Favorite & Least Fvaorite Official Adventure

Games Discussion Feng Shui
1

I've been going through all my old 1st edition Feng Shui stuff lately and got to wondering what is the favorite and least favorite "official" adventure of everyone and why? If you were give another GM advice about your favorite or least favorite to help in running it what would it be.

This is a list of all the "offical" adventures with an abbreviation of what book they are in.

Note: MAG refers to an adventure that ran in a magazine. Legacy of Ming was published in 2 different magazines. WEB means you can get it free online at the author's website. The web and MFD versions of Shaolin Heartbreak have some minor differences. the web version has some text that got cut by accident from the MFD version and doesn't have the maps & art in the MFD version.

If anyone is looking for a magazine adventure on the list or info about one send me a PM.

I tried to put the adventures in a rough chronological order. However The Shape of Guilt is intended to e a long running sub plot adventure.)

Baptism of Fire FS
Brinks! MFD
Blood of the Master MFD
Sleeping Dragons Awake MAG
Pai Lai MFD
The Shape of Guilt MFD
Shaolin Heartbreak MFD & WEB
A Cold Watery Grave TL
My Master, My Foe BV
Legacy of Ming MAG
The Cancer Factory SNF
The Fist of Shiva SNF
Four Bastards FB
Double Stunts As Stunt Doubles SW
Fast Forward IYFA
Blood & Sand IYFA
Invincible Chi IYFA
Last Stand At Old Man Fong's IYFA
The Lost City of An-Makalur IYFA
Fight Night IYFA
Crossfire IYFA
Hong Kong Phone Book IYFA
E Ticket Ride IYFA
Murder's Row IYFA
Burning Shaolin BS
Chains of Bone GA

Ok so now for my favorite and least favorite.

My favorite is Shaolin Heartbreak. I like the plot and it allowed for a romantic subplot.
My advice to a GM running it would be:

Ignore the restaurant map in Marked for Death (MFD) it seems too small.
You need to fix the GMCs as they were written with a playtest version of Feng Shui and the schticks may not fit and they may be too weak.
Don't let Maureen Wei get killed and fudge things if needed as she is a major character in the adventure Double Stunts As Stunt Doubles in Seal of the Wheel (SW)
Try and get photos of locations and of examples of things that show up in the adventure.

My least favorite is Four Bastards.
The reason why is that it had a good number of errors in it that ought to have been caught before it went to press, some of the GMCs dialog wasn't that good in some places and too juvenile, and was way too linear. The Babylon 5 line was an example of the dialog problems..

My advice to a GM would be to look closely at the GMCs in it as some have schtick not in any rule book and other errors in their stats.
Have fun when playing Fast Eddie in the beginning. When I ran it years ago with one group the opening lasted much longer because of how the character's were interacting with him.
Look to see if any of the FS book have rules that could be helpful buried in them them.

2

Favorite: Blood for the Master. I don't know why... maybe because I had so much fun the first time I went through it as a player. At the end, when the temple started shaking, all the PCs defied any sense of logic or reason and ran INTO the building instead of AWAY from the building. That utterly flabbergasted the GM, who for a few seconds there thought we'd all run into a complete TPK. But he sent the temple back to the Netherworld instead, and we unwittingly wound up trying to explain to the King of the Fire Temple how we got into his domain.

It's a good beginning smash-em-up adventure, but it's got some issues. For example, you have to "prep" the PCs on who Ming Jian is and what she's trying to do, or they will respond like any other group of PCs when an unknown GMC comes into a pizza shop and starts shooting it apart with a shotgun: "Target Pig Acquired". The temple floating around the Netherworld and then suddenly appearing in the contemporary juncture doesn't quite jive with how the Netherworld/junctures are supposed to work... but this was so early after the publication of the first edition that this can be easily forgiven. The cultists, the demons, and Eng Fang Mei aren't aligned with any particular faction, which is kinda odd... you'd think the Lotus would have the "heads up" on this one.

Least Favorite: Fast Forward. Which is frustrating, because I wrote the darned thing. In hindsight, the "Trapped in a VCR/Mindswap PC" thing was a dumb idea, and not very fun for the players. I should know better than to completely negate player agency without a chance for the player to quickly get back in the game.

Shaolin Heartbreak was very good, particularly the fireworks factory, but the biggest problem I had with it was way too many GMCs. Three monks, two Maureens, a bumbling assistant, and a cranky old sorcerer... there's a good chance the tag-along GMCs will outnumber the party, which means by the time all the GMCs take their turn, the PCs don't have anything interesting left to do. I removed Tzu-Yeh since he doesn't have anything to do with the Love Triangle, but even that seemed like too many GMCs. I should have offed Ssu-ma Niu early to amp up Chun Chang's conflicting angst, but kept him around instead. If Ta Yu gets away from the PCs in Baptism of Fire, subbing him in for Phanom Rung makes for a very nice Final Showdown.

Four Bastards I think is the only Feng Shui book I don't own... but next time I run into it, I plan on picking it up just for the Grenade Trick alone.

3

My crew loved Fast Forward :slight_smile:

Allen