Feng Shui vs Honor + Intrigue
Compare Feng Shui and Honor + Intrigue side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Feng Shui | Honor + Intrigue | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Scifi, Historical, Modern, Post-Apocalyptic | Historical |
| Tags | Cinematic, Combat-Heavy, Fast-Paced, High-Power, Martial Arts, Playbook-Driven, Pulp Action, Strong GM Support, Tactical, Theater of the Mind | Career-Based, Cinematic, Social Combat, Social Intrigue, Heroic, Fast-Paced, Martial Arts, Ship-Based, Pirates, Theater of the Mind |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a positive d6 and a negative d6, subtract the negative die from the positive, and add the Swerve to an Action Value. Meeting or beating the Difficulty succeeds, while open-ended sixes create extreme results. | Roll 2d6 + Quality (Might, Daring, Savvy, or Flair) + Career rank vs. 9 to succeed. In combat, Combat Abilities (Brawl, Melee, Ranged, Defense) replace Careers. Bonus Dice roll 3d6 and keep the best two; Penalty Dice keep the worst two. Fortune Points let heroes escape death, add bonus dice, invoke dramatic license, or press the Advantage in duels. Advantage tracks momentum in melee: characters start at 3 and lose Advantage when hit, becoming Defeated at 0. Nine Dueling Styles (Spanish, Italian, French, and more) each grant unique maneuvers and a Final Secret at mastery. Social Combat uses the same framework, targeting Composure instead of Lifeblood. |
| Dice | 2d6 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Accessibility | High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — Atlas Games Fair Use policy | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Atlas Games | Basic Action Games |
| Year | 2015 | 2012 |
| Best For | Groups that want fast Hong Kong action, tactical shot-by-shot fights, melodramatic hooks, and time-traveling campaigns that mix genres | Groups who want cinematic swashbuckling in the style of The Three Musketeers and Captain Blood: dashing swordplay, court intrigue, and sea battles with a fast, career-based system. |
| Highlights | A descending shot countdown makes every action and interrupt change when a character acts again. One-hit mooks support crowd-clearing spectacle, while featured foes and bosses use deeper wound rules for climactic fights. Feng shui sites link faction victories to changes in history across four connected eras. | Nine Dueling Styles with distinct maneuvers and masterable Final Secrets provide deep fencing differentiation. Social Combat and Repartee use the same mechanical framework as physical combat, targeting Composure. Over 30 period-specific Careers from Musketeer to Temptress replace skill lists. Includes ship-to-ship combat, battlefield rules, and a 17th-century gazetteer covering Europe, the Americas, and beyond. |
| Considerations | Most starting archetypes have fixed statistics and schticks, so initial mechanical customization is limited. The default adventure structure treats investigation and social scenes mainly as connections between fights. Exploding positive and negative dice permit large reversals even when a character's Action Value substantially exceeds the Difficulty. | No free quickstart or SRD available. Advantage tracking adds a subsystem on top of basic BoL resolution. The gazetteer and setting material assume 17th-century Europe as the default, limiting out-of-the-box use for other periods. |