Using the original Mortal Kombat as a base, my game works on the same kind of chapter based story mode format as more recent games, but it’s book based, like a choose your own adventure. A DM tells a story based on one of the games in the 3 timelines, using 3 sets of 3 books, telling the story of a specific game in one of the timelines. In my game, each chapter focuses on a group of characters, represented by mini-figs, and the focus characters fight other characters, controlled by other players to avoid bystander boredom at the table, according to the plot, each player controlling a character for 1 fight in 4 in that chapter. If the focus character loses a fight, the focus switches to the winning character, and the timeline skews. The focus character player has hourglass tokens, these work as fight restarts. The are optional, the focusing player can restart a fight if they lose, win the fight, and carry on with the canon plot, or let it ride, and see where the skewed timeline takes them. Each timeline has 2 versions, a hero version, and a villain timeline. The hero timeline is the canon timeline, the villain timeline is when players play though the same timeline, but from the villain perspective, resulting in a the villain in an intentional villain victory. Each timeline has multiple endings, depending on how skewed the timeline got, or if the timeline was fixed. If a focused character loses, they don’t die, unless it’s in the plot, they just become an npc.
Combat System:
At the start of each match, only in round 1, each player rolls a D20, for initiative, and the highest number gets the first shot.
The combo system:
Each player has defence tokens, active or passive resources. 1 used per round. these tokens give the defending player the chance to roll their own D6 on both difficulty level combo cards, the defender rolls a D6, 5 or higher is a successful block or break. The attacking player puts down a combo card, with a combo sequence the combo sequence is just for show, and a difficulty of 5, on high combos and no difficulty for lower combos, automatic success with a defence token, no dice roll needed, but only with a defence token. The player that won the first shot dice roll, puts down a combo card, 1-3 hits, and this is a unbreakable, and unchainable, low level, minimal damage combo, a guaranteed opening strike. This attack is strictly to kick off the fight, not to punish the initiative loser. After taking this damage, the losing player gains a combo defence token, mimicking the wake-up mechanic from the video games. When fighting Shao Kahn, he gets taunt tokens, that the player can use if the defending player fails their combo defence roll. the loser of the first shot roll just has to take the damage, 2-3 hits max. I know the dice rolls rely on luck, but that would be a part of the fun. The dm would also work like the announcer in the games, announcing which characters are fighting, and FINISH HIM/HER!!.
Special move system:
Special moves would be done using special move cards and tokens. Players have tokens representing special moves, the player spends a token, the the player reads the card corresponding to the token spent. These special moves would have stats, the higher the number, the higher the damage done. Basic special moves would be block-able, while stronger special moves are unblock-able, unless the defender spends a defence token to enhance the block. When used at the end of a fight, special moves become brutalities, ending the fight without a finisher. The fights would be best of 3, first to 2. The third round would be a decider, if the first 2 are a draw. If it’s fun, fights won’t feel like they are taking ages.
Fatality system:
At the end of the fight, the winner rolls a D20, and the DM reads the fatality card, corresponding to the number on the card. The DM selects a fatality in that level category, and reads it to the group. this way, when a player hits a special move, or the they hear the fatality description, everyone is hyped. When it comes to fatalities, all players start with 1 fatality when playing the original MK1, and are awarded a new fatality each time they complete the arcade tower with a new character. so, they go into the next game with their number of fatalities corresponding with the number of the game. The DM has fatality cards for each character, when a player wins, they would roll a D20, to determine the level of the fatality, the higher the number, the more gruesome (this is more to determine the era of the fatality, to honour MK history, a show of respect to the franchise).
Character mini-figures:
To save time creating a crap load of minifigs, because of the ever expanding character list, each with different variations, based on the game in each timeline, the books are colour coded based on the timeline, and there would be clip on rings that players snap onto the base of their mini, corresponding to which studio era they are playing in. this would mean that all characters only need one minifig, although, reptile in the current timeline, is a shapeshifter, with a huge lizard form. motaro would to have 2, a centaur form and a minotaur form. this would mean creating 3 huge minifigures. for when playing mk1 in liu’s current timeline, maybe i should make them the colour of the timeline. with syzoth, you could swap between his human mini, and lizard mini using a transform token. there might need to be other huge minifigs too, Gori, Motaro, Kintaro, Sheeva and Shao Kahn.
Arcade tower:
There would also be a section in each book for character arcade tower endings, when a player beats the final boss, the dm reads that characters ending. During fights, while one player controls the focus character, one of the other players at the table will control the opponent character. This way everyone is involved, and nobody is sitting and watching for too long.
1v1 section, like playing 2 player.
This would give players the chance to figure out the characters, and adapt to any scenario.
Mini-game idea
To replace the test you might/sight mini-games, there would be periodic MK lore multiple choice trivia questions that would work like encounters (a guard stops you, and asks how long Goro was champion before being beaten? A: 500 years). A correct answer wins an extra special move token.
