Mano a Mano:Design Decisions

These concepts have influenced Mano a Mano development.

Simplicity

Mano a mano should be simple, cheap and portable - so it can be played informally, even if you don't have any materials except what you have memorized and things most people have on hand.

• 6 sided dice are used because they are easy to find. (They can even be made by hand.)
• Only one type of die roll (success rolls)
• Character sheets are designed to fit on 3x5 cards.

Flexibility

• Mano a mano can be used for almost any genre

• Most things can be modeled as a character (people, animals, vehicles)
  • "Race" packages replaced by the more abstract "Character Template" concept
  • Character size can be extremely variable

• Modular system with lots of optional rules
  • ideally "core rules" are optional too, though more strongly recommended
  • Examples provided for things not covered in the rules (abilities, equipment ...)

Realistic Martial Arts

• Mano a Mano can do many other things, but it's main focus is fighting.
• The rules strive to model what happens in full contact martial arts competition.
• When you get hurt, you slow down and become less dangerous than you used to be.
• The rules also model armed combat and combat between different sized opponents.
• Character and equipment stats are based on physical properties.
• Character size is a very big deal in this role-playing system.

Player-focused

• In combat, the player chooses (or constructs) individual moves for each situation on the fly, as opposed to selecting from a menu of combat options each turn.
• Instigators and targets of actions are equal participants in a collaborative story. (A kind of "ad-lib" - literally "at liberty")
• Character points are more strongly associated with players (CP/Character Points.) Players could control more than one character, or CP could balance two unequally-sized groups of competing players.
• Character generation and development is very open-ended.
• Generalizations like "class", "level" and "alignment" are avoided.

What Player-focused is NOT:

• GM-focused - action and characters totally conform to the GM's description and schemes
• setting-focused - action and character development defined by the adventure or campaign material
• genre-focused - action and character development models stereotypes and archetypes

Real Time

The relationship of the turn-based gameplay to real time action adds to the realistic action and martial arts of the system and makes it possible to apply the Mano a Mano system to real time computer simulations: action games as well as more strategic games. (Here "real time" refers to both the information systems concept of Real-time, and realistic representation of time in the game fiction)

• In combat, characters are assumed to be continually moving
• Players take turns controlling their characters in a fixed order
• Time is measured from a player's turn until their next turn
• Some actions cannot be performed every turn (example: "wind up")
• Characters can perform more than one action in a turn
• Some characters can do more things per turn than other characters
• Sometimes a player's character can act on another player's turn