Wu De is a GM-optional storytelling trpg that is all about its core dice system, and honestly it works.
Wu De's dice are fresh.
You roll two colors of dice, representing opposite polarities. Each numbered face represents an element. The elements and polarities cancel each other out, and on a net neutral roll your action succeeds.
This sort of goes the long way to recreate Fate's net neutral dice pool, but Wu De adds three mechanics on top of that that give a lot of manipulatability and context to the dice. First, any surviving dice give context to what happens next through their element and the things it's associated with. Next, rolling a positive 6 (or Qi) lets you choose a negative die and cancel it out. Finally, you can bank negative dice for future rolls.
Essentially, you ignore failures by moving them to a separate track, and after enough of them have built up there, you get a scene dedicated to things going really wrong.
This gives the (optional) GM a great way to introduce new conflicts and advance plotlines, and it gives the players a lot of control over when they succeed.
Setting-wise, Wu De is a bit like Fate, where the system is meant to be useable for anything. The book comes with four settings, each with a number of hooks, but it expects the group to collaborate and fill in world details as they come up.
Overall, Wu De is a cool storytelling rpg with a dice system that made me rethink how dice operate. I would recommend it to anyone who's comfortable with Fate, or with card-based storytelling games.
Minor Issues:
-Page 12, "Find equal elements in yin and yang. These will balance each other out and are removed from the roll." Wording unclear. Does this mean if you roll yin Earth and yang Earth you remove both? Does it also apply if you roll yin Earth and yang Metal?
-Page 12. Let's say you roll yang Wood, yin Earth, yang Water. When yang Wood destroys yin Earth, does this prevent yin Earth from destroying yang Water?
-Page 12. If you have a yang Qi, can you only apply it after the elements have destroyed each other, or can you apply it before that, potentially preventing a yang element's destruction?
-Page 15. When you bank a yin die, can you do this before the elements destroy each other (potentially preventing a yang element's destruction)? Or does it have to be after?
-Page 15. If you bank a yang die, does it cancel a banked yin? If you bank 3 net yang dice, do you get a scene dedicated to your situation improving? Can you bank yang dice to save them from being destroyed by yin dice / yin elements?
Thanks for your kind words! Fate was indeed partially an influence when I created the Element Dice System.
Thanks also for your questions. Here are your answers:
The idea of balancing elements is to remove both elements, so Yin earth and Yang earth would be removed from the roll. At this stage is no interaction between different elements, that is part of the elimination "pentagon"
The idea of eliminating elements is that one element eliminates the other: the eliminated one is taken out, the one eliminating the other stays. First you would look at your Yang elements and see if they eliminate any Yin element and take them out. After that, you look at the remaining Yin elements and see what they would eliminate. In your example, Yang wood would eliminate Yin earth and the Yn earth is taken out. So Yin earth has no effect on Yang water.
When it comes to the Qi dice, the idea is to have them influence the roll after balancing and eliminating, but if you feel your table would like to have that extra boost, you could have Qi interfere earlier. This would change the tone of the game a bit more towards a positive tone, which in my experience is not necessary. The game is already in favour of the players.
Storing or banking elements happens after you go through the other steps. Again, you could houserule this or only use this in a special occasion if it fits in context of the story.
The elements stored in the bank do not interfere with each other. You can bank any element for later, not just Yin elements, but most of the times it is the negative effects we would like to not occur in a situation.
The elements stored away in the bank are meant for later effects on a situation. The idea behind this is, that if you had an action but not all effects took place immediately, these effects will come back at some point. I propose this for the following scene, but if you keep track about the stored elements and feel the action that led to stare an element has influence for a later action, you could get that element out of the bank. This way it would still tie in with the story and the idea of consequences of actions, positive or negative.
Anyone looking for a more cooperative storytelling game with unique features will absolutely love this game. The specialized dice are am added feature as are the East Asian elements incorporated into the mechanics. It's been used in teaching students problem solving and social interaction as well!
Hey! I have played it with groups ranging from 2 to 8 players. The game is player driven storytelling, so having too many players can cause some of the players not having that much input. It is important to allow all players to create the story so 2 or three creative players is great.
← Return to SRD
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
A fantastic way to tell stories together, with a dice system unlike anything else.
5 Stars!
Thanks for your kind words!
Wu De is a GM-optional storytelling trpg that is all about its core dice system, and honestly it works.
Wu De's dice are fresh.
You roll two colors of dice, representing opposite polarities. Each numbered face represents an element. The elements and polarities cancel each other out, and on a net neutral roll your action succeeds.
This sort of goes the long way to recreate Fate's net neutral dice pool, but Wu De adds three mechanics on top of that that give a lot of manipulatability and context to the dice. First, any surviving dice give context to what happens next through their element and the things it's associated with. Next, rolling a positive 6 (or Qi) lets you choose a negative die and cancel it out. Finally, you can bank negative dice for future rolls.
Essentially, you ignore failures by moving them to a separate track, and after enough of them have built up there, you get a scene dedicated to things going really wrong.
This gives the (optional) GM a great way to introduce new conflicts and advance plotlines, and it gives the players a lot of control over when they succeed.
Setting-wise, Wu De is a bit like Fate, where the system is meant to be useable for anything. The book comes with four settings, each with a number of hooks, but it expects the group to collaborate and fill in world details as they come up.
Overall, Wu De is a cool storytelling rpg with a dice system that made me rethink how dice operate. I would recommend it to anyone who's comfortable with Fate, or with card-based storytelling games.
Minor Issues:
-Page 12, "Find equal elements in yin and yang. These will balance each other out and are removed from the roll." Wording unclear. Does this mean if you roll yin Earth and yang Earth you remove both? Does it also apply if you roll yin Earth and yang Metal?
-Page 12. Let's say you roll yang Wood, yin Earth, yang Water. When yang Wood destroys yin Earth, does this prevent yin Earth from destroying yang Water?
-Page 12. If you have a yang Qi, can you only apply it after the elements have destroyed each other, or can you apply it before that, potentially preventing a yang element's destruction?
-Page 15. When you bank a yin die, can you do this before the elements destroy each other (potentially preventing a yang element's destruction)? Or does it have to be after?
-Page 15. If you bank a yang die, does it cancel a banked yin? If you bank 3 net yang dice, do you get a scene dedicated to your situation improving? Can you bank yang dice to save them from being destroyed by yin dice / yin elements?
Thanks for your kind words! Fate was indeed partially an influence when I created the Element Dice System.
Thanks also for your questions. Here are your answers:
You can also read here a bit more on the interpretation of the dice.
Anyone looking for a more cooperative storytelling game with unique features will absolutely love this game. The specialized dice are am added feature as are the East Asian elements incorporated into the mechanics. It's been used in teaching students problem solving and social interaction as well!
Thanks for your review!
How many players is this intended for? 2+, 3+?
Hey! I have played it with groups ranging from 2 to 8 players. The game is player driven storytelling, so having too many players can cause some of the players not having that much input. It is important to allow all players to create the story so 2 or three creative players is great.
Understood! Thank you very much for the reply!