Review of A Wushu Guide to Car Fu

Introduction

When I was sent Wire Fu to review, I also got sent a copy of A Wushu Guide to Car Fu (henceafter referred to as Car Fu). Now I'm a big fan of The Transporter as well as The Fifth Element - two movies that are mentioned in the beginning of this PDF.

Car Fu, much like the other Wushu products, aims to present a cinematic system for handling certain stunts. Due to being a supplement to other Wushu games, Car Fu is very light on rules. It follows a similar structure to Wire Fu by presenting a brief discussion on mechanics and some details on handling car chases and fights.

Layout and Design

Once again Daniel Bayn shows how to layout a PDF well. Simple headings, basic but attractive cover and an overall design that is ideal for printing.

There are a couple of the same editing gaffs that plagued Wire Fu, but given the price and simple production values - they are forgivable.

Contents

Essentially Car Fu doesn't add much new to the game from a mechanical perspective. There is a very short discussion on how to use the standard Wire Fu rules to handle car chases.

There is an excellent two page summary of how to describe car stunts as well as a few descriptions of the kinds of stunts that are possible. Bayn's style of writing may not be particularly professional, but he presents a very clear and concise text that presents a lot of information with excellent economy of words. This was also prevalent in the kung fu stunts segment of Wire Fu.

Following the stunting advice, the PDF presents a discussion on using vehicles as weapons and dealing with car fights, as well as aerial chases.

Finally there are the obligatory examples that present how to use everything that has been discussed previously.

Thoughts and Conclusion

There isn't a lot for me to say, Car Fu is very brief. Again, I had the same core issue that I had with Wire Fu - lack of substance. I don't mean from a mechanics point of view - the core mechanic of Wushu is beautifully simple and elegant. Rather, there is a lack of substance in the discussion. While the book presents a great discussion of stunts, not enough really goes into linking this information with the system.

The discussion of chases doesn't really make it clear how a chase is handled, not until the examples chapter where we see some chases in action. At this point, it strikes me that they are too brief. Consider, for a moment, the chase scenes in both The Transporter and The Fifth Element - these chases go on for quite some time. The standard structure of the Wushu system means that a chase is over pretty quickly, losing some of what makes a chase so appealing.

Again, a lack of advice to the GM means that there is little guidance on how to handle such issues - too much of Car Fu relies on its examples to explain things. But examples don't help guide planning and prep. Again, the lack of detail also causes issues - because vehicles are just scenery there is little that makes the chase tense, and I think this brings up something that I found hard to identify in Wire Fu.

The Wushu gameline puts forward the claim that most traditional roleplaying games are too bound to realism. That is why it has such a loose and freeform structure to better emulate the style of movies. However, many cinematic roleplaying games forego realism for in-genre systems that keep the tension up. Wushu seems to lose that tension, and inevitably cushions the players. I personally feel that car chases need to be tense and exciting affairs, and I simply have trouble seeing it happening in Car Fu due to how quickly the system will resolve a chase. Even in the examples, chases barely last two rounds.

Ultimately, it is a good supplement for ideas regarding car chase stunts. But as a game addition to the Wushu line, I felt it didn't really meet its goal. It makes the mistake of assuming that chases are just like kung fu fights. While the core system could still do chases well, the implimentation provided simply doesn't do it.

Should I buy it? For ideas on car stunts and the like, it is well worth it. However, the system doesn't help create an atmosphere of tension during play as most chases will be over too quickly. For a game with better chase mechanics I would recommend either Savage Worlds for rules light and Spycraft 2.0 if you want more detail. Still, again I must point out the genuinely reasonable price. Even if you don't play Wushu, for $2.50 US there are a number of very good ideas inside.