Feng Shui 2 (We’ll Temporarily Have Paris)

Spoiler Free

[EDITORS NOTE: If this is your first experience with the Feng Shui 2 Roleplaying Game, you may want to consider starting with our previous review of the Core Rulebook. -dc]

Let’s catch anyone new up here, shall we? Apeworld on Fire! Drop you into the Future Juncture. Burning Dragon had players running around the Contemporary Juncture. So, naturally, We’ll Temporarily Have Paris is going to take place in… a pop-up juncture! As always, the back of the book doesn’t count as a spoiler, so…

Paris, May 1944. The cherry blossoms are in bloom. Time to punch some Nazis in the face!

J-meters everywhere are going wild. A pop-up juncture has appeared and every portal leads to the same time: Paris at the height of World War II! It’s only months before the city’s liberation from the German occupation, but that will never happen if the Jammers have their way and change the course of history!

We’ll Temporarily Have Paris features not only the ready-to-play adventure “Art, Apes, and Arson,” but a full toolbox for running your own adventures during the darkest hours of the City of Lights.

This book is structured very differently than the previous two FS2 releases that we’ve reviewed. In fact, it’s structured a bit differently than most adventures I’ve reviewed, full stop. I’m sure this isn’t as unusual as my mind is making it out to be, but this is structured more like a sourcebook rather than an adventure. I’m also not saying it’s a bad thing, just odd to me. 

The book is split into two sections, first is a toolbox all about running popup juncture adventure in occupied Paris during WWII. Players are allowed to punch as many Nazis in the face as they possibly can. If you think punching Nazis in the face is a bad thing, this book, this review, and frankly, most of TheRathole.ca isn’t for you. Paris has always been seen as a city of romance. In the strictest academic terms, romance is a narrative genre that involves a mysterious or adventurous storyline where the focus is on a quest involving bravery. Modern definitions of romance also include stories that have a relationship issue as the main focus. Occupied Paris is often portrayed very much by the classic definition. Right and wrong are very clear here, and any shades of grey still land squarely on the side good. Nazis bad. Not a Nazi, good. Simple. But 1944 is also 80 years ago in a world unlike anyone reading this could know, so it behooves a would-be GM to learn about that world. Now you could spend a lifetime studying the history of Paris, and probably spend the better part of a history degree just on the four years that Paris spent under German control. A GM won’t need THAT much information at their fingertips, so Atlas Games provides some decent driveby coverage of where and how the action could happen here. Because this is a game, not a history class, they also drop in notable Feng Shui sites and portals leading back to the Netherworld, as well as great options for a fight.

Two very important points that are looked at are the two Resistance movements in France during the occupation. The common or garden French Resistance is pretty well known in history, but slightly less remembered is the smaller Communist Resistance. Herein lays the only grey areas you are likely to encounter in the game. Both Resistance movements sometimes had to do some ugly things in the name of freedom, but on a scale of 0 to Nazi, even the Communists come out looking like good guys. Because in this context, they are. 

The section of Goons, Guns, and Gear covers a variety of Nazis to punch, vehicles to run Nazis over with, and period appropriate guns with which to put holes in many Nazis. They kindly note that most of this stuff lands just before the weapons and such that are included for Modern juncture in the Core Rulebook. But the most important thing in the entire first section of the book, to me, is the inclusion of four new Archetypes that players can use to build their characters from. This is exciting because I don’t think I’ve seen any new Archetypes published since Feng Shui 2’s release years ago. The Black Marketeer, Reckless Pilot, Saboteur, and Young Doctor are each uniquely designed to fit within this era, but just as existing Archetypes could be tweaked to come from this time, so too could these Archetypes be adjusted to work in most other periods just as well. I’m not saying that the Burning Dragon Festival is just a big Black Market, but it is a really big event with needs and desires to be met. 

Moving on, we get to Art, Apes, and Arson. The adventure portion of the book. The players are a group of young Dragons sent through a portal to this popup juncture to occupy or destroy a key Feng Shui site in Paris. TECHNICALLY this next thing could be called a spoiler, but a spoiler akin to saying you’ll get to punch Nazis.
.
.

Surprise, other time-travelling chi warriors have already managed to take control of the site in question, so the “destroy” option is the most likely scenario. But players can be shocking. Remember, Feng Shui 2 views the world through the lens of an over-the-top Hong Kong action movie. So, not only can anything happen at any time, I can’t really say much beyond this is an action packed adventure that players are sure to enjoy. 

There were initially supposed to be four of these new Feng Shui 2 adventures, so hopefully the last will come out sooner than later. Until then, you can find Altas Games at www.atlas-games.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/AtlasGames.