I am trying to devise some mechanics and i'm not sure these are as well defined or as efficient as they need to be. These are for wuxia space opera which presumes an action/combat oriented setting (like Feng Shui, for instance).

Firstly there is Turbulence: during combat characters incur points of Turbulence due to stress. Seeing an ally die, getting slapped around silly, nearly dying, etc all incur this. At the end of combat a roll is made to determine how this affects the character from a list of effects relating to the experiences of the character in combat (he picks the closest to the top of the list and incurs the effect if he fails the roll). Turbulence points don't persist beyond combat. Negative effects incurred are called misfortunes.

On the character sheet there will be a space marked 'Interesting Times' wherein misfortunes are recorded. Whenever a character does something significant in the course of his adventures, he gets to add a point to his Interesting Times score (separate from the misfortunes within). Whenever he fails an action with a die roll no greater than this point total he must trigger one of his misfortunes. But when a misfortune is removed, through some effect or other, he gains XP equal to his current Interesting Times score and resets that score to zero. XP is also gained through other means (ie this isn't meant to be the sole means by which one would gain XP).