Wushu and Fortune at the End

[Paganini]

I'd never really encountered Fortune at the End in practice, until I bought Wushu. When I read about it in the GNS essay my response was basically "yeah, ok, that sounds weird, but it doesn't really have anything to do with me."

But, so, now I've got Wushu. I've had it for a while. I've even played it. And I still don't get FatE.

In Wushu, you basically narrate to get dice. You get one die just for doing something, plus one additional die for each "embellishment," basically cool stuff that you add to the narration.

The other players can veto any of your embellishments for any reason, and there's an upper limit on the dice you can get (the default upper limit is 6).

The rules suggest two ways to handle timing, in terms of when the actual people narrate. The basic way is just to take turns as you go around the table. The "communal" way is more unstructured, where veryone just talks and grabs dice until everyone's done; then you all roll.

Resolution is a pretty simple target number deal. Every die that comes up equal to or less than the trait you're using counts as a success. There's some special tweaks(like a Weakness gives you an automatic target number of 1 and stuff).

So, here's where its confusiong. The rules say:

"The important thing to remember is tha tResolution is a purely mechanical process. All of your narrative description, every last word of it, belongs in the description segment before Resolution. Everything the players described already happened, regardless of the successes rolled or lack thereof. The dice only tell you how well things worked, not if they worked at all."

So... what exactly are we using the "Resolution" mechanis to resolve? The above paragraph is an explicit description of pure drama mechanics. Even with the assumption that everything you narrate comes true, it doesn't seem like the roll does anything at all. It can't in form narration, because you don't *do* any narration after rolling.

You narrate a fancy way of killing someone, roll 6 dice, well, looky there, he sure is dead. He was dead when I narrated it, but 'cos I rolled those dice I know he's *all* dead, and not just mostly dead!

The only time when there's *actually* something at stake is during a combat, where everything you say *still* comes true, but you can lose Chi if you roll bad. But losing Chi doesn't really mean anything, since the definition of zero Chi is being "out of the fight."

I'm at a loss. What's the point of rolling? If there's no point to rolling, what do you need dice for? It's like a freeform system with a dead-end mechanical element grafted on.

[Andrew Martin]

So, here's where its confusing. The rules say:

"The important thing to remember is that Resolution is a purely mechanical process. All of your narrative description, every last word of it, belongs in the description segment before Resolution. Everything the players described already happened, regardless of the successes rolled or lack thereof. The dice only tell you how well things worked, not if they worked at all."

So... what exactly are we using the "Resolution" mechanis to resolve? The above paragraph is an explicit description of pure drama mechanics. Even with the assumption that everything you narrate comes true, it doesn't seem like the roll does anything at all. It can't in form narration, because you don't *do* any narration after rolling.

You narrate a fancy way of killing someone, roll 6 dice, well, looky there, he sure is dead. He was dead when I narrated it, but 'cos I rolled those dice I know he's *all* dead, and not just mostly dead!

The only time when there's *actually* something at stake is during a combat, where everything you say *still* comes true, but you can lose Chi if you roll bad. But losing Chi doesn't really mean anything, since the definition of zero Chi is being "out of the fight."

I'm at a loss. What's the point of rolling? If there's no point to rolling, what do you need dice for? It's like a freeform system with a dead-end mechanical element grafted on.

From reading the various Wushu threads on RPG.net, I came to the conclusion that the dice pool result of "mostly dead" when you've all ready described the opposition as being totally dead, allows the GM to have new reinforcements suddenly appear or to have the villain become an undead, zombie monster, or the villain has a trap which activates on his death, or the villain has a last gasp action, depending upon the genre and the player's killing moves.

An alternative is that the group restricts the available embellishments to those that don't describe the effect of the character's actions. This allows the GM to roughly describe how effective the character was.

[Shreyas Sampat]

As far as I can understand it, it's a very smoothly camouflaged pacing mechanic. The Threat Level of an enemy/group of enemies represents nothing else but how much work it takes for you to bypass them, and Chi is a "clock" limiting the amount of actions you can attempt in order to produce the requisite amount of work.[/list]

[Paganini]

Shreyas, that's pretty much in line with my own reasoning. The problem I have is that, since the players have unlimited freedom of narration, it's very difficult to frame the conflict in such a way that the pacing mechanic means anything. Unless the conflict is stated very vaguely ("some guys are attacking you") the conflict can be resolved instantly via narration before the requisite work is done.

So, that seems to kind of defeat the purpose of the pacing mechanics. When I ran the game, I remember feeling like the whole game was basically a tug of war between two possibilities:

GM: "The Big Evil Dude is fighting you! He's got mucho dice!"
Player: "I back flip over and kick his head off! His howl of pain is cut off as blood fountains from the stump of his neck and he dies!"
GM: "Uh..."

or

GM: "There's a conflict, but I can't tell you exactly what it is, cos I don't want you to narrate your way out of it. You sure have to do a lot of work to overcome it though!"
Player: "Uh..."

[Shreyas Sampat]

The answer is that you define the conflict in terms of what it impedes, not what is causing the impedance.

In other words, "108 ninjas are blocking the escape route out of the hidden temple!" is important because of blocking the escape route, and there're no way to get to the escape route without surmounting the challenge. If the ninjas are defeated, then holy crap! We didn't see that pit of boiling tar! The tar golems are attacking!

Which is not to say that you are stating the conflict in vague terms - it simply means that the statement of the conflict does not have to be a constant, and there is a certain line somewhere that one cannot cross with narration alone. (I'm not sure whether the rules as written support this, but I believe that this is essentially the only way to make sense of Wushu.)

[C. Edwards]

Hey Shreyas,

In other words, "108 ninjas are blocking the escape route out of the hidden temple!" is important because of blocking the escape route, and there're no way to get to the escape route without surmounting the challenge. If the ninjas are defeated, then holy crap! We didn't see that pit of boiling tar! The tar golems are attacking!

So you're saying that a failure results in a turn of events, something that keeps the goal from being attained on that roll? Schweet. That would mean that you would have to be explicit about the players not narrating the ultimate outcome of the goal of the challenge. Leave that last little bit for after the dice roll outcome.

-Chris

[Tony Irwin]

So, here's where its confusing. The rules say:

"The important thing to remember is tha tResolution is a purely mechanical process. All of your narrative description, every last word of it, belongs in the description segment before Resolution. Everything the players described already happened, regardless of the successes rolled or lack thereof. The dice only tell you how well things worked, not if they worked at all."...

... You narrate a fancy way of killing someone, roll 6 dice, well, looky there, he sure is dead. He was dead when I narrated it, but 'cos I rolled those dice I know he's *all* dead, and not just mostly dead!

In your example here you've already gone ahead and resolved the situation without waiting for the dice. If you narrate yourself killing someone (making someone absolutely dead), then you've stepped outside your limits. Only the dice can determine whether your attempts are succesful or not, it's up to you to describe embellished actions that the dice shall resolve.

Actions/Resolutions
Players/The Dice
Fighting/Knock out
Shooting/Blow his brains out
Racing/Clear the bridge in time
Love making/Pregnancy

As long as you make sure your narrations focus on actions without accidentally resolving things,  or even implying a resolution by only leaving room for one possible outcome, then it flows really well.

The only problems we've had is when one conflict's resolution could be another conflict's action. If you're trying to shoot out the master computer then it doesn't matter if you narrate yourself killing anyone between. Gloriously shooting down guards are just your actions on the way to taking out the computer.

On the other hand if you're trying to kill the men guarding the computer then you mustn't narrate yourself actually killing them. Only the dice can decide whether your attempts to kill them are succesfull.

There needs to be some clarity before the start of each conflict as to "What are we actually wanting to happen here?" or really "What are we going to leave to the dice to decide?" and I think the GM is the best one to lead/give/insist on clarity with that.

[Paganini]

Tony, that post makes a lot of sense in practical terms, but you've directly contradicted the Wushu rules text, and, IIRC, the examples given. What you describe seems to me how the rules *should* be writen, but my understanding is that the players are allowed to narrate literally anything they want. Am I misreading something?

[hanschristianandersen]

Paganini,

The players do not have unlimited powers of narration... but the text forces each individual group to come up with their own "reasonable limits".

From my copy of Wushu:

Of course, the GM (and the group) has the right to veto any Embellishment for any reason. Usually, this means reigning in players who want to deviate from the desired tone of the game, making things too gritty or too cartoonish. Creativity is our friend, but even friends can wear out their welcome. Just make sure everyone agrees on what kind of game they want to play before you get started.

What this meant for my group was that before play could proceed at all, there needed to be a well-established social contract regarding what sort of embellishments are acceptable.  The rules text itself was no help at all in establishing boundaries for what could and couldn't be described.

In practice, this led to an odd compromise where when a player was fighting a named baddie (but not mooks), the player almost never described the impact of an action on the target!  Players would say things like "I dive over the railing, emptying my clip at the fuel canister behind the bad guy, and then I light a cigarette on the resulting explosion."  By not making any statements as to the named foe's actions, we neatly circumvented a whole range of awkward conflicts between drama and karma.  But that was just our agreement.

[DevP]

Dan Bayn has said that, for much of his own gaming, clear social contracts handle a lot of "genre emultion" that some would do via rules/rewards etc. A big part of that contract is understanding (I'd say outright defining) where both Mook and Nemesis conflicts begin and end. (I think the Wushu text would be greatly improved if this were made more explicit.)

[John Harper]

I have a lot to say about Wushu, but I've already said it here so I'll just provide some links:

Wushu Stuff
Wushu: hard work, but rewarding

The first thread deals more with the fortune-at-the-end issue.

[ReverendBayn]

Sorry I'm late to the party, but I think the replies so far have things well in hand. Let me off the following as points of clarification...

- Regarding Nemeses, I never let players narrate killing a Nemesis because Nemeses should always get a chance to defend themselves. In Cut-Fu and Pulp-Fu (written with the benefit of some playtesting that the core book didn't get), I call this the Coup de Grace rule: You have to save your "finishing move" for when your enemy is already defeated.

- In mook fights, I _never_ speficy how many mooks there are, where they are, or even what they're doing. I let the players do that for me. They can kill as many as they want, but if there's any Threat left, there are always more on the way. If anyone tried to say "I mow down every last mook" as part of their Description, I'd veto it. There are always more ninjas.

I do plan to write a follow-up to the core rules, when I get a chance. It'll incorporate all the tricks from the supplements and use the same expanded format as Pulp-Fu (complete with character templates, villains, and some sample settings). For now, Pulp-Fu prolly contains the most complete version of the Wushu rules set.

To return to the original question, the Resolution step is, as stated above, basically a pacing mechanic. It just tells you when to stop fighting ;)  In non-combat situations, it's a more traditional measure of success quality.

L8r, --Dan

[Tony Irwin]

Tony, that post makes a lot of sense in practical terms,
but you've directly contradicted the Wushu rules text, and, IIRC, the
examples given. What you describe seems to me how the rules *should* be
writen, but my understanding is that the players are allowed to narrate
literally anything they want. Am I misreading something?

Hey there. Well I hate to be the sad little guy that runs off and spends way too much time cutting and pasting every tiny little thing that backs up his point of view... but here goes

Stalker whirls on Hortense and charges (+1), snarling like a rabid
dog (+1).
Hortense, taken by surprise, drops into a sacrifice throw (+1) and hurls
Stalker through the room's floor length window (+1). Flipping back to her
feet (+1), she fires her crossbow at Vulture (+1), aiming to bury the bolt
deep in his diseased brain (+1). Vulture, already limping towards the door
(+1), rolls sideways to avoid the shot (+1).

In this example (page 20) the player refrains from killing Vulture in her
narration, instead she concentrates on her characters actions and attempts
to kill Vulture. Every action she narrates has happened, but its up to the
dice to determine how well they work in terms of killing Vulture.

The Welshman has Outrider cornered in the latter's
seedy hotel room. The duelists draw their blades: an elegant cavalry saber
and a wickedly curved shamshir, respectively. Suddenly, Gavin lunges
forward for an overhead slash (+1), but changes direction at the last second
and goes for Outrider's sword arm (+1). Outrider jumps back onto the bed
(+1), flips over Gavin's head to the desk behind him (+1), and kicks a lamp
at
his face (+1). Gavin spins around to slash at his escaping adversary (+1)
while ducking under the flying lamp (+1).

In this example (page 23) the player again refrains from narrating an
outcome to the fight such as "I kill him", "He chokes to death", or even
actions that imply an outcome such as "I slash his head off". It's safe for
the system to say "All your actions do happen exactly as you narrate them" because the
player concentrates on narrating actions within the battle and avoids
resolving the battle itself.

Meanwhile, across town, the Ronin finds himself ambushed by a gang of
street punks (Threat 9). He draws his father's katana and slices the gun
hand off of the nearest one (+1). As the others charge, he dispatches three
more with a series of slashing spins (+1), his trench coat fans out around
him (+1). He ends the last spin with a violent kick (+1) that reduces one
mook's nose to a spray of blood and bone (+1).

In this one (page 24) the player does narrate himself killing some punks,
however this is safe because these are actions on the way to finishing the
gang. He ensures that his narration doesn't end the conflict without the
need for rolling.

Maven jumps through the door (+1), does a flip over Mama Mojo (+1),
and
plants her heels in the face of the nearest mook (+1) for 4 dice. Aleister
raises his gold-embroidered arms (+1) to trace an arcane pattern in the air
(+1) and engulf Mama Mojo in a pillar of flame (+1) for 4 dice. Mama Mojo
pulls out an Aleister doll (+1) and pokes two black pins into its eyes (+1)
to
blind him with 3 dice.

(Page 26) Even in describing the pillar of flame, the player doesn't go so
far as to narrate a burning death for the opponent or even describe the
impact of her actions on the opposition.

Blinded, Aleister throws up a force field (+1) and tries to defeat Mama's
mojo by sheer force of will (+1); he rolls 3 Yin dice, but will have to use
his
first success against the blindness. Mama Mojo pulls out her Desert Eagle
(+1) and lays down cover fire (+1) while diving left to escape the flames
(+1)
with 4 Yin dice. Maven grabs the knife arm of an attacking mook (+1) and
Judo throws him into the fire behind her (+1), then spin kicks the next one
in
the face (+1) and throws her big ass bowie knife (+1) into the throat of
another (+1) for 5 Yang dice and 1 Yin die.

(bottom page 26) Again there're wonderfully embellished actions narrated
here, but the player only narrates steps within the conflict, not the end of
the conflict itself.

We looked for more clarification in the rules text, but in the end had to  assume just that the instinctive and amazing fun the author and his group were having is the kind of thing that can often be difficult pin down on paper. We took the play examples as showing the correct interpretation of the rules and felt that it clarified any ambiguities in the text. I guess really
what's key is that we viewed the play examples as part of the "rules text" itself in trying to decide how the game is played. Also I readily admit that I may just be reading my own ideas into the play examples, what we thought the examples demonstrated may in fact be nothing to do with what they were written to demonstrate.

I think like everyone else we had to discuss our way to a solution, but its one that we believed is being demonstrated in the play examples.

Tony

[Paganini]

Tony,

Heheh. Thanks for doing all that. That does help clear things up.

[Bob McNamee]

Damn, this looks like a sweet game!