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Wushu Open
The Ancient Art of Action Role-Playing
Wushu is a game that revolves around fast-moving, kick-ass, over-the-top action and how to bring it to a table near you. It probably needs no introduction to the audience of RPG.net. This review deals with the free download version, Wushu Open. I wrote the review after a weekend of running Wushu Open with a group of six players in a gritty wild-west setting. Anyway, Wushu Open is the limited but free version -- the private home edition, so to speak --of the Wushu RPG developed by Daniel Bayn. It is distributed under the generous terms of the Creative Commons -- by Attribution 2.0 License. You can download the open version and other free stuff for Wushu here.
The review is broken up in four sections:
- What's in the package?
- What's it all about?
- How does it work?
- The Pig's opinion.
- Ratings
What's in the package?
The download is a simple RTF-document of about 10 A4 pages length, including the license. Due to the very nature of the distribution format don't expect any fancy layout, you won't get it. There is also no art included. On the plus side you can start immediatly with expanding and/or changing the document's contents to serve your needs.
Apart from some goofy terminology, the writing is concise, amusing and relays the essentials of the game. There really isn't much more to say about the package, it's sparse but sufficient.
What's it all about?
Wushu Open is a game that would not take it anymore. A game that stood up against all these negative modifiers, penalty dice, fumbles and fun-killing limits. Here is a game that stood up. Wushu Open is not only able to cope with the wild over-the-top action of modern action movies, it encourages such stuff in a mechanical way. In this, Wushu Open is a rather generic game and rules set. You can as well apply it to western action as eastern action, military action, cartoon action, space action or whatever action.
Wushu Open is not about gear, character advancement, combat rounds, strategy, weapons, tactics, rules-lawyering, experience points, power-gaming, wound levels or fingernail-biting outcomes, that depend on a single die roll. And most of all it is not about emulating »realism« in role-playing games. Wushu Open doesn't care about encumbrance, frost burn or falling damage, it deals with »realism« in the only way it knows, with reckless action. So really, it is about the fast moving action, man. It's all about the action.
How does it work?
Wushu Open details, including character generation, a whopping eight rules. This sounds measly but is quite adequate. I will not go through every rule, my write-up would probably not be much shorter than the original in Wushu Open (which you can download here for free) if i did, so i spare you and me the trouble.
Nonetheless, no review would be complete without an exposition of the rules, so i will chat a little about them. So, there are rules that deal with:
- Combat versus mooks, face- and nameless minions that are disposed of in an equally faceless but named process.
- Combat versus nemeses (funny fact: a nemesis is a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent, cf. Merriam-Webster), that are disposed of in a similiar to mook battle but more personal manner.
- Rules to do interesting non-combat stuff, like cracking a code or a car chase, which works exactly like disposing of mooks, only that your character is not going to be hurt.
- Rules to do simple or uninteresting non-combat stuff.
All rules (but the last) are united by the fact that a lot of description is required to gain dice to roll. You see, the player describes his or her character's action in plenty of detail and for each distinct detail the player gains one six-sided die to roll. The more dice, the better your chances. Yes, the more your character does, the better are his or her chances to succeed. This is intentional and the core of the beauty that is Wushu Open. Note, the GM is allowed to set a pool limit, a cap, to the number of dice attainable in this way. This is one of the few but mighty tools at the GM's disposal.
This works a little like this, note the details granting dice. During a Conan-esque fantasy game, the GM announces that the group has been ambushed by followers of the Snake-Cult, a mook battle ensues with a pool limit of 5. Let's say Joe plays Gargl, a barbarian, so he describes: I rush to meet the slithermen (1) and swing my mighty battle-axe (+1), splitting two skulls in one swoop (+1). Bloody gore splatters on my chest (+1). A cultist stabs me into the side (+1) but i only sneer and kill him with a cracking head-butt. Due to the limit only five dice may be gained, so the remaining description is only »fluff.«
The dice are compared to a target number, which is almost always determined by one of the three traits or the single flaw of a character, and each die rolling equal or lower than the target number is a success. Short break, that's all about characters: three traits, a flaw and a name.
Back to the main feature: Depending on what you are doing the successes are applied to some mechanical relevant value, such as threat rating in mook combat. Once this value is reduced to zero a scene is resolved and usually ends.
What happens if two descriptions are conflicting with each other? The rules don't really answer that question but offer the principle of narrative truth in a paragraph concerning resolution. This principle just points out that once delivered descriptions cannot be altered afterwards, by nobody. If you have to tell some stuff after another player, the descriptions of the other player is fact, don't touch it, regardless if you are the GM or whatever. You may use other's descriptions as a building block, but you may not alter them. Therefore there are no conflicts. Alongside this principle comes unheard of freedom to describe whatever you want, as long as it fits the genre. Temporal or spatial consistency take a backseat in Wushu Open. The realm of possibility has no say in Wushu-verse. And this is seldom a problem, too, since whatever you describe serves only to conjure cool images, it is completely disconnected from the mechanical part of the game.
Example: Susan remembers the two pounds of explosives she deposited under the trash can for last year's Helloween prank. In a very un-lady-like tumble she dives for the C4 and yanks it out of the can, rams an electric detonator cap into it and shoves the contraption into the face of the giant mutated cockroach. "Eat this!", she mutters under her breath and connects the cables to her flash's battery. Booom.
I would say: 6 dice for this, but YMMV.
Do i hear a "But..."? No »buts«, but vetoes allow you to object to descriptions you don't like in Wushu Open. If the »introduction« of the year-old explosives are too much of a stretch for your suspension of disbelief, OK, say so. But do it during the description. Once the description is through, there is no return. This and good pre-game communication should ensure smooth sailing. What's true for other RPGs out there is double true for Wushu Open. All players must be on the same page about what they are going to play. If you are going for a grim and gritty Conan-esque fantasy trip some players might react annoyed to your Gandalf-lookalike in other games, in Wushu Open this reaches out to the descriptions you deliver during play. Suppose you agreed to play a tough-as-nails »For a Fistful of Dollars« styled western and somebody describes an action right out of »Trinity is STILL my Name«... Veto!
The Pig's opinion
This is difficult. Wushu Open offers a whole range of interesting options and adds new perspectives to role-playing games. I think, we (my group and myself) gained some new insights how to do stuff in role-playing games, but i also think that Wushu Open could do more to help players get to the core of the excercise. It is not at all obvious what is resolved by resolution (the scene, i guess, but it is not spelled out) or how to deal with the disconnect between the mechanical representations and the descriptive elements of the game.
The two major complaints of my players had nothing to do with the »PoNT«, mook abundance or general consistency, but with the complete lack of a serious challenge and the disconnect between description and mechanical effect. Let's review some examples:
I run and jump -- through the open window -- onto the hotel porch roof, rolling with the speed of my jump i come to my feet, draw my peacemaker and open up at the bandits in front of the bank. This is probably worth 4 or 5 dice. Mechanically speaking, the player puts two dice into defence and three into offence. The default 1 point of damage is soaked or not, whatever.
The barrage of lead coming from the gatling gun makes me duck and roll into the general store. Bullets are everywhere, smashing the interior and turning the store into a colander at frightening speed. Suddenly a bullet strikes a dynamite crate and the whole place blows up, desperate i lunge away from the blast and with the last air in my lungs i whimper "Lord, have mercy". This is probably worth about 5 to 6 dice. Again, mechanics-wise the player puts two dice into defence and three into offence. The default 1 point of damage is soaked or not, whatever.
Carrier lost... or so i have been told.
From a GM perspective Wushu Open is a revelation. Due to handing over the whole burden of description to the players and the minor duty of nicking off the remaining threat levels a GM has almost nothing to do, but to listen to interesting descriptions and thinking about the next moves of the next nemesis or how to cue the next scene. This is most welcome.
So it remains: Wushu Open, boo or yay? It depends. People mainly interested in weaving a good ole action-yarn will love Wushu Open, as will GMs that don't mind to hand over a little control to their players. »Little control« because for all the describing going on, Wushu Open has no provisions to deliver real story control to the players, everything stays as firmly in the hands of the GM as he or she wishes. On the other hand, people that expect a tangible result out of a specific action will be disappointed, as will people that like to have tactical or strategical options during combat. Wushu Open simply is not for them. All the free-wheeling descriptive goodness is also the great leveller of anything mechanical diverse. There is no mechanical difference between a rocket launcher or a bread knife, a kung-fu fighter or imperial stormtrooper, a well entrenched fortification on a mountain or a ramshackle hut on the plains. Only the images are different and in Wushu Open, that is all that counts.
For me, Wushu Open has found a home. I will use it again in the future, probably for weird, fast, cartoony action games. I think Wushu Open deals best with scenarios where »making sense« is not so important, just like in the action flics that are the great paragons of Wushu Open.
Rating
The RPG.net rating system for Style puts me in a tight sport here. Wushu Open is graphically certainly not very appealing and not deserving any points of Style here. Then, it can't and doesn't want to compete with most hobby PDF-products out there in the »looks« department, it's a freaking text document on purpose. It doesn't need work, so two points is not right also. One point would be fine, there's not much about it, but it is clearly not »unintelligible«. So, just to be clear: the document is perfectly fine. You can read it. You can understand it. It does all it is supposed to do. Mission accomplished, 99.9% success rating. There is just nothing about it in terms of presentation that would lift it over the 1 point threshold. There also are no index or table of contents. Therefore i hope you get my idea when i'm rating Wushu Open as follows:Style = 1
Wushu Open is a very different RPG and deserves all the attention it gets. It's not the saviour of the role-playing hobby as whom it is sometimes advertised, but i can't see who wouldn't profit from playing or running it just once. The main ideas in there are good and innovative but could be clearer. For 10 pages it is quite packed, but i think three points do the limited Wushu Open edition justice and undoubtly the full version would deserve even more points. Thus:
Substance = 3Fine game, download it now!
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