For a change of pace, Oriental Adventures

[ForceUser]

I'm getting ready to delve into my first full-blown Oriental Adventures campaign. For my setting I have picked a fantahistorical version of circa-13th century Vietnam. In my web research I have discovered something interesting: most OA fan sites carry a distinct Japanese flavor, especially the monsters. Boo.

Since my game will be focused on the dynamic of the medieval Vietnamese/Chinese conflict, I haven't had the opportunity to be lazy - all my campaign background info is from sources such as Vietnam travel guides and the US State Department Player characters can choose, for starters, to be Viet, Khmer, or Xiao (Chinese). Other ethnic groups that are part of the picture include the Lao (modern-day Laotians), the Tai (modern-day Thai) and the Cham (a seafaring people who inhabited what is now central Vietnam).

The more I research these people and this period the more fascinated I become. The history of the whole Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia area is long and twisted. There are so many people in that land! Thousands of languages, thousands of different ethnic groups. I had to pare them down to what appear to be the six largest groups so I could manage the races in a D&D sense.

This could be the campaign that holds my player group's interest! I'm certainly excited about, and several of my players are eagerly putting together characters. It really takes a shift in the way you think; you can't take anything from D&D for granted. Although all the standard D&D building blocks will be present, they are viewed differently through Asian eyes. This will be a real DMing challenge and I'm looking forward to it. I could easily get mired in the details, so my biggest challenge will be to plot my way through a campaign and tell a long-term story with relevance to the player group, something they can relate to as white middle-class guys, while keeping the style distinctly Asian. I have a couple grumblers who would prefer yet another European-flavored campaign. Personally, I am done with that for now. I really need something not-the-norm that I can sink my teeth into.

Are you running an OA campaign? Is it long-running or short? Did it die out? Did your players love it/hate it? Do you wish you were playing OA? Let's hear your stories!

And for pete's sake, are there any NON-Japanese RPG resources out there?

 

[Rune]

The reason that most OA games are heavily Japanese flavored, is that the rules, themselves have a heavy Japanese flavor (although this is certainly not exclussively the case). I am currently running an OA game (the story hour for it is linked in my sig), which is intended to be a meshing of as many different types of Asian culture as I can (including Indian). However, I find that the rules definitely favor a Chinese and Japanese flavor. This can be tricky, as I allow all of the rules (for the most part) from OA into my game.

That being said, I do, at least, sneak in elements of the other cultures. The trick is getting them to blend. If I had the party's main antagonist (a samurai) wearing a turban, as I have considered doing, the players' suspension of disbelief would be shattered. Since I am running a surreal game, anyway, I can't afford to do that. However, I do blend some things in. For instance, at a large party/social event, there was a band playing music--I popped in a CD of Vietnamese music for the background and we got on with the game.

Also, I feature a lot of war elephants, whenever the PCs go anywhere near a battlefield.

 

[Bonehoard Taffer]

Hey, does anyone know where I could find some decent D20 pages for the Rokugan setting?

 

[Ranger REG]

Besides www.Alderac.com? (Click on the Legend of the Five Ring tab to go to the L5R and Rokugan web page.)

 

[Henrix]

I've been running a Chinese-inspired campaign for about a year and a half now, and we've had a lot of fun!

We don't use OA that much, as we had already played for some time before it came out, and we didn't want to convert characters.

For resources I'd recommend anything DragonFist.
It is an almost 2nd ed AD&D game about chinese fantasy in Wuxia/Hong Kong action tradition by Chris Pramas (now at Green Ronin), that was developed too close to the release of D&D3E to be released, but they put it up for free on the Wizard website, as downloadable .pdf files.
The background and such is fun, I recommend it.
I know Pramas tried to get it out from Wizard legal claws, to make a d20 version, but Green Ronin has too much too do now, so it does not seem to be forthcoming.
There are some nice DragonFist fan sites, like Tianxia, with d20 conversions.

 

[bwgwl]

the campaign world i'm currently working on is trying to stay away from medieval europe as well -- it's mainly based on the middle east, africa, and india. i'm using a fair amount of OA stuff, especially in the indian subcontinent.

it is a bit hard to separate out all the Japanase influences from OA to use it in other Asian settings, but i still find it a very useful book.

i'm following James Wyatt by having samurai and shamans be kshatriyas and brahmins of the indian culture. i'm also using the OA shaman for the african divine spellcasters -- unless Nyambe gives me something more appropriate.

i'm allowing monks in the indian culture, and also in the pseudo-Islam religion (as an analog of the Sufi mystics and dervishes) that dominates the more "middle eastern" part of the world.

good luck with your indochina campaign! that part of the world does indeed have a long and interesting history that is virtually unknown to westerners...

 

[MaxKaladin]

My campaign is going to feature OA stuff, but they'll be the 'opposition'. I don't suppose that's what you're looking for...

It occurs to me that an interesting oriental campaign could result from the players all being sent to settle a newly conquered area. As I recall, the Chinese emperors were fond of moving masses of peasants (and, of course, the appropriate infrastructure like governement, military, etc) around.