Feng Shui - Help Me Make Cool Fight Scenes

[Olaf the Stout]

Next session I am running my group through their first ever session of Feng Shui (the RPG, not the furniture arranging stuff! ). I plan on running the Baptism of Fire scenario from the Feng Shui RPG rulebook.

As well as it being my players' first experience with Feng Shui, it will be the first time that I have run the system before. I played a single session one-shot at a Con before so I am relatively new to the game as well. I have had the Feng Shui RPG books for years, I've just never had a chance to run a session before now.

Since the game will be completely new to them I want to make the first session as awesome as possible. To give them an idea of how the game is supposed to run I e-mailed them the Feng Shui story hour 6 in the Chamber written by Dr Midnight, that was posted here on EN World many years ago. I also explained to them that it plays out like a Hong Kong action movie. Think of almost any Jackie Chan movie and you are pretty close to what a game of Feng Shui should be like.

Since the players may take a little time to adapt to the different style of gameplay in Feng Shui (the group almost exclusively plays D&D) I figured I would work out some ideas of cool things that could happen during the fights and have the bad guys do them to help give the players a feel for things. The scenario lists a few things cool things that could occur but I think I can expand on that. And then I figured that many hands make light work so I should ask here for ideas as well!

There are 4 fights in the scenario. The first fight is in a restaurant in Hong Kong. The second (possible) fight is in a topless bar/strip club/nightclub. The third fight is at a construction site and the final fight is in a crowded high-rise apartment.

To give you an idea of the types of suggestions I am after the scenario lists the following cool things that should happen in the restaurant fight:

• Someone gets their face shoved into a sizzling hot plate on the countertop.
• Thrown plates, bowls and wine bottles make excellent weapons.
• There's a lobster tank bestide the cast register. It should get smashed. Maybe somebody's head should be plunged into it.
• The cash register can be lifted up and smashed down on someone's head with a distinct "ding!" sound effect.
• The dining room is on the second floor. There are great big plate glass windows facing the street. People could get tossed through those windows to the street below.

Thanks in advance,

Olaf the Stout

 

[Asmor]

The cash register can be lifted up and smashed down on someone's head with a distinct "ding!" sound effect.

You totally need to start Money (by Pink Floyd) when that happens... I don't know why, but it seems to me that Money would be a great song for a fight scene.

So let's see, ideas...

1. Strip club

• The poles are just a wealth of action potential. Heroes swinging around them to deliver kicks, shoving enemy heads into them, climbing up them, dangling, and fighting upside down...
• Lots of light tables to be picked up, knocked over, or even thrown.
• Get up into the DJ station and throw CDs/records

2. Construction site

• Stack of concrete tubes, pipes, or other cylindrical objects set rolling.
• Fighting in foot-deep wet cement
• Spinning girder suspended from crane

3. High-rise

• Penthouse swimming pool that goes right up to the edge of the building
• Helicopter belonging to the good guys, bad guys, or even a third party e.g. the police
• Smashing people with various objects d'art. Busts, sculptures, paintings...

 

[InVinoVeritas]

LOVE the lobster tank. Some mook thrashing about, screaming, lobsters attached to every appendage, is just right.

Restaurant:

Even though the kitchen is fitted with knives, hot pots, and grills, there is also the spice rack.

Strip club:

Lighting for the stage requires scaffolding. Scaffolding is great to hide in or attack from.
It's got to have a bar to slide down / throw someone down, smashing drinks along the way.
You can strangle bad guys with feather boas.
Perhaps this bar is fitted with a swing/low trapeze.
Backstage you'll have various costumes and costume racks. Some of the performers will have pepper spray. At the very least, they'll have hair spray. Make-up powder makes another effective blinding/distracting tool.

Construction site:

The epic battle from the swinging girder is a must.
There are also big construction machines. Imagine being attacked by a backhoe. Imagine jumping onto the backhoe, unseating the driver, and wielding it yourself.
Where there's construction, there's scaffolding again.
Potential weapons include cans of paint, jackhammers, nail guns, power drills, small tools dropped from extreme heights, panes of glass, and two-by-fours.

High Rise:

Don't forget elevators. Make sure you have some cheerful, light soft music playing while the battle rages. Finish the elevator scene off with a "ding!" as the doors open and carnage rains out. Alternately, play the elevator Blues Brothers style, with everyone calmly and patiently waiting to reach their destination floor before continuing the combat.
Fire doors are another possible weapon. Enemy charges, you pull the fire alarm. Fire doors slam into enemy face.
Aside from throwing people off the roof to their fate below, they can also be thrown off the roof to a lesser fate through a skylight a couple floors down.
Someone needs to be stuffed down the garbage chute.



I wish I could play Feng Shui...

 

[Piratecat]

It isn't a Feng Shui restaurant fight until someone gets impaled by a flaming skewer of kabobs!

You're going to get lots of good ideas for the fight scenes, so I'm going to give you a few thoughts on running the game:

• Count off shots quickly and efficiently. I put the initiative/shot count along the bottom or right side of the character sheet and add a paperclip, making it easier for the players to track. When I count shots I alternate which way around the group I ask. Most importantly, count shots quickly and ask the players to be ready. You don't want the game to bog down. So it'd go something like this.
  
  Me, going anti-clockwise from right to left: "Shot 15." I'll point to the player on my right. She goes or shakes her head, and I go to the next player along. After the last player on my left goes or declines, I'll say "Shot 14" and ask that same player again before proceeding around the table clockwise from left to right. This helps keep it straight and makes sure everyone gets to go.
  
  
• Speaking of bogging down, Feng Shui involves a little more math than I'd like to see, with the players or you needing to calculate their attack every round. I usually have the players give me their attack total and I do the rest in my head. Just anticipate this.
  
  
• Feng Shui's biggest rules fault in my opinion is that defense and attacks use the exact same value; you both attack and defend with either guns or kung fu. That's a problem for NPCs because it means that in order to be deadly in combat, named villains are also really hard to hit. Consider separating these two values for important NPCs, thus giving you the flexibility of having a really strong brute who doesn't dodge too well.
  
  
• When in doubt, something should explode.
  

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Anyone else have any suggestions?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

When in doubt, something should explode.

Quoted for great truth.

You've had loads of great ideas. My other great idea is to introduce crazy NPC's. In the restuarant, if the owner isn't a PC have him turn up halfway through brandishing chopsticks. His actual effectiveness is up to you, of course.

Make it absolutely clear that using improvised weapons causes no penalties to attack or damage, and may in fact get them a bonus. D&D players need to be shown how the system works, I find, and they might be expecting "realistic" penalties for wild and mad stunts, so pile on the circumstance bonuses.

Plus, lead by example. Have the mooks do weird stuff and the players will follow.

Lastly - dialogue! The dialogue should be AWFUL, or AWE-INSPIRING. I forget which.

 

[Piratecat]

Any named NPC should be considered to be played by a named actor, or at least a really cool character actor. Find celebrity photos and show them to the players when you introduce the NPCs. Mooks, though? Poor faceless bastards. Just ask those gangsters in Kill Bill.