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I think it was two years ago. Desperately looking for something to relieve me from the anguish generated by the writing my thesis, I stumbled upon wuxia -Chinese dramas first, then a few Jin Yong translations- and quickly became addicted. When I heard about Weapons of the Gods, I knew I had to get it. So... here comes the review.
First Impressions
Big and Colorful, Weapons of the Gods core rule book is flashing high-powered wuxia right from the cover, a strong and tense young warrior clad in dark and golden mail wielding an impressive and unrealistic crystal-like sword while surrounded by a bright aura. The fourth of cover, on the other side, adds the feeling of a world where ”fantastic martial arts and nifty magical weapons”(p.7) are integrated in a setting full of poetry and courtesy... but not in a restrictive way: The whole book has manifestly been written with the fun of game-masters and players at heart, and people who “just want to kick ass”( p.29 ) are welcome to join in.
The world
Shen Zhou, the world of Weapons of the Gods, is ”an ancient China of Fantasy that never was”(fourth of cover). More precisely, Shen Zhou history is an high-fantasy wuxia-oriented take on Chinese (mythical and real) history up to the end of the Han dynasty. For example, the heavenly court does exist -and even plays a part in why destiny (experience) is awarded- and, p.149, we see Qin-Shi-HuangDi, the (in)famous first emperor, being converted to legalist philosophy through a sword duel. The game itself is set in the Time of Chaos which is following the three kingdoms era and seems to correspond roughly to the “sixteen kingdoms of the five barbarians”, with the addition of numerous powerful clans, gangs and secret societies.
Characters
Players take on the role of individuals of the Wulin, defined as the community of the martial artist or, more generally, those who strive to challenge their destiny. Character types are divided into three broad archetypes based upon their main personal challenge and offering appropriate advantages.
- The warriors are set on “struggle”, physical fight, they have access to uncommon kung-fu techniques.
- The courtiers are set on “influence”, they have access to the secret arts of intrigue to manipulate the heart of people.
- The scholars are set on “knowledge”, they have access to daoist magic
In any case, any character has access to a wide range of kung-fu right from the start (about 20 common styles in the core rulebook alone, and a dozen more uncommon styles for warriors).
The default creation power-level, with 15 points in five attributes (speed/fire, presence/earth, genius/metal, wu-wei/water and might/wood), 30 skill points and 50 points to spend however you want (attributes, skills, affiliations, kung-fu, secret arts....) is sufficient to generate characters that feel competent, and even heroic, especially since most skills cover a wide range of use : Learning cover anything from history to calligraphy (you can buy specialties though), and crafting anything from armor to social order (this one is a bit too extreme for me).
It should be noted that, while the advantage system is quite classical (save for lore sheets, which I'll cover later), I'm particularly fond of this game's take on disadvantages : they do not provide any additional character creation point, instead of which they earn you additional “in game” destiny whenever they have a dramatic effect on your character life. And even if you do not take any disadvantage, your character still comes with a passion to flesh him out... and serve as a basis for enemy courtiers and scholars secret arts and magic.
An Heroism-Enhancing Rule System
Dice-rolls use a somewhat uncommon mechanism : you launch a number of 10-sided dice determined by your skill level, +1 if your corresponding attribute is at least equal to the skill, but you only consider the largest set of matching dice, your result being 10 times the size of the set + the value of the dice. For example, if you roll 5 dice and obtain {3,6,6,6,5}, your largest set is {6,6,6} and your result 36... more than sufficient to realize an hard task such as writing the character “beauty” on two handful of falling white petals while guiding them to form the character ”wisdom” on the ground (Auspicious beginnings introductory adventure, p.20). Considering that succeeding/failing a roll by 10 or more, a single die difference, is a critical success/failure, this system is quite dramatic... and faster than adding dice.
Then, a few strategical twists have been built on top of this basic mechanism in order to improve the experience :
- Members of the Wulin have a river in which they can stock unused dice... and add them to latter roll in order to achieve truly impressive results, or guarantee success at critical times.
- They also have joss, good luck they can use to throw an additional dice in time of need, or ill luck they can throw at their enemies to reduce their dice pool. Joss is awarded for good game play both by the game-master and, in a limited fashion, by other players
- Rules such as those for complex skill rolls and non-stacking modifiers invite players to add flourish to their actions and take even more risk when things goes bad. For example, in the aforementioned calligraphy example, guiding the petals to form the word wisdom is a difficulty 30 action, while writing beauty on each petal is simply a difficulty 20 “icing on the cake” action.
Finally, those mechanism are completed by the experience system, especially the concept of deeds, actions either virtuous or corrupt but definitely stylish, bringing destiny, joss (and fame)... and necessary in order to increase your rank in the Wulin; which is a limiting factor on how many destiny you can spend to improve your character (and, yes, there are “in setting” justifications for that!).
Kung-fu and Secret arts
Kung-Fu in Weapons of the Gods is resource management oriented. Your character kung-fu is represented by a set of techniques he masters, which can be offensive, defensive, both or even non-combat related. Save for a few, especially strange or powerful, formless techniques, techniques are grouped into styles (common, uncommon, or rare) containing up to six techniques which one must master sequentially. Using a technique cost Chi (from 1 to 20 points), of which five colors exist, one for each attribute. A character start a combat with as much chi of each color as his score in the corresponding attribute and, at the end of each combat round, he regains one chi of each color.
Since the color of the chi to be spent is determined by the technique, and since techniques belonging to the same style usually (95%) use the same color, with a complement in “any” chi for high level techniques, a decent character must master various types of kung-fu styles... in fact even a specialized beginning character could not use is favored level 3 technique more than twice round in a row. The only complaint I have about kung-fu styles is their unified mechanical organization (one technique by level), nevertheless, after giving it some thought, I realized that any decent school would in fact be a combination of styles, so... Moreover, the rules include kung-fu marvels, in order to allow players to try things not in their style if they're really willing to take the risk, and I love that. (answers such as “you can't try to disarm, it's an other school technique“ are sooo frustrating).
While interesting, the kung-fu mechanisms are still rather classical. When it comes to secret arts however, Weapons of the Gods really shines. To summarize, from high-level medicine to intrigue or daoist magic, secret arts use the same unified system based upon the five elements, hyperactivity and weakness conditions, and mechanisms to transform a condition into a other, as well as inflaming or soothing one. For example, you can use acupuncture to make someone who has had a little wine -sufficient for a trivial drunk condition- really drunk (p.290), or you can talk a friend to stop grieving and help you take revenge (p.312). In any case, such conditions do not force anyone to do anything, but they provide a strong incentive since behaving or not according the condition comes with mechanical modifiers. For example, if someone with a drunk weakness condition try to act reasonably, he might suffer a -10 modifier. Even divination use similar principles, and is one of the most interesting take on the subject I ever saw : you decide the result of your divination, then the game-master determines the difficulty according to its informations and condition modifiers are applied to help thing go the way you “divined” if you make the roll.
While this system in impressive, free, inspiring , and comes with numerous examples it's somewhat difficult to determine what exactly a secret art can do, or to express some curses or predictions in terms of condition modifiers... Yet, more regular, “spell-like”, extraordinary techniques are provided for those who prefer to keep it simple and under control. Moreover the non-stacking modifiers rules should help to keep things reasonable.
The Lore Sheet Concept
Lore Sheets are probably the most spectacular design choice of Weapons of the Gods. In fact, except for the most basic rules and GM advices, everything in the core rule-book is presented as a Lore Sheet. So, now, what is a Lore Sheet ?
Basically, a Lore Sheet represents a piece of specialized knowledge on a given topic, anything from a time period to a kung-fu style. This piece of knowledge, from a game-master point of view, provides rules or/and background information, usually in the form of a short novel, but -and that's the most interesting part- this lore sheet can be bought (as well as researched during play) to provide a character with the corresponding specialized knowledge... and access to related destiny bindings. For example, if you master the lore sheet “Xia Dinasty” (p115-119), you can spend destiny to entangle your destiny with famous “weapons of the gods” of that era or to mark your lineage with famous figures of that time.
While definitely impressive, there's a few criticism one could voice about Lore Sheets, mostly :
- While the short story/poetic description presentation used in most case provides far more “feeling” than a classical entry, it also takes far more place, while not providing as much raw information.
- Due to what seems like an overuse of this concept, it's sometime difficult to determine what the mastery of a given lore sheet allows. This is especially true in the case of 0-cost restricted access lore-sheets such as Predictionism(p.291) which in fact only explain the rules to be used with other lore sheets (yet, no clear “dependency tree” is provided in the core rulebook... that, or i did not find it).
On the other hand, lore sheets and destiny biding can really work wonders, and achieve some limited, controlled, form of cooperative storytelling, as I had experienced with the adventure lore-sheet of Auspicious beginnings, with players biding the destiny of their characters to the non-players characters they liked best.
Support, Introductory Adventure and Test
I've been impressed by the sheer amount of (free) support materials available form EOS press website : various beasts, villains, places, game aids and tools, regularly maintained FAQ&errata... and a 60 page free introductory adventure : Auspicious beginnings.
Auspicious beginnings is a very well written introductory adventure. It contains numerous genre and game specific advises, give the players a first taste of the lore sheets and, like the core rulebook, you can feel it has been written with the fun of the players in mind; it's even a bit too obvious at times. In any case, playing it was an enjoyable experience, and a good way to experiment the system.... leading to the following conclusions :
- Despite the various chi, chi aura, river and joss to keep track of, combat is fast and fun for players... yet, in a full grown conflict this resource management can get somewhat heavy from a game-master point of view (well, maybe an idea for my next programming attempt)
- Mooks tend to be really weak (at least up to the gang level)... they're good to heat-up (or to soften) characters, but only the most scholarly ever truly felt threatened by them. When fighting seriously, the group's lead warrior usually downed them five a strike.
- With chi-aura protecting characters and only one attack per round, duels tend to last (well, not always) -which is rather “in genre”, but can get slightly frustrating at times. Still, with aggressive kung-fu, a little luck, maybe joss and a river used at just the right moment, you can do wonders. On the other hand a character facing multiple named opponents will often lack chi-aura and fall quickly (or forfeit, chi-aura usually give you time to do that).
- Healing standard wounds is easy... very easy (well, up to a certain point : you can heal as many health level as your hardness -a skill- score).
- Lore sheets do help to tailor the story to the players.
Synthesis
Weapons of the Gods is a fun game to read, and even funnier to play... it's like you can see the FX around the table. While, in a previous review, I described Qin as a serious game I would use for an epic yet somewhat dark campaign. To me, Weapons of the Gods is it's counterpart in the world of wuxia RPGs, a game I would use for “anything can goes” one-shots, or bigger than life campaigns of unbridled fury.
Now, let's talk rating :
- Reading Weapons of the Gods core rulebook, I've gone from astonishment to marvel. I've hardly seen so many impressive ideas, so well suited to a theme, inside a rulebook. Substance truly deserves a 5.
- Now that I'm used to it, I find the book rather pretty, yet some pictures still look more like super-heroes than wuxia heroes to me. The short stories making the bulk of the lore sheets are more than decent, but definitely not on par with a good old Jin Yong book, and the excessive focus on fights is not -surprisingly?- my cup of tea... Nevertheless, the true problem is clarity and organization. Like I said earlier, the excessive use of Lore sheets is disorienting, moreover some informations are disseminated or defined after use and thus hard to figure out on first read, as well as to retrieve. Thankfully, game-aids and the high reactivity of the team on the wotg forum makes up for it, but -as far as the book itself is concerned- a second edition would definitely be a good thing. So Style will only be a 3, despite how pleasant the read was.
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