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I recently discovered that Feng Shui 2, the second edition of Robin Laws' Hong Kong cinema RPG, was released after a successful Kickstarter drive. However, I'm finding very little about what is new and different in this edition compared to the previous version. It doesn't help either that whenever I search for reviews of the game, I keep getting reviews for the movie of the same name.

So what is new and different in Feng Shui 2, compared to the first edition? (I'm just looking for a summary of the major changes, not an exhaustive list of every change)

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Here are the most important changes off the top of my head.

  • Starting Archetypes are now largely fixed.
    The amount of customization you get to do on your beginning character has been drastically reduced. To more or less zero for most Archetypes (AT) in fact.

  • Attributes have been eliminated
    Remember Mind, Body, Chi and Reflexes ? Well, forget'em. Your Skills, Attack and Defense values are now fully independent. Chi and its' secondaries still exist in concept as each AT has a "Magic / Luck" stat with names reminiscent of the old ones, but they're no longer linked as they used to be.

  • There's no such thing as XP.
    Gone. Poof. Character progression is now managed in discrete units called Advancements. Once you've gotten attuned to your first Site, you get your first Advancement for free, with which you can buy from a selection of schticks, skills and other character options defined by your AT. Further advancements are earned with a die roll made at the end of each session, the odds of which increase the longer you've gone without advancing.

  • The world has Changed, capital C.
    You'd think this goes without saying, but really, changed deserves to be triple-underlined in thick sharpie here. Just to begin, the New Flesh is no more. Thanks to the thoughtless actions of the Jammers, the Future juncture is an honest to goodness Fallout-style wasteland, complete with Chi-mutants and scavenging road gangs. The Ancient juncture now links to 690 CE, where the Lotus has drastically weakened... The Dragon are still screwed though.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Also,dodges at the end of a sequence impose an initiative penalty in the next sequence to keep them from being essentially free. \$\endgroup\$
    – gomad
    Jun 1, 2015 at 19:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ Many Stchicks that included a bunch of different special effects (by which I mean all the sorcery stchicks) have now been split into separate stchicks for each special effect. Oh, and juncture modifiers work differently now: They only come into play with abilities that require you to spend points of fortune. \$\endgroup\$
    – GMJoe
    Jun 2, 2015 at 0:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ Has anything about combat changed, aside from the elimination of attributes as already mentioned? \$\endgroup\$
    – Thunderforge
    Jun 3, 2015 at 13:35

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