Feng Shui design space?
Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 6:28 pm
Feng Shui 1e was, for its time, a great game. Feng Shui 2, 20 years later, was mostly a great disappointment, with rule changes and schtick writeups that, notwithstanding a few genuine improvements, bore every sign of having been ad-libbed by a roomful of Jammers with typewriters.
But as I try to draw lessons from the development of Feng Shui to design my own rules-light action-heavy RPG, I find myself facing the problem of what design space even exists here. After all, the game is mostly a setting and a combat engine, and while the combat engine is pretty good, only needing a bit of streamlining and refinement, it is a cramped environment. The RNG is short, and modifiers accordingly need rigorous discipline.
It should be noted here that I've been doing work on the mathematical side of things, expanding the RNG to 2d8 rather than 2d6, fitting AVs on a range of 8 to 12 - 8 being generally for mooks and secondary skills, and 12 being for the high end specialists like Old Masters. Adjusting the precise values of all the different archetypes is obviously a work in progress.
But even once you, for the sake of argument, have gotten the math to work for the normal set of actions anyone can do, and calibrated the AVs and other numbers of the different archetypes to be balanced, what you've got is pretty finely tuned - what is there room for the various Guns, Fu and Magic schticks to even do, besides break it?
Giving out more combat options, special attacks and (especially) bonuses to things characters are already good at seems to pose game-breaking pitfalls left and right, but if so, what does the Killer do, besides shoot people with a high Guns value and good weaponry? How is that different from an Archer? And what's the difference between a Karate Cop punching you in the face, and an Old Master doing the same thing?
FS 1 wants there to be a mini-game of Chi management and secret technique rock-paper-scissors, and while I have seen that work and it is really cool when it does, I don't think you can do that in a game where some characters are supposed to be Jack Burton and John Wick and not really interact with that side of things at all. It's more of a thing for Weapons of the Gods where everyone has their own Kung Fu. Probably, even though everyone's power sources are thematically different, their resource management needs to be mechanically the same - static bonuses, at-will options and per-session Fortune point uses. But that implies that when a martial artist uses a death punch, it's the same kind of plot point as when a spy finds a critical clue or a sorcerer performs a major ritual. And I don't know how tenable that is, or what the equivalent plot beat for the gunslinger character is.
So far, I've had most success in playtests with those Unique Schticks that let players make narrative declarations, and don't really interact with the combat system at all - like the Spy's ability to force people to monologue and drop clues, the Karate Cop's ability to get aid with righteous speeches and the Thief's ability to get into and out of any situation, no questions asked - but while Magic schticks can fit into such a paradigm, Gun and Fu schticks can't really.
The appropriate role of schticks that give bonuses seems to be limited to circumstantial massaging, like making sure the Big Bruiser can deliver appropriately Big punches (but still not outdamaging a combat shotgun or a swordmaster) and the Thief is great at daredevil stunts while not also being the best at hitting peope in the face (since both run off Martial Arts skill). That's all fine as far as it goes, but given that the specialist archetypes are also thematically supposed to be deeply invested in their appropriate schticks, it's obviously not sufficient.
Thoughts? Suggestions?[/i]
But as I try to draw lessons from the development of Feng Shui to design my own rules-light action-heavy RPG, I find myself facing the problem of what design space even exists here. After all, the game is mostly a setting and a combat engine, and while the combat engine is pretty good, only needing a bit of streamlining and refinement, it is a cramped environment. The RNG is short, and modifiers accordingly need rigorous discipline.
It should be noted here that I've been doing work on the mathematical side of things, expanding the RNG to 2d8 rather than 2d6, fitting AVs on a range of 8 to 12 - 8 being generally for mooks and secondary skills, and 12 being for the high end specialists like Old Masters. Adjusting the precise values of all the different archetypes is obviously a work in progress.
But even once you, for the sake of argument, have gotten the math to work for the normal set of actions anyone can do, and calibrated the AVs and other numbers of the different archetypes to be balanced, what you've got is pretty finely tuned - what is there room for the various Guns, Fu and Magic schticks to even do, besides break it?
Giving out more combat options, special attacks and (especially) bonuses to things characters are already good at seems to pose game-breaking pitfalls left and right, but if so, what does the Killer do, besides shoot people with a high Guns value and good weaponry? How is that different from an Archer? And what's the difference between a Karate Cop punching you in the face, and an Old Master doing the same thing?
FS 1 wants there to be a mini-game of Chi management and secret technique rock-paper-scissors, and while I have seen that work and it is really cool when it does, I don't think you can do that in a game where some characters are supposed to be Jack Burton and John Wick and not really interact with that side of things at all. It's more of a thing for Weapons of the Gods where everyone has their own Kung Fu. Probably, even though everyone's power sources are thematically different, their resource management needs to be mechanically the same - static bonuses, at-will options and per-session Fortune point uses. But that implies that when a martial artist uses a death punch, it's the same kind of plot point as when a spy finds a critical clue or a sorcerer performs a major ritual. And I don't know how tenable that is, or what the equivalent plot beat for the gunslinger character is.
So far, I've had most success in playtests with those Unique Schticks that let players make narrative declarations, and don't really interact with the combat system at all - like the Spy's ability to force people to monologue and drop clues, the Karate Cop's ability to get aid with righteous speeches and the Thief's ability to get into and out of any situation, no questions asked - but while Magic schticks can fit into such a paradigm, Gun and Fu schticks can't really.
The appropriate role of schticks that give bonuses seems to be limited to circumstantial massaging, like making sure the Big Bruiser can deliver appropriately Big punches (but still not outdamaging a combat shotgun or a swordmaster) and the Thief is great at daredevil stunts while not also being the best at hitting peope in the face (since both run off Martial Arts skill). That's all fine as far as it goes, but given that the specialist archetypes are also thematically supposed to be deeply invested in their appropriate schticks, it's obviously not sufficient.
Thoughts? Suggestions?[/i]