RPG Name: Feng Shui
Description: Feng Shui RPG Hong Kong martial arts movies
What are your reviews for this classic role-playing game? Would Feng Shui play by post work well? If you have actually used this system please give your reviews both as a player or game master.
Played As: Feng Shui PBP RPG? or
Feng Shui is the textbook definition of a cinematic Role-playing Game. The whole game is designed to simulate an Hong Kong action movie, so leave your knowledge conventional physics at the door. Character generation is archetype based. One selects the type of character one wishes to play, customizes it with a few decisions, and starts throwing punches/ bullets/ spells. As such, players can be ready to go in a matter of minutes.
The game world is clever, and includes a form of time travel allowing characters from four distinct eras (All, oddly enough, featured in Hong Kong action movies), ranging from Imperial China in 69 AD to the dystopian Science Fiction Buro in 2056, with stops in 1850 and the modern era to keep things lively. It is possible to have a sorcerer from ancient China fighting alongside a modern day ninja against a gunslinger from the old west and a monstrosity from the future.
Mechanically, the game is pretty simple, designed for furious, fast paced action. Only two D6 are needed to play, but they need to be different colors. One is positive, one negative. Subtract the negative from the positive, apply the result to your Action Value, and hope for the best.
This game would play very well as a play by post. With the fast character generation system and simple mechanics, all you need are a few people with a sense of drama and some idea of how action movies work, and you'd be off on a wild ride in a heartbeat.