Wulin (V1) - For a Few Chrysanthemums

Discovering "Wulin - Chroniques du Pinceau et de l'Épée" was a lovely surprise: for a fan of ancient China, how could I resist the call of such a tabletop RPG? In any case, it didn't take more than that to make me want to run it, if only as a one-shot.

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Wulin

"Wulin - Chronique du Pinceau et de l'Épée" (or simply "Wulin", among friends) is a recent production ^[1] from Game-Fu and Nicolas Henry. Players are invited to embody legends of the "world of lakes and forests" — that fringe of the population living on the margins of polite Chinese society — whose abilities exceed those of common mortals. The action takes place toward the end of the Song dynasty, after the Jürchens swept down on the Empire from the North ^[2]. Polite society is collapsing, the Emperor struggles to restore confidence, and the military and the courtisans tear each other apart in their own fashion. It is in this unstable context that the Wuxia blossom, warrior righters of wrongs.

The system's base aims to be simple and faithful to Chinese philosophy: the players set a difficulty threshold, then roll a variable number of D8s depending on their skills. The goal is to hit the set threshold: if the roll is under it, the action fails. If it is over, the difference between the test result and the threshold is applied as a loss of breath points, so as to simulate the exhaustion generated by too strenuous an effort (for as Chinese philosophy says, true mastery comes from the right allocation of one's energy). Players are therefore free to raise the difficulty threshold initially set by the Mengzhou (the GM) in order to gain additional positive effects, or to limit their dice pool to reduce the risk of exceeding the threshold.

Beyond this base, a multitude of small elements inspired by Chinese philosophy / cosmogony make it possible to influence the narration and spice up sessions. It is at once Wulin's strength and its weakness, as the game easily loses its players in obscure, often poorly explained micro-mechanics.

Wulin vs ze world

How does "Wulin - Chroniques du Pinceau et de l'Épée" compare to other productions of the same genre? Among the small dozen or so games of the same type, let me mention

• Weapons of the Gods and its whiff of "Fist of the North Star in China"
• Its unofficial sequel Legends of the Wulin
• Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade for the Fate System
• Wuxia from the defunct Studio Mammouth
• Qin

In broad strokes, one can distinguish "system" games from "setting" games. Anglo-Saxon productions offer a fairly generic, non-historical setting "so-as-not-to-be-too-complicated". You play in a pseudo-China, the way you eat pseudo-Chinese food in Asian restaurants in the West: façade exoticism. The appeal of these games lies mostly in their mechanics, meant to guarantee a "Kung-Fu" atmosphere around the table. I admit it: this refusal to dig into a historical setting in favor of a mixture stuffed with clichés saddens me. It hasn't stopped me from enjoying a title like "Legends of the Five Rings", though, and the games cited above no doubt offer many good sides, including settings sometimes richer than you'd think.

Alongside them, Qin is the only pure-bred representative of a "setting" game: most of the work went into describing the Warring States (and the beginning of the Qing dynasty, in a second line). The system, efficient and well-honed, can nevertheless feel more conventional. Wuxia, for its part, sits halfway between the two. While the game system takes the lion's share of the book, the authors describe several play settings, including historical periods. Unfortunately, with the line having died out quickly, we will never know where they meant to take it in the end.

"Wulin - Chroniques du Pinceau et de l'Épée" is trickier to file under a single category, so intertwined are the system and the setting. There is no playing approximato-Chinese with rules that systematically refer to swaths of Lao Zi's homeland: either you play Wulin in China, or you simply don't play it. One could therefore compare it more easily to Qin than to "Legends of the Wulin", but where Qin is destined for political drama inspired by films like Hero or The Emperor and the Assassin, Wulin leans rather on the popular culture of imperial China, preserved to this day in certain writings: what you lose in political and intellectual depth, you gain in spectacle, and even in humor.

This one-shot: For a Few Chrysanthemums

Below is a report on our one-shot. Like the Post-Mortem of our Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign, you will find in it a few small statistics, a summary of the sessions with my commentary, and a conclusion.

The scenario being official — taken from the Wulin core book — you are of course encouraged not to read it if, by any chance, you might one day play it without being the GM.

The headliners

At the heart of the story, a rather motley crew:

• Ah Shi De: halfway between the thick-skulled brute and the village good guy, Shi De is every inch the seasoned tracker. Said to be able to hit a fly at several li ^[3], his thunderous voice makes the weak tremble and makes him anything but inconspicuous.
• Da Long: a young rascal sent out on the roads by his despairing shifu ^[4], Long is more agile than a monkey — he could steal the trousers right off a guard without him noticing. His everlasting enthusiasm and passion for gambling often earn him nasty surprises, from which he escapes with his patter and his disarming candor.
• Meng Lao Kong: in the villages of the Southern Song, everyone talks of master Lao Kong's feats, an old fangshi ^[5] of a thousand wonders: divination and healing, nothing seems to escape him. And yet some suspect him at times of being a con man of the worst kind, merely gifted at selling his trinkets to the naive. Only his unconditional love of animals goes unquestioned.
• Tian Liang: he is said to be a distant descendant of the mythical Tian Zaisheng, with righteousness radiating from him like the sun's rays. Young Liang certainly doesn't fall short when it comes to his mastery of the blade — dazzling and piercing — but his moral rigor sometimes takes a hit whenever a woman comes along.

Together, they traveled to the city of Wuxi to deliver a high-quality blade to its governor, Kang Aiwei, during the city's annual Wushu tournament.

Commentary: Character creation is a rather long and often confusing step, so we set aside part of the rules concerning martial arts. On the other hand, the characters created were all interesting to play, and the assigning of "troubled traits" by the other members of the group was a great moment.

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Summary, part 1

The Youxia are hired by Chen Yumang, founder of the Guardians of Pingyao escort agency, to represent him at Wuxi's annual martial arts tournament ^[6]. They are also duty-bound to bring a legendary blade — Impermanence, which once belonged to the hero Ma Chao ^[7] - to the city's governor.

After an uneventful journey, the little group stops in Wuxi and books an inn. The Youxia, all of them colorful characters, each display a strong temperament: Da Long robs a well-off passerby and pins the blame on a young child, Tian Liang dashes after the presumed thief and ends up defending him against the militia when the little rascal seems unjustly accused, Meng Lao Kong exploits a peasant couple's credulity to extort menial chores from them in exchange for an ounce of hope, and Ah Shi De keeps the team from sleeping during his watch with the incredible range of his voice. Beyond Shi De's nightly mutterings, the Youxia nonetheless take notice of the strange activity of several groups of beggars in the streets: two gangs are at odds, one made up of grubby poor while the other gathers individuals dressed in long, patched sleeves.

The next day, all the Youxia take part in the fights, with the exception of Lao Kong, whose martial leanings are hardly developed: he prefers reading his companions' fortunes to fighting. Da Long dispatches his opponent, a hot-tempered Buddhist monk, with ease, where Liang struggles to get rid of a far more talented swordswoman. Of them all, Shi De comes out best: the young soldier facing him never even manages to touch him.

With evening falling, the Youxia decide to look into the past of some of their opponents, in particular the swordswoman who stood against Liang. She comes from the Camellia Pavilion, a refuge for women in distress where martial instruction of the highest quality is dispensed. Long, for his part, chooses to "investigate" at the Red Snowflake, an ill-reputed gambling den where he can slake his thirst for games of chance. Shi De decides to join him: on the way, he is attacked by a horde of grubby beggars who throw themselves at Impermanence, which Shi De was guarding. With a few sweeps of his arm, he sends a dozen of them to the Yellow Springs, and puts the rest to flight with his howls.

Commentary: A rather short session, and not a particularly gripping one. The point was mostly to let the players find their footing, experiment with their characters, settle into Wuxi's atmosphere, and have a good laugh. It went well, all the more so as the group — very proactive — took some occasionally well-judged initiatives.
My lack of preparation nevertheless weighed on several passages, the tournament included: I hadn't insisted enough on deciphering the combat rules, so the soufflé fell flat fast. Same for certain scenario details I sometimes improvised, even though they were written in black and white.

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Summary, part 2

Lao Kong and Liang are at the inn: they await the rest of the group's return, one stroking a stray dog while the other naively regales the serving maid with everyone's exploits (reader, you can probably guess who does what). Meanwhile, Shi De lets Long drag him into betting on cockfights. Victorious, the young disciple buys a round for everyone present. He also succumbs to a prodigious potion that cures the side effects of excessive drinking, and finds in it an excellent reason not to repress his urge to drink. It is during the evening that Shi De notices Impermanence is gone: someone must have stolen it from him amid the revelry. Without further ado, he leaves the place, questioning anyone who might have seen something, in vain. He also drags along Long, too drunk to understand that the copy of the sword in his hand is not Impermanence. Back at the inn, the two pals are sharply reprimanded by the stern Lao Kong, who rains blows of his stick on Long on the way to the basin of cold water Liang has prepared for him. Once everyone's ideas are back in place, the group chooses to question some beggars in the streets: the only ones near their inn are the Long Sleeves, who claim that Zhu the Foul, chief of the Dirty Sleeves, had had his eye on them since their arrival. Armed with this information, the Youxia agree to track down Zhu. That is when an alarm bell rings out: the city is literally stormed by the local guard. According to a soldier, the authorities have finally nabbed the famous "Peony Demon", a fearsome assassin who had been making headlines for weeks. Without a moment's hesitation, Liang and Long hurl themselves after the criminal, from rooftop to rooftop. Shi De follows from afar, on the ground, while Lao Kong goes off to question the Red Snowflake's staff.

On the rooftops, Long and Liang catch up with the Peony Demon shortly before she reaches the administrative district's main building — the likely scene of her next crime. Not without surprise, they note that the famous assassin is none other than an agile young woman: she tries to slow them down by flicking roof tiles at her pursuers' faces with a nimble kick. No matter: Liang seizes the opportunity to split the tiles with his piercing blade. Though he comes away with severe bruising, he nevertheless manages to reach his victim's shoulder. The impact is such that she ends up flung against the wall of the administrative palace, a hair's breadth from death. Proud of having captured a heinous criminal, our two heroes valiantly wait for the guard to join them on the rooftops and take the poor woman to prison. Yet nothing goes as planned. Reaching the top of the building, the soldiers discover the bodies of steward Gao, the governor's right-hand man, and his bodyguards. In the middle of the scene sits Impermanence, evidently the murder weapon. Once he grasps the situation, Long takes to his heels. True to himself, Liang prefers to wait and explain himself to the guard.

Meanwhile, Lao Kong questions the Red Snowflake's proprietress. Pressing the right arguments, he learns that Madame Xixi — the proprietress in question — is sheltering a young woman nicknamed "Winter Flower", better known as the Peony Demon. The young woman is in fact the daughter of General Yao, a loyal Song officer wrongly executed following a conspiracy of four conspirators. Moved by her desire for justice, Madame Xixi agreed to provide Winter Flower with an alibi so she could carry out her revenge.

In the early morning, Liang and Shi De are questioned. Under the law, Liang and Long stand accused of being the Peony Demon's accomplices. Shi De tries to explain it isn't so, but the guard captain remains skeptical.

Long is on the run. To spare himself trouble, he trades a sword for a pauper's clothes. Thus disguised, he goes back to the beggars at the inn to ask them for information: unfortunately, his rags make him pass for a "dirty sleeve" and he is immediately escorted back to the edge of the district. Instead, Long infiltrates the Dirty Sleeves, who in turn reject him: he had broken one of their laws by bathing to wash off his grime. Through sheer persistence, he nevertheless gets his new comrades to take him to Zhu the Foul to plead his case. As soon as Long locates the place where the Dirty Sleeves' chief is staying, he immediately gives the beggars the slip and returns to Lao Kong. The old man had gone to preach the truth to the captain of the guard, so as to get his traveling companions released.

In the evening, a judgment is quickly handed down. The Peony Demon is of course found guilty and sentenced to death the day after the tournament's end, while Liang is finally pardoned for lack of evidence, despite certain judges' insistence on charging him. The group reunites and, after a few fruitless questionings of various people, decides to visit Zhu in person. Once on the Dirty Sleeves' territory, the Youxia easily spot an ambush laid by the beggars. Liang and Shi De mow the brigands down like wheat in harvest: once the beggars run out, the two warriors goad and insult Zhu and his honor. Their only answer is a string of miserable little sobs coming from a shack falling to pieces: Zhu, a filthy, obese man, prostrates himself in fear before the group. It takes no more for him to spill everything he knows: his men and he were hired by Liu Taizhong — a local magistrate — to steal Impermanence from them and silence them. He knows Taizhong is also in league with the Camellia Pavilion, but not much more. Dishonored beyond any redemption, Zhu only asks that his life be spared. The Youxia must now decide his fate, and how events unfold…

Commentary: The serious business begins, the plot comes to light. Since this is a scenario without long-term branching, the leads come quickly, giving the session a sustained pace. The players — and their PCs — confer frequently to move forward, so a good group synergy settles into place.

The session ended at the very moment the group begins to discern what is brewing in the background. The players thus reach that precious instant when they can give free rein to their imagination to strike back creatively and in line with their characters.

For my part, I finally felt at ease running the scenario and the system (despite a few abandoned rules). Credit goes to the scenario's well-thought-out construction — more "toolbox" than "scene-after-scene" — which makes it easy to bounce back and improvise.

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Summary, part 3

After much deliberation, the Youxia choose to hand Zhu the Foul over to "Big Sister Tao", the presumed leader of the Long Sleeves. They first arrange to win the support of the surviving Dirty Sleeves: the latter submit quickly, overawed by their martial prowess. Arriving at the enemy territory's border, Tian Liang, Ah Shi De and Meng Lao Kong bring their prisoner to the Long Sleeves' chief while Da Long hangs back with the Dirty Sleeves.

The introductions with Tao are grating: peevish and graceless, she annoys Shi De and Liang enough for them to try the intimidation card, in vain. What follows is a prodigious fight in which the Big Sister proves untamable and terribly dangerous. Despite Lao Kong's vain attempts to calm things down, Shi De and Liang are taken prisoner: they are stripped of their clothes and thrown into liquid manure, in a makeshift prison along with Zhu. Fortunately, the old Lao Kong had had time to mix hallucinogenic herbs into the noodle soup he had brought the mischievous Tao. No doubt whetted by the fight, she decides to taste it, only to find herself completely out of action. For his part, Long harangues the Dirty Sleeves and hurls them at their sworn enemies. Amid the chaos, our hero sets fire to the warehouses: he means to take advantage of the turmoil to infiltrate the prison and free Winter Flower. The plan falls through — literally — when Liang and Shi De prove too gravely wounded for another action scene. In the grand canal cutting the city in two, they wash away their physical stains, if not their moral ones.

Long goes to fetch poultices from the alchemist Tong Lipo, to ease his comrades' pain. The old man grumbles, in the course of the conversation, that women from the Camellia Pavilion came by during the day wanting to buy specific products. This small piece of information puts our bloodhounds back on the trail: Lao Kong and Shi De pay a visit to Winter Flower, convalescing in prison, while Liang and Long stand guard and glean information about Liu Taizhong and his potential contacts with the Camellia Pavilion.

• Winter Flower is in a bad way. Deliberately neglected, left at death's door, she is providentially healed by Lao Kong. Half-conscious, she calls on the two Youxia to finish her work: find the documents incriminating the fourth conspirator and wash her family's honor clean.
• Liang innocently questions the guards about people's comings and goings in the Yamen district: it would seem Liu Taizhong occasionally receives visits from An Liang, mistress of the Camellia Pavilion. As if to confirm this point, fate has it that Perpetual Dew discreetly makes her way to the magistrate's pavilion under Long's watch.

When night falls, the group gathered at the Yamen decides to leave Lao Kong and Shi De posted outside Taizhong's residence, while Liang and Long try to infiltrate the administrative palace to find the documents Winter Flower spoke of. The two pals set up an infiltration by the book, so much so that even Governor Kang Aiwei's guard fails to detect them. Liang, the group's only literate member, pores over the many registers relating to General Yao's rigged trial: he discovers the last conspirator's name, and one thing leading to another, learns that the man gave away his riches some time after the general's unjust sentence. He then supposedly embraced a monk's life under the name "Revealed Abandonment". According to the recent registers, he had moreover taken over an inn in town about ten days earlier.

For their part, Lao Kong and Shi De see the governor and his wife leave the city walls. Our old charlatan decides to follow them from a safe distance: the couple makes its way to the altar of a small local deity, where Governor Kang prays silently while his wife waits for him. They then return to the city, leaving behind a covetous Lao Kong who finds nothing better to do than gather up the offerings made to the deity before rejoining Shi De. When Perpetual Dew finally leaves Taizhong's residence — late in the night — the two Youxia follow her to her inn, where all the Camellia Pavilion's representatives are staying. They lose her trail, however, when she enters the common dormitory.

Around midnight, the group decides to pay a visit to Revealed Abandonment. They learn that the old man left his inn shortly after arriving, leaving behind a message to be passed on to anyone who wished to see him: he is waiting in a hut close to Wuxi's walls. Without a moment's hesitation, the Youxia and a handful of Dirty Sleeves storm into said hut, fearing a potential trap. Instead of a trap, they discover a lone, repentant old man: Revealed Abandonment hoped General Yao's daughter would eventually track him down, and wished to offer her his life in atonement for his past sins. Failing that, the Youxia persuade him to explain what drove him to lie: according to him, Liu Taizhong paid the four conspirators to get General Yao convicted. Revealed Abandonment then gave away his own fortune to wipe clean his guilt, part of it to the Camellia Pavilion, then run by a certain Mu Dan. Asked about An Liang, the old monk recalls a disciple rescued by Mu Dan after a suicide attempt.

Although new pieces of the puzzle keep snapping into place in the Wuxia's minds, they have not yet managed to grasp the whole story. To make matters worse, the Dirty Sleeves left outside the hut try to alert the Youxia to a problem, but their cries are stifled at the last moment. Someone — or something — has backed the group into a tight spot…

Commentary: I thought I could wrap up the scenario during the third session, but a sudden (and surprising) fit of hack-and-slashery seized the group in front of Big Sister Tao, whose help could have been precious to them. This sequence highlighted several things:

• Even once the combat mechanics have been digested, it is hard to remember all the rules from one session to the next. Active Defense vs Instinctive Defense, wheel of elements: so many fiddly details to keep in mind when you are already tallying the initiative of every combatant. Wulin desperately needs to be simplified, or — perhaps more interestingly — to offer physical play aids to remind each participant of its rules.
• Initiative carries too much weight during combat. I had already noted, during the previous session, that a character with 2-3 points more than their opponent could easily dominate them (Shi De and Liang literally tore through the Dirty Sleeves in a few exchanges of blows, long before the beggars could strike back). When it works to the PCs' advantage, no problem. This time, things were different. Granting extra actions to certain characters is an interesting mechanic: Qin worked that way, but the variation was smaller. It was bought at a hefty price by raising one's combat skill. Here, the variation is acquired at the whim of the Youxia's characteristics: invest in your wood and your metal, and you will gain a disproportionate advantage over those who choose other paths.

Besides that, the players were all tired (playing on a Friday evening is always tricky) and I had to slip them a few extra aids (some very talkative documents, a little outing by the governor beyond the city walls, ...) to help them pick up the thread again after their meeting with Tao. The scenario's fairly open structure allows this kind of arrangement without undermining its coherence. A good point!

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Summary, part 4

Bent over the fresh corpse of a "dirty sleeve", two masked figures dressed all in black were inspecting the scene. The Youxia come out of the hut at that very moment: the two groups exchange incredulous looks before our heroes sound the charge. One swirl of Liang's blade is enough for the first assassin to join his victim at the Yellow Springs. The second, wounded by a hail of blows from Long's fists, tries in vain to flee. He prefers to take his own life rather than fall into his attacker's clutches.

A quick examination of the late assassins reveals that they were part of the Cinnabar Circle, a fearsome sect known to the world of Lakes and Forests. Lao Kong uses his esoteric knowledge to "speak with the dead": he divines that these assassins were doubtless sent by someone from the Yamen, and that more heads will fall during the night. Fearing for the safety of the honest Zhao Xun, the Youxia rush to the guard post, only to find him there safe and sound. Following Revealed Abandonment's explanations, the man in charge is convinced of Liu Taizhong's guilt, but declares he cannot act without tangible proof. He nevertheless arranges to gain access to the governor's accounting records, so as to let Liang pore over them.

That is when another murder is announced: Tong Lipo has been found dead at home. Here again, Zhao Xun gives the Youxia the chance to be in the front row. Lao Kong and Shi De head to the scene as "experts" and "gravediggers". Together, they determine that the assassin struck Lipo down with a clean blow, that he was after something specific but that extensive — and clumsy — searching was needed to find it. The situation seems clear: someone is preparing a poison. Everything suggests the victim will be Kang Aiwei. The two pals quietly bring Tong Lipo's account book back to Liang. After all, if you are going to read paperwork anyway, one more book cannot kill him.

Meanwhile, Long makes use of his by-now-usual methods to get close to the Camellia Pavilion's women. He disguises himself as a beggar and creeps, on cat's feet, toward the inn where they are staying. Unfortunately for him, Perpetual Dew spots him as she leaves the building. He runs away, sets fire to the stable next to the inn — not without "borrowing" the clothes of another pauper slumped nearby — and takes advantage of the confusion to capture one of the group's women in order to question her. His plan collapses once more, as guards stop him on one of Wuxi's bridges. They indeed find it strange that a lone man would be driving a small cart of hay so late at night, when incidents have been reported across the whole city. Without a moment's hesitation, the rogue sends his cart (and his victim) tumbling into the river that splits the city in two, before taking to his heels.

In the early morning, the group tries to piece together the last parts of the puzzle, despite the surprising announcement of the gravedigger's death. Armed with their findings, Shi De, Liang and Lao Kong hope to crack An Liang and learn the whole truth. Long, for his part, arranges with Zhao Xun to be taken on as a servant at the banquet held in honor of the tournament's winner, the Laughing Lion. At the inn, Shi De arranges to make conversation with An Liang. Lao Kong uses this moment of inattention to join Perpetual Dew — supposedly indisposed. She proves touchy, aggressive and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. With skill, Lao Kong plays hot and cold: after pushing her to her last entrenchments, he turns around and comforts her until she confesses her crimes. For her mistress, she killed steward Gao, but also Tong Lipo, who refused to hand over the ingredients needed to craft a powerful poison intended for the governor. It very much looks like An Liang wants him dead. The old fangshi brings Perpetual Dew straight to the guard post so she can confess there. At the inn, Tian Liang is approached by An Liang: aware that the man wields a silver tongue around women, she questions him about the group's motives. The few scraps of information she manages to glean will thankfully be of no use to her: Perpetual Dew's testimony is enough for Zhao Xun to bar her from leaving the inn, short of arresting her outright. The young disciple, for her part, is locked up in prison while awaiting judgment

The Youxia's efforts bear fruit. During the banquet, Long arranges to land an "accidental" elbow on the treacherous servant who had poisoned a cup of wine. He then wrings out the cloth used to wipe the poisoned wine into another cup, this one meant for Liu Taizhong. His discreet intervention is enough to guarantee the smooth running of the festivities, in which the other members of the group take part. Liang, for that matter, cannot resist the urge to greet the corrupt magistrate warmly: he wishes him a good meal and much happiness in his endeavors. In the end, the evening's only notable anecdote involves a couple of "servants" caught red-handed as they tried to steal Impermanence. The old Lao Kong recognizes the two peasants who came asking for his help a few days earlier, and to whom he had promised fertility and joy if they managed to get their hands on the weapon. Shi De thereafter makes sure Impermanence is handed over to Kang Aiwei in due form. Only at the end of the banquet do the two peasants try their luck again. They are promptly knocked out by Shi De, who nevertheless asks the guards for clemency toward these poor drunkards in thrall to alcohol.

With Taizhong and An Liang out of the picture, the tension finally subsides. Our Youxia suppose, however, that the governor intends to collect his thoughts at the altar where he prays every evening. They head there first, discreetly, and Lao Kong takes the opportunity to whisper a few comforting words in the man's ear during his prayer. The old man's performance is such that he believes he has received a true sign from Heaven. The relief is short-lived: An Liang ambushes him on the way back. She has evidently freed herself from her watchers, and the blood on her clothes bears witness to her determination and her brutal methods. Together, the Youxia manage to drive back the attacker, who pours her very last breath into her dark vengeance. An Liang succumbs to her exhaustion. After looking at her more closely, Kang Aiwei collapses in tears, offering no further explanation. This strange scene ends with the arrival of the guards and the escort of the governor and his wife back to their palace.

Our heroes, for their part, are invited the next day by Governor Kang's wife. Her husband is still indisposed after the previous day's events. In the city's name, she thanks them for their support and offers each of them a reward of their choosing. Long wants to open a Martial Arts school, Lao Kong asks to be covered in gold, Shi De wishes to receive a blade of the same caliber as Impermanence (if not Impermanence itself), and Liang asks for Winter Flower to be pardoned.

Later in the day, the surprise arrival of a Jin army at the city's gates stirs the whole local garrison. This move simply had not been planned for because it is doomed to fail: with all the Song soldiers inside Wuxi, the 3,000-odd Jürchens can only inflict minimal damage. The military officers are incredulous, but our Youxia well understand that their actions have spared the city a dire future. Let us hope this incident is not enough to reignite the war in the province of Wu…

Commentary: End of the scenario. This session was overall very close to the third one, with the same qualities and the same complaints. A modular scenario, an initiative score that weighs too heavily (some characters never get a chance to act before the fight is over), and more subplots than you can keep track of. On that subject, it is a pity to note that some of them are hard to uncover, from the players' side. The table could not untangle the link between the governor and An Liang, perhaps because two of the NPCs meant to put them on the trail were simply never introduced in my GMing: I had too hard a time working them in amid the teeming multitude of NPCs, all varied and interesting, but doubtless too numerous for a group starting out with Wulin.

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So, is Wulin any good?

Yes, Wulin is a fun game. Around the table, everyone seemed to enjoy the game and the scenario. That assessment is tarnished by some fairly serious caveats about the rules in general, however. Wulin commits two mistakes that go down really badly together:

• On the one hand, the proliferation of play options.
• On the other, a glaring lack of clarity in the description of these mechanics.

Deciphering Wulin's rules is a difficult art. Some concepts are presented rather poorly: for example, the difference between an active defense and an instinctive defense should be spelled out more explicitly in the text. The same problems come up with the use of Yin and Yang points. For GMs like me — who prefer to dive into a game without having mastered every corner of the system, even if it means checking mid-session — this flaw is fairly disqualifying. Add a few imbalances to that (initiative, for example) and you will have enough to cool off most people. In my eyes, the qualities nevertheless outweigh the flaws.

If Game-Fu manages to keep up the pace, the Wulin line should enjoy some follow-up. In that case, the idea of continuing to run it appeals to me a great deal. Perhaps an opportunity to create play aids that visually sum up the players' options, and to work out a few personal rebalancings that we will share online.

Addendum 03.12.2015: Contacted about what comes next, Laurent Rambour — head of Game-Fu — confirmed the release of a rigid screen and play aids for early 2016, as well as an adventure collection and a campaign for 2016. On top of that, it would seem a slimmed-down version will replace the current core book (at an undetermined date). In short, the news is heading in the right direction!

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1. Crowdfunded last year, released in mid-2015. ↩︎

2. This period is known as the Southern Song (year 1127 CE). ↩︎

3. A Chinese unit of distance. Its value has varied throughout history. A li was equal to 415.8 m under the Qin dynasty and 323 m in the Tang era. Source: Wikipedia. ↩︎

4. Weapons master, mentor. ↩︎

5. A term bestowed on Chinese sorcerers and mystics. ↩︎

6. Wuxi is a city that really exists, even though its modern counterpart has little left in common with the version described in this scenario. ↩︎

7. One of the legendary generals of the Three Kingdoms era. Dynasty Warriors fans will recognize him. ↩︎