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Old 08-23-2006, 02:35 AM
Pig with Pen's Avatar
Pig with Pen Pig with Pen is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2006
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Re: [RPG]: Wushu Open, reviewed by Pig with Pen (1/3)

Hello and thanks for the friendly comments. My apologies for the late answer, but RPG.net keeps on surprising me -- in a good way, of course ;-)

I would like to address some points made in the previous comments.

About Wushu Open Reloaded: It certainly looks like an improvement, but i want to offer two arguments why WOR isn't an integral part of my Wushu Open (or any Wushu Open discussion) review:
1) A sort of empirical argument is that a Google search pops up the plain vanilla Wushu Open on Bayn.org as second hit (1st hit is the german translation, so it may be an issue of the german Google.) Reloaded is nowhere to be seen on the first page and i guess the random role-player looking for Wushu would stumble over plain Wushu Open first, i certainly did. Maybe Mr. Bayn (indra, isn't it?) wants to put a link on his page to lead new gamers to the Reloaded wiki to make it more known. EDIT: I just noticed there is a link to the Wiki, but not to Reloaded specifically.
2) I think Wushu Open Reloaded is just one way to interpret and expand on the original Wushu Open »rules«. There is a lot of stuff in it i like, but i don't think it is integral to Wushu Open. I've only come to realize this after i wrote the review and i read the afore-mentioned german translation, but Wushu Open is even more ambiguous than other RPGs. I would go so far to say that Wushu Open is actually more of a guideline, saying "consider this..." and not a set of rules. Reading indra's comment, i feel this point of view vindicated.

About the Gamer's Index: What's that?

About the »carrier lost": If you use a modem to connect to a remote station, the devices, sender and receiver, maintain a steady stream of sequences something like this:

still there?
yes, and you?
yes, and you?
etc.

This stream is called the »carrier«. If this stream is interrupted the modem reports to the user »carrier lost« and terminates the connection. My little comment was directed at the disconnect some of my players experienced between them and the game when they realized that their character's actions have only superficial impact on the mechanical results. I hoped to illustrate this with a few examples but maybe they were not drastic enough. Just consider this:

1) "I fart the Tricolore and kick the dog" gives you two dice.
2) "I draw my berserker blood axe and split twenty of them in half" gives you two dice.

(Yeah, yeah i know, veto here, veto there but just consider it.) Huge difference in actions, no difference in results. All clear?

About the Wushu Open Review: Wushu Open is the free offering of Wushu and i since we played it for some time i felt a review would be nice to collect my thoughts and spread the word. I took it for what my group an i used it, as a game. I didn't realize up until later that Wushu Open is more a toolbox than a game, otherwise i would have given the review a different twist. Sorry for that.

Last edited by Pig with Pen; 08-23-2006 at 02:36 AM.. Reason: Update
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