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Forums Terrorist posted:What about a cyborg monkey dual-wielding Wombats? That actually would be character for a Jammer.
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Dec 19, 2013 21:02
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 10:18 |
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But really, ignoring all the Jammer jokes for a second, player-controlled Feng Shui sites are a really good way to get new villains involved with the PCs. After all, everyone wants more Feng Shui sites and the PCs are probably going to be the easiest targets. They're going to need to deal with all the major players in town sooner or later, and even if they make peace with all the locals there's nothing stopping a bunch of cyberninjas from popping out of the Netherworld to try to get a foothold in the real world again. (Or whatever else you want the PCs to fight this week, for that matter. There's not really a shortage of alternate history refugees that would want to fight the PCs.) And if the PCs have enough people working for them that they aren't the easiest target, well, I'm sure there's a bunch of hooks you can use with their organizations. Ambitious lieutenants, traitors within your ranks, recruiting better talent, all that jazz.
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Dec 19, 2013 21:55
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Writing Distimed people is hilariously fun, like when it turned out that the Irish-Chinese PubOrd cop turned interdimensional heroine's absent father was a Distimed Irish privateer who fought with the Aztecs against the tyranny of God-Queen Elizabeth. My principle for Distimed people is that you should imagine a game of Civilization, then add whatever crazy action movie or kung-fu poo poo you want to the outcome, then you're good to go.
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Dec 19, 2013 21:57
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It's great because with the way the Netherworld and junctures work it's not 'thib guy is from a possible era' but more, 'this guy is from an era that was squashed like a bug and rewritten'.
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Dec 19, 2013 22:00
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I think I found my next Feng Shui adventure. Or at least what the real 2056 juncture should be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72RqpItxd8M fake edit: also this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxLX3RnGu7U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dofacvjRkc
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Dec 27, 2013 08:06
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Someone has actually filmed the concept of trying too hard, Jesus Christ.
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Dec 27, 2013 08:28
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Death to 80s revivalism.
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Dec 27, 2013 16:21
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Nottotallyseriouspost: t I want my 80's revivalism.Seriouspost: Kai Tave posted:In addition to basically being a vast, monolithic, immovable object of a surveillance state (as opposed to the more open and freewheeling nature of other junctures what with ancient wuxia China, the Opium Wars, and the modern day) one thing that doesn't really help the 2056 juncture is the lack of a inspirational media that fits it. Pick any other juncture and you can easily find a half-dozen Hong Kong action movies that you can sit down and watch and go "this right here." There's a dearth of "Orwellian dystopia meets David Cronenberg plus kung fu" to draw on. I think the biggest problem I have with the Buro and 2056 is not just that it's not taken from KH movies, but there's no real short one-line description of it. Everything in Feng Shui tends towards broad strokes and short punchy descriptions, then you've got the Buro which is actually pretty complicated. That, and it doesn't have that inherent fight-scene-ness built in like every other juncture. I think if I was to rewrite the Buro, I'd pare it down to "FOX News and consumer culture run amok; they're mutating demons to protect YOUR FREEDOMS, and if you don't buy these brands, you're letting the deviant eunuch terrorists win."
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Dec 27, 2013 19:55
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Why not go all postapocalyptic with the Buro? "Evil sorcerer summons an army of demons to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" is a classic and it's pretty easy to justify all of the usual zany Buro-stuff under that.
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Dec 27, 2013 20:08
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Tulul posted:Why not go all postapocalyptic with the Buro? "Evil sorcerer summons an army of demons to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" is a classic and it's pretty easy to justify all of the usual zany Buro-stuff under that. Honestly, there's just not a lot of reasons for people to want to go to your standard post apocalypse. I know the Buro already have this problem, but at least they have stuff you want to take other than weird corrupting deviltech. If no one wants to deal with that then all that future adds is a new source for devils, and 69 AD and the Netherworld are already that. Also, a lot of those post apocalyptic themes are weakened when you're in a setting where people explicitly have changed the past to affect the future before and you can just go back to before things went to hell if you know the way. Really, a good Feng Shui juncture needs a good example of The Man to punch in the face, and there needs to be a society doing interesting things. If Hell comes to Earth and brings both those things, it could work. If it doesn't, it's probably going to be too one note for prolonged play.
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Dec 27, 2013 20:40
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Coward posted:The 2056 Buro juncture is indeed intriguingly unique, and I like it a hell of a lot more than I thought I would, but I agree with the viewpoint that it's a much more compelling place to come from or refer to than to actually play around in. And while I get the fact that Cyberpunk is done to death (although not in CCGs, really), I do honestly love the fact that they went the retro route and made it as 80s Asian-influenced Gibson-esque as they could. I realise I will likely go to my grave arguing cybernetic neon ninjas make everything better. As it happens, Robin spilled some beans in the latest KARTAS podcast. "The Jammers have won; the Architects are gone. The future is no longer a Orwellian nightmare with magic and demons underneath that you can never hang around in, that you can just do quick raids in and out of. It's that much more established movieland for action and violence, a post-apocalyptic wasteland." There's also a split in the Jammers, and Furious George wants to establish a simian army to rule the future. This allows Feng Shui to reference superheroes, since there can be genetic mutants. So that works for me. Furthermore, the chi flow has been destabilized which allows for pop-up junctures which appear for a short period of time, explicitly enabling pulp Nazi fighting. (He notes that real-life atrocities will not be made the cartoonish result of the Ascended dominance.)
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Dec 28, 2013 01:29
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It's pretty funny that we were just talking about how an apocalyptic juncture wouldn't necessarily work any better than Buro.
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Dec 28, 2013 01:35
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Well, we've got a The Man to punch, Furious George and his Simian Cyborg armies. So what is the society doing interesting things?
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Dec 28, 2013 01:45
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Well, we've got a The Man to punch, Furious George and his Simian Cyborg armies. So what is the society doing interesting things? Well, there's probably enough ex-Buro and angry Jammers and desperate survivors that a good writer can do something with it. I know I just said that blasted wastelands aren't good for Feng Shui, but I trust Robin to at least put some interesting hooks in the wreckage. Also, I can't really blame them for not going for a cyberpunk future. You know, since we basically live in a cyberpunk future with less cybernetics anyway.
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Dec 28, 2013 02:27
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drat you all, now I just went out and purchased a ton of books with my christmas money :P
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Dec 28, 2013 04:33
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Well, we've got a The Man to punch, Furious George and his Simian Cyborg armies. So what is the society doing interesting things? Turning Furious George into the Man is what sold me. Also the superheroes. Also there'll be Jammertech giant mecha somewhere off in the corner. It sounds like it won't be total wreckage, more like DMZ maybe? I'm intrigued.
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Dec 28, 2013 07:17
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Also, is this the point where we make a "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, drat you! God drat you all to hell!" apes joke? 
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Dec 28, 2013 07:20
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Huh. I wouldn't have pegged a post-apocalypse style setting for a juncture but I guess I'll wait and see how it plays out. I mean, I suppose there's precedent in Fist of the North Star and Six-String Samurai. I do think that a schism in the Jammers is an interesting approach to take with the faction since it means that not only does it open up the options for using them as antagonists but also as player-characters as well...Jammers didn't traditionally play very well with your typical Feng Shui party given their hardline "blow every Feng Shui site up no questions asked no negotiations" stance. You could do an all Jammer game sure, but now it sounds like there'll be more reasons for Jammers or ex-Jammers to hang out with a bunch of Dragons since stopping a cyber-simian army from taking over the world may take precedence over "try and break the world's chi flow" (which seem to have happened anyway).
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Dec 28, 2013 08:30
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Well, session two happened, the adventure I wrote had them learning about the fun combat and driving mechanics from the Golden Comeback book and they enjoyed it. Happy and Teng escaped last session so I had an introduction of the environmental damage mechanics of throwing people into electrical generators and having them shock to death. They also enjoyed the driving mechanics. One of my players did an action move as the Scrappy Kid being eight years old and jumping onto the front window of the enemy car. The driver they were chasing had boxcar failure and crashed the car into a concrete wall. I had to call to make a fortune dice check for both the player and the driver. The driver failed and died due to the fact the airbags and seat belt didn't fire, but the PC landed on a bunch of pillows.  Also had a new player from the future so the only appropriate thing was to put him into the same situation ala Terminator II of beating up a biker bar to introduce him to the combat mechanics. Suffice to say, he enjoyed throwing a guy into a Pac-Man machine and breaking through the monitor. And when it was all sad and done, had to play the song "Bad to the Bone" for him in his biker outfit and motorcycle. Still, gotta figure out how to handle introducing Kun Chau and have it be the big oh gently caress moment where Ta Yu and the players actually have to work together to stop it and then getting introduced to the Ascended. I mean, I did leave the hook open for the plot for the next session from the film The Heroic Trio with infants being kidnapped from the Hong Kong hospital.
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Dec 29, 2013 18:56
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You're doing God's work with your players there. What sort of stuff is your Scrappy Kid focused on?
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Dec 29, 2013 21:11
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You know, I've had more trouble with the 1850s juncture than with 2056. At least with 2056 you have Equilibrium and Unleashed, but what's the source material/one sentence summary for 1850?
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Dec 30, 2013 02:12
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Either the opium wars but with more scheming and kung fu, or Once Upon a Time in China: the setting.
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Dec 30, 2013 02:23
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I ran San Francisco 1850s. Great fun.
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Dec 30, 2013 03:51
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Night10194 posted:You're doing God's work with your players there. What sort of stuff is your Scrappy Kid focused on? Well, all sorts of stuff an eight year old ought to be. Running the eating counter as a co-owner, collecting baseball cards, trying to learn Dim Mak, and an appreciation for Wu-Tang Clan 36 Chambers, you know the best rap album of all time, OF ALL TIME! He also sort of fell in love with a waitress who is way over qualified for her job, knowing Jeet Kune Do, how to stop and prevent a ninja attack. She maybe a Pledged infiltrator. The two other players are awesome since they are playing two different characters but the same person. You see, it's basically two different Kurt Russells, our Everyman Hero is an America loving Jack Burton, the future one is Snake Plissken who both the Buros and Jammers want dead. And they all are trying to run the first and only American sports bar in Hong Kong.
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Dec 30, 2013 04:33
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Obviously the Scrappy Kid is Kurt Russell from his Disney Days.
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Dec 30, 2013 04:55
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Ramba Ral posted:And they all are trying to run the first and only American sports bar in Hong Kong. By which I mean make sure you're putting it on top of a feng shui site. EDIT: Also keep an eye out for ninja interior decorators trying to sabotage you.
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Dec 30, 2013 05:26
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Zereth posted:Location, location, location, man. Of course it's on top of a feng shui site and everyone is going to want to grab it. Good idea for the ninja attack from a defunct faction. I can see them chasing them into the Netherworld and having to be introduced to that game concept and probably get to meet the Thunder Pagoda POPE. Also, what's a good rule of thumb for mook/named character creation? Statwise I mean, I know AV 15 is supposed to be the standard but how should they compare to the PCs? Lastly, if my players are going to franchise that sports bar, they'll be required to have feng shui sites because the beer and chicken wings taste better when it is on one. 
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Dec 30, 2013 16:50
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It's funny that I bitched about both the Jammers and 80s revivalism, because I'm probably going to use both in the PbP recruit I just posted. Guess The Only Moral Nostalgia Is My Nostalgia. In fairness though, I just picked up Blood Dragon when it went on sale and that won me over since neon is a good look for the Jammers. Also, naming the main leader of this group TERROR 404: good idea or great idea?
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Jan 1, 2014 04:11
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pospysyl posted:You know, I've had more trouble with the 1850s juncture than with 2056. At least with 2056 you have Equilibrium and Unleashed, but what's the source material/one sentence summary for 1850? For a Western (non-China) setting, I think "Wild Wild West meets Native American Shamans meets Cowboys from Hell meets Kung-Fu / Kung-Fu the Legend Continues". 'Deadlands' might be a good source of inspiration, as well.
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Jan 12, 2014 01:31
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Simon Draskovic posted:For a Western (non-China) setting, I think "Wild Wild West meets Native American Shamans meets Cowboys from Hell meets Kung-Fu / Kung-Fu the Legend Continues". 'Deadlands' might be a good source of inspiration, as well. Isn't "Wild Wild West meets Native American Shamans meets Cowboys from Hell meets Kung-Fu / Kung-Fu the Legend Continues" a pretty good summary of Deadlands anyway? (although I suppose you'd have to include demons too)
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Jan 12, 2014 02:05
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Western 1850's always turns into Shanghai Noon for me, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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Jan 12, 2014 02:31
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Have we heard any more rumblings about the Feng Shui 2nd Edition playtest? A variety of games I've played lately (MGR:Rising, Shadow Warrior, Sleeping Dogs) have left me in a hell of a FS mood. Then again I won't be able to participate most likely, I never got a response when I signed up for their Spec Ops Demo Team thing. 
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Jan 13, 2014 05:43
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I was told I'm in, but we were told not to expect anything until this month or next.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:56
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Have we heard any more rumblings about the Feng Shui 2nd Edition playtest? A variety of games I've played lately (MGR:Rising, Shadow Warrior, Sleeping Dogs) have left me in a hell of a FS mood. One of my groups has basically decided Feng Shui is Platinum Games: The RPG. I know it's not Hong Kong action, but taking stuff like MGR as inspiration really does feel about right.
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Jan 13, 2014 07:23
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Even if you don't go full Platinum/Clover, Viewtiful Joe and Dante could fit in any FS game.
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Jan 13, 2014 08:09
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Yo Feng Shui Crew I'm looking at running some Feng Shui for a PBP game, but I'm not liking the look of the rules. I was thinking of going for FAE, but then I noticed that someone's done a *World hack that looks pretty comprehensive. Anyone got any familiarity with using those systems wanna pitch in? Or should I try and stick it out with the base rules?
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Jan 15, 2014 12:59
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I've mentioned this before but my experience with Feng Shui's system in the past is that it can be infuriatingly swingy in actual play (both positive and negative dice explode so you can veer from comical ineptitude to impossible, Herculean skill in the span of a few minutes) and beyond that while at the time it was released a lot of the stuff in the book was kind of a radical departure from the way things had been done previously nothing about the system is particularly special these days. I know that "run it in FATE" is so overused it's almost a joke response at this point but if I were to run Feng Shui I would do it in FATE in a heartbeat. It does everything you want out of Feng Shui but smoother, with less mechanical wonkiness, and I feel like FATE's system lends itself very well to the sort of freewheeling "gently caress it, go for it" game that you want out of something with time-displaced cyborg apes and sagacious lightstep kung-fu masters. Archetypes and Melodramatic Hooks map almost exactly to High Concepts and Troubles, and schticks are close enough to stunts that it probably wouldn't take a huge amount of work to get a workable conversion going. FATE's fate point dynamic is also loads better than Feng Shui's equivalent. So yeah, I'm not usually a huge "convert everything to FATE" booster but in this one case I feel like it's practically tailor-made for it.
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Jan 15, 2014 13:28
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Kai Tave posted:I've mentioned this before but my experience with Feng Shui's system in the past is that it can be infuriatingly swingy in actual play (both positive and negative dice explode so you can veer from comical ineptitude to impossible, Herculean skill in the span of a few minutes) and beyond that while at the time it was released a lot of the stuff in the book was kind of a radical departure from the way things had been done previously nothing about the system is particularly special these days. Not to mention that d6-d6 is practially 4dF anyway. Feng Shui's like 80% of the way to being Fate anyway so it's kind of hard to not convert it. At most I'd add a "Reversion" track for transformed animals, a "Mutation" track for arcanowave gear, and maybe crib Dresden Files' creature power stuff if I wanted to go a little deeper with it.
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Jan 15, 2014 21:21
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So, I am wrapping up the first act. My gang of Kurt Russells managed to befriend the Thunder Pope and be good friends with him. Ended up, at the beginning of this session fighting off Yakuza gangsters to gain the respect of Leslie Lau and attune at his own personal Feng Shui site. My characters got really bloody and beaten up this session. Needless to say, there was about three different factions fighting at that hospital. The Lotus aligned Thorns were sent to try and stop Kun Chau from freeing itself through gathering enough infants for a dark and evil sacrificial ritual. Sadly, Kun Chau had several Chinese Infantry Divisions stationed on the island so he has been amassing a force to start his conquest. Then the Buros joined in to stop both of them, although, the leader of the SpecOps squad was the evil son of the PCs and had a gun-fu fight in the first floor until a possessed PRC soldier with a grenade launcher broke up the fight. They both were nearly dead with about 5 wound points until they had to make death saves, so a very close fight. Meanwhile, my other PC went up to meet the main possessed soldier. The fight was going on the hero's side until I got about two boxcars in a row and had the main bad guy throw him through several rooms until he ended up in the one room that had the NPCs they went in to save. My other player reached him and they were messed up badly, but there was a mobile hospital bed and he scored a critical success to use it as a battering ram and push him out the window killing him. They ended up being bloody, beaten, and bruised. From a dying Teng, they found out that the only way to stop them was to meet up with Ta Yu and Penny Bane. Now they have to work with the Lotus to stop basically a demon from breaking free now. This is going to be a fun finale for Act 1. Also, one of my PCs really enjoyed the orders of Gao Zheng through Penny Bane of having Ta Yu be his underling for now. They are so going to also enjoy what's in plan for Act II, especially against the elite Buro duo known as The Plague!
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Jan 19, 2014 17:51
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It's funny, Huan Ken is supposed to be a Bad Guy and all, but he's just so ridiculous, energetic, and fun that he always ends up being someone my PCs want to pal around with at Pinballhala. He's the only Monarch any of us really remember or use. I'm also finding that EXP wise it's really kind of annoying to play an Ex-Special Forces as dual Martial Arts and Guns. It works out awesome in stunts to be just as good with a combat knife, fists, and feet as your pistol and rifle, and it definitely fits with trying to be similar to John Rambo, but it cost a ton of EXP to get MA up to a decent level and a lot to keep them both high, especially as they both key off a different stat.
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Jan 27, 2014 22:44
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