/tg/ -Feng Shui Thread, Motherfuckers

Name
Email
Subject	REC STOP
Comment *
File	Select/drop/paste files here
Password	(Randomized for file and post deletion; you may also set your own.)
Archive	Archive [500 char limit]
* = required field	[▶Show post options & limits] Confused? See the FAQ.

File: 89b5057c1ed69ea⋯.jpeg (154.93 KB,500x647,500:647,Golden Comeback cover.jpeg)

File: a57985e5dbcac69⋯.png (107.45 KB,350x434,25:31,ClipboardImage.png)

File: 143a0ac65d486e4⋯.png (576.36 KB,816x1056,17:22,Seed of the New Flesh - li….png)

File: 213930c44d9dd83⋯.png (503.75 KB,816x1056,17:22,Seed of the New Flesh - li….png)

Feng Shui Thread, Motherfuckers Anonymous 07/16/19 (Tue) 16:05:34 No.423833

>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 sensible ideas in Feng Shui which I think other systems can benefit from. Some systems already have.

<1hp minions that die instantly in addition to regular enemies

<modular environment design which makes campaign construction very easy

<modern settings and gun rules that aren't completely awful like seemingly every other modern TTRPG setting

<racial caricatures that would never get published in a game these days

<tonnes of weird lore, like The Big Babies or the "dystopian future" that's actually just a normal news day in CY+4 (pics 3 and 4)

____________________________

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/16/19 (Tue) 16:11:22 No.423835

So now that the system explanation is out of the way, does anyone else have experience with the system? I wasn't able to find many resources for it, and I think it's been kind of forgotten by the mainstream. The most thorough explanation I found was on 1d4chan.

>favourite time setting?

>favourite shticks and character abilities?

>any good stories to tell?

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/17/19 (Wed) 00:12:41 No.423865

I'd love to talk about this, but I have no experience. If you've got .pdfs or somewhere else I can read the rules I'll tell you what I see in it. I tend to prefer games built around strong averages since it encourages more player participation to succeed instead of everything basically being a crapshoot.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/17/19 (Wed) 10:49:17 No.423899

>>423835

>So now that the system explanation is out of the way, does anyone else have experience with the system?

I took an interest in it for a while a few years ago, but I never really got the chance to play it. I remember really liking the setting, though.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/17/19 (Wed) 23:45:10 No.423934

File: a48155ac8210bb9⋯.pdf (644.24 KB,Briefing.pdf)

>>423865

>PDFs

https://mega.nz/#!FHwQAQJB!eZg3TFWRhur-03CyIQbw0cHCYK8Mq-R5WxM5tmit2Tc

Here's a bunch of supplemental books. The RAR archive with the core books is several times the size, which will take a little while to upload with my 83KB/s Canuck upload speed God I fucking hate this country. I'm also attaching a briefing PDF that has a short description of the core rules like how checks works, how to create a character, etc.

This is a bit of an aside, but I like reading books from this era. There's something about the art and general prose that makes them more tolerable despite using "she" to refer to players and GMs repeatedly. A lot of modern books feel more stuffy for whatever reason, and not just because of the ubiquitous poz.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/18/19 (Thu) 00:23:29 No.423938

>>423934

https://mega.nz/#!MCxB2QSD!heDwFp-Zwz4QQtcPivevzOKWFhFWvT7oQkk28gYxkuw

And here's the link to the core rulebooks.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/18/19 (Thu) 03:10:56 No.423973

>>423938

>>423934

Just saw your post. I'm grabbing these and after I get a read in I'll probably have something to discuss.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/18/19 (Thu) 20:50:55 No.424034

>>423833

Oh hey, look at that. Why aren't we using 2e if I may ask?

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/18/19 (Thu) 22:38:09 No.424038

File: 450781d642589e8⋯.png (1.92 MB,1400x909,1400:909,ClipboardImage.png)

File: b8db2801b48774b⋯.pdf (575.86 KB,Feng Shui Character Sheet.pdf)

>>423973

Neat. Looking forward to it.

>>424034

The primary reason is that I have all the old books, and thus I can share them more easily. The reason I haven't looked too much into the new books is because they just don't have as many (although they do have more than the last time I checked), and I dislike the changes to the rules and setting.

>Rules

From some light skimming, apparently character customization has been simplified significantly, which I disliked. 1E is a rules light system where you can make a character in 10 minutes, but it does support more complex customization if players choose to do that (and I'm forever a GM, so I do choose to do that because it gives me something to do). The primary/secondary stat split, which I really liked, is now gone completely and characters simply have Attack, Defence, and Skill values which are completely independent. It was already a pretty simple system, but they made it even simpler: what they wanted to facilitate with this change, I'm unsure.

Experienced in 1E is technically a 0-6 point scale, but it's realistically a 3-6 point scale provided you don't have any That Guys, with 3 as the base and 4+ being for outstanding successes and character development. I can see why they'd want to change it because leaving that stuff to the GM's discretion can invite petty bickering, but I play with other adults at my table and I think we can all avoid that by being adults. In 2E, you gain experience automatically by attuning to a Feng Shui site, and then you roll a die at the end of a session - the more sessions you don't roll successfully, the bigger a bonus you get to doing so. Spending experience is more direct; I don't think players save up points as frequently.

The setting is something that is mostly personal preference, but I think the 1E time junctures do a good job of covering all bases.

>69 A.D. in ancient china

>1850 A.D. in colonial china

>1996 in hong kong, the current year

>2056 in a dystopian future

>the abyss outside of time and space

There was also plenty of crossover between the various junctures, so having characters from one appear in another was perfectly reasonable.

In 2E, the 2056 rebel faction detonated a chi bomb and changed the timeline, so you have:

>690 A.D. in ancient china except the villains are less powerful and you get to see china's stronk female empress

>1850 in colonial china and it's basically the same

>the actual current year

>2074 and you get a Mad Max setting with an empire of cyborg apes

>the abyss outside of time and space

<and whatever other juncture your GM feels like implementing because the chi bomb happened to create time portals that can lead to whatever time period you want for however long you want

The last one just strikes me as a gimmick, frankly. It'd be totally within the rules of the first game to homebrew something like that, and the complete eradication of the 2056 government (and, coincidentally, all the problematic elements like state-enforced racemixing and omnipresent microtechnology that spies on everything you do) removed one of my favourite settings/factions.

Overall, 2E doesn't seem to do anything better than its predecessor.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/18/19 (Thu) 23:44:25 No.424044

>>423973

Okay, I've read a bit of the base book. I like that it uses a tick system for initiative where you get to act multiple times per "round", that schticks allow for multiple mechanically different ways to heal folks and that the game encourages descriptiveness as well as exploring/conquering places to improve character's abilities.

That being said, the fact that you can get a LOT more instances to act as well as going first by pumping speed is a problem aknowledged in the book, the system seems to really straight jacket you into your type (probably because it is trying to recreate action movies that don't usually feature character arcs) and the number of them is fairly limited. If I make a crusading priest character from an early junction I probably want more martial arts skill and less guns, but the system doesn't really support these basic ideas other than saying "ask your GM" .

Overall I like the system though I'll probably never get the chance to play it considering how every tabletop group I hear about is playing some color of 5E or Pathfinder. I'd also probably want to play somewhere other than China since I feel like many of the action movies I've seen that relate to this take place in American venues, probably because they were produced in Hollywood. I really liked "Big Trouble in Little China" for example and I feel like that would be harder to pull off in Hong Kong.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/18/19 (Thu) 23:51:03 No.424046

>>424038

Also from how you describe it 2E seems considerably worse than its predecessor in all regards except quality of illustration, and even that is subjective if you consider uniqueness to be a positive trait. Advancement also seems even more restricted.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 07/19/19 (Fri) 08:24:52 No.424076

>>424038

Can't really say much about the mechanics, as I've only learned and remember 2e. I figured simplicity was it's charm.

>In 2E, you gain experience automatically by attuning to a Feng Shui site

I find that sorta bullshit myself and waived that away. I just tell the players to pick something from the "awesome it up" section of the archetype when appropriate.

>The setting is something that is mostly personal preference, but I think the 1E time junctures do a good job of covering all bases

I kinda waive away the setting most of the time. However I did read trough the setting of 1, and I have to admit it is indeed more fleshed out. The 2e junctures are rather vague, and are just begging to be changed, or have players be brought into a custom juncture of your own invention.

I am also allergic to time shenanigans, so I prefer alternate dimensions rather than time travel. Yes I know the books talk about that, but that is not the point.

>>424044

>the system seems to really straight jacket you into your type

Yes, there should be some guidelines about mixing/modifying archetypes. As it stands you would have to play from scratch, and hope you don't make something accidentally broken.

>Overall I like the system though I'll probably never get the chance to play it considering how every tabletop group I hear about is playing some color of 5E or Pathfinder

Damn it! I've just started a game 2 weeks ago. I am running Burning Shaolin for a bunch of dndnoobs.

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.

Anonymous 08/02/19 (Fri) 03:04:13 No.425333

>>424044

>the system seems to really straight jacket you into your type and the number of them is fairly limited

Yeah, that's a runoff effect of it being developed as a rules-light system with very possible/frequent character death. Then again, I don't think there are too many shticks, so it's not as though you're losing too much by being locked into one of them. If you wanted to multi-class (say, your martial artist becomes a police officer), then you could always just pick one of the unique cop shticks depending on your type and add it to your character sheet. The risk of creating an OP character isn't much of a risk because most of the system is shooting from the hip anyway.

>"ask your GM"

Very true. I've criticized badly constructed systems like D&D5e for doing this, so I must concede that it is a problem within the system. I suppose the only saving grace is that it won't be encountered very often. If you have casual players like me then you can just run one-offs every couple months and pretend like none of the other stuff ever happened.

I wish I had more dedicated players ;_;

>play somewhere other than China

Have a look at some of the other splatbooks. Seed of the New Flesh in particular has a global scale due to the one world government. The prefab adventure The Cancer Factory takes place almost entirely in North America.

>>424076

>I am running Burning Shaolin for a bunch of dndnoobs

How's it going so far? Did they stick to it?

Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof - text, media, or otherwise - do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration.