Wrapping my head around this system...

[Darkholme]

Okay, so I get that character creation is based on advantages and disadvantages, I'm just having a hard time figuring out how you build power-sets.

Here are three examples of settings I would like to try to use it for, but I can't wrap myself around HOW:

>Fullmetal Alchemist.
>Street Fighter.
>Avatar: The Last Airbender/Legend of Korra.

Might someone be able to point me in the right direction?

I am coming at this game from a World of Darkness/D&D Background, so I am used to just picking stuff out of a list.

[S'drolion]

Pretty new to things myself, but maybe I can help a little.

For building a character in general, you pick from the Abilities and Weaknesses, like you said. There's a few different options for character build rules depending on GM preference: in some, higher levels of an ability/weakness cost/return more points, while in others, every level is worth 1 point. And in some, there's actually a point limit, while in others, you just have to keep weaknesses within a certain number of points of your abilities. The book says 5--I prefer stronger heroes, so I set it at 10 for my game.

I think what you're asking about, though, is how to build varied attacks?

By my understanding, in OVA, you can basically have limitless attack options, however many you're willing to take the time to build. Your attack die pool is based off of, in general:

2+[Combat Expert]+[Agile]-[Clumsy]

Your damage multiplier is:

1+[Attack]+[Strong]-[Weak]

(Correct me if I'm wrong, someone!)

That's a no-frills basic attack. You can characterize it however you like, actually, but if you leave it there there's no special mechanical effects.

So, if you want to build a bunch of different attacks, you need to flip to the Perks and Flaws section. This section gives the improvements and limitations or weaknesses you can put on attacks. They're rated in terms of endurance cost or refund.

To build a particular attack power, you name the attack, then assign perks and flaws to it. The endurance cost of the attack is equal to the sum of the perk values minus the sum of the flaw values, minimum 0.

For instance, you might set up the Hadoken as just a basic ranged attack, using Ranged. Ranged costs 0, because it has a negative aspect as well--you can't count "Strong" towards your damage multiplier for it.

But what about the Super Hadoken? (Or whatever the enhanced version of it is called--sorry!)

Well, you might try something like this:
Perks: Ranged (0), Effective x2 (10)
Flaws: Buildup x2 (10)
Total endurance cost: 10-10=0

This creates an attack that you have to wait 2 rounds before you can use, then another 2 rounds after that, and so on, but it's stronger because of it. That's kind of an approximate modeling of the "Super" meter that you get in Street Fighter games, though there's other ways you could model it as well (and other ways you could limit the attack, like Activation instead).

You don't have to reserve it for just supernatural moves, though. You can build a suite of normal martial arts or boxing moves too.

For instance:

Jab: Accurate x2 (10), Ineffective x2 (-10): A more accurate but less damaging punch.

Haymaker: Effective x3 (15), Inaccurate x1 (-5): A damaging punch that's a little less accurate and tires you out, costing 10 Endurance.

Sweep Kick: Stunning (10), Ineffective x2 (-10): A low-damage kick that knocks the opponent off their feet so they have to waste time getting up.

There are absolutely other ways you could build each of these. The main point is that you can model a whole bunch of different attack options if you'd like and get as tactical with the system as you want. If you'd rather keep it simple, that's an option too!

[Darkholme]

Hmm. okay;

What about things that can be used for more than just as attacks?

For instance, Earthbending, or for something even more extreme, FMA style Alchemy Transmutations.

[Chris Brady]

Reskin, rename Magic: Arcane, Telekinesis, Speed...

[S'drolion]

That's pretty much what I would advise too: basically, think about what the effect should be rather than necessarily what the method is and you'll have more success.

Earthbending is shaping Earth to your will, correct? Someone with that might have Attack powers, and also probably something like Barrier or Armored to reflect defensive use. If they can, say, merge with the earth to move somewhere else, that's Teleporting. Riding on a column of fast-moving earth? That could be Quick, or Flight.

I'm less familiar with Fullmetal Alchemist, but from the little I've seen of the show a lot of the abilities on there can probably be explained in terms of Attack, Barrier, Armored, and other effects in OVA. If characters have particularly extensive abilities, though, then Magic, Arcane or Magic, Witchcraft are good models to use.

A character in my current game uses paintings to cause effects on the world that can be really widespread--that's Magic, Arcane. If he wanted to, he could put Focus: Magic Paintbrush on there to get some points back, but otherwise the system isn't particularly interested in the method he's using.

Overall, OVA is something of an effect-based system--it's less important how a character gets to an effect than what effect he causes. There are some Weaknesses or Flaws you can toss on abilities if the particular methods used are difficult enough to matter, but mechanically, "I shield myself from attack with a wall of earth I pull up from the ground" and "I shield myself from attack by transmuting my body into Iron temporarily" could both be Barrier or Armored depending on the specifics of the effect.

The Hero system is obviously a much more complex one than this, for good or ill, but it had a good general coverage of this idea that I think applies well to OVA. I believe they called it "reasoning from effect." The general concept was that rather than spelling out what a Flame Blast or Earth Wall were and holding you to the system's idea, it gave you a list of possible effects and let you decide what your Flame Blast or Earth Wall should do.

You can probably model quite a number of abilities in the system. If you can't figure out how to model one, there's always Unique Ability, but I suggest trying the above method first and seeing what you can figure through.

[Darkholme]

That's pretty much what I would advise too: basically, think about what the effect should be rather than necessarily what the method is and you'll have more success.

Hmm. Okay; they're petty versatile though. Covering the potential applications might require lots and lots and lots of powers.

Earthbending is shaping Earth to your will, correct? Someone with that might have Attack powers, and also probably something like Barrier or Armored to reflect defensive use. If they can, say, merge with the earth to move somewhere else, that's Teleporting. Riding on a column of fast-moving earth? That could be Quick, or Flight.

Yeah, shaping & moving the earth or rocks to your will. Some of the more powerful earthbenders can also shape/create lava from earth, and some can shape refined metals. The obvious attacks are throwing rocks at people, or moving the ground underneath them. You could make walls, or armor made of rocks. riding on a fast moving column of earth could be a thing too, as could the high speed swimming through earth. Those are all things you see people do at various points.

But how would you cover using earthbending to toss together a building, reinforce a fortress wall, or what have you?

I'm less familiar with Fullmetal Alchemist, but from the little I've seen of the show a lot of the abilities on there can probably be explained in terms of Attack, Barrier, Armored, and other effects in OVA. If characters have particularly extensive abilities, though, then Magic, Arcane or Magic, Witchcraft are good models to use.

A character in my current game uses paintings to cause effects on the world that can be really widespread--that's Magic, Arcane. If he wanted to, he could put Focus: Magic Paintbrush on there to get some points back, but otherwise the system isn't particularly interested in the method he's using.

Overall, OVA is something of an effect-based system--it's less important how a character gets to an effect than what effect he causes. There are some Weaknesses or Flaws you can toss on abilities if the particular methods used are difficult enough to matter, but mechanically, "I shield myself from attack with a wall of earth I pull up from the ground" and "I shield myself from attack by transmuting my body into Iron temporarily" could both be Barrier or Armored depending on the specifics of the effect.

Hmm. Alchemy has limits beyond "whatever you want to do" though; the characters are limited to transmuting the chemicals present in their current location. Characters in FMA typically have a reserve of tricks they commonly use in combat (only the main character and his brother really have the expertise to make up whatever effect they need on the fly), but given a bit of time, they can accomplish basically any transmutation they would like.

The Hero system is obviously a much more complex one than this, for good or ill, but it had a good general coverage of this idea that I think applies well to OVA. I believe they called it "reasoning from effect." The general concept was that rather than spelling out what a Flame Blast or Earth Wall were and holding you to the system's idea, it gave you a list of possible effects and let you decide what your Flame Blast or Earth Wall should do.

Can you explain what you mean here a bit more?

You can probably model quite a number of abilities in the system. If you can't figure out how to model one, there's always Unique Ability, but I suggest trying the above method first and seeing what you can figure through.

Thanks. I will take a stab at some things; and see what I can manage. I probably won't be back until after christmas though, I'm going to my mom's for the holidays on sunday and I will be without internet for about a week.

[S'drolion]

But how would you cover using earthbending to toss together a building, reinforce a fortress wall, or what have you?

Hm...to me, this sounds like something that's more likely to be kind of a "preparing for battle" or "helping repair the city" challenge, yes? In that case, I'd lean towards not highlighting it with a particular ability but just defining it as an option for other abilities. Is the assumption that all your characters are benders of some kind or another? If so, here's an option:

At character creation, everyone picks a "bending" style. It isn't an ability, just a note on their character. Then, when they want to do something like the above tasks, you assign it a difficulty level and they can pick appropriate abilities to support it. For instance, to toss a building together it might help to be Smart or have Knowledge: Architecture. Maybe something like Knowledge: Siege Warfare might help reinforce a fortress wall. Other "bending" styles could have their own concepts too.

Alternatively, I could see creating a Unique Ability for each "bending" style that's usable for the non-combat applications of the ability. So you'd have, what, Earth-Bending, Fire-Bending, Water-Bending, and Air-Bending? That way a character could choose more than one--that was a thing on the show, correct? Then, anytime a character wanted to handle a non-combat challenge with the power, you could let them use that trait.

One further approach is that you could create the different "bending" style traits, but let them work as elementally-bound versions of Magic, Arcane (and remove Magic, Arcane from your game). Just use the rules for that, and limit it to effects reasonably linked to the element in question (which, to be fair, could be very widespread...there's a lot of things you can justify with any of the four elements). Then let it work for the more skill-challenge concepts as well.

Hmm. Alchemy has limits beyond "whatever you want to do" though; the characters are limited to transmuting the chemicals present in their current location. Characters in FMA typically have a reserve of tricks they commonly use in combat (only the main character and his brother really have the expertise to make up whatever effect they need on the fly)...

In that case, you might just have them have the different abilities instead of Magic, Arcane. If they're more limited than I thought, it seems like you can just kind of pick their "signature" abilities and away you go.

As far as the limitation of needing to transmute present materials...whether you want to represent that or not depends on how often it's actually a limitation. If they generally have something to transmute so it's more of a "once-in-a-season" thing that they don't have what they need, then I wouldn't put a Weakness or Flaw on there to represent it. Instead, I'd just create a situation every few plots where the characters didn't have materials they needed and hand the players some drama dice for going along with it. Rather than taking a weakness that won't come up much, they just get paid for you making it part of the plot and forcing them to work without character abilities they usually have.

If it comes up frequently, on the other hand, that sounds like maybe a simple variant on the Focus weakness (rather than requiring an item that you carry with you, it requires materials that are usually present wherever you are...same basic effect) or the Requirement flaw, depending on how you wanted to model it. Suppressed Power could be appropriate as an alternative as well.

Basically, put something on a character as a Weakness or Flaw if it's something that will matter reasonably frequently. If it's something that'll only come up every once in a long while, you may instead just want to establish it as a world rule and tell the players when it comes up they'll get some drama dice. Or, heck, if your players will accept it, just tell them it's a world rule and they don't get paid for it when it eventually comes up. I prefer paying them, but I'm a pretty nice GM.

...but given a bit of time, they can accomplish basically any transmutation they would like.

If this is important to the story, it could be addressed with a variant on Inventor, perhaps (if Magic, Arcane didn't seem to be what you were going for). Just label it Alchemist instead, and I think it would pretty much work for what you're going for. Instead of creating gear, it creates lasting alchemy effects. Like Inventions, they can either be story effects/justifications for using your existing abilities or can actually be built from abilities and weaknesses like Gear could be.

Alternatively, just as with the "bending" concept, if this is just something that all player characters can do, you might just make it something that's generally available in your game and not have an ability specific to it. Figuring out how to properly create an effect could just be an application of Smart and/or appropriate Knowledge skills, as one example. You don't necessarily need a special ability for it, if all characters are pretty much going to have that.

Can you explain what you mean here a bit more?

Basically, take "Flame Blast." Your idea of how a "flame blast" should work might differ from mine. Maybe you want it to be a low damage attack that sets things on fire to do continuing damage, while I picture it more as a high-damage vaporizing blast of heat that explodes to do area damage but costs me some Endurance. Under a system like this, whoever is making the character can make their own idea of "flame blast," instead of having to go with whatever the book's version is.

[Clay]

Reskinned Arcane Magic as ____ Bending with a Focus of the required element would’ve been my recommendation, too. You can also just use your Bending dice to attempt to accomplish tasks that wouldn’t be covered by specifically recreating an Ability (like rebuilding a wall.)

I’m not overly familiar with FMA, but reskinning Inventor, Arcane Magic, or other similar abilities is probably the best choice.