Most RPGs try to support a variety of playstyles. In a D&D-like, you might be a fighting guy, a support guy, a talk-y guy, a skill-monkey, etc. But Rivers & Lakes is a fighting game, meaning that everyone is a fighting guy, and therefore, we need a variety of different fighting playstyles.
I think we've accomplished that quite well. Technically, every character has a unique "fighting style." But even just looking at the handful of core ingredients those fighting styles are built from, we wanted to make sure that each ingredient offered a distinct experience that would be fun and interesting and have its own role to fill. D&D-likes usually just settle for "melee vs ranged" with only a couple extra details on top. But we have a lot more than that, giving you tons of possibilities to explore.
There's one in particular that I want to talk about, because it presented a design challenge that I find especially interesting: unarmed fighting.
