The Inside Scoop on Gaming

This is a rockin' game. The players are part of a secret war for control of the Earth's powerpoints, the sites with the greatest feng shui. The war takes place in the present, past, and future, and the game is styled as a Hong Kong Action movie. Fast-paced dramatic action is the soul of this game.

Characters are designed around templates with abilities divided into or between four groups: gun schticks, fu schticks, sorcery, creature abilities, transformed animals, and arcanowave technology. Gun schticks are special abilities like Both Guns Blazing and Lightning Reload that allow a character to blaze away like a John Woo character. Diving through the air while firing two guns at a group of mooks is what this game is all about. The fu schticks are special kung fu powers that allow characters to run up walls, deal out damage, and engage in all sorts of flashy maneuvers. To do sorcery, you have to come from the distant past (69 AD), and this game has one of the best magic systems I've seen in awhile. It is very clean and very flexible. Game system encourages dramatic use of magic (and discourages subtle magic that takes away from the game). The only catch is that magic works best in the past. Want to play a demon, vampire, or ghost? You can and the creature abilities let you do it. Transformed animals are the descendents of animals that centuries ago decided to become human. They are not shape shifters, but they do receive some special abilities. Arcanowave technology is sorcerous cyber/bio-ware from the future and is generally bad shit (for the user).

The game is played out over four juctures in time: 69, 1850, 1996, and 2056. The players travel in time by stepping through gates into the chaotic Netherworld and then through another gate into the appropriate time. There are seven groups battling for control of the timestream, and more groups in the Netherworld itself, but PCs generally come from only one of the groups.

Feng Shui adopts a fast-paced cinematic style, and this is both one of its greatest assets and its greatest limitation. Players are encouraged to be wildly creative and dramatic, as long as it moves the game along. However, the game is unabashedly combat oriented. Roleplaying and social interactions are downplayed if not discouraged. In some cases this works great. In one example of how to plot and run scenarios, a techie goes on a shopping run for parts. In the example, the techie player is getting ready to go on a long roleplaying diversion when the GM just cuts him off, offers a dramatic summary of the techie's parts scavenging, and moves the game onto the next major event. Training is handled similarly. When a character gets a new skill, the player has to dramatize a montage of training scenes summarizing weeks of study in the new skill.

All of this fast-paced action is limiting, though, in that when you get down to it, all this game is really about is combat. Feng Shui offers a great context and encourages just enough roleplaying and strategy to get the players to the next combat. In this way, it's very similar to Champions and other super hero games. There are only 15 skills in the game, and they are heavily oriented to combat. The skills are, however, very broad. For example, the Martial Arts skills includes both unarmed combat and the use of melee weapons. Also, the concept of "feng shui sites" presented in the rules is also much more vague and elastic than the "caerns" presented in Werewolf.

This is a game for dramatic, combat intensive gaming, limited only by its discouraging of roleplaying social interactions. Looks like a fun game, but I'm not sure that it would work for an ongoing campaign.

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

Feng Shui
Author: Robin D. Laws Category: game Company/Publisher: Daedalus Entertainment Reviewed by Jeb Boyt on 05/21/97. Genre tags: none	This is a rockin' game. The players are part of a secret war for control of the Earth's powerpoints, the sites with the greatest feng shui. The war takes place in the present, past, and future, and the game is styled as a Hong Kong Action movie. Fast-paced dramatic action is the soul of this game. Characters are designed around templates with abilities divided into or between four groups: gun schticks, fu schticks, sorcery, creature abilities, transformed animals, and arcanowave technology. Gun schticks are special abilities like Both Guns Blazing and Lightning Reload that allow a character to blaze away like a John Woo character. Diving through the air while firing two guns at a group of mooks is what this game is all about. The fu schticks are special kung fu powers that allow characters to run up walls, deal out damage, and engage in all sorts of flashy maneuvers. To do sorcery, you have to come from the distant past (69 AD), and this game has one of the best magic systems I've seen in awhile. It is very clean and very flexible. Game system encourages dramatic use of magic (and discourages subtle magic that takes away from the game). The only catch is that magic works best in the past. Want to play a demon, vampire, or ghost? You can and the creature abilities let you do it. Transformed animals are the descendents of animals that centuries ago decided to become human. They are not shape shifters, but they do receive some special abilities. Arcanowave technology is sorcerous cyber/bio-ware from the future and is generally bad shit (for the user). The game is played out over four juctures in time: 69, 1850, 1996, and 2056. The players travel in time by stepping through gates into the chaotic Netherworld and then through another gate into the appropriate time. There are seven groups battling for control of the timestream, and more groups in the Netherworld itself, but PCs generally come from only one of the groups. Feng Shui adopts a fast-paced cinematic style, and this is both one of its greatest assets and its greatest limitation. Players are encouraged to be wildly creative and dramatic, as long as it moves the game along. However, the game is unabashedly combat oriented. Roleplaying and social interactions are downplayed if not discouraged. In some cases this works great. In one example of how to plot and run scenarios, a techie goes on a shopping run for parts. In the example, the techie player is getting ready to go on a long roleplaying diversion when the GM just cuts him off, offers a dramatic summary of the techie's parts scavenging, and moves the game onto the next major event. Training is handled similarly. When a character gets a new skill, the player has to dramatize a montage of training scenes summarizing weeks of study in the new skill. All of this fast-paced action is limiting, though, in that when you get down to it, all this game is really about is combat. Feng Shui offers a great context and encourages just enough roleplaying and strategy to get the players to the next combat. In this way, it's very similar to Champions and other super hero games. There are only 15 skills in the game, and they are heavily oriented to combat. The skills are, however, very broad. For example, the Martial Arts skills includes both unarmed combat and the use of melee weapons. Also, the concept of "feng shui sites" presented in the rules is also much more vague and elastic than the "caerns" presented in Werewolf. This is a game for dramatic, combat intensive gaming, limited only by its discouraging of roleplaying social interactions. Looks like a fun game, but I'm not sure that it would work for an ongoing campaign. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)