Combining Ninjas & Superspies with Beyond the Supernatural

[My_Name_Is_Flip]

I will be starting a new campaign where players will start as BTSN or N&SS player characters. They will be part of a Secret U.S.Government Agency founded after WW2 by the cooperative efforts of The Freemasons and The Archdiocese. Name “The Omega” project, the organization is tasked with finding and eliminating supernatural threats, foreign and domestic. The 1984 incident in New York involving the parapsychologist using unlicensed proton accelerators forced the agency to create a division that would develop innovative ways to combat supernatural evil and magic using science and technology.

So this leads to my question, how do I combine N&SS (specifically Martial Arts) with BTSN?

[thorr-kan]

First question: are they the last line of defense, and when does Harry Tasker start?
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/15843/16556432_7.jpg?v=8D036AA3E41A670

Second question: do you want to open the whole can of worms that is Chi as a third force, separate from ISP and PPE?

If yes, use N&SS as is. Consult the conversion notes in the back of Revised for ideas. They reference TMNT and HU, but it's a start. Use Mystic China as your reference for PPE; there are some BTS1 conversion notes there. Finally, decide how much Chi supernatural creatures will have.

If no, I would recommend using N&SS for the cybernetics and agents. Use the martial arts forms in Rifts: Japan as an advanced version of H2H: MA. Use the Rifts Conversion Book 1, Revised rules for Martial Arts Powers as specialized psionics. Decide if the martials artists from N&SS are on the table at all.

Third, a suggestion: steal liberally from After the Bomb, Dead Reign, Heroes Unlimited, Nightbane, Paladium Fantasy, Systems Failure, and TMNT.

[Sir Neil]

In BTS 1ed I used the Heroes Unlimited conversion rules from NSSR: psychic characters could get a martial art form for one skill program, but arcanists were limited to agent HTH. This gave the latent, physical, and healer more oomph and narrative control to keep them from being overshadowed by the sensitive and arcanist, while also giving players another avenue for distinctive characters. (One making a hydrokinetisist with kyokushikai karate focused on the destructive power of water, another hydro-k using taichi to go with the literal flow.)

I don't know how I'd translate it for BTS 2, because that game's power level is bizarre.

They were more powerful than BTS-only characters, but monster stats are arbitrary and the entire group was on the same page during character creation, so it wasn't a problem at the table. It can feel like a luchadore or wuxia campaign when everyone has kungfu, and is largely incompatible with Victim campaigns. Video examples include Santo y Blue Demon Contra Drácula y El Hombre Lobo, Mr. Vampire, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Blade.

[psiandco]

I would upvote this topic if there was such a thing here.
Keep in mind that "Exclusive" martial arts require years of study to just "begin" as a Martial artist's character.
While someone on the street can say, "yeah man, I know Kenpo. I followed along the P-90X workout DVD"...
It does not remotely qualify as "Knowing Kenpo".
While I was in the military, I was stationed in Misawa AB Japan for three years. I was able to study Ninjutsu for those three years with an instructor who studied under Shidoshi Alex Ross.
Guess what? I spent the first six months LEARNING TO FALL DOWN correctly... on gravel... learning "every" which way how to correctly fall down...

That alone should help describe the difference in requirements for casual practice, commercial practice, professional practice, and EXCLUSIVE practice.
After three years of training in my free time outside of my career, I still feel like I have only scratched the surface of Ninjutsu.
However, I no longer fear heights. I no longer fear falls. If I do fall I am unhurt and I am standing up in the time it takes most people to realize I'd fallen.

I would make sure that you keep "Exclusive" martial arts "Exclusive" to a Martial artists class. Other characters can pay "other" skill selections to upgrade their combat ability from:
None, Basic, Expert, to Martial arts, or Commando, or Assassin.
These basic categories aren't a "specific" combat style, but they are symbolic of how much ferocity and experience one has with "Violence".
I'd say that psychic characters have their own "thing" their own discipline that they are trying to attain a degree of mastery with and don't have that much opportunity to dabble outside of their practicing of psychic ability.

Keep in mind the "power Level" is based on the presence of the supernatural. in normal "reality" 99% of the time Psychic characters are going to look like frauds and con artists. Even when they can do the 01% chance of performing a psychic ability on command.

The danger of having psychics in an N&SS campaign depends heavily on how well you understand what being a "Psychic" means.
There is a movie...
Very old movie.
I think it starred "Ally Sheedy" (spelling? accurate name?)
The title, "The Fear" (?)
this movie actually helps normies understand what "it feels like" and the "life experiences of" a psychic.
Sad thing is that is only a teeny tiny smidgeon of a fleck of knowledge.

********************
A fighter is only as strong as their dedication to the mastery of their art.
You will hear MMA fans saying "X" (or A,B,C,D,E...) is a fake martial art.
they are wrong.
walk up to a PRO Summo and tell him to his face that his lifetime of training and fighting is all *FAKE*...
(*or replace Summo with "Master of Capoeira", for example)
I guarantee you some broken bones.
Even the "Fakest" martial art can be deadly if the practicing person has a lifetime of dedication and practice.
Watch the comedy "Kung pow, enter the fist" and laugh at "MY FACE TO YOUR FIST TECHNIQUE" all you want.
if someone has the DEDICATION...
"My face to your fist technique" will WORK. IT will win fights.

If you still think that some martial arts are superior to others, and weapons beat "unarmed", and that guns beat everything...
you are sorely mistaken.
There is a black and white film, of a karate instructor in a duel with a REAL sammurai.
The sammurai was rockin' out with Diasho. it didn't matter.
The Karate master was somehow able to catch the katana blade between two finger tips, slide his way up the blade and BASH THE EVER-LOVIN' STUFFIN' out of the sammurai.

The point being...
DEDICATION to ANYTHING with an absolute focus, can do what everyone says is "Impossible"...

[Marcethus]

I would run the two more or less side by side. What I mean is that players choose which book to make their character from. One caveat would be all skill % out one book, (In this case I would use BTS2's skill list as the Master List.) All other aspects are locked to their respective book.