Foreword
This is my first review, from a purchased copy of Weapons of the
Gods, published by EOS Press. Please excuse the writing, as English
isn't my first language. I hope this text will convey quite clearly what I
wanted to say.
Review
I have recently purchased Weapons of the Gods, even though I wasn't in the
intended target for the game: I haven't read the comics, or, in fact, any
wuxia comics, and I have only passing familiarity with the genre: I've seen
Hero, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but not much more...). I find kung fu
dialogue goofy, and I'll probably never play Exalted for fear of hearing
something actually shouting "Heavenly Guardian Defence!" at the gaming
table.
So, basically, I was not sold on the game before getting it. On the other
hand, I enjoy RBS writing style, and that's partly what decided me to try
and get hyped on the game (by reading the official forums and thread
here). This is the only positive bia toward the game I had, but it's a
huge one.
Here are the first impressions I have about the game, after several reads
through it, trying to assimilate the whole thing. I'll break it down by
sections following the book outline. I have tried to mention in each
sections the potential turn-off one might find.
Book quality
The book is huge (384 pages), richly illustrated as one would expect for a
book with a comic license, and has a high overall quality, with a special
nod to the lush margins... One might feel it's a waste of paper, but large
margins helps make the text more readable, and they made a very good
impression on me.
Errata are already available at the official website for the game,
including a complete 8-pages index, so despite the density of information
in some parts of the book, finding it back is easy.
The book is divided in five main parts, colour-coded in the margins:
rules and character generation, fighting and conflicts mechanisms,
background, kung fu and magic, and gamemastering.
Book of wood : the rules and chargen
This chapter is 65 pages long and contains basic explanations about RPG in
general, the game system (dice mechanics, difficulties...) and character
creation, though you'll obviously need to read the details about kung fu
and magic to make a barely usable character.
The game is rule light in my opinion: there are 25 general skills grouped
into 5 attributes, rated from 0 to 5 (specialization is possible, though)
and the basic mechanics is that you roll as many dice as the skill rating,
looking for matches. The result of your roll is the number of matching
dice, time ten, plus the number shown on the set, so that you get 14 for
rolling a single 4 (one die matching the "4" mark) and 27 for rolling two
sevens... It's intuitive, and most of the time, having a match will win an
unopposed moderate taks, a match of 3 dice will succeed a hard task and a
match of four will be legendary... so interpreting result is easy, as you
only have to look for matches.
There are several twists to the basic principles... Modifiers can be
applied to the actions, to reflects advantages and hindrance applying to
the character. You only take into account the bigger positive and bigger
negative modifier when rolling, so the game doesn't require a lot of
arithmetic skills: you simply don't care about minor modifier, they are
all subsumed into the large one. It's quick, and suitable to over the top
action... with the realism problem "I am wounded, so I don't need no
lockpick, I'll open that lock with my bare hands as easily..." It must not
be that bad in real game, because the stories WotG aims at reacreating
aren't ones where the heroes fumble at opening a measly locket.
The river is a buffer of dice one can build during a scene, by putting
unused set of dice into it, to add later to a result and produce matches
or widen existing ones. As a result, you end up being more competent with
time as you get the opportunity to fill the river. It's in-genre, because
one won't, in a fight, desintegrate his enemy by lauching its best attack
first: your best attack is one with a large margin of success in an
opposed roll, and one you can pull off by having a full river to draw
upon. So characters will certainly always start slow and become more
effective as the action lasts...
The chapter reads well, and several examples make it clear for a newcomer
(though I doubt RPG newbies will start with WotG), and it's pretty quick
to get the feel of the system.
Book of Fire : conflict
This part of the book is devoted the the fight subsystem, which is an
extension of the main rule for opposed tests... Specifying what one can do
in a round (one full actions, two free actions, and un unlimited number of
defensive actions), weapon stats, armour, critical success, breaking
things (and getting hurt)and so on... The writing is clear, and
straightforward. After all, this book is only 20 pages long.
There is a very effective death spiral in this game, so it may be really
important to be the first to strike true. Not only being hurt reduces your
fighting skills, but it also block chi replenishment, so you won't be able
to use your more powerful attacks if you've already been wounded.
The game is still rule-light at this point: even if the players gets a lot
of choice in a fight, having to choose which kung fu techniques to use,
the resolution mechanic is straightforward and quick.
Book of Earth : setting information
142 pages packed with information and flavour text... This is the biggest
part of the book, and one I would avoid if trying to read the book and get
what the game is about. I'd skip to the next one, related to magic and
kung fu, before trying to learn more about that China that never was...
Not that the setting is not interesting, quite the contrary... But this
section is very dense to read. It covers history, social mores,
organizations, creeds... in a thematic format, the "lore sheets". Each
topic has it own, with a flavour text presenting this aspect, system ways
of acquiring this lore (either by studying it for several sessions "in the
background" or by spending characters points, to justify that the
characters know about that part of the game world. Each loresheet has
possible developments, buyable with character points, that tie destiny of
the character to an aspect of the world described in the loresheet,
ensuring at various levels that this aspect will be involved in the story.
It's possible to buy them at character creation, so the GM can immediately
know the direction of the story the players will be interested in. For
example, female characters are, by default, heroic females, and treated
like men by other protagonists of the world. If the player want feminity
to take a part in the story, he can spend character points to tie the
destiny of the character to a husband, lover, children... If one want to
play a damsel in distress, it's possible with the corresponding loresheet.
Spending character points ensure that there will be opportunities for the
character to fufill his destiny, it doesn't grant victory, so it's like a
"wish list". Having one's destiny tied to an aspect can also give various
mechanical bonus.
If the players don't know the setting well, no problem : they'll spend
their character points on stats and kung fu skills, and be effective
characters during the game, while others will have opportunity to
influence the story to revolve around themselves, but they'll be
mechanically less relevant during the action as a result... It can produce
a sort of game balance, though I have not yet tried it in practice, so I
can't comment on the effectiveness of the balancing.
I feel it's a good way to present the setting, and to discern the interest
of the players in a particular part of the setting. It also solve the
problem of knowledge skills... Many games have a skill for each broad area
of knowledge, and require players to roll it for their character to know
something... Here, there is a general Learning skill, potential
specialized skills, but having the corresponding loresheet entitles the
characters to know everything there is to know relating to this topic. So
once someone as studied a field, there is a mechanical track of his
expertise in this field, and no need to re-roll about it.
I feel the several threads in the forum about converting WotG to other
settings comes from the lore sheet system : it seems easy with this format
to describe a setting by cutting it into pieces, each with corresponding
plot hooks & mechanical bonus coming from knowing the relating history
(which is in-genre... as in "I have studied your techniques, and I am now
immune to your puny kung fu").
The book of metal : chi
This book, the second largest part with a little over 100 pages, is
devoted to the use of Chi energy. Everyone possess this energy, in five
distinct forms (tied to the 5 elements, and the 5 characters attribute
[Might, Speed, Presence, Genius and Wu Wei, or harmony with the world).
One has as much points of a particular chi as the governing stat. This
points are used to perform supernatural acts, either in the form a raw
power display (kung fu marvels), where each point spent allows one to roll
a die against a difficulty set by the GM, or in refined form through kung
fu techniques or secret arts.
Kung fu mostly gives mechanical bonus in a fight, with special attacks or
defenses. The more powerful the technique you use, the more chi points are
spent, and as one gains back one point of each chi at the end of each
round, fighers who start with their most powerful techniques might be "out
of fuel" if the fight last... So it's best to use your most powerful
techniques on a great roll, one powered by the river, and have several
"skirmish rounds" at the beginning of the battle to power up. More
powerful styles are well-kept secrets, and learning them will require a
good deal of effort either in game, or through the corresponding
loresheets. Kung fu techniques are tied to a particular chi color, so the
characters are encouraged to use varied powers during the fight rather
than repeating the same old attack round after round.
Some kung fu power doesn't fit this mold, to allow feats of mobility,
telekinesis and invisibility, showing that kung fu isn't limited to
fighting, but perhaps akin to Exalted's charms trees. Kung fu marvels
aren't really detailed, but these techniques shows that chi can be used
for a large number of applications.
Secret Arts are worth buying the book just for them if you're looking for
a low-key magic system done right. They cover both the arts of intrigue
for social combat, the arts of medicine and curses. While kung fu is over
the top (you could throw fireballs with marvels (raw use) of your crimson
chi...), magic is subtle, and feels chinese. Everything revolves around
the wuxing, and yin & yang influences... Every condition that affecter a
character (PC or NPC) is related to an imbalance in his chi. Medicine will
try to cure them, or change them into related illness that doesn't impede
the character, the courtier will spot passions by studying the actions of
characters and use them to create influences on them, and so on.
This conditions either give a penalty for not doing something, or a bonus
for doing something. If you want someone to roleplay his drunkenness, no
problem : give him a penalty for thinking straight, or a bonus when being
visibly under the effect of alcohol. If you're consumated by hatred, it
can cloud your judgement (penalty for sparing your enemy, so the player
still has the choice of following his natural inclination or fighting it,
and paying the price), or it can give you a bonus when fighting something
you hate (or both). Curses follow the same pattern : if you're cursed to
lose your favourite sword), it could translate as a penalty to resist
disarm as long as you own it. There is nothing absolute, but it enhance
the odds of you losing your sword.
Scholars and courtiers will need kung fu to be effective characters, as
most of their powers are subtle and only useful in the long term. Creating
beneficial imbalance in the chi of their friend can be useful, but they
shine at subtle actions, and especially if the GM takes that into account
when deciding what happens backstage.
I can't speak about game balance as I haven't run a game yet, only
preparing things and testing mechanical aspects of the game, but I can
tell it's a very evocative system, rooted in a daoist viewpoint, and much
more flavorful than any other magic system I have read so far.
Book of water: gamemastering
This part of the book is more classical : it discusses setting up a
campaign, dealing with character advancement from the GM point of view,
and the influence of demons and the eponymous weapons of the gods.
My conclusion
I had feared that I wouldn't be able to use the game. It may be so: my
player group has a simulationnist bent, and will cringe at the coarse
resolution system. But I feel the purchase was worthwhile. Even when
discarding kung fu entirely (and it's not as over the top as Exalted for
example, as I feel it's not more unbalancing than heavy use of battle
magic in a RQ fight for example), the game has a lot of useful ideas, like
the loresheet format or the secret arts (though it will take several reads
to understand it and imagine the consequences in play).
There are areas the book doesn't cover at all, but I suspect it will be
corrected in the extension... As the stories are mainly about characters
interactions, and it wouldn't be heroic for a martial arts master to die
eaten by a wolf, there are no stat for animals or other "natural hazards",
like monsters. The focus is on human (some with god-like power)
interactions.
The game is an interesting read, and though it will take some work to
convert to another setting (as the best part have a definite "chinese
feel"), it may be worth a try. I mentionned the SW WotG conversion thread
here at RPG.net, but as I read the book, I thought of Greek epics as the
primary target, one I'll try to pull off during the holidays..
This game should appeal to anyone enjoying king fu games, with a very easy
(but coarse) resolution system. One should look at the end of the
appendices, there is a conversation of probabilities in percentile results
(a chart with difficulties and number of dice rolled)... to see if they
don't faint at the low granularity. With the addition of kung fu
techniques, fights are still tactical, and interesting, though. More
attention should have been devoted to mundane obstacles, but that may not
be in-genre. The magic system is great, provided your players accept the
immersion level needed. It's one thing to roleplay a kung fu warrior, it's another thing to use "daoist jargon" without being too goofy. It may prove a distraction from the game if they don't invest themselves in their character, but that depends on the group, I suppose. And they should'nt expect to strike their enemies with lightning.
On the plus side, everything else! Overall, a very good game, worth purchasing, and worth waiting in line for the upcoming extensions...
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