Editing Best Game For (section)

=== GURPS + Martial Arts ===

The core GURPS combat system is inherently interesting enough to demand constant hard choices. Simply hammering at each other, especially at high kung fu levels, doesn't really get you anywhere. Instead, the game encourages you to move right to the edge of failure: Do you risk it all in a Deceptive Attack? Do you disregard your attack in favor of a feint? Do you disregard your defense with an All-Out Attack, or do you hedge your bets with some Evaluates and some Defensive Attacks?

With the Martial Arts system, and its many varied techniques, each and every move is interesting and note-worthy. Balance is refined to the point that players will argue about the benefits of single-point perks, and use them to surprising advantages. This is great for a low-level kung fu game.

But it scales up nicely. Once you bring Chi Powers into the mix, you have alot of the same feel that WotG gives you, except WotG prints all of its techniques in a book, whereas GURPS has vastly more flexibility. You'll never know what you face (while the Million Style Manual greatly increases WotG's flexibility, it's still not up there with GURPS).

For a straight Chinese Wuxia, nothing beats WotG, but GURPS has advantages in scaling low and tackling different genres. If I want a modern street-fighter type game with evil robots and special ops trying to fill your martial artist full of lead, it's alot easier to support that with GURPS that with WotG.