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The Generic MCS Rules
This page contains the basic outline of the generic rules of the Mortal Combat System. These rules contain no actual detail or system stuff, but are rather presented as guidelines for the creation of of system specific implementations of the MCS rules.
What is the system supposed to do?
The MCS aims to reproduce the frantic finger-tapping action of popular, but nevertheless mindless, games like Tekken, Mortal Kombat, etc. However, I should be more specific. The aim is not to allow players to dance around like wild maniacs, launching fireballs and throwing harpoons, or anything like that. Rather, it aims to allow the reproduction of combo-based action. You know, the Punch-Punch-Kick-Punch-SMACKDOWN! style of play, where a character's attacks culuminate in a flurry of blows, or in a single power strike that sends their opponent flying. The power strike idea is drawn more from the games aspect of things, whereas the flurry of blows bit is drawn a lot from popular movies and stuff, a keynote example being the blurring fists of the Matrix movies. Anyway, the system aims to be only moderately complex while remaining fairly fast to use. Whether this will end up being the case, however, I can only be sure after testing...
The Combat Round:
What can be done during a combat round is sometimes quite system specific. Nevertheless, most systems allow the characters to move and fight. Some systems allow for other more specialised actions to occur. These are dealt with in the system specific adaptations. Most systems also feature and initiative rule that allows for combat to be ordered and to progress in a linear manner, from fastest character to slowest character. Under the MCS, most of these basic system aspects remain the same. There are a few differences, however.
Initiative:
Although there are usually no changes to the manner in which initiative is determined, initiative does usually play a role in determing the maximum number of actions a character can execute during a single combat round. Exactly how this is calculated, however, is quite system dependant and as a result is specifically stated for each system.
Actions:
Certain systems allow a character to execute multiple actions during a combat round, where as others are more restrictive. Certain systems' ideas of what constitutes an action also differ from those of others. Under most White Wolf games, multiple actions are easy enough to work out, but have a negative effect on dice pools. Under DnD?, moving and fighting function as somewhat separate actions. When using the MCS version of system's combat rules, a number of changes to what is considered an action may occur. This, in turn, may require some modification of other components of the system. However, the general aim of the MCS is to break as little as possible, so a large body of changes should never be necessary.
Initiative and Actions:
With the above two notes out of the way, let me go into one of the first features of the MCS rules that is pretty much common to all system specific adaptations of the rules. Under the MCS rules a system's combat rules will take on a number of similarties to to combat system in the Feng Shui game system.
For those who are unaware of how combat in Feng Shui works, here's a very very brief rundown:Each round combatants roll initiative and add it to some stat or other(I'm a bit rusty on this though... :-). The combatant with the highest total score then declares his/her/its action. The necessary rolls are made and all that shit is handles. However, and this is where the MCS rules draw on Fengh Shui a great deal, each action has a certain initiative cost. So, for example, an attack costs 2 initiative points. After executing the punch, the character in question reduces his/her initiative by the given value. This new initiative value decides when the character will next act. Thus, the GM starts with the highest initiaitive value and then handles combat each initiaitive stage at a time, until initiative rank 1 is reached and all of the actions for the round have been handled.
As you can guess from what I've said above, the MCS rules basically drawn on this initiative system. So, regardless of the system the MCS rules are implemented, this initiaitve system will be used. This may require a bit of system modification, but hopefully this will not be too much of a hassle. In cases in which it is, however, it's probably just better to not use the MCS rules.
Actions vs. Combined Actions:
While working on the basic DnD? test version rules(Which I will put up soonish) I discovered that I pretty much had to add combined actions in order to properly represent things.
You see, the difference between Running, Jumping and then executing a Kick and Running, then Executing a Flying Kick(Run-Jump-Kick) is quite big. Whereas normal actions are declared one-by-one as a player follows through on the initiative system, a combined action allows for multiple actions to occur during a single initiaitive step. In order to combine actions each action must be combinably with the next action in the sequence. So, if action A can be combined with B and action B with C then you can execute a combined A-B-C action.
When executing a combined action the initiative costs of all they actions are tallied together and applied to the character's current initiative value. This means that a character combining a lare number of actions will only act again in quite a while, probably because he's slightly winded as a result of pulling off, or trying to pull off, such an insane stunt.
Each action for a combined action is handled in order, with all the necessary rolls being made. However, if one of the rolls is failed then the entire combined action may end up being aborted. Whether or not this is the case is largely dependant on the action. If a character simply missies a punch then things probably won't be too bad, but if he or she screws up in the middle of a flying kick then the whole combined action will probably go down the drain. Exactly which actions will have this kind of effect in a combined action will be defined for the various actions.
The Pools:
The final major common feature for all MCS implementations will be the Pools system. There are three main pools under MCS: The Pool of Motion, The Pool of Acion and The Pool of Ki. Each Pool contains a number of points. Under various systems these points will represent various bonuses. For example, under one system a pool may represent a bonus dice pool, while under another system it may simply represent a positive modifier bonus. The exact defitinion of what a pool represents under a specific system will be defined in the system-specific implmentation of that pool. The various actions a character can execute can affect the contents of each pool. Most actions consume a certain number of points from a certain pool, and most actions also refund a number of points to a pool if their execution is a success. Actions associated with the Pool of Motion are those concerning movement and the like. Actions that can generally be regarded is normal combat maneuvers are usually associated with the Pool of Action. Finally, special combat and movement maneuvers are often assoicated with the Pool of Ki. Bear in mind that Pool of Ki is pretty much just a generic whatchmacallit name. It could be Pool of Zen, or Pool of Funk, or whatever. It's pretty much up to you. Of a final note, actions can not usually be executed if there are not enough points in the requisite pool. Under most systems the Pools of Motion and Action will replenish at the beginning of each new combat round, while the Pool of Ki only replenishes at the beginning of a new combat. However, certain moves may allow a character to focus and gain points in Pools, although such Focus actions are usually difficult to achieve and easily disruptable...
A Final Note:
As was mentioned before, Initiative usually plays a role in determining a character's maximum number of actions per turn. A character can run out of actions in two ways, usually. One way is to reach the end of the initiative rank and/or execute the maximum number of alloowable actions, as defined by initiative. The other means by which a character can run out of actions is by exhausting his or her Pools. Thus, a charac ter who rolls particularly baddly will simply not be able to pull of any funky moves until the beginning of the next turn.
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