Village Book 1: Old School Supplement Nostalgia

Here’s a kid with his coloring book. Except it isn’t.

Page after page shows nearly identical numbered hex sheets. The images shift slightly- a few more walls, a river, a handful more tree icons. The kid doesn’t care. He’s got a couple of colored pencils and two markers. He’s decided on his color key, and he’ll remember it he tells himself so he doesn’t have to write it down anywhere. These buildings have to be marked- that will flesh this out and make these maps awesome. He writes down the names in block capitals: Vokora, Jaerlawe, Penir-Souhl. This is just what he needs to take his game to the next level…his players will travel to these places and know that each building has a purpose.

And that’s how my maps book ended up filled in with four colors: dark green, orange, vermillion red, and lime green.

FOR THE GUILD
In the late 70’s, early 80’s I had the fortune of having a decent gaming shop within walking distance of my house. New things came out and I’d thumb through them on the shelf. I bought a ton of stuff I read, a ton of stuff I didn’t read, and much smaller pool of things I actually got to play. From the earliest days I had a sense that the Judges Guild material was…kind of crappy, to put it delicately. Mind you they started off only a little behind other publishers, but pretty quickly dropped behind as game lines improved. JG seemed to grab the coattails of whatever game was hot that month. Some stuff was pretty cool- especially the various poster maps they did and things like City State of the World Emperor and The First Fantasy Campaign. But other supplements fell apart on close inspection (like Hazard IPSP / ISIS Official Map 7). But my sister (older by five years) bought the supplements. I still remember her running me through the start of Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor until she grew frustrated with me. I’d sneak into her room and read the various ones she’d picked up.

PRESENTATION
And I bought some on my own, like the Village Book 1. Judges Guild published a number of volumes in this series (Village Book 2, Castles Book 1). These are saddle-stitched floppies, with no cover stock to speak of, more like magazines than anything. VB1 clocks in at 64 pages on fairly see-through paper. To offset that, the book’s printed entirely in grey ink. The cover image is decent and signed “England,” those the artist(s) aren’t listed in the booklet. The interior art- spot illustrations appear to be taken from some kind of high school sketch book…maybe. A couple look like tracings but the two out of place monster images ought to be doing an extended guitar solo. The font for most of the book is classic Judges Guild, instantly identifiable, and echoing an engineering manual.

WELCOME TO DEAFKENNEL
The book opens with a fill-in reference chart for the maps which follow. Each map can be assigned name, population, type, civilization, alignment, ruler details, and resource. They can also be assigned a hex number, assuming that GMs will be using these maps to flesh out a larger hex-crawl map. Pages 4-12 of the book present a series of random tables for determining the characteristics of the Village. Four pages cover naming it (combing a prefix and suffix). So my village’s name is Deafkennel. Let’s see what else the tables generate for me:

Deafkennel has four wall sections (of a possible 72), made of wood, with a thickness of 2’ and a height of 8’. These “stained” walls have nets on them. It possesses 12 dirt streets, 6’ wide. Deafkennel has a population of 90 people, giving it two shops. It is ruled by a dictatorship, indicating the highest technology level. The two shops of the village are a Siege Engineer and a Sanitation Station. Because Deafkennel is under a dictatorship, it has four government works offices. These include a Tax office, an Odeum, a Village meeting hall, and a Pantheon. That last is described in parenthesis as “several temples.”

Of course none of this is given any explanation, beyond a those few parentheticals. For example, a city might have a Capital which is “a temple dedicated to Arthur.” It might seem obscure, or it might drive gamers to go to their dictionaries, an admirable aim. Of course the process is entirely random, so my dirt-tracked village of 90 people could have just as easily had a Naumachial or “place to hold mock sea battles.”

HEX 3019
But the main part of the book, pages 13-60 presents the village maps. Each page presents a numbered hex-map (they note SPI as the inventor of that in the credits). Grey standard lines bound off a large hex section. Inside that they present a village. Most of the drawings are fairly basic- a handful of buildings, dotted lines for roads, crude shapes for bridges over rivers. Many of the buildings are too tiny to annotate directly, so the DM would have to number or color code things. Some maps have interesting details (like a surrounding swamp or being set on an island). As crude and basic as they are, the maps work. They set for me what I imagined a map ought to look like; most maps I drew freehand bear a remarkable similarity to these.

WHY REVIEW THIS?
The maps also established the GM’s role for me. “This booklet is intended to fill the need of any active campaign judge to populate a large area for his fantasy role players.” I spent hours making maps for various games, from nations to villages to dungeons. I figured out codes and filled in these coloring books. When Cities of Hârn came out, that was a revolution for me. Now I had the same tools, but with larger maps, better defined, plus several versions (color, labeled, unlabeled). Weirdly it wouldn’t be until years later that I’d actually start examining my process- and realized that while I had all of these maps, I rarely referred to them. Even maps of places and cities I ran in Bozisha-Dar, Pavis, Rykel- I almost never went to the map. Most of the time it didn’t matter, all I needed was a relative and general sense.

But I still have a love for these books. On the one hand, they’re primitive and the relic of another era. On the other I’ve seen recently people setting up and running “hex-crawl” adventures. There’s a kind of board-game simplicity and sandbox vibe to that. If you’re in the mood for nostalgia or want to set up a game like that, Village Book 1 could be useful. It’s even better since you can now buy it as a pdf and work with those in an art program.

Thanes of Whiterun: Skyrim via Hollowpoint

A couple of weeks ago I ran another session of Hollowpoint, this time using the world of Skyrim. My lovely wife volunteered to write up a session report and assessment which I present here in full...

Hollowpoint: Session: Thanes of Whiterun

I think it's illuminating to add some info on the personalities at the table. What happens at the table is always as much a function of those interactions as it is of the system.

GM:

Edige23: veteran GM of a thousand sessions, master of baiting players into unwise decisions. Before we even start, he tells us about his last Hollowpoint game, wherein he eliminated all but one player at the end because they were all taking hits for each other early in the game and couldn't take the last conflict. Mark my words when I tell you that he is an evil man.

Players:

• Patti: guest of honor, newish to RPGs having just started playing this year in a zombie campaign run by her fiancee; previous experience with gaming is primarily video games. Funny, infinitely adaptable and downright vivacious.
• Derek: careful, strategic thinker, Patti's fiancee & her usual GM, comes from a tradition of adversarial GM-ing but has mellowed in recent years
• Me: looking forward to playing Hollowpoint, exhausted from just this day finishing a six month project at work, usually a careful and strategic thinker. GM's wife.
• Steve: unfailingly polite
• Kali: enthusiastic punk-kid girl-geek niece—an 18 yr old among adults old enough to have been lying about their age for decades

So, we've got a couple classic gamers and a couple newbies who have yet to be indoctrinated into the roll-for-every-action mindset—and Steve. Steve defies categorization. That's only one of the reasons we all love Steve.

A Casing for Hollowpoint

The GM chose Skyrim as the thematic because all these players play it. Oddly—the GM was the only one who hadn't played Skyrim, so he researched by using the Official Game Guide for the video game and reading up on the internet memes.

He themes the basic Hollowpoint skills as follows:

• Warrior for [KILL]
• Thief for [TAKE]
• Barbarian for [TERROR]
• Bard for [CON]
• Scholar for [DIG]
• Noble for [COOL]
• and he adds Mage for [SORCERY]

We're all to be Thanes of Whiterun—agents for Jarl Balgruuf The Great in the years prior to the return of the Dragons. The Jarl seeks to maintain neutrality, choosing to side neither with Stormcloaks nor the Empire—and he enforces that neutrality in his demesne by whatever means necessary. Hence, we Thanes are called to act whenever the balance threatens to tip one way or the other.

Making Bullets

The character creation is a cinch—distribute proficiencies between the skills and come up with descriptive traits for your character. The proficiencies say how many dice we'll be rolling when we use those skills and the traits are 'scene moments' that explain why we get to add a couple dice here or there. The rest of the rules are on the back of our “character sheet”--one quarter of a standard sheet of paper.

Derek and I flip to the back to read the rules. Derek asks the GM what's the downside of the entire group all putting high proficiencies into the same skill. He's already running the same thought I am—and the GM mildly suggests that it narrows our options for problem-solving and that there are challenges where certain skills have to be used. Derek and I exchange a significant glance—and then notice that the rest of table has already finished allocating their proficiencies. Undone! Our munchkin moment for extreme group cohesion is blown apart by simple instructions! Oh well. We scribble in our proficiencies and traits—catching up while the others mull over possible names.

It's all over in under 10 minutes TOTAL—and we're dutifully introducing our characters to each other:

• Patti: Miriam, an Imperial who's all BARBARIAN first & WARRIOR second
• Derek: Hresveld, a Nord who's WARRIOR first and BARD second
• Me: Dwynn, a Nord who's NOBLE first and WARRIOR next
• Steve: Azeem, a Khajjit who's SORCERY first and THIEF second
• Kali: Fjora, a Nord who's BARD first and SCHOLAR second

So What's In The Cross-hairs?

Now the GM introduces the objectives—fulfilling the first means we win and fulfilling the second means we win BIG.

So Jarl Balgruuf calls us in:

1. The small city of Sifkinning, on the route of pilgrimage to High Hrothgar (and hence significant to the gossip of Skyrim), is beset by renewed violent feuding between two families—the Stormcloak-leaning Radroths and the Empire-loyal Tyash. This cannot be overlooked. This cannot be tolerated. The feud must be put down. Heads of the family are Sotte Tyash and Ulfgard Radroth. The jarl of the city, Onming Lernyer, is old and only marginally effective—but at least he stays on the fence and remains obedient, knowing his kin's fate remains in Balgruuf's hands. Lernyer and his people will stay out of our way.
2. Additionally, a mage named Inwold Kaers went missing in that area a few months ago—the College is looking for him, or more precisely, for items he had with him. Find those items—they must be powerful if the College is that interested.

Why Is Your Aim Off?

And then, for the last touch, having heard the objectives, the players are each are supposed to create a complication that ties the character into the objectives. If we somehow manage to “move on” during the game and make the complication tie in to our exit (be it death or leaving the mission), we “WIN”. These are secret and we certainly didn't speak of them at that point—but here's what everyone came up with.

• Patti: Inwold is Miriam's uncle—she knows he's in hiding.
• Derek: Hresveld 's grandfather was Sifkinning's jarl before Lernyer.
• Me: Dwynn is a follower of Mehrunes Dagon, Daedric God of Destruction; she took on his blessings to eliminate the rival family in a feud that killed Dwynn's own family
• Steve: Azeem stole his wavy dagger from Kaers at the Mage college
• Kali: Fjora is the former lover of Ulfgard Radroth's heir

Ski, ski, ski, shoot!

The GM, who is made of evil, reminds us that planning and uncontested information gathering are free. However, any conflict or skill check gives him more dice for the next conflict. We're still a little uncertain how these conflicts play out, but we recognize that “more dice” is not what we want in the hands of them GM.

We ride into Sifkinning on tales of our killer horses and the cabbages we won from the intervening bandits. It's all good. Skyrim through and through. We set to figuring out who's who and what's what in Sifkinning. The Imperial legate in the city won't see Miriam. She goes straight to BARBARIAN, but we talk her down. No no no! We'll just see if we can figure out why he'd be so rude. For some reason, even though we know that Lernyer & his men will stay out of the way, Hresveld insists we go talk to him to get the lowdown and, apparently, squash his ego. Ooooookay. We come out not much wiser for the experience, except that everything started going to hell two months ago when their court sorcerer passed away. His apprentice was taken in by the Tyash. This corresponds with the time that Kaers went missing. Also about this time, the most eligible daughter of the Tyash broke off her engagement to a noble from a neighboring city. Fjora is anxious to use her BARDly skills to get info, but we keep pressing for other means. At her insistance, we do visit the skeeverhole taverns on the edge of town to get rumors about where the feud battles are going down and a few tales of disappearing pilgrims.

And then the Legate has the scion of the Tyash in for a visit and we still can't get in and the Tyash are strangely close-lipped. We can barely keep Miriam calm. Even if she never uses her BARBARIAN against our opponents, the rest of group is certainly impressed by the very threat of it. We decide to go see the Radroth—if the Tyash & the Imperials won't give us the time of day, certainly the Radroth will welcome a group of badasses like ourselves over to his side—and we're annoyed enough to offer our services.

Bullheaded. Stupid bull-headed Nords. We welcome the chance to actually go to dice when the Radroth are strangely resistant to our reasonable overtures. Except we don't want to use WARRIOR—so it's BARD and NOBLE and BARBARIAN (finally!). Dwynn's a natural—and I burn her trait 'infamous for killing entire rival family as vengeance'. We roll okay—but not as well as the GM, who takes all the teeth out of our attacks the first round. We're just trying to impress these backwoods yahoos—and they are so damned obstinate and...racist. The next round, we do even worse and the Talosian dimwits who are manning the door go all BARBARIAN on poor Azeem. We come to the first time when someone might be eliminated from the scene—the GM asks if anyone else will take the hit—and since it's the first fight, I say, 'well, let's see what happens if he goes out for the scene'.

Ugh. Let's say, losing a set of dice hurts. The snarl at the door leaves us seething and without our sorcerer. We finally get in and we're a little smarter about how conflict resolution works, and all the more leery to leap right back into it. Our conversation with Radroth convinces us that his understanding of the situation is perhaps a little worse than our own—he doesn't seem to know what's going on, but he and his bravo son Thoronor are strangely overconfident. His other son, Snodmir, is ill and not attending court. Radroth finally admits that the Tyash have some powerful magics—that the Tyash keep recovering from injuries that ought to have killed them. This makes the Radroth overconfidence more confusing. Eventually, he offers us a price for every Tyash head and we take the offer.

We'd Get Back to the Biathlon But the Course has Gone Hazy...

Now we're suspecting that Kaer's gear has something to do with the regenerative powers of the Tyash. Maybe we can lure them out with rumors of a more powerful artifact located in a dangerous nearby barrow. Collectors of power like to, you know, collect more. In Skyrim, there's always a Draugr-filled barrow nearby. Fjora explodes with excitement—finally she can use her BARD to help the group. No one can bear to stomp on her glee. She succeeds nicely and doesn't notice the GM's very pleased transfer of another two dice to his pile. We tip off the Radroth so our trap doesn't catch dumb puppy Thoronor.

Nothing happens, except that a few adventurers get out there and end up taking an arrow to the knee. So we've created more city guards, but not lured out a single Tyash.

Miriam is full of furious. We have to do something quick or she is going to warhammer down the Legate's door. We're not entirely unsympathetic but it seems like the Tyash may have more secrets. The GM's veteran players are a little stumped—typically we would have had a little glimmer of a clue by now, so whatever it is that is going on must be causing this non-reaction to both the bait and the overtures. We know that—but we haven't figured out what it could be. Azeem volunteers to go poking around the Tyash's estate—and we decide to escalate it to a full-on assault on their security—creating distractions to give him optimal conditions.

...And Then It's All Black And White

We start the distractions out with a fight in the street that escalates so that the front of the estate is under a hail of arrow fire—Azeem goes in a back window. While we're enjoying ourselves with ever-more obnoxious and nonsensical distractions for the Tyash houseguards, Azeem creeps through an eerily quiet Tyash household. No one's on the top floors. On the ground floor—no one, but the kitchen is a fright—blood splattered everywhere. Our rolls are going awesomely—the GM is rolling long but fewer runs, so while he can chip away at a few of our assaults, we're tagging him all over the place. Azeem has no trouble hitting the requirements for the catches. He secures the Tyash secret—a cache of human limbs and pilgrims' remains in an ice room in the cellar—and a glimpse of one of the guards watching the street—unbreathing and clearly undead and with strange stitching. He skitters out to give us the news—taking a quick check around for anything that might be the source of the necromancy first. He finds the cut-up corpse of the court wizard's apprentice, but other than that, he finds nothing.

It's been a fun little romp. The players were tossing out traits and having cool scenes throughout the distraction. We didn't even have to worry about washes.

This Is No Sport...

With the news of unsavory necromancy deeds, we resolved to burn down the Tyash estate—but first, we'd draw that Imperial Legate out to the place and see how he was involved. Knowing what to look for, we identified him as another undead as he scurried over to the Tyash estate upon getting our message that they were under attack. We started the rain of fire—SORCERY and WARRIOR and COOL (for impressive pyrotechnics)--and ran right into our first encounter with a Principal. The GM has to split his dice pool—but he ends up with more chances to act—and we have to clear threats off in a particular order. But we were rolling hot and spending traits and we just shouted out our runs and chewed through everything the GM had to throw at us. The Tyash estate and the Legate were ash—and we had only a few smacks between us.

On to the Radroth—we'd all gotten a bad feeling about that sick son of his and that strange overconfidence. We burst in demanding our fee for the heads of the Tyash—nasty undead heads—and at the mention of us wanting to see his son, Ulgard went all Principal on us. He was a much tougher fight—we weren't rolling quite so well. Fjora ran through the crowd of guards, taking nasty wounds but distracting them so that we could finish our work. She kept running, found Thoronor and they eloped right then and there. [Here, Kali WINS, by getting taken out but perfectly tying back in her complication. The kid had her eyes on the prize the whole time.]

We decimated the Radroth loyals who defied us, checked on the ill son—who turned out to be a were-Skeever. The Radroth were creating an “elite” group of these things to stalk the Tyash—and using Snodmir as the blood donor for conversion. Thoronor was not a very nice brother... Poor ol' Snodmir got put out of his misery.

We've Done Some Killing

We still haven't found the source of the necromancy so we head to the Legate's office. His notes are mundane—too mundane. We note that he made one entry about 2 months ago and then copied that same entry over and over. That entry mentioned investigating the disappearance of a pilgrim. We step out of the office, into the smoke and ash drifting over from the Tyash estate and see a crowd of townsfolk coming at us with hoes and shovels. It's an easy fight—but we're unnerved to discover they're all undead too. The necromancer is around and still ordering his minions about—and close. We note the stitches—and decide to go see the town alchemist.

Arriving there, we see a crowd gathered around the shop—some of them guards from the Tyash estate that we didn't bother to behead, others who had ended up with burns from putting out the fire...many of them undead, but not all of them...completely. The shop was ringed by the zombies and the wounded trying to get in for treatment—apparently some sort of compulsion.

We figured the necromancer was inside—and questioning one of the townsfolk heading there, not as undead as the others, found out the Alchemist's name was Ridmad Ghaeck. Definitely sounded like an evil necromancer. There was no way to get in except through the roof—so we jumped right up there, tossed the shingles down unto the crowd below and took on our next Principle & Minions conflict. This one was tougher. Kali rejoined the group as an adventurer who was caught up in events and decided to join with us—name of Khald. He's all WARRIOR and BARBARIAN. We burn through the last of our traits, slicing through the zombies Ridmad cowers behind and finally putting him down with a great twinned warhammer to the head from Miriam and fiery whosh from Azeem. Thankfully, the artifact, some nasty box of necromancy energy, is there—we get it shut and take it.

There's a denouement where Hresveld dishes out another verbal rib-kicking for old Lernyer, we sum the situation up for him and leave him trying to figure out how to recover from having a good half of his population put down in one evening.

Forensics

Post-Game: there's evidence all over the place. Lovely snacks had been prepared—and went forgotten. There was excited chatter about the complications—which got played out and which didn't...what scenes they'd envisioned when selecting them and where they might have inserted them if they'd been quicker on their feet. You heard “Next time” and “when we play this again...” and“now I wish I'd...”.

We'll play again.

The characters were strongly defined and easy to grasp—the use of the traits provided excellent character-defining cinematic moments. The conflict system was fast—and while it was quick to resolve, it's not easily 'figured out'. The GM can almost always do some pain—but if they do, they will usually end up having their baddies go down fast. The group interactivity—with the mechanics for asking for help (and being assisted or having the request refused) are very fun!

The true genius of Hollowpoint lies in the complications. After the objectives are stated, each player has a chance to write themselves a deeper role in the story. Every one of the players was envisioning a scene, a revelation—a way things might play out—and the game was shaped from the first second by those things. Hresveld was pushing for a fight from Lernyer, Miriam was doing her best to distract us from the Inwold Kaers investigation—and I was trying to provoke the feuding wherever I could. Chips on our shoulders, secrets to keep hidden...and they're all immediately brought to bear.

Derek and I kicked ourselves for reflexively declaring actions rather than narrating scenes—it was one of the things that makes me determined to play again. I want to get better at that. This system really does lend itself to descriptive play—you can risk anything and you can interpret your dice whether you fail or succeed. It's a story game where the dice are the adjudicators—but the player is the one who determines what those successes or failures look like.

Kali was ecstatic that she won the game. She really did too. Nailed it perfectly. She ends up with the character who successfully changes and moves on. That's a great nod to real story-telling—the iconic characters keep slogging away or expire unchanged, but the dramatic hero hits the crisis and has a chance to change things. They move on. Brilliant.

I can't wrap my brain around using Hollowpoint for campaigns, though my husband has some ideas for that. Hollowpoint seems strongest as a one-shot and could probably work as a short series of one-shots, like movies and their sequels.

Hollowpoint would also be brilliant within a campaign for a special interlude. I could envision using it when the PCs send a group of NPCs off to accomplish a mission—and then they play that mission as the NPCs. There's no need for a ridiculous detailed write-up of each of the agents. With Hollowpoint, it takes just 15 minutes of each player sketching out that NPC and investing their little fictional hearts into the goal via the complication and you've got one heck of a memorable “and meanwhile...” session--one with a rather high possibility of going horribly terribly awry.

Plotting the G+ Campaign: Superheroes Year One (Part One)

Earlier I posted campaign ideas I handed out to a group for a G+ game (post here). In the end the group chose the "Superheroes: Year One" pitch. I've been putting materials together for that and I thought I would share what we have so far. Here's the set up material: 

Original Pitch
SUPERHEROES: YEAR ONE
Premise: Each player chooses an existing superhero they will play. This can be from any universe (DC, Marvel, Milestone, Amalgam, etc). The premise will be that while there have been supers for a short while, they’re relatively new. You will play these heroes in their early days, with the founding of the group as a starting point. You don’t have to stick to the existing details of the character- you might want to changes details about the origin, switch genders or races, modify the source of their powers, etc. The characters you pick will establish some of the premises of the world (if you pick Zatana, then we know there’s magic; if you pick a thawed out Captain America we know that there were secret heroes during WW2).

Of course you’re also going to be lower-powered beginning characters. So even if you choose Superman or Adam Warlock, you may have some of those powers but fairly constrained. I will be writing up the characters based on your input- so you’ll have a chance to establish what you want to focus on. We’ll establish a campaign city depending on the player choices.

System: We will be using Mutants & Masterminds 2e. That’s a fairly simple d20 based supers system, requiring a single die roll for most elements. You can easily find the pdf and there’s also a nice pocket version out there. Please note that we’ll be using second edition and not the more recent third edition if you choose to buy anything. I’ll be using material from the Ultimate Power sourcebook, but reserve the right to veto certain powers and abilities.

Alternative: As an alternative, the group may want to decide to pick heroes from one particular superhero universe for consistency. If that happens then I’ll try to bring in classic elements from that. 

Follow Up
I'll have more details in the future, but let me set down the basics and what I'll need from you guys. The plan is to play on the Wednesday night, probably using a G+ hangout. Ideally we'll aim for tight sessions, trying to get things done by 10pm, no later than 10:30p ET.

We'll be doing the Superhero: Year One from the list I sent. I'll have more details on rules and set up in the next couple of weeks. Basically we'll primarily be using Mutants & Masterminds 2e for the rules. I have a couple of minor changes and modifications to that system but nothing radical (more about handling movement and such to make it easy).

If you want a copy of the rules I recommend picking up the //Mutants and Masterminds Pocket Player's Guide//. I has all the basics and you can find it relatively cheap. You can also find the pdf on RPG Now. As necessary I will also be using the power options from the Ultimate Power supplement.

I will be making up the characters based on your choices and input. You will start out fairly low powered and inexperienced. You are among the first/second wave of heroes in a modern world. They appeared perhaps 18 months or so ago and the public's torn about them. No superhero teams have yet formed- you will be the first. You should choose a character you like, who could be a solo hero and who could function as part of a team. I reserve the right to veto or ask you to modify your choices. We'll determine the campaign city depending on everyone's choices.

I'd like to get a sense now of who everyone wants to play- since that will have an impact on what the world looks like. We won't get started for a few weeks, but this will help me think about the game. The characters you choose necessarily suggest background elements. For example, if you select Booster Gold, I know there's time travel. If you select the Sub-Mariner, I know there's Atlantis. If you select Green Lantern, I know there's a space corps out there. I you're thinking about a distinctly different treatment of your character from the usual (for example a black Batman who was trained by an Equalizer-like figure as we had in another game), tell me that.
   
OVERVIEW

1. I will be running this as a G+ hangout, because of the simple tools that offers. The Tabletop Forge app allows simple maps, token, and offers a dice roller. You’ll need to have a gmail/G+ account for this purpose; I hope that won’t be a problem for anyone. The G+ hangouts allow for video and audio, but you don’t have to have video, that’s up to you. We’ll probably have some teething problems with the tech as you can imagine. I was thinking perhaps June 20th for a start date- I’m just putting that out there to see what people think. If that clashes, we can move that. That should give me time to get things reasonably set. I will be posting material on a wiki for reference: http://superheroesyearone.wikispaces.com/. I’ll send everyone an invite to that.
   
   
2. Rules: I’m pretty loose on rules, and I will be making a few modifications- more to how I’m handling things than to the specifics of the rules. Since we’re going to be playing by forum, I do have one request. I’ve run M&M 2e several times, but as I’m not a rules savant I do get things wrong from time to time. While we’re playing I’ll make the calls and we’ll stick with those. If you think I’m wrong, I’ll ask that you make a note of that and bring it up after the session. That should keep us from rules look-ups or debates in play. I’m more than willing to wrangle with those issues after play. In some cases, I may ask a player to make a call on a rule. If I do so they have the authority and the same standard holds- if the interpretation seems off, then we’ll discuss that after play.
   
   M&M 2e isn’t that complicated, but does have a few corner cases. If I make a call that you think is wrong and hurts your character significantly, I hope you’ll give me the chance to look at the issue and make the situation right. I’m not too worried about this, but because we won’t be playing face-to-face, I want to establish some policies.
   
   
3. You’ll be able to advance your character by spending PPs. However I reserve the right to ask you to avoid “Stop Sign” powers, problematic feats, or abilities which step on other player’s area of mastery. But generally I’ll give you freedom on that.
   
   
4. I’m hoping to use the Tabletop Forge tool with G+. It looks like it will do everything we need it to. I’m going to leave a good deal of the tracking in your hands to minimize the fooling around with the interface. To keep movement simple, I’m going to borrow a concept from FATE. Combat maps will be divided into zones. Players can move within a zone as a simple move action (allowing you a standard action)- in fact since they’re represented abstractly it is simply a matter of saying where you are. Moving to an adjacent zone takes a full move action. Characters with movement powers (flight, running, teleport) will be able to move further with a simple move action:
   RANK--> MOVE ACTION--> FULL ACTION
   2-3--> Adjacent Zone--> Two Zones
   3-5--> Two Zones--> Three Zones
   6+--> Anywhere you want
   
   Zones will each have a set of aspects on them- descriptors or phrases. Each one can be used once to give a +2 bonus if worked into a character’s description of their action.
   
   
5. MnM makes a distinction between standard and lethal damage, as Champions does. I’m going to worry less about that difference in this campaign. Even if bad guys are using guns & knives, they’re doing standard damage. They can still kill you if they go for a finishing blow. But generally this will be comic book damage- if you’d like a tone and approach, I recommend the Justice League, Batman the Animated Series, and Superman cartoons. If a bad guy does start throwing around lethal damage, that should be a signal to the group that this person is a significant threat.
   
   
6. If you want to play out a scene, you’ll need to pick a partner. For example, if you want to split up to hunt down leads each team has to have at least two characters in it. That serves two purposes- to increase interactions and to maximize play time for everyone. Obviously there will be exceptions- if the bad guys split the group up or if you need to do some stuff to handle details of your character’s personal lives or secret identities. If you just “go to the roll” for something (like a Gather Information check) you don’t have to do this. If you do pair up on these checks, you can gain a bonus. But generally I’m going to try to put more emphasis on groups of characters rather than solo play. We’ll see how that goes.
7. Hero Points: HP’s are the currency of the game. You can spend them for the following bonuses during the game: rerolls (take the better of the two; the second roll will be at least 11); copy feat (for one round); double your dodge bonus; counter a power as a reaction; cancel fatigue (usually gained from pushing a power); recover faster; shake off stun; escape death; or buy an effect/clue. You begin each session with a set of points. During play you can gain more in several ways:
   *Heroic Actions
   *Good Roleplaying
   *GM Fiat aka The GM Screws You Over aka the Bad Guy Gets Away
   *Significant Set Backs
   *Complications
   
   
8. Complications are what would be called disadvantages, flaws, or trouble aspects in other games. These are issues that come up in play, rather than being structural limits. For example, Thor’s weaker identity of Donald Blake and his lack of powers there is a Drawback rather than a complication. He gets PP for that non-powered identity. However “Must Maintain Donald Blake’s Life and Identity” is a complication, introducing plot problems. Things like being a daredevil, radical philosophies, attachments to NPCs, hunted by enemy organizations, reputations, prejudices, obligations, compulsions, lack of status or wealth and so on are complications. Ideally you should write these up as a phrase on your character sheet. They should help define your personality.
   
   Each character should think of three complications. It is OK if one or two are more obscure or rarer. These should be complications which cause problems for you- not for your allies and teammates. Complications like Casual Killer or Lone Wolf aren’t really limitations for you, but allow you to be dickish to the other players. When your complication comes up in a scene, you can gain a Hero Point. If you want, you can play that out and limit yourself- and then ask for the point. Sometimes I’ll call on your complication to limit your choices or push you in a direction; this is called a compel. I’ll offer you a Hero Point when I do this. You can opt not to take up the compel, but you have to spend a point to do so.
   
   
9. Campaign City: We will be using “comic book” New York as our campaign city. This is more the New York of Marvel, with a few bits thrown in from elsewhere. It won’t be accurate, it won’t be gritty, but it will be a simple city backdrop for the campaign. If you know NY then my presentation of it will seem like a horrible travesty. There will be a few “DC” cities in the world, notably Gotham, Metropolis, and Opal City.
   
   
10. Consider how long your character has been around. How many issues of his solo series have been published? What to the press think of him? Does he have any established enemies? Superheroes haven’t been around that long (more on that in a later email). You group will be the first real public superteam. Everyone should pick one other established comic book hero who exists in this world and one established comic book villain. They may not appear in the campaign, but that will help flesh things out.

Next: What everyone chose and the start of the world background



Previous Superhero: Year One Posts

Plotting the G+ Campaign (Part One)

Campaigns as Projects (Part Two)

Tabletop Forge/G+ Tools (Part Three)
Tabletop Time Estimation (Part Four)
Investigations and Villains (Part Five)
Detective Skills & NPC Skills  (Part Six)
G+ Advice & Catch-Up (Part Seven)
Underestimating Effort (Part Eight)
G+ Investigation Session (Part Nine)
Should the GM Write Session Reports? (Part Ten)
The Starro My Destination (Part Eleven)

When the Last Sword is Drawn: Samurai RPG Thoughts

CAN I HAVE A KATANA?
This week I wrote on samurai. I don't know exactly why- I suspect some of it came from Hida Mann's heretical suggestion that the newest edition of L5R is superior to L5R 1e. Then there were some awesome session reports for Blood & Honor on RPG Geek. I saw some other posts in the blogosphere on the topic (this from Monsters and Manuals)...all of which really got me jonesing for a samurai game. So I went with samurai week-
Samurai RPGs: Kami & Katanas (Part One) 

Samurai RPGs: Kami & Katanas (Part Two)  
SamuraiBibliography: Useful Books for GMs
Bushido: RPGs I Like
Ge Koku Jo

WHY I LIKE SAMURAI
I think it worth considering from time to time what you actually like about a genre. Running fantasy, sci-fi, or horror campaigns you can lose sight of what drew you there in the first place. In this I’m not necessarily talking about the actual history, but the what I love from the conventions- as depicted in films, books, and games.

Code of Conduct: Samurai games offer a set of behavior codes players can accept. It is difficult to legislate morality in an rpg. Often systems to handle this come off as punishing and adversarial. Various World of Darkness games require the player to take tests or suffer penalties to their specific “morality” track. These abstract and sketchy systems lead to communication rifts between player and GM. The results may seem arbitrary. Samurai games on the other hand, have a clearer and more unifying sense of the codes of behavior and conduct. Great stories can come from the dilemmas posed by the gap between desires and those codes.

Colorful: I remember when I saw Ran and the colors blew me away. I know a decent amount of that’s ahistorical, but I love the idea of forces with brightly painted uniforms and vivid banners. The colors and patterns on kimonos and other outfits fascinate me. I used to own all of the Dixon Men-at-Arms series covering the Samurai. If I had to paint only one genre of miniatures for the rest of my life, it would be samurai.

No Armor: Perhaps a little ironic given the point above, but I like the relative scarcity of armor in the genre. War is the time for armor, but most fights, duels and small scale conflicts arm opponents with a sword and the clothing on their back. That makes the fights deadly and encourages a creativity to the conflict.

Echoes of the Musketeer: Samurai games often seem to me to be more serious versions of a swashbuckling campaign. Unarmored or lightly armored swordsmen of skill dueling and leaping around. Social status and class serve as an important factor in both. Duty, loyalty, and right action can be supported or challenged, depending on the nature of the authority. There’s less direct humor and slapstick perhaps in the Samurai campaign.

Distance: At the same time, the setting remains foreign enough that play is fairly open. GMs can and should strive for verisimilitude over simulation. A musketeer games carries a degree of “western” baggage.

Aesthetics: I love that non-fighting skills have a significant place in the setting. An appreciation for beauty, a sense of craftsmanship, a simplicity of approach- these are lovely hallmarks. They help make this more than this a flashing swords genre. Certainly Western historical genres have some of this (romantic poetry for example), but the samurai genre embraces it.

THE L5R REVOLUTION
I liked Bushido and Oriental Adventures, but never really felt press to run them. The samurai games we did play and run were short and filled with fantasy. L5R changed my mind- it gave me a cool and consistent world that I wanted to run right away. I loved the relatively compact realm and cohesive story. Rather than spinning out wider, L5R made strategic choices about what it included.

Ahistorical: L5R breaks away from the yoke of history. Yes, Oriental Adventures had Kara-Tur but that never felt fully fleshed out. Instead it felt patchwork to me, especially when it got ported to the Forgotten Realms. It also smashed things together in equal measure. Legend of the Five Rings draws influence from other Asian cultures for the various clans, but it never loses sight of being a samurai campaign. Many players feel uncomfortable with historical games. Some don’t like ‘constraints’ of history or worry about getting things wrong (or even offending). L5Rsays you don’t need to worry about that. You don’t have to sweat the small stuff.

Gender Roles: Though it can be inconsistent about this at times, L5R generally allows full and equal play opportunities for female characters. There are matriarchal clans and the rules provide numerous examples of strong female characters the equal of men. Often they’re even in reasonable armor. That gender equity’s built in, rather than requiring hand-waving by the GM. That’s the kind of approach I’ve always tried to take with my other campaigns, so L5R works for me.

The Clans: The Great Clans of L5R provide easy to pitch concepts. I can describe any clan in a sentence or two and players will remember that. Add to that the visual distinctions and you have a winning combo. Once players know the clans, you get to work one more level down and explain the families among those clans. It isn’t long before players remember and can respond NPCs instinctively.

Articulated Codes: I love that the clans share the Bushido code, but perceive it differently. Each clan has some virtues they value and some they regard as less essential. That’s a brilliant device.

Magic: I don’t love the lumping together of the various distinct faiths of Japan into the “Shintao” of L5R, but most of the time it works. In particular it allows Shugenja a role and purpose beyond simply being casters. Making them generally ritual and spiritual advisors gives them an added gravity and weight.

Diplomacy: More than most games, especially fantasy games, L5R finally made social classes compelling and dangerous. Diplomats and ambassadors may more restrictive fields of battle, but they can do more damage than a simple sword strike. That’s the way it should be and L5R raises the bar for these kinds of player options.

FILM & SOUND
Kurosawa spoiled samurai cinema for me. It isn’t that he set the bar too high with his staging, craftsmanship, and artistry. Rather that he used the samurai film to tell humanist stories, “a preoccupation with the human elements of a movie.” In this he managed to create depth, sympathy, and emotion in a genre not associated with it. That made watching other cheaper samurai films- Shogun’s Ninja, Lone Wolf & Cub, Hanzo the Razor, Death Shadows- more difficult because of the focus on the brutality and violence. The message in so many of these films seems to be about a moral wasteland, the inevitability of violence, and the annihilation of the self. I try to watch everything I can, but films which revel in the gruesome I play only slight attention to. There are many great samurai films. Here are ten I’d pick as a good set to watch in prep for running a samurai campaign:

• Kuroneko: A good combination of ghost story and samurai action. 
• Samurai Rebellion: Introduces some of the complexities of the social politics while also offering insight into the daily lives of conventional samurai. 
• Onmyoji: The supernatural, conspiracies, and as close to an actual shugenja as we’re ever going to see on the screen. The sequels pretty fun as well. 
• The Seven Samurai: Has to go on the list for a look at a grounp getting slowly picked off. 
• Yojimbo/Sanjuro: Great characters and intriguing plots. Worth watching for how you’d model some of these complications at the table. 
• Taboo: A striking film and not to everyone’s taste. Importantly it offers insight into the social dynamics of the samurai caste. 
• 13 Assassins: Worth watching for considering how to set up and stage combats. 
• Dora-Heita: A goofy and fun story chronicling the arrival of a drunken magistrate to clean up a town. Given how many L5R games use magistrates as a basis, worth watching. 
• Dororo: Just ok, but has some interesting bits and fun fights. On the list because of the fantasy elements. 
• Red Beard: Not a samurai film, but my favorite Kurosawa movie. Insight into the characters and culture. Great for informing NPC creation. 

Also, if you’re looking for samurai soundtracks to use while running a game I recommend the following. Some have more Chinese or Asian themes, but work in the context. Genji: Dawn of the Samurai (Tomoatsu Kikushi & Seiichi Negi); Jade Empire (Jack Wall); The Hunted (Kodo); Guild Wars: Nightfall (Jeremy Soule); Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors (DoRe); Onimusha 2 (Taro Iwashiro); Okami (Masami Ueda & Hiroshi Yamaguchi); Nobunaga’s Ambition Online (Kenji Kawai); Kengo 3 (Takayuki Nakamura); Jubei Ninpucho: Ninja Scroll (Kaoru Wada); and Heavenly Sword (Nitin Sawhney). You may have to edit out some of the more goofy bits from the video game soundtracks.

THE RONIN PROBLEM
Man I don’t like ronin. That’s weird given the romanticized version of them given in so many films and stories. Usually they’re the last inheritors of the spirit of bushido, the practical character who can see past rules, or the lovable buffoon. They reject the existing structures and establishments. The problem I have with them is that they throw away so much interesting material. They avoid real dilemmas of choice and duty, instead substituting more physical conflicts over survival and murder. Players by and large suspect and reject authority- they tend to resent orders and obligations. A samurai campaign suggests virtues, duties, clan loyalties, and service to your lord. It restricts and makes the choices more difficult and more meaningful.

Ronin look like every other standard fantasy PC. That makes them more boring. An all-ronin game, unless the players agree they serve a higher goal- just feels like an outlaw game, and maybe the group should be playing Wild West. Worse can be the single ronin among a group of samurai; you’ve built in some real acrimony there. The GM may have to handwave pretty hard to keep fights from breaking out. As John Wick suggests in Blood & Honor, being a ronin ought to be awful: with no one to support you, no respect, no acknowledgement. But what GM’s actually going to subject a player to that consistently? In my experience ronin leaning players want to have their rice cake and eat it too.

Bushido: RPGs I Like

WHAT IS IT?
Classic "old-school" rpg presenting a fantastic samurai Japan.

TO THE GAME OF THE RISING SUN
RPGs mentored me growing up.

I read comic books, watched cartoons, played with action figures, ran around, read books…all that. But RPGs were always my thing. Even when I lacked a steady group I read rules, thought up stories, and sketched characters. These were the mechanics-heavy early days; it took multiple read-throughs to grasp the rules. Alternately you could be taught by someone else. I learned a few games through play (Star Trek, Rolemaster) but learned many more on my own (Stalking the Night Fantastic, Daredevils, GURPS, Top Secret, Monsters! Monsters, Superhero 2044, Ringworld, Stormbringer…).

That taught me to read in a new way. I tore through material hunting down key concepts. I had to figure out new vocabularies and references. RPGs mentored by opening new worlds and suggesting new directions. Going through the swathes of D&D material I learned how to research. Call of Cthulhu pointed me to literary genres and the evocation of mood in writing. Paranoia taught me about comedy and irony. Champions improved my math and algebra. Fringeworthy got me thinking about cultural and historical forces, and the implications of change. I got to play perhaps one in ten (or less) of the RPGs I bought with my allowance, paper route money, or yard sale earnings. But each game could be a learning experience.

Bushido was one of those games. I picked it up in 1982, around my first year of middle school. I don’t know if I knew anything about the samurai or Japanese history. The first Japanese movie I recall seeing was Masahiro Shinoda’s Demon Pond. In high school I finally saw a Kurosawa film, found Lone Wolf and Cub, and read Tomoe Gozen. But by then I’d already created my sense of the samurai world. Bushido constructed an imaginative space and I’ve spent the rest of my life filling that in. It showed me that a foreign culture could have a detailed and hugely different history. And this history included more than just a handful of stereotypical images. Instead other places possess cultural systems with logic and articulated details. The world that Bushido presented seemed more alien than any fantasy game or novel, but it remained consistent. That may be obvious now, but it blew my mind at the time.

PRESENTATION
Originally Bushido third edition came as a boxed set. That contained the two rulebooks, reference sheets, and a nice multi-panel map of Nippon. Later FGU bundled together everything into a nice perfect-bound edition. That has the advantage of convenience, but at the cost of the map. Like so many of these older games, especially those from FGU, Bushido has text density. There are few illustrations, but all of them work. Going back through the book years later I’m amazed how many of these imprinted on my memory. Each two-column page absorbs nearly all of the white space, running to the small margins. All of the text is given the same weight, with a tiny sans-serif font. With section numbering and titles like “1095.2d First Aid” it looks like a technical manual. But that visual design is consistent throughout and with some training it becomes easy to move through.

The writing is clear and precise, and it has to be. Bushido is filled with new concepts and different names for existing ones. It would be impossible to get everything on a first or even second read. It also suffers from Over Capitalization of Key Terms, but that’s more funny than anything. If there’s any significant failing in the rules it comes from organization. RPGs by and large have gotten better about figuring out what information the reader needs to approach a game system. Core concepts have to be set up and usually that’s followed with a clear sense of character creation. Important ideas can be brought up and then developed later. Modern designers recognize the importance of flow and logical structure. Bushido, like so many of these early systems, hits you with volumes and then sails off into secondary matters at the drop of a hat.

MECHANICS

Bushido’s at once highly traditional and strangely progressive. For those who like old school gaming it has multiple die types, activity planning, many figured characteristics, and detailed combat options. Many sub-systems have their own individual logic- rather than following a consistent general rule, they model actions in different ways. I call these asymmetrical systems. Modern games work to simplify cases- reducing games to general rules which can be applied liberally. Bushido has character classes, with significant differences in abilities, hit points, and even means of gaining experience. Character creation involves a random roll for class background which can make a huge difference in initial skills, On (honor), and starting money. Detailed combat modifier and weapon charts, critical hit tables, and highly specific movement and distance rules appear. The advancement system represents the most “old school” factor of the game. On the one hand, players have levels, ranging from one to six. They have to gain experience (from combat actions for warrior types; magic actions for magic-users) and On to advance a level. Levels give an additional die rolled for HP and impact a few figured details and limits. But to actually advance one’s character in a practical way, skills must be raised. Players don’t advance skills at all through use- instead to increase them they must spend time- lots of time- training their skills. Bushido presents several pages of rules purely concerned with this: how many skills a character may improve, the effects of a teacher and their rank, working with scrolls, and so on.

But it also has players assigning points to determine primary attributes and starting skills, a point based system. Bushido concentrates on those skills over class abilities. While other rpgs had a skill focus (notably Traveller), Bushido articulates those- with key sub-systems under many. There’s an important difference based on types of skills: bugei (combat skills), fine arts, and practical arts. Ninja get their own set of skills. Bugei skills can be specialized through Okuden. These separately developed skills allow players to perform “feats” such as disarm, piercing thrust, and lightning strikes. The Okuden foreshadow the school abilities and combat feats of later samurai systems. Bushido also uses a system for lethal vs. subdual damage, allowing even more options. The importance of social status and social actions to play also separates it from many other classic games.

Here’s the thing I notice going back to reread Bushido: it has lots of rules. The volume of mechanics and subsystems makes my head spin. But I know when we played it we ignored much of that, so the game can be tuned to the needs of the players. And I’m amazed at how well and how much the background and setting is integrated into the rules in a practical way. I know about the Buke class and their role in society because choices and play revolve around that. That level of setting and system integration still amazes me.
 

BOOK I: HEROES OF NIPPON
This 80-page book covers nearly all of the system basics, from skills to character creation to magic to combat. Along the way we get a detailed and rich picture of society in “Samurai Japan,” although the books themselves call it Nippon. This treatment uses history, but it is not historical in a literal sense. Instead we get a vision of a platonic or amalgam setting which is timeless. Elements of the society which might not have existed in parallel have been fit together here- and the samurai are and always will be the samurai. The skills section remains one of my favorite parts of the game- for the way it presents combat skills as unique arts and for the treatment of fine arts as a vital component of a character’s life. Even the mystical abilities like Ki powers and yoga options paint a vivid picture of the world.

Players have a choice of six classes:

• Bushi: the classic samurai choice
• Budoka: a martial artist hero
• Shugenja: traditional magic user utilizing the five elements
• Gashuko: Priests who can be either Buddhist or Shinto
• Ninja: may only be chosen by those who roll Eta on their background (86+ on percentiles)
• Yakuza: Criminals and gangsters

 A mixed group poses special challenges, and at least in our games we focused on like types in play.

Heroes of Nippon bursts with background and concepts. Even little details give an insight into the culture of samurai Japan. For example the list of restrictions facing the Gashuko illuminates the culture while providing mechanical restrictions. The sections covering society and customs remains one of the best distillations of these ideas in any samurai rpg. Outside of individual characters clans and groups offer players an additional realm to explore. On nearly every page of this book I find an interesting factoid which would be great play out at the table. In short, this book is full of material useful for any samurai GM. 

BOOK II: THE LAND OF NIPPON
This shorter, 48-page book serves as the Gamemaster’s guide to Bushido and the land of Nippon. Where Book I bounces around from topic to topic, Book II has a more definite shape and breakdown of material. It still doesn’t feel quite like a more modern GM’s section. It lacks a full discussion of campaign structures, adventure design, and advice on running the system. Instead there’s a grab bag of background, adversaries, and new systems.

The book opens with some traditional GM rules: detailed reaction tables for randomizing initial responses and general guidelines for figuring out random encounter frequency and type. Several pages describe how to construct human encounters- with complications and powers for certain professions (doctors, police, pilgrims). That’s followed by the “monsters” section- beasts, legendary beasts, and lastly the longest section presenting legendary beings. This includes Kappa, Bakemono, Tengu and so on. This great material includes behaviors, tactics, and sub-groups. A complimentary section follows discussing supernatural powers and manifestations. Those nine pages present everything from kami to ghosts.

After that the book moves into miscellany: three pages on treasures, one on natural phenomena, and two on events such as hunts and duels. Five pages look at places in Nippon- from cities to Yakuza hideouts, with some suggestions for scenarios using those. Another five pages presents a detailed battle system (something I talked about here). That allows the players to take a role and have dramatic scenes in such wars. Next the book covers diverse topics even more tightly, less than a page: character employment, marriage, travel, religious truths, and more. The book wraps up with more considerations of the group/clan and ideas for advanced campaigning. A short two-page scenario rounds out The Land of Nippon. In the end, it isn’t nearly as dense as Book I but it offers a broader view of the setting. In that sense it may even be more generally useful to GMs.

OVERALL
I expect I've made my bias pretty clear by this point. Bushido stuck with me over the years and showed me how a game could simulate a setting in depth. I suspect some of my early approaches to detail-heavy world building came out of a desire to copy this. In rereading Bushido, I think the game holds up . It is a denser, more rules-heavy system than I would run today. Some of the mechanics bother me- especially the way advancement is handled. Bushido has two audiences who could embrace it. On the one hand those interested in the Old School Renaissance ought to look at this game. It shares some mechanics with Aftermath and Daredevils, but I’d argue it handles those better. If you’re looking for a crunchy and restrained samurai game, this is the one to buy. On the other hand, if you’re running any kind of samurai campaign (L5R, Oriental Adventures, The Blossoms are Falling) you will find Bushido an invaluable resource and font of ideas.

Bushido’s a good game and there was a time when I thought it deserved a new edition, revised and brought up to date. But it feels complete and whole- I can’t imaging changing this game to fit with the times. It is striking to see how many later games adopted the concepts presented here and borrowed the structures. Bushido established approaches that others took up and reworked. Some later games improved those systems, but many just dressed them up.

SAMURAI WEEK

Samurai RPGs: Kami & Katanas (Part One)

Samurai RPGs: Kami & Katanas (Part Two)
Samurai Library: Useful Book for GMs
Bushido: RPGs I Like

Samurai Library: Useful Books for GMs

THE UN-HIDDEN SCROLLS
I declared it samurai week for myself, so here's a reading list of books I've found useful for doing samurai games. I've avoided film and vgs because I'll cover that elsewhere. Feel free to suggest more.

COMICS
Usagi Yojimbo
Stan Sakai: 26 collected volumes; 144 issues
This series is a pleasure to read. Stan Sakai puts a huge amount of research and creativity into every story. The various anthologies offer an easy way to pick up these issues, but individual floppies include Sakai’s comments on characters, situations, and background. The longer story arcs (like Grasscutter) show complex plots which GMs could adapt. It also offers insight into daily life and particular crafts (such as the issue which involved kite-making). Despite the “ronin” centered stories, it remains useful for all kinds of samurai games.

Lone Wolf and Cub
Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima: Twenty-eight volumes
Strangely the comic that doesn’t feature talking rabbits is the less realistic one. Lone Wolf never stops going to 11. Despite a focus ninjas and ninja-like assassins, it remains compelling. L5R’s Kolat seem closer to the assassins in this series than to conventional ninjas. LW&C has visuals, enemies, and situations which ought to inspire. Take a look at some of the crazy combat situations and complications they throw in. Think about how you might model those in a game. The series does slow down from time to time to present a look at life in this period, but that’s fairly rare. Better in manga form than any of the movies or TV shows.

Satsuma Gishiden
Hiroshi Hirata: Three volumes
This epic can be a mess at times. I slows down into some seriously long info dump sequences. But in some ways that makes it perfect for a samurai GM. I’d call this a combination military & action manga.

Ooku: the Inner Chambers
Fumi Yoshinaga: Six volumes (more coming)
I don’t know how to describe this, except that its nothing like the comics mentioned above. Instead of swords and blood, it focuses on court and manners. It is a manga deeply involved with politics- conventional and gender. It presents an alternate historical Japan where a plague has been killing off the males of the country. Those losses have required changes in the structure and society, not least of which is the existence of a female shogun. The manga revolves around life in the court and the tensions and infighting gripping those who serve it.

FICTION
The Tomoe Gozen Trilogy (Tomoe Gozen; The Golden Naginata; Thousand Shrine Warrior)
Jessica Amanda Salmonsen
These books do a brilliant job of mixing samurai culture, magic, and myth. This is a world where anything can happen. It draws on the legendary character of Tomoe Gozen a little but moves well past that. The books present a clash between the Shinto and Buddhist conceptions of hell and magic worth reading. Gender politics take up some space in the book, but mostly it concerns itself with a powerful heroine facing obstacles mundane and mystical.

Sano Ichiro Mysteries
Laura Joh Rowland: fifteen volumes
I’m kind of a snob when it comes to mystery fiction. More that I have a few genres I really like and most others don’t grab me. I really like historical mysteries for periods I’m interested in (like Ancient Rome). A good detective story takes you through the background and setting in depth. It offers a tour because it has to play fair with you. The Sano Ichiro mysteries take place in late 17th century Japan. And man they can be a slog to get through. I’ve read about a half-dozen of these and I don’t think I’ve ever walked away thinking: “That was a good read.” But that being said- the novels are full of plots, characters, and details worth stealing. The “Magistrate” campaign is a classic form for L5R and other samurai games. You can easily rework many of these stories for your party (assuming they haven’t read them). They helped me develop a couple of nice plot arcs for my Ryoko Owari game. Think of these like junk food and filler, but take notes while you’re reading. Another historical Japan mystery series is I.J. Parker’s Sugawara Akitada books. I’ll have to confess that I couldn’t even get through the first one. They may get better, but I haven’t yet gotten my second wind.

The Scorpion: Clan War First Scroll
Stephen D. Sullivan
I don’t like game fiction, and I got burnt in the early days by gaming novels so I’ve avoided them. However I like the L5R setting so I gave these a try. This first volume works if you’re an L5R fan. It actually manages to hit the role that the Scorpion have to serve within Rokugan. It takes a couple of liberties, but they work in the story. I enjoyed it and felt like the series has real potential. Then I read a couple more and they were really bad. In particular the second volume, The Unicorn, is absolutely terrible. But this first one is good, so that counts for something, right?

NON-FICTION
Everyday Life in Traditional Japan
Charles J. Dunn
This is a fun little book available in a couple of different printings. If you’re hunting for a good book to add details to your samurai game, start here. Dunn covers each of the different classes in depth and then spends some time looking at life in traditional Edo. Really great resource to help a GM paint a picture. You’ll probably recognize a lot of the ideas from here reworked in various games.

Giving Up the Gun: Japan's Reversion to the Sword, 1543-1879
Noel Perrin
It may seem like an off choice given that most samurai games move black-powder to the sidelines. But Perrin’s book examines the culture and control which allowed them to turn their back on a technological innovation. The author examines the stated reasons and advances a few theories about the how and why of it. The book gives insight into the power of symbols and the means by which the powerful maintain order in a society like this.

A History of Japan, 1334-1615
George Sansom
There are a number of good and solid histories of Japan. This one’s pretty classic. He gives a solid academic overview of this vital period in Japanese history. There’s more focus on events and higher level concerns (politics, wars, foreign relations) than cultural issues and details. Still it gives a good sense of the shifting nature of the samurai class and how they exerted control.

The World of the Shining Prince
Ivan Morris
This is a great cultural history, dealing with 10th-11th century Court life. It use The Tale of Genji as its centerpoint, commenting on details from it and illuminating that world. Fun and readable. You know it is a great book when you see passages from it plagiarized wholesale in various samurai rpg products.

Religion in Japanese History
Joseph Kitagawa
A little dry and academic, but covering a topic worth learning about. The first half of the book covers “religion” in the samurai period. It focuses on high level issues (doctrine, control, social movements) over what the faith looked like on the ground. Still if you’re considering having such faiths play a role in your campaign, it presents a good starting overview.

The Samurai Film: Expanded and Revised Edition
Alain Silver
This gives a great history and overview of the genre, pointing out films you may want to track down. Silver has chapters focusing on the work of Akira Kurosawa and Hideo Gosha. Other chapters examine particular genre elements and how samurai have impacted non-Japanese cinema. He also provides a decent filmography. Well-illustrated, I recommend it as a primer if you’re going to start devouring these films.

Lafcadio Hearn and Stephen Turnbull: I won’t go into this, but you’ll probably find lots by these authors- much of it highly useful. Turnbull in particular is an industry. That’s both good and bad. His stuff always has lots of great material in it, but if you read enough of him you’ll end up going over the same research several times.

SAMURAI WEEK

Samurai RPGs: Kami & Katanas (Part One)

Samurai RPGs: Kami & Katanas (Part Two)
Samurai Library: Useful Book for GMs
Bushido: RPGs I Like