Role Playing in Avatar.

[Prak]

ah, I haven't seen many of the early episodes. That makes sense though.

Also, I'm not sure Aang's airbending for speed and jumping is inherent to airbending, or rather, inherent to any skill level of airbending, but rather something he just does because he's a master airbender.

[Username17]

They go into it in detail in the third season in the episode "The Puppetmaster." Water bender death camps. In a children's show.

-Username17

[the_taken]

They go into it in detail in the third season in the episode "The Puppetmaster." Water bender death camps. In a children's show.

-Username17

Canada isn't allowed to have Season three of Avatar. Somebody told me it was because Cartoon Network bought an exclusive right thing to air(bend) new Avatar episodes. I'm now having second thoughts...

[Maxus]

Yeah...

In any case...Bending mechanics:

Bending is fairly free-form. It's really down to how much fine control and power someone has, and whether they've picked up any tricks (whether on their own or being taught). Aang's evasion abilities (such as circling around someone while staying a few inches off the ground), can be assumed to be pretty much available if any other airbender wanted to use them. When the team was storming the Earth King's palace, Toph used paving stones to block things and cooperated with Aang to turn a big slab of courtyard as an elevator up a staircase Toph had just turned into a slide.

That'd be the big problem with writing a satisfactory Avatar RPG: Letting people use their surroundings in such a free-form way, without bogging the game down.

[Prak]

well. given that it doesn't have shit like "turn the floor into solid hydrogen, no mass limit" I think a certain amount of "this much material available/ranks in bending allows this much damage" like Mage tried to do* is ok.

but that's mostly the limit: how much of the element is around (beware a non-pacifist master airbender) and how much the bender can utilize (ie, how skilled he is). So what need is some kind of "This much bending can affect this much mass/volume; this much mass/volume can do this much damage/lift this much weight" table or equation, and (as I'm watching episode one as I type) there needs to be rules for combining bending skill (Iroh and Zuko bending together to get more fire and distance)

*(and of course failed because who cares how much fire you can create when you just turn the ground into foot deep solid nitrogen for the surrounding mile).

[TavishArtair]

Have the environment and circumstances of battle have its own cards that you can interact with, like TORG. Any cards that it has decked would be introduced in a fairly predictable manner unless someone did something special, and the cards may or may not do anything, but it would help give a sense of interaction.

[Maxus]

Yeah.

At the risk of nerdery, here's what I remember from the show:

-Firebenders are at their full capacity in the daytime, and weaker at night.

-Waterbenders are stronger at night, weaker during the day, and strongest during the full moon.

-Earthbenders have to be standing on dirt or rock to work their powers. They can be neutralized on a metal or wooden floor, or being suspended in the air.

-Airbenders need a lot of open space for optimal performance. I think Aang said their style is based on a lot of movement and dodging and most of the tricks involve moving a ton of air anyway. He also tends to need some prep work to make a whirlwind or make a gust of wind (I remember he once inhaled a big breath and then blew it out to make a gust).

[Prak]

yeah, airbending seems to rely heavily on breathing techniques more than any of the others. It's definitely a soft, gentle fist style, as opposed to the hard styles of earth and fire.

[Maxus]

yeah, airbending seems to rely heavily on breathing techniques more than any of the others. It's definitely a soft, gentle fist style, as opposed to the hard styles of earth and fire.

My point was more that if Aang makes a whirlwind, he'll spin his Airbender staff or run in a circle for a few seconds first to get some motion going and harness that. If he does an air cutter, he swings his staff. If he wants to do a big gust of air, he'll suck in a breath or otherwise harness an external force.

Also, Waterbenders should be able to go all horror-movie on people, what with Bloodbending being a recognized power. If you can yank all of the blood out of someone, rather than just control it to meat-puppet them...yeah.

[Prak]

For that matter, airbending should be capable of suffocating people (even if it's frowned upon by the culture) and earthbending could conceivably meat puppet people (iron in the blood, calcium in bones, etc.). Fuck, if we want to get pendantic, I've theorized a way for firebenders to meat puppet people too... (lightning bend the electrical impulses in their brain. Though, honestly, it's more likely that they'll literally blow the target's brains out, but...)

There's a lot of er, "creative" uses for bending that don't get shown in the program.

[TavishArtair]

They are kung fu techniques, not random wizard powers. You have to keep in mind that Katara had to be taught special techniques just to be able to remove the water from grass.

[Prak]

yes, and masters develop new techniques all the time.

[Maxus]

Often on the spur of a moment.

[Prak]

sometimes, actually, yes. It's not often fully formed, but the basics can be developed on the spur of the moment in response to a need. The master will get done what he needs to do, then, later, look back on what he did, or what inspired it, and begin developing a full style or technique around it.

[Jilocasin]

I'd say it's more like they refine and repurpose old ones. And yeah, when fighting it's not like you're planning out techniques in advance except in the broadest sense, it's more important to have a huge vocabulary of movements and have enough muscle memory that you'll react without thinking.

[Prak]

thinking of the meagre training I've had, yes, that's actually very true. I probably, should the need arise, would not be able to do a full technique off the top of my head, but the moves of several techniques mixed together (clumsily albeit) more likely.

[Jilocasin]

As far as the Avatarverse goes I'd imagine that creating new functional bending techniques would be pretty rare. But on the flip side of that, there are also probably a whole ton of different regional techniques that travelers could totally pick up after they've seen them/had some instruction. Oh yeah, and did Iroh create the lightning channeling technique or am I remembering wrong?

[Artless]

My point was more that if Aang makes a whirlwind, he'll spin his Airbender staff or run in a circle for a few seconds first to get some motion going and harness that. If he does an air cutter, he swings his staff. If he wants to do a big gust of air, he'll suck in a breath or otherwise harness an external force.

That would probably be functionally represented by how many cards of Whirlwind Aang has in his deck at any given moment, and how often he happens to draw them. The same way the the WoF roll renders changing conditions, the card draw does too, I'd imagine.

Firebenders have to do a form before they can bend Lightning, with some who can cut down on that time like Ozai did right after the eclipse. Even Azula, arguably the biggest hax firebender, had to go through the motions during the show. So if they can cut down the prep-time as a passive character ability, that'd be the same as just grabbing the Lightning Bend card straight out of the deck.

Like: Character Trait: Lightning Talent. Once per scene, you can draw Lightning Bend from anywhere in your deck into your hand.

Or similar for other bending styles.

As far as the Avatarverse goes I'd imagine that creating new functional bending techniques would be pretty rare. But on the flip side of that, there are also probably a whole ton of different regional techniques that travelers could totally pick up after they've seen them/had some instruction. Oh yeah, and did Iroh create the lightning channeling technique or am I remembering wrong?

He did, after watching Waterbenders' movements.

[Crissa]

Yes, Iroh created the lightning channeling, or claimed to. He also had the dragonbreath technique.

Of course, like the bending scroll, they need to be written down, and not everyone is going to be able to write them down. So as often as they're made, they're forgotten.

-Crissa

[Prak]

but everyone had to think up those techniques first, sometimes it comes from watching animals, like the basic bending techniques and rl kung fu, some the bender was in a tight spot and had to think differently, like blood bending.

[Maxus]

but everyone had to think up those techniques first, sometimes it comes from watching animals, like the basic bending techniques and rl kung fu, some the bender was in a tight spot and had to think differently, like blood bending.

But there's also plain free-form use of bending. Like Katara peeling razor-sharp ice-disks at Master Pakku, or Toph pinning Dai Lee members to the ceiling by making columns shoot out of the floor where they were standing. Or Katara or Pakku (can remember which) making an ice structure to slide along. Or Pakku making it rain icicles.

Or, to put it another way, it appears that high-level benders really do have enough knowledge of How Bending Works to make up their own tricks when they feel like . Low-level benders appear to learn things by rote, at least initially. Honestly, the 'master' level we hear so much about likely means having the knowledge, control, and power to make up your own stuff when you want to, and make your element do exactly what you want it to do. Toph certainly makes rocks do whatever she wants them to. Katara has similar command with water. It's a little harder to spot this with Air and Firebending, but likely is the case...

[TavishArtair]

All of those were techniques that they had already repeated time and time again, merely recombined in a different way. They weren't a radical reformulation of the ability entirely. Katara had already, if I recall correctly, done water, water to ice, and fiddling with ice. That she synthesized new particular strikes based on that is not going to shock anyone. It doesn't mean that she didn't have to learn an entirely new technique to do water extraction from plants, or to do healing, or bloodbending.

To put it another way, mastery of the ability to punch someone lets you punch them any way you want. You may try punches you weren't thinking of before with the back of your hand or in circular strikes or otherwise varying the strike to the point it barely resembles a punch. But even if you master that to the point that you can improvise on it in many ways, it doesn't suddenly grant you the ability to rip under someone's ribcage and pull out their heart with a Tiger Claw. That is an entirely different way of striking, and to attack with it you first need to have even an inkling of what it is actually good for, or you'll try to claw a flat cranium instead of their tender bits.

Also, Iroh invented the lightning-redirect technique after observing Waterbenders. It adopts the flowing style of waterbending's Tai Chi Chuan to firebending, allowing the user of it to circulate and cycle the lightning so that it might be channeled elsewhere.

[Prak]

Actually healing isn't a special bending technique, it's literally magic water... Katara can use regular water to sooth burns, but she's basically just putting ice on them. Basically she's just bending a special natural healing potion.

On the whole punching thing... have you any exposure to martial arts beyond tv?

[The Lunatic Fringe]

Actually healing isn't a special bending technique, it's literally magic water... Katara can use regular water to sooth burns, but she's basically just putting ice on them. Basically she's just bending a special natural healing potion.

I have no idea why you are making this assumption. Healing death requires spirit water, but she uses her regular water to make burns literally disappear. She also cure's Jet's retrograde amnesia in season 2 (Lake Laogai) by using her regular water on the exterior of his head. She really is doing a special mystical technique. We know this because "go soak your head" is not a reliable way to get rid of mental illness in real life.

[Crissa]

Book 1, episode, umm... 22? Shows that in the Northern water tribe, they have a separate tradition for Healing, which they teach separately from water bending that is just as lengthy and technical. In the Southern water tribe they don't have this tradition of separateness, but instead only some of their benders can do both.

-Crissa