The rotating project that generated the martial arts brainstorm was a modularized version of Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. 

Why them? Frankly because it is run like an open source project. The only thing missing is a github account. 🙂

Since there is a source ODT file for homebrewing, it's possible to incorporate your house rules fairly easily. For people like me, however, it is not so easy to swap out entire subsystems.

So I am breaking up the ODT file into smaller documents. Using a Master Document in LibreOffice or Word, I can replace the smaller pieces and rebuild.

emerge -pU @World

Ultimately, the goal is to develop a workflow to produce games/houserules systematically:

I work up a playing card based magic item system, I fix the pieces describing magic item and rebuild the document.
I work up a martial arts system, add this new subsection, tweak the unarmed combat section, add a monk class, tweak multi-class rules, and then rebuild.

The entire workflow is similar to what I use now. The difference being the use of a master document to rebuild an entire game.

(I still use Typora to generate everything in markdown and pandoc to convert markdown to ODT/DOCX files. I still plan to use Scribus for layout.)

    RL has kicked my butt for the past two weeks.

Today, just jotting down something inspired by a very old D&D-ish idea of treating Thieves' Abilities as that use slots, just like casting spells.

Working on one my rotating projects, I realized that this idea could be modified to make a more workable 1e Martial Arts system.

What I like is the ability to mix and match abilities to build a distinct, flavorful martial art. What I don't like is a bit too long to list here.

So, what if a martial artist chooses a style that determines her base damage and abilities open to her as she masters the style. The usage of these abilities are managed by slots, just like spells.

One thing this allows is the player to describe how they are fighting, avoiding being hit, some-cool-Jackie-Chan-frantic-holy-cow maneuver without checking to see if they can even attempt it. Anything you describe that doesn't use a special ability will be limited to base damage or standard chances of success.

The techniques within a style grant unique abilities like steelcloth (make a piece of cloth into a weapon), fantastic kicks/punches (like kicking two targets in the same round), ki blasts, etc.

Working my way back to normal.

    Have not forgotten about two other projects:

Color Coded Spells for my Black Hack clone
Posts about subsystems using cards, tokens, etc.

As for the former, I sent Kevin Chenevert the finished spells I have to this point. I need to do a proper OGL before publishing more.

As to the subsystems, I discovered that it will be much easier to demonstrate than to describe in words with still pictures. I am working on the video. My hope is a single take without an "um.. err.." or a "blasted card has slipped under the table... OW!"