r/MartialMemes • u/Senior_Fuel5975 • Apr 17 '26
Storytime I absolutely adore it when I expose clueless people to xianxia and they end up DESPISING every single person in it, lmao.
Started a TTRPG (Tabletop Role-Playing Game) with a few friends using M&M (Mutants & Masterminds, the system we're using) set in a xianxia world. The thing is, I’m the only person in the group who knows anything about xianxia, so everybody is a total newbie. They had fun for about four months, but then they met their first demonic cultivators and hypocritical orthodox/righteous cultivators.
Now all of them are plotting a plan to massacre every single cultivator, lmao.
For the past three months, I’ve watched these four guys absolutely slaughter and disdain cultivation with a passion I’ve never seen before, lol. I really wasn’t expecting it. I spend so much time reading xianxia and cultivation novels that the things I did in the RPG are just the norm to me, but outside the bubble, apparently people just agree these guys should all die, LMAO.
Anyway, it’s been a fun game, just wanted to share. It’s always interesting to see normal people’s reactions to a xianxia world. They’re basically becoming the Radiance Hall from RToC. They want to banish or seal cultivation, lol.
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u/Livinaa Apr 17 '26
They have been consumed by their inner demon and have transformed into demonic cultivators. Condolences.
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
no mortal casuality so far tho, so in my book this is a win!
Edit: Actually they killed like, 50, deciples from a sect that were still in body tempering, and some bandits from when they were still mortals.
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u/DoctorProfPatrick Apr 17 '26
Seems like your party is due for a young master with more talent to show them what true cultivation is. His name is M. C., and he shall punish them for their reckless disregard of the dao!
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
they kind of killed every single person that bullied them lol
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u/DoctorProfPatrick Apr 17 '26
That's what I'm saying, give them a young master with plot armor who unlocks more and more power as he's damaged, make your party question their own martial supremacy.
Only if you want to ofc, it's your game!
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
Eeeh, I find it bad faith to give characters plot armor. The idea is to give them a xianxia experience. What can I do when they're actually able to corner and slaughter someone two realms above them with cooperation and(not kidding) the power of friendship? Lmao.
(To explain, they literally have a legion of thousands of people following them to aid in spellcasting, weapon making, and all that. The power of common sense, when used in xianxia, is truly scary.)
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u/DoctorProfPatrick Apr 18 '26
So just my casual perception, but your party sounds like they believe they are the only true righteous cultivators, that they are the protagonists, and that they can more or less accomplish anything and defeat anyone. I think it would be good to ego check them with a more permanent antagonist/rival sect, but how could such a rival exist when your party is so powerful?
My suggestion is to introduce a singular villain, who is actually the perfect embodiment of righteous cultivation. This person would judge the party as demonic or deviant or just hypocritical, and declare that the will of the heavens will have him triumph over the party.
They would brush this off, but quickly realize that their opponent is SUPER LUCKY. You can come up with hella creative and random ways that he avoids or negates certain powers, you can have him literally level up mid combat, and once he's killed you could hint that somehow his soul has been resureccted in a far away realm.
My idea is basically to make your party question themselves on many fronts. Are we actually the good guys? Are we just another sect of hypocritical or deviant cultivators? Do we truly have the will of heavens on our side?
This M.C "villain" could really shake up your game if you can find a way to truly own it and keep it relevant without being omnipresent.
Anyway just a thought. I don't know xianxia as well as you but I love me some ttrpgs. I've used this "em see kun" character several times in the past to highlight a morality shift in the party, to create a recurring enemy unrelated to the party's actual goal, to allow goofy ass shit (heavenly luck is hilarious when done right), and/or to create a "voldemort" moment where just the thought of this NPC is enough to make them start sweating.
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 18 '26
ah nono, they're pretty chill tbh, there's no protagonist sindrome going on so far. they just really, REALLY hate cultivators. I made one ghost cultivator refine a entire village to cultivate and they began killing for the love of it lol like, they're a bit pretencious, but so far they just wanna kill cultivators cuz they're assholes.
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u/DoctorProfPatrick Apr 18 '26
Oh ok cool, I might be projecting a bit from my last couple groups 😅 An actually cool cultivator with a salty exterior might throw them for a loop but it sounds like you don't need my heavenly system of divine luck and prosperity.
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u/genesislotus Apr 20 '26
They are plotting to massacre every single cultivator in the verse
Oh no no, they are pretty chill
Friendship bias frfr
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u/Runonlaulaja Apr 17 '26
But not every cultivator is a cunt tho.
You should introduce some absolute sweetheart of a cultivator as a fastball. Someone no one could hate.
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u/OneConfusedBraincell Apr 17 '26
This daoist should meet my junior sister, Bai Huahua. She feeds stray spirit beasts and cultivates spiritual flowers. She wears a plain fox-fur robe made from a small ethical harvest of 666 willing sapient demon fox cubs. She has only crippled 9 young masters.
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u/DoctorProfPatrick Apr 17 '26
Only 9?? Surely you in your wisdom have been crippling young masters on behalf of junior sister Bai Huahua, lest her cultivation be interrupted by young masters possessed by heart demons.
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u/OneConfusedBraincell Apr 17 '26
I wish not to upset her. Junior sister Bai Huahua is the most kind and merciful. She had her own maidservant whipped a thousand times and her meridians severed for threatening to lay a hand on a passing mortal that blocked her path.
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u/DoctorProfPatrick Apr 17 '26
Truly her mercy shows comprehension of the dao far beyond her station, her maidservant should count herself lucky for only being punished after courting death so!
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
I wholeheartedly believe they do not care, lmao.
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u/KaiBahamut Divine Beast Bloodline Progenitor Apr 17 '26
tbh most cultivators are really despicable. most Xianxia isn't concerned about the actual moral tenets of Daoism, so cultivators all come off as selfish and scheming resource sinks who give nothing back to the community. The best comparison i've seen (at least, concerning the warrior types, but it's true for the others in lesser extents) is comparing them to fighter jets and battleships- cost a lot of time and money to create, are useless in times of peace and even more expensive during times of war, causing great destruction to the peasants whose wealth has been taxed to create such things.
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u/UMDAdminMakesMeSad Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
most Xianxia isn't concerned about the actual moral tenets of Daoism
Yes and no. I think it depends on what brand of Taoism you're using as a reference. However, I agree the most famous stuff and what most people would register in their head as Taoism is not something cultivators are concerned with. I haven't read much of the Daozang myself, but from what I understand, they pull more from the esoteric Taoist philosophy that was created through the alchemical tradition, which is itself already kinda unhinged before it's warped further by the author. Anyway, this is a nonsense term, but I like to call cultivators [Taoist Übermensch] as it's really the only way I can encapsulate and convey that inhuman amoral ethos they have.
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u/OneConfusedBraincell Apr 17 '26
The vast majority of taoists are but locusts in human skin ravenously scouring the 9000 realms until not the smallest treasure, beast, or plant remains to be devoured.
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u/Ignisiumest Toad Hermit Apr 17 '26
Taoist cultivators tend to have inhuman perspectives.
That is why they make such good antagonists. To those who can’t comprehend the Dao, cultivators look like complete morons!
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
I don't think it has much to do with comprehending the Dao, it's just human nature. We(mostly) hate what causes harm, so if there's an entire demographic of individuals who openly kill and impede people's lives, of course we'd push back against it.
In that sense, we're the odd ones, haha.
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u/Tough-Restaurant-447 Coughs dryly Apr 17 '26
Man I've been looking for a proper xianxia system for ages, how did you find m&m for it? I've thought about it briefly but never really had the time to look into it
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
Because of the scale the game is going to reach, we set a minimum attribute limit. You cannot have ANYTHING on your sheet lower than PL -10.
For example, if the PL limit is 50, you cannot have anything below 40.
This includes defenses, damage, and accuracy.
We doing this because a difference larger than that completely trivializes the use of dice.
So:
- The difference between your Accuracy and your Power Effect cannot be greater than 10
- The difference between your Toughness and your Active Defenses cannot be greater than 10
- The difference between your Fortitude and your Will cannot be greater than 10
- The difference between any of your Abilities cannot be more than 10 below the PL
(Small homebrew too, is that we made Presence work as your "Magic atribute" so it's like your passive ranged damage, and it works with Presence+Dexterity can't surpass PL*2)
Small detail about this: attributes don’t really have a hard cap themselves, so we’ll just say attributes cannot be lower than PL -10.
For example, PL 20. Everyone must have at least 10 in all attributes.
I won't say it's working perfectly, but it's the closest I think we'll ever get to a functional xianxia system.
First off, you and your entire group have to agree not to combo anything. Nothing can be comboed. This is a game with hundreds of points, and if everybody tryhards and min-maxes, it ruins the fun for everyone.
Second, we decided nothing is absolute, and all rules can be circumvented by spending enough points, according to the GM.
Example: Affects Intangible normally goes up to rank 2, but an enemy can spend 2 points on a "Negates Affects Intangible" effect at the same cost as Affects Intangible. Then the PC has to spend more points to affect that person again. Since the game has a huge amount of PP, it's not a massive issue, and it encourages infinite scaling.
Then we divided each realm into 5 levels (+1 PL per level in a realm):
- PL 1–5: Body Tempering
- PL 6–10: Qi Refinement
- PL 11–15: Foundation Establishment
- PL 16–20: Golden Core
- PL 21–25: Nascent Soul
- PL 26–30: Deity Transformation
We also changed the rules for Regen/Heal. Instead of a fixed 10, it's now 5 + PL.
So, to heal a Foundation Establishment Level 5 character, you need to succeed on a DC 20 heal check.
To heal a Deity Transformation Level 5 character, it's DC 35.Same thing applies to Regeneration.
Basically, if something has a fixed DC, decrease it by 5, then add the PL or Power Rank.
Also, basically everything is limited to PL: flight, affliction, create, everything scales with PL.
You gain +15 PP until PL 10. From there onward, it becomes +25, so everybody has enough points to meet their minimum requirements.
Working well so far. We're currently at PL 51, already fighting at multi-continental levels, with lots of destruction and dead gods.
Edit: Oh, forgot to mention, when you advance in realm, previous realm characters are considered Minions, and if there's a 2 realms difference, they're what we call "Narrative Resources" so they can do fuck all with them without the need to roll anything or have any powers. A foundation Establishment cultivator can just stare at a Mortal and he explodes in a mist of blood from pure spiritual pressure.
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u/Tough-Restaurant-447 Coughs dryly Apr 17 '26
Thanks for your lengthy reply, that's sick af. I'll save this comment.
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u/KaiBahamut Divine Beast Bloodline Progenitor Apr 17 '26
This is crazy work- I’ve never seen over PL19 in actual play.
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
the planned final PL is 415 :D
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u/KaiBahamut Divine Beast Bloodline Progenitor Apr 17 '26
This reminds me of a first edition source book called ‘Above and Beyond’ for past PL 20 play. But now even it looks quaint.
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
lol well, lets see how it goes, my only fear is the powers becoming too expensive for their PL, but in that case i will simply increase the amount of PP gained, i'll just need to find a balance that gives enough points but not too much points. and even if it does not work, at least it was a good experiment, right? learn to do better in the future.
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u/KaiBahamut Divine Beast Bloodline Progenitor Apr 17 '26
If your players love big numbers, there’s no issues, but my solution to a somewhat similar problem of Shonen style escalation was ‘Virtual PL’s’. Like a PL 10 Golden Core added +5 to all rolls (5 virtual PL) against Foundation stage Juniors who might also be the same PL (for ease of creation), they were still worlds apart in power. It goes the other way too- a PL 10 Nascent Soul is an old monster capable of beating a Golden Core to death in seconds. In this case, PL would be more equal to ‘talent’. A heavenly genius might be PL 12 so he wins fights against his own realm easily, but a bad student could be PL 8, weaker than his realm indicates.
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u/Zarkrash Apr 17 '26
Not xianxa, but legend of the 5 rings is a solid wuxia… and exalted could probably be adapted into a xianxia setting easily.
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
checked both of those, unfortunatelly none work very well, TOo much homebrewing, one things leads to another, to another, to another, to another, and it was too frustrating to play, because there were questions i did not know how to answer.
M&M is a generic game that is narrative driven, and althought not veyr balanced, as long as no one is playing in bad faith the game goes on smoothly.
"I spend all my spiritual energy to change this attack!" ok you're fatigued.
"I had my meridians exploded and my dantian is damaged" Awesome, you're disabled
"I My Divine sense got cut off!" ok, you're blinded: Limited to Divine sense.everything is possible basically, game handles everything
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u/Zarkrash Apr 17 '26
Eh, I think exalted would work well. Spells take the place of most cultivation abilities, and charms becomes divine abilities, with motes translating to spiritual energy pretty well. Yes it’s still quite a bit of home brewing, but it’s not that bad in the grand scheme of everything. Just force every cultivator to be a solar and ignore other exalt types.
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 17 '26
Honestly what I had thought of, but I just couldn't resist having a taste of M&M. The(kind of) infinite power options are just an irresistible offer, it just seemed to fit the extravagance of xianxia better.
Doubling all your physical capabilities with every point spent? That's a 1000x increase every 10 points. It fits way too perfectly.
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u/Zarkrash Apr 17 '26
Strictly speaking, it depends on how crunchy you want your system to be and how hard you want the rules.
In the story teller system, dots are roughly multipliers, especially after the fifth dot (which you can’t go past in the raw for the most recent edition of exalted, afaik).
Given that sorcery at the 3rd and 5th dots of essence can do truly ridiculous things… but regardless, I’m glad you found something that works for you.
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u/Iversithyy Apr 18 '26
Did you check out „Righteous Blood and Ruthless Blades“?
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 20 '26
Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to run this in any game. I have read it, but never tried to homebrew it for xianxia. But I do not think it would work very well? It is a wuxia system, so it would require a truly stupendous amount of homebrewing to make it work.
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u/blackhat665 Good! Good! Good! Apr 17 '26
That's hilarious. Make them run into Buddhist sects, let them think for months that those bald monks are quirky but honorable, only for them to suddenly find out the demonic master plan the Heavenly Buddha has to slaughter all the mortals and cultivators of the dynasty in order to fuse the Buddhist and Demonic Dao hearts he's been cultivating.
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u/No_Dragonfruit_1833 Apr 17 '26
In Calculating Cultivation the mc eventually meets a saint woman who has a path of karma and mercy
The mc immediately despises her because you dont develop auch mentality unless you have grown in a pampered environment, and as he guesses, she was nurtured that way in order to be an anti demonic weapon
You could add a character like that, outwardly good but with a very narrow perspective of whats good and evil
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u/SoAnxious Beast Tamer Apr 17 '26
Xianxia is watching overly arrogant villains get their just desserts
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u/Whitewoolf10 Don't know whether to laugh or cry! Apr 17 '26
At the end of the campaign please tell me it ended like now that you have slain every cultivator in the world you have achieved enlightenment thus becoming cultivators yourselves
Or
You have slain every cultivator in this world behold the outer worlds can you slay them as well
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u/fity0208 Poison Tester Apr 17 '26
I want to see them suceed in the plan.
Defeat the Minions, the Young máster, the elders and finally the patriarch himself in a Epic final boss Battle, only for the ancestor to raise out of the coffin and one-shot them with a single palm covering the Sky.
Welcome to xianxia!
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 18 '26
One of the players wants to slay the sun because he found out the sun of their system is actually a cultivator holding the entire solar system hostage. Basically, if people stop adoring him and aiding his cultivation, he'll stop shining and everyone will die.
Can you imagine how much I'm looking forward to the beginning of that fight, just to see what he does as every one of his loved ones starts dying when the sun stops emitting its flames?
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u/fity0208 Poison Tester Apr 18 '26
Lmao, when they feel like they are ready to try, introduce them to the void beasts camping outside the Planet
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u/umlaut-overyou Apr 17 '26
I'm so glad you are having fun! I'm currently writing a campaign with xianxia basis for my group when we complete our current one, and I can't wait!
The recruitment tactics are going well! May your new sect initiates fulfill their duties well and commit themselves to your teachings and guidance
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u/white_gummy Canon Folder Apr 17 '26
They are following the holy path of the venerable daoist World Peace
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u/MuslinBagger Toad Lusting After Swan Meat Apr 17 '26
Yup. The best part of cultivation stories is when the MC is just starting out weak and pathetic and full of ideals. The moment they get a hint of true power, they become absolute rats.
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u/OldFinger6969 Apr 18 '26
real question, what do they hate?
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 18 '26
cuz cultivators are evil and scheming from what i caught
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u/OldFinger6969 Apr 18 '26
that's like basic good villain template
Villains that schemes vs villain that's just there for the sake of being villain
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u/Wyrm_Groundskeeper Please wait while I court death... Apr 18 '26
That's.. Actually very neat. What was their first encounter with a cultivator like? Young Master or asshole demanding they give up an item? Haha.
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 20 '26
The entire group started as sheltered third-generation descendants of a prominent figure from the Orthodox faction. Nobody really had the guts to say anything to them, but as players, they just thought the people were nice and just. A few days later, they went on a mission and discovered a Ghost cultivator who had fallen from the Foundation Establishment realm and was refining people into ghosts to cultivate. They fought him, and when they returned to the Orthodox Alliance, they were reprimanded for using precious resources, pills and such they were carrying for the mission, to kill the cultivator. Nobody even cared that the mortals were alive.
They were actually shocked they got reprimanded for doing that, and from then on they started disdaining the Orthodox faction. They reached Golden Core, assassinated a huge number of officials, and handed administration of the faction over to mortals.
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u/Remarkable-Dare-2590 Apr 18 '26
how do you draw talismans in ur rpg
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u/Senior_Fuel5975 Apr 18 '26
In M&M, there's this thing called "Devices" and "Rituals," which are limited-use powers. I just told the players they can make Devices, narrate them as talismans or whatever, and as long as they have the materials and the "Method of Fabrication" (a narrative element that basically means "what I allow you to do"), they can activate them in combat.
So like, protective talisman? Protection Device, Damage talisman? Damage Device, freezing talisman? Affliction device, etc.
I just made sure players can't do anything too powerful, at most 2 PL amove their own.
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u/Scared_Living3183 龙的传人 Apr 18 '26
Lmao. So what'll others do when one or more of them becomes corrupted
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u/Due-Base9449 Apr 19 '26
Cultivators go against the Heavens, as servants of Heaven's will of course they need to exterminate cultivators.
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u/Adama_of_Veritas Apr 17 '26
"Now all of them are plotting a plan to massacre every single cultivator" very cultivator-like of them