NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 6469974" data-attributes="member: 6786839">"Chivalry and Sorcery" was one of the 1980s games emerging shortly after D&D. It had a system for tracking how closely PCs followed a code of chivalry. I dunno how accurate it was to any particular historical European culture, region and era, but it was accurate to the *legend* stories of Morte d'Arthur and the story of the Sangraal. Gary Gygax never established a point system for tracking the "honor" rating of paladins because... well, because that's how he rolled; instead he gave us the table for randomly determining the shapes of demon's noses.Insofar as anyone gets their idea of Japanese culture from pop culture - whether written by non-Japanese (eg James Bond in "You Only Live Twice", not a paragon of realistic cinema) or by Japanese (eg "Seven Samurai" and other Kurosawa movies) - Hobgoblin's got a valid point about distinguishing between reality, fiction, and idealization, and the tendency to see cultures in terms of simple stereotypes. Which can include one's own culture; I'm a USA native, and I doubt that "High Noon" gives a full and realistic picture of that particular region and era of USA history, and I'm absolutely sure that "Wild Wild West" is historically inaccurate. If you don't know the distinction between gimu and giri, for example, or the difference between Buddhism and Shinto, or the relationship between emperor and shogun, then your fictional samurai-ninja setting and stories will probably have a high ratio of stereotypes to accuracy.On another hand, any game with wujen casting spells from spell slots is modeled on *fiction*. If you want a game setting that's based on the Japan of "You Only Live Twice", well, have fun with that, but do please keep in mind, that's not what modern Japan is actually like. If you want a game setting that's based on the Japan of "Princess Mononoke", have fun with that, but do please keep in mind, that's not what ancient Japan was actually like.PS Insofar as Japan defines itself less in terms of its military, now, than it did in the Tojo administration, I'm totally fine with that. Just sayin'.</blockquote>

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