>what is this?
Feng Shui is a TTRPG based on Hong Kong martial arts movies with considerable artistic licence taken. It combines time travel, cybernetic gorillas, ancient magic, and dystopian police states, all of which can be either deadly serious or laughable depending on your tastes. There are two editions: the original run released in the 1990s, and a newer edition released around 2012 with the help of crowdfunding. The older one has MANY more splatbooks and some more interesting rules; personally, I consider it the superior version.
>how does it play?
It's a rules-light system, but not in the "the entire rulebook fits on a sheet of paper" way. There are still many options for character customization and progression, and the combat rules are complex enough for those options to be meaningful without becoming a slog. To put it simply, characters have four base stats, and several sub-stats within them which can be differentiated if you want them to be. Otherwise, they have the same value as the base stat (so a big strong character could have high strength and low base agility, but high manual dexterity within the agility stat).
The dice are also simple: it uses a 2d6/delta-5 system, where you roll a positive die and a negative die, then add any relevant modifiers to the roll, with special rules for rolling boxcars. No epic natural 20 memes, I promise. It also features a wonderful, game-approved way to take the piss out of rules lawyers (pic 2).
Combat is abnormal, but not in a bad way. Rolling initiative means each character generates a number of action points ("shots"), and characters take turns spending them until everyone is out, at which point your roll another round ("sequence") of initiative. The person with the most points acts first, and you can only spend a few at a time, so everyone runs out at roughly the same time.
>why should i care?
because the board's too damn slow and i wanted to make a thread about something i really enjoy
Despite being a system meant for fast-paced play, there are a lot of sensiblPost too long. Click here to view the full text.