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(I mean that
literally. When it comes to power levels, this game doesn’t fuck
around. They’re cranked to “11”, baby.) Of course, finding a Weapon
of the God may be the goal of an entire campaign, so don’t get the
idea that everyone and their uncle is running around with one.
However, the game is clearly geared
for over-the-top action, with the kind of kung fu that allows
warriors to crush walls and shatter weapons with a touch while
leaping 30 feet in the air, and with alchemists and Taoist monks
practicing magic and brewing potions, and courtiers influencing
entire clans and armies to do their bidding. Style is as important
as skill, though, and your destiny may influence the destiny of
entire kingdoms.
Character Creation
Rank
Rank is a level of ability and achievement. PCs start at Fourth
Rank, and as they progress in the game, they move up to Rank One.
Only the mightiest and most legendary wuxia heroes become Rank One
personalities, and they’re the rulers and powerhouses of the Wulin.
There are also those everyday citizens designated as Rank Five, but
they’re NPCs, mostly goons and mooks and average peasants of no real
skill.
Archetype
There are three
basic archetypes in WotG. You don’t have to design a
PC using an archetype, but for beginners, they offer a simple
framework on which to hang a fleshed-out PC, with a list of
suggested appropriate skills, characteristics, and gear to get you
going.
Warriors
are probably the most abundant class in the wulin. Warriors may be
beggars, guards, bandits, soldiers, gangsters, or any other
profession that would logically lend itself to teaching a person to
swing a sword and execute a flying side kick. Being a warrior just
means your forte is kicking ass. Every archetype in WotG may
know some kung fu moves, but a warrior is most likely to know many,
and has access to rarer and more powerful martial art styles and
techniques than other classes.
Courtiers
are power-mongers. They are educated people such as judges, Imperial
court scribes, merchants, nobles and ministers. They know that true
power can come from working contacts, gathering information, and
influencing other powerful people. They’re drawn to intrigue and
subtle manipulation, and make excellent politicians and spies.
Scholars
seek to understand the world around them, and study how the occult
and mundane coexist. They often learn mystical skills such as
fortune telling or Taoist magic, and have professions such as
philosopher, sage, wandering monk, poet, or kung fu master. The best
of them possess arcane magical skill that they can unleash to the
benefit of friends and detriment of foes.
Attributes
PCs have five
attributes that outline their natures:
Might
– physical stuff, like vigor and constitution and raw strength.
Speed
– how quick and dexterous you are.
Presence
– your charm and force of personality.
Genius
– your smarts and memory.
Wu Wei
– your awareness, senses, and perception, but it also consists of
the spirit; wu wei is a mystical trait used by Taoists and sages to
understand the flow of life forces around them.
Each PC starts
with 15 points to divvy up amongst these five attributes, rating
them from 1 to 5 as players see fit. Obviously, higher numbers are
better, so you’ll most likely put your points in the attributes that
best reflect your archetype’s strong suits.
Skills
The twenty-five
skills in Weapons of the Gods are very broad, to allow you to
use one skill to cover a range of activities, but some have
specialties as well. For example, one skill, Stealth, may be used
for sneaking, spying, lock picking, keeping hidden in shadows,
slipping past guards, eavesdropping, etc. Any activity you can
justify as being sneaky can be covered with Stealth. However, if
you’d like, you can choose specialties such as “At Night”, or
“Outdoors” or “While Wearing Cool Black Robes” which make you even
better at a skill when those particular conditions occur.
Skills are
represented by scores of 0 to 5. Someone with a zero score is
basically relying on raw talent instead of having had any actual
training. A two score means you’re decently versed in the area,
while a four is professional level. (You can eventually gain scores
greater than five, but not during PC creation. Someone with, say, a
seven score would be legendary across Shen Zhou for her talents with
that skill.)
PCs begin with
30 points with which to buy skills and levels on a one-for-one
basis. If you want to focus your training, spending a single point
also allows you to buy a pair of specialties, but they must be
specialties for two different skills. (For example, I can
spend one point to specialize in ‘sword’ under my Melee skill, and
also to specialize in ‘keen hearing’ under my Sense skill,
but I can’t take two specialties under the Melee skill or two under
my Sense skill. They have to be split up.)
Each skill is
connected to an attribute. When using a skill, the attribute and
skill scores are added up. This sum is then the number of ten sided
dice you roll to perform an action. Specialized skills give you an
extra die to roll, if the circumstances are right for using the
specialty. The Ranged skill, for example, is based on the Wu Wei
attribute, and is used for ranged weapon attacks. If I have a Wu Wei
score of 3, and a Ranged skill score of 2, and I specialized in
‘spears’, then whenever I chuck a spear at someone I roll 6 ten
–siders. (If I threw anything other than a spear, such as a knife,
or if I fired a bow, then I’d only roll 5 dice, because my ‘spear’
specialty isn’t involved.)
I’ll explain the
dice mechanics more thoroughly in a bit, but that’s what you need to
know for now to draft a character’s skill list to suit your tastes.
Secondary Attributes
Every PC has a
Chi score. This is used to fuel
special martial arts or magical Secret Art techniques; you can
always simply punch or kick someone, but to use your clan’s secret
“Thousand-Serpent Strike” technique requires a layout of chi points.
Chi comes in five colors, each color corresponding to one of your
attributes. Different martial styles and techniques require various
colors of chi to activate, so you need to make sure if you’re taking
a Kung Fu style that you choose one in which you have a good amount
of that color chi. Taking too much damage reduces your chi flow,
making it harder for you to perform special maneuvers in combat.
Your
Health is a measure of your hit
points. In WotG, “wound levels” are calculated according to
how many multiples of your Health score you’ve taken in damage.
Generally, for every wound level you have, you accrue penalties to
movement and task performance. Taking up to your Health score in
ouchies leaves you “battered.” There’s no penalty for this level,
you just look coolly disheveled. At two times your Health score in
damage, you’re “injured”, and suffer penalties to chi flow and
Agility skills. The maximum damage you can take is five times your
Health. At that point, you’re smoked, Kwai Chang. Most average
citizens of Shen Zhou have five Health, but heroes start at 15 and
may increase this if their Chi score goes up.
Your
Joss pool is your flow of luck.
Each PC starts with three points of joss, and you can choose whether
these are good joss (xia) or corrupt joss points, or a mix. Xia joss
benefits you by allowing you to add a die to a skill roll, and
corrupt joss is used to subtract a die from an opponent’s roll.
Once joss is spent, it’s gone for that game session, but you can
earn more during play by roleplaying well or achieving a Deed. Deeds
are actions representing one of the Five Heroic Virtues of the Wulin
(Justice, Charity, Benevolence, Righteousness, and Loyalty.)
Finally, your
River is a unique mechanic to
Weapons play. PCs start with two “spaces” in their River, and
earn an extra space every time they move up a Rank. The River allows
you to “store up” dice during a single scene in each of your free
River spaces, putting aside one or more dice results from a
particular roll to use later. This allows you to substitute dice
from your River into subsequent rolls, allowing you to get better
results when you want or need them.
The WotG
dice mechanic will be explained a bit later, and the River will make
more sense, I promise.
Destiny and Advantages
If you’d like,
you may buy Advantages or Disadvantages to round out your hero’s
personality and background. These are purchased with
Destiny Points, and PCs begin
with 50 Destiny. The benefit to buying a Disadvantage is that if it
comes up during play, you gain Destiny points for putting up with
the inconvenience. Destiny points are the experience points of
WotG, so earning Destiny is how one moves up the Ranks to become
more kung-fuey and badass.
Some Advantages
include Common Sense, Good Looks, Tough as Nails, Mentor, Weapon
Training, and Wealth. An advantage obviously acts in your favor in
any appropriate situation. So the Fast advantage makes you quicker
on the draw and to move when speed is of the essence.
Disadvantages
include Chronically Unlucky, Overwhelming Passion, Rival, Missing
Body Part, Family Curse, or one of my favorites, Thick as a Brick
(you’re not the sharpest arrow in the quiver.) Playing up these
Disads makes for a colorful character, and gives the “Wulin Sage”
(the GM) something to toss at you to make your life more interesting
every few adventures. If you ignore the Disad when it comes up in
play, nothing much happens, but if you play along with it, you’ll
earn Destiny. (Of course, if you plan on ignoring your
Disadvantages, then there’s no real reason to buy them in the first
place.)
Lore
Destiny can also
be used to buy Lore Sheets and Kung Fu. Lore sheets are pieces of
setting material from the history of Shen Zhou. By purchasing a
particular Lore, your PC becomes invested in that setting facet to
various degrees. Spending more Destiny when purchasing a Lore makes
you more involved in that Lore, or grants you better stuff as a
result.
For example,
there’s a Lore called Brotherhood Wine. The story behind the
lore is that the Wan Clan uses a secret alchemy to make this wine,
which enhances the Chi of whomever drinks it. If you spend 2 points
to gain this Lore, your PC has a barrel of this wine to use during
play. If you spend 5 points, your PC actually knows the secret to
making the wine! Both choices obviously offer some interesting
background considerations for your PC; is she part of the Wan Clan?
How did she get the recipe? Maybe she stole the barrel? Is someone
from the Brotherhood after the hero for stealing the secret? Does
the PC know a merchant who can supply more of the wine? Hmm…
Kung Fu
is a special set of Lores, and there are many kung fu schools
to choose from. Each school has special techniques such as Shadow
Walk, Hiding Moon Strike, Hail of Blows, Sweeping Scythe Kick, and
Hideous Painful Flail. PCs can invest Destiny to learn a style, then
invest more Destiny to learn the style’s individual techniques,
which become more powerful the longer a student practices the art.
Another special
set of Lores are the Secret Arts. These include the arts of
Medicine, Predictionism, Intrigue, and Daoist Magic. These arts are
geared more towards the non-Warrior archetypes, but there’s nothing
stopping any PC from learning any Secret Art. Spending Destiny in
these Lores allows a PC access to superior healing skills, herbalist
and alchemy talents, the ability to alter a target’s chi balance or
passions, curses, divinations, and other magicks.
OK, now that
we’ve laid out our character, here’s how to play…
MECHANICS
(Or:
Rollin’… rollin’… rollin’ on the River…)
When a PC makes
a task check to use a skill or strike someone in combat, they roll a
number of ten sided dice appropriate to their skill score and
corresponding attribute score, as mentioned earlier. However, in
WotG, the dice rolls are read differently than in any game I’ve
played before. You’re rolling a percentage, and trying to roll high,
but how you get there is a bit wacky until you grasp it…
You’re trying to
roll matching numbers, and the more matches you roll, the better.
Rolling “0” on the ten sider is actually zero, not ten. To get a
percentage out of the roll, you treat the number of matches
you rolled as the “tens” column of your result, and the actual
digit that came up on the dice as the “ones” column.
So, say I roll
five dice, and I get the results 1, 3, 6, 6, 9. Even though nine is
the highest number, I’m looking for matches, so I’m going to
use the sixes instead. I rolled two results of six, so my total is
“26”. (Two sixes is read as “twenty-six”.) If I’d rolled three
results of six, that’d be thirty-six. Get it? (If the best you roll
is a single digit, with no matches, then choose one of your results
and add ten. So if I rolled three dice and got 3, 7, 8, then my best
roll is one eight, or “18”.)
That’s it. The
entire game is based on percentage rolls for task resolution.
BUT!... Remember
that River we talked about earlier? In any scene, you can
choose to take some dice results you rolled (the actual numbers on
the dice face) and “float” them into your River to keep for later in
the scene. They only last until the end of the combat or negotiation
or research or other endeavor for that one scene, then your River is
cleared before moving on to the next game situation. So, it’s a ‘Use
‘Em or Lose ‘Em’ type gimmick, but the River can certainly be useful
while it’s in play.
Let’s say you
toss a crappy roll in combat and get no matches. If you rolled a
high number though, like an eight, you could float that die into
your River, hoping to roll more eights later in the combat. If you
do end up rolling some eights later, like maybe two of them,
you can bring that third eight out of your River, and suddenly
instead of a 28, you’ve got yourself a 38. See how it works?
It seems a
little wonky until you grasp the point of it. It’s like foregoing a
small benefit now to maybe get a bigger payoff in a few minutes.
Of course,
situational modifiers apply, such as fighting in the dark, or
deactivating a trap under time constraints, or talking your way past
Imperial Guards when you’re on the Most Wanted List. But, in
Weapons of the Gods, you only take the single largest
penalty or bonus that would apply to your check. So, if you have a
Warrior swinging a halberd at an enemy, he may have the penalties of
-5 for a wound he suffered earlier, -5 for being off balance due to
standing on a rickety bridge, and -10 for fighting in a torrential
rainstorm. However, his total modifier is only -10 (not -20),
because -10 is the single biggest penalty in the situation. So it
pays in WotG to try outrageous stunts and colorful feats,
because once you get a penalty, adding other actions with the same
or lower penalty modifier has no effect whatsoever on your chances
of succeeding! This is to stimulate slam-bang action sequences;
you’ll be more apt to go for broke if there’s no massive
accumulation of penalties for crazy-ass stunts.
Combat works by
trying to beat the defender’s dodge, block, parry, or Run Like Hell
skill. Whoever rolls higher wins. Damage is determined by rolling
damage dice, and the more your attack roll beat the defender’s roll,
the more damage dice you get to toss. The sum of your damage dice
roll is added to your weapon damage score or your kung fu power, and
applied as Wounds to the sucker on the receiving end. Damage may be
reduced by armor or protective chi affects, but that’s the general
idea. Anyone can spend jade chi to heal damage at any time, as well,
so that’s nice. (Maybe make sure you have a point or two of jade chi
when developing your character, young Grasshopper, eh?)
Weapons have
three scores: Speed is added
to initiative, and rates how quickly they can bash, whack, or
eviscerate and; Strike is a
number added to combat rolls; and
Damage is a modifier to the Wounds result you roll.
Something like a small knife has scores of Speed +15/ Strike +0/
Damage -5, while a kwan dao long-handled saber has Sp +5/ St
+5/ Dm +15.
Critical hits
also generate special results depending on the weapon. Your choice
of tool for inflicting violence may entangle, knock down, disarm,
disorient, or embarrass your opponent in addition to doing damage.
So, after you’ve
had a chance to roam around the Wulin and gain some notoriety and
Destiny points, you’ll be ready eventually to move up in Rank,
becoming more powerful and cool.
Advancement
Destiny points
are used as the XP of the game. For every 50 Destiny points you
earn, you increase a Rank (from fourth to third, say) and increase
your Joss attribute as well as your Chi aura. But to earn these
Destiny points, you must be performing Deeds in conjunction with the
Five Heroic Virtues listed earlier. This is so that people who don’t
do righteous or benevolent or charitable Deeds won’t become
“promoted” to more powerful reputations in the Wulin. |
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The Rest of the Rules
The remainder of
the book is devoted mostly to Wulin Sage material and advice. There
are rules for “mooks”, which have become increasingly popular in
action games the last decade or so. Mooks are generally nameless,
unimportant adversaries that your heroes should be able to plow
through like a yak through the radish garden. They go down easily
individually, but when they attack in packs, they can give even a
seasoned warrior a good fight.
There are rules
for poison use, followers and hirelings, wealth and resources,
common services and goods to be traded or purchased, as well as a
chapter detailing the eponymous and powerful Weapons of the Gods
from the comic. (Included are rules for forging your own weapons, as
well.) Lastly, the characters from the comic are statted up for
your enjoyment.
The GOOD
The game certainly
has an intriguing old China flavor, and seems appropriately
action-y. There’s a diversity of special arts, magic methods, and
fighting styles to keep PCs different and unique even just using the
three main archetype templates. The River is an interesting
mechanic, allowing you to have some control over when you pull out
an impressive and devastating roll rather than being totally at the
mercy of a random dice toss each round.
I’m especially
intrigued by the Virtues system. I love the fact that PCs can still
gain Destiny and level up by performing non-virtuous acts, as long
as they’re willing to accept the role-playing consequences of an
increasingly ominous aura. I made a passing reference to Star
Wars earlier, because this is honestly the best implementation
of a “Dark Side corruption” effect I’ve ever seen in a game, and
it’s a shame no version of Star Wars rpgs have ever had
anything as subtle and smoothly done.
The Secret Arts of
magic, alchemy, predictionism, persuasion, and others are very
flexible in utilization, allowing players to design detailed
effects, either subtle or glaringly obvious, to their tastes.
This was one of the few role playing
games that intrigued me so much, I kept thinking about it after I'd
traded it away. About two months after I'd let it go, I contacted
the person I'd given it to and traded something to get it back. In
the end, though, I didn't run a campaign, because while I was very
interested in the mechanics and feel of the game, it ended up being
too complex for what I was after in the long run. But the fact that
I went out of my way to get a hold of it after I'd given it up
indicates that there must be something worthy in the game.
The NEUTRAL
There’s a general
dearth of equipment for the game. PCs start with some basic
equipment, but any major item you want would be purchased with
Destiny points using a Lore for “Personal Equipment.” Anything not
bought this way is fair game to be lost during game play. Items are
not a major investment in the game, though; WotG focuses on
relationships, deeds, reputation, and ass whupping, not gathering
treasures or amassing coins and trinkets. Most heroes will only be
concerned with their sword and armor, or a few potions and scrolls.
There is a list of commonly available goods for PCs to buy, but
these are your basic sleeping rolls, lamps, scrolls, clothing, etc.
It serves the purpose of equipping your guys, but it’s hardly
exciting.
I’m also not a fan
of the non-kung fu Lores. Unfortunately, they are a huuuuge
part of the rule book, and the authors clearly want you to love them
and use them as a major part of the game. While a few of them may be
useful or interesting in play, the vast majority seem like
ridiculous bullshit that I can’t imagine a player would waste
valuable Destiny points to buy. Proponents of the Lore sheets seem
to feel that because you’ve invested valuable Destiny points in a
Lore, the Wulin Sage is duty-bound to include that Lore’s material
into the campaign storyline for you. I, on the other hand, think
that any GM who doesn’t naturally pay attention to what the
players want to do and allow them to do that during the course of
the campaign is a flaming goblinbaby who won’t keep her players
long, so really, what’s the point of buying the Lores? A lot of them
are one-point Lores, that basically allow your PC to come into
contact with a famous dude from the setting. Can’t your Sage simply
let you meet up with some of these people if that’s cool for the
story?
The EVIL
OK, remember a few
paragraphs up above, when I said there must be something worthy in
the game? There is... but Maglubiyet help me if I have the patience
to sift it out of the book.
Oh my god, man.
The main problem with the rulebook is that the rules, Lore sheets,
and other game material are interspersed with long stories and
narratives, as both examples of rules and just random fiction pieces
for atmosphere. However, these pieces were written by a woman named
Rebecca Borgstrom, who apparently has a reputation in the rpg world
for not being able to express herself in human languages well. The
stories are often rambling and unnecessary, when not outright
confusing, especially in the Secret Arts section of the rules. This
is mostly because the inclusion of the fiction chops the rules up,
so that you have to wade through long paragraphs of random crap to
get to an actual explanation of a mechanic useable in game play.
Even then, the mechanics are sometimes explained in less than clear
wording, occasionally using vague terms. This makes reading the
material confusing and distracting.
It helps (only
slightly) once you understand that the system is supposed to
be loose and malleable, so players can work within the framework of
their skills and arts to design curses, schemes, rituals, and spells
as they like using general guidelines… but for someone expecting
more straightforward, precise rules, this may be a frustrating
chapter of the book. It’s very aggravating having to scan three
paragraphs of fictional dialog before finding the four rule-related
sentences that actually explain the damn mechanics you’re looking
for.
I didn’t make it
through the whole book the first time I tried to read this rpg; my
brain kept shutting down due to the confusing mess of text I was
trying to sort out. The ideas presented are fascinating, but
the execution of describing how those ideas work in play made me
dizzy. I had to wait a month or two and then try again. The bizarre
mish-mash of sporadic rules and voluminous blather is almost not
worth the effort of wading through. Unfortunately, the entire Secret
Arts section follows this pattern, and that section is so important
to play that you can’t really give up on deciphering the mess.
So, I can't help but feel that there's
a great game lurking in Weapons of the Gods.
But you'll have to
be more dedicated to the game than I to spend the effort to unravel
the mystery of the text. Good luck. To get the most out of the
treasure of a game that I know is buried under the creaking
weight of its own preposterous blather, you’ll need some powerful
kung fu indeed!
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