Feng Shui 2-first impression and ideas

Well I just begun to pour through the tome that is Feng Shui 2, by the ever awesome and highly productive Robin D. Laws.

This far from a full review, just an initial look at it.  Again, I am totally late to the party on this product and only about half way through it.

Feng Shui is an interesting fusion of systems, with a clear influence from Fate and the original product.

Rolls are done with a 2d6 roll, with one die being a positive and one die being negative (here's the Fate inspiration).  dice explode on rolling a 6 on either.    This is called a swerve.    You add this to a stat called your action value (AV) for your total, AVs seem to be from 7 to 19 in most cases.   Difficulties are resisted by AV of enemies or set difficulties of 5 to 20.

Characters also gain Fortune (aka chi, magic, genome/mutation), which act like Fate points, giving you  the ability to drop an additional positive dice to a roll by spending 1.   Other uses are featured through out the game.  Still reading up on this.

NOT from kickstarter, only good pic I found.
you could print out at home.
Check HERE here for extra ideas about shot
counting in other systems as well.  

Combat is done in what are called shots, which are initiative counts, the kick starter I borrowed had a tracking board of 1-20 shots, which where you put your character tokens to keep track of when
you act.  When you act on shot, you than can act again typically 3 to 6 shots later, moving your token down the track.   I think this could lead to some long combats, but most combat should never go more than 3 sequences (set of about 20 shots), which should give the illusion of fast and furious combat, which is great.   For me it is the most interesting mechanic of the system that feels quite different than other systems (though somewhat in the same lines as the seconds tracking in Hackmaster), and could even open up easy to use mechanics for time warping (might be in book have not gotten that far yet).

While I'm all for building characters from scratch, the idea of archetypes, especially 32 of them, that you can modify a bit to your liking, should make game play more streamed lined. Especially dropping in new characters mid-game after a player kill.

I found this HERE

Overall the art is pretty good, and quite colorful and appropriate for the pulpy feel of the book.  Though there is some really creepy uncanny valley in some of the photo realism that art is trying to do.  The scrappy kid may eat your soul.

You can also play in four different times or junctures, ancient (feudal era),  past (colonial era), Contemporary (current or near current),  Future (rise of the planet of the apes, but with ray guns!)  Looks like parties of player heroes could travel to different eras, be from different eras and the like.  In essence doing some genre mashing, which is great.

So far so good,  will come back once I finish the whole thing.

However, ideas already coming to surface
1) yep Jackie Chan Adventures for Feng Shui, well see if I can do the zodiac stuff for it.
2)  Legend of the Ninja villages; think Naruto in suburban neighborhoods for the modern juncture, or perhaps even Rival Schools.

This in Feng Shui?  YES please.
Capcom licensing...booo.

3)  1930's juncture to do  hard boiled + noir, action Casablanca, Indiana Jones.  Robot Nazis, the first Simian rising, Pearl Harbor...but with kung-fu paramilitary sky divers instead of bombs.
4)  Use system to do public domain Sci-Fi Movies???
5) Damage is set numbers, so adding a 3d6+7 damage value for random stuff the GM doesn't feel like looking up makes sense.  You could also add a swerve roll to the set damage examples as well.
6)  Difficulties are also preset, so random ones of  1d6+4 for common everyday stuff,  2d6+5 for movie action scenes,  3d6+6 for scenes that are once in movie action stunt that is quite mind blowing.  These could be fun and allow the GM to be surprised by about what might happen as well.  The GM may also just pick a difficultly and add a swerve roll for a bit easier approach.

7) Figure a way to play GM-less for small groups, or pass GMs duties around....hmm maybe.

Question yet to be answered (still reading):  Custom Archetypes (sure there are), Need to look up powers each time?  (complexity level, but so far fairly easy to understand, but still more crunchy than Fate).    Do actions in your juncture affect the future of other ones, could you potentially meet yourself or your own relatives?


Also Found Feng Shui 2 Errata
But couldn't easily find Fan site licensing or the like so....this blog/site is to be used under fair use for entertainment purposes only, all pictures and information are used under the express intent of a fan review and not challenge to any copyright holders.  Please comment below to help add any licensing requirements for said blog, thank you.

^___^  Thus far.     Borrowed, so no cost yet;  Looking at about 65.00 cnd, so estimated $$$, on par with most modern RPGS, but getting a bit pricey to collect them all.