The Inside Scoop on Gaming

_Golden Comeback_

Golden Comeback is the second Atlas Games supplement to the renewed line of Feng Shui. In this supplement, the authors really hit their stride, enlarging and expanding the world of FS. Unlike _Seeds of the New Flesh_(see review elsewhere), this supplement brought a broadening of horizons rather than a closing down of possibilities. There's a little something for everyone. The supplement is divided into four sections, which can be summarized by the following: history, role-play, new character stuff, and new crunchy rules stuff.

HEROES (the history of the Dragons)

The opening of this section was coolest for me, with a nice summary of the ancient dragons, the original maverick heroes out to preserve truth and individual rights. There's a neat bit of choose-yer-own reasons that the Dragons keep reappearing, ranging from some invisible patron to the idea that the Dragons are a metaphysical expression kind of like a Campbellian archetype. It gives GMs story ideas without making things difficult if you personalize your campaign.

The section continues with the birth and death of the most recent group of Dragons before the PCs. This is a retelling of the individuals involved in Operation Killdeer, the big massacre of the Dragons from the Daedalus book Back for Seconds. Some of the information is slightly different or garbled from Shadowfist and the older FS materials. Despite some weird typos (Jack Donovan became Jake, Draco became Drago), the section reads well to me. The best suggestion I have heard is that a small critical shift has slightly altered what we thought was reality. More importantly, instead of ignoring many plot elements (as was done in Seeds for the 2056 juncture), the book adds new twists or GM hooks.

I have heard complaints that the AVs on the characters (like Kar Fai) were too low. (For those of you non-FS players, their THACO is too low. Or high. Whatever makes them wimpier.) I personally feel that this is a nice antidote to the AV inflation in some of the Daedalus-produced or licensed books. Wong Fei Hong has a 21 MA? Oh please!

In addition, I really liked the slightly-confusing but neat version of Iala Mane (sort of like the Phantom, but he REALLY IS the Ghost Who Walks). He's possessed by the Leopard Spirit and the author used the ghost template to give a living man some interesting powers. As I have adapted several templates to fit player conceptions, I was glad to see the "official" FS material doing it, too.

Being a better players (RP/stunts)

I must confess that I like to be a good role-player. I like to think that I stay in character and try to develop that character. As a result, I loved this section, one that people whom are just playing for good, clean fun may poo poo. (This ties in to the "real" role-player discussion I see/have on RPGnet quite frequently.) The first half is a nice bit about how to use/break the stereotypes of action movies to produce a dynamic, memorable character. Most of the advice was pretty much what most of us know, but it was nice to have it all together there.

The second section is for the HK movie-impaired, or for me after a hard week's work. It's HARD to come up with interesting stunts sometimes, and there's a neat set of example stunts to give flavor to a character in various situations.

The final section of this chapter involves giving flavor to martial arts. A number of the most common are discussed. Basically, it gives players who don't know the art their character knows hints about maneuvers and shticks to use. There's also a bit about using gun shticks with HTH weapons. These are good, but could use a little renaming to make them sound more hth-weapony. It seems to me that this was done on Bryant Durrell's excellent FS site, if you're interested.

Being a better character (added shticks, guns, and gadgets)

This was the least interesting chapter to me, but it's not badly written. (Okay, except for the Transformed Mallard writeup. That one was definitely done on drugs. Reaching for any connection to Duckness combined with shticks that are just weird. You can give someone the Asian flu! It comes from ducks. Or you can give extra WPs to damage by quacking. What the heck? I mean, the homebrew Platypus writeup is almost identical, and it was mostly a joke.)

The stat shticks are shticks only for characters with some stat over 10. They look interesting. There are several that I can see no reason for taking, but maybe the coolness factor will please someone. Transformed animals get a real boost, with new animals and some "any animal" shticks. Creatures and sorcery get a small amount of new information, but see below. There are some great new shticks for the gamblers and other non-combat-specialist characters.

There are new guns listed, although I'm unaware of any gaping holes in the FS armory. Guns are guns. The new shticks are fun, despite the confusingly-named 10,000 bullets (sort of 2-for-one shooting).

Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets. We get rules for making them (simple, because it's more important to get to the scene where it works than RP out the discovery process), sample gadgets for spies, and Techie shticks. I have a player who will DIE for this stuff. (Not a real combat monster, but loves being the techie.) I still need to look it over, but it looks extremely well-balanced.

Last but not least, the combination of shticks workshop. The authors give rules and examples how to combine two shticks into a massive nasty shtick. Many of these are not super-efficient, but if the player wants to do something unique, they come in handy. Eh. I will probably discover the disadvantages of this stuff only after my players read them and attempt game-hosing tricks. Or, more properly, when Chuck does.

Other Troubles

We have car chase rules! And they make sense! And they don't slow things down! Ok, I'm going to make sure to have another car chase chance pop up just to try these out with my group. The rules are simple and clean and follow the same stereotypes that action movies do. There are shticks and vehicles for your drivers and some cool resolution mechanics. Go to it!

This section has combat tricks, too. Hold, grapples, joint breaking, KOs, stuff like that. I liked the KO rules, especially the part to reassure the players. Action Heroes DO get knocked unconscious, but it's just so we can set up a cool scene to give you back story and/or make you look cool when you escape. Disarming looks interesting but difficult. I can't figure out joint locks. It seems to add the chance to hose certain characters and add cumbersome rules without really adding much coolness. It's not your Killer who is going to get his trigger finger broken, it's the less-skilled (and lower AV) journalist. Who wants to pick on the less combat-oriented characters?

OVERVIEW Production values are just what I would expect from Atlas Games: solid and easy to read, but not outstanding. Despite the fact that I despised the cover, I found the interior art strongly in theme and enjoyable. Most fun were the action shots (like the Drew Baker piece on 36) and the interior fronts page, which I think might have made a better cover than what we have. I had a moment of confusion when reading the Heroes section because one piece is repeated twice (I was using it as a landmark when I had to stop reading), but I got over it.

I would recommend this to any players of FS or even people who want to bring cinematic action to their current (other) game. There are enough examples and good ideas here to port into any system.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Golden Comeback
Author: Various Category: game Company/Publisher: Atlas Games Line: Feng Shui Cost: 20 Page count: 127 ISBN: 1-887801-80-4 SKU: AG4002 Capsule Review by John Ward on 02/06/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Modern_day Anime Conspiracy Asian/Far_East	_Golden Comeback_ Golden Comeback is the second Atlas Games supplement to the renewed line of Feng Shui. In this supplement, the authors really hit their stride, enlarging and expanding the world of FS. Unlike _Seeds of the New Flesh_(see review elsewhere), this supplement brought a broadening of horizons rather than a closing down of possibilities. There's a little something for everyone. The supplement is divided into four sections, which can be summarized by the following: history, role-play, new character stuff, and new crunchy rules stuff. HEROES (the history of the Dragons) The opening of this section was coolest for me, with a nice summary of the ancient dragons, the original maverick heroes out to preserve truth and individual rights. There's a neat bit of choose-yer-own reasons that the Dragons keep reappearing, ranging from some invisible patron to the idea that the Dragons are a metaphysical expression kind of like a Campbellian archetype. It gives GMs story ideas without making things difficult if you personalize your campaign. The section continues with the birth and death of the most recent group of Dragons before the PCs. This is a retelling of the individuals involved in Operation Killdeer, the big massacre of the Dragons from the Daedalus book Back for Seconds. Some of the information is slightly different or garbled from Shadowfist and the older FS materials. Despite some weird typos (Jack Donovan became Jake, Draco became Drago), the section reads well to me. The best suggestion I have heard is that a small critical shift has slightly altered what we thought was reality. More importantly, instead of ignoring many plot elements (as was done in Seeds for the 2056 juncture), the book adds new twists or GM hooks. I have heard complaints that the AVs on the characters (like Kar Fai) were too low. (For those of you non-FS players, their THACO is too low. Or high. Whatever makes them wimpier.) I personally feel that this is a nice antidote to the AV inflation in some of the Daedalus-produced or licensed books. Wong Fei Hong has a 21 MA? Oh please! In addition, I really liked the slightly-confusing but neat version of Iala Mane (sort of like the Phantom, but he REALLY IS the Ghost Who Walks). He's possessed by the Leopard Spirit and the author used the ghost template to give a living man some interesting powers. As I have adapted several templates to fit player conceptions, I was glad to see the "official" FS material doing it, too. Being a better players (RP/stunts) I must confess that I like to be a good role-player. I like to think that I stay in character and try to develop that character. As a result, I loved this section, one that people whom are just playing for good, clean fun may poo poo. (This ties in to the "real" role-player discussion I see/have on RPGnet quite frequently.) The first half is a nice bit about how to use/break the stereotypes of action movies to produce a dynamic, memorable character. Most of the advice was pretty much what most of us know, but it was nice to have it all together there. The second section is for the HK movie-impaired, or for me after a hard week's work. It's HARD to come up with interesting stunts sometimes, and there's a neat set of example stunts to give flavor to a character in various situations. The final section of this chapter involves giving flavor to martial arts. A number of the most common are discussed. Basically, it gives players who don't know the art their character knows hints about maneuvers and shticks to use. There's also a bit about using gun shticks with HTH weapons. These are good, but could use a little renaming to make them sound more hth-weapony. It seems to me that this was done on Bryant Durrell's excellent FS site, if you're interested. Being a better character (added shticks, guns, and gadgets) This was the least interesting chapter to me, but it's not badly written. (Okay, except for the Transformed Mallard writeup. That one was definitely done on drugs. Reaching for any connection to Duckness combined with shticks that are just weird. You can give someone the Asian flu! It comes from ducks. Or you can give extra WPs to damage by quacking. What the heck? I mean, the homebrew Platypus writeup is almost identical, and it was mostly a joke.) The stat shticks are shticks only for characters with some stat over 10. They look interesting. There are several that I can see no reason for taking, but maybe the coolness factor will please someone. Transformed animals get a real boost, with new animals and some "any animal" shticks. Creatures and sorcery get a small amount of new information, but see below. There are some great new shticks for the gamblers and other non-combat-specialist characters. There are new guns listed, although I'm unaware of any gaping holes in the FS armory. Guns are guns. The new shticks are fun, despite the confusingly-named 10,000 bullets (sort of 2-for-one shooting). Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets. We get rules for making them (simple, because it's more important to get to the scene where it works than RP out the discovery process), sample gadgets for spies, and Techie shticks. I have a player who will DIE for this stuff. (Not a real combat monster, but loves being the techie.) I still need to look it over, but it looks extremely well-balanced. Last but not least, the combination of shticks workshop. The authors give rules and examples how to combine two shticks into a massive nasty shtick. Many of these are not super-efficient, but if the player wants to do something unique, they come in handy. Eh. I will probably discover the disadvantages of this stuff only after my players read them and attempt game-hosing tricks. Or, more properly, when Chuck does. Other Troubles We have car chase rules! And they make sense! And they don't slow things down! Ok, I'm going to make sure to have another car chase chance pop up just to try these out with my group. The rules are simple and clean and follow the same stereotypes that action movies do. There are shticks and vehicles for your drivers and some cool resolution mechanics. Go to it! This section has combat tricks, too. Hold, grapples, joint breaking, KOs, stuff like that. I liked the KO rules, especially the part to reassure the players. Action Heroes DO get knocked unconscious, but it's just so we can set up a cool scene to give you back story and/or make you look cool when you escape. Disarming looks interesting but difficult. I can't figure out joint locks. It seems to add the chance to hose certain characters and add cumbersome rules without really adding much coolness. It's not your Killer who is going to get his trigger finger broken, it's the less-skilled (and lower AV) journalist. Who wants to pick on the less combat-oriented characters? OVERVIEW Production values are just what I would expect from Atlas Games: solid and easy to read, but not outstanding. Despite the fact that I despised the cover, I found the interior art strongly in theme and enjoyable. Most fun were the action shots (like the Drew Baker piece on 36) and the interior fronts page, which I think might have made a better cover than what we have. I had a moment of confusion when reading the Heroes section because one piece is repeated twice (I was using it as a landmark when I had to stop reading), but I got over it. I would recommend this to any players of FS or even people who want to bring cinematic action to their current (other) game. There are enough examples and good ideas here to port into any system. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)