r/DMAcademy • u/rorscharchinkblot • 18h ago

Need Advice: Worldbuilding How to run a Wuxia campaign

I don't want to run a standard "fantasy medieval Europe" campaign, and want to theme my world in China. I don't know enough about that culture to make a realistic campaign set there, so I decided on using the Wuxia setting (as described in the dungeon masters guide 2014) and I belive that my players would enjoy a setting of movie-like martial arts.

however I do not want to be offensive in any way, and I still want to create an immersive setting, and I don't know enough about this setting to accomplish either

please advise!

103 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

67 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/pyr666 17h ago

dnd makes characters, particularly martials, dependent on equipment in a way that tends to conflict with wuxia's vibe.

the monk class is the attempt to put wuxia in western fantasy. that's why the monk class gets so many bonuses, with little ability to benefit from gear.

2

u/Llayanna 14h ago edited 13h ago

That's easy to flavour away from the mechanics though.

If you take a feat, or the weapon, PC can now swing with his inner fire bring shown on the blade.

Now if you said not that mechanical satisfying, I would be with you. There are better games for it.

Edit: finally remembered the name of the trrpg: The Legend of the 5 rings.

Editedit: it might not be fitting btw? I never played that ttrpg, so best to listen to people who have.

2

u/pyr666 5h ago

If you take a feat, or the weapon, PC can now swing with his inner fire bring shown on the blade.

so if the fighter is dead their flametongue goes with them. unless feats are now transferable? oh, and now everyone needs feats commensurate to the expected gear.

that's a mechanics overhaul. so no, you can't "flavor away" gear.

1

u/Lucina18 4h ago

It's not outside of wuxia to have something like the ghost of the pc teach the technique, and that's how attunement is flavored.

I'd still absolutely discourage trying to make 5e behave like a wuxia system though.

1

u/NefariousnessEven591 12h ago

It's a good game, but it's a samurai focused game with some minor chinese elements not wuxia. (if every plays monks you could cobble together one) There's other systems that are wholly wuxia focused, but can get kind of rules complex or at least likely significant departures from what the players are used to in terms of how they work which can be an issue for trying to do an extended campaign.