The Unseen Servant forums

Yes, happy anniversary. Yay to August anniversaries!

Will post soon Saizo's and Zenrin's actions soon!

Yay, all three samurai games are rolling again...

::thumbs up::!

No traitorous longbows here.... I just want to marvel at how WELL that plan went off!!

Happy Anniversary belatedly!

Something is funny with all of my notifications. I just opened this thread and saw that August post first, hit submit, and then all of the history of other conversations refreshed into the thread.

So from the rewind of Taka's post, our ultimate objective is to kill the merchant Kogataro's father (the yakuza oyabun). He's too well-protected to do that directly, so we decided to kidnap the son. I suppose our pretty unformed plan was to use having the son to parlay with the father. And maybe force him out of his fortress?

Any ideas for what's next? I suppose the obvious thing is to go see the wizard adviser. Which was Kogataro's destination.

My understanding is that you wanted to get solid evidence of the plot and/or war camp that you could present to the Daimyo, such that he would then execute the Oyabun. Satake Motoyuki went to court while you came here, and has secured the ability to have an audience (as well as the rumors of the Daimyo's reclusion).

You also have/had the options of executing the Oyabun directly (with or without the justification of a declared blood fued), addressing the Hag that killed your relatives and geting whatever-is-in-the-box the Hag stole from the Oyabun, going to the war camp (with or without Kogatoro) to get evidence and unwravel what the plan even is / get evidence, etc.

Ultimately, they come down to either murdering the Oyabun, or proving his nefarious plot with real evidence to the Daimyo so the Oyabun gets executed. (Murder is easy but bad for your On.)

Right now, you captured the Oyabun's son and one of his yakuza, presenting you with both opportunity and liability.

...The "prove there's a plot" rules are then quite interesting. Your case against the Oyabun to the Daimyo is essentially a social test. You make a case with Rhetoric (while he does the same for defense), which influences the contested social check of whomever is making the argument. This means that truth always has the potential to take a back seat to Status... which seems appropriate for Japan. If you have physical evidence, I would allow that to modify the rolls as "gifts" to influence the Daimyo.

I came across this Fantasy Games Unlimited game Aftermath!, by the same guys who designed Bushido. I wish someone make a GM's aid for Bushido like this one for Aftermath! https://i314.org/ It's really nice.

P.S. It turns out Aftermath! and Bushido seem to share basic design concepts. Adjusted BCS, Critical Effect Table, distractions, engaged status. Might be a pretty easy system to learn for a Bushido player. I'm tempted to buy it, just to see if it could help me understand Bushido's hindrances and distractions rules better. It's dated 1980-1981, Bushido 2E is 1981.

Samwell Turleton wrote: ↑Sun Nov 06, 2022 5:20 pm i’ll try to catch up on the thread and post for Taka today!

Huzzah! Glad you're back! I'll adjudicate forward once we have your roleplay and rolls for spell use.

If we can keep this going, I'm half thinking of just playing a single PC, sticking with Keiso. I'm just not sure how to play Motoyuki.

I don't mind that if it makes you more comfortable. I can either shift Motoyuki to a favorable NPC, or could offer him to Jemmus if he wants an opportunity to flavor the roleplay with highborn sensibilities.

I think you may need to continue without waiting on Taka; not sure when we're getting him back online. I will keep his PCs active as NPCs in the background but the rest of you will need to make the IC decisions.

You're also welcome to add a new second character - the group is pretty small.

I’m inclined to stick with one PC at this point.

Playing a highborn character is tempting, but I'd better not stretch my capacity to timely post any further.

So, are we OK with Saizo's suggestion that the go to the war camp to find out what's up there? And maybe get some more incriminating evidence on the merchant?

Also, I'm not quite getting how the merchant's daughter's engagement ties in. A may have missed some information about the groom's family that was presented. Any hints for us, without being spoilers?

Sorry, the last few weeks have been overwhelming.

In the meantime, have this:

You hear "ganbatte" a lot in Japan.