The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Feng Shui is a great game, and one deserving of great supplements. When the game debuted from Daedalus Entertainment in 1996, it seemed to have so much promise. Sadly, the support material for Feng Shui has been mismanaged and largely botched. Ironically, the only supplement to date that has done justice to Robin Laws' vision of Feng Shui is Blood of the Valiant, a licensed sourcebook produced by neither of the game's publishers. I had hopes for Atlas Games' revival, but was disappointed in Seed of the New Flesh, tellingly written by the game's current Line Developer. Since that manuscript was detritus from the Daedalus years, I had hoped the line would finally getting rolling with the first book of all new material, Golden Comeback. Here at last was a chance to see the design philosophy of Feng Shui's new publisher at work. Unfortunately, that philosophy turned out to be "if you throw enough shit at the wall, some of it might stick."

Golden Comeback is like a Hong Kong gang bang, with ten different authors credited. The appeal of using many different writers on a project is that you can get the project done much faster. If ten writers are all working at once, a publisher can get a book back in one tenth of the time it would take one person to write the whole thing. While this strategy can work (as proved by the Earthdawn line in Lou Prosperi's hands, for instance), it really requires a Line Developer who can skillfully unify disparate elements into a whole. Whatever his merits as a writer may be, Greg Stolze is not that Line Developer. Golden Comeback suffers from excessive continuity problems, sloppy rules design, and page filling sections of little actual value.

The book is subtitled "The Feng Shui Player's Sourcebook," but it also serves as the faction book for the Dragons. The problem, of course, is that the PCs of your Feng Shui game are meant to be the "next generation" of Dragon heroes, so the book must tell you what it means to be a Dragon without telling you what to do. Geoff Grabowski kicks the book off with a history of the most recent incarnation of the Dragons, well-known to players of the Shadowfist TGC. Grabowski can be a fine writer when he knows what he's talking about, but he really falls down here on some very basic continuity issues. Jack Donovan is renamed Jake, and the Lodge Enforcer Draco is called Drago. Then, in Kar Fai's backstory, his involvement with the Guiding Hand is laid out, including his rather abrupt departure after kicking Quan Lo in the gonads. While this is cute and all, it completely ignores the adventure in Blood of the Valiant, which revolves around a confrontation between Kar Fai and his old master from the Guiding Hand. There is no reference to that master here, and no room in Grabowski's story for him.

Geoff continues on with Kar Fai's story, revealing the true identify of the Prof and explaining how the two of them recruited the batch of heroes featured in Shadowfist. We get to meet Ting Ting, Iale Mane, and the Golden Gunman, and get stats for them all. According to Golden Comeback, these Dragons were active for three years, which we can say with certainty were the years 1993-1996, since Atlas has turned the Contemporary Juncture into the 1996 Juncture to avoid having to update the rules. Grabowski goes on detail some of their early successes, and says that they first made their presence felt in the 69 AD juncture by thwarting a Guiding Hand plot being enacted against the Eaters of the Lotus. A fine story, except that the Lotus didn't actually enter the Secret War until the following year.

The history lesson comes to a close with some details of Operation Killdeer, the plot that killed off many of that generation of the Dragons. This is followed up by section called "Your Friends and Neighbors," which details a bunch of NPCs with Dragon sympathies that can be used in your campaign. These NPCs are of most use to the Game Master, making their presence in a book designated as a Player's Sourcebook questionable. And again, continuity problems rear their ugly heads. The character of Billie Cho is said to have spent five years training and fighting with Ting Ting and then two more sulking as a rock star. The problem? Geoff Grabowski has already established that Ting Ting hails from the 69 AD juncture, so she can't possibly have been in Kowloon in 1989 to save poor Billie's life.

Well, so much for Chapter One (and don't worry, the book only has four big chapters so this review will be not of terminal length). OK, so Chapter Two is called "Being a Better Player." That certainly sounds like it has a place in a players' book, doesn't it? It starts off with some utterly generic advice on "getting in character" from Tim Dedopulous. Either he or Stolze apparently believe that Feng Shui is bringing new roleplayers into the hobby, and that these neophytes need some basic advice (like explaining that RPGs are about having fun with your friends; thanks for the newsflash, man!). Now as great a game as Feng Shui is, it is not an acquisition product. I would guess that 99% of the game's players have played other RPGs before. In other words, they do not need a very basic lesson on creating a character. Dedopulous follows his advice with something called "Attitude Archetypes." You know those personality archetypes that appear in all the White Wolf games? I guess Tim really likes those, because that's exactly what attitude archetypes are.

Thankfully, the back half of Chapter Two is more useful. Tim somewhat redeems himself with some advice on playing an action hero, which is actually relevant to Feng Shui. Rob Heinsoo spouts off some ideas on creative stunts, which may help players who haven't seen a lot of HK flicks. Lastly, Bruce Baugh gives details on many real world martial arts, and shows you how to use the existing fu paths to approximate these styles. Now even if you don't know much martial arts, you can create a character who's an Escrima expert. This is a good thing.

Chapter 3 is called "Being a Better Character" but could just as well be called Schtick-O-Rama. This chapter has more of every existing schtick type, and introduces new ones as well. There's quite a lot of stuff here, so let's break it down and see what we've got.

First up are Stat Schticks by Greg Stolze. These are special schticks only available to characters with stats of 11 or better. Frankly, Feng Shui just did not need yet another kind of schtick. Since these are only available to characters with high stats, and they are really expensive, they are of limited use. While some of the ideas are good, they could have been better used elsewhere. The same could be said of Rob Vaux's "Non-Combat Schticks." For instance, there is a schtick called Automobilus Indestructus, which gives you a car that will keep running during a chase no matter what happens. Appropriate to the genre no doubt, but shouldn't this be one of the new Driving schticks that appear in Chapter 4? Vaux also seems confused about just what game he's writing for at one point. For the schtick "One With the Walls," he says, "After spending one round searching you can find a suitable hiding place…" Too bad we're not playing AD&D here, because there are no rounds in Feng Shui, only sequences and shots!

The next big section has a bunch of new Transformed Animal Powers by Tim Toner. These are a mixed bag. I like the Mantis and the Boar, but others suffer from having schticks that are too complicated or concepts that are just lame. Who the hell wants to play a transformed mallard?! One of the mallard's schticks reads, "With a bellowing quack, you urge your allies to fight more fiercely." I think that should have been, "you make your enemies fall to the floor laughing." After the new packages, Toner introduces some General Schticks for any Transformed Animal. This is good news for Transformed Sharks, who were shorted one schtick in Back for Seconds.

Feng Shui has always needed more gun schticks. While martial artists got some 80 powers to chose from in the core rules, the poor gun guys only got one page worth. If anyone deserves new schticks, it's the gun wielders. Golden Comeback introduces six new schticks, and a bunch of new guns. Cover Fire and Bullet Storm are similar, and both faithfully recreate something you see in action movies all the time. 10,000 bullets, on the other hand, is a Grade A example of bad game design. Basically, it allows a gun guy to shoot at two different targets (three if you spend two schticks) without penalty on every action. This basically doubles the effectiveness of a gun wielder, with no controlling force like chi or fu. Any Killer who doesn't take two schticks of this right away is an idiot.

As for the guns, don't waste your time. The thing about Feng Shui is that it's super easy to stat up guns. Once you know the clip size and the general type of gun, you can whip out stats in seconds flat. Nonetheless, we are "treated" to three pages of new guns, which add zero to the game. My guess is that author Andy Lucas owns a copy of Chameleon Eclectics fine Ultramodern Firearms sourcebook, and that he just picked the guns in there that don't appear in Feng Shui. Lucas also wrote the new Arcanowave devices. Gun Eye is brilliant, and a welcome addition to the Architects catalogue. The rest remind me of the stuff from Seed of the New Flesh. Too complicated and not enough payoff. Any schtick that takes the better part of a column to explain does not belong in Feng Shui.

At least one of the author's of Golden Comeback had his head on straight, and that's Hal Mangold. Hal contributes a nice little system for creating gadgets, much to the delight of techies everywhere, and a bunch of Bond inspired gizmos for spies. OK, I take that back. John Snead also has a good showing with the Creature Powers. He provides ways to combine schticks, as well as both new and "advanced" schticks. Bruce Baugh tries similar tricks in his section on sorcery and nearly makes it work. I see what he was trying to do, but I'm not fully sold on the results.

Finally, and I do mean finally, there are two new character types. In brief, the Athlete is an excuse to use the stat schticks and the Velocity Addict is an excuse to use the Driving schticks. They don't do much you couldn't do with the existing types, but they may appeal to some players.

Now before I move on to the last chapter, there's one more thing I want to mention about schticks. At least three of the new schticks allow you do get some benefit by permanently lowering one of your stats. For the sake of any line developers or game designers out there who may be reading this, let me just say:

PLAYERS WILL NEVER EVER SPEND EXPERIENCE POINTS ON OR USE ANY ABILITY THAT RESULTS IN THEM LOSING STATS PERMANENTLY!

This is Feng Shui, goddammit! You heal all your wounds after every session, you run up streams of bullets, you fight off a hundred mooks at a time. It is not a game about consequences, or crippling the PCs.

Alrighty then, now on the final bit. Chapter 4 is brief, which I'm sure is good news to anyone who's gotten this far in the review. It basically contains two sections, some supplemental fighting rules and some rules for car chases. The fighting rules, again by Rob Vaux, are needless. The basic engine of the game is designed for fast and furious combat, not nitpicky stuff like breaking joints. The car chase rules are more accurately the long needed vehicle rules for the game. Written by Stolze, they follow the general outlines of regular combat. This is a good thing, and the rules seem solid. The associated schticks look good, and provide the techie with a excellent secondary roll in combat.

Golden Comeback is a book that had a lot of potential but seriously failed to deliver. While individual authors tried their best, the book lacked a real vision. It looks like just what it is: a half baked hodgepodge of ideas in need of direction. While elements of the book are worthy additions to the rules of Feng Shui, I can't recommend forking over $20 a product put together so shoddily.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Golden Comeback
Author: Various Category: game Company/Publisher: Atlas Games Line: Feng Shui Cost: $19.95 Page count: 128 ISBN: 1-887801-80-4 SKU: AG4002 Capsule Review by David Mastema on 02/07/00. Genre tags: Asian/Far_East	Feng Shui is a great game, and one deserving of great supplements. When the game debuted from Daedalus Entertainment in 1996, it seemed to have so much promise. Sadly, the support material for Feng Shui has been mismanaged and largely botched. Ironically, the only supplement to date that has done justice to Robin Laws' vision of Feng Shui is Blood of the Valiant, a licensed sourcebook produced by neither of the game's publishers. I had hopes for Atlas Games' revival, but was disappointed in Seed of the New Flesh, tellingly written by the game's current Line Developer. Since that manuscript was detritus from the Daedalus years, I had hoped the line would finally getting rolling with the first book of all new material, Golden Comeback. Here at last was a chance to see the design philosophy of Feng Shui's new publisher at work. Unfortunately, that philosophy turned out to be "if you throw enough shit at the wall, some of it might stick." Golden Comeback is like a Hong Kong gang bang, with ten different authors credited. The appeal of using many different writers on a project is that you can get the project done much faster. If ten writers are all working at once, a publisher can get a book back in one tenth of the time it would take one person to write the whole thing. While this strategy can work (as proved by the Earthdawn line in Lou Prosperi's hands, for instance), it really requires a Line Developer who can skillfully unify disparate elements into a whole. Whatever his merits as a writer may be, Greg Stolze is not that Line Developer. Golden Comeback suffers from excessive continuity problems, sloppy rules design, and page filling sections of little actual value. The book is subtitled "The Feng Shui Player's Sourcebook," but it also serves as the faction book for the Dragons. The problem, of course, is that the PCs of your Feng Shui game are meant to be the "next generation" of Dragon heroes, so the book must tell you what it means to be a Dragon without telling you what to do. Geoff Grabowski kicks the book off with a history of the most recent incarnation of the Dragons, well-known to players of the Shadowfist TGC. Grabowski can be a fine writer when he knows what he's talking about, but he really falls down here on some very basic continuity issues. Jack Donovan is renamed Jake, and the Lodge Enforcer Draco is called Drago. Then, in Kar Fai's backstory, his involvement with the Guiding Hand is laid out, including his rather abrupt departure after kicking Quan Lo in the gonads. While this is cute and all, it completely ignores the adventure in Blood of the Valiant, which revolves around a confrontation between Kar Fai and his old master from the Guiding Hand. There is no reference to that master here, and no room in Grabowski's story for him. Geoff continues on with Kar Fai's story, revealing the true identify of the Prof and explaining how the two of them recruited the batch of heroes featured in Shadowfist. We get to meet Ting Ting, Iale Mane, and the Golden Gunman, and get stats for them all. According to Golden Comeback, these Dragons were active for three years, which we can say with certainty were the years 1993-1996, since Atlas has turned the Contemporary Juncture into the 1996 Juncture to avoid having to update the rules. Grabowski goes on detail some of their early successes, and says that they first made their presence felt in the 69 AD juncture by thwarting a Guiding Hand plot being enacted against the Eaters of the Lotus. A fine story, except that the Lotus didn't actually enter the Secret War until the following year. The history lesson comes to a close with some details of Operation Killdeer, the plot that killed off many of that generation of the Dragons. This is followed up by section called "Your Friends and Neighbors," which details a bunch of NPCs with Dragon sympathies that can be used in your campaign. These NPCs are of most use to the Game Master, making their presence in a book designated as a Player's Sourcebook questionable. And again, continuity problems rear their ugly heads. The character of Billie Cho is said to have spent five years training and fighting with Ting Ting and then two more sulking as a rock star. The problem? Geoff Grabowski has already established that Ting Ting hails from the 69 AD juncture, so she can't possibly have been in Kowloon in 1989 to save poor Billie's life. Well, so much for Chapter One (and don't worry, the book only has four big chapters so this review will be not of terminal length). OK, so Chapter Two is called "Being a Better Player." That certainly sounds like it has a place in a players' book, doesn't it? It starts off with some utterly generic advice on "getting in character" from Tim Dedopulous. Either he or Stolze apparently believe that Feng Shui is bringing new roleplayers into the hobby, and that these neophytes need some basic advice (like explaining that RPGs are about having fun with your friends; thanks for the newsflash, man!). Now as great a game as Feng Shui is, it is not an acquisition product. I would guess that 99% of the game's players have played other RPGs before. In other words, they do not need a very basic lesson on creating a character. Dedopulous follows his advice with something called "Attitude Archetypes." You know those personality archetypes that appear in all the White Wolf games? I guess Tim really likes those, because that's exactly what attitude archetypes are. Thankfully, the back half of Chapter Two is more useful. Tim somewhat redeems himself with some advice on playing an action hero, which is actually relevant to Feng Shui. Rob Heinsoo spouts off some ideas on creative stunts, which may help players who haven't seen a lot of HK flicks. Lastly, Bruce Baugh gives details on many real world martial arts, and shows you how to use the existing fu paths to approximate these styles. Now even if you don't know much martial arts, you can create a character who's an Escrima expert. This is a good thing. Chapter 3 is called "Being a Better Character" but could just as well be called Schtick-O-Rama. This chapter has more of every existing schtick type, and introduces new ones as well. There's quite a lot of stuff here, so let's break it down and see what we've got. First up are Stat Schticks by Greg Stolze. These are special schticks only available to characters with stats of 11 or better. Frankly, Feng Shui just did not need yet another kind of schtick. Since these are only available to characters with high stats, and they are really expensive, they are of limited use. While some of the ideas are good, they could have been better used elsewhere. The same could be said of Rob Vaux's "Non-Combat Schticks." For instance, there is a schtick called Automobilus Indestructus, which gives you a car that will keep running during a chase no matter what happens. Appropriate to the genre no doubt, but shouldn't this be one of the new Driving schticks that appear in Chapter 4? Vaux also seems confused about just what game he's writing for at one point. For the schtick "One With the Walls," he says, "After spending one round searching you can find a suitable hiding place…" Too bad we're not playing AD&D here, because there are no rounds in Feng Shui, only sequences and shots! The next big section has a bunch of new Transformed Animal Powers by Tim Toner. These are a mixed bag. I like the Mantis and the Boar, but others suffer from having schticks that are too complicated or concepts that are just lame. Who the hell wants to play a transformed mallard?! One of the mallard's schticks reads, "With a bellowing quack, you urge your allies to fight more fiercely." I think that should have been, "you make your enemies fall to the floor laughing." After the new packages, Toner introduces some General Schticks for any Transformed Animal. This is good news for Transformed Sharks, who were shorted one schtick in Back for Seconds. Feng Shui has always needed more gun schticks. While martial artists got some 80 powers to chose from in the core rules, the poor gun guys only got one page worth. If anyone deserves new schticks, it's the gun wielders. Golden Comeback introduces six new schticks, and a bunch of new guns. Cover Fire and Bullet Storm are similar, and both faithfully recreate something you see in action movies all the time. 10,000 bullets, on the other hand, is a Grade A example of bad game design. Basically, it allows a gun guy to shoot at two different targets (three if you spend two schticks) without penalty on every action. This basically doubles the effectiveness of a gun wielder, with no controlling force like chi or fu. Any Killer who doesn't take two schticks of this right away is an idiot. As for the guns, don't waste your time. The thing about Feng Shui is that it's super easy to stat up guns. Once you know the clip size and the general type of gun, you can whip out stats in seconds flat. Nonetheless, we are "treated" to three pages of new guns, which add zero to the game. My guess is that author Andy Lucas owns a copy of Chameleon Eclectics fine Ultramodern Firearms sourcebook, and that he just picked the guns in there that don't appear in Feng Shui. Lucas also wrote the new Arcanowave devices. Gun Eye is brilliant, and a welcome addition to the Architects catalogue. The rest remind me of the stuff from Seed of the New Flesh. Too complicated and not enough payoff. Any schtick that takes the better part of a column to explain does not belong in Feng Shui. At least one of the author's of Golden Comeback had his head on straight, and that's Hal Mangold. Hal contributes a nice little system for creating gadgets, much to the delight of techies everywhere, and a bunch of Bond inspired gizmos for spies. OK, I take that back. John Snead also has a good showing with the Creature Powers. He provides ways to combine schticks, as well as both new and "advanced" schticks. Bruce Baugh tries similar tricks in his section on sorcery and nearly makes it work. I see what he was trying to do, but I'm not fully sold on the results. Finally, and I do mean finally, there are two new character types. In brief, the Athlete is an excuse to use the stat schticks and the Velocity Addict is an excuse to use the Driving schticks. They don't do much you couldn't do with the existing types, but they may appeal to some players. Now before I move on to the last chapter, there's one more thing I want to mention about schticks. At least three of the new schticks allow you do get some benefit by permanently lowering one of your stats. For the sake of any line developers or game designers out there who may be reading this, let me just say: PLAYERS WILL NEVER EVER SPEND EXPERIENCE POINTS ON OR USE ANY ABILITY THAT RESULTS IN THEM LOSING STATS PERMANENTLY! This is Feng Shui, goddammit! You heal all your wounds after every session, you run up streams of bullets, you fight off a hundred mooks at a time. It is not a game about consequences, or crippling the PCs. Alrighty then, now on the final bit. Chapter 4 is brief, which I'm sure is good news to anyone who's gotten this far in the review. It basically contains two sections, some supplemental fighting rules and some rules for car chases. The fighting rules, again by Rob Vaux, are needless. The basic engine of the game is designed for fast and furious combat, not nitpicky stuff like breaking joints. The car chase rules are more accurately the long needed vehicle rules for the game. Written by Stolze, they follow the general outlines of regular combat. This is a good thing, and the rules seem solid. The associated schticks look good, and provide the techie with a excellent secondary roll in combat. Golden Comeback is a book that had a lot of potential but seriously failed to deliver. While individual authors tried their best, the book lacked a real vision. It looks like just what it is: a half baked hodgepodge of ideas in need of direction. While elements of the book are worthy additions to the rules of Feng Shui, I can't recommend forking over $20 a product put together so shoddily. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse)