Hello JP’s community,
I have an interest in playing a game inspired by the ancient Japan.
My friend and I are enthralled by the notions of honor and fanaticism to put it simply (I realise our view is somewhat romanticised in this).
Now, L5R gets unfavourable mentions by Adam and his community quite often for handling the subject matter poorly and it’s a complicated system.
I am also aware of The Mountain Witch, but that is for one shots.
I am looking for a game suited for campaigns (short or long, does not matter)
3 Likes
This game-that-doesn’t-exist is like, on my list of “games that I want to play” and I’m really hoping someone will make it, someday, so that I don’t have to. If you want slightly-before-the-usual japanese historical roleplaying you could do worse than Blossoms are Falling, which is a Burning Wheel supplement that you could probably get your hands on unofficially via PDF (which I am not necessarily condoning but also aware that it is possible) because it’s hella out of print and was never really released. ANYWAY. It’s Heian era (not Sengoku or Edo / Tokugawa which most “samurai” stuff is) but it’s pretty cool.
L5R is only troublesome because the rules are kind of janky (except sword fighting which is pretty good) and it treats all of Asia like it’s one place, lazily mashing shit together without any real thought to what came from where. It’s an acquired taste, and one that I personally never did, because of that stuff. Y’all might have a different experience.
You could also just leap into the ancient past and try playing Bushido, which … I cannot guarantee you’ll have a good time. It’s old as fuck and I know next to nothing about it.
See what I mean, though? It’s like we need something new…
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If only there was a game designer who could see the good in various systems and was capable enough to hack them together.
2 Likes
I’m not sure if this will fall under what you’re looking for, but a Samurai-ish game that I really enjoy after I’ve played a session of it is Tenra Banshou Zero.
Just give it a look to see if it piques your interest. =D
I wish the Rollplay crew could have played this in an R&D, or maybe future one shot? =D?
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They played at [roll20con] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SagGPnEluto&index=20&list=PLTj75n3v9eTlv6unag5bDQu0H9La7WnvG). It was Adam, Geoff, Jesse, Wheat, Kaitlyn and Seltzer
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Oh! Guess I missed that. XD
Might get my game design hat on and see what I come up with for a honorable samurai TTRPG, been wanting to do something design related lately.
Thinking for an honor system looking at Pendragon’s way of deep character drives that wield the PC depending on what might be rolled and if they go against that drive then it’s both a determent, or not at first but may mold the character down a different path, you know be a nice way to handle an Honor type system. Too many paths might be too ambitious so a max of 3 might dial it down, who knows, play testing will haha.
Also other aspects of which era of Japan, do you add powdered guns at all, or just a little, or none and go full Kamakura Period, suppose you could do them all and let the GM (Shogun? Emperor?) decide with the players. Either way it would be fun to do all eras/periods of Japan that feature Samurai, add in some 3.5 D&D with a little 5th E D&D for good measure.
The combat from 3.5 may be a good one to look at for an almost For Honor (the video game) type combat, might be wrong, there could be a better combat system that deals with block, parry, counter etc. But yeah creative juices flowing and all that.
Sorry if I went on a tangent, really liked the idea of this challenge to create a fun, brutal and honor defined Samurai TTRPG. If anyone wants to chip then, please do so, I can’t be the only one who has awesome ideas.
I haven’t played Pendragon but a system for personal Honor seems essential. The one in L5R works in general, but I find it too complicated in details and too flimsy. What might be interesting is the kind of systems that PbA games (Dungeons World) use for giving xp at the end. Did you do one of these? Add. Did you do one of these? Subtract.
Dueling system is something I actually like about L5R, it might do with a bit of slimming, but its stages and stances are kinda cool.
In my ideal samurai game, guns are not a big deal. Or rather they are, because they either do not exist or are rare and not all that powerful. The way of the sword should be the main mode of engagement. I am not all that interested in samurai shooting at each other. So probably present, but not straight up more powerful in all aspects?
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The R&D RollPlay show for Pendragon is a nice way to view the way they deal with a PC drive, and Steven likes to go on about using a Pendragon way of driving the character e.g. Lancelot’s drive is the love of Guinevere, he gains extra if he indulges in this drive, or a detriment if he does not, this is determined by a dice roll to resist the drive, a detriment could have the character literally run away and go insane. It can be slimmed down to be of use.
I have not played or seen L5R actually but I will go research it for it’s honor type system and dueling system you are on about, if it’s that good then it will help for a hack of it for this.
And yeah I would agree that a blade is the main on often the only way of engagement besides that of an archer, or poison of a ninja. Oda Nobunaga’s clan was known to be the first clan to utilise the use of powder and guns of the west. He often had only one gun on himself, and their use would be only once and take forever to reload, so it would be only used on a high priority targets for a certain kill. So the fact of having them but being rare is an interesting one, and I tend to agree with you there.
Also having a brutal injure system like the one of 3.5 D&D might be fun, or an even more brutal one including infections etc. Depends on if you’d like a lite experience or hard one, one where you can level vastly, instead of one where you might die in a one to one you won but you took a deep hit and gained infection and now you’ll need to see a healer quickly. Decapitations was a common thing in Samurai days haha.