I declare this samurai week for no good reason. I love tales
of the samurai- in movies, books, board games, video games and RPGs. I've run a
few samurai-based campaigns, using different systems each time. This list
assembles chronologically the major (and minor) RPGs of the genre. I've focused
on the idea of "samurai" rather than a historical setting or secondary
elements. That means I left off books like the excellent Wu
Xing: The Ninja Crusade since it focuses on ninja. I've also skipped Steampunk Musha
and Gareth-Michael
Skarka's forthcoming Far West since samurai feel chrome there. I
struggled and ultimately decided to omit Kagematsu. In that
game only one person plays a samurai, so it doesn't quite fit.
I based my chronology on the pub date of each game's first edition. That offers
perspective on how products in this genre evolved since the release of Bushido
1e in 1978. I lumped some things together (all of L5R, both Usagi Yojimbo
games). Since I collect samurai games as resources I've tried to focus my
comments on the each game's utility for the 'generic' samurai GM. I'm sure over the course of this list I'll miss some important games. if you've found some or
these things more or less useful, tell me in the comments.
Bushido originally came as a bundled booklet set, not
unlike the D&D
White Box set or Traveller.
I briefly owned a copy of that incredibly difficult to read version. My
experience really began with Bushido's third edtion from Fantasy Games
Unlimited. Around here FGU had a reputation for complex and arcane rules
systems (Aftermath!, Space Opera, Daredevils). As the
time I still focused on easier systems, mostly from TSR. But I bought this and
kept trying to figure it out. We never played Bushido as an extended
campaign in our group. Instead I remember playing several one-offs with my
friend Gene Ha and his younger brother Donn.
The amazing thing about Bushido is how well it holds up. It remains a
superb resource for anyone running a samurai campaign. I return to it for
inspiration. You can see Bushido's DNA in many of the best samurai game
descendents- in campaign structures, honor systems, approaches to magic, skill
breakdowns and so on.
A fairly substantial booklet game, I only saw LotRS a few
times in game shops. Apparently Lee Gold of Alarums &
Excursions had run a Japanese-based Chivalry
& Sorcery campaign for years before being convinced to write up her
notes. The rules are apparently complete, so if you like the old school detail
of C&S, you'll find much to love here. There's an interesting discussion of
game pacing at the outset- something I never considered- and how that favors
one kind of character over another.
The game itself is old school in many ways, with random tables for everything,
from race to class to background. While it has many interesting details and
concepts, you have to wade through tons of hyper-specific dross. LotRS feels
like a GM's homebrew notebook from the early days of gaming. I like the
smithing and crafting systems, bizarre stealth mechanics, divinity & the
afterlife, and businesses. But much of what's given here can be found
elsewhere.
OA was a crazy, exciting mess when it came out- smashing
together many genres in one book. We certainly loved the various bits offering
cool new stuff for AD&D. However, we never considered it as its own
campaign setting, but rather as new rules and options we could jam into
existing games. Bushido had floated around in the group for years, so a
comparison was inevitable. OA paled as a samurai game, but won as accessible
and wild junk for a fantasy campaign. Kara-Tur in the Forgotten Realms
would weakly try to capitalize on these ideas. Interestingly we really started
to integrate the material when Big Trouble in Little China came out the
next year. WotC revisited this concept later with 2001's Oriental Adventures.
That brought some of the systems to D&D 3.0 with a more coherent approach,
blended with the set up for the d20 version of L5R. I think there's some great
ideas in that later version (particularly the races) but it ultimately isn't
that useful.
This is an odd game. When Avalon Hill bought the rights to Runequest,
they must have imagined a tentpole game which could be used across many genres.
That was an interesting approach for the time, but Land of Ninja and Vikings suggested a more
historical bent for the system. That made the line seem stodgy and caught up in
the historical & wargamey roots of its company.
The boxed set itself feels like a kludge. Typos and strange layouts abound.
Despite being co-authored by Bushido's Bob Charette the material is
scattershot. I never feels like there's a coherent approach or clear setting
for the game. Kevin
Ramos' art, which I like in other contexts seems strange here. Still
there's a lot of good background material offered- useful for GMs of other
samurai games. If you're hunting for a cultural primer, you could do worse. The
scenario book is GM friendly as well. The hand drawn map of Japan's excellent.
When Mongoose got the Runequest
license they published Land of the Samurai.
I flipped through and thought it seemed thin, but I haven't fully examined it.
5. GURPS
Japan
As Eric Aldrich points out in his excellent review (A watershed moment)
this was the first GURPS 'history' books. It set the pattern for many
sourcebooks to follow. As a samurai and GURPS fan, I picked this up immediately
and was underwhelmed. It is decent, but like several other samurai supplements
it feels fragmented and incomplete. GURPS Japan tries to cover so much
ground that any particular concept gets superficial attention. A good deal of
the book cover GURPS mechanics and details. In the whirlwind tour we also get
discussions of alternate samurai genres and later period games.
I liked it, but certainly wanted to see more. GJ went through another edition,
but I can't say how much that revised and developed the material as I only
owned the first. Trivia: we ran a samurai miniatures game at Gen Con '88 or '89
using the GURPS mechanics- an ambitious and (in retrospect) stupid plan.
6. Ninja Hero
We used Ninja HERO as the backbone for the our most
consistent samurai campaigns. I ran a short samurai game and later another GM
used it for a ninja setting. I hesitated putting NH on the list since it isn't
fully devoted to samurai games, but there's enough source material offered to
make it useful. It presents a solid way to handle combat and maneuvers, without
extensive and complication new sub-systems. Still as you can imagine with a
HERO product, the combats moved slowly. Game systems have advanced on since
this came out, but Ninja HERO really encouraged my interest in the
genre. Because of this I created a fully fantastic non-Japan samurai inspired
setting (using resources like GURPS Martial Arts
and The
Palladium Book of Weapons and Castles of the Orient). So I was ready
later when AEG came out with its samurai-centered Asian culture mash-up, Legend
of the Five Rings.
Rolemaster had always had a serious focus on martial
arts- with systems for katas, ranks and styles mixed throughout the system.
High level Monks could be among the most dangerous characters in the game. RM
grew to become one of our two core games, along with GURPS, after we quit
AD&D. ICE decided to parallel HERO games in creating "genre" books.
In the case of Rolemaster, these were a mess. Classic RM already
suffered rules bloat with the Rolemaster
Companion series. The genre books didn't offer a coherent approach,
instead they said "Here's a bunch of rules and sh*t, enjoy!"
The Oriental Companion exemplifies that mess. To begin, why call it an
"Oriental Companion" when you're focusing on samurai-era campaigns?
They use that strange term throughout. The cover presents a Chinese Dragon Emperor-
but there's nothing covering non-Japanese themes inside. The material presented
echoes every any other samurai-themed rpg with little novel or new. I only
bought this as a RM groupie. Bizarrely, as I'll mention below, I spent
significant energy adapting L5R to Rolemaster, but Rolemaster
Standard System. When I ran an extended campaign using RMSS this book
ended up little help.
TOMORROW: RPGs 8-16 and the new modern Samurai Classics
SAMURAI WEEK
We have been playing Bushido (3rd ed) for 20 years or so. Every year or so we bring it out for a six to eight session game. Great game and a lot of fun over the years.
ReplyDeleteBushido was one of my GM's Day purchases this year - a tight little game that holds up well.
ReplyDeleteIn rereading I am amazed at how much amazing stuff Bushido has. It is among the densest games I've read, for volume rather than difficulty.
ReplyDeleteI had never played, or read, Bushido when TSR's Oriental Adventures came out. I bought my copy last year, I still have never played it, but I do kind of wish they had hired on the guys that designed Bushido to write at least SOME of OA. OA is my minor obsession and lifelong curse to try and fix and make work properly with the rest of AD&D. Of the rest of these I have the Mongoose "Land of the Samurai", but not the original "Land of the Ninja" for Runequest, I also have GURPS Japan; I had never even heard of "Land of the Rising Sun" or "Ninja Hero" or "Oriental Companion". My wife will curse your name for adding to the things I look for on EBay.
ReplyDeleteI'd say of those three Land of the Ninja is the most generally useful. Ninja HERO at least in the 4e version I had only covers samurai material in a section of the book. Land of the Rising Sun might offer some ideas, and FGU might eventually put that out as a PDF.
ReplyDeleteI remember how disappointed I was with Oriental Adventures...but then I always thought AD&D was one the worst-designed games out there, so what did I expect? I was spoiled by the greatness of Bushido!
ReplyDeleteIt does make OA look like a strange and pale imitator. To be fair they wanted to cover a broader range, but at the cost of coherency.
ReplyDelete