Outlaws of the Water Margin: Book One

Credits

DESIGNED BY: Paul Mason

WITH HELP FROM: Gail Baker, Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, Ian Marsh, Dave Morris, Paul Snow

ILLUSTRATED BY: Keiko Kito, Republic of China Folk Art, Ming Dynasty illustrations of the original story

PLAYTESTED BY: Paul Attlee, Adrian Barber, Danius Barzdukas, Patrick Brady, Simon Green, Brian Haunton, Heidi Kaye, John Parsons, Mark Pawelek, Maurice Thomas, Jamie Thomson, Julia Vannucchi, James Wallis

THANKS TO: Huang Ming Jen, Bill Hoad, Leonard Hung, Jiang Wei Xiao, Andrew Rilstone, Graham Staplehurst, Xü Chong De, Zhang Cheng Zhong

Outlaws shares a common system with Dave Morris's Kwaidan: Life & Death in Old Japan. The two games are compatible and may be combined, allowing Chinese characters to explore Japan, and vice versa. The periods in which they are set are only about 80 years apart.

Outlaws of the Water Margin is published by Panurgic Publishing

(c) 1996 by Paul Mason

Printed in Japan

Book One: Contents

Preface: The Story Begins

Introduction

Characters

Designing A Character

Names

Abilities

Background

Sample Characters

Actions

Mechanics

Language

Abilities List

Improvement

Other Situations

Combat

Time And Actions

Manoeuvres

Damage

Weapons

Missiles

Recovery

Battles

Magic

Magical Abilities

Magical Effects

Spell Lists

Curses

Talismans

Magical Treasure

Book Two mainly contains information for the referee: information on the society, culture and geography of China at the time of the Song Dynasty, and rules connected with running a game. Although there are a few bits in there that might be of interest to players, most will be able to make do with Book One alone.

The
Story
Begins

THE IMPERIAL ENVOY Hong Xin was in a bad mood. He had travelled for weeks to get to the monastery on Dragon and Tiger Mountain, there to implore the Celestial Master to go to the Capital and offer prayers to Heaven for relief from the plague. As the priests showed him around the buildings of their monastery, he thought back to the humiliations of yesterday.

'Dress in rough clothes,' they had told him, 'Purify yourself by fasting. Climb alone to the top of the mountain and the Celestial Master may grant you an audience.' All this he had done, braving a tiger and a huge snake on the way (or rather, fainting dead away at the sight of them), only to meet an impertinent flute-twirling youth riding a cow. The boy had shown no respect for Marshal Hong's status, and had delighted in telling him that the Celestial Master had left for the Capital that very morning, flying on a crane. To add insult to injury, when he had returned down the mountain, footsore and weary, the priests had told him that the boy was the Celestial Master.

Hong was brought back from his reverie by the sight of a squat red building, its doors sealed with paper talismans. The sign above the entrance read: 'Hall of the Conquered Fiends.'

'What is this?' he demanded of the priests, his voice sharp with barely suppressed irritation. 'And no more trifling with me. Remember that I am the agent of His Imperial Majesty, Son of Heaven and Absolute Ruler of the Middle Kingdom.'

'We would never dare to treat you disrespectfully,' the Abbot anxiously assured him, going on to explain that a previous Celestial Master had imprisoned many dangerous spirits within the hall, and each of the subsequent nine generations had added a new seal.

'Open it up, then, that I may see these spirits for myself.'

The priests kow-towed and protested that it was too dangerous, but the Envoy insisted. Servants broke the lock, ripped down the seals and opened the door. As the priests all huddled back, the Envoy strode proudly in.

Inside, a stone tablet rested on the back of a large stone tortoise, partly buried in the rough earth. On the tablet was written: 'Hong Opens This.'

'Look! I was destined to do this,' he said, turning to the priests with a mocking laugh. 'Now move this tortoise and we'll see what lies below.'

The priests realised that their protestations were useless. The Envoy was too angry to be dissuaded, and if he truly though that they had misled him yesterday then he might even have their license withdrawn. With great effort the tortoise was moved, revealing a stone slab.

'At last,' said the Envoy as the slab was raised. 'Now where are these fiends, for I see nothing but an empty well.' As he spoke there came a rumbling from far below. Suddenly sparks whirled before his eyes and his nostrils filled with the pungent smell of sulphur. With a roar a black cloud shot upwards, piercing the roof, and into the sky like a pillar of blackness. From it fell a hundred or more lights in a dazzling cascade, dispersing in all directions.

Hong Xin returned to the Capital to find that the Celestial Master had already made his offerings and left: the plague soon abated. In releasing the Conquered Fiends, however, he had unleashed something more serious by far. The nine dozen heroes of the Water Margin had been released, fulfilling an ancient prophecy, awaiting only rebirth and the chance to prove themselves. One day, nearly a hundred years after their release, all would be united, and the corrupt rulers of the Empire would quake in fear. But the spirits fell far and wide, and many years passed before they came together at Liangshan Po...

Introduction

OUTLAWS of the Water Margin is a game about China. It is a game about adventure, the battle against injustice, the actions of heroes. It takes place during the Song Dynasty, in the early years of the 12th century, a time of transition and upheaval. A succession of corrupt administrators had bled the farmers dry, extorting money for personal gain. The Emperor was sealed behind an impenetrable fence of eunuchs and bureaucrats, and spent his days in the pursuit of hedonism - he was not even aware that his subjects suffered. In such days, even honest men were driven to rebellion. Thus the outlaws of Liangshan Po came together: heroes all, disgusted by the corruption and betrayal of the nation.

The story is an old Chinese folk tale, based on fact. It was first set down on paper, so they say, by Shi Nai'an during the Ming Dynasty, after the Han Chinese had wrested control of their nation back from the Mongols. The legends on which it was based had spread during the occupation.

In many ways it is the Chinese equivalent of Robin Hood - a popular story of the common man's struggle against oppressors. The difference is that rather than a band of Merry Men, only a few of whom we learn about, in the Water Margin there are 108 heroes, all named and described, and said to be the spirits reborn of other, earlier heroes. In this game, you can become one of the heroes. If you survive with your honour intact and many fine deeds to your name, then it will appear on the Heavenly Tablet which lists all 108 of the reborn heroes. When all are finally brought together, a sign from the sky enables the outlaws to uncover the tablet, showing that their cause is just, for Heaven is with them.

The game is designed to capture the excitement of the Chinese original, the Water Margin television series, and the films set in similar periods such as A Chinese Ghost Story. These represent the modern expression of a traditional Chinese form of popular fiction: full of energy, action, magic and life. Outlaws brings you flashing swordplay, prodigious leaps, crafty sorcerers and cunning con-men - all washed down with plenty of rice wine. Drama is more important than following the rules to the letter. Creating a good story is more important than winning.

Role-playing Beginners

In writing this game I have assumed that you already know how to play a role-playing game. So if you are a beginner you might find it rather baffling. In such a case, the best advice I can give you is to find someone who does know how to play role-playing games, and get them to run one for you. One of the problems with role-playing games has always been that while getting the hang of playing them is extremely easy, explaining how to do so is very difficult. Once you are put in the position of pretending to be a hero, and the referee starts asking you to make decisions, you'll naturally start to answer and role-play. But until you do that, you're going to find a lot of the contents of this book rather strange.

The Rule Systems

This game employs a core rule, in order to make the game faster and easier to play. The core rule is the most important part of the Outlaws rules. Once you understand how it works, the rest of the game should be easy to pick up.

The core rule is a way of deciding whether a character succeeds in performing some action. The character's basic chance of success at the action is represented by a number, called its ease. The character may have abilities which may be added to this number, to improve the chance of success. The core rule describes how to use dice to find out whether the character succeeds, and if so, how successfully.

The basic system works as follows: roll two dice, and add them together. If the number rolled is greater than the chance of success, the character has failed to perform the action. If the total number rolled is less than or equal to the chance of success, the character has succeeded at the action.

When a character is successful, look at the dice rolled. The higher of the two dice rolled is called the degree of success. It shows how well the task was performed. The result is used by the referee to decide what happens.

Examples of this procedure can be found throughout the game, especially in the Action chapter.

Learning The Rules

Although the basic system used in this game is very simple (you've just read it, in fact) there is a lot of extra material to digest on top of it. This is to provide additional detail, in the hope that this will create extra atmosphere. If the additional rules just hold up the game and result in page-flipping, then they're not achieving their purpose. So it's best to start very simple. Don't attempt to use all the rules from the beginning. This applies especially to the combat system, which has a lot of 'extras'.

When you start the game it is very likely that there will occasionally be mistakes. There may be parts of the rules which are ambiguous, and you only realise what the true rule is after using the wrong one for a while (I know, I've done this with countless games!). To allow for this, I suggest you establish from the start, that whatever rules are used cannot be changed retroactively. If you find that you've been using the rules wrong, then from that point on use the correct rules. Nothing that has happened up to that point can be changed, however. If you get the players to agree to this at the beginning, you can forestall arguments!

Language

In this game Chinese words and names are occasionally used. These have been consistently spelled in the standard romanisation system pinyin, which matches the correct pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese more closely than older systems.

In order to ensure consistency of spelling and pronunciation it was necessary to switch to pinyin. Readers familiar with the Water Margin from older sources may find some of the names a little different: for example, Gao Qiu (formerly Kao Ch'iu) and Lin Chong (formerly Lin Chung). The diacritics showing the tones have been omitted, as it would make things a little too difficult.

Pronouncing words written in pinyin is relatively easy, though several letters have distinctive pronunciations:

h voiced a little, like the Spanish j in 'Julio'
zh pronounced like s in 'pleasure'
y the consonant form of the vowel I. This means that yi is pronounced 'Ee'
q pronounced ch as in 'chicken'
x pronounced sh.
z pronounced ds as in 'adds'
c pronounced ts as in 'He waits for the dawn.'
a pronounced as in 'hard'
e pronounced as in 'the' or 'hurt'
ü pronounced pretty much as in German

There's no need to go overboard with the use of Chinese, or the pronunciation of the names. A little goes a long way.

WHAT IS CHINESE?

You will find one deliberate inaccuracy in the coverage of language in this game: the suggestion that there is a 'standard' Chinese language, understood by everyone. In fact, the only universal form of Chinese is written.

In modern China, a large proportion of the population understand Mandarin Chinese, as it has been propagated as a standard language by the government. This certainly wasn't true in the past: Mandarin (which was far more complex than it is now) was, as the name suggests, the language of the bureaucracy. Ordinary people would speak different languages, some of which were related, others of which were as dissimilar as French and German.

I decided to have a 'standard' spoken Chinese to make play easier. At the same time, I wanted to allow for the plot possibilities of characters from different regions having different languages, so I introduced them to the game as 'regional dialects'. Referees who have no interest in this can easily ignore the dialects, while those who care about historical accuracy can disregard the 'standard' Chinese, relying exclusively on the dialects.

Units

This game uses Imperial measures. If you want to be very authentic, you can substitute the equivalent Song Dynasty Chinese measures as follows: 

Chinese Measure	Imperial Equivalent

chi		1 foot
bu		5 feet
li		1800 feet (1/3 mile)

sheng		1.5 pints
dou  		15 pints

liang		1 ounce
jin		1 pound

mu		0.1 acre/675 square yards