Post originally by The Metallian at 2005-01-08 12:10:36
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Sorry to get off topic, but I just had to clear up some things about Feng Shui, as I'm a Feng Shui geek and have seen variations on the following many times:

"One gripe I have about some RPGs is that they recommend play styles in their descriptive text, but don’t encourage them in their rules. Feng Shui is guilty of this; the text constantly recommends players jazz their fights up with wild stunts, but the rules impose a penalty whenever the players actually try to do so."

That's partially true, but I don't think it tells the whole story. Here's a condensed version of Feng Shui's approach to stunts:

- If a combat stunt does not do any extra damage, it is not penalized. This is to encourage players to describe outrageous combat maneuvers. This works particularly well against unnamed characters (i.e., faceless hordes of mooks) because they don't have hit points per se...any particular attack either removes them from combat or doesn't. This means that you can try to toss an unnamed character into a conveniently-placed volcano or just punch him out and the modifiers are the same. So if your intent is just to "jazz fights up with wild stunts," the rules will not stand in your way. However, if your intent is to "dominate the battlefield with wild stunts," then see below...

- If a combat stunt has an extra damage effect (the benchmark for this is "hit two guys with one attack") it is indeed penalized. However, I think that this is just common sense to prevent arbitrarily effective attacks. ("I kill the whole world with one bullet!") Even most diceless games have some method for differentiating between more or less difficult actions...it's just that Feng Shui doesn't consider simple "coolness" to make an action more difficult.

- Some non-combat stunts are harder to do than others, just like some opponents are harder to hit than others. Again, otherwise there'd be no meaningful difference in character ability. The difficulties aren't all that high, either. The kind of things that go on in a typical Jackie Chan movie are difficulty 15 (walking around on the wing of a plane, safely leaping from a moving car) or 18 (running up a vertical surface). Most physically-oriented starting characters from in the main book *can* get a 15 on a Martial Arts roll even without spending a Fortune Die or using a schitck...though admittedly it's not easy. However, it's a pretty average roll for the primary Martial Arts types. Really crazy stuff (running along a stream of bullets) is at 25, which is very difficult...but not utterly beyond the reach of starting characters if you take Fortune Dice and open rolls (reroll sixes and add the result) into account.

- Spellcasting difficulty modifiers are actually REDUCED when the effect is "especially entertaining" and again if it is "obvious and flashy." The difficulty is increased if the effect if "boring or expected." (I think a lot of people forget that this particular chart is for spellcasting and not for combat and that causes some confusion when people talk about how "Feng Shui gives you bonuses for cool stunts." On the other hand, I don't see why you COULDN'T apply these modifiers to all actions, as it would certainly be in the spirit of the game...)

So, on the whole, I would say that Feng Shui makes spellcasting EASIER when you do crazy stunts, and does not make combat harder when you do crazy stunts unless you are trying to gain an actual advantage. Some non-combat stunts are harder than others, but IMO outrageous tasks are not as difficult as they are in most games.

The Metallian

ps - All of the above applies to the original Daedauls edition...but I don't believe that much was changed for the Atlas Games edition.