Cloudshore Games is a small tabletop rpg game studeo dedicated to brining low budget, high quality TTRPGs to the tabletop community that cover a variety of esoteric/niche settings. Our design philosophy is that TTRPGs are about the roleplay first, and mechanics are designed to foster interactions.
Our current games include:
Beneath Twisted Earth - https://cloudshore.itch.io/beneath-twisted-earth
Beneath Twisted Earth: Overdrive - https://cloudshore.itch.io/beneath-twisted-earth-overdrive
[Dystopian Mecha]
There is No Outside - https://cloudshore.itch.io/there-is-no-outside
[Survival and Community Building in a Liminal Labyrinth]
Samhain's Playhouse - https://cloudshore.itch.io/samhains-playhouse
[Autumnal Mascot Horror Gameshow]
Festival of Fighters - https://cloudshore.itch.io/festival-of-fighters
[Urban Wuxia]
This battle is about to explode!: FoF Alpha v.4 Now Available
Greetings, Dan here!
Attention Festival of Fighters game masters, Alpha v.4 is here with some exciting changes. In particular, the playtest rules packet now includes a Game Master Toolbox with helpful advice for combat and campaign play! A changelog has been included after the Playtest Introduction to direct you toward everything different from the previous version. There's been a sprinkling of small changes throughout the book, but the campaign play offered in the GM Toolbox is the most exciting additon. Be sure to pick up an updated copy for free, and start leveling up your fighters' journeys!
While everyone breaks in the new training equipment, we'll continue to be hard at work on new features to include. Expansions for the GM Toolbox and Adversary Sections are underway, and something flashy for the cover may just be in the works. Expect more news soon. In the meantime, wrap those fists, put on your headbands, sling your duffels, and go see what challenges await you in the Wusen!
The Wheel of Fate is Turning!: Storytelling in a Fighting Game TTRPG
Greetings, Dan Here,
Been a few weeks since my last update. I've been hard at work on the next version of the Festival of Fighters Alpha Playtest Rules. This next version will feature various tweaks to combat, techniques, healing and character advancement. All changes will be summarized in a Change Log at the front to help direct players of the last version go straight to the new rules. The most notable new addition will be the inclusion of a Game Master Toolbox Section. While this initial version of the toolbox will only include about 1/3 of the intended content, it will feature advice and tools to help GMs run Festival of Fighters. A significant portion of which is dedicated to the FoF playcycle, and how to structure thematic stories. It's that portion that I wanted to talk a little about today.
When it comes to structuring a plot that is thematic to the settings found in fighting games you inevitably have to ask how stories are told in fighting games, and that's opening up a whole can of worms. There are a lot of opinions on the matter, including some who think story/setting do not matter in fighting games. What I will say is that storytelling in fighting games is a very unique style to emulate. For one thing, unless the franchise features a main, cinematic story mode, the arcade story of fighting games is framed like multiple choice. See most arcade stories feature different events and endings based upon which character you complete the story with. Naturally in a franchise one of these (usually the main character's) ends up becoming canon, but then, several of the other possible stories are treated as "soft cannon". That is to say of the non-cannon stories would not contradict the cannon story line they are treated as cannon going forward (at least until they aren't). You can see how with that sort of set up why some fighting game fans might get confused or even dismiss the stories from their games.
Now that said, from Cloudshore's point of view these stories can be interpreted as wuxia fiction, with various what if scenarios, as the setting follows much of the same tropes of the genre (though some franchises are much closer to xianxia fiction.) What has proven more pressing to the question of a thematic story structure in FoF is an aspect of fighting game storytelling that I rarely ever hear brought up. While the main story focuses on a challenge that brings assorted fighters together to face it for their own reasons (usually a tournament), people tend to gloss over the story that happens between these challenges. That is to say, fighters who show up for each tournament in that fighting game franchise always comes back slightly different, having faced their own developments off screen. These characters often have their own sets of NPCs and sub-settings based around their personal lives. In fighting games, this allows for the fighters to change slightly from entry to entry. They learn new moves, their personal plots develop, and they pick up new motivations to enter the next tournament. Naturally, these developments in their personal lives will often tie into the events of the main story, affecting the other characters as their worlds collide.
How this translates to Festival of Fighters is a playcycle that alternates between Central Arcs and Individual Arcs. During Central Arcs player fighters will be drawn together for various reasons to face a mutual challenge such as a tournament, a sect conflict, or a threat to the world. They'll join their allies, fight, and work to overcome that challenge. Once on the other side of it, they'll say their farewells, and depart to their personal lives, starting their Individual Arcs. This phase of the cycle will utilize a Montage System that will allow players to take control of the camera as they describe a series of scenes around their fighter as they progress through a personal challenge. During this arc, players are encouraged to incorporate their character advancements, and expand on their fighters' backgrounds. They will be able to develop their fighter's personality as they interact with a personal cast of NPCs in environments and events unique to them. By the end of their Individual Arcs, players will receive a hook for the next Central Arc from the GM, thus shifting control back to them. To help guide players during their Individual Arcs, The Montage System details out a structure for players and GMs to follow. This includes a Five Act Structure, scene initiative between players, guidance on leading questions GMs can ask to help flesh out scenes, and for players needing a little extra help a roll chart of 100 possible random challenges their fighter can face during their Individual Arc.
Back on the Central Arc side of things, some guidance has been provided for GMs on appropriate arc structures that can be used such as types of tournaments, adventures, and power struggles. Naturally, GMs are also encouraged to incorporate aspects of the player fighters' backgrounds into Central Arcs as complications and twists.
This playcycle is intended to approximate the vibe of fighting game settings across an entire franchise of stories, allowing players to lead the same dramatic, twisting lives of the fighters traveling through the Wusen as befits an Urban Wuxia tale. Individual Arcs will allows for players to expand on their backgrounds, further filling out the world, and giving the GM plenty of plot elements that can be incorporated into Central Arcs and played off of each other. We've tested this some in our personal playtests where it has worked rather well. I can't wait for the next version of the alpha playtest rules to get this and other new mechanics out in front of FoF GMs.
In the meantime, thank you for your interest in Festival of Fighters, and please consider checking out one of Cloudshore Games other RPGs while you wait for the next update.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Greetings, Dan Here, Been a few weeks since my last update. I've been hard at work on the next version of the Festival of Fighters Alpha Pla
TEST YOUR MIGHT!: Translating Mortal Kombat II in Festival of Fighters
Greetings, Dan here!
Much like many fighting games fans in the US, this past weekend, I went to the opening night of Mortal Kombat II in theaters. Though, I had not seen the first one in 2021, I have followed MK on and off since I was a kid in the 90's, so I still enjoyed it. It had some outstanding fights, and great comedy. Kano was my favorite part by far, even though he's not my favorite kombatant. My favorite fight I'll touch on in a bit.
As I watched, I played a game with myself. I kept checking with myself, if what I was seeing could be made by a GM in Festival of Fighters with the rules as currently written. Granted, Mortal Kombat is a bit more fantastical than the Urban Wuxia setting of FoF, (though I intend to explore that in a future supplement once the full game is out), I still recognize that MK fans may still find their way to my game. I want to make sure that they could build what they enjoy, at least in the most part. Then anything they couldn't I would hope they could homebrew without too much effort. I am happy to say, as I watched the brutal and bloody bouts that pretty much every fighter could be made, even though a couple might require a homebrew kin, or a GM approved tweak to an existing kin.
To illustrate how the experiment worked out I want to take a moment to discuss two fighters in the movie, and how the fighter builds appeared to me. While one of these fights did appear in some previews, the other is a bit of a spoiler for those who saw the first film. As such, I will discuss that one second to give some space, and officially issue the warning now. Slight spoilers ahead. If you would feel that knowing about the inclusion of a surprise character is too much of a spoiler, I will understand if you choose to bow out. I will note that I will only include their name, and generally discuss how I would build them. I won't discuss any details around their inclusion in the film.
Before I discuss the first set of fighters, I also wish to note that the builds I will discuss are from the perspective of how the characters fought in the movie. In their home game, the fighter archetypes might traditionally be different than how they will appear here. Understand that this discrepancy is solely an effect of the character's fighting style in the film.
Ok with that out of the way, let's press on.
FIGHT!
Jade vs Jax
This was a fun fight in the movie where we got to see lots of back and forth between these two characters. I especially enjoyed the more agile fighting style from Jax than I would traditionally attribute to him. In Festival of Fighter terms I would interpret Jade as the Outlier kin, being a "human" with exceptional skill in the top 1% of the species. Mechanically this translates to traits that make her slightly, naturally more skilled than other kin. In the movie, Jade also makes great use of her staff to misdirect her opponents and strike from a medium distance. With this in mind, I believe her Archetype Levels would be spent under Counter Fighter, making her better able to dodge, perry, and counter her opponents. I'm pretty satisfied with that, but a player may choose to spend a level in another archetype such as Rushdown to represent her fast jabs with her pole.
For Jax, with his cybernetic arms, I think it's fairly apparent that he would be the Cyborg kin, giving him some Armor Points, and a cybernetics suite. In fact one attack he makes in this fight is even inline with the Cyborg-exclusive Technique called the Booster Strike. As for his fighting style, I mentioned in the movie he is much more agile, than an up-close bruiser. In fact he does a lot of striking and backing off to plan his next attack. With this in might, I think movie Jax would have spent his levels in the Charge Fighter Archetype, giving his strikes extra power from strategic movement. That said, a player, might also choose to spend in Grappler as well, as his fighting style does see him coming in close for throws as well as strikes.
To recap, in FoF terms, this fight was between an Outlier Counter Fighter vs a Cyborg Charge Fighter. If you want to know which came out on top, I'm afraid you'll need to watch the movie. I won't be spoiling winners here. I will note that both appear in multiple fights in the film; though, I will not confirm if they're before or after this match.
Now for the spoilerific fight. It's your last chance to back out. If not...
FIGHT!
Liu Kang vs Kung Lao
By far my favorite fight in the movie. There is high emotional stakes at play, and Kung Lao's fighting style is especially lethal with the intense use of his bladed hat. Starting with Liu Kang, with his fire-based powerset, it is fairly straight forward to say that he would be an Elemental kin of fire. In FoF this would give his attacks added damage associated with his element, and the ability to manipulate his element within limited amounts around his person. (The latter of which is something that is demonstrated in the movie, if not in this fight.). For his fighting style, Liu Kang gets in close to rain a flurry of fiery strikes on his opponents. As such I would say his archetype levels would likely be spent in Rushdown. While this would lower his base damage output, it allows for the most amount of possible strikes in a combo. He also demonstrates blasting his fire in jets out to a short distance, so a player might also spend some levels in All-Rounder from added range.
For Kung Lao while I won't speak to the circumstances in the movie, I will say that his kin would be a Reanimated in Festival of Fighters, making it difficult to take him down, and giving him an unsettling aura. As for fighting style, Kung Lao makes extensive use of his hat, to fight up close with Liu Kang, while his weapon flies in to strike at his opponent from many directions. Because he spends of his fight splitting his opponent's attention in this way, I would say he actually falls into the Puppet Fighter archetype. This would have the fighter splitting their actions between themselves, and their puppet, in this case the hat. That said, while up close to his opponent, his blows come fast and in abundance. So appropriately, similar to Liu Kang, a player may choose to spend some levels in Rushdown.
To recap, this in FoF terms this fight saw an Elemental (fire) Rushdown Fighter vs a Reanimated Puppet Fighter. Once again, I will not say who won, but I will say that the conclusion of this fight is suitably brutal and surprising.
This was a fun experiment, and while there were many other fights I would have liked to discuss here. One in act three would even have been be a good example of an entire party of martial allies doing battle as can be done in FoF. But I chose to limit my discussion to two fights, to limit the spoilers for the movies, and because for the most variety in builds. Many of the other fights would have featured shared kin/archetypes, or have required a custom kin (see: Baraka and Shao Khan). Still, I hope this was a fun way to encourage folks to both go see the movie and to demonstrate some of the choices players can make when building their fighters in Festival of Fighters. Expect more to come soon as we are hard at work at playtesting and development. I hope to see you then!
Greetings, Dan here! Much like many fighting games fans in the US, this past weekend, I went to the opening night of Mortal Kombat II in the
Get ready for the next battle!: Big changes in new Festival of Fighters Playtest!
Greetings, Dan here!
I'm happy to announce that Festival of Fighters Alpha Playtest v0.3 is now available on itch.io for download. A number of changes and expansions have taken place for this version. The most major of which include:
-New Introduction to provide more guidance for playtesters
-New Combat Actions and Reactions including Team Attacks
-New Tag Techniques
-Adversary Section with 15 Minions of assorted difficulty
-Advice on constructing your own Minion Adversaries
-Various Tweaks such as Starting HP, Will Points, Archetype Levels, and Techniques
Additionally, a rough character sheet has been mocked up and made available for playtest groups to print off should they prefer not to organize their character information. We're excited to provide these updated rules for playtest groups and there and look forward to your feedback. In the meantime development continues on the GM Toolbox Section, starting adventure, and expanded Adversaries Section. Look forward to more updates in the future. In the meantime, enjoy these expanded rules, and we look forward to seeing you next time.
Greetings, Dan here! I'm happy to announce that Festival of Fighters Alpha Playtest v0.3 is now available on itch.io for download. A number
For those following Cloudshore Games and Festival of Fighters in particular, Mildra the Monk will be interviewing me tonight on his stream! You may know him from his Twitch/YouTube channels or from the Final Fantasy TTRPG Legendary Edition. Either way, be sure to stop by either stream tonight for the live interview.
https://www.twitch.tv/mildrathemonk
https://youtube.com/@mildrathemonkvt
See you then!
EDIT: Forgot to leave the time. The interview will start at 8pm EST.
Today I wanted to talk a little about how movement in Festival of Fighters. As a Vibe System RPG, FoF uses a cinematic movement system that is based on ranges, and singling out targets during combat. Essentially, during combat a fighter identifies their target, and the GM determines what range they are from that target. In a one on one fight, this is easy, but in a brawl with many fighters works best when each player singles off or groups up on a single opponent. Once a fighter knows their range from their target, a move action will pass them throw a number of ranges based on their Movement Rate. So if a fighter is at Medium Range from their opponent, and they have a MR of 1, on a move action they can move one range closer into Close Range. There are six ranges in Festival of Fighters combat: Grappling, Close, Medium, Far, Extended, Extreme. The size of these ranges are left intentionally vague that is, they are as big as they need to be for the scene. The mechanics of moving and attacking are both based on the range, not a specific number of feet or meters.
While this same system was used in Beneath Twisted Earth, replicating the feeling of locking onto a single target and dueling them to the death, in Festival of Fighters it rather aptly replicates the experience of 2D fighters such as King of Fighters and Street Fighter. The player can focus on getting to the right distance to make the best attack available. Though it is similar to the feeling of a 2D fighter, this movement system still works in 3D space, with players able to make strafing movements, high jumps, climbing, etc. As players advance their Stances, they will be able to learn Techniques, some of which can affect movement in new and interesting ways. The one prominent example is the Lightness Technique, which will grant a player a +1 MR bonus when performing a High Jump, while also allowing them to run up or along walls.
That said, just as with Beneath Twisted Earth, we intend to include an alternate movement system for groups who prefer playing on battle maps. This alternate method will translate the ranges of FoF into hexes so that battles can be played out on a hex map. That said, the physical distances involved will still remain, intentionally vague. While players will have plenty of tactical decisions to make, the intent of keeping physical distances vague is to reduce the amount of time/effort needed to asses options in combat. Battles should always be quick, and cinematic, placing excitement of the scene as more important than the accuracy of the numbers involved.
Greetings, Dan Here! Today I wanted to talk a little about how movement in Festival of Fighters. As a Vibe System RPG, FoF uses a cinematic
Double KO!: Playtesting Continues for Festival of Fighters
Greetings, Dan here!
So this past weekend, I ran another personal playtest of the Festival of Fighters current rules, and I thought I'd share some of my insights for any GMs out there running a playtest of their own or planning to. Even thought he final game is envisioned to accommodate globe trotting adventures of wuxia warriors, as well as competitions to prove who is the strongest, this session was mostly a test of character creation and combat. As such, we ran ourselves a single elimination tournament, with a boss fight at the end (featuring some rules to be featured in the GM Toolbox).
Character creation went very smoothly with the testers having a blast creating their fighters. They particularly enjoyed the Taiji currents and how they helped them to flesh out their backgrounds. Many of the stories they came up with would fit in perfectly in any tournament fighter. They also very much enjoyed creating their own Fighting Styles. One suggested improvement was to be able to name your fighting style on the character sheet. For that matter, the character sheet was something they would like to see sooner than later. Something I agree with, even if it is a temporary one. While I understand the necessity of playtesting on just paper some times, character sheets go a long way to help organize all your character's information.
As for the one-on-one battles, the tournament was filled with amateur fighters, that is starting characters. Something we quickly learned is that one-on-one battles between new fighters are brutal. That is to say, the mechanics of combat worked well, but battles ended very quickly. This mostly came from the fighters having low HP to their damage output, making PvP fast and brutal. This could be addressed by the GM in a couple of ways. First a round-robin team battle a la King of Fighters would have worked well to lengthen tournament rounds while retaining the quick battles of low level one v ones. Alternatively, and probably ideally, the GM could take the player fighters on a short adventure to let them fight some common thugs/martial students to build some experience points before the group entered their first tournament.
In either event the feedback gained regarding these fights helped me to inform additional guidance regarding the early game for GMs in the GM Toolbox Section. Additionally, a starting adventure that brings the various player fighters together feels like a must here. Perhaps an adventure inspired by beat-em-ups such as Final Fight or Streets of Rage that could build toward a tournament arc would be best. But while those are in development, I think in addition to the character sheet, we will also begin working on some Adversaries for use in playtesting. Be sure to keep an eye on updates to the playtest document in the future as we add features/make updates.
In the meantime, thank you for your continued interest and enjoy this picture of our tournament bracket below. See if you can guess how the finals went!
I just wanted to take a moment this time to talk about why Festival of Fighters is being described as an Urban Wuxia when it is a TTRPG specifically inspired by the settings of fighting games such as King of Fighters and Street Fighter. Discussing my decision on this should help to inform those interested in the philosophy behind the game as it develops. I knew from the start that I wanted to make a TTRPG that could be set in a world similar to the games mentioned previously as well as those of a similar vein (Tekken, Dead or Alive, Bloody Roar, etc.) I always enjoyed those settings for how over the top they could be with super science, and magic, but that were grounded in a temporary setting as seen through the lens of a martial arts tourney. I loved how in such a setting you could see so many varied characters with diverse backgrounds, and motivations all coming together for a common goal, then often challenged by larger than life forces all as their personal dramas unfolded. It makes for a very rich environment for story telling, and I wanted my players to be able to explore that sort of world. But the first question I found myself held up by was, "What genre of story is this?"
The knee-jerk reaction was to say Kung Fu or simply, Martial Arts. While a lot of tropes from those genres of stories were included in the settings I was hoping to approximate, they weren't quite right. There was too much of the fantasy and science fiction worked in, and characters weren't necessarily martial artists. Some were spies, psychics, or even wildmen. So what then? One answer to this question I came across was from White Wolf's Street Fighter TTRPG. A game that clearly identified its setting as one in the world of super heroes, just where the heroes were street fighters instead of costumed vigilantes. This one actually made a lot of sense. After all Super Hero settings from comic franchises such as Marvel and DC did match the diverseness of characters and the over-the-top nature of stories. Some precedence could be seen for this in some King of Fighters' manga as well. The fighters in those adaptations were often put into situations similar to that of super heroes, where they would use their abilities to help innocent bystanders. Plus there was a rich tradition martial arts being featured in western comics as well.
Still, that didn't quite fit the vibe I was looking for to approximate these fighting game settings. They were a type of fantasy for sure, they included a lot of diversity, but they also drew heavily on the type of dramas you could see in Kung Fu films. Then if occurred to me. I knew a genre that was very much along those lines: Wuxia. For those unfamiliar, Wuxia is a type of xia or hero fiction, specifically set in historic China as kung fu-filled historic fantasy concerning an underworld of martial arts and the occult. It fit all the beats. Heroes of diverse backgrounds would come from all over China from many different backgrounds, each pursuing their own values through fighting, and often learning amazing, even magical, secret techniques that allowed them to perform such feats as running up walls, performing elemental attacks, or even controlling their weapons remotely with their qi. It fit the world of fighting games so much closer than Super Hero fiction as it came from the same common ancestor in stories about martial artists.
Naturally, Wuxia was set in the wrong time period for what I was aiming for, I wasn't making a Wuxia game (though I did research several right alongside other games that attempted to emulate fighting games). Finally, I looked to the genre of Urban Fantasy. That genre too dealt with an underworld of empowered individuals from diverse cultures, it just dealt with sorcerers and mythical creatures hiding in plain sight during the modern day. This naturally fit with Wuxia and spelled a natural progression for a setting where you took the martial and occult underworld of the Wulin and Jianghu from historic China, and expanded it to encompass all such underworlds from around the globe. This was my Urban Wuxia. Many of the tropes would be kept from traditional Wuixa in order to encourage the same rich storytelling seen in xia fiction, but adapted to a contemporary setting as a lens to translate those unique settings seen in fighting games.
So what you see in Festival of Fighters is an underworld filled with fringe sciences, the occult, and powerful organizations both ancient and new, The Haishan. Among those organizations are the martial sects, each equipping fighters with their greatest means of battle so that they may struggle to determine who is the strongest, The Wusen. The best part? While most of the goings-ons of The Haishan remain hidden, the public of the mundane world now get to have brief glimpses into the dramas of these Warriors of The Wusen, as the clash with one another in competitions of grand spectacle such as in the titular tournament, The Festival of Fighters!
I never know how to end these sort of exploratory devlogs, so I'll just sum it up to say,
tl;dr
Fighting Game Settings don't = Martial Arts/Kung Fu Movies or Super Hero stories
Fighting Game Settings = Wuxia + Urban Fantasy
So Festival of Fighters is an Urban Wuxia
See you next time!
Greetings, Dan here! I just wanted to take a moment this time to talk about why Festival of Fighters is being described as an Urban Wuxia wh
WAKE UP!: Festival of Fighters Gets Two New Fighter Archetypes
Greetings, Dan Here!
First, thank you so much to everyone who has downloaded the playtest rules pack. Your support under such a short period of time is greatly appreciated. I cannot wait to hear from your feedback. While I sincerely hope you enjoy your time with even just the alpha playtest version, your feedback could be invaluable in helping with the refinement of the core rules! If you run Festival of Fighters for your group, please do not hesitate to gather your group's feedback and send it to [email protected].
With that said, I come baring gifts! The rules pack was just updated to a new version today with some minor corrections to the Fighting Style Construction Section, as well as the addition of two more Special Fighter Archetypes. These new archetypes come in the form of The Juggernaut for fans of Big Body fighters, and the Trap Fighter for the trickiest of fighting game fans. If you picked up the game but haven't run your test session, be sure to download the new version to give your players two more options for their fighters.
The playtest version of the game will continue to develop as feedback comes in and it continues to get tweaked. In the meantime, thank you again for your support. If you're not sure you'll run the game, but want to help us out. Please consider sharing this or just the site with someone you think might. I'll close things out for now. Be sure to keep an eye out for more devlogs in the future. I'd like to write up some explanations on the philosophy behind some parts of the game.
Greetings, Dan Here! First, thank you so much to everyone who has downloaded the playtest rules pack. Your support under such a short period
