Post/Author/DateTime	Post
swanyusd 08-24-07, 09:01 PM	Hi all. I just had a question. I have never played in an OA game, nor have DM'd one, but I've read numerous Rokugan novels, and own many of the books, if only for personal interest. I would eventually like to start up a game, but there's one problem. It seems the daimyo runs the show. How is it possible to give the freedom players (as adventurers) want without railroading them through the plot ala the daimyo? Even though this may not happen throughout, it must happen eventually that a sensei or some NPC guide them through the world via missions and insight. How can this be overcome so as not to make my players angry? I really would like some specifics here, as I can't wrap my mind around it. Thanks in advance to all that positively respond to this. -Swany
Lazlo_Toth 08-24-07, 10:58 PM	Whenever I ran an L5R game, as a Daimyo (or Emerald Champion or whoever), I would assign the players a mission but give them pretty much free reign on how they complete it. The players understood they had a guy they worked for and it worked ok for my group. If your group doesn't handle authority well, you will need to find a way for a group of disparate adventurers together and work together in Rokugan (if that's the setting you're using). They could be a group of ronin who find their own adventures (and own difficulties with lack of resources)... They could be all from the same clan (or Emerald Magistrates), working as troubleshooters with predefined authority and power from their Daimyo without necessarily being assigned specific missions from said Daimyo. Depending on the era, they could be working for the Shogun (Kaneka), the Emperor directly, or possibly even someone like the Kolat. It depends a lot on what you want to do for a story and how close to canon you wish to stick to the as written storyline.
swanyusd 08-25-07, 01:22 PM	I sorta figured that would be the case, but wanted to try and get the feel of Rokugan without having the mission-based feel to it. My players get sort of bored with missions, so I wanted to avoid that. Here are some things I had in mind. I was going to use the seasons to full effect. For example, I would start in the spring, with any samurai in the group going through gempukku, or at least one of them doing so. Then, the group heads out with a patrol, and have various things happen. Ninja attacking the party in the night, perhaps a series of skirmishes with another clan, even monsters afoot. This brings in the various parts of the setting, like clans, ninja, and demons. These types of things could happen from spring->autumn, then the PCs head home for winter court (or go elsewhere). This is where the fun really starts IMO, and the trickiest part to RP. I would have anything that happened during the patrol season as fair game in court, and make sure all of it was somehow connected. It would be up the PCs to figure out the riddles of intrigue, and keep the clans ahead. Usually these types of things are not end of the world or clan type events, but mostly things that lead to the strengthening or weakening of the clan, which could lead to more dangerous or less dangerous battles in the future. I think the first year would probably take about 2 months to get through, and then the PCs would be much more on their own. Has anyone run a Rokugan game, or another similar setting? How did you go about it? -Swany
cvla Wolf 08-25-07, 05:40 PM	i started up a Rokugan game allowing to my player to choose freely amongst the various clan: the first party was composed by a Scorpion ninja, a Scorpion, a Dragon samurai, a Crane samurai, a Crab shukenja and an heimin inkyo; all the PC started at 1st level, so it was quite difficult to adhere to the particular "flavour" of the Rokugan setting: why so many member of various and hostiles Clan should work together? why a Clan should allow to an inexperienced character to wander all over the Empire? It was quite the typical D&D adventure, where a fighter, a wizard, a clerica and a rogue meet in an inn and decide to adventuring together... So we decided to choose the characters amongst few clan who was allied or neutral and the current party is composed by a Crab samurai, a Crab sohei, a Ratling fighter and a Phoenix shugenja; recently a new character has been added: a Naga fighter, who has just awaken and doesn't know a word of the Rokugan Common. I'm curious to see how the Ratling and the Naga will interact... Now it is a lot easier to manage the plot, since the PC can work together by the order of a daimyo or merely to serve their Clan.
Ranger REG 08-26-07, 02:11 AM	Hi all. I just had a question. I have never played in an OA game, nor have DM'd one, but I've read numerous Rokugan novels, and own many of the books, if only for personal interest. I would eventually like to start up a game, but there's one problem. It seems the daimyo runs the show. The Eastern daimyo is no different than a Western king, and I have run and played in campaign where we do get to have an audience with such an overlord to swear fealty as vassals. How is it possible to give the freedom players (as adventurers) want without railroading them through the plot ala the daimyo? Unless the daimyo wishes to accompany the PC party and micromanage everything they do during the course of the adventure, I don't think that such an individual would waste his time "babysitting" the PCs when he has a realm to run. As with every leaders, a daimyo would delegate his manpower resource as he sees fit to keep his realm and his clan in check. The daimyo will offer the party a mission and they must dutifully complete it, without losing face or dishonoring the daimyo. Even though this may not happen throughout, it must happen eventually that a sensei or some NPC guide them through the world via missions and insight. How can this be overcome so as not to make my players angry? Well, the daimyo may not always keep the party busy. I'm certain he would give them a period of rest. Remember, if your party is of low rank within the clan, you'd do everything to promote yourself as well as your family in higher standing. The higher your rank within your clan the more privileges and freedom you're allowed, so long you keep up your responsibility to your clan.
Cailte 08-26-07, 08:14 AM	There are so, so very many ways to approach games in Rokugan. However as a good rule of thumb the first thing to remember is that Rokugan as a DnD setting is influenced by the Legend of the Five Rings RPG - this means levels 1-4 are the "starting levels" the next 4 are the "tested levels" the next 4 are the "valued levels" the next 4 are the "hero" levels and the last 4 (assuming you cap at 20) are the "authority" levels. Because of the social stratification of Rokugan at starting levels you probably get orders from your Daimyo indirectly - letters that are given to you saying "go here and do this" that sort of thing. At Tested you probably get orders from your Daimyo's hatamoto or other equivalent figure and maybe directly from your Daimyo. At the valued levels you definately get orders direct from your Daimyo and possibly even directly from his superior. At hero you start getting jobs from the Clan Champions via their hatamaotos and would be invited to their court and so on. Your original daimyo is now on equal or or possibly lower social standing than you. Even Emerald Magistrates have to be careful about upsetting you an so on. At Authority your Clan Champion is asking you to do things personally etc. Your former Daimyo now takes your orders and so on. During the 4 Winds era your PCs may get involved directly with them. If there is an Emperor then he could be inviting the PCs to the Imperial Court and giving them orders. Now here is the trick - even at "level 1" you are trusted to look to your Clan's interest. You are a Samurai in the service of your Clan (even if your character class isn't Samurai) so PCs can get all sorts of things to do and be given great lattitude. Yes this is the advantage of being in a Clan - they trust you, they will equip you and so on. Serve your Clan well and you get "loot" and castles (and spouses to run them) and so on. It s big mindset change from the typical DnD kill the monster take the treasure - reinforced by the only thing its acceptable to do with a corpse is cut its head off for a bundori (trophy proving you killed it) which is only done for the most notable foes. But for some actual ideas. Take a look at the Topaz Championship module for the L5R RPG which you can freely DL from the AEG site - it should be easy enough to convert it to d20. All the competitiors are basically 1st level so no big deal. This is a great "introduction to Rokugan" module and lets players learn salient points about the setting, develop their characters a bit, and even make some enemies and friends. From there, there are several routes to explore depending on your party mix. However your idea of the "patrol" can possibly best be accomplished by the "Imperial Cartographer Campaign" The PCs are tasked with either guarding an Imperial Cartographer as he travels through the less hospitable regions of Rokugan or given the job of maping such an area themselves because an actual cartographer is not available. (As a note a recent storyline development will likely see the Crab reclaim the Hiruma lands in the Shadowlands - so jade not needed to explore them but they will need to be mapped...and wander to far "off the map" and jade is needed because you are in the Shadowlands.) The PCs then can return back for Winter Court and have to try and explain things like what happened to the Cartographer (if they loose him which is easy enough to arrange if he turns out to be a Maho Tsukai for example...) and or why their map differs from the official map. (Maps are approved by the Emperor and thus are right, regardless of any errors they contain.) Other takes on the "patrol" include - Clan Magistrates PCs are given a job of travelling a region and dealing with matters of Clan law in that region (works for single Clan parties). - Emerald Magistrates (better for 5-8th level minimum PCs) same as Clan Magistrates but they are enforcing the Emperor's Laws directly and have more authority. - Imperial Legions - PCs are sent by their Clan to "fill the Ranks" of a Legion (there are a lot of them at the time of the OA book) and are then sent on a patrol to "secure peace in the Empire". This is a military patrol rather than a "police patrol" that the prior two ideas are. Great for putting PCs in all sorts of diverse places across the Empire with legitimate reason. The Mantis Clan also offers some cool stuff with their quasi-pirate (or not so quasi) approach to things. This lets PCs have a ship, with which they are expected to do certain things but also have a lot more freedom to roam about as well. PCs could be from any Clan ("Hostages") or even Ronin (Scapegoats) or Ratlings (the nezumi apparently make good sailors). Further this thread (http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=13670) on the AEG forums could give you a lot of ideas for adventures. Have fun. :)
Rogue Elendae 08-26-07, 05:31 PM	I personally prefer to keep my use of Rokugan to L5R's mechanics (tried OA, just didn't really care for it), but I'll kick my two cents in as for how to avoid a potential railroad. In my usual L5R game, since I'm at university with my BF (our group's usual DM when we're home), it's just two people...a GM and a player...so this might not be a good example of how things might work. However, we have both run each other through a fairly successful scenario in which there was a fairly minimal amount of railroading. I'll give you the one he put my Mantis clan character (a Tsuruchi family Bounty Hunter...essentially, a light-armored archer bushi/warrior) through. Oh, and this scenario is up on the AEG L5R message boards, if you want to look for it, I believe. I think they call the section for the adventure ideas "Challenge, Focus, Strike!" like the way a duel works in the CCG... My character was the yojimbo (bodyguard) for another member of the Mantis clan, a bushi from the Yoritomo family. We'd just left from the ending of Winter Court, and ended up caught in the rain and taking shelter in a small inn run by a woman and her family. There were multiple other bushi and courtiers from various clans taking refuge there as well, until the weather cleared (the majority of them were NPCs based around our friends, but in particular we had a Crab bushi, a Crane courtier and her yojimbo, a Scorpion courtier and yojmbo, a Unicorn bushi, and a Hare bushi), with a Lion bushi coming in behind us. There was only one large table for guests to occupy for supper, which leads to some tension...especially when the Lion bushi starts making a jerk of himself, taking the proverbial "lion's share" (pun not intended) of the meal and refusing to pass serving plates down, etc. That night, there's a bit of a strange ruckus in the main room and the Lion is found dead...every NPC immediately jumping to blame one another. And then, in the midst of all of the commotion, the "corpse" disappears... In the end, it turns out that the Lion bushi was a sort of shinobi that had a talent for shapeshifting and was capable of faking death. Its purpose was largely to sow dissent among the various clan representatives present at the inn, particularly with such volatile elements as the Crab, Crane, and Scorpion about, never mind the Unicorn...and there's not a trace of the Daimyo, Shogun, or Emperor's influence involved in it. In the end, I kind of think of this like a D&D game, though often without any need for combat situations, and a high tendency toward intrigue. The closest we came in that was when the Crab NPC decided to take matters into his own hands and flush the killer out by violence, forcing the Scorpion yojimbo to have to protect his mistress and nearly get smashed to a pulp by the Crab's tetsubo. I believe that instance had my character threatening them both that she'd shoot them down if it was necessary, but no real combat ever came of it. So, I'd suggest thinking of situations that put groups of various clans together in a situation, and then doing something that might set off some proverbial fireworks if the PCs don't act. Or, you could always set them against Shadowlands creatures, if you want to have a more definite enemy (we did that, too...with a Mahou-Tsukai--a blood-magic user--disguised as a statue seller, sending Oni of various kinds through the statues into various households in the city during a festival). It doesn't take a Daimyo sending the PCs into the situation unless you want it to...the easiest way I can see to avoid a railroad due to an overlord figure sending them into the situation is to have the PCs there on other business, and getting caught up in the rest of the events, like my Mantis in the inn, or the city festival with the Oni. They're not there because they were sent there to deal with these situations, they're there because it's shelter from a storm, or a moment of fun. Then, things hit the fan.
Ranger REG 08-27-07, 02:51 AM	Honestly, I don't understand how someone whom you swear fealty to sending you on an assignment is considered railroading? It's what samurai do: to serve their masters. If you don't want to serve, then be a ronin. :bored:
swanyusd 08-27-07, 01:33 PM	Well then that begs the questions, would may players prefer to be ronin or samurai. The culture of Rokugan almost requires a bit of railroading due to the nature of fealty. However, the basic "do this" and then have the players decide their fate during the doing is what I'm getting from everyone. In the yojimbo example, you still were told to be a yojimbo by the daimyo or some overlord-ish character, even if it was backstory. I guess I need to be particularly creative with my storyline then, so as to minimize the NPC controlling of the PCs. Yes, they don't make specific decisions for the PCs, but they do require them to travel to X land and do Y or something similar. Now, that could be the very beginning, and then the rest of the campaign is the PCs tracking down something across the lands, which would allow me to introduce clan culture to the PCs, as well as introduce ninja, shinobi, demons, and other icky bads to them. Does this sound reasonable? -Swany
Ranger REG 08-28-07, 04:11 AM	Well then that begs the questions, would may players prefer to be ronin or samurai. The culture of Rokugan almost requires a bit of railroading due to the nature of fealty. Maybe my definition of railroading differs from yours, but I don't consider this "master orders you to complete a mission" as railroading. I don't see any sense of micromanaging there.