printPreface to the Reloaded edition
I keep telling people that Wushu Open is a primer to help people write their own games. The reason it focuses on action is because that's what Dan Bayn (the creator of Wushu) finds easiest to write. But that once you scratch the surface there's a whole lot more to it. Then I go and link them to the Wall of Wushu as it's often called with some example threads.
Thing is, for a lot of people that doesn't cut it, and my exhortations are probably getting rather stale. So I decided to do something about it - write a Reloaded edition of Open with a more general, less combat-focused tone, and some additional wrinkles to address the potential shortcomings of Open from certain points of view.
I hope I manage to achieve that goal...
...what you will notice is that I haven't renamed anything. Reason being I like the evocative titles, and coming up with generic ones is bloody difficult. Plus it means everyone who knows Open is on the same page as me with what this all means. If someone wants to come along later and change the names of things, be my guest. I won't send the ninjas. Promise.
-Damian aka Kiero
The Golden Rules
There are two of them, and I call them Golden Rules because, if you forget everything else contained herein (not that there's much of it), you need to remember these. For they are the core of what Wushu is about. If you don't like the ideas and philosophies they espouse, Wushu is not the game for you.
They are the reason that Wushu is a fundamental break from the traditional way RPGs function. In the standard setup, players state their intentions, which are accepted as valid by the GM, who then couches them in mechanical terms, and a dice roll determines the result. Wushu cuts straight to the result, which brings us to the first Golden Rule: The Principle of Narrative Truth (PoNT).
Principle of Narrative Truth (PoNT)
"Everything the players describe happens exactly as they describe it, when they describe it."
The most important thing about Wushu is the way it doles out narrative and authorial power to the players. They don't ask the GM if a course of action is alright, then roll to see how successful they were. Instead, they say what happens before they roll any dice. The roll doesn't tell you how well you did, it says how effective your chosen course of action was in bringing the scene towards resolution. Because that is the key to Wushu - it doesn't do task resolution, only the broader resolution of a scene.
Task resolution is left up to the players by way of the PoNT. Namely that everything happens exactly as the players describe it, when they describe it. It bears repeating, so I'll say it again: Everything happens exactly as the players describe it, when they describe it.
It is left to the players' discretion whether they describe success or failure; it's all the same as far as Wushu goes. What might seem like a character struggling to get their point across could be turned around at the last minute with the one piece of evidence they've been saving until the last moment. It's an action movie staple for some protagonists to get beat on by the goons until they switch things up a gear and lay the smack down.
The player is within rights to describe never "failing," or to never describe "succeeding," but regardless their character can still advance a scene towards its end. If this sounds too much like make-believe to you, there's more to it, including elements of risk. More on that later.
The exceptions to the PoNT
It doesn't quite go all the players' way though. The problem with an unfettered PoNT is that old chestnut of the kid who brings a "forcefield" to a game of Cops and Robbers. Wushu requires everyone to be (mostly) on the same page about what is and is not appropriate for the game you're playing. Wushu is great at genre emulation, provided that everyone gets what the conventions of that genre are (and which are applicable to that particular game). However, it doesn't provide any mechanical means by which to enforce those conventions - except the Veto.
Veto
"If a description doesn't feel right, anyone can Veto it."
Everyone around the table, not just the GM, wields the right to Veto anyone else's description at any time. This includes a player Vetoing a GM's description. You could look at this as completely invalidating the freedom of the PoNT, and turning every game into a legislative session of trying to pass your descriptions through the House of your group, but that's not how it happens in practice. This is why it's so important that everyone is on the same page.
Rather, the Veto should serve as a flag that people aren't on the same page, and is an opportunity for everyone to get it straight. It's a chance to say "hang on a minute," and check that you're all still playing the same game. Cos shy of telepathy, we're only ever working on shared approximations of what everyone else is thinking.
The Veto doesn't have to be a negative thing. Sometimes you might have an idea on how to jazz someone else's narrative up. In that case, a Veto might be a subtle "Hey, might it be cooler if..."
When a Veto is used, the person Vetoed should describe again, amending their original narrative to fit the new consensus.
Coup de Grace rule
"You can't narrate complete victory without first resolving a scene's mechanical component."
There is one other limit to the PoNT, one that's softer than the Veto. The Coup de Grace rule says you can't describe blowing away the entire challenge of a scene in your first description. More than that, you can't describe ending it until the mechanical representation of that challenge has been resolved.
In a contest to bake the perfect pie, you can't narrate the judges loving your culinary creation and awarding you the prize of BakeMaster 20,000 in your opening narrative, if the contest is all about proving who is the superior cook. Instead you must first deal with the mechanical representation of the scene's challenge and, should you win, you get to describe your victory as a parting shot.
A Coup de Grace is a bonus narrative that the victor of a scene gets, after the roll, to describe how the thing is resolved. This is the only time a narrative comes after rolling, rather than before. It is most often used to end Nemesis battles, though it may be appropriate in any situation where the players' descriptions have left loose ends. When it is not clear who struck the final blow, the Coup de Grace may be awarded to whoever has the best idea or handled by the GM.
Everything is a Detail...
"Any and every course of action you can describe contains Details."
The second Golden Rule goes to the driving force of Wushu, the narrative. Wushu rewards expressiveness in describing what you do; each discrete element within the narrative is a Detail which earns a die. Wushu's engine works on a dice pool system, where the size of the pool depends on the elaborateness of your narrative. More on mechanics later.
In one respect, it doesn't actually matter what you describe, as long as you describe your character doing something. Everything is a Detail: dialog is a Detail, an action is a Detail, the environment and changes in it are Details, your character's wardrobe is a Detail, flashbacks and inner monologue are Details, (in more cinematic games) descriptions of camera angles and shots are Details, and so on - I think you get the idea.
This can seem daunting, to be creative for the entire game all by yourself. The thing of it is, you don't have to be on fire the entire time because you're not alone. There's nothing to stop you from building on the ideas of other players, weaving your narratives together in a step-by-step building of one idea on top of another. Setting up part of a narrative, then handing it over to another player for embellishment, before they give it back to you to continue is called a "Pass" in Wushu. Provided everyone's happy with sharing some degree authorial control over their characters, this is actively encouraged. It's not only less tiring than coming up with all of your own stuff, it incentivises teamwork and tends to produce much cooler, more entertaining descriptions than any one person could conjure up alone.
...but choose the right Details for the game.
"Everyone has to be on the same page about what kinds of Details are appropriate."
There isn't complete freedom to narrate anything you like; the more outlandish or inappropriate descriptions may trigger a Veto from someone. This is where questions of genre and appropriateness come to the fore. There are no mechanics in Wushu to tell a group what is and isn't allowed as a Detail. That's up to the players and GM to work out amongst themselves, because the internally consistent "reality" of the game only exists so far as there is consensus on what the genre of the game is, and what conventions of that genre apply.
Here's an example. Imagine two WW2 games, one is pulpy action in the vein of the Castle Wolfenstein games, the other ultra-realistic drawing on Band of Brothers for inspiration. In both games, you might have the same situation: As German machine-gun fire opens up on their advance, the characters and their squad have taken cover in a crater, using it as a makeshift foxhole.
Consider the following narrative:
"Heedless of the danger of incoming fire, BJ leaps out of the foxhole with a grenade hanging from his mouth by the pin. A Colt 1911 ACP blazing in each hand, he runs directly for the machine gun, plugging two Germans on the trot. As he gets closer, he holsters one pistol and yanks the grenade from his mouth, hurling it in the direction of the machine gun and diving to the ground as the explosion fills the air with noise"
That would be entirely appropriate for the first style of game. In the second, it would earn a Veto, since charging headlong into a well-sited machine gun position is suicide in a realistic situation.
And now the following:
"Keeping my head down, we execute the plan. Jones and Mac, lay down covering fire from the crater, forcing the Germans to keep their heads down. Greasley and Weston stay low, going left and using the drainage ditch as cover. The Jerrys don't see them, and they get their .50 in position behind the tree, ready to lay down fire on my signal. Jock Morris and I go right under cover of the hedge and complete the pincer Greasley and Weston's fire creates when I blow on my whistle."
For the first game, this is far too pedestrian and cautious; you're supposed to be Big Damned Heroes. But it's right up the alley of the second game, showing unit tactics, teamwork and command as the key to succeeding because every man is vulnerable.
Both are full of dice-earning Details, and both bring the scene towards resolution. The only gauge as to which one is "better" is what is in-genre for the particular game. Also note that it doesn't necessarily matter whether the specifics of the orders I gave in the second example would "work in real life," not unless you're playing an ultra-realistic game where valid tactics are required in your narrative.
What Wushu Does
At first, Wushu looks deceptively simple, like other rules-light games. But after a bit of playing and thinking, it becomes clear that Wushu provides a surprisingly sophisticated engine for facilitating a fast-paced, collaborative game of narration and genre-emulation. But how does it do that?
Wushu is built on the basis of a few opposing forces that drive play while at the same time providing checks and balances against possible abuse. One of those is the tension between complete creative freedom, as expressed in "Everything is a detail" and the PoNT, and the necessity for collaboration and consensus-finding, as expressed in the Coup de Grace and Veto rules. Let's look at these two opposing forces in a bit more detail:
On one hand, Wushu gives each player great incentive to become creative and narrate Details. Players are rewarded for narration not only by getting dice (and thus a higher chance of mechanical success), but also by the fact that their narration happens exactly as they describe it. This way, the system promotes a game of free narration and improvisation, as players can narrate their characters actions (and how they resolve in-game) without fearing negative consequences.
A powerful tool, but one that can be abused. Thus, Wushu offers an opposing force to keep the creative energy in check and on track, to facilitate a positive game experience not only for the person narrating but for everybody. This force comes from the Veto and, to a lesser extent, the Coup de Grace rules. The Veto rules help prevent one of the common problems with complete freedom, namely that of conflicting creative visions. It's easy for a group of friends to have different ideas of what constitutes "fun" or which tropes are appropriate to a given genre, and in a free creative environment, these difference can lead to a loss of focus or, in the worst case, to arguments and bad feelings between players. The Veto rule means that only appropriate narrations and Details, as decided by group consensus, are incorporated into the game. This way, players are given the power to Veto narrations that would ruin their fun or run counter to the expected genre.
Together, these two opposing forces hold the game in balance, as players are given the freedom to narrate, are even rewarded for narration, but are also forced to communicate with their fellow players about what is and isn't appropriate, thus building a group consensus. This increases the chances of productive, focused play without removing the aspect of fast and free narration that is the whole point of Wushu.
What Wushu Does Not Do
Wushu does not provide "hard" genre emulation through mechanics that help you enforce what works and what does not. The group is the only means by which this is possible, so if your group is unable to reach a consensus, a game will be fraught with difficulty.
In addition, the mechanics alone will not judge what is a "right" or "wrong" course of action. The GM doesn't have modifiers that can be applied to a scene to reflect the appropriateness of a player's chosen course of action. All they have are the same powers of Veto with reference to genre as everyone else.
Lastly, Wushu does not bring the cool all by itself - it relies on the players to do that. There are no mechanics which will help you build up an exciting string of actions to work into your descriptions, no lists of powers or maneuvers to spur your creativity, although you can steal those from other sources at will. If you want a mechanical underpinning to aid your creativity, Wushu is not for you. All it does is act as a catalyst for that which everyone brings to the table themselves, by not getting in the way of their creativity.
Core Mechanics
Now to the meat of how this all works. The mechanics of Wushu are all about regulating conflict. As before, it doesn't actually matter what the nature of the conflict is, whether combat, physical, social, mental, or any other kind. All that matters is that the outcome of something is important enough for us to focus on.
Wushu breaks conflicts up into a number of rounds, which could represent any length of time in the game reality, depending on the nature of the conflict. A round in a firefight may be a few seconds. A round in an election campaign may comprise months of canvassing, pressing of flesh and making speeches. A round in a trial might be weeks of research and info-gathering interspersed with hours of cross-examination and trial process. There's no hard and fast rule on this, indeed each round may not necessarily be the same length as the one before or the one after.
Each round is broken up into two phases which are completed by everyone at the same time. First, the group Describes the scene; this is the important part because their narration determines what actually happens in the game world. Then, they Resolve their dice rolls to see how this round progressed the scene towards an end.
(REMOVED)
Pool Limits / Die Caps
To control the pacing and tone of a scene, GMs can put a pool limit or die cap on the number of dice any player can roll at once. This is normally set up at the very beginning of a conflict. Three or four dice per round tends to result in shorter, tighter-framed descriptions, suitable for less important or warmup scenes. When things get more dramatic, such as the climax of a session, ratcheting the scene cap up to six or eight dice is appropriate.
One way to encourage a frenetic back-and-forth between players is to have a high cap on a scene, but only let players narrate a Detail or two before moving on to the next player.
You don't have to describe up to the scene cap in each and every round; sometimes tacking on a few extra Details can become exhausting. Nor do you have to stop your narrative just because you're not earning any more dice. This is a filibuster, where you go way over the cap simply because you're enjoying yourself narrating. Some groups like it, others put limits on it.
Optional Extras: Held Dice
Normally, you have to roll the dice you earn during a conflict right away. However, you can also earn dice which are held over - Held Dice - to be used for a specific task later on. It is in this way that Wushu can reward preparation. Each Detail describing a preparation activity adds to either an individual or communal pool of Held Dice to be used later on. A scene with a round of planning or foreshadowing or a flashback or montage sequence are just a few means of earning Held Dice.