Kung Fu Fighting

I've noticed there's a few people working on similar hacks, and I don't want to get in their way, so if I'm stepping on anyone's toes with this, please let me know.

Now, my question. You're watching a kung fu movie. Maybe it's an old Hong Kong flick, maybe it's one of those contemporary movies coming out of China, maybe it's an American attempt at the genre featuring someone with a beard and a black belt. The movie finishes, and you think "wow, I want to play an Apocalypse World game like that!" What would, at the very least, a set of playbooks for a Wuxia style game powered by AW need to contain? How would you translate the existing AW mechanics into a world where so much of the fight is about the art of ass kicking, and less about the result?

I have a few ideas already for some playbooks, but I want to know what you kung fu buffs out there would need to see in an AW book on the genre.

Hey, I'm currently the designer of Avatar World (based on Avatar the Last Airbender and other wuxia martial arts movies) so I'm one of the fellas doing a kung fu thing. And also don't worry about stepping on toes, there's always room for another design :3

Kung-fu as a whole can be done in a lot of ways, and the trouble with me for a lot of ideas is that the genre is so focused on combat and ApW is great for sweeping combat rather than repeated blow-by-blow stuff, in my estimation. Translating fights into a looser, more general set of rolls while still letting them feel like they last more than a couple rolls is a hard order.

Another big thing I'd recommend thinking about is the ebb-and-flow of things, from set-up (be it striking stances or charging up or whatever) to the follow-through of the actual action.

Stuff to think about. Interested in seeing what you get!

I put together an AW hack based on The Book of Nine Swords, which combines Wuxia with classic Dungeons and Dragons tropes.  Check it out here.

Your stats could be based on different styles. Crane, Monkey, Tiger, Mantis, and Snake. Or if you're going more abstract, traditional martial arts values, like Spirit, Grace, Iron, Breath, Chi, Balance, Precision, etc.

If you're going for the classic kung-fu feel, you might want moves to recreate those classic movie moments. "When you strike the enemy's lieutenant in battle, roll+precision. On a 10+, after a brief and silent pause, he falls where he stands, dead from your one specific technique. On a 7-9, he's disabled or hurt, but now twice as determined. On a miss, your technique was telegraphed and is perfectly countered."

Or, "When you fight through the enemy's henchmen, roll+iron. On a 10+, you suffer little harm from any of them, finish each in one blow, fight through to where you want to go, impress or dismay the enemy, disarm one them and take their weapon, etc."

Or ways to challenge other characters to duels, inspire oppressed villagers to rebel, push on despite injury, meditate for guidance, be a quiet serene kung-fu guru, a sloppy wobbling drunken master, a precise practitioner of pressure points and chi flow, a hard-bodied and stone-fisted hardass with a permanent frown when he's not shoving his palms into buckets of hot sand, it can go on. Depends on the world you imagine, I guess.