Oriental Adventures Adventures

[an_idol_mind]

I'm starting a side game, and my players are currently divided. Two of them want to play D&D, while one wants to play something different than the typical fantasy games that she's been playing in. My FLGS has a used copy of Oriental Adventures (3e) sitting on its shelf, so I'm thinking about checking that out.

Now, the one problem I've always had with stuff like Kara-Tur and Al-Qadim is that it's hard for me to get the flavor right. I know that Rokugan had some decent support for a while in terms of adventures and campaign setting. Is that stuff still being published? Are there other games I might want to check out for an oriental fantasy flavor?

On a side note that may or may not be useful, the one character concept that has been tossed to me so far is a razor-fan wielding geisha.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

No. AEG stopped producing Rokugan d20 material a while back. I like it enough to recommend getting the Rokugan book.

As for oriental games, it depends on what kind of asian fantasy you want. As for other roleplaying games, if you want japanese fantasy, I would recommend Legend of the Five Rings, Sengoku, and Usagi Yojimbo. For chinese fantasy, I would recommend Weapons of the Gods, Swords of the Middle Kingdom, Dragon Fist, Qin, and Jadeclaw.

As for flavor, just pick up any collection of asian folk tales and you'll be well on your way. I recommend Myths and Legends of China and Myths and Legends of Japan for overviews and Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio and Japanese Tales for actual stories.

 

[wolfpunk]

AEG put out Adventure and Adventure II which contain short adventures, I believe both of them contained adventures that could be used in an Oriental Setting.

Here is a website that has some material on it as well.

http://www.oriental.hardpoints.de/campaign.html

Hope that helps

 

[Ripzerai]

I wouldn't sweat the flavor too much - make it fun. Watch things like House of Flying Daggers, Iron Monkey, The Drunken Master (the latter two share a character, by the way), Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Samurai Champloo and call it good.

(Yes, I just mentioned Seven Samurai and Samurai Champloo in the same sentence. I'm a philistine.)

 

[Psion]

Now, the one problem I've always had with stuff like Kara-Tur and Al-Qadim is that it's hard for me to get the flavor right. I know that Rokugan had some decent support for a while in terms of adventures and campaign setting. Is that stuff still being published? Are there other games I might want to check out for an oriental fantasy flavor?

Kitsunemori is a nice recently published OA-style setting. It's not based on OA rules, but it's close enough you could use them together. And it has lots of great background material.

Product link:
http://shop.enworld.org/index.php?productsid=1807&source=Psion

My review:
http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=product&productid=176222

Legends of the Samurai is a d20 Japanese-fantasy game, that supports a very Seven Samurai type game.

Product Link:
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=292&products_id=5352&

My review:
http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2528270

 

[bento]

I'd second the suggestion for Kitsunemore, if nothing else than to give you some fresh ideas that you might not have considered. It has three new magic systems - charms, geomancy and kitsune magic, as well as a fairly detailed setting. It has great adventure plot hooks and keeps the action is an isolated valley on a Japanese-like island.

I bought the 3rd ed OA book and wasn't impressed with Rokugan. It feels like your in the middle of someone else's story. The storyline has been worked on in the CGC game Legend of the Five Rings, with established factions and groups who have a long history.

Personally I'm running an OA campaign using 1st edition OA (Kara-Tur) as a backdrop, but with homebrew groups and storylines. The Kara-Tur setting gives me nations, cities and governments, but leaves a lot of territory blank, so I feel very free to scribble in what I want. It's a very large setting, covering mythical lands representative nations of just about every existing asian nation, so I think it's much easier to get players into it.

Want a kung-fu adventure with monks defending a monestary against Yuan Ti? Put it in Tu' Lung. Samurais and ninjas defending the warlord's honor? You have Wa and Kozakura. Barbarians invading over the Great Dragon Wall? Horse Plains and Shou' Lung. And so forth.

If you're interested in the Kara-Tur setting, you can pick up the pdf box set from Paizo.com or rpgnow.com for about $5. It's almost all fluff, so you don't feel like you're wasting money on classes and monsters that you'll have to cover to 3.5 ed.

As for classes - I recommend using the 3.5 versions that were updated in the Complete Series (Adventurer, Arcane, Divine, Warrior).

Anyway, just dabble a little and check out what your players have in mind before plunking down some cash for a setting.

 

[Shroomy]

Dungeon recently published (in issue 130) a OA adventure for 10th level characters called "The Palace of Plenty." I think it is a great adventure. It also looks like Dragon is publishing a 3.5 update of the Hordelands in the next issue.

 

[Ranger REG]

I'm starting a side game, and my players are currently divided. Two of them want to play D&D, while one wants to play something different than the typical fantasy games that she's been playing in. My FLGS has a used copy of Oriental Adventures (3e) sitting on its shelf, so I'm thinking about checking that out.

You might want to pick up Dragon #318 for the OA rules update article inside (written by the same person who did the OA book).

Now, the one problem I've always had with stuff like Kara-Tur and Al-Qadim is that it's hard for me to get the flavor right. I know that Rokugan had some decent support for a while in terms of adventures and campaign setting. Is that stuff still being published?

Nope. Once they finished their part of the agreement when they acquired L5R IP (trademarks and all) from WotC, AEG dropped OA and d20 altogether.

On a side note that may or may not be useful, the one character concept that has been tossed to me so far is a razor-fan wielding geisha.

???

Sounds more like a Chinese concept than Japanese, though they don't call themselves geisha (a Japanese term).

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

There's also 3 OA adventures from 1E that you can download off of Wizards website - Mad Monkey vs the Dragon Claws, Ronin Challenge and Test of the Samurai.