Not Jadeclaw
So, I've had three different people all point me in the direction of JadeClaw, and or the IronClaw version of the rules where the pseudo-Chinese setting seems to be the second iteration of Jadeclaw.
If I was just going to write a hack of JadeClaw, then I'd buy a copy of the rules make my little twist on it and then go on my way.
But, I've made my opinion on hacks fairly clear over the years. You can have them in your home, or in your provate gaming group, but when you try to tell people it's your own work...that's basically the RPG designer equivalent of fan-fiction. It's lazy writing, it's taking other people's shorthands and ideas, then cobbling them together in some way that you really shouldn't be calling your own. I know that there are many other opinions about fan-fiction being a legitimate artform... but I point you to the fat that '50 Shades of Grey' started out as 'Twilight' fan-fiction and rest my case.
If the game I develop ends up similar to JadeClaw, that will simply be due to drawing from common inspirations of anthropomorphic animals, Chinese myth and legend. and roleplaying adventure. This game will take place in China, not in some mystical pseudo-China (I'm even tempted to make it the post apocalyptic China of the Walkabout setting...but maybe not).
I'll be using my 'System 4' game mechanisms, since they were developed with the mutant animal idea in mind, but character creation will be more dynamic and variable than what I'm seeing in the sample downloadable NPCs for 'IronClaw/JadeClaw'. My mutant animal game began as a homage to Palladium's "TMNT and Other Strangeness", because I loved the way characters are made in that game but didn't necessarily like the way the system was a clunky hack/fan-fic version of AD&D...only more fiddly and more clunky.
I've been digging back through my 'System 4' note and have seen a few things that need to be changed, and a few other things that just seem a bit confusing with fresh eyes. So it's time to strip some thing back, focus, maybe watch a bit of Kung Fu Panda, The Monkey King, and assorted Chinese action dramas, then proceed with the chaotic soup that fills my mind.
If I was just going to write a hack of JadeClaw, then I'd buy a copy of the rules make my little twist on it and then go on my way.
But, I've made my opinion on hacks fairly clear over the years. You can have them in your home, or in your provate gaming group, but when you try to tell people it's your own work...that's basically the RPG designer equivalent of fan-fiction. It's lazy writing, it's taking other people's shorthands and ideas, then cobbling them together in some way that you really shouldn't be calling your own. I know that there are many other opinions about fan-fiction being a legitimate artform... but I point you to the fat that '50 Shades of Grey' started out as 'Twilight' fan-fiction and rest my case.
If the game I develop ends up similar to JadeClaw, that will simply be due to drawing from common inspirations of anthropomorphic animals, Chinese myth and legend. and roleplaying adventure. This game will take place in China, not in some mystical pseudo-China (I'm even tempted to make it the post apocalyptic China of the Walkabout setting...but maybe not).
I'll be using my 'System 4' game mechanisms, since they were developed with the mutant animal idea in mind, but character creation will be more dynamic and variable than what I'm seeing in the sample downloadable NPCs for 'IronClaw/JadeClaw'. My mutant animal game began as a homage to Palladium's "TMNT and Other Strangeness", because I loved the way characters are made in that game but didn't necessarily like the way the system was a clunky hack/fan-fic version of AD&D...only more fiddly and more clunky.
I've been digging back through my 'System 4' note and have seen a few things that need to be changed, and a few other things that just seem a bit confusing with fresh eyes. So it's time to strip some thing back, focus, maybe watch a bit of Kung Fu Panda, The Monkey King, and assorted Chinese action dramas, then proceed with the chaotic soup that fills my mind.
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