Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Eldorian · Mar 3, 2003

Anyone know of a well developed website or book about playing DnD in the 4th-6th centurys of China? I've played a lot of video games set during the Romance of the Three Kindoms epic, and think it would be an excellent setting for a game of OA. Unfortunatly, the OA book is so japanese and Rokugan that it's hard to cipher out good chinese stuff. Also, the only divine classes are not suited for China, namely the shugena and shaman. The shaman seems more of a near eastern class, like the monkey guys, and teh shujena is a rokugan invention, as far as i can tell.

Eldorian Antar

Darklance · Mar 3, 2003

Wow...just realized that even with all the GURPS supplements, there was never one made for China. Wonder if they're working on it.

Wuxia · Mar 3, 2003

Darklance said:
Wow...just realized that even with all the GURPS supplements, there was never one made for China. Wonder if they're working on it.

There is one. Out of print. For a good reason.

Samothdm · Mar 3, 2003

GURPS did have a book on China. It's out-of-print but I'm sure you could find it on Ebay or at your FLGS.

Avalanche did a book on China called Jade and Steel. It's gotten some average-good reviews.

FYI, I don't have either of these two products.

Lastly, you may want to check out the Dragonfist Game by Chris Pramas. It was done in a modified version of 2E AD&D Rules and was available for free download from the WotC website awhile back. WotC has sold the rights back to Chris at Green Ronin and he's going to be coming out with a setting or game based on the concept. In the meantime there might still be a free version of the game available for download at WotC.

Darklance · Mar 3, 2003

Wuxia said:
There is one. Out of print. For a good reason.

Really? Never read a bad gurps book. What did you think of Gurps Greece/Rome/Egypt?

Andrew D. Gable · Mar 3, 2003

Actually, a friend of mine is working on a Three Kingdoms game based on the Dynasty Warriors games. It's heavily modified d20, like Wheel of Time.

Wuxia · Mar 3, 2003

Darklance said:
Really? Never read a bad gurps book. What did you think of Gurps Greece/Rome/Egypt?

I don't have those. I have other GURPS supplements, that I like, even though I don't play GURPS. They're good reference books... as a rule.

Their China sourcebook is often innacurate, or at least very misleading, providing characters templates, for instance, as if they could fit any period in history. It is made in such a way, basically, that I would fare much better with a history book.

The best historical RPG is certainly Sengoku. Of course, it is for Japan, not China. They had a China supplement in the work, that never got published.

Wuxia · Mar 3, 2003

RTK RPG

http://www.romancingcathay.com/newsite/news.html

Eldorian · Mar 4, 2003

I didn't want any gurps books, because i was looking for finished D20 three kingdoms stuff, and didn't feel like writing my own. Frankly, Jade and Steel isn't what I'm looking for. But Wuxia's link to the romancingcathay site looks promising. D20 modern rules for iron age China. I was kind of looking for a low magic setting. I think I'll check out that book when they release it, judging from the pdf preview.

About dragonfist, I downloaded that back in the day, and I'm not really looking for Wuxia style gaming, which is what Dragonfist was. I'm looking for chinese guys with crazy weapons fighting wars over the country.

Eldorian Antar

tleilaxu · Mar 4, 2003

R3K is one of the great books of all time. The best source for Chinese RPG stuff would be to read the novel itself. There is plenty of magic in it, and they seem to divide into two main types: The confucian scholars and the taoist mystics. Now, of course there is a great deal of overlap, but the scholars tend to get their power from appealing to heaven while the taoists tend to be magical because of their connection to the way.

At one point in the book a guy gets his head chopped of (i believe by Sun Quan) and green smoke comes out which forms a hundred new bodies. cool trick.

At the battle of Red Wall Zhuge Liang does a ritual appealing to heaven for the winds to change, allowing the battle plan to proceed. There are plenty of quasi-magical items in the books.

Read read read, you won't regret it!

I've been trying to incorporate some of R3K in my campaign world, it is fun but hard!