Since interest has been expressed (and this thread is on page II), I shall summaraze the Feng Shui system.
Basics
All you need to play are 2d6, of different color. One is your Plus die, one your Minus die. When you want to do something difficult, you determine your Action Value--or AV--usually equal to a skill rating or secondary attribute. Then, roll your dice, adding the value of the + die and subtracting that of the - die. If you get any sixes, they "explode". If you roll "boxcars", then you redo the roll, but get outrageous results.
So, for instance, Obi-Wan Kenobi has a Martial Arts of (say) 15. He wants to jump around among the scaffolding of something or other during an earthquake (silly obi-wan). The GM rules that his has a Difficulty of 20, which is really damn high. He rolls a +6/-6: boxcars! He redoes the roll, getting +6/-2, then rerolling the 6 and getting a 5. His total for the roll is (15 + 6 - 2 +5) 24. He succeeds with outrageous results. The GM desides that when he lands from his leaping, his foot sets down on a weak point in the scaffolding, bringing most of the structure tumbling down. However, he is able to spring away in time, and makes his second landing on one of the few still upright beams.
Characters
Chargen in Feng Shui is FAST. You pick an Archetype, and note down the relevant Attributes and Skills. Then you have a certain number of points to distribute among your Primary and Secondary attributes, a number of extra skill bonuses to spend, a number of Schticks (the FS equivalent to d20's feats) to select, and a number of weapons to select. You also have a Wealth Level, which is either Poor, Working Stiff, or Rich--no counting coins in Feng Shui.
There are fully fourteen useful attributes, 3 or 4 secondaries in each of 4 primaries. The Attributes are Body (Move, Strength, Constitution, Toughness), Force (Destiny, Control, Flow), Mind (Charisma, Intelligence, Perception, Will), and Reflexes (Agility, Manual Dexterity, Speed). A rating of 3 or 4 is poor, 5 average, 6 or 7 good, 8 or greater supermegamondoawesome. Unless noted otherwise, all Secondary attributes have the value of their primary attributes. An attribute with an = by it (for instance, Force =6) cannot be increased during character creation.
The skill list I'll be using for the Star Wars game is a bit more comprehensive and less redundant than that of standard Feng Shui, and consists of the following skills: Deceit, Gambling, Guns, Info, Intimidation, Intrusion, Leadership, Martial Arts, Medicine, Pilot, Repair, Investigate, Technology, Use Force, Survival. Skill values can be a little wonky in their figuring, as the base secondary attribute plus your skill bonuses does not always equal your action value. Skills marked in your archetype with an = sign (for instance, the Ace Pilot has Pilot =16) CAN NOT, under any circumstances, be altered in character creation. Even if you increase the base attribute by 4 points and add 2 skill bonuses, the Ace Pilot still has a Pilot AV of 16. Similarly, some skills have maximums, which act as a ceiling for the starting character's skills. Beginning characters can't increase the AV of any skill not in their archetype above 12 in chargen. Some "signature skills" (Guns, Martial Arts, and Use Force) cannot be increased above 10 for beginners (this is a change from normal Feng Shui, where they can't be increased at all).
For example: the Force Adept archetype reads thusly.
Attributes: Body 5, Force =6, Mind 5, Reflexes 5. Add 2 to a single primary attribute. Add 2 to a single secondary attribute.
Skills: Martial Arts +7 (12) [max 14], Use Force +5 (=11), Survival +6 (11) [max 13]. Add 6 skill bonuses.
Schticks: 1 Force Schtick, 1 Flow Schtick, and 2 other Schticks which may be either Force, Flow, or Fighting Schticks.
Weapons: Any 2 weapons of your choice.
Unique Schtick: Treat this ability as a Flow schtick, with a Force cost of 1 and Shot cost of 3. Make an attack with a Martial Arts weapon that is unpowered. If the attack hits, it deals damage equal to your Strength plus your Flow plus 3.
Wealth Level: Poor
Let's say I'm making a martial artist who uses his Force abilities to enhance his combat prowess. We'll have him grow up on some out of the way backwards rim world. As a martial artist, he needs to be fast, so we'll use the increase to primary attributes for Reflexes. He also needs to be aware, so we'll go with Perception as the secondary increase. Now for skills. We see his Martial Arts has already reached 14--it relies on Agility, a subsidiary of Reflexes, which went up by 2. So, we can give him a few other areas of focus. I think putting 2 bonuses each in Senses, Info/Fighting Styles, and Intrusion would be true to his character concept. For his Force Schtick (external force abilities, using your powers on the world), I'll go with Life Energy, which allows him to manipulate the flow of the Force in others. For his Flow Schtick (internal force abilities, using your powers on yourself), he'll take Force Reaction, which allows him to increase his initiative. Most Flow schticks rely upon the use of a lightsaber and are thus unavailable to him. Lastly we have two Force, Flow, or Fighting schticks. I think a two-daggers style would be cool, so we'll give him One-Two Attack (a melee version of Both Guns Blazing for Feng Shui buffs) and Favored Weapons: Daggers (+1 AV with chosen weapons). For his two weapons, we'll take two daggers (duh). We also note down his Unique Schtick, which effectively allows him to use any weapon with the destrictive potential of a lightsaber--über useful. So our character looks like this:
Attributes: Body 5, Force 6, Mind 5 (Perception 7), Reflexes 7.
Skills: Martial Arts 14, Use Force 11, Survival 11, Senses 9, Info/Fighting Styles 7, Intrusion 9.
Schticks: Lige Energy, Force Reaction, One-Two Attack, Favored Weapons: Daggers, Unique Schtick (charge weapon to 14 damage)
Weapons: Two Daggers (damage 7)
Wealth Level: Poor
Combat
There are two measurements of time in combat: Sequences and Shots. Sequences are comprised of a number of shots, which are like parts of actions. Most actions take 3 shots, but others may take more or less. At the beginning of each sequence, every character rolls a die and adds their Speed. They start on this shot. There are a number of Schticks that can add to your initiative.
Attacking usually uses the Guns or Martial Arts skill. The Difficulty of the attack is the higher of the target's Guns or Martial Arts AVs. If the attack hits, the target takes wound points equal to the Outcome (the result of the attacker's roll minus the difficulty) of the attack, plus the Damage rating of the attacker's weapon, minus their Toughness plus Armor. For instance, Martial Arts Force Guy uses a charged attack with his daggers, rolling a 16 against a Difficulty of 13. The defender has a Toughness of 6 and is wearing 1 point of armor. Charged weapons deal 14 damage for MAFG. The target takes (outcome 3 + 14 damage - 6 toughness - 1 armor) 10 wound points. When a character has 25 WP, they suffer -1 to all AVs. This penalty increases to -2 at 30 WP. When they have 35 WP, they are disabled.
When a target is attacked, they may take a "defensive action." This costs 1 shot, and gives them a +3 bonus to their AV against the attack.
Things are a little different when attacking Unnamed characters (a fancy word for "cannon fodder"). In this case, you simply have to beat their AV by 5, and they're out of the fight (and you get to describe how!). Since most characters have an AV of 14-15, and most mooks 8-9, they simply serve as propos for a character's stunts.
STUNTS! How could I forget stunts! Stunts basically allow you to gain some extra benefit for a -2 penalty. For instance, you could shove a guy off the sky bridge, chop off his hand, or knock his feat out from under him for a -2 penalty. Also, the GM can penalize you if you do boaring things over and over (uh, I shoot him again). A common stunt is the multi-target attack: you have an attack affect a large number of targets, and take a penalty to your attack roll equal to the number of targets effected.
Vehicles
Vehicles have four stats of note: Speed, Shields, Firepower, and Hull.
Speed is how fast a vehicle is, and applies to all rolls made with it to engage with or break away from enemies, as well as its initiative and dodge action value. Speed can be either Sloth -8, Slow -4, Average +0, Fast +4, or Breakneck +8. Shields act like Toughness for a character--they reduce damage. However, every time an attack deals at least half their rating in damage, they get a checkmark. If they are penetrated, they get two checkmarks. When they have 5 marks, they malfunction. Light shielding is 10, mid-range is 30, and powerful shielding is 50. Firepower is the strength of a vehicle's weapon systems, and has two parts: a damage rating and an accuracy. light weapons deal 10 damage, heavy 20, good sized torpedoes 30, and turbolasers 40 or 50. Accuracy typically ranges from -4 for turbolasers to +4 for lockon torpedoes. Hull is the number of wound points a ship can sustain before exploding. When a ship has taken WP equal to half its Hull, all rolls made with it suffer a -1 penalty. For each successful hit against it thereafter, one major system malfs.
In vehicle combat, attacks are made with the Pilot skill, and a ship's dodge AV is equal to the helmsman's Pilot AV plus the ship's speed modifier. Initiative is rolled as normal, with the addition of the ship's speed modifier.
Ships with shields can have their shield geometry rotated. When this is done, select a side of the ship: port, starboard, for, or aft. Shields on that side of the ship are half again as effective, while those on the other side operate at 50% efficiency.
Calculating a hyperspace jump requires a Pilot or appropriate Infor check, and suffers quite a large penalty if you don't have an Astronav computer or astromech droid on hand.
Misc.
Destiny dice. Each character has a number of Destiny Dice per session equal to their Destiny secondary Force attribute. A Destiny die can be spent to effectively gain a second + die on any roll. They can also be spent for various unique schticks, such as the Noble's ability to call in favors or the Techie's ability to take anything from a blaster pistol to a welder torch to an aquata breather out of their sachel. Characters with at least one Force schtick may also spend a Destiny die to use a Force schtick that they do not actually possess.
Maps. Aren't used. Period. The players are expected to come up with the scenery as they go, as part of the description of their stunts.
Range and movement rate. Ignored for the most part, only factored in when dramatically important.
Hmm. I think that's it!
--longest bump EVAR jeph
Basics
All you need to play are 2d6, of different color. One is your Plus die, one your Minus die. When you want to do something difficult, you determine your Action Value--or AV--usually equal to a skill rating or secondary attribute. Then, roll your dice, adding the value of the + die and subtracting that of the - die. If you get any sixes, they "explode". If you roll "boxcars", then you redo the roll, but get outrageous results.
So, for instance, Obi-Wan Kenobi has a Martial Arts of (say) 15. He wants to jump around among the scaffolding of something or other during an earthquake (silly obi-wan). The GM rules that his has a Difficulty of 20, which is really damn high. He rolls a +6/-6: boxcars! He redoes the roll, getting +6/-2, then rerolling the 6 and getting a 5. His total for the roll is (15 + 6 - 2 +5) 24. He succeeds with outrageous results. The GM desides that when he lands from his leaping, his foot sets down on a weak point in the scaffolding, bringing most of the structure tumbling down. However, he is able to spring away in time, and makes his second landing on one of the few still upright beams.
Characters
Chargen in Feng Shui is FAST. You pick an Archetype, and note down the relevant Attributes and Skills. Then you have a certain number of points to distribute among your Primary and Secondary attributes, a number of extra skill bonuses to spend, a number of Schticks (the FS equivalent to d20's feats) to select, and a number of weapons to select. You also have a Wealth Level, which is either Poor, Working Stiff, or Rich--no counting coins in Feng Shui.
There are fully fourteen useful attributes, 3 or 4 secondaries in each of 4 primaries. The Attributes are Body (Move, Strength, Constitution, Toughness), Force (Destiny, Control, Flow), Mind (Charisma, Intelligence, Perception, Will), and Reflexes (Agility, Manual Dexterity, Speed). A rating of 3 or 4 is poor, 5 average, 6 or 7 good, 8 or greater supermegamondoawesome. Unless noted otherwise, all Secondary attributes have the value of their primary attributes. An attribute with an = by it (for instance, Force =6) cannot be increased during character creation.
The skill list I'll be using for the Star Wars game is a bit more comprehensive and less redundant than that of standard Feng Shui, and consists of the following skills: Deceit, Gambling, Guns, Info, Intimidation, Intrusion, Leadership, Martial Arts, Medicine, Pilot, Repair, Investigate, Technology, Use Force, Survival. Skill values can be a little wonky in their figuring, as the base secondary attribute plus your skill bonuses does not always equal your action value. Skills marked in your archetype with an = sign (for instance, the Ace Pilot has Pilot =16) CAN NOT, under any circumstances, be altered in character creation. Even if you increase the base attribute by 4 points and add 2 skill bonuses, the Ace Pilot still has a Pilot AV of 16. Similarly, some skills have maximums, which act as a ceiling for the starting character's skills. Beginning characters can't increase the AV of any skill not in their archetype above 12 in chargen. Some "signature skills" (Guns, Martial Arts, and Use Force) cannot be increased above 10 for beginners (this is a change from normal Feng Shui, where they can't be increased at all).
For example: the Force Adept archetype reads thusly.
Attributes: Body 5, Force =6, Mind 5, Reflexes 5. Add 2 to a single primary attribute. Add 2 to a single secondary attribute.
Skills: Martial Arts +7 (12) [max 14], Use Force +5 (=11), Survival +6 (11) [max 13]. Add 6 skill bonuses.
Schticks: 1 Force Schtick, 1 Flow Schtick, and 2 other Schticks which may be either Force, Flow, or Fighting Schticks.
Weapons: Any 2 weapons of your choice.
Unique Schtick: Treat this ability as a Flow schtick, with a Force cost of 1 and Shot cost of 3. Make an attack with a Martial Arts weapon that is unpowered. If the attack hits, it deals damage equal to your Strength plus your Flow plus 3.
Wealth Level: Poor
Let's say I'm making a martial artist who uses his Force abilities to enhance his combat prowess. We'll have him grow up on some out of the way backwards rim world. As a martial artist, he needs to be fast, so we'll use the increase to primary attributes for Reflexes. He also needs to be aware, so we'll go with Perception as the secondary increase. Now for skills. We see his Martial Arts has already reached 14--it relies on Agility, a subsidiary of Reflexes, which went up by 2. So, we can give him a few other areas of focus. I think putting 2 bonuses each in Senses, Info/Fighting Styles, and Intrusion would be true to his character concept. For his Force Schtick (external force abilities, using your powers on the world), I'll go with Life Energy, which allows him to manipulate the flow of the Force in others. For his Flow Schtick (internal force abilities, using your powers on yourself), he'll take Force Reaction, which allows him to increase his initiative. Most Flow schticks rely upon the use of a lightsaber and are thus unavailable to him. Lastly we have two Force, Flow, or Fighting schticks. I think a two-daggers style would be cool, so we'll give him One-Two Attack (a melee version of Both Guns Blazing for Feng Shui buffs) and Favored Weapons: Daggers (+1 AV with chosen weapons). For his two weapons, we'll take two daggers (duh). We also note down his Unique Schtick, which effectively allows him to use any weapon with the destrictive potential of a lightsaber--über useful. So our character looks like this:
Attributes: Body 5, Force 6, Mind 5 (Perception 7), Reflexes 7.
Skills: Martial Arts 14, Use Force 11, Survival 11, Senses 9, Info/Fighting Styles 7, Intrusion 9.
Schticks: Lige Energy, Force Reaction, One-Two Attack, Favored Weapons: Daggers, Unique Schtick (charge weapon to 14 damage)
Weapons: Two Daggers (damage 7)
Wealth Level: Poor
Combat
There are two measurements of time in combat: Sequences and Shots. Sequences are comprised of a number of shots, which are like parts of actions. Most actions take 3 shots, but others may take more or less. At the beginning of each sequence, every character rolls a die and adds their Speed. They start on this shot. There are a number of Schticks that can add to your initiative.
Attacking usually uses the Guns or Martial Arts skill. The Difficulty of the attack is the higher of the target's Guns or Martial Arts AVs. If the attack hits, the target takes wound points equal to the Outcome (the result of the attacker's roll minus the difficulty) of the attack, plus the Damage rating of the attacker's weapon, minus their Toughness plus Armor. For instance, Martial Arts Force Guy uses a charged attack with his daggers, rolling a 16 against a Difficulty of 13. The defender has a Toughness of 6 and is wearing 1 point of armor. Charged weapons deal 14 damage for MAFG. The target takes (outcome 3 + 14 damage - 6 toughness - 1 armor) 10 wound points. When a character has 25 WP, they suffer -1 to all AVs. This penalty increases to -2 at 30 WP. When they have 35 WP, they are disabled.
When a target is attacked, they may take a "defensive action." This costs 1 shot, and gives them a +3 bonus to their AV against the attack.
Things are a little different when attacking Unnamed characters (a fancy word for "cannon fodder"). In this case, you simply have to beat their AV by 5, and they're out of the fight (and you get to describe how!). Since most characters have an AV of 14-15, and most mooks 8-9, they simply serve as propos for a character's stunts.
STUNTS! How could I forget stunts! Stunts basically allow you to gain some extra benefit for a -2 penalty. For instance, you could shove a guy off the sky bridge, chop off his hand, or knock his feat out from under him for a -2 penalty. Also, the GM can penalize you if you do boaring things over and over (uh, I shoot him again). A common stunt is the multi-target attack: you have an attack affect a large number of targets, and take a penalty to your attack roll equal to the number of targets effected.
Vehicles
Vehicles have four stats of note: Speed, Shields, Firepower, and Hull.
Speed is how fast a vehicle is, and applies to all rolls made with it to engage with or break away from enemies, as well as its initiative and dodge action value. Speed can be either Sloth -8, Slow -4, Average +0, Fast +4, or Breakneck +8. Shields act like Toughness for a character--they reduce damage. However, every time an attack deals at least half their rating in damage, they get a checkmark. If they are penetrated, they get two checkmarks. When they have 5 marks, they malfunction. Light shielding is 10, mid-range is 30, and powerful shielding is 50. Firepower is the strength of a vehicle's weapon systems, and has two parts: a damage rating and an accuracy. light weapons deal 10 damage, heavy 20, good sized torpedoes 30, and turbolasers 40 or 50. Accuracy typically ranges from -4 for turbolasers to +4 for lockon torpedoes. Hull is the number of wound points a ship can sustain before exploding. When a ship has taken WP equal to half its Hull, all rolls made with it suffer a -1 penalty. For each successful hit against it thereafter, one major system malfs.
In vehicle combat, attacks are made with the Pilot skill, and a ship's dodge AV is equal to the helmsman's Pilot AV plus the ship's speed modifier. Initiative is rolled as normal, with the addition of the ship's speed modifier.
Ships with shields can have their shield geometry rotated. When this is done, select a side of the ship: port, starboard, for, or aft. Shields on that side of the ship are half again as effective, while those on the other side operate at 50% efficiency.
Calculating a hyperspace jump requires a Pilot or appropriate Infor check, and suffers quite a large penalty if you don't have an Astronav computer or astromech droid on hand.
Misc.
Destiny dice. Each character has a number of Destiny Dice per session equal to their Destiny secondary Force attribute. A Destiny die can be spent to effectively gain a second + die on any roll. They can also be spent for various unique schticks, such as the Noble's ability to call in favors or the Techie's ability to take anything from a blaster pistol to a welder torch to an aquata breather out of their sachel. Characters with at least one Force schtick may also spend a Destiny die to use a Force schtick that they do not actually possess.
Maps. Aren't used. Period. The players are expected to come up with the scenery as they go, as part of the description of their stunts.
Range and movement rate. Ignored for the most part, only factored in when dramatically important.
Hmm. I think that's it!
--longest bump EVAR jeph
