Feng Shui or Hong Kong Action Theatre?

[Black Omega]

Having played HKAT, I have to say I had alot of fun with the game. It's fairly simple and flexible and the premise is rather unusual. Instead of a character, you essentially are an actor and each story arc is a movie and your actor is a character in that movie.

However, while HKAT is a cool idea, Feng Shui is simply more fun as a game. It has alot of flavor and color. I personally don't think much of the various time zones, but it has alot of good ideas. Just avoid the d20 version.

 

[Corinth]

I have to concur with this. Burning Shaolin was horrible all around; it's not even that good as a Feng Shui adventure.

As for Feng Shui, my group and I are encountering difficulties with the mechanics now. With one exception, the characters are all martial artists of one sort or another. Naturally, I decided to run a worldwide martial arts tournament scenario; with the aid of one of my players, we've cribbed enough from The King of Fighters and Street Fighter franchises to make it all work very well.

The problem is that Feng Shui lacks a system to make combos. There is one Fu schtick that allows it, and some wonky rules in Golden Comeback that are intended for sorcerers and not kung-fu warriors. (Exalted, by comparison, has one ass-kicking combo system that works damned well.) The stunt rules are also getting in the way; stunts should provide bonuses, not penalties. (Again, Exalted does this right.)

We've also discovered that all of the character templates have an optimal build that defeats all other versions of the same template. This should not exist in a role-playing game of any kind.

Feng Shui is still better than Hong Kong Action Theater!, but now I must say that Exalted is better than both of them at covering the same ground. The D20 community also threatens to overtake both of these games; Spycraft barrels down on the contemporary action movie side of things, Dungeons & Dragons owns the fantasy end of things, so all that's left is the weird future of Feng Shui's 2056 juncture. All that requires is some reworking of the Maho rules to account for Arcanowave mutation and the rest is just a lot of tweaking & renaming; it's only a matter of time now.

Come up with a good D20 version of Exalted's stunt and combo rules, and the two elements that current prevent that game from assimilating into D20 will fall away. (Oh, and I would pay for a D20 version of Exalted.)

 

[Voadam]

I haven't read or played either but dragon fist looked like a lot of fun, is very close to d20 and is free. It available on the WotC site in their archives section.

 

[Corinth]

Dragonfist became obsolete with the publication of the new edition of Oriental Adventures.

 

[Olive]

HKAT is on sale at my local game store... thats why i remember it.

hey: are you talking about exalted the white wolf game? I know nothing about this game so tell me more!

And I'm not sure that dragon fist really was supersceded by OA... where are my stunt dice rules then? hmmm?

 

[Teflon Billy]

I think that Feng Shui is phenomenal in spite of it's wonky rules system. Balance is a thing of legend in Feng Shui. As a starting character you can be a Martial Artist with 3 Martial arts powers, or be one with 5. No compensation exists for the 3 martial arts powers one.

Don't even get me started on the Big Bruiser or the Maverick cop.

But we had a great GM for the game and it was some of the biggest fun we've ever had playing.

HKAT? Never played it.

 

[Victim]

"Balance a thing of legend" like Halfling Ranger legendary?

 

[Breakstone]

I love Feng Shui.

About the Balance issue: Feng Shui is based on Action Movies, and in Action movies the characters are never balanced.

In Feng Shui, a Scrappy Kid (one of the archetypes, kind of like classes) can easily beat a skilled Martial Artist.

But when you think about it, that's the way it would work in the movies...

Feng Shui uses only two dice for every single thing, which I think is ingeniously simple.

With stunts, there's a penalty because it's harder to execute, but you get more done by accomplishing one.

Again, Feng Shui is great...

 

[Corinth]

I love Feng Shui.

About the Balance issue: Feng Shui is based on Action Movies, and in Action movies the characters are never balanced.

That's fine for movies, but not for RPGs. Claiming such is a cop out.

In Feng Shui, a Scrappy Kid (one of the archetypes, kind of like classes) can easily beat a skilled Martial Artist.

But when you think about it, that's the way it would work in the movies...

Not if the Martial Artist is built correctly. Body 10, Reflexes 6 and the Horton Utilities (Willow Step, Hands w/o Shadow, Prodigeous Leap) means that the MA is in control of the fight. The Kid, if he's built correctly, has the first two Crane shticks so that he can use his Chi stat instead of his Body stat for Strength and he pumps his Mind so that he can make effective use of Wing of the Crane on Defense.

The result? The MA puts the beat-down on the Kid every time because he has the range of movement and the ability to deny the Kid the use of Active Dodges (which means no Wing of the Crane) when he attacks. The MA already has a 2 pt. AV advantage, meaning that he's 85% better than the Kid, so all he needs to do is either Leap away to deny the Kid's offense or pop Willow Step when he's attacked to put his DAV at 17 (equal to the Kid's best likely attack roll when the Kid pop's a Fortune die on the attack).

I've run this game for about a year now. I know the ins and outs very well; this game is damn near broken in how easy it is to exploit the crocks. That FS has optimal builds for every character template goes a long way towards making the game not-fun right there.

Feng Shui uses only two dice for every single thing, which I think is ingeniously simple.

With stunts, there's a penalty because it's harder to execute, but you get more done by accomplishing one.

Again, Feng Shui is great...

Stunts are wonky in FS because they conflate badly with the way that task adjudication works. There is also no set criteria for awarding bennies for stunts; Exalted does this better by setting firm criteria that's easy to understand and use, and it gives bonuses for good stunt descriptions w/o messing with the DN for the task at hand.

Again, I speak from experience. I've played both games, so the comparisons are from practical gameplay experience and not just theory.

 

[Olive]

That's fine for movies, but not for RPGs. Claiming such is a cop out.

you think so? I guess it depends on how often you expect to play the system...