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?