The Unseen Servant forums

While briefly searching for movement rules for RPGs, I came across this. Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games
A well organized, 261-page scholarly-looking treatise. http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/book ... _13_09.pdf

jemmus wrote: ↑Mon Dec 13, 2021 12:00 am While briefly searching for movement rules for RPGs, I came across this. Design Patterns of Successful Role-Playing Games
A well organized, 261-page scholarly-looking treatise. http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/book ... _13_09.pdf

Interesting, did you find anything useful in it?

I only read one little section on using opposing factions to create conflict to drive the story. It was similar to what the D&D 5E DM Guide says about factions. But written better and more succinct, I thought. I didn't spot any content about map movement and terrain.

Fuujin and Raijin made a Christmas appearance at our house. My sister-in-law in Tokyo sent us these boxes of art prints. She doesn't know anything about our Bushido game with the Fuujin-Raijin theme (or about the Bushido game at all). What are the odds?

Those are so cool!

Merry Christmas!

I hinted at a custom no-dachi and display stand, but maybe next Christmas.

Maybe next year.
Merry Christmas guys!

We're about to open a new chapter, so a good time for us to organize our posting in this game, I think. So people can find and refer back to things, when they need to. So, some guidelines.
IC thread -- Let's keep it clean. It's only for story progression and IC dialogue. BCS and other rolls below posts are good. No need to spoiler simple rolls and declare bonuses, hindrances, etc. It's good for us to quickly see what and how happened that action. This should be our go-to thread for catching up on where everyone is at present.

OOC thread -- I'm going to retitle this one "General Discussion/OOC." It's the catchall for everything else outside of the IC action that comes up along the way. Questions/comments about the details of the Bushido/Nippon game world should go here. This is kind of our default discussion place.

Rules Discussion -- For team discussions about "WTH, I still don't get it." Or we need a rules call. What's decided here ultimately goes into House Rules. This thread is just a more refined and focused cousin of the freeform General Discussion/OOC thread. Where we nail things down and publish our decisions in "House Rules/Rulings."

There's also the "Log - PCS Tracking" thread. Here's where you audit GM's accounting of where your PC is, to date. And where GM audits your record-keeping and any NPC party members', as well.

It can be a lot of work but it can also be a great help…

As moderator you can move posts. I’ve done it in my games in the past to mivd things like rules discussions to the right thread.

Marullus wrote: ↑Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:05 pm Kentaro is currently at the crux of a decision in his roleplay. As a low ronin living in mountain villages, he has vastly more affinity to the heimin class. He is now in the big city and trying to act like his grandfather would wish... like a real Buke. So, he paid what he needed to get into the Snob School and is working for recognition. The rules do enforce this (only Ronin currently shafted) and bring this home.

If it's an IC choice, he's going to do what he has to so that he can appear a proper Buke. This includes paying silver, having a private room, and bathing regularly. He invites Akemi to whatever honorable thing he can. (I assume that's dinner together, and not staying with him in his private room alone together, but that's your call culturally.) He also deeply laments when his coin is all siphoned off by the inkeepers in only three weeks.

(I hoped perhaps that paying in copper would provide the pretext to allow Hiroshi and Kentaro to remain and train as long as the others. See my note above.)

This makes it more convenient than having to work out a rule about buke paying in copper. I hope it never comes up that a PC can't afford to stay in an inn. But it seems likely that it eventually will. I didn't foresee the PCs getting some much wealth from the bandits encounter, and I didn't foresee that it would go so quickly for basic living expenses.

Culturally Japan has always been pretty liberal and non-prudish about romantic things. Actually during this time (the Heian Period) Buddhist monks in Kyoto were notorious for keeping mistresses and even fathering children. People despised them as depraved and corrupt people breaking their vows of celibacy and using people's tithes to live luxurious and decadent lives. But it was common.

I did a dice roll for Akemi's reaction to Kentaro's invitations. Will post in the IC thread.

So how do we want to resolve? I'm not quite clear on what folks are proposing to do...

Taisho will be out about 6s per week for lodging for himself and Hiroshi.

I haven't looked at training at all for Taisho.

There may be cause for some reasonable rule about Ronin living below their station. It seems like that is going to be part of the Ronin lifestyle

Hmm, if we can't afford much training after an adventure, advancement is going to be slow since a level only gets you +1 BCS, you really need to also train skills which have no other way of improving in play.

ffilz wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:12 pmTaisho will be out about 6s per week for lodging for himself and Hiroshi.

No, he is out 25s per week for Hiroshi and 0.83s per week for Taisho. It is over two gold each week for each ronin, where Samurai can stay 12 weeks as honored guests of families and Heimin can stay 30 weeks on the same amount.

ffilz wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:12 pmThere may be cause for some reasonable rule about Ronin living below their station. It seems like that is going to be part of the Ronin lifestyle

A 30x price multiplier that affects some characters and not others is simply too much for a mixed group to handle.

We can change the rule. Buke pay double (only 2x) and not 30x. (This makes the costs for Kentaro and Hiroshi equal to the 2s cost already quoted for Ito and Omi.) The offer to Omi and Ito is purely roleplay driven, then... they pay the same 2s but can either be at an Inn or building ties as a guest of a Buke host family.

We can redistribute the wealth. Hiroshi and Kentaro retroactively 30x the treasure, allowing everyone the same purchase potential and downtime housing stay length. (Having a group treasury collectively depleted accomplishes the same goal with less wierd roleplay.)

ffilz wrote: ↑Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:12 pmHmm, if we can't afford much training after an adventure, advancement is going to be slow since a level only gets you +1 BCS, you really need to also train skills which have no other way of improving in play.

I agree it is a problem needing resolution.

Yea, I fumbled my math roll... More like I did have the right math in my mind, but somehow messed it up when writing the post... The about 6s lodging is per DAY... or 5x that for a week at a place that offers a weekly rate. For what it's worth, looks like Land of the Rising Sun actually has about the same price differential but there are separate types of inns, charging 5 mon (copper) per day at a commoners inn and 1d10 bu (silver) at an upper class inn with 25 mon to the bu. It looks like at least those prices are pretty much the same between the original LotRS and the new edition... One difference though in LotRS is that 1d10 is not exactly rolled but represents a range based on appearances of ability to pay, so a Ronin might actually get the lower end of the price scale.

I'd be OK with it sort of sucking for Ronin if it's built in somehow and not a daily (or even weekly) On loss for staying in commoner accommodations.

Hiroshi's costs at the inn are 25 sp (2 gp, 1 sp) per week. Taisho's are 25 cp per week (not even 1 sp (30 cp= 1 sp).

The rules say that 1 gp equals 1 koku. A koku is the amount of rice needed to feed an adult for a year. With the rule about buke spending 5 sp per night at an inn, that comes to paying almost a year's worth of rice every two days. (1 gp = 12 sp). That doesn't seem very realistic to me. Almost year's worth of rice for a futon, a heated room, two baths, and six (good) meals. The 10 sp is also equal to 300 rice and tea meals, which are 1 cp each.

Another result is that buke pay 30 times more for lodging than non-buke. So it stands to reason that buke are always going to be poorer than buke. Kentaro can afford to train in Kofu for 3 weeks. But Taisho could afford to stay many times that (if he weren't paying for Hiroshi). But to do that, he'd have to decide to stay behind when Kentaro has to go out looking for more money. Which would split the party, as well as leaving Frank with nothing to post about during an entire adventure. (Well, he could post about Hiroshi, but you get the point).

Good point about ronin and samurai being distinct. The Honor Bound module (an official FGU publication from 2016) excludes ronin from the Kofu bugei school, and doesn't provide an alternative for them. (I rolled the two alternative dojo for Kofu, which is a Class C city). So they're effectively saying that there's a big difference in the two castes. And then there's the odd result that samurai Haruto would pay for lodging in copper, but low ronin Kentaro pays in silver.

If we wanted to, here are some ways we could modify the rules.
a) Reduce the sp rate that buke pay.
b) Pay based on caste, rather than by profession.
c) Make the rate uniform for everyone. That is, everybody pays X sp or cp per night.
d) Make it customary in Nippon for buke to get a bigger share of the loot than non-buke. 30 times more than them?

I think we were all writing our posts at the same time. I hadn't read Marullus's and Frank's posts when I posted mine. If it seems not make sense in context, that's why.

Yea, lots of wrangling...

I need to think about these costs as I move forward (slowly) with my Cold Iron Samurai Adventures...

I think the solution might lie partly in Land of the Rising Sun's variable inn rates based on how rich the guest looks, and a periodic On loss for buke lodging in a commoner's room.

Oh, but wait, LotRS upper class inn prices is per ROOM, up to 10 guests... If we were all splitting the cost of the 5 silver per night rate, that would make money last longer and eliminate the price disparity... Or even if it was just all the buke (everyone but Taisho) with Akemi able to make appearances as someone expected to be in the company of the buke.

Oh, I like it as a price for up to 10 people (handwaived: the whole party). That solves a lot of problems.

OK, how about this then? 5 sp per night, for up to 10 buke in a room. (Since Bushido lumps smelly ronin in with samurai for pricing, we follow suit and let the two castes share a room).
Non-buke still pay 5 cp each for bedding down in lower-quality lodging.
Technically I don't think eta should be allowed to room with non-eta, but since the rules don't mention that, let's ignore it.
When not in Kofu, Haruto will have to decide what to do. Roommate with the buke, or spend only 5 cp and room with the riff raff?

Haruto will stay with the group for RP purposes and to share the cost. That means Omi, Ito, Kentaro, Haruto, and Hiroshi are staying together and sharing the 5s cost, making it 1s each.

That's not only much more reasonable, but keeps us all at about the same length of downtime, which I think is important.

We should be able to afford the eight weeks at that rate (1sp was what I mistakenly used in original post where I came up with that).

Jemmus, can we actually stay that long or does the war story catch up with us first?

We need everyone's input about staying 8 weeks in Kofu. If everyone agrees, we'll do checks every week about whether something disrupts your training.

I'll post about training opportunities for gakusho. There are a lot of them. Oddly, the Honor Bound module has lots of teachers for gakusho, but none for shugenja. Rolling one up per 1052.3. Kofu is a Class C city.
[1d100]=7 Add 10 because a Magical School = 19. Superior Teacher.
[1d100]=98 Not a skill 99 Master. But, also roll to see if she's a master compared to the PC.
[1d6]=6 Multiple by 10 = 60. Add to the PC's score in the skill. For Haruto, would that be his Magic Capability score of 49? If so, the result is 109, so a Master. But if we add to the School of Magic scores (26), not a Master. It seems like the schools' score should apply, because schools function more like skills.

Don't forget to reply about whether your PC wants to study for 8 weeks.