What is Wushu?Wushu is an action-RPG system (
read more about it here). The chief gimmick is that everything happens exactly as the players say it does. You have full control over your action so long as you aren't full-on godmodding. But the more ridiculous your action is, the more ridiculous the situation becomes!
Basic Structure1. The Director creates a Threat (pile of poker chips) or Nemesis (opposing character) that the Heroes need to overcome.
2. Players describe the scene in the present-tense. Everything happens as the players describe it, when they describe it. Each detail earns the player 1 die, up to some limit.
3. Players may need to divide their dice into Yin and Yang pools. Yang dice are directed against Threats and Nemeses. Yin dice are used for self-defense.
4. Each roll is compared to the Heros most relevant Trait, a number from 15. Dice that roll over are discarded. The rest are considered hits.
5. Threats score 1 hit per round on each Hero; Nemeses may score more. Use Yin hits and Chi tokens to defend. If you take a hit, you lose.
6. If both sides take a hit, whoever takes the most hits loses. Ties go to the Heroes. Threats lose 1 chip per hit; theyre out of the game when they run out of chips.
7. The winner gets a Coup de Grace, where they narrate a resolution to the conflict.
Combat is divided into
turns. After a bit of opening narration, players are free to narrate their actions as they see fit, making flashy moves and mowing down horde of mooks as needed.
At the end of the turn, each player rolls one die per detail in the exposition given. Take the following example from the website I linked above:
I throw my arms open wide and an automatic pistol pops into each hand from spring-loaded holsters up my sleeves. I hold the triggers down, spin down onto one knee, and spray them with lead!
This can count as three details: +1 for the quickdraw, +1 for the shooting, and +1 for the sleeve-holsters. It's possible to have more, but there is a limit to the number of dice you can roll, in the range of 4-10 usually. After allocating dice, players divide up how many dice they want to allocate toward Defense and how many toward other tasks, and these dice are rolled, counting up
Hits.
Each character has a number of traits ranging in value from 1 to 5, and the most relevant trait is counted for the turn. Dice with numbers above the trait value are discarded, and the remaining are Hits.
Hits are used to dispel
Threats, which can generally be summed up as anything that needs to be dealt with before declaring victory. Some Threats, such as a
Nemesis or a big mook, will deal 1 or more Hits to players within range. A crowd of mooks will usually deal 1 Hit to every player until dealt with, and players that didn't get any successful Defense rolls must pay with Chi, or Hitpoints, or some other value to nullify hits. If you don't have any HP left, you're out of the fight.
Note that players can narrate as many mooks into the situation as necessary in order to amass details and generate awesome.
After the turn is over, players narrate their next action, in which they narrate their defense and further moves. After all threats are eliminated, the players get to narrate victory. You can narrate things however you like so long as you're not godmodding. You can even fail routinely, only to come up with victory in the end! You can pass mooks to other players and have them deal with it, so players in the same fight should be aware of other people's actions.