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I like reading people's experiences with new RPGs when I'm deciding whether or not to get into one so I figured I'd do my part in case anyone stumbles upon this and finds it useful.

Games I've ran, pretty much in order:

- Pathfinder 1e: Players had fun, but it was too crunchy for me. Especially as it was my first time GMing and I had decided to start everyone at level 6 (because the 10-session 3.5 game I had played as my introduction to the hobby ended at level 5 and I didn't know any better). We lasted about 6 sessions before I asked to switch to a relatively simpler system that had just been released. Speaking of:

- DnD 5e: if you're on this sub, you already have an opinion. I have played this the most out of any other game - 9 years of more or less weekly games, it changed my life and brought in so many friends and so much joy into my life. Game's ok, probably wouldn't play it again.

- Worlds Without Number: I originally got into this as it promised gameplay that could facilitate the more grounded stories I found myself wanting to tell, but struggling to with my superpowered 5e campaign. I loved how much faster and deadlier combat was, monster stat blocks were so refreshingly streamlined, the spells were cool as hell, and I very much enjoyed looking at all of the character building options. Unfortunately, some of the language of the system didn't super gel with me, feeling more scifi than the fantasy I wanted, and my players commented that they felt a bit too limited in their respective niches (wizard couldn't contribute much in combat if they had already used their one spell for the day, warrior felt they weren't helping anything if nobody needed to get punched). I got to run 5 one shots and would be interested in running more games but wouldn't be too broken up about it if I didn't get a chance to.

- Spire: the City Must Fall: now this was one of my favorite RPG experiences. The book's setting is absolutely dripping in atmosphere and ripe for inspiration, the players always had access to cool and surprising abilities that threw me for a loop in the best way, and I really liked the fallout mechanic even if it could feel a bit clunky sometimes. I ran a 10-session campaign and told, in my opinion, one of the best stories I've ever told in an RPG with my friends.

- Dragonbane: a really solid fantasy RPG that has almost everything I wanted. Action in and out of combat is very snappy and intuitive, monsters are a BLAST to run (and very effective at actually feeling scary to my players when they realized they couldn't parry their attacks), and I absolutely love the progression system for this game. I ran a small 3-session arc to try it out and plan on running the pre-made campaign that came in the box as a longer test to see if it's my fantasy system of choice for my next years-long epic campaign for my old 5e group. My only complaint is that I'd love to see a little more spell variety beyond different ways to deal damage and maybe some extra playable races since my players like playing weird little creatures. Luckily, I've also ran:

- Wildsea: what a crazy game this was. Probably my favorite RPG setting I've ever read (high praise when Spire is in the competition). It also has my favorite health system of any game ever, and was my introduction to forged in the dark-style clocks/tracks, so that was pretty mind blowing for me. My one complaint is unfortunately a fairly big one though: the actual sailing part of the game isn't very interesting, mechanically. Players assign themselves to stations to figure out who rolls what dice, except the dice pool that most of them roll isn't affected by any of their skills or choices. Very strange gap in the rules when there's so much room for character expression in the rest of the game. Still though, the rules for everything else when you're actually at a point of interest are fantastic. I only got to run a single one shot of this but it has me itching for time to run a mid-length campaign.

- Mausritter: definitely the most elegant game I've played. The rules are light but the way they interact just seems to bring out such inspired role playing and inventiveness. The spell rules are especially chef's kiss. On top of that, the adventures included in the base box set and the estate campaign guide are my favorite pre-written adventures I've ever seen. They give just enough detail to give structure and take on the mental load of stuff like flavorful enemy stats and treasure, while still leaving a ton of room for you to fill in yourself and be surprised at the table. I've ran this a few times at conventions and was told by my players that it was their favorite game of the con, and am now running a monthly-ish campaign using the estate book for some friends.

- Eat the Reich: look at the title of this game. This game fucking rips. You should not need any more convincing to go buy this have right now, but just in case you do I'll throw out the events that transpired in a single player's turn around the mid point of the first time I ran this: a vampire commando leapt out of a stolen sports car to surf on its roof after flinging it up a ramp, chucked some grenades at a Nazi witch riding a detached ferris wheel towards the party, pulled out her sniper rifle to shoot the grenades out of midair with one hand while spraying a different group of Nazis off to the side with a machine gun with her other hand. My only advice is to offer up a bonus die to people that can do a tag team move, as otherwise it can feel a bit like people are just waiting their turn to do the next ridiculous thing. Anyways, you get to slaughter a bunch of Nazis, great game. I've run this 4 times now, mostly at conventions, and had literal applause at the end of every game I've ran.

- Mythic Bastionland: a strange, wonderful game that I am currently the most excited for whenever it's time to run my monthly campaign. The rules are so simple and mingle in a way that, after initial campaign setup to make your map, the dice basically run the game for you. A big part of it is my wonderful players, but just 5 sessions into my current campaign we've experienced love, despair, laughs, trauma, bravery, fear, and true heroism. More than any other game I've played, it really feels like the dice are always steering our story in a surprising direction. The game is addicting and feels like we're playing an RPG for the first time again.

- Triangle Agency: this game is hilarious. I posted recently about it but it's the most entertaining RPG book that I've read, and I have definitely stolen the "have other players play the role of each other's important NPCs" for other games since then.

- Blades in the Dark: the game for my current weekly campaign now that I've wrapped up my 5e game after 5 years. It took some getting used to with all of the negotiating pre-and-post roll on position, effect, action type, and resistance. A lot of the structure of this game was unintuitive, but 7 sessions in and something is clicking for all of us and we've found a good rhythm for scores and downtime. Clocks are great and there's a reason it's been stolen for so many systems since then - ticking up a clock is always a fun, easy way to apply consequences if I can't think of anything else in the moment. The loadout system takes the cake for my favorite mechanic in this RPG though - thematic, fun, and simple.

Games I've been a player:

- DnD3.5: my introduction to the hobby. Even though I played 10 sessions and it overwrote my personality every since, I'm not actually sure if I can actually give a good review of this system because I didn't actually know the rules very well. I said what I wanted to do and my friend who did know the rules told me what dice to roll and what numbers to add. Looking back, it probably would have a lot of problems I wouldn't like today: too crunchy, power level is too high, too many niche skills. But it still has a special place in my heart

- DnD5e: I mostly used this as a way to make new friends when I moved and you can definitely have a good time with it! But it's probably the least interesting game system that I've played as a player. I probably had more fun theory crafting my character than actually using my abilities at the table, to be honest.

- Magical Kitties Save the Day: a cute, lightweight game that my partner ran for us as her first foray into GMing. I had a lot of fun using my special kitty power in unexpected and unusual way - I imagine it's actually similar to how my mythic bastionland players feel using their knights' special abilities, but with much less focus on violence, which I appreciate. It's recommended a lot for people trying to bring younger kids into the hobby, which I can totally see, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's only for kids. Our group of adults in their late 20s had a lot of fun!

- Dread: one of the more unique games I've played (you use Jenga blocks instead of dice to resolve actions). It's really cool and creates a lot of tension but a weird pace when we hit the climax since the tower was more stable. I have played in maybe 5 one shots and would happily play again but do definitely prefer dice in my RPGs.

- Alien RPG: I played an extra long session of this at a convention and it was a crazy experience - way more adversarial/backstabby than a typical RPG but it was thematic and I had a good group so we had a good time! I'm not sure anything mechanics-wise stood out to me enough to want to buy a copy for myself, though.

- Dungeon Crawl Classics: I hear a lot about this being a very wacky game with wacky dice but suspect that may be a bit of a gimmick - we mostly used standard dice in the few one shots I played and there was a bit too much pausing to look up table results for my taste, but I did really like the emphasis on looking for creative solutions beyond just whacking stuff. Honestly, I liked the funnel that we played more than the "proper" dungeons we ran through because it amplified this to 11 - the game was at its best when we were figuring out how to make a chicken and a wagon of dirt useful between 20 peasants who would die if a small breeze knocked them over.

- Avatar Legends: my first foray into PbtA games! It definitely took some adjusting shifting from a mindset of how to "win" with creative problem solving into a mindset of what would make for the most interesting story. As a huge fan of both series (and now the movie), I was bound to love this system no matter what but I'm glad the game manages to focus it's mechanics on creating the feeling of the setting and generating the themes you'd find in Avatar media rather than making it a bending/martial art combat simulator. I've only had a chance to play a couple of sessions because scheduling is hard but I'm looking forward to continuing the campaign.

- Die RPG: wasn't sure what to expect because the premise is very meta but I loved the few one shots I got to play at some conventions enough to pick up a copy of the book myself. You definitely need the right crowd for this to be in the right mood because it can be a very heavy game, but it really manages to make each and every action feel so weighty.

- Interns in the Dark: my first time playing a forged in the dark game, and what made me want to get my blades in the dark campaign going. Everything I love about blades in the dark, minus the setting but plus the hilarious playbooks and abilities. Not sure how long I could commit to the joke for an ongoing campaign but it made for a wonderful con experience.

Lastly, some honorable mentions for games I own that I very much want to run or play in within the next year, so I'd love to hear some opinions on:

- Vaesen

- Slugblaster

- Goblin Quest

- The Zone

- Heart: the City Beneath

- Nimble

- Hollows

I got a friend who believes 5e is essentially the end all be all of RPGs, and I am very tired of all of the companies trying to prove this by licensing their books to it.

Star wars

World of Warcraft

Vampire the masquerade.

...

Making matters worse, I am the only one of two people in my group who try to run alternatives...to resounding mehs.

I am very tired of 5e.

having low energy right now and feel like reading some funny/so-bad-it's-good/horribly-designed RPG book. Thank you in advance for the laugh...

What have you got?

Wuxia is the Chinese word for martial (or chivalric) heroes. The genre it encompasses occasionally blurs with Xianxia, but is generally lower power. Wuxia is sort of like low fantasy, and Xianxia is sort of like high fantasy. Wuxia is often grounded in history, however, its branches can include more fantastical elements like magical beasts and the like.

In this post, I'm reviewing RPGs that I think encompass a grounded martial arts fantasy, whether supernatural elements are present or not. Some of the games may bleed into Xianxia or higher fantasy as characters level up and get stronger.

To help contextualize my reviews, I prefer martial arts games that place the power level of PCs around or below the power level of the heroes in movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Furthermore, for each game I review here, I have played at least 5 contiguous sessions.

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate

The Basics

Wandering Heroes is an expansive rulebook, clocking in at nearly 500 pages. It is, in my opinion, one of the top 3 most complex games on this list, and the one that feels most similar to playing D&D. In my opinion, first and foremost, this is a game about fighting, usually fighting monsters and evil martial artists. I do not think of it as a narrative game.

Mechanically, the game is straightforward. You build pools of d10s and roll against a Target Number (TN), using the highest result rolled. TNs are determined by the Game Master (GM) or set by your skills. In some cases, rolling additional 10s on a roll results in a better outcome (e.g., if you roll 2d10 and get 2 10s you may have a better outcome than if you'd rolled just 1 10).

Your d10 pools are built using skills. This is a good time to mention that there are no traditional attributes (strength, charisma, etc) in the game. There is a Qi attribute, which determines the total number of wounds you can suffer, but that is the only thing like a traditional attribute. Characters are primarily based on their skills. There are 6 groups of skills, each group having at least 6 (and often more) individual skills within it. The skill groups are Defenses, Combat, Specialist, Physical, Knowledge, and Mental. Some of these groups feel arbitrary, but when you read the skill lists, it's clear each group has a theme. Skill costs are cumulative, which means you pay 1 point to raise a skill to rank 1, 2 points to raise the skill to rank 2 (for a total of 3 points), 3 points to raise it to rank 3 (for a total of 6 points), and so forth.

As an example of a skill group, you have the Defenses group. Defenses includes Hardiness, Parry, Evade, Stealth, Wits, and Resolve. Hardiness is your resistance to damage, Parry is your ability to deflect melee attacks, Evade is your ability to avoid ranged attacks, Stealth is your ability to go undetected, Wits and Resolve are somewhat less self-explanatory, and represent resistance to deception and being persuaded, respectively. Each defense has a base value to which you add your rank to determine your total value, whereas other skill groups generally do not have base values for the skills.

Which brings me to combat. Combat is fiddly, but not complex. In principle, any combat encounter is resolved in two rolls. First, you roll to see if you hit the opponent. Then you roll damage to see if you deal damage. Both attack rolls and damage rolls are handled identically, with the damage roll made against Hardiness and the attack roll made against Parry or Evade, as appropriate. In practice, however, this is annoying. Instead of simply rolling and calculating damage, you are counting successes, with 10s operating in a special way (a roll of 10 deals 2 wounds, with each additional 10 dealing 1 more wound). As a result, there will be combat rounds where you hit the enemy but your hit does nothing because your damage roll sucks. A character with high Parry/Evade and Hardiness can be very difficult to actually hurt. Furthermore, the different combat skills operate in different ways, with leg strikes, for example, imposing an accuracy penalty but getting the Reach keyword, and arm strikes getting a damage penalty. However, on the upside, the grappling rules are surprisingly easy to use. Altogether, as I said above, this makes for fiddly combat. It can be plenty of fun, but it also feels needlessly fussy.

As a combat oriented game, there are of course other modifiers to combat. One modifier the game adds is Expertise. An expertise provides some kind of bonus to a skill. An expertise adds 1d10 to your skill roll, but is only available for certain skills and only under certain conditions. These are sufficiently varied and complex that they are not worth diving into here. Suffice it to say that, since Expertise costs only 1 skill point, these are convenient ways to add a little bit to your character when you can't afford a bigger improvement.

Another way to customize your character is to give them a flaw. The flaws often have a mechanical effect, and roleplaying potential. That said, like any game that provides Disadvantages, expect the players to "forget" about their flaws if you don't enforce them as GM.

Characters also get combat techniques, which are yet another way to improve the character. However, combat techniques are not Kung Fu techniques. You also get 6 Kung Fu techniques at character creation, and can gain more. Kung Fu techniques can be performed in two ways: normally or cathartically. Cathartic Kung Fu techniques risk causing you to gain Imbalance Points, and if you gain too many Imbalance Points, you get possessed by a spirit. Possession by a Qi spirit is its whole own thing, and I will leave it at that for the purpose of this review. Each Kung Fu technique is unique, and requires that you have a relevant skill or skills, and a minimum Qi level to use. The techniques description explains how it works.

There's more to say about this game, but I think the above gives a sufficient idea of how the game works mechanically. As a result, I'm leaving out discussion of magic, Qi rituals, immortal powers, and the like.

I do want to mention the game's setting. I think the setting is quite serviceable, and there are hundreds of pages devoted to it. There is literally a fuck-ton of setting information, monsters, magic items, game mastering advice, and more. You can easily drop your players into the game's setting and have a good time without building your own world, and if you do feel like building your own world, the setting here contains plenty of inspiration.

Playing the Game

First and foremost, my players and I had fun playing this game. As I said, it had, to us, a very D&D feel with our gameplay focused on exploring mysterious locations, fighting wicked monsters and evil martial artists, and of course looting stuff. The game supports a broader array of play-styles than just dungeon-delver, but the game's focus on combat makes it clear enough that the game expects you to fight a lot.

As far as the subjective experience goes, I would describe the game as fussy. It has just enough things that require special rules that we found ourselves looking something up at least once per session. Probably, with more sessions, we would have become more familiar with the game.

As far as balance goes, characters can be wildly divergent in how good or bad they are. I wouldn't exactly say the game has trap choices, but an unwary player might choose an ability that sounds cool but mechanically is weak. That said, I design my scenarios around my players and their characters, and my players never felt like they had nothing to do.

Overall, I like this game, but I wish it was simpler. Which brings me to:

Righteous Blood Ruthless Blade

This game is built on the same basic rule system as Wandering Heroes, but it cuts out a lot of the complexity in favor of simpler, more streamlined subsystems and secondary systems. A full write up by another user is available here: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1twkexz/postplay_review_of_righteous_blood_ruthless/. I basically felt the same as they did with the following caveat: I did not mind that the game was unbalanced. As I said above, I design encounters to fit my PCs, so my PCs always felt like they could contribute in some way to advancing the story we played.

Of the two, Righteous Blood is the more narratively focused game, but I like Wandering Heroes better. I think Wandering Heroes supports long form campaign play more effectively, whereas I would pick up Righteous Blood if I wanted to run a one shot (especially something particularly bloody and brutal, perhaps in chanbara style) or a short campaign.

Feng Shui 2

The Basics

Fen Shui 2 is all about emulating actions movies. The game wants to be fast and fun, so its rules are relatively light. Since the game embraces martial arts movies, it supports a wide array of play styles and settings. You could play "karate cops" or historical warriors or distant future space wizards. The game is happy to do any of these things, and provides archetypes for each (with unifying rules that mean each character type uses the same resolution mechanics).

Speaking of resolution mechanics, Feng Shui 2 uses a ying-yang dice system where you roll 2 d6s with one positive and the other negative, and then basically take the difference between them. You add your skill level to the result of the roll. The dice "explode" on rolls of 6s (meaning you reroll that dice and add the new result to the previous result). Your skill level is usually pretty high, so the "swerve" (what the game calls the difference between your dice rolls) usually has a minor impact on play. If my back of the napkin calculations are correct, I believe the swerve averages out to 0 over a long enough time.

Combat is played on a shot-clock, and any given action takes a certain number of "shots" on the clock. As an example, 2 combatants might make an initiative roll and get 14 and 10 respectively. The combatant who rolled 14 goes first and uses an action that requires 3 shots. 14-3=11 so the combatant gets to go again before the guy who rolled 10.

Each character starts as an archetype and can advance to learn new techniques and skills. Characters have "schticks" which represent things they do or are good at. Whether a kung fu technique, gun schtick, sorcery schtick, or whatever, you can think of all these things as buttons on the character sheet that can be pressed to (most often) choose violence.

There's obviously more to the game than this, but the complexity of Feng Shui 2 is sort of an illusion. At the end of the day, mechanically speaking, you're rolling the swerve and adding your skill level and that's it. All the other bells and whistles are just things that slightly modify what you can do but nothing is really a huge departure from anything else.

Playing the Game

I want to like Feng Shui 2, I really do. I like the archetypes, I like that the game supports a wide variety of settings (though I hate the game's Chi War setting and never use that setting). I like that the game can be played by just having the players describe the awesome thing they're doing and then roll 2d6.

But there's just one caveat: I do not like shot clocks. I do not like the shot clock system. Any initiative system where I have to do subtraction to find out who goes next begins to feel fiddly to me.

My players have typically felt the same way. For whatever reason, when we get into combat, the shot clock initiative slows us way down and robs the game of the momentum that it had before that. As a result, I don't really play it anymore except if someone wants to do a oneshot in it.

Flying Swordsmen

The Basics

Flying Swordsmen is our first OSR-esque Wuxia RPB. We'll get another one with Wandering Blades and Scarlet Heroes. Flying Swordsmen features your standard 6 D&D ability scores, rolled at random with 3d6. Each ability score is associated with a stunt die. The stundt die ranges from a d2 to a d12, and for some reason are given different names than the attribute they are tied to (e.g., the dexterity stunt die is called the acrobatics stunt die).

Like with D&D, characters have classes. The game provides 4, Fighter, Wizard, Shaman, and Thief. Fighters, Wizards, and Thieves are what you would expect. Shamans are a bit like clerics. Each class comes with a profile, which is basically the class specialization that you see in 3e (e.g., arcane trickster). Each class also gets a selection of martial arts maneuvers, which provide various bonuses and penalties either as passives or when used. Each class may only know so many martial arts maneuvers, so selecting appropriate martial arts maneuvers for your build or character concept can be important.

Beyond this, the game will be familiar to anyone who has played D&D before, with the exception of Stunts and initiative. Stunts are freeform and are always rolled against a TN determined by the GM. Making a stunt roll is as simple as rolling a d20 and the stunt die and adding the results together. Stunts are generally resolved in a way that makes sense in the fiction. Secondly, the initiative system uses fast, average, and slow actions, with higher values going first. Actions are resolved simultaneously for a given initiative level. As an example, fast actions have initiative 6, in general. So all fast actions with initiative 6 are resolved simultaneously and before any average or slow speed actions. In this respect, the book is confusing because it does not seem to have a table of common speeds for different actions.

Playing the Game

This game is really D&D with martial arts layered on top of it. What makes it different is the stunt and initiative systems, which add an element of strategy that is both fun and interesting. My group enjoyed the game, but it did take some time to fully adjust to the initiative system. It's simple, fast, and generally fun.

Wandering Blades

The Basics

Wandering Blades is still in development. It is only just now finishing up, so it's new to the scene.

Wandering Blades very much takes after the OSR tradition. It features 4 attributes, 3 combat attributes (including Qi points), and some derived attributes. The core mechanic is 1d20 plus the relevant attribute versus the TN. So far, so good. Initiative, in combat, is based on a fast turn-slow turn dichotomy. Fast turns get 1 action and 1 reaction, while slow turns get 2 actions and 1 reaction. PCs always go before NPCs.

There are 3 classes, two martial (Vagabond and Outlaw), and one non-martial (Scholar). Depending on the class, you get martial arts techniques. Techniques cost Qi points to use, and generally let you do something impressive, such as amplifying your damage. Scholars, unlike Vagabonds and Outlaws, are sort of a support class that specializes in applying debuffs, removing debuffs, and doing other utility things without emphasizing raw damage output. This class is very much inspired by the many great detectives in Wuxia fiction.

Playing the Game

My group enjoyed trying this out, even though it was technically still incomplete when we did so. It slotted nicely into the OSR space we were already familiar with, but without some of the quirks of Flying Swordsmen.

If I were to compare this, Flying Swordsmen, and Scarlet Heroes, I would say Flying Swordsmen is the most interesting of the three, Wandering Blades is the cleanest and most modern of the three, and Scarlet Heroes has the best tables. I would be hard-pressed to choose between this and Flying Swordsmen, but I think I would favor this for its simplicity in a one-shot or short campaign environment, but I would probably pick Flying Swordsmen if I intended to run a medium length campaign.

Art of Wuxia

The Basics

Art of Wuxia is a DwD Studio's game (alongside Frontier Space and Bare Bones Fantasy). It uses a d00 (100-sided die) core mechanic, which will be familiar to anyone who enjoys CoC. However, it differs slightly from traditional d00 games in that the numbers are counted from 0 to 99. It is still roll-under. This all probably sounds standard, but I promise you that Art of Wuxia is really nothing like any of the games discussed so far on this list.

Stepping back for a moment, the game uses 4 attributes and 10 skills. The level of your skill is a calculation based on your attribute values and how many points you've invested in the skill. This is not dissimilar to CoC or other games where you invest points in relevant skills to increase the skill level, and where you try to roll under (or equal to) the skill level. Attributes are rolled randomly, while skills have a certain number of points to assign to them.

Art of Wuxia also features martial arts techniques, alchemy, and sorcery. Martial arts techniques basically fall into two categories: Kung Fu techniques that are not powered by Qi, and Qi-powered special abilities. Spells are usually not powered by Qi, and can be used an unlimited number of times (more on that below). The Qi-powered special abilities tend to be quite strong or useful, while the other abilities are suitably thematic.

Where Art of Wuxia really sets itself apart from the other games in this list is its action economy. But before I dive into that, a quick not on initiative. Initiative is a d10 dice pool system where you roll the pool and the highest single result goes first. Ties are resolved as the GM dictates. I mention this because the initiative system is a bit different from any other initiative system mentioned here.

Getting on to the action economy, Art of Wuxia permits you to take any number of actions per round. During your turn you may move, attack, and do other actions of that nature, while during other people's turn you may defend yourself. Every action you take, from resistance rolls (defensive rolls) to movement to attack rolls imposes a penalty on the next action you take. Your first action is at no penalty, your second action at a -20 penalty, your third action at a -40 penalty, and so forth. This is a "push your luck" approach to the action economy, with later actions becoming riskier than earlier actions. Because defending is an action, if you take too many actions early in the round you may be defenseless later in the round. Likewise, if you defend too much early in the round, you may not be able to attack later in the round. Note that you can move your listed movement as a free action (without imposing a penalty on later actions). Casting a spell counts as an action, so you can cast any number of spells during your turn.

Playing the Game

In the end, this became our favorite Wuxia game. The action economy really felt like you could make multiple strikes in a split second, or chop multiple arrows out of the sky when being shot at, just like in the movies. It was an extremely satisfying way to play.

However, the learning curve to get used to the action economy was an impediment as our instincts, honed from D&D-like games, often left us feeling compelled to stick to the move-action-reaction economy of D&D.

Also, for longer campaigns, I do feel the game is thinner than, say, Wandering Heroes. However, it has been my experience that Art of Wuxia works fine for longer campaigns.

Qin the Warring States

The Basics

Qin is another game that really isn't like any other on this list. It is the product of a French studio (I believe), and is set in China during the Warring States period.

The core mechanic is a yin-yang die, like in Feng Shui 2. In contrast to Feng Shui 2, the absolute value of the difference between the two dice is always used (so no negative numbers--you always subtract the lower die from the higher die). The yin-yang die are made of 2 d10s, and the 0 on the d10 is counted as a 0 rather than as a 10. The result of the Yin-Yang die roll is added to the character's skill level, where appropriate, and aspect. If the value meets or exceeds the TN, the roll is successful.

Characters have attributes based on classic Chinese elements of water, earth, wood, fire, and metal. These attributes, in turn, are used to determine the outcome of your various rolls and to derive secondary statistics. For example, your initiative is based on you Water attribute, attack rolls are based on Metal and your martial skill, dodging and blocking are water based, and so forth. Characters, as implied above, also have skills which are ranked from 1 to 6 and are added to appropriate rolls. Both attributes and skills have points you may invest in them. Characters also get advantages and disadvantages (called gifts and weaknesses) that further characterize them and give them options.

Like Wandering Heroes, players have access to a number of martial arts customization options. You have Taos, Martial Arts, and Magic. The Taos are basically powerful abilities that change your character in some moderately important way. For example, some Taos make you more vital, others let you move vertically, and so on. Martial Arts, by contrast, are specific techniques defined in the book that usually are locked to a weapon and depend on your level of skill with that weapon's martial art. Magic works like many other games, with spell lists that contain spells that are accessible if various prerequisites are met. Spells are often slow, though, taking, for example, an hour to prepare, or more, in some cases. Qi may sometimes be needed to use your powers, e.g., to use your Taos.

The game uses an injury track where the more injured you are, the greater the penalty applied to your rolls to do things. A heavily injured character can have their TNs increased by up to 3. To determine how injured you are, you consult a table. The degree of injury is based on your current Breath of Life compared to your maximum Breath of Life. This part of the game is, I think, a bit fiddly.

Speaking of combat, the more skilled you are at your martial art, the more actions you get during a round. This works by having each character take a single action at a time in initiative order. The round continues until all actions for all characters are used up. So if you have fewer actions than your opponent, it means you will be defenseless against them toward the end of the round. Once all characters have used all their actions, the next round begins and the process is repeated. Doubles on teh yin-yang dice are an auto success, unless you roll double-0s, in which case it's a failure.

Damage is calculated a bit oddly as well. When the yang die is greater than the yin die, you deal the yin-yang dice result as additional damage. When you roll doubles, you add the rolled number as damage. When the yang die is greater than the yin die, you roll damage without the bonus from the dice. Armor reduces damage while shields make you harder to hit. I had to write a combat primer for my players so they could keep track of all this. It is a fiddly system, but it can result in spectacular attacks especially when you roll doubles.

Playing the Game

This is another game I want to love, but unfortunately, we never seem able to get past 5 sessions deep. The other Wuxia systems here (even, arguable, Wandering Heroes) are just less fiddly and require less fuss to use. Because of the way injuries and Breath of Life adjustments to difficulties work, there's constant referencing to tables and constant effort required to remember if a penalty applies or not.

However, we do really like the way Taos work and how martial arts are tied to weapons. Plus, the level of character power works well for a cinematic but not over the top experience. The game really can make you feel like you're playing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Scarlet Heroes

Scarlet Heroes is an early Kevin Crawford game (Sine Nomine), of the "Without Number" games fame. I don't have much to say about it. The main thing that's Wuxia about it is the setting. There is a "fray" die for dealing damage to enemies with equal or fewer hit dice than the PC which is intended, I believe, to speed up combat and reflect the martial acumen of the heroes.

As a game, Scarlet Heroes is fine, but nothing to write home about. It will provide a D&D-like experience for you. Where the book really shines is in the tables for generating random material, of which there are many to draw from. With the random tables, you can generate quests, locations, encounters, and more. Like all Sine Nomine games, the tables are a big part of what sets it apart from other games.

To be honest, my group has no interest in returning to this game. Of the Wuxia games we played, we found it to be the least interesting mechanically.

GURPS

GURPS is sufficiently well known that I don't feel the need to get deep into the mechanics of the system. Suffice to say the system is 3d6 with the goal to roll under your skill level. Beyond that, GURPS builds characters out of skills, advantages, and disadvantages, and is in many respects the grand-daddy of this approach.

You'll want GURPS Martial Arts if you're going to play Wuxia. In my experience, GURPS does gritty, down to earth Wuxia really well, and you can model the larger than life powers of Wuxia martial artists in a number of ways according to your preferences.

In general, my group found GURPS to be very playable, but the front-loading on character building is a bit of a barrier. You need to devote time to character creation, but once characters are created the game is very smooth.

The main reason to use GURPS, as we saw it, was that GURPS can combine genres easily. If we wanted to do gritty Wuxia but also sad space cowboys or something like that, it was straightforward to put together using GURPS's rules.

So this one seems to have gotten a ton of hype, and won a whole bunch of what I assume are TTRPG awards. There are also several YouTube videos where the hosts extol the virtues of the game, making it sound like the greatest thing ever!!! Yet when I looked for some Actual Plays to watch, other than the official channel, and AP done by the creators, I found nada.

So, is anyone actually playing this game? Are there any good non-desingner Actual Plays out there to watch? Or is it all just hype?

I mostly host online games and the in person game I have, I'm a player. I want to play more in person but the scheduling is a nightmare.

Hey all, I’ve recently been thinking about writing modules, both for custom and existing systems. I was looking through my collection and I realised I have no modules at all. Except for like, Phandelver, and the one in the back of the Witcher TRPG book. So I was wondering, what are some good things to do in module writing, and some bad things to do. Just as well, and perhaps more importantly, what are some modules you would suggest I read to get an idea of how to write a module that plays well.

I’ve been getting some ads for the Rivers of London Humble Bundle, so I figured I’d ask. Rivers runs on Basic Roleplaying, so I’m curious what someone would use Rivers of London for as opposed to Call of Cthulhu? Outside of it being in some guy’s book setting, which I’ve never heard of.

Mostly, I appreciate CoC but the Sanity mechanics always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I do appreciate a d100 system, though, so if it’s interesting I might toss the $18 to check it out.

Based in a western setting where our group is a bunch of smugglers and thives.

Urban Fantasy, as a genre, is often modern day Earth that has magic and other supernatural elements to it. Typically with some kind of veil or masquerade preventing regular people from knowing about it, so the authors don't have to figure out how public knowledge of the supernatural would have changed things throughout history.

Personally, I'm not a fan of that type of setting conceit, but finding urban fantasy games/settings that lack it is like finding a needle in a haystack. Since, at least for me, what makes adding fantasy elements to modern day Earth interesting is seeing how different things would be because of those fantasy elements.

Which got me thinking. What about an urban fantasy setting that is a fantasy world that wasn't trapped in medieval stasis? A fantasy world that has progressed beyond the pseudo-medieval society & tech levels, to something akin to modern day Earth.

Outside of generic rpgs like Savage Worlds or Gurps, does anyone know of any rpgs that do something like that?

Edit: To clarify, since I'm getting a lot of suggestions for more traditional urban fantasy settings, what I mean by modern is largely in terms of societal developments and technology, in a world where magic and non-human people have always existed and are a known, accepted part of the world. There is no veil/masquerade separating the magic from the mundane, or a separation of science/technology and magic. In my eyes, a world like that would have magic as another field of science (or science is another field of magic). A setting like that is what I'm looking for.

Introspection thread.

Everything that's worth doing is worth doing well, and nothing exists that can't be done a little bit better. The purpose of this thread isn't to be harsh on ourselves, but rather to consider potential flaws in the way we run and play these games, and perhaps give and receive some advice on how to smooth those wrinkles out.

Starting off:

Since I started running games in English I have found that I'm pretty crap at improvising evocative descriptions. General narration is fine, but when setting scenes I struggle at finding the right adjectives without pausing to have a think for an embarrassingly long time, and that just breaks the flow. Especially troublesome when running horror where pacing is of great importance.

I've fixed this somewhat by simply prepping descriptions, but that doesn't help when the PC go to a places or meet people I hadn't planned for. Any tips for coming up with impactful descriptors on the fly would be highly appreciated.