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I should say that I was really looking forward to Iron & Silk (The Player's Guide To Improvised Weapons) for Feng Shui. Those who've seen me post on forum threads for "recommend a system for X" will know I'm something of a Feng Shui fan. And while the supplemental material has sometimes failed to fully live up to the core book, by and large I've never been disappointed by the FS line. The dodgy moments in Golden Comeback, for instance, were IMO balanced by the good extra stuff like the chase system.

Which is why I&S came as a big disappointment to me.

What I was expecting, perhaps mistakenly, I grant you, was a bunch of stuff similar to the "Cool Things That Can Happen" listed for each action scene in existing FS adventures, mixed in with maybe some sample stunt ideas, and some suggestions for the cunning use of scenery and apparently non-combat objects in fights. Which would've been cool. Not overly necessary, but cool.

But I&S does more or less what it says on the tin, and it really isn't worth the cash in my opinion.

I&S opens with an intro chapter that quickly runs through the basics of the later stats and the use of improvised weapons as shields or for parrying.

It then launches into four four-page chapters, one for each of the four Junctures, with a brief and (particularly if you already have any of the sourcebooks) descriptive but relatively pointless description of daily life and daily fightin' for each. Some are more helpful than others - a brief bit on the inside of Taoist temples in 69AD, for instance - but many are little more than filler. At the end of each chapter is a list of half a dozen or so sample locations for fights with a brief description and a straight list of which items from the later chunk of the book may be found there.

For example: "Casino. A glittering, brightly lit building where dozens of games of chance go on at every hour of the day. Music plays in the background and the air echoes with the cries of gamblers, both lucky and otherwise. ATMs, bystanders (live), cameras, cards, chips, dice, drink trays, fire extinguishers..."

For some unusual locations, this would be (and is) cool. But I'm confident of my ability to picture the inside of a casino, or an 1850s tea house, a 69AD night market or a 2056 BuroPad.

Pages 22-70 are a list, in alphabetical order, of objects for use as weapons. Everything from Abacus to Wok (Small). Weapon stats and a brief description.

And this is where the book does what it says on the tin - a guide to improvised weapons - and in my view falls apart. Feng Shui is pretty much a lite game. Combine all the other books and you won't have 50 pages of weapons between them. Why on earth any self-respecting FS GM or player should need to know the stats for a "Chair" as opposed to a "Chair, Office" or three different sizes of Wok, I simply do not know. The same with the difference between "Chopsticks" and "Chopsticks, Cheap".

And yet, despite all this detail, it doesn't stat all the stuff it lists in its descriptions. Look at our casino example. No ATMs in the book. No chips. Or dice. I appreciate using them as suggestions, but what's the point of statting up live and dead bystanders, say - and differentiating between them, stats-wise - but not bothering with half the stuff you include earlier on? Surely someone must have thought, "What's the point of saying players should use an ATM in combat, but then not including it in the combat stats list?"

Sorry guys. Fifty pages that could've been summed up similar to Atlas' own UA line - "small but pointy - Strength +1 damage", "fairly chunky - Strength +2", "seriously lumpy or sharp - Strength +3", and so on.

I&S has stats for gravel. It has three different sizes of gong. Three different sizes of incense pot. Stats for laundry. Stats for papers. For a godly effigy and a statue.

And that's it, apart from those intro chapters. That's all it does.

While the level of detail has to be commended, it seems ridiculous for the free-flowing, rules-lite, maths-lite style of play FS espouses. If this was the Improvised Weapons Compendium for Rolemaster, I'd be impressed. Marvellous. But for FS, it simply doesn't fit. And the publisher's idea that this book can be used as a reference "at the table" during combat also seems to make little sense. Unless you really need to know the difference in numbers between a medium wok and a large wok.

I love Feng Shui. Best game evarrr, and all that. But Iron & Silk really, really seemed like a waste of my hard-earned cash. Buy the rest of the books, they're fine, but not this one.