Tabletop Game / Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game

An unusual combo to say the least.

In a very unlikely turn of events, White Wolf approached Capcom about doing a licensed tie-in to Street Fighter with their trademark Storyteller system. Capcom agreed, and thus one of the most unusual game transitions in the world occurred.

Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game was created around the time of Street Fighter II: Turbo in 1994 so the game has a large amount of Continuity Drift due to many facts not yet having been established about characters and their works. This includes a number of Woolseyisms and odd factoids about their characters. The game, ironically, predicted how the franchise would eventually evolve with a focus on espionage and crime-fighting against Shadaloo (called "Shadoloo" here) with a more over-the-top and crazy world. It was a financial failure but remains a Cult Classic despite the difficulty of getting copies of the books.

The game line consisted of only six supplements:

• Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game
• Secrets of Shadoloo
• Street Fighter Storyteller's Screen
• Street Fighter Player's Guide
• The Perfect Warrior
• Contenders

Includes examples of:

• Action Girl: Would you honestly expect anything less from a game like this?
• Adaptation Expansion: Because the game was a tie-in created fairly early in the series' development, it expands on canon in a lot of ways. Some don't meld with what the game eventually developed — for example, Vega is still a Self-Made Orphan, but did so in response to being expelled from his family for his decadence and bloodlust, rather than because his step-father murdered his mother — but others are surprisingly accurate in spirit (Secrets of Shadoloo states that Bison teaches Ler Drit to certain promising members of the guild; in the game-canon, he went on to have the Dolls, who are trained in Bison's psychokinetic style as potential replacements for his ever-failing body). This also goes the other way, with players creating sheets for characters (re)introduced to the main Street Fighter series in Street Fighter Alpha and all future games.
• Artistic License – Martial Arts: A number of them with martial arts.
  • Shotokan karate is a very common discipline of karate, which is treated like a mystical elite one only known by Ken and Ryu.
  • Lerdrit (one word in RL) as practiced by M. Bison is considered a weird psychic super-fighting style. It's actually just the military form of Thai Kickboxing.
  • Some of the wrestling manoeuvres are creatively named. As one example, the move most people think of as a powerbomb is called a 'Backbreaker' here.
• Blessed with Suck/Cursed with Awesome:
  • The Animal Hybrid suffers from social alienation and mental deficiencies (represented by giving them lower starting and max Social and Mental stats) and a propensity to going into uncontrollable berserker frenzies in battle that has given them a very bad (if justifiable) reputation. On the other hand, they have far greater physical capabilities than mere humans and can have special bestial powers, like Wall Crawling or a Healing Factor.
  • The Cyborg has all kinds of cool gear, but is loathed by non-augmented Street Fighters and generally quite obviously inhuman.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Among other things, the fighting styles of Ryu and Ken (Ansatsuken), Blanka (officially called "feral movement and electric powers") and Bison (Psycho Power) are respectively called "shotokan", "capoeira" and "ler drit", which are all real-world styles subject to extreme Artistic License – Martial Arts.
• Canon Foreigner: The new fighters Aka Zahn, Alexander, Amanda Raintree, Anvil, Arslan, Arthur Parkington, Becca, Blade, Bonni "Backhand" Brown, Castor Mitaxis, The Chain, Chimu Nihon, Corona, The Crusher, Cyclone Garetti, Dana the Pole, Dehrik Savitch, Denzil Kincaid, Diablo, Dione, Dhakmar, Drake, Drakis, Dr. Lao, Dulcinea, Dunatis, Elias Synn, Eric the Red So Fine, Fernando DeGaul, Fixer, Freddy Earther, Gamal "The Phoenix" Qebesenef, Gonzo Bob Hellstrom, GX-9, Hammer, Harpol Jhaliwal, Hercules Harrison, Hikodoshi, Izzy Copper, Jack the Mechanic, Jackie Quace, Jacques Desroche, Jaq, Jason Best, Jean Lemonte, K.O., Kai, Kallista, Ken Paducah, Khan, Kiritan, Kuma Mizu, Kwa So, Lady Khan, Laverne, Leander, Legion, Lotus Blossom, Mace, Major Carnage, Marcia Calahan, Master Xaudo, Matrix, Midnight, The Mollusk, Nick Fontana, Nychus, Orihime, Paco "The Icepick" Juarez, Pantara, Pheonix Bright, Praetorian, Randi Copper, Ravana, Mr. Ray, Mustafa, Reba Miller, Rix, Rosie, Sai, Sanjo Hidetoshi, Samson Jr, Samson Prowse, Sapphire, Sarah Lewis, Seirei Kaji, Shade, Shan Lung, Shoujo Tora, Siren, Sss' Lusssthu-Kha, Master Takashi, Theons, The Thing That Should Not Be, Tick, Tock, Vanda, Wesley Adams, Col. William Stanton, Wolff Sprenger, and Yuki Takada.
• Cat Girl: The Player's Handbook includes Yuki Otonashi, who fights under the name Shoujo Tora and a female Tiger Hybrid who can basically be described as "Tigra with white & black fur wearing Lum's bikini" in terms of looks. The Contenders has Kiritan, a tiger-based catboy who looks mostly human save for the fur, fangs, claws and tail.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: The core principle of the game, much like in the videogames that gave them life. Train enough in fighting, and you too can throw Kamehame Hadokens and display Super-Strength and Super-Toughness.
• Cute Monster Girl: Nothing prevents an Animal Hybrid or Cyborg character being portrayed this way.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: All Street Fighters seem to be firm believers in this.
• Eldritch Abomination: The entire team "The Unspeakables" from the Contenders is based on this concept, consisting of The Mollusk (a human scientist transformed into a giant humanoid slug by an actual Eldritch Abomination deep beneath the sea), The Thing That Should Not Be (a larval spawn of aforementioned abomination), and Ss'lussthu-Kha (a female priestess from the lost civilisation of Lemurian Snake People who once ruled the world before humanity).
• Elemental Powers: The Elemental background, obviously, gives a fighter access to these.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: The Elementals, obviously, are resistant to attacks of their own elemental affinity, but weak to attacks from another. Fire is weak to water, water is weak to earth, earth is weak to air, and air is weak to fire.
• Empowered Badass Normal:
  • The Animal Hybrid, Cyborg and Elemental all could have been legitimate street fighters in their own right before being transformed into truly inhuman warriors.
    • The rules allow an existing, formerly human fighter to take points in any of these backgrounds later in the game, reflecting their transformation through science, sorcery or esoteric ki techniques.
  • It's possible for Street Fighters to learn M. Bison's style, referred to here as "Ler Drit", including his Psycho Powers.
• Epic Flail: Dhakmar, a mad German descended from a Nazi apologist, fights with a huge spiked ball-and-chain strapped to his wrist.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Animal Hybrids are regarded with distrust by humans, thanks to their propensity for going into violent outbursts when their primitive minds are overwhelmed.
  • All Street Fighters hate Cyborgs, regarding them as sell-outs, disgraces, and glory hounds willing to spit on everything a Street Fighter stands on for mere victory. To represent this, Cyborgs actually start the game with negative Honor.
• Fantasy Gun Control: The rules have damage codes for firearms, but a very specific note for the Game Master to prevent players from getting access to guns no matter what. As the note mentions, what would be the fun of making them face off against any of the other Street Fighters (mentioning as an example E. Honda) if they can Just Shoot Him?
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Basically, the developers chose to treat the universe as a low-level comic book one with aliens, cyborgs, gods, and lost civilizations. This is, notably, Hilarious in Hindsight and predicts how the actual line would go.
• Gaia's Vengeance:
  • One possible, speculated origin for Animal Hybrids is this.
  • Elementals are believed to acquire their power from a deep spiritual connection to the planet itself.
• Holly Wood Cyborg: The Cyborg background, of course, although how much machinery they have implanted and how obviously they are inhuman is based on the points they spend on it.
• Love Triangle: In Chimu Nihon, Akira Leung and Kyoko Kimura are hopelessly in love with each other, which helped them to pick their "stage names" of Hikodoshi^note Which should actually be Hikoboshi, considering the names are based on the legend of Tanabata and Orihime. Meanwhile, Yuki Otonashi has a big crush on Akira.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Bison's fighting style/origin in the tabletop game is as an ex-Soviet mercenary, with his style, Ler Drit, being based on Soviet assassin fighting techniques augmented with powerful jumps and Psychic Powers
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: An option for Cyborgs if they first get their Torso tweaked with cyber-implants, in order to be able to sustain multiple limbs.
• Our Dragons Are Different: One of the sample characters in the Contenders splat? Drakis, an alien who resembles a humanoid dragon and who's mechanically represented by having 5 dots in the Animal Hybrid (Dragon) background.
• Power at a Price: The idea behind taking points in Animal Hybrid and/or Cyborg after initial character creation; your character is so willing for power that they're willing to risk turning into a berserk monster or sacrificing precious Honor if it'll make them stronger.
• The Power of Hate: The Ler Drit technique "Psychic Rage/Poison Haze", which allows a user to drive a victim into a psychotic frenzy. In this state, their ability to fight and kill is greatly increased, but they make suicidal strikes, ignore pain, and are prone to committing actions that destroy Honor.
  • Funnily enough, this would go on to be the canon description of Psycho Power (the energy Bison can summon): A psychic manifestation of M. Bison's hatred.
• Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: Directly called into play with the Animal Hybrid background, which notes that the Hybrids generally look less human the further along they are — Blanka, for comparison, is a level 2 to 3 on the scale. True bestial powers are generally restricted to those who rank 4 or 5 on the scale.
• Supernatural Martial Arts: The "Focus" category of abilities covers more fantastical/mystical applications of fighting style. By using this, a player can design a character who embraces or averts this trope.
• Technically-Living Zombie: The Revenants, students of Bison's Ler Drit style who are overwhelmed by the psychokinesis training and destroy their minds. The result is a hollow, soulless husk, incapable of feeling pain, joy, almost beyond the capacity for independent thought. Bison himself thinks of them as little better than corpses that are still walking around, and so he expends them without a thought. To represent this, when beaten in a match, a Revenant dies rather than collapses, no matter what their opponent did, burning away until all that's left is a blackened skeleton or a pile of ashes.
• Training from Hell: As one might expect, the details mentioned of Bison and Vega's schools for Ler Drit and Spanish Ninjitsu are... unpleasant. Bison's students who can't keep up with the pace either die or lose their souls, becoming near-undead killers called "Revenants". Vega's typical training routine is to throw the aspiring student into a field with one or more mad bulls, forcing them to learn to dodge, jump and climb trees or be gored/trampled to death.

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