• View
• Edit
• History
• Print

PlayingWushuDiceless

Playing Wushu Diceless

The Wushu system has relatively low variance in the expected results from its dice mechanic. It is low enough that you can eliminate the dice entirely and get nearly the same results, using the expected successes from the dicefull rules. This would be useful for online games which make it less convenient to roll dice for resolution. It could also be used for a tabletop game, either for scenes which are not strenuous and wouldn't benefit from the unpredictability of dice, or for a whole game consisting entirely of narration between players and GM.

This replaces only the and mechanics of the system. You use normal Wushu , with traits, a weakness, and chi, as usual, which should make it easy to run some scenes with dice and some without.

Challenges

(Mook rules, for unimportant or environmental opposition)

As GM, set the scene with an opening narration. Describe the opponents or situation, including details about the location that may be interesting or useful to players in their narration.

Assign a challenge rating to the scene, which is the total of successful trait usages which must be built up among the players to overcome this challenge. This is analagous to a mook Threat Rating.

The players narrate amongst themselves, playing off each other, the scenery, and whatever challenge they are facing. Once each player has a half-dozen or so details built up, end the round. The challenge rating is reduced by the trait that each character applied to it that round. Once it reaches 0, the challenge is overcome.

Chi: Players may spend chi during the round to additionally reduce the challenge rating by 1 for every chi spent.

The GM now re-sets the scene for the next round, and play continues.

The danger rating is explicitly left out here, because mooks/challenges aren't about really threatening the characters. They're about letting the PCs show off, having cool action, and advancing the plot a bit. If you really need the chance that PCs will lose chi, then set a time limit: after every 5 rounds (or whatever), if the challenge hasn't been resolved, all PCs involved lose 1 chi. Informing the player of this will encourage them to use their highest traits in creative ways to overcome the challenge quickly.

Conflicts

(Nemesis rules, for important or directed opposition)

Set the scene. Decide who the involved parties are, and if PCs will fight the nemesis one-on-one or in groups.

If you decide to use one-on-one rules, 1 PC and 1 nemesis resolve a round before any other PC can have a go at that nemesis. The player and the GM narrate the conflict, until they call the round, generally after half a dozen details each or so. They then compare traits. Whoever has the lower trait loses the difference in chi. If there's a tie, neither side loses chi. Either party may spend chi to inflict equivalent chi loss on their opponent. Going negative on chi takes you out of the scene as usual.

If the conflict is many vs one or many vs many, each side narrates the group's actions as a team for the round. When resolving the round, use the team's highest applicable trait as the team's trait. Anyone in the team may spend chi to damage the opponent, and chi loss resulting from losing the trait comparison or the opponent spending chi may be taken by anyone on the team.

This makes nemesis-type conflicts basically resource contests. If the PCs and the nemeses are equal in traits, then whoever has the higher chi pool will win. If there is a trait imbalance, there is an advantage to the higher trait, and it will become necessary for the disadvantaged side to try to exploit their enemy's weakness (forcing him to apply a trait of 1) or otherwise reduce his advantage.

Mechanically, this conflict is very predictable, so it's easy for the GM to set up appropriate challenges for the PCs (a nemesis with a relevant trait of 5 and chi 1 less than the party total will be automatically defeatable if the party plays smart and applies their own 5 traits, and will reduce everyone in the party to 0 chi while going negative themselves). This leaves everyone free to narrate and be creative, without having to worry about managing die pools and so on. If the nemesis is known to have a better trait than anyone in the party, it is very important to find out his weakness or force him into a conflict he is not so advantaged in to make him beatable.

A Note on Regaining Chi

Players could try to take advantage of the chi expending system to wipe out a nemesis in one round by spending a large amount of chi, more than enough to take themselves negative, for instance. It might seem worth it to take out a powerful or troublesome nemesis, since PCs by default don't actually die if they run out of chi, they're just out of the scene. If this becomes a problem, remember that PCs cannot be in scenes in which they have negative chi, and give back chi slowly between scenes. Someone who took themselves to -10 chi to defeat an opponent they shouldn't have been able to beat so cavalierly might, like Buffy, find that it sometimes takes a while to come back from the dead.