The Future of Samurai (long, but needs to be read and replied to ASAP)
Ladies and Gents,
I have a question about where to take Samurai in the future. I’ve been playing around with various alternate plot lines, and they keep getting all tangled up. In fact, I’m having trouble settling on a simple “what to do this Saturday” scenario, much less the Big Picture. So, here’s some thoughts:
The galleon you guys are building is pretty cool, but it is turning into a plot millstone. Do you guys want to make it a focal point of the campaign, and use it a lot? I’m contemplating a great big war as a possible plotline, in which case the boat would be tremedously useful. Are y’all interested in a naval focus, with lots of boarding actions, raiding via small boats against coastal targets, and that sort of thing? Following a successful conclusion to the war, the boat could then be use for long-range trips to the New World, which could get weird. This all entails a substantial deviation from traditional Samurai tales… while it could be tremendously satisfying and interesting, it is fairly risky in terms of going down a too-open ended road, losing focus, and grinding to a stop. I’m not sure if we really want to game out sailing across the Pacific to attack the Chinese colony of Fu-Sang, or the Spanish colonies in Mexico, et cetera. It might be a better wargame plot than a tale of high adventure.
I find the samurai campaign is most interesting when the scope and scale are relatively small, focused on individuals. With the galleon in this role, it is large and getting larger. Would you be more comfortable saying that the boat worked well, so the Mori have taken over production of more galleons in secure harbors in Aki Province, leaving you guys free to just be samurai again? Is the presence of overwhelming patrons like the Mori, enemies like the Sue, and plotlines like “unify Japan” too big for the movies/tales you want to tell? A lot of the plotlines I have regard the machinations between the great samurai clans, and their jockeying for supremacy. In such circumstances, you guys are largely bit players. To be dead honest, I sometimes wonder if it would be more interesting for you guys to be largely on your own, and to carve your own bloody destinies by your own hands. I dunno. Are you guys interested in carving out a fief for yourselves, do we want to game this out? I’m interested in seeing the growth of individual characters - I could easily do a tale just about Akihiro’s shenanigans (I find them fascinating), but there are other tales to tell. What tales do YOU want to tell, specifically?
Give me feedback. No, not just feedback. We need to have a conversation about this. Assume we are gaming Saturday, regardless of what is said here. If something changes, or I decide “no, I need some prep time”, I will let you all know.
Finally, I will be attending evening classes starting in mid-October to get my teaching certs, so I will not have evenings free to prepare. I’ll still be able to game, of course, but I am contemplating stepping away from reffing until those classes are complete. In such a case, we need an alternate campaign - Languedoc, Space, whatever. I still want to play - hell, I may still want to referee, but we need options. I’d enjoy a straightforward GURPS Fantasy campaign, with elves and orcs and crap.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:46 am
To avoid the whole “Japan campaign becomes pirates onthe high seas…..aaaarrr!!” I think the key is to keep it centered in the culture of Japan. Meaning a continuation of the dispicable clan wars and intra-clan infighting. The key to all of this looks like we’re making a move to become players within the Mori clan. meaning we may have to start being involved in our own political machinations and jockeying for power among the clans that owe allegiance to the Mori.
This would actually scale us back a little as we would not immediately be on equal footing with the Sue of the Naito, but it means we become direct targets for this intrigue, not just pawns of the Mori.
Akihiro can easily get us in enough trouble to keep us busy, and a newly emerging clan of companions, not direct family, might even be challenged in its first steps by enough other Mori allies to keep the bloodier of our band hacking and slashing much more than before.
What is the feasibility of a new clan emerging from former direct Mori servants?