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View Full Version : Thoughts on Feng Shui (the game)



Grynning
2009-09-29, 11:37 PM
So, my friend bought a copy that I'm borrowing. He's really excited about it, and while I love the concept, I'm not as impressed with the game as I thought I would be. The rules don't seem to be anything special (I don't think they're much better than say NWoD or d20 modern for action movie type games) and it seems to me that there is some major imbalance between the various character archetypes...the "badass normal" types don't really seem that bad ass, whereas the kung fu and magic guys have tons of options and powers.

Has anyone played this game who can give me another opinion?

Edit: I realize that not everyone may know what I'm talking about...so just for the curious, Feng Shui is an RPG from the late 90's that is based on a CCG about people from various time "junctures" fighting over powerful Feng Shui sites (loosely based on the Chinese concept of Geomancy). The game overall is supposed to simulate Hong Kong action movies, with a heavy dose of the supernatural thrown in (think Big Trouble in Little China). It is a very cool concept, I'm just disappointed with the mechanics.

NeoVid
2009-09-30, 12:05 AM
It's one of my all-time favorite games, and I'll play it at any opportunity.

And the character types are not even in power. They are, however, equal in the amount of awesome they are capable of, which is what counts. The only problems I've seen can happen to the Big Bruiser and sometimes the Supernatural Creature, who get stuck with combat skills one point lower than anyone else's at character creation, which causes trouble until they get some XP to match up.

And really, any frustration I had when playing my Supernatural Creature was buried by the time I rolled a 25 on an attack and took down an attack chopper by throwing a guy through it.*

The mechanics are not a big deal, as they do everything that this game needs to do just fine. There's a tight tolerance for the variance of combat skills, but as long as you don't have a Big Bruiser and and Old Master in the same group, everyone should be about equally effective.

*The rules specify that if you rolled a total of 25, you would succeed at jumping across the Grand Canyon. Which is the sort of thing every character should do at least once per campaign.

DMfromTheAbyss
2009-09-30, 02:30 AM
I must say of Feng Shui... It's simple, fun and it works. That's not a bad thing, it's a feature. The mechanics aren't anything complexity wise, a character can be written up in the time it takes you to go to the bathroom quick. And you can use it from anything from Aliens, to Once upon a time in China. The flavor of the game is amazing.. just give it a shot it'll grow on you.

The only work aroundable game imbalance is the above mentioned Big Bruisers and Old Masters having radically different starting combat values. Still if you can deal with missing a lot, combat wise the big bruiser is still viable as their toughness makes up for a lot in combat.. though it can be frustrating to play one and keep missing. (been there)

Eventually with a decent amount of xp Transformed animals can get really abusive too if you know what your doing. (I'm looking at you transformed Crab)