literally your soul) and use that to push on the boundaries of that core until it expands, which usually comes with several power ups, and people that are on a lower level than another are typically depicted as a child in comparison when it comes to various attributes. Most villains in xianxia until you get to the really high levels are stuck at some roadblock in their cultivation where they need something like an elixir, rare herb, or spirit animal to break through the wall, but what they need either doesn't belong to them or requires something terrible like human sacrifices to make. You read enough Xianxia and you learn all the basic tropes: the heavenly demon cult, mount hua, the tang clan, the sword immortal, etc.
>>98878556Like I said in another post, Cradle is what happens when someone reads Desolate Era and says "here's what I'd do differently..." It's also a rewrite of his earlier work; specifically Cradle 1-10 follows the plot/dramatic arc of House of Blades to a T. I didn't read the sequels to see if the last few books of Cradle follow them, too.
>>98879015>there are many kinds of creatures in a large world? AAAAIIIIEEEEE IM GOING INSANE!!!!!Filtered by northern plains arc, I see.
>>98875311Marge, isn't that what Exalted is?
>>98879553Does Exalted have rules for playing a level 1 commoner in rusty dagger shantytown?
>>98879584Fair enough
>>98878556>Let me guess, this is a page from a Mork Borg inspired Cyberpunk rules lite game of grotesque body horror, distributed for free as a 'zine by a heavily tattooed American Northeasterner wearing a black denim vest with patches. These guys make cool stuff but they can't resist dropping in those eye-rolling political shibboleths.You got the gist of it lmao. The worst part is that they genuinely think they're doing something different and not just rehashing the same old spiel over and over.
>>98875424one day it's "woke" anti-orientalism, the next it's "reactionary" orientophobia. there seems to be a lack of orderliness in the way this stuff gets discussed. lots of world civilizations with deep pedigree are broached even less than china's. japan is just dominating with anime slop, and i'd argue it's mythos is less well-known than china's to equally little-known. china would end up doing the same anime-wise if there ever were a serious push in that direction. chinese industrial "slop" already sweeping the world does not quite fit a discrimination thesis.
>>98877458>Xianxia is what happened when you take Confucian face culture, Taoism, Buddhism, HFY, Might Makes Right ideology, and some existentialist philosophy sprinkled in, then blend them all in a wok.>Its an extremely flawed genre, but if you peel off all the unnecessary gunk it has the genuine potential to be great at its core.It's a great display of modern Chinese morality and why you shouldn't trust a Chinaman as far as you can throw him.I honestly think that adding Western post-enlightenment (or even feudal) morality to a xianxia setting would make the sect system actually work.Yet another reason my RPG is half finished.
>>98875311Besides xianxia I'm surprised there's no RPG based on the "modern hunter" genreyou know, where it's the real world but portals open up and monsters come out and people get super powers to fight the monsters and there's guilds and politics and shit. (and lots of korea strong! silly shit)Solo levelling is the most popular work.
>>98875424>Adventures in Rokugan (the 5e D&D L5R setting) suffered heavily from 2nd and 3rd gen Asian-American consultants (that didn't even have Japanese descent) in what was supposed to be a samurai game.More on this?
>>98880543Why are moralfags like this
>>98880589This shit is even worse than Xianxia. Especially when it has classes and levels and shit as diegetic elements.
>>98875311I have a friend who watches xianxia religiously. When he tries to play TTRPGs, he doesn't really care about any other players, want to play against others, and sole motivation he has is for his character to be more powerful. Perfect xianxia TTRPG is when several GMs will serve a player as a choir of shrinks, helping him to fullfill his power fantasies of grandioze.
>>98880635>tfw you'll never be rich enough to hire a team of GMs to act as your advisor eunuchs in a cosmic solo game of chinese power fantasy.Why even live?
>>988806041989年6月3日晚大约10:30,第38军部队开火使用实弹。人群震惊于军队使用实弹,纷纷退向木樨地桥。部队使用了膨胀子弹,这在国际法中禁止用于国家之间的战争,但对其他用途则不禁止。6月4日凌晨,第一辆装甲车从长安西路进入天安门广场。大约凌晨4:35,在示威者开始撤退几分钟后,广场的灯被打开,部队开始推进。一队突击队冲上纪念碑并向学生开火。医院记录的死亡人数在478到1000人之间
If you were desperate and considered reverend insanity true xianxia you could just pick up a shaman or a circle of the shepherd druid if you're playing dnd and reflavor it into a gu master. At its core reverend insanity is just a world of powerful shamans with powerful spirits.
>>98875311Because its just leveling up over and over forever while accomplishing nothing
>>98881498just playing a monk would be closer honestly
>>98875771>>98875953dragon ball and jttw are more wuxia, not xianxia
>>98880589but that's even easier to do because you can literally just grab d&d or whatever othe fantasy rpg you want and use it as the power system
>>98882043Not at all unless we completely dilute the meaning of the termClassic wuxia can have fantastical elements, but it's not fantasy, both DB (not even including Z) and JTTW have magic and gods/demons and otherworlds and shitAnd even if Water Margin technically has demons and a goddess makes an appearance, there's a pretty stark difference in that those are singular events that are treated as an exception, not the rule
>>98882287calling dragon ball a xianxia is beyond stretching the term
>>98881990Obviously monk is a good xianxia substitute, but druid is worth a mention since it's the only dnd class that actually extends your lifespan as part of its kit. It can also be reflavored as a Gu master very easily.
>>98882334Not as big of a stretch as claiming it's "more wuxia"
>>98880510What's wrong with Koriko
>>98880603L5R has always suffered a bit from being a messy Asian grab due to being based heavily on the 1e D&D Oriental Adventures book while in theory being a samurai setting. When FFG bought the IP and reset the setting the new dev team were both long time fans of L5R and also fans of Japanese, Korean and Chinese media willing to do a lot of cultural research to enhance things.When Asmodee bought up FFG and then did a reorg they tossed L5R to their RPG subdivision, Edge. Edge had no real understanding of the setting or genre and so brought in an "Asian TTRPG gamer" podcast as consultants. This podcast was done by a pair of Californian's of "Asian descent" (one being 3rd generation Chinese American and the other being half Filipino if I remember right) and they mostly played 5e D&D. They didn't really know anything about the setting, pushed for a lot of retcons (including adding a "new bigger and better" !China as a neighbor) and turned it into a generic Asian fantasy setting. >>98882287Yeah. It helps to understand that Wuxia means "martial hero" and Xianxia means "immortal hero." JttW involves 4 immortals escorting a Monk while battling gods and demons.>>98882334No it isn't. Wuxia and Xainxia have a lot of overlap on the lower levels, but once Kami and Demon King Piccolo come into the picture it shifts more heavily into Xianxia with each arc with the Buu saga and Super firmly placing it into Xianxia.
>>98875311Because we really don't give a fuck about anything Chinese short of chicken balls with sweet and sour sauce.We have no frame of reference for what Chinese myths mean, we have no ability to recognize characters or creatures from folk stories, and the archetypes Chinese fantasy stories use, are not our archetypes. and this is coming from a guy who grew up with a comic book version of "Journey To The West"The Chinese market also has immature tastes;They seem to not have gotten over the "effortless infallible hero" archetype, which frankly, turns off most Westerners, for whom "Heroism" implies a struggle against superior forces.Nobody is all that impressed by Chinky Mc Squint-eye crushing his enemies effortlessly because fate decreed it would be so.Make that yellow faggot earn it.
>>98882685>"Heroism" implies a struggle against superior forces.The sheer departure from "conventional" morality really got me. I remember reading Cradle, which is a super westernized take on the genre written by a white guy, and even in that setting I couldn't believe the shit that was Normal to the setting when it would have been Bad in a western story. The whole cosmology of the setting is about shitty little nations that have to scrape and kowtow in front of stronger nations who can and sometimes do crush them in a heartbeat. And then THAT larger nation has to scrape and kowtow to an even larger nation, all the way up until the whole multiverse is ran by cosmic Reality Jannies who inevitably go insane over centuries of constantly crushing rebellions from their lessers. And the only reason the protagonist is able to tier up through all these ranked societies is extreme luck. He keeps getting his hands on magical pills, potions, mentorship, and knowledge that would normally be fully confined to the higher-tier societies. Without these elements, he'd have been screwed no matter how hard he worked. So I thought, as a naive American reader, that this was driving towards a climax where the protagonist recognizes the whole system as unfair. "It's a nominal meritocracy but you're really confined by your birthplace and the prize for winning the rat race of Cultivation is an eternal thankless struggle anyway. Just because I was incredibly lucky doesn't make any of this fair and good, and the whole thing needs reform" I swear that's where I thought we were going. But no, our protagonist meekly accepts his position as a Cosmos Moderator and that's a happy ending.
>>98883049Lindon is an extremely moralfag protagonist for the genre. He doesn't rape or genocide anyone.
>>98883144But thats the thing, isn't it? Cradle is the most moralistic, entry-level, Westernized take on the genre to exist (and I liked Cradle) And even in Cradle, there's still that bit which never gets acknowledged "hey, this Mad King character really did get screwed over. Hey, this whole system of Abidan seems to be unsustainable at best, and it feels wrong that across every level of our society, the potential for Actual Social Mobility (Cultivation) is so locked to your birthplace that people are joining Dreadgod cults en masse as a way out of their hopelessly shitty lives". And this is WITH, you're right, an (incredibly and unusually) moralistic and kind protagonist. Western Fantasy is typically written by either a Catholic or a bleeding heart liberal, so everything I've ever read had me primed to expect some kind of morality play about the visibly unfair setting. But Cradle shrugs its shoulders, "hey, that's how it is", and contents itself with the salvation of just our main cast. And that's fine, but it's different enough to notice.
>>98883049>The whole cosmology of the setting is about shitty little nations that have to scrape and kowtow in front of stronger nations who can and sometimes do crush them in a heartbeat. And then THAT larger nation has to scrape and kowtow to an even larger nation, all the way up until the whole multiverse is ran by cosmic Reality Jannies who inevitably go insane over centuries of constantly crushing rebellions from their lessers.And the only reason the protagonist is able to tier up through all these ranked societies is extreme luck. He keeps getting his hands on magical pills, potions, mentorship, and knowledge that would normally be fully confined to the higher-tier societies. Without these elements, he'd have been screwed no matter how hard he worked.tsounds like real life
>>98879553exalted is 0% xianxia
>>98879584yep. i have played an exalted campaign where we played commoners doing commoner stuff and it was kino. there exists like 2 pages of rules in 2e for exactly this stuff and it basically says discard half the book, you dont get half the stuff dragonborn characters get. very low power stuff
>>98884519dude you are born with spiritual roots which make you superpowered as shit and basically immortal and you are also worth like a million mortals in any conflict.This sounds pretty xianxia to me
>>98883383why cant americans specifically and anglos in general seem unable to divorce themselves from their worldview and just learn a different worldview or just accept it for what it is and everything must be about them and the way they see things.No other people does this as much.
>>98883383>>98884856why does something have to be americanised for an american to get it?Can't you people learn a different culture and a different worldview and appreciate it for what it is without needing to fundamentally alter it to fit your perceptions?Why must it always be something digestible and familiar?Is there a national aversion to mental effort, thought and understanding?
>>98884853okay, so you don't know the first thing about what exalted is, got it
>>98884856Because Anglos invented the world in which you live and are morally superior to you.
>>98884856They're just socially engineered to be ignorant cattle, don't worry about them too much, it's a self-corecting problem.
>>98884856>Or just accept it for what it is>..."And that's fine, but it's different enough to notice."Tilting at windmills in eagerness to feel aggrieved
>>98886103it's not about feeling aggrieved, it is a genuine question.If someone here liked wuxia or xianxia then he would get interested in their way of thinking and mindset and like it for it's difference from his own.He would explore a foreign culture, mythology and worldview exactly because it's different.Americans seem to judge everything on the basis of how much do things much to their ideas or how can they turn things into something they can grasp.The same happened with the odyssey, they turned it into a christian story about guilt. They didnt like it for what it is, they only wanted to adapt it to be like themselves
>>98886204Fair enough but that's already how I was reading the post. "I liked the books but I noticed this totally different mindset" I don't think he was against the Eastern(?) style or saying that it should be changed. He was already in the early stages of your post, >exploring a foreign culture, mythology, and worldviewPointing out that the different worldview is different doesn't mean he hated it.
Why is popular analysis of fiction entirely centered around morality now???
>>98886868Always has been. The biggest sign of low IQ is someone who can only argue about the quality of fiction from the perspective of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong. They're the people who say the Game of Thrones show is bad because there's incest in it (category 1 - depicting something bad must mean the writer is bad and the whole show is bad, in essence to acknowledge bad things is to condone them), or that it's bad because Daenerys went crazy at the end and had to be killed by Jon (category 2 - this character I identify with must be good because I agree with them, so if they do something bad it's bad writing). Rather than it being bad because every character got flanderized in seasons 5-8 and the intelligence of the script fell out the hole at the center of the Eyrie. You can go back and read the arguments and critiques of older scholars examining works like Shakespeare and decrying it as pretentious slop because sometimes the characters do evil things and get away with it.
>>98875311>This thread>With this image>For the millionth time>And it's not even a human reposting it
>>98886204It is less an American thing and more an executive thing. American executives are infamous for trying to Americanize things when importing things that sell because they are exotic. This often actually hurts their potential because the changes are often hamfisted. The execs go for the lowest common denominator and often end up setting things below the actual denominator.
>muh chinese moralityChinese moral/social rules largely descend from Confucianism and Legalism. It’s not too far off from the West developing their social philosophies starting from Plato and Aristotle. You have to conform to society, respect your elders, follow the rules, uphold reputation (face), etc. But Xianxia is far more influenced by Taoism and Buddhism than it is by Confucianism or Legalism. Neither Taoism nor Buddhism have any real respect for these principles like good and evil, filial piety, being a good peasant, etc. In fact they regularly shit on these concepts because just like in the west philosophers have been getting into pissing matches for thousands of years. As a result, Xianxia is not in accord with mainstream Chinese ethics. This should be obvious given that it’s an incredibly individualistic genre in a conformist society. If anything, its appeal should be partly attributed to transgressing social norms. You aren’t allowed to bitchslap the young master then take his jade beauty in real life.
Answer me this: are the dantian and the meridians real tangible organs or spiritual things you cannot carve out of slaughtered cultivator?
>>98891574They are spiritual organs. They can be handled with spiritual means.
>>98875490Missing the classic music/sound cultivator. And Buddhist cultivators if that counts.
>>98875311>What if we took wuxia, but made it appeal to soulless sub 100 iq power wankers?
>>98891847True and I also forgot Gu cultivation.
>>98891574From my understanding it's both. Dantian/Meridians are half physical half spiritual organs. They could be extracted but require special methods/tools to do so. Its why sustaining internal damage could cripple cultivators.
>>98891875Psychic/Soul Cultivators too. They are often distinct from qi/energy cultivators and alot trickier to deal with.
>>98883383>people are joining Dreadgod cults en masse as a way out of their hopelessly shitty livesAt least it’s not Glorantha where people are joining Chaos cults en masse as a way to help unmaking the Cosmos so nobody will have to suffer the same hopelessly shitty lives as they do.
>>98875311There's a handful but they're honestly more wuxia than xianxia. The scaling is an issue.I've always thought something like Ars Magica might work, where the sect is as much a character as the cultivators.
>>98894331Correct, a system must handle both level 1 commoner and level 100 epic god. It must also not be a system that is too open: if you're not gaining measurable statistical power, the genre is not being satisfied.The happy medium is to handle a wide spectrum but stop somewhere.
>>98875490This is basically what Blades of the immortals is for.
>>98891894There's also the rarer Faith Cultivator that powers himself with the collective belief of a civilization he's tricked into thinking him a God.
is star wars xianxia?
>>98894792Kind of. Xianxia after it went through an apocalyptic phase of genocide and political purges, which ended with the establishment of a totalitarian infrastructure to guarantee cultivator's political correctness at the edge of... whatever laser swords use to cut.
>>98894940It's low powered as fuck and the protagonists barely grow though.
>>98894792no, it's wuxia.
>>98895812The dude pulling a spaceship out of orbit in the videya wasn't even the setting's peak.
Honestly sounds pretty dull to GM. And to play. Im not really into numbers-maxing. Which Xianxia is primarily about.Punching a galaxy is basically punching a planet, which is basically punching a mountain, which is basically punching a city.Feels better suited for somesort of card game based on randomly getting your cultivation material. Since once your cultivated, its just about flatly comparing numbers to numbers.Beyond like a 11 year old power fantasy, im not sure what the appeal is in terms of actually interesting things going on.I guess you could just use M&M and futs with the scales a bit.
>>98895837i ve only seen the movies and nobody in those is stronger than mid to high power wuxia.Also the force is entirely like ki, the way wuxia uses it and has nothing to do with constitutions, spiritual roots, elemental affinities that influence both your temperament and your set of powers etc.It has space monks wielding space swords doing martial duels.Sounds very much wuxia to me
>>98895870Mainly because >>98894334 is right in that for a tabletop rpg, an endpoint is kind of a necessity. Xianxia stories can extend the self-improvement focus of the journey up until the writer either stops or gets forced to stop, but in a tabletop game when you reach a point where the GM is struggling to come up with challenges that don't sound really silly, the game dies very fast.>Beyond like a 11 year old power fantasy, im not sure what the appeal is in terms of actually interesting things going on.Theoretically, it's how the character's philosophy and personality evolve as they go through the basics again and again on their route to power, as a naive newcomer is going to react differently to challenges and cliche's as a veteran. Though with how many modern xianxia protagonists act like super bigbrained sociopaths from the start, I can see why it'd be hard to find the appeal.
>>98895917>Theoretically, it's how the character's philosophy and personality evolveIn that sense, I don't see how Xanxia uniquely does that as opposed to any story with a growth in status really. As say a City Guard > Knight > Baron. Heck, those stories have more elements of such interaction then Xanxia, as the intricacies of the Barons situation only increase as they have to concern themselves with more and more people.Whereas Xanxia gets increasingly more boring. As you have less and less elements that matter, unless their just re-skinned old-elements, ala Astral-Crabs.But that aside, if that's the real focus, then you want to have the mechanics be as minimalistic as possible, with strong narrative mechanics to promote introspection and make character growth in a group context more interesting. Really it may benefit from having no GM at all, as actual conflict from opposition isn't the point.Higher power levels, unless curated and carefully designed, usually make for more boring fights. A basic example, is that flight is actually a way to make most terrain irrelevant, which is less interesting.So I guess a Xanxia game would paradoxically focus LESS on combat and conflict and more on talking and inner monologuing?
>>98896013>In that sense, I don't see how Xanxia uniquely does that as opposed to any story with a growth in status really.As dismissive as people are of how autistic "big numbers go up", it really is based on that kind of grinding mindset. It's like how you need to learn to crawl before you walk, before you run, before you become a world class sprinter. It does start to lose a lot of its effectiveness the further and further away from the original "peak" that it does since it just rinses and repeats, but that's basically the main crux. It's like if Goku unlocking more Super Saiyan transformations and techniques actually relied on trying to learn new ways of thinking and expanding his capacities beyond just screaming and grunting, at least in theory.>So I guess a Xanxia game would paradoxically focus LESS on combat and conflict and more on talking and inner monologuing?Honestly, not incorrect. A lot of fighting can be said to be more like a measuring stick or obstacles to the hero's path. Someone can spend fifty years slaughtering other sects of martial artists to perfect their craft before needing to switch over to herbology for a hundred years in order to unlock a particular type of medicine to unlock their body's potential, for instance.
>>98896337>As dismissive as people are of how autistic "big numbers go up", it really is based on that kind of grinding mindset.I'm less dismissive of it in a cultural and/or religious context.>It's like if Goku unlocking more Super Saiyan transformations and techniques actually relied on trying to learn new ways of thinking and expanding his capacities beyond just screaming and grunting, at least in theory.Id still find it pretty dull DESU (not a fan of DBZ). Numerical manifestations of inner growth I find best work sparingly. It can be super satisfying, but again when used lightly.>How can this be? How are you avoiding my death attack?>Because of my inner growth, Im no longer as stubborn, and have prepared the battlefield.vs>How can this be? How are you avoiding my death attack?>Because of my inner growth, Im no longer as stubborn, and get +50 to energy tank ratio.But id say in a group context, inner contemplation and such would be really boring. Either its a group game of people that all want to secretly be the main protagonist, or its a bunch of people in it for navel-gazing.
>>98896396I definitely don't blame you for being dismissive. In the same way a lot of slop isekai works have people dismissing the storytelling potential of someone being transported to a new world, a lot of bad pandering xianxia gets memed on as a bunch of nonsensical "numbers go up" type of crap paired with crazy technique names that belong more on a fast food menu.Wuxia and shenmo fiction are probably better suited to a ttrpg just because they're generally focused more on a particular end goal, rather than the grind in and of itself. DESU, I suppose one of the better ways to get that across without the tedious nature getting in the way is to play it like Pendragon in that the training times and downtimes get skipped over so that the players can focus on particular goals for their sessions, much like Pendragon skips through the seasons and/or years between sessions to get through the important but boring stuff like collecting taxes and training soldiers and raising heirs and stuff.
>>98895870Why make all these assumptions about a genre you haven't read?
>>98875594I assume "cultivating" in this context has nothing to do with agriculture. Could someone tell me what it is?
>>98896651Cultivation (variously referred to in Chinese as xiūliàn [修炼], xiūzhēn [修真], xiūxíng [修行], and xiūxiān [修仙]) is a Taoist concept by which humans can extend their lifespan and gain supernatural powers through practicing a set of martial and mystical arts involving meditation and the cultivation of Qi. In many novels, the ultimate goal of cultivation is to become an immortal and attain godhood. The "Cultivating Method" could comprise martial arts, Buddhism, or Taoism depending on the doctrine of different religions.
>>98896651Basically, cultivation of the spirit through unlocking the body's potential with extreme physical exercise, inner contemplation, and strengthening medicines.
>>98875424>For a Xianxia TTRPG to get off the ground you need a publisher to ok the idea and they would then hire a bunch of DEI consultants with little knowledge of the genre outside their "ancestry" to tell you what to include. This does not make for a good game.Wuxia and Xianxia has so much shit in it that is anti-thethical to soft, HR focused modernity these people would implode if they read even 10. You got bigotry of all kind, some bloodlines are literally better than others (which is not allowed under blank slate belief) and while the settings have plenty of room for a decently badass female heroine kicking ass most female fighters still end up raped or as trophies to the MC. Violence, eunuchs, child abuse its all there.
>>98878556>Let me guess, this is a page from a Mork Borg inspired Cyberpunk rules lite game of grotesque body horror, distributed for free as a 'zine by a heavily tattooed American Northeasterner wearing a black denim vest with patches. These guys make cool stuff but they can't resist dropping in those eye-rolling political shibboleths.Its getting a bit tiresome how much this has become such a cliché in ttrpg circles.
>can fit the entirety of the rules on an index card>instead its an artpunk book where one image + a subtitle takes up a full page and that's how it explains the rules
>>98897928Based
>>98897928>修仙-Borg
>>98879584Yes, it's called the main game. Actual Exalts are weak as shit despite their hype.
>>98899160sounds bad then
>>98896553I can make assumptions based off of component elements, just as much as I can be sure that a soup of piss and vinegar will be bad without having to drink it.
What's up with retards speaking with full confidence about things they know they have 0 knowledge about? Why do they do that?
>>98884856Are you illiterate or just intentionally looking for something to get mad about?
>>98899972he's not wrong howeverbeit
>>98884853Most Exalts weren't born special, the ones that were are the weakest kind of Exalt, and even the strongest of Exalted aren't really anywhere near as powerful as high-tier xianxia characters.>>98886204It's a bizarre question because nothing in the post you replied to hints at either that poster, Cradle, the writer of Cradle or readers of Cradle being unable to understand other viewpoints or demanding American morality in everything. Anon noted that Cradle was different from typical Western fantasy and said nothing at all about that being a bad thing.
>>98899989it's clearly a thing >>98880543
>>98900034It's a thing in an entirely different post than the one you replied to.
>>98900040that's not me
People here have been talking about Cradle, wtf is it?
>>98900963Cradle is a Xianxia series written by American author Will Wight. It's more or less your standard cultivation story, but with some changes to appeal more to western audiences. It gets rid of a lot of the Taoism, Chinese cultural quirks, racism, sexism, confusing cultivation systems, etc. It is also written in English first and published in books, meaning it avoids a lot of the pitfalls of fan translated webnovels.For the above reasons it is relatively popular with western audiences and is often babby's first introduction to Xianxia.
>>98884856Anglos are still (slave) moralists. The vast majority of people are, mind you, but Anglophone countries in particular place greater importance on upholding morality than other countries.
>people dont get itXianxia isn't about Chinese wizards. A sect isn't Hogwarts, cultivators are not Gandalf, and they sure as fuck aren't casting spells for funsies or whatever. Xianxia is about Chinese gangsters stabbing each other in back alleys for drug money.Sect = GangJade beauty = BitchesCultivation resources = BenjaminsSpirit Beast = PitbullFace = Street Credetc.I'm being 100% serious when I say this. I think the mismatch between surface level aesthetics and what actually happens is one of the main reasons people don't "get" it. If you imagine street niggas instead of refined scholars, it makes more sense that they'd kill each other over funny looks or an insult.
>>98901459This is one of the best descriptions for xianxia I've seen.
>>98901459>Crack Masta Ping has cultivated his Iron Nature by meditating on a slowly growing mound of his own feces for ten years; he is riddled with disease, completely blind and will slap your shit, WITH his shit, and destroy you with Monkey style Kung-Fu,>He is but one of twelve strange niggas you must overcome to excape the hood and find yo' real daddy
>>98891574>>98891816>>98891887Did Nasu steal magic circuits and crests from this stuff? I have no proof but the vibe, if I may use the term, is darn similar.
>>98904760>Did Nasu steal magic circuits and crests from this stuff?Yes, but not from cultivation novels. Cultivation steals the spiritual organ stuff from IRL Daoism, an old ass chinese religion.Nasu did steal most of his setting from white-wolf's world of darkness ttrpg. It's less visible now after 3 decades of new authors, but when garden of sinners, tsukihime, and then the original fat/stay night came out, it was more obvious.
Since this topic is still slowly ongoing, is there anyone familiar with Worlds Without Number in this thread? The regular / heroic / legate rules work well enough for 3 tiers of gameplay. But there's not really any system in the rules for advancing the realm from regular to heroic rules. I was also thinking you'd restart at level 1 in the new realm (and tier 1 enemies would all count as "lower HD" than you). Possibly there's a system for staying in tier 1 and leveling past level 1 (delaying your realm advancement) to gain some sort of benefit like rerolled stats idk.
>Xu Fu didn’t retire in Japan after scaming Qin Shi Huang>instead he was taken to world where cultivation was possible by some alien freaks>now Earth is no longer in a qi void he and his crew are coming back to "liberate the homeworld">players are XCOM offcers and they are tasked with stoping themIs this a good idea?
>>98907052>players are XCOMthis is always a good idea
>>98901459While that is accurate, considering that both Wuxia and Xianxia's explicitly framed as being parts of the rivers and lakes - part of the commune of stateless, lawless drifters with zero impulse control - it's more on point to state that Xianxia is about Chinese Billionaires.It's a "what if" where the fight between the Reptilian and the Pinocchio Boy actually takes place and folks recognize that the Tolkien Vampire is actually 100% serious about draining young stud's blood for immortality.
