Sure. As I said, Burning Wheel/The Blossoms are Falling seems like it might be a good place to start.
D&D General Story Now, Skilled Play, and Elephants
I'm still reading! But I think that does suggest bad luck. I think that a typical 3rd level Samurai gets two actions, each of which might involve an attack and a second strike using two-sword fighting. So that would be four attacks, for damage of d6+3 in a context of having 20+ hit points on a warrior PC.
clearstream
(He, Him)
I guess BW would shift the concepts of play substantially away from Bushido. The modality of play might change.
EDIT Or maybe not. Back then we played in different modes without having labels for those modes.
Last edited:
I'm not sure what modes of play you've got in mind. I'd except Bushido-style BW to focus on tests of honour and various sorts of confrontations carrying social, political or personal weight. For me, that wouldn't be too different from what I would want from Bushido!
clearstream
(He, Him)
I was thinking less of the themes - although I agree that Bushido lends itself to the sort of themes you describe - and more of modes. By which I'm thinking more about how we were engaging with our themes.
From experience, we moved between DM as story-teller (which can be very enjoyable to play when your DM is well versed in the background), players as story-tellers (where external facts about our characters took center-stage and propelled us forward), exploration of internal and interpersonal character conflict (typically, in times of change), and (rarely) RPG as boardgame (such as an iajutsu duel with relevant okuden, which I recall as a tense, mechanical affair).
So I think BW would incline one more toward the player and character side of that - which Bushido is superbly set up for, due to the themes you mention - while another system might lean into story telling, or crunch, etc. Bushido can also be very suitable for those, such as a campaign that put Shogunate warfare in the foreground.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
But then I think you have Qi, or I forget exactly what they called it, and Iaijitsu, and some other stuff. I think there's also some ambiguity in that there are a lot of abilities that you can learn that are not strictly governed by level, you have to go find a master, etc. So, maybe it depends a lot on exactly what the character studied. I seem to recall there were also, not remembering the exact mechanism, but added levels of effectiveness, like criticals. I definitely remember level 1 PCs just being blenderized now and then. You sure couldn't seem to survive the 10 or so fights you needed to advance very reliably.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I don't know about warefare, in terms of mechanical wargaming type support, that would have to be introduced through another level of mechanics perhaps. OTOH I think the basic 'clan politics' and family loyalties, court intrigue, rivalries, etc., all filtered through the lens of the whole highly cultured, artistic/craftsmanly/scholarly sort of lens would not be too hard to achieve in BW.
The huge difference would be in process. The players would be doing things like Wises or Circles and describing elements of the setting through the intents of those checks, etc. They could do things like invoke the appearance of a contact or family member in an appropriate context, for example. You would maybe want to put in some rules/conventions on things like beliefs, and maybe build in some kind of background creation process that hooked you up into the early Tokugawa Court or something like that. There might need to be some reflavoring and tweaks to spell casting and such, I'm not sure. Really only ever played Mouse Guard.
PbtA would be a good approach too. I mean, it doesn't take too much imagination to think up an agenda and some processes that would give you a milieu of intrigue and clan rivalry with an emphasis on family, honor, and skill. I'd assume playbooks would cover various sorts of social roles, though I'd consider carefully, sometimes there are more clever and interesting ways to slice and dice things in that regard (IE having a 'samurai playbook' sounds obvious, but maybe instead your playbook might reflect your goals and personality instead, and your social role might be more malleable and less explicit). I think I would aim for something a bit closer to AW than to DW, for example (and I am really woefully under informed on other PbtA incarnations at this point).
I haven't got to the crit rules yet, but they're definitely in there.
I did jump ahead and read the rules for NPCs, prompted by the Budo rules talking about "rabble" and "extras". Those rules suggest that Ki should be ignored for most NPCs. I'd have to check but I don't recall Ki giving extra actions. I think it might give extra damage.
Iaijutsu allows drawing and attacking with the same action, but that is what allows the samurai to get off two atack actions rather than a single one (having first had to draw). There is reference on p 28, in the section on On, to the "highly dangerous Iaijutsu Duel, described in section 1092.2" which exposes participants to a "high probability of suffering a Critical Hit on the first blow of the Duel." Unfortunately section 1092.2, which is a section on the customs/protocols of duelling, doesn't say anything about Iaijutsu Duels. So I'm not sure what this high probability is referring to. Critical Hits are damage multiples (x2 or x3) and/or special effects.
EDIT: Maybe the crit issue is that in an Iaijutsu Duel the target doesn't have his/her weapon drawn and hence doesn't get the defence bonus for wielding a profession-proficient weapon. Which means the attacker has a higher chance of hitting, and the chance of a crit is a function of the chance to hit. Though at low levels the change in chance to hit from losing this bonus is low, and probably won't affect the crit chance. So I'm still not sure.
Last edited:
clearstream
(He, Him)
I remember we played it that you had a higher hit and crit chance. I don't recall the exact mechanic: what you describe sounds reasonable. I recall it feeling tense.
OK, so a bit of Googling solved the problem. There's an error in the printing, as discussed on this RPG.net thread: Bushido Iajutsu rules
Here are the rules:
This form of duel is extremely dangerous. Participants receive enhanced On (see Section 1064.1c). The opponents face off, weapons sheathed, a mere yard or so apart. When the moment is right, weapons are drawn and strikes made. If both survive the first exchange, the duel proceeds normally.
In the game, the Gamemaster rolls a D20 to determine the action phase on which this first strike will occur. If the roll is lower than a character's Base Action Phase, he will strike immediately. If it is lower or equal to the Base Action Phase of both combatants, the strikes will be simultaneous. Each character is allowed only one strike in this first turn of the duel.
The first strike is made using the Iaijutsu Skill. If a character does not have Iaijutsu Skill, he may use 1/4 his Kenjutsu score to generate a Base Chance of Success. In this case the Base Action Phase for the first turn is halved.
The effect of the first strike of an Iaijutsu duel are as follows. A roll within the character's BCS results in a Critical Hit. A normal failure results in a normal hit. Only a Critical Miss will result in a miss and will only be a normal miss. Normal situational modifiers apply to a character's Base Chance of Success.
Iaijuts duels are fought only with swords and cultural sanctions tend to confine it to the katana.
Here are the rules:
1092.2b The Iaijutsu Duel
This form of duel is extremely dangerous. Participants receive enhanced On (see Section 1064.1c). The opponents face off, weapons sheathed, a mere yard or so apart. When the moment is right, weapons are drawn and strikes made. If both survive the first exchange, the duel proceeds normally.
In the game, the Gamemaster rolls a D20 to determine the action phase on which this first strike will occur. If the roll is lower than a character's Base Action Phase, he will strike immediately. If it is lower or equal to the Base Action Phase of both combatants, the strikes will be simultaneous. Each character is allowed only one strike in this first turn of the duel.
The first strike is made using the Iaijutsu Skill. If a character does not have Iaijutsu Skill, he may use 1/4 his Kenjutsu score to generate a Base Chance of Success. In this case the Base Action Phase for the first turn is halved.
The effect of the first strike of an Iaijutsu duel are as follows. A roll within the character's BCS results in a Critical Hit. A normal failure results in a normal hit. Only a Critical Miss will result in a miss and will only be a normal miss. Normal situational modifiers apply to a character's Base Chance of Success.
Iaijuts duels are fought only with swords and cultural sanctions tend to confine it to the katana.
Similar Threads
