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It's been a while since the original version of Feng Shui was released. The book didn't exactly leap off the shelves at people with its dark figures on a blue cover and there were rumors of bad management at Daedalus Games. It took me until Origins this year to get a copy of the most recent sourcebook, Blood of the Valiant, which was published by Ronin about two years ago because distributors and retailers thought that Feng Shui was a dead line.

Hallelujiah! Feng Shui is not dead. It's been brought back by Atlas Games. The new hardback edition leaps off the shelf and screams to be paged through and bought. It's brightly-colored and eye-catching. Inside, while the pages are a bit flimsier than I'd like, the artwork is mostly good and the rules are the same rules I've loved since Feng Shui first came out.

For newcomers to the game and people who've never heard of it before, Feng Shui takes heavily from action movies, especially Hong Kong action movies. The premise is one that was created for the Shadowfist CCG, then expanded for this RPG: In four different time junctures and the Netherworld that connects them, multiple factions struggle to control the world's feng shui sites to change the timeline to their vision of how the world should be. To that end, you have futuristic cyborgs and cyborged monsters, merciless Shaolin monks, evil sorcerors from ancient China, radical anarchists led by cybernetic apes, and a secret conspiracy of animals in human form all duking it out with the heroes, a rag-tag group of do-gooders from various times and places.

Players choose characters from a list of templates, which can be customized slightly. The characters are all action movie stereotypes, but it's in keeping with the genre. It's also easy to get new players into the game, because they only have to pick a character rather than build one from the ground up. Unlike other template-driven systems, there are no rules for making your own templates other than a suggestion to work with your GM. Oddly, this is not a weakness: any build system would reduce the uniqueness of the templates, and with 26 different templates offered in the main rulebook (the new edition incorporates those templates that were left out of the original and printed in Back for Seconds), there's plenty of room for players to get the character they want.

The action is fast and furious, with rules for cinematic gunplay, kung-fu, and sorcery. It captures the feel of Hong Kong action movies without being so unstructured as to put all the work on the GM or so structured that the game doesn't feel loose and open for the most preposterous stunts.

Feng Shui games have been the most fun I've ever had gaming. Under new management and with the incomparable Greg Stolze as line editor, Feng Shui lives! Now go out and buy a copy.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Feng Shui Action Movie Roleplaying
Author: Robin D. Laws Category: game Company/Publisher: Atlas Games Line: Feng Shui Cost: $30,00 USD Page count: 256 ISBN: 1-887801-76-6 SKU: AG4000 Playtest Review by Kevin Mowery on 08/11/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Modern_day Horror Conspiracy Asian/Far_East	It's been a while since the original version of Feng Shui was released. The book didn't exactly leap off the shelves at people with its dark figures on a blue cover and there were rumors of bad management at Daedalus Games. It took me until Origins this year to get a copy of the most recent sourcebook, Blood of the Valiant, which was published by Ronin about two years ago because distributors and retailers thought that Feng Shui was a dead line. Hallelujiah! Feng Shui is not dead. It's been brought back by Atlas Games. The new hardback edition leaps off the shelf and screams to be paged through and bought. It's brightly-colored and eye-catching. Inside, while the pages are a bit flimsier than I'd like, the artwork is mostly good and the rules are the same rules I've loved since Feng Shui first came out. For newcomers to the game and people who've never heard of it before, Feng Shui takes heavily from action movies, especially Hong Kong action movies. The premise is one that was created for the Shadowfist CCG, then expanded for this RPG: In four different time junctures and the Netherworld that connects them, multiple factions struggle to control the world's feng shui sites to change the timeline to their vision of how the world should be. To that end, you have futuristic cyborgs and cyborged monsters, merciless Shaolin monks, evil sorcerors from ancient China, radical anarchists led by cybernetic apes, and a secret conspiracy of animals in human form all duking it out with the heroes, a rag-tag group of do-gooders from various times and places. Players choose characters from a list of templates, which can be customized slightly. The characters are all action movie stereotypes, but it's in keeping with the genre. It's also easy to get new players into the game, because they only have to pick a character rather than build one from the ground up. Unlike other template-driven systems, there are no rules for making your own templates other than a suggestion to work with your GM. Oddly, this is not a weakness: any build system would reduce the uniqueness of the templates, and with 26 different templates offered in the main rulebook (the new edition incorporates those templates that were left out of the original and printed in Back for Seconds), there's plenty of room for players to get the character they want. The action is fast and furious, with rules for cinematic gunplay, kung-fu, and sorcery. It captures the feel of Hong Kong action movies without being so unstructured as to put all the work on the GM or so structured that the game doesn't feel loose and open for the most preposterous stunts. Feng Shui games have been the most fun I've ever had gaming. Under new management and with the incomparable Greg Stolze as line editor, Feng Shui lives! Now go out and buy a copy. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Feng Shui Action Movie Roleplaying