Movie Review: K-Pop Demon Hunters

I spent the past three weeks teaching the English camp I usually teach over summer and winter breaks. Yes, board games were played (Dungeon!, King of Tokyo, Werewolf Dead or Alive, Bang!). And this past week, my class watched K-Pop Demon Hunters for entertainment. 

 I head about the movie several weeks back when it came out on Netflix. Lots of people here in Korea were gushing about it. I'm not a fan of K-Pop, though, so I didn't rush to watch it. But my students wanted to see it (some of them for the Xth time), so we did. 

Parents wondering about Curse Words: None that I remember. There's some cartoon violence, but it's fairly kid friendly and wholesome. 

The movie follows a trio of K-pop singers who also happen to be the Chosen Ones to defeat demons and protect the magical weave of the world, the Honmoon. But Rumi, their leader, has a secret. And Gwi-Ma, the demon lord, has sent a group of demons to form a K-Pop boy band, Saja Boys, to compete with Huntr/x, the protagonists' girl group. 

The animation is for the most part really nicely done 3D animation mostly in a heightened reality style, but in anime fashion occasionally shots or scenes switch to more cartoony "chibi" or "kawaii" style. Yeah, it's Korean, but my language for discussing this stuff comes from Japan. Sue me. 

The story is fine for kids, but honestly, it's pretty cliche and predictable. But it does have compelling character arcs that pay off in the end (though you can see them coming if you've seen other Chosen One stories before), so it's competently scripted and the voice acting is good. And the music...well, if you like K-Pop, you'll like this film's soundtrack. It's not my style. 

I did appreciate the nods to Korean history, culture, myths, and legends. And as someone running an Asian fantasy D&D campaign, there's always something useful to snag from something like this. And some of the ideas in the film have given me ides for my campaign. 

In the end, yeah, it's not a bad movie. Just not my normal cup of tea. If you have kids and want to watch something together, there are worse choices could make. And even if you don't have kids, if you like Asian fantasy, K-Pop, Korean culture in general, and/or Chosen One/Magical Girl media, why not give it a watch? If you aren't into any of that stuff, you probably aren't missing much by skipping it. 

Final verdict: Not bad, but not something I'd likely watch again. 

The Book Arrived

 Yesterday, I received my print copy of Joseph Bloch's Swords of Wuxia for his Adventures Dark & Deep retro-clone system. I've had the PDF since I ordered it, but I've only barely skimmed through it so far. Now that I've got the physical book in hand, I intend to dive into it in detail. I really prefer printed matter over screen reading. However, I don't have time to get into it today or even over the weekend. So a review of the content will have to wait. Oh, and if you didn't know, this is Joe's attempt to re-imagine what the old OA book would have looked like if it had take inspiration from Chinese myth and cinema instead of mostly Japanese inspirations.

I will say for now, that this book is well designed. It's got that orange spine that makes it look pretty good alongside the later printings of 1E books. It's a bit darker, but all of my older books are faded to differing degrees so it doesn't look out of place. The print size is a little different, though, with Swords of Wuxia being just a tad taller than the old TSR books. The cover is a nice painting of Sun Wu Kong (the Monkey King), looking like he's about to spring into action to beat down some demon or other. The back cover is text only, with a gradated turquoise (darker at the top, lighter at the bottom) background, similar to the trade dress of the old books. 

The interior is nice and cleanly laid out, with two column text and a sans serif font (Futura like the originals, I assume), and is easy to read. The book contains a lot of tables, and most alternate between three lines unshaded, three lines shaded. At least one table contains quite a bit of information in each cell, so alternate lines are shaded. The interior illustrations are all black and white, but look pretty good. There's a big list of artists, so there are quite a range of styles, some simple line art, some more detailed, a few just silhouettes. I don't find the mix of art styles jarring, but art is always subjective. Most of it looks good, in my opinion. 

The book contains races (two types of human, two demi-humans), three completely new classes plus extensive notes and conversions for all the other classes in Adventures Dark & Deep. There are rules for combat and martial arts, for creating families, Asian-style societies and organizations, and lists of spells and equipment, of course. There are campaign guidelines including wuxing (Taoist 5 elements) elemental planes. There are also lists of magic items and monsters. All this takes us up to page 128. Beyond that, there are some very extensive random encounter tables. Finally, there are some tables for weapons vs armor and the like if you use those rules in your AD&D games, and some inspirational sources. 

I'm happy to see that a lot of the inspirational sources are not only things I've read or viewed, but also listed in Flying Swordsmen. There are a few I'm unfamiliar with, which is always nice. New things to check out! 

So that's my initial impression (unboxing) review. After I've had some time to read through it, I'll of course provide more detailed thoughts, and how I think it compares to my own ideas in Flying Swordsmen and TS&R Jade (maybe Chanbara, too!).

Serendipitous Afternoon

I had my first free afternoon in quite a while. Classes are finished, grading is finished, papers are at the journals. Plus, this morning, we made food to take to my son's school for "international lunch" (we made Kraft mac-n-cheese, plus homemade taco salad). So I didn't go into the office. 

Instead, I decided to sit down and work on my TS&R Jade campaign notes, fleshing out a few more areas to explore. At the same time, my wife decided to watch a show she'd heard good reviews of on Netflix...and I ended up watching it, too! 

I did get some work done on the campaign. Fleshed out the locations and residents of a yokai village near the home town, complete with a threat that the PCs may choose to deal with if they visit that village. Also rolled up a few more random henchmen to replace the ones slain by the evil Coiled Serpent martial arts acolyte the party faced last session.

But mostly, I was watching the show. The English title is Alchemy of Souls (환혼 in Korean). It's a pure fantasy, set in a fictional kingdom of Daeho (Great Lake), where four families of mages run things, although there is also a king. 

In the prologue, the king is sick, and asks one of the mages if he could transfer his soul to a healthy, younger body. The mage is reluctant, but agrees. Somehow, the king ends up stealing the mage's body, and then when the mage's son is born soon after, puts a spell on him to keep him from using magic, and forbidding anyone to teach his son magic. 

20 years later, the son is grown up and on his 12th magic teacher, but still failing (because they won't actually teach him). At the same time, an assassin is trying to kill the (evil king) mage father. She fails, and escapes, but is wounded. She transfers her soul into a blind girl who is about to be sold to a brothel. The mage gets her body (and sword). 

Although she possessed a blind girl, the assassin can see in the new body. She escapes and runs into the son. Somehow, he helps her escape the brothel, by claiming she's his new servant. They go back to the fortress of the mage, but it is attacked by the people who hired Naksu (the assassin) and they steal her body and sword, which she needs as the blind girl's body (her name is Mu-deok) is too weak to perform magic. 

Anyway, that's a brief synopsis of episode 1. We watched part of the second episode as well. I haven't seen a lot of Korean fantasy works before, so this is pretty fun for me. The show uses CGI for the magical effects. Besides soul swapping, there are magical blasts from swords, ice arrows, swirling wind/water attacks, a summoned dog spirit that can sniff out evil spirits, petrification, and some other cool stuff. 

It's a Korean drama, so of course there's also the soap opera melodrama. The four mage houses each have a young heir, each representing one season. The "spring" heir is female, and formerly engaged to the "winter" heir, the son whose magic ability was blocked. The "summer" heir is the winter heir's best friend and seems like a bit of a goofball. The "fall" heir seems to have had some relationship with the assassin Naksu before she went bad...but since her soul is in a different body, he doesn't recognize her. 

And "winter" wants the assassin to unlock his magical abilities since no one else will. So there's the comedy aspect of her playing as his servant when others are around, but him being her underling when they're in private. Maybe a bit of romance brewing between them, as well. 

I have no idea if it's available on Netflix outside of Korea, but if it is, and you're looking for some Asian fantasy inspiration, I can recommend the first 1.5 episodes at least! Season 1 has 20 episodes, and season 2 is broadcasting now on Korean TV.

Working on the New Campaign

Haven't been blogging much lately because I'm prepping for the new campaign. I'm slowly building up the personalities, factions, and services available in the home town. I finished the third level map for the local "micro mega" dungeon. Three sprawling levels, lots of access points between the levels, and several key locations on each level. Stocking might take a while, but with the map done, that's half the battle. 

I've got several micro dungeons and challenges/rivalries/factional moves (some recycled from previous games, some new). Have to flesh out a few more, but I've got enough done, or nearly done, that I will feel comfortable starting the campaign in September. 

Of course, I'll be working at an elementary school English camp the next two weeks, so not much time to prep during those. They're pretty intense, and I doubt I'll get much work done on this campaign during the camp period. But I think I have enough in place to start. 

Also, my younger son made his character, a cat hengeyokai fighter. My older son will probably roll up a PC this weekend. I've got four or five more players lined up. 

The only problem is that this week, I've been looking at Southeast Asian folklore/mythology a bit, and finding lots of cool ideas for monsters from Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines that I'd like to add. Since I've already got the monsters & treasure book done and mostly formatted, so maybe I'll have to make a supplement already to add more monsters! 

Update: My older boy made his PC this evening. Another fighter, but a human this time, named Shi Jinping (ha ha)*. He's got lamellar armor, a heavy crossbow, a straight sword, and a backpack. He says he wants to take the game more seriously this time, but then starts drawing a picture of Winnie the Pooh in lamellar on his sheet. :D 

Son #2 doesn't want to have the same sort of sword, so says he wants to switch to a katana. He's got the cash, so that's no problem. 

*I told him it's spelled Xi, but he decided to keep this spelling.

Moving in a New Direction

My plans to run a play-by-post Gamma World game are on hold right now, as is my live D&D West Marches game. I've been running the West Marches for about 4 years now, and I have enjoyed it, but just need a bit of a break. Also, I'm seeing now, as the PCs inch closer to Name Level, some of the cracks in the system. 

The original West Marches was for 3E, an edition that supposed the adventure life cycle to be: explore dungeons, fight monsters, and collect treasures until you reach 20th level, then go on EPIC!!! adventures across the multiverse or something (never got the Epic Level Handbook, never even got close to those levels in my games). So the system had explore/fight/loot baked in to the design from level 1 through 20. 

BECMI, and AD&D, the two published editions I crib the most from for my home game, both have a different expectation. Explore dungeons, fight monsters, loot treasures at low levels. Mix dungeon exploration with wilderness exploration at medium levels. Become a ruler at high levels and get involved with political stuff. Go on planar adventures and epic quests at very high levels. 

I'm getting close to the point in the campaign where in a normal game, players would be planning on where to set up their baronies and whatnot, dealing with the local power structures to make alliances, stuff like that. But West Marches gaming is premised on just continuing to explore the wilderness, and the players in my campaign have only explored about half of my map, maybe a bit less than half. And the feeling that the deeper campaign (which Tao of D&D, and recently BX Blackrazor often post about) isn't really a West Marches thing. 

So I'm going to retool my ideas for an East Marches module to release to the public to go along with Treasures, Serpents, and Ruins: Jade (yeah, I'm renaming that as well, and given enough time, it might end up just as Jade). Instead, I'll keep the ideas for adventure sites but instead of scattering them around an unexplored wilderness, they'll be scattered around a map with various political factions and established towns and cities. 

Most of the Asian fantasy media that inspires me requires civilization. I think there is room for an Asian fantasy wilderness exploration game (Journey to the West/The Monkey King being one example), but not one that's expected to last from levels 1 through 12+. 

When I was in Japan, I would often watch a jidai-geki called Abarenbo Shogun. In it, Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune would disguise himself as a low ranking samurai and wander around Edo (Tokyo) looking for trouble. 

Two other shows, Mito Komon and Sanbiki ga Kiru (Three for the Kill), were about the hero(s) wandering from town to town, solving problems of the week in each location. A lot like American shows of the 80s like Knight Rider or The A-Team. 

Chinese novels like Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh are all about political power struggles. 

I want competing feudal warlords. Scheming Civil and Military bureaucrats. Peasant rebellions and tongs/yakuza gangs and marital arts societies. And some strange unexplored lands as well. 

So, time to make a new map, pull ideas from previous campaigns and a few new ones I've had over the years, and also the ideas for dungeons and other points of interest I developed for East Marches, and work them into a new campaign that has potential not just for typical D&D murder-hoboing done Asian style, but also all that other good stuff mentioned above.

 I think the potential for richer gaming will be there. 

Until then, I've got another Star Wars d6 adventure to prep based on the events of the previous session.

Dokkaebi

 Yesterday, Nathan Irving posted that he'd done a bit of simple research on dokkaebi because of my post, and made some interesting suggestions on how to modify the class. 

This morning, I randomly found one of my son's books of Korean folklore about a dokkaebi on the floor (along with a few other books). So, even though my Korean isn't great, I read it to him and he translated a couple of points I didn't understand (Korean is very easy to read, even if you don't know what you're reading). 

The story is about two brothers. The older is lazy, the younger one hard working. The older brother sends the younger to the mountain to collect sticks and bring back some food. Younger brother (no names given) finds some sesame nuts and collects them along with the sticks. But he gets lost, it gets dark, he finds a run-down old house to spend the night. But he hears a ruckus outside, and hides in a cupboard just before a group of dokkaebi enter. They smash their spiked clubs (bangmangi) on the ground and both food and treasure appear. They begin to feast. The brother is hungry, so cracks a sesame nut. The cracking sound is so loud, the dokkaebi think it's the roof cracking and about to fall in, so they run away. Brother takes the treasure and one of the bangmangi that was dropped, and heads home in the morning. 

The dokkaebi feast

Older brother hears this and decides to get off his lazy butt and copy his little brother's good luck. He doesn't collect wood, just sesame nuts, then hides in the shack. The dokkaebi come back, looking for the missing bangmangi. Older brother starts cracking sesame nuts to scare them away, but they realize it's just a human hiding, pull him out, and beat him up for stealing the club. He comes home, having learned his lesson, and the brothers use the treasure to buy a new, bigger home. And older brother becomes hard working. 

It's a fairly typical instructive folktale for children. And the dokkaebi in it are rowdy party dudes, but also perform the function of teaching the lazy older brother his lesson. 

One of the most famous Korean folk tales is that of brothers Heungbu and Nolbu (I mentioned this in my reply to Nathan). Heungbu is kind and hard working, but poor. Nolbu is fat and lazy, but rich. Nolbu is so stingy he won't even share any rice with his younger brother's family. 

Heungbu sees a swallow with a broken leg and nurses it back to health. The swallow may or may not be a spirit creature, but anyway it returns and blesses his house by laying magical eggs. When Heungbu opens the eggs, treasure spills out. 

Nolbu hears about this and decides he wants some free money, too. He dresses like a snake to scare a swallow into falling and breaking its leg. Then throwing off the disguise, he nurses the swallow just like Heungbu did. But the bird is not fooled. It does return and lays eggs. But when Nolbu opens them, dokkaebi appear and start trashing his house. Then another egg breaks and floods the house with shit. Nolbu learns his lesson when Heungbu gives up some of his treasure to help Nolbu rebuild. 

The flood of poop, and dokkaebi

Again, a folk tale meant as instructive for children. And who doesn't love the idea of the rich, greedy, lazy guy getting his stuff ruined by a flood of diarrhea? Anyway, this is where my conception of dokkaebi as dispensers of divine justice comes from. 

I just found a third book (my wife, like many Korean women, buys these sets of books from publishers, and most kids never really read all of them) with another dokkaebi story. I should read it a bit more closely (or with my son so he can fill in the gaps), but it seems like a spirit of a mountain is bothered by a bunch of rowdy dokkaebi, and chases them off. Then at the end of the book he gets taught a lesson by a witch (or group of witches? She seems to duplicate in the pictures). Here's a picture from the beginning of the story. 

I've made a quick revision of my dokkaebi class. Now they're a bit more trickster-ish, although still primarily a Fighter-type class. And they have some small ability to create items (but not treasure, obviously) when needed, a few times per day. Also some stealth (Halfling hide ability transfers nicely to them to mimic the invisibility caps of folklore). And I kept two "clerical" abilities from before. One is the ability to detect evil at will (which they had before), but only on a 1-2/d6 roll. The other is the ability to summon a spirit companion (Nate makes good use of the Channel Spirit spell to have Finn, his Dokkaebi Mudang (shaman) PC, summon Fang, his "brother" to help fight).

Demi-Humans In Race-as-Class TSR East

 I'm still not 100% sure that I want to go back to demi-human classes, at least not for my main West Marches game (I and the players are pretty happy with separate race and class there), but if I ever wrap up West Marches and start East Marches (or start running it as a side campaign), I am leaning toward that, as discussed in my previous post on classes for a pseudo-combined Flying Swordsmen/Chanbara type game. 

The problem I'm having is that I need to pare down the list of demi-humans. Sticking to core rule books, not supplements, BX/BECMI has just three. AD&D has six. AD&D OA has three, but one of them is really a dozen different types, and another has three subtypes. 3E OA has an additional two or three races added on to AD&D's OA races. 5E has the AD&D races plus two more. But AD&D, both versions of OA, and 5E all have separate race and class. So the precedent is for only a few demi-humans in a race-as-class set-up. Sure, I could have more, but then if there are more demi-human classes than human only classes, will it really be a humanocentric campaign? Probably not. 

So, my options, from 1E OA, 3E OA, Chanbara, and my TSR-East rules are: 

Dokkaebi (Korean version of Japanese oni, more or less), big scary looking guys who are sometimes mischievous goblins and sometimes punishers of the wicked. 6-7' tall. Red, blue or yellow skin. Wild hair. Tusks and horns. [TSR-East]

Gumiho (Korean fox fairies, also spelled kumiho, equivalent to Japanese kitsune), tricky creatures with lots of magical powers, who most often are after human souls in the legends, but occasionally are helpful. 4' tall. Red or white fur, but able to transform into human form. Nine tails at full power (more tails = more magic in the legends, and the name is literally "nine tailed fox" as just regular fox is "yeou"). [Chanbara, TSR-East]

Hengeyokai (Japanese for transforming spirit/fairy), animal shapeshifters in OA, but in Japanese legend could be anything from a rock to an animal to a household tool! Gumiho and Tanuki would actually fall under this race if I added them in. OA has the forms they transform into as one of a dozen animal options (mammals, birds, fish), a human form, and a hybrid form. If I add them in, then I'd probably limit the number of forms to animal and hybrid only, and have fewer options for animal type. [1E OA, 3E OA, TSR-East]

Kappa (Japanese water imps), small water creatures resembling a cross between a turtle, frog, and monkey. They like wrestling, cucumbers, and sucking the souls of drowning humans from their buttholes in the legends. 3-4' tall. Green skin. Shells on their backs. The tops of their skulls are concave, and hold magical water that gives them strength in the legends. [Chanbara]

Koropokuru (Ainu fair folk), dwarves. 1E OA has them as gruff barbarians, legends have them as similar to primitive but pastoral gnomes or brownies. 3' tall. Typically tanned skin. Generally good hearted but suspicious. [1E OA, 3E OA, TSR-East]

Naga (Hindu snake-spirits), which are the same name as a monster type, but also pretty much just like yuan-ti. From 3E OA's Rokugan/L5R material, I have no desire to add these guys, but put them on the list for completeness. 10-15' long. Humanoid torso, snake the rest of the way down. [3E OA]

Nezumi (rat-men made up for Rokugan/L5R as far as I can tell), which again I don't feel the need to include these guys, but they appear in one of the sources for this list so here they are. 4' tall. Furry. Stinky. Long tails. Kinda like wererats who can't transform or infect people and not immune to normal weapons. [3E OA]

Shenseng, or Spirit Born (or Spirit Folk in the OA books), which in my estimation should be based on Japanese tales of spirit foundlings like Momotaro, Kaguya-hime, and Kintaro, but are basically half-spirit/half-human "elves" in the OA books. OA has them as bamboo, river, and ocean subtypes. 5-6' tall. Human-like, but prettier. Get benefits from being in the environment of their subtype in OA. Get benefits to interaction/followers in TSR-East.  [1E OA, 3E OA, TSR-East]

Tanuki (Japanese raccoon-dog fairies), are again sometimes tricksters and sometimes protectors/benefactors to humans, depending on the story. Some legends give magical powers to their oversized scrotums, others say they can transform into human form. 3' tall. Raccoon-like fur, dog-like faces (hence the English name). [Chanbara]

Tengu (Japanese crow-men), usually depicted as wild mountain goblins and tricksters in legends, but occasionally legends tell of them training swordsmanship to humans they take a liking to. Kotengu (small tengu) have crow or kite heads and wings, while daitengu (great tengu) have humanoid heads, usually red skinned, with very long noses. 3-4' tall. Feathered bodies with wings and bird heads (or red-skinned and long nosed winged humanoids). [Chanbara, TSR-East]

Vanara (Indian humanoid monkeys), although in myths they are usually described as beast-like, not necessarily monkeys, the most famous mythical vanara is Hanuman, who is always described/depicted as a humanoid monkey. Probably also the inspiration for Son Wukong (Son Goku - yes, this name may be familiar to some of you), the Monkey King of Chinese legendary novel Journey to the West. 4-5' tall. Brown to grayish fur. Prehensile tails. Curious and friendly (at least according to 3E OA). [3E OA, TSR-East]

________________________________

So obviously 11 races in addition to humans is too many, especially when there are only 5 human classes (although with subclasses there are really 16). I already mentioned I'll not be considering the Rokugan races of Nezumi and Naga because they just don't thrill me. So that's down to 9 options unless people in the comments really convince me to keep one or both of these. Also, if I use hengeyokai, again as mentioned above, gumiho and tanuki are already included there so that takes it down to 7. If I don't use hengeyokai, 8 options remain. 

TSR-East already has the Dokkaebi, Gumiho, Koropokuru, Spirit Born, Tengu and Vanara with stats for separate race and class, so it wouldn't be hard to manipulate those into classes, but it's still a few too many options. 

At the playground with my son yesterday, I jotted down an idea to cut it down to Dokkaebi, Koropokuru, Shenseng (spirit born), and Vanara. That's easily doable, but while I don't want to overdo the demi-humans, I also feel like I'm leaving out some cool options. 

So, I'd like to ask you readers what you think. Which of the races listed above would you consider the top three "must haves" for an Asian fantasy inspired campaign? Or should I just stick to humans only, as in Flying Swordsmen or Chanbara minus the last page?

What does a GM Guide Need?

I've completed my "players book" for Treasures, Serpents, and Ruins - East (and I really need a new name, unless I want to release regular TSR which is just another vanilla D&D retroclone which no one wants or needs...or just call this TSR when I release it). It's 32 pages with absolutely no fluff. I figure with fluff (class descriptions, descriptions of how to make a character, examples of play) it will be in the 42 to 48 page range. For my current purposes, this is enough.

Now I'm putting together a monster book. I've got my monsters from BECMI (minus some that don't seem to fit, modified others - chimera and griffons are part tiger instead of part lion, for example). I've got monsters from Chanbara. I've got monsters from Flying Swordsmen. I've got monsters from OA (minus the overlap among these three sources). I've got monsters that I wanted to add to Chanbara but didn't for space concerns. Not sure how many of this last group I'll actually add, because it's already an awful lot of monsters! BECMI has the Gargantua template, but I'll probably at least want to add a Kaiju template as well. And for eventual release, I'll want to add some introductory text to explain the entries, hit bonuses, calculating XP awards for modified monsters, saving throws, etc.

While I edit together the monster book I'm thinking of what goes in the GM's Guide.

And I had the realization today that I'm a lot like Gygax back at the beginning of the hobby. OD&D didn't have a lot of explanations or contextualization of the rules, because Gygax knew his audience. They were tabletop wargamers like him. They could contextualize just fine. It was only once D&D started to spread out beyond the wargamer market that things like the Basic Sets and AD&D became necessary to spell all this stuff out.

And I'm in a similar situation. I doubt anyone who's purchased Chanbara wasn't already an experienced gamer. Likewise, anyone who would purchase TSR-East from me is also likely to be an experienced gamer. They've got the context. Do I really need to spell it all out for them?

Sure, it can give some insight into how I run my games, and how I expect the moving parts to work together. But if I released a bare-bones GM's Guide, would it be a problem? Do I need to tell you how to create a dungeon or a wilderness? How to prepare interesting NPCs for encounters? Or do I just need to give you the systems, algorithms, and processes you need to run the game all on your own?

Bare Bones: 
Running the Game:
Exploration Turns

• movement
• searching/detection
• adjudicating traps/hazards
• encounters

Encounters

• reaction table
• morale
• interactions
• chases/evasions
• adjudicating special abilities/spells/etc.

Combat

• combat round sequence
• initiative
• morale checks
• adjudicating special attacks/spells/etc.
• death and dying
• healing

Wandering Monster Tables (dungeon/wilderness)
Hirelings and Specialists
Strongholds for High Level Characters
Treasure

• coins
• gems/jewelry/special
• magic items 

That's about all that's really needed, right? I could add more, of course, but that's IMO the bare minimum needed. Anything I'm forgetting that's absolutely vital? Anything above you think I could safely leave out and assume the players will just import systems/procedures from D&D?

Next Year's Project

My West Marches game is going well. I plan to continue it. And I've hinted a few times before about an "East Marches" game. I'm going to try and get this out sometime next year.

I've got the map. I've got an outline structure for writing up the campaign in a way that should be intelligible to anyone other than me (my West Marches notes are pretty sparse, because I only need enough written down to jog my memory of what the encounter, mysterious location, or lair is supposed to be about).

Of course, the map has 748 hexes (with six basic terrain types), and I've got 120 "locations" (in five types) marked on it. And there are eight zones of progressing difficulty.

So to make this happen, I need to have four to six wandering monster tables for each difficulty zone (one for each terrain type in that zone). I need to detail 120 locations that can be discovered/visited. I need to come up with hooks and rumors that will drive exploration. I need more monsters.

I plan to make this fairly generic "old school" but primarily for Chanbara. So I'll use Chanbara monsters, and Flying Swordsmen monsters (that aren't already in Chanbara), and probably 1E OA monsters that aren't in either of those games. And some monsters from BX/BECMI (lots of normal and giant animals, giant insects, and general monsters that might as well be in an Asian fantasy setting as a European one). I'll probably need to include  full stats for the monsters for DM convenience.

Oh yeah, and I'll need to write up the "home base" including several Lieges for Chanbara (or just as patron NPCs for other system games). 

So this will be a pretty big book, actually. I figure the difficulty zones should allow for some overlap, and take characters up to at least "name level" if not higher.

Asian-Inspired Melting Pot Settings

I'm best known in the OSR as the creator of Flying Swordsmen and Chanbara. Or, I should say, people know FS and Chanbara, whether or not they know me. The DM of the PbP AD&D game I'm in was a contributor to Chanbara (he helped edit). He sent me a message the other day that he started working part time in a FLGS and met a guy who has Chanbara. Not sure how the game came up in conversation, but when the dude found out that my DM's name was in the book, he came back and asked the DM to sign it!

Now, that got me thinking of two other projects I've had on my mind for a while. One is revising Flying Swordsmen to be less like Dragon Fist and more like Chanbara. Not sure I'll actually tackle a second edition of FS any time soon, though. Another was an idea to make an Oriental Adventures style supplement for Labyrinth Lord AEC. But I wouldn't want to just clone 1E OA. There were some game design choices I think that would be best avoided there, and it's a bit too heavily Japan-centric.

Which leads me to this. Yesterday (or maybe it was Friday when I started thinking about it) I was considering what sorts of classes would work well for an Asian fantasy-inspired setting. Not "fantasy China" like FS, or "fantasy Japan" like Chanbara. A game that, like normal D&D does for European/Near Eastern fantasy, mixes the best elements for a game together in an "unholy goulash" as James Mal once said.

Today (well, this morning I spent most of the time playing Gauntlet II emulated on my computer until I got bored/controller thumb and quit around level 44) I wrote up eight classes for such a game. I still need to write up the spell lists for the casters, but I've got the classes all lined up from levels 1-15 (to match my current house rules of D&D). I haven't thought of what races to include, but it will probably be a mismash of the original OA, 3E OA, and the optional races in Chanbara.

The classes, and a brief summary of each, are as follows:

Hwarang (Knight): Fantasy Korea needs some love! Historically, hwarang were knights of the Silla kingdom. In this game, they are basically BX/BECMI Dwarves (any weapons, any armor, good saves), but I also gave them the ability to maximize their damage a number of times per day equal to their level (which is from the 1E OA Kensai class). Oh, and a d10 hit die since I use AD&D hit dice for characters in my homebrew. They don't get the dwarf's infravision or detection abilities, of course.

Mudang (Shaman): Again went with the Korean for the name. These guys are based on the Cleric class, but with a few alterations. Their prime requisite is Charisma (since they draw power from spirits/The Spirit Realm). Like Labyrinth Lord, they get spells from level 1. They can use blunt weapons, but only light armor and shields. I tried to simplify the Turn Undead ability, but explaining it makes it sound more complicated. First of all, it also affects evils spirits and demons.
HD less than 1/2 the mudang level: 2d6HD destroyed automatically
HD less than mudang level: 2d6HD flee automatically
HD equal to mudang level: roll 7 on 2d6 to make 2d6HD flee
HD greater to mudang level: roll 9 on 2d6 to make 2d6HD flee
HD greater than double mudang level: roll 11 on 2d6 to make 2d6HD flee

Not sure if this will work out well, since the high level mudang will be able to automatically turn a lot of undead, but then so could the Cleric so we'll see. I may change the 11 to mudang level +4 hit dice.

Ninja (Spy): Instead of basing these guys on the Thief class, I based them on the BX Halfling class. That makes them better in combat, and better at hiding (Halfling hiding is good!), but not able to do all the other thiefy stuff. I took away the Halfling combat bonuses and gave them backstab instead. Along with good noise detection, I threw in detect secret doors, sliding walls, traps, etc. from the BX Dwarf and Elf classes (slightly better odds to detect traps, 1-3/d6). They can use any weapon, but are limited to light and medium armors.

Ronin (Wave Man): Because samurai should be serving their lord, but ronin can go out adventuring any time they like. Based on the Fighter, but I stuck to the BX/BECMI d8 hit die for them. They can use any weapon or armor, but not shields. They get to pick a fighting style that grants +1 damage with a weapon group (swords, spears, bows, axes, bludgeons, chains), with a second style at higher levels, and at even higher levels getting to bump one style up to +2 damage.

Sohei (Warrior-Monk): Again based on the Cleric class, but more martial than the Mudang with a d8 hit die, and slightly slower advancement (1750xp to level 2). They can use any weapon, but only light or medium armor, plus shields. And spells are their only special ability. Their spell list will be a bit more aggressive than the standard Cleric/OA Shukenja spell list.

Wushi (Wizard): Like the Wu Jen of 1E OA, but the name means "magical learned gentleman" where wu jen just means "magic person." Oh, and no wu jen taboos, just the Magic-User with a slightly different spell list. Spellbooks and all.

Xia (Gallant): My take on the wandering do-gooder martial artist type, based on the BX/BECMI Elf class. They can fight (all weapons, light armor only, no shield, and d6 hit dice), and get unarmed damage like a Monk/Mystic. Plus they can cast spells (max at 4th level though). I intend to make the spell list using ideas from the player in my West Marches game who was playing a Muscle Wizard -- spells that would make him better in melee combat. And since it's the wuxia-themed class, flying around on wires and dancing on bamboo branches type spells too.

Yakuza (Gangster): Based on the Thief class, but again moving away from d% specialized skills and instead x/d6 skills. I gave them a find traps 1-4/d6 and a combined disarm traps/open locks of 1-2/d6. They can backstab just like the Thief (and ninja), and at every even level they get a tattoo. I have 20 tattoos that grant various magical effects like bonuses to saving throws, magical resistance, or a 1st level spell effect once per day.

Using this, you could have an East Marches sandbox type game of wandering heroes, or a megadungeon, or whatever. Killing monsters and taking their stuff, Slaughter-Vagabond style, if you like. Or of course getting into the fun politics and urban intrigue/competing martial arts schools, all that jazz.

1E OA has a surprising amount of character options

I am making plans to continue my paper miniatures line with characters for Oriental Adventures.

I made lists of all the race and class combinations. And man, the way the Hengeyokai work, I'm going to have to create a LOT of minis to cover every option!

There are 12 or so animals that are the base form of a hengeyokai, and they have normal human, hybrid and animal forms. I figure for marking their position on a battle mat, the hybrid or animal forms are enough.

There are four classes that Hengeyokai can choose, luckily. Only four. And a few animal types must be evil so can't be Shukenja, and a few must be chaotic, so can't be kensei. None must be lawful, so any Hengeyokai can be a Wu Jen. And Bushi have no alignment restrictions.

I usually do male and female versions of each (the animal form will just get one and you can hand wave any sexual dimorphism in the species). So that's 12 regular animals.

Hybrid forms, however, will require:

24 Bushi (12 male, 12 female)
20 Kensei (10 male, 10 female)
18 Shukenja (9 male, 9 female)
24 Wu Jen (12 male, 12 female)

That's an awful lot of hengeyokai. Especially since for many of them I will need to modify a picture of a human with an animal's head to make it work. There are some public domain pictures of Japanese anthropomorphic animals, but not enough.  Even if I only did one hybrid form of each class for each animal type, it's still 55 total pictures including the animal forms.

And for humans, I was planning to have two of each sex for each of the ten classes. One of each sex for Korobokuru for each of their five classes. And Spirit Folk - luckily I don't think there's that much difference between the three types visually, so just one of each sex for each of their four classes. If I did one for each type of Spirit Folk, that would triple that number.

So if I went whole hog (1 male and female of each class for Hengeyokai hybrids plus animal forms, 2 male and female of each class for Humans, 1 male and female of each class for Korobokuru, and 1 male and female of each class for each type of Spirit Folk), this book would have 172 miniatures in it.

That's a bit of work there. Might take a while. Even if I limit the Hengyeyokai and Spirit Folk, and only provide one male and female each of the human classes, it's still 93 miniature images I need to create.

In the mean time, I listed out the class options of Flying Swordsmen and Chanbara. That's easier to do since everyone's human. A lot of these can do double duty when I get around to the OA set, although I may mix it up a bit to give people more value for their money spent if they buy both. Especially for classes like the samurai where I have tons of pictures that work. Spell-casters and martial artists may get recycled out of necessity, however. We'll see.

I've got all the pictures selected for the Chanbara set. Some are pictures I used in the book, but not all of the book pictures make for a good miniature image. There are two male and two female images for each class/profile in Chanbara. So I should be able to get this book out soon. And I should be looking at the monster lists, too...

Using 5E to run OA themed games

I'm in a discussion on The Piazza forum (slow moving but still part of it) about what parts of 5E would work in an Oriental Adventures style game.

While others were posting about whatever explicitly Asian fantasy bits and bobs there were for 5E (samurai path for Fighters, kensei path for Monks, etc.) I posted my ideas for how to re-fluff the existing PHB classes to fit OA. I'll copy/paste that here for convenience:

Honestly, a lot of the "generic" options are just fine for OA style play. Just looking at the PHB options:

Berserker Barbarian -- works for a Zhang Fei (Three Kingdoms general) style wild and reckless warrior
Totem Warrior Barbarian -- just use more Asian themed animals names instead of the Euro/North American defaults, keep the abilities the same

Valor Bard -- works for a geisha/gisaeng sorceress type
Lore Bard -- wily strategists like Zhuge Liang/Kongming or Sima Yi (again from Three Kingdoms)

Clerics are a bit hard to squeeze in, but a Light or Tempest Cleric could be a Yang-themed magician while a Knowledge or Trickery Cleric could be a Yin magician. War Clerics might be one type of wandering Xia.

Druid -- either type could be an animist shaman: Shinto, Mongolian, etc.

Champion Fighter -- run of the mill samurai or stalwart warriors from other cultures
Battle Master Fighter -- kensei/weapon masters
Eldritch Knight Fighter -- wandering Xia with mystical kung fu

Monk -- the class is already OA themed, any subclass fits

Devotion Paladin -- samurai champions of bushido
Ancients Paladin -- maybe doesn't fit so well
Vengeance Paladin -- a warrior out for revenge against old enemies is a standard plot of many wuxia and manga stories

Hunter Ranger -- also fits really well for a wandering Xia warrior
Beast Master Ranger -- make sure the animal companion is an Asian animal and you're good

Thief Rogue -- a yakuza, ninja, or wandering Xia
Assassin Rogue -- another good choice for a ninja type
Arcane Trickster -- the more mystical ninja, or another wandering Xia type

Draconic Sorcerer -- ancestor is a lung dragon instead of a chromatic/metallic dragon
Wild Magic Sorcerer -- those kooky hermit/immortal magicians with their unreliable magic!

Warlock -- mix and match Patron and Boon to get a Xia warrior type or a crafty Taoist magician type

Wizard -- again any school can work with just a few tweaks to flavor to make a Wu Jen or other OA style magician.

Most of the Backgrounds are generic enough to work as is as well, I'd think.

The idea's been on my mind since then. As others later pointed out, that works for classes, but not really well for races. That's a whole other kettle of fish, but as you could probably guess from both Flying Swordsmen and Chanbara, I'm fine with a 'human only' OA style game. Nothing wrong with the various demi-human races in 1E and 3E OA, but since there aren't any official versions yet, they'd need to be homebrewed which can be tricky/time consuming to get right.

So not only have I been considering how to run a game of OA style fantasy with 5E, I've been considering doing just that. Exactly what I don't need as my players are clamoring for more Chanbara and I've been slow to get that going.

My latest train of thought on the 5E OA topic, though, has been to rework the Backgrounds and leave (as my quoted post above shows) the classes alone. Maybe disallow a few classes or subclasses. But most of the flavor needed could come from slight tweaks/renames of the Backgrounds available. Here's what I'm thinking now (new ideas in blue):

Acolyte: fine as is, change the name if you really want
Chalatan: also fine as is
Criminal: needs two types. Normal criminal (as in the PHB) for people who were arrested and have facial brands/tattoos, and Yakuza for organized gangster/Triad types. Yakuza would get Intimidation and Sleight of Hand for skills. Yakuza would also get an organizational feature similar to the acolyte's, only for their gang.
Entertainer: no mechanical changes, but call it Artist or Geisha or Gisaeng or what have you.
Folk Hero: no changes needed. The name could be changed to Ronin easily, to model all those wandering samurai do-gooders and ne'er-do-wells.
Guild Artisan: no changes mechanically, but make some edits to the list of guilds.
Hermit: no changes needed
Noble: normal nobles are just nobles. Knights (variant) become Samurai.
Outlander: again, not really needed to change this for characters from more barbaric neighboring lands or those who grew up in remote locations. A Foreigner option, for those in the mood to play the gaijin in a strange land would be good. You'd probably want to give two different skills than Animal Handling and Survival, but I'm not sure right now which two would be best.
Sage: Rename this as Scholar. For people who've taken, been studying for, have passed but not taken office, or have failed the Civil Service exams. It's a big deal in Confucian cultures.
Sailor: no real change needed.
Soldier: no real change needed. This should be for rank-and-file troops, mercenaries, or the like though. Officers get their own dealio below.
Urchin: as with many options, no real changes needed. An alternate version for Shinobi would be good, though, replacing Sleight of Hand with either Investigate or Perception.

New Backgrounds:
Civil Official: similar to the Sage but with a special feature more like the Noble. Persuasion and History as skills. Mandarins were the elite class of commoners in China.
Military Official: similar to the Soldier but again with a feature more like the Noble. Athletics and History as skills. This is for military officers, who had to go through an exam process similar to the Civil Officials to gain their posts.

Creating original cultural features in OA settings

A semi-random thought hit me earlier today. Thinking about my original Zhongyang Dalu setting, I was considering ways to merge elements of various Asian cultures (and sometimes non-Asian cultural elements) into original cultures. That's basically what Gygax and Arneson did in their campaigns, just with mostly European historical cultures as the basis of their ideas.

In simpler terms, using discrete cultural elements as LEGO bricks and using them to construct a fantasy culture.

Then, something I'd thought about last year came back to me. In 1E OA (and in the 3E book's setting of Rokugan), social status is defined by the Japanese cultural caste system. Originally Confucian in origin (and possibly being influenced by the Indian caste system despite its differences), you get what I used in Chanbara. Nobles at the top, the "buke" (samurai caste) of warriors next, then commoners (in theory anyway), artisans, merchants (money for nothing [interest/mark-ups on goods] makes them rich but gets them no respect), and untouchables at the very bottom.

But in Korea, while there was a hereditary aristocracy, the Yangban, the real movers and shakers were people who could pass the Civil Service exam (in some eras of Chinese history this is also the case). Bureaucrats, functionaries, auditors, inspectors, governors, tax collectors, historians -- these were the influential members of society in Joseon Korea. Well, them along with the Military Service, which was also exam based.

It didn't matter how low-born you were (again, in theory), if you could pass the Civil or Military Service exam, you were made into an agent of the crown. In practice, low-born members like the Korean hero Yi Sun-shin, the admiral who helped defeat the Japanese invasions in the 16th century, faced discrimination and plotting by officials of aristocratic birth. But social mobility was possible.

I think this sort of social structure might be more conducive to an RPG setting than one where you're pretty much set in your social status at birth. Granted, in Japan's Warring States period, commoners who fought well could be granted samurai status. And in the same era and later in the Edo period after the wars were over, merchants with enough cash could purchase samurai status for themselves or more often for their children.

But in Korea, if you studied hard enough, you could rise easily through the ranks.

So, one thing to think about when designing fantasy OA cultures is to consider the social hierarchies and how people moved (or were prevented from moving) within them. The Mongolians had a more egalitarian society. Anyone who was a good warrior and leader could become khan, and you only remained khan as long as you were militarily successful or politically savvy. I'd need to study up a bit more on Philippine and SE Asian cultures, but I would bet the Thais, Burmese, and others may have had different structures as well.

Of course, in addition to politics and social structure, religion is important. And synchretism is the order of the day. There were many native animist practices in most regions of East Asia. There were Hinduism and Buddhism influences from India. There are Taoism and Confucianism (not originally religions, more just belief systems but made religious over time) from China. There is Bushido (again not really a religion but sometimes treated as one de facto) from Japan and Legalism from China. And in practice, they all blend together to some degree or other.

The Chinese conception of Buddhist Heaven isn't Nirvana, it's basically the Taoist conception of the realm of spirits and immortals, just with Buddha added in as the top boss. Shinto (animism) blends with Buddhism and Confucianism in Japan. In Korea, Buddhism was seen as an unwanted foreign influence by the government, who pushed a version of Neo-Confucianism as the primary philosophy for the people. Christian and Muslim missionaries were in China during the 8th or 9th century, maybe earlier.

Take elements from the above (and other belief systems, or made up elements that don't feel off) in various amounts, mix and match, and voila!

With the social/political system and religion of each culture spelled out, it's just a matter of adding some small, unique touches. And since this is fantasy, with magic and monsters and non-human people, adding in some unique touches helps make them feel different than humans. This is something I tried to do in the old 3E OA Zhongyang Dalu setting of mine, before I started retro-cloning Dragon Fist and needed a world with primarily Chinese influences.

As I said before, in most D&D settings, sometimes there are cultures that are very obviously drawn from one primary real world source -- the Known World setting has a lot of these, but other times the cultures don't handily map to a real world culture. And that 's a great thing for a game.

Asian Hero Archetypes

This morning I took part in a bit of discussion on how to best organize an "oriental adventures" style supplement over at Joseph Bloch's Greyhawk Grognard blog.

That discussion caused me to give thought all day to just what, exactly, represent core hero archetypes or tropes in Asian myth, legend, literature, comics, and modern period cinema (Wuxia, Chanbara, etc.).

Now, I know the CHCs (Confucian Heritage Cultures, China, Korea and Japan) best, so these ideas are more for general East Asia, not so much for Central, South or Southeast Asia, although they may apply there as well. 

This is also more of a first draft thought experiment, so feel free to chime in with thoughts for revisions or improvements, especially any archetypes you think I've missed.  I've only been considering this since this morning, yet it's something that's been rolling around in my head for years in a way.

Hero Archetypes for Asian-Inspired Gaming

Stalwart Warrior - This is the hero who serves some greater power, such as the stereotypical Japanese samurai or Korean hwarang, or many of the heroes of the Chinese Three Kingdoms like Guan Yu and Cao Cao.  Much martial ability, along with a code of conduct and a desire to support the social power structure and advance within it.

Righteous Vagabond - This is the hero who wanders the land, serves no one yet still lives by a strong moral code.  Think Cain from Kung Fu, wandering ronin like Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune's character in Yojimbo and Tsubaki Sanjuro), and most xia in Wuxia movies like Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Driven Martial Artist - This is the hero who dedicates their life to mastering their martial art.  They could be unarmed fighters like most Bruce Lee characters, sword-masters like Musashi Miyamoto (the historical one or the fictionalized one), peerless archers, etc. 

Benevolent Mendicant - This is the hero who wanders the land seeking to help all those in need, and need not be a religious figure, although many are.  They may have some martial prowess, but their primary aptitude is empathy and an ability to bring people together.  Song Jiang, the main leader of the bandits in Outlaws of the Marsh fits this type, as do many wandering Buddhist priests or monks in Japanese fiction.

Wily Strategist - This is the hero who always has a plan to defeat any problems that beset them.  Master tacticians like Zhuge "Kongming" Liang and Shima Yi in Three Kingdoms fit this mold, but many ninja heroes such as the historical Hattori Hanzo or Rikimaru and Ayame from the Tenchu video games could also be considered as well. 

Mystical Trickster - This is the hero who uses magical powers to overcome challenges, often in creative ways.  Monkey/Sun Wukong in Journey to the West is the prototype of the archetype, but magical powered ninja like the Eight Demons of Kimon in Ninja Scroll or Ryu Hayabusa of the video game Ninja Gaiden also fit.

Learned Sorcerer - This is the hero who has a studied esoteric texts, able to manipulate magic, or spirit companions, to overcome problems.  They may have studied rigorously to gain their powers, such as the One-Eyebrow Priest of the Mr. Vampire movie series, or the Korean Jeon Woochi, the Taoist Magician from the film of the same name are examples.

Orphaned Changeling - This is the hero who was born with innate magical powers, or discovered and raised by humans as one of them, when in actuality the hero is from the Spirit World.  Japanese fairy tale heroes like Momotaro, Kaguya-hime, and Kintaro are examples of this type, as is the legendary founder of Korea, Dangun. 

Is it OK to be arbitrary?

Working on Chanbara again today, and I'm almost done with the revisions to the actual game-play parts.  I decided to do this part first this time, to better build the classes and special abilities.  Last time, I did the classes first and then tried to match game play rules to the classes.  It's going much faster this time, partly because I only need to rewrite or tweak sections of the previous version, rather than construct it whole cloth.

And I'm now at the part about rewards.  The game will allow standard D&D style play, where you go fight monsters and bring back loot.  It's a good way to run a fun game, so Chanbara supports it.  But since this is a Japanese fantasy game of samurai and ninja, I want the game to do more than that.

I mentioned a while back that I was re-inspired to do more than just D&D in funny hats with this by some posts by Tedankhamen.  I want to reward players for behaving in genre appropriate ways, but without needing to go into pages and pages of blather about Confucian societies, Bushido, etc.  Because really, I'm not an expert on that stuff, so it would be blather.  Maybe better blather than someone who's only experienced Japan through anime, but blather nonetheless.

Giri, or duty/obligation, was easy.  I'd figured that one out before Ted penned his pieces.  PCs have allegiances to their feudal lord, high abbot, jonin ninja, sensei, family, comrades in arms, peasant association, etc.  The norms of a Confucian culture expect one to respect these bonds.  In game terms, the simple way to do that is to award gold for XP, but ONLY for gold donated to one of the (NPC) groups a character is allied with.  Of course, story awards can also be given for performing some duty or quest, but the fastest advancement comes from giving up your hard earned loot to advance the goals of the group in which you are a member.

Ninjou, or humane/compassionate acts, is harder.  As a GM, you can't railroad your players into behaving that way.  At least, not if you want the campaign to go anywhere.  So there needs to be some system to recognize and reward such acts.  But again, assuming the average person who buys Chanbara* and plays it won't have a strong grasp on Japanese culture and genre traditions, it's going to be hard for them to figure out what constitutes an act of "ninjou" and what doesn't.  And how to reward it?

At first, I thought about an Action Point or Story Point mechanic as a reward.  But I don't think having meta-game mulligans will add anything to play.  So that leaves us with XP awards and in-game rewards.  In-game rewards should of course be possible, but then they are also possible for acts in line with Giri as well as acts that aren't in line with either giri or ninjou.  So there's no point in trying to codify them.  The XP rewards, though, are trickier.

In adventures I write and publish, I could always include examples of how an encounter could be resolved to earn a "ninjou" reward.  But that doesn't really help the GM making his or her own adventures a lot.  I could do a bunch of research and blather on for pages and pages in a (probably vain) attempt to get the reader to understand a foreign cultural concept - but I won't.

Instead, what I'm thinking of now is something like this.  Acts of "ninjou" will have a set reward level, something like 5% or 10% of the XP needed to reach the next level.  I'll give a brief example of the idea of what acts of ninjou are like (similar to Ted's post linked above).  During play, any player may elect ANOTHER player's actions as deserving of a "ninjou" award.  Arbitrarily.  All other players and the GM must agree that the action was in-line with their understanding of the concept.  If they agree, the player earns the bonus XP for their character.  Again, arbitrary.  And while it means that some groups will misunderstand the concept and award things that a Japanese person might feel doesn't qualify, I think it won't matter.  It will be as rare or as common as the group wants, and will hopefully get players thinking of ways to RP their character so as to earn the award.

And groups that just want to loot ruins full of bakemono and rokuro-kubi can ignore it and have fun hacking and slashing through their adventures with nothing lost from the game-play.

Best of both worlds, I think.



*yes, I'm going to have it for sale, which means a PDF and a PoD version since so many people asked me for print versions of Flying Swordsmen.

Old OA Adventures located

I found, in on of my old high school cardboard folders (not a trapper, but from the late 80's or early 90's none-the-less), the notes from my old OA game with the Evansville Group.  I ran this during the year I got back from a homestay/study abroad summer in Japan, during the fall/winter of 97/98.  And it's not bad.  We were using a combination of 1E and 2E AD&D books, with OA and the Complete Ninja's Handbook being my main resources.

Obviously, I was prepping the adventures after each session, so reading it now it looks like a railroad.  The adventure starts with a mission from a daimyo, but options for other things to do.  All of the follow-ups are tailored to the things my players were doing.  Still, I could use this as a base for a Chanbara playtest. 

I just need to change around a few place names to match my new setting, and adjust a few NPC/monster stats.  Not too much work.  These games were set in a fictionalized 16th Century Japan, primarily in Shizuoka prefecture where I had done my homestay. 

Temples, Fuji-san, and Sumpu Castle were in the game, tea fields were background details, there were no professional team sports, however

That, together with the OA Modules, should give me enough material for my summer play test.  Now to round up enough players!

Chanbara Update

I got some more work done on my chanbara (samurai/ninja) expansion for Flying Swordsmen done today.  Working title is simply "Chanbara."

It's become quite distinct from Flying Swordsmen, actually.  I've devised some different mechanics that seem to fit the genre (and on paper at least the math looks good), and would actually also work in wuxia, so assuming the Ph.D. program I'm about to enter doesn't force me to give up gaming altogether, I'll eventually get around to re-doing Flying Swordsmen into what will truly be my own game, rather than a "retro-clone turned up to 11" which is what it is right now.

Anyway, I've narrowed down the classes (Kensei is now folded into Samurai, as the only real distinctions were in class special abilities, so it's a sub-class option).

There are four class groups: Bushi (warriors), Shinobi (rogues), Maho-tsukai (magicians) and Yokai (demi-humans).  Three classes each (plus the Kensei sub-class option), so 12 classes.

There are three sets of Skill Dice (replace the generic Stunt Dice of Flying Swordsmen), Combat Skills, Training Skills, and Magic Skills.  Each class gets a selection of six skill dice that they can raise as they gain levels.  As with Flying Swordsmen, Skill Dice replace the static bonuses of high ability scores in D&D, but you can only use one die at a time (some higher level characters can use two or even three).

There are three sets of special maneuvers, still selected from a "Vancian" progression as in Flying Swordsmen.  There are Combat Maneuvers, Training Tricks, and Magic Spells (each divided into five levels of power).

Bushi Classes (XP as Fighter in D&D):
Samurai/Kensei: only Combat Skill Dice and Maneuvers
Ronin: mix of mostly Combat with some Training Dice/Tricks
Sohei: mix of mostly Combat with some Magic Dice/Spells

Shinobi Classes (XP as Cleric in D&D):
Ninja: only Training Skill Dice and Tricks
Kagemusha: mix of mostly Training with some Combat Dice/Maneuvers
Gorotsuki: mix of mostly Training with some Magic Dice/Spells

Maho-Tsukai Classes (XP as M-U in D&D):
Yamabushi: only Magic Skill Dice and Spells
Shinsen: mix of mostly Magic with some Combat Dice/Maneuvers
Onmyoji: mix of mostly Magic with some Training Dice/Tricks

Yokai Classes (XP as Elf in D&D):
Kappa: even mix of Combat and Training
Kitsune: even mix of Training and Magic
Tengu: even mix of Combat and Magic

The Yokai classes receive all skill dice of both of their fields, but have fewer Raises than the Human classes, fewer set class abilities, and advance slower.  They still get the same Level 10 cap as the Human classes.

I've got the spell lists done, but not spell descriptions.  Casting works on a modified Chainmail casting roll, but Magic Skill Dice can be used to do different things like increase the chance to hit if the spell requires a hit roll, damage/healing provided, increase number of targets or area of effect, etc.  I'll discuss the spells more later.

I've got a tentative list of creatures.  Need to complete a list of weapons and equipment.  Haven't done much besides ponder about the campaign setting details.  Still a lot of work to do, but it's moving forward.

Work In Progress - Flying Swordsmen Expansion/possible revision

I had an idea for a Japanese themed expansion to Flying Swordsmen.  There have been several attempts to produce updated versions of the original Oriental Adventures for various clone/simulacrum systems, but none besides Ruins and Ronin that made it to completion, as far as I know.

Well, this idea of mine would not be that either, but it would add Japanese themed classes to my Flying Swordsmen base.

In working up the concepts, I realized that I want to re-do the Stunt system.  And my idea to re-do it is leading me to revise both Thief skills and the entire magic system.

This Japanese expansion will not have every class learning martial arts.  That conceit still works for Flying Swordsmen, with its Wuxia feeling, but doesn't do Chanbara justice.  So here are a few ideas I've been working on for the past few days.

There will be four types of class: Warrior (Bushi), Thief (Dorobo? lumping them all under the Ninja name?  unsure yet), Spellcaster (Mahoutsukai will likely be the group name, although at the moment I'm using it as one of the class names), and Yokai (demi-humans).

The classes will be:
Warrior - 4 classes
Samurai (general all around combatant)
Kensei (weapon master)
Ronin (masterless samurai)
Sohei (warrior monk)

Thief - 4 classes [or maybe just three]
Ninja (spy) [rename to Shinobi if I use Ninja as the group name]
Ansatsusha (Assassin)
Gorotsuki (Mountebank)
Yakuza (gangster) [may get removed as they likely make better opposition than heroes]

Spellcaster - 4 classes [or again maybe only three]
Yamabushi (Shugenja)
Shinsen (Taoist Immortal)
Onmyoji (Exorcist)
Mahoutsukai (Magician) [again may be removed as it's sort of overlapping with Yamabushi at the moment and would make a good group name]

Yokai - 3 classes
Kappa (act as Warrior/Thief)
Kitsune (act as Thief/Spellcaster)
Tengu (act as Warrior/Spellcaster)

The reworking to the Stunt system will be that there will be three sets of stunt dice, Combat, Training, and Magic.  Different classes will get different combinations of the dice.

Also, there will be Maneuvers just like in Flying Swordsmen, but there will also be Tricks for Thieves and Spells will also be handled like Maneuvers for the spellcasting classes.  Tricks will be like Thief Skills, although I'm not sure yet if I want to keep the d20+Stunt Die system of Flying Swordsmen, or go to a 2dX type system where the die type is determined by the appropriate Stunt die.  Spells will likely handled with a system similar to Chainmail's casting rolls. 

And if this all comes together well, I'll rework Flying Swordsmen and make it more like this system, and less like Dragon Fist. 

Beast of the Week: Jubokko

It's a Japanese plant monster this week. 

Jubokko
AC: 0 (20)
HD: 10**
Move: 0 (0)
Attacks: 2
Damage: 3d8 each
No. Appearing: 0 (1)
Save As: Fighter 10
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: E
Alignment: Chaotic
XP: 2300

Jubokko, also known as vampire trees, are sentient evil plant monsters.  They are immobile (but see below), but have several means of luring victims to them.  Once a human, demi-human or humanoid is under their branches, they strike one or two targets, entangling the victims with branches if their attacks succeed.  Entangled victims are drained of 3d8 hit points each round.  Each round after the first, victims may make a saving throw vs. dragon breath to escape before they are drained again.  Jubokko can use the following spells: growth of plants 3/day, hallucinatory terrain 3/day, dimension door 3/day.  They may also control plants, as the ring, at will.

Beast of the Week: Dokkaebi

OK, so I'm starting off my weekly monster series with a Korean monster very similar to the Japanese Oni, the Dokkaebi (or alternately spelled Tokebi or Tokaebi).  This creature looks much like the oni, but is said to be the spirit of an inanimate object made self-aware.  They have characteristics similar to many Japanese Yokai creatures, being at times scary, helpful, or comical depending on the story.

Dokkaebi
AC: 4 (16)
HD: 6+1**
Move: 120 (60)
Attacks: 1 mallet
Damage: 1d10+2
No. Appearing: 1-4 (1-10)
Save As: Fighter 6
Morale: 8
Treasure Type: B
Alignment: Lawful
XP: 950

Dokkaebi are hairy ogre-like creatures standing 6-9' tall, with tusks, clawed hands, and unruly manes of hair on their heads.  They may be nearly any color, and their hair is typically a different shade from their skin.  Dokkaebi are creatures of justice, who seek out wickedness to punish.  When they are not punishing evil-doers, though, they often delight in playing pranks and jokes on those who have some peccadilloes but are not evil.

In combat, Dokkaebi fight with magical mallets or spiked clubs.  These weapons strike as if they were +2 magical weapons.  Dokkaebi also gain a +2 bonus to damage due to their great strength.  They are also fond of wrestling.  Instead of attacking with a mallet, a Dokkaebi can make an unarmed attack, grabbing an opponent and holding them with a successful attack roll.  The victim may Save vs. Wands each round to escape the hold.  Dokkaebi can make themselves invisible, as the spell, three times per day.

Dokkaebi can also use their mallets to "create" inanimate objects, as a djinni, except all goods are permanent.  The objects created are actually teleported to the Dokkaebi's location from some other place, not conjured from thin air.  Because of this, Dokkaebi are careful about how they use this ability, only conjuring goods when there is a great need.  Dokkaebi mallets only function in the hands of a Dokkaebi.