grimm
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 28
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Post by grimm on Jun 5, 2015 0:27:34 GMT -8
I always suggest that GMs ban Ronin and Unaligned Monks from Magistrate-style games, since they carry an extensive amount of setting baggage that your game doesn't need. You should probably also caution against Spiders, unless this is a period where Pure Spiders are fair game for Imperial Service.
But other than that? Let them pick their clans. Open it up to Minor Clans and Imperials as well, if they want.
Nothing in the plan you have in front of you requires any particular affiliation, other than being Employed by an Emerald Magistrate so they can get sent off to investigate the small matters that will eventually reveal the existance of the conspiracy. Emerald Magistrates OFTEN take on Yoriki from a variety of clans, either because they seem like they will be useful or to pay of debts to allies / old friends who have a child / relation / protege who they want put on track towards the possibility of a future promotion.
And since it has been suggested above that this Magistrate is probably the kind to be fobbing a lot of his work off on his Yorikis, it makes sense that he'd be pretty open to taking on a bunch of them, even if their clans and backgrounds don't necessarily mesh. (JUst remind players it is EVERYONE'S job to build PCs that will play well with others.) Ask the Players to suggest reason WHY their PC has been sent to serve this guy. It doesn't have to be because they are aspiring magistrates. (In truth, it's much more fun if they AREN'T.)
Since this game is about discovering the conspiracy, let them do that organically though investigating small matters related to their activities. Hint that their first few (easy) cases might be connected. If you begin with cases about mysterious sightings in the woods, missing shipments of food/supplies, and ronin sowing unrest amongst local peasants, pretty soon they are going to start suspecting that something bigger is afoot. You can have them catch on right away, or do the "found a painted insignia/tattoo on the culprits/hideout wall, here and at the other place, what does it mean" angle.
If they don't bite, break out the Clue-By-Four. Instead of making them play Scorpion, have a Scorpion NPC come and try to peddle information to them about the conspiracy in exchange for valuable favours. See if they bite. And if not, have the Scorpion get murdered "to hush it up", and throw investigating his death in the party's lap. That's WAY more fun than just passing it to them through the network, and it places the investigation in THEIR court, rather than you (as the GM) just handing them the info. (Heck, do this even if there is a Scorpion in the party. Just make sure this informant isn't a representative the Scorpion High Command, but rather a low level guy trying to move up by building up ties to the Magistrate's office.)
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Post by the0gekko0state on Jun 5, 2015 14:02:31 GMT -8
Yeah ronin will be a no go for sure! Hadn't thought of monks but yeah don't need them. I wasn't going to introduce the Spider yet. But thinking they could be an interesting villain.
You raise a good point. Why not have an a mix becuase each clan has their strength and weaknesses.
True some could have ended up beening Yoriki due to promises or no choice. Duty and all that.
I think that is where I'm struggling is how do I introduce the players to the conspiracy.
I was thinking of having some kind of scorpion interaction.
Thank you, lots to think about still. Making it much more easy.
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grimm
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 28
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Post by grimm on Jun 7, 2015 23:06:17 GMT -8
A mix of Clans also means that people will want to approach problems differently, and have various skill-sets and backgrounds. It also opens up the roster to include literally ANYONE - after all, there is NO requirement in Rokugan that you be qualified for the tasks you are given to do. Rivals Clans / Schools could find themselves thrust together to serve under the same master, and have to make the best of it.
(If I were a PC, I'd be a courtier who wants to be a painter, but whose father has grown angry at his son's lack of ambition and has called in a favour to secure his son this "very prestigious assignment" - a task for which I am completely unskilled except for my very discerning eye for detail.)
I think the introduction should focus on bringing the PCs together by giving them a common goal (their shared missions), and by giving them a few small assignments that they can succeed at without too much difficulty. Early successes are important to set up the game, and help soften up the fact that later on, success is going to be significantly more difficult.
I'd plan about five short missions as the 'first arc'. I'd suggest to have two of them be connected to the conspiracy at the periphery, and three of them (mixed up with the others) be completely unrelated. ALL of them should involve solving minor crimes for the magistrate to get their feet wet. Don't show them the whole picture right away, but instead think about the truth that's being hidden - that a man called the Iron Daimyo is gathering an army to march on the capital and seize power.
Now think about how to break that Secret Truth up into smaller, bite-sized facts.
- There is a man called the Iron Daimyo who opposes the Empreror. - Someone is secretly recruiting an army in the north. - Someone is planning a military coup against the Capital.
Each of those is it's own secret, and each of those is a detail that, without the others, doesn't give you a very complete picture of what is going on. Each of them also leads to other important sub-questions (who is the Iron Daimyo, where is this army, how soon will they march, what is their plan of attack, etc).
During the early missions, you want to hint at these secrets during the investigations they are undertaking. There are several ways this can be done, but my favourite would be to look at the list of bite-sized secrets and think about what kinds of things could lead the party to discover one of those secrets.
Once they uncover ONE of the secrets, see if they chase it. If they do, great. Let them.
If they don't, start hinting at the next secret, and once they uncover that see if they assume the two are connected. If they do, good. If not, lure them towards seeing a connection.
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Post by the0gekko0state on Jun 13, 2015 18:29:07 GMT -8
That is true! I'm thinking I'd want different approaches as well. Also inner group clan rivalries is always fun. I like your character. Wish we could play That is what I'm thinking, maybe some tax collections and other such things. Like you said I want to build a connection within the group so that when things go wrong then they'll have each other's back. Difficulty is something I struggle a bit with as my in game practice is limited and I'm not sure what'll work or not. I'm planning on having some mini mission to introduce the world and mechanics so that'll work. So raise an interesting point. Mixing some in that are just ordinary are a great idea! I'm going to start back onto planning again and doing bite size pieces are a great idea. I'm pretty new to GMing and not sure how much prep I need. Thank you for all your help grimm.
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grimm
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 28
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Post by grimm on Jun 15, 2015 23:09:57 GMT -8
Happy to be of assistance.
For the first few missions, perhaps consider stealing some ideas from the "Challenge, Focus, Strike" anthologies that a few of us have linked here. There are several good assignments for magistrates in there, and you can easily pick a couple to add the 'Conspiracy twist" into the details.
One of the secrets to good GMing is in not over-complicating things. The CFS adventures are nice and straight-forward, and adding a couple of little modifications of your own will make them unique to your table. They are a great tool.
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Post by the0gekko0state on Jun 24, 2015 13:29:41 GMT -8
So I was thinking of some thing like this for one of the adventures. The Letters from Kitsuki Nobuo is another adventure I was working on.
- PCs are called together by a Kitsuki Magistrate. (Possibly Kitsuki Nobuo, see Letters from Kitstuki Nobuo). - need to investigate the rise of unsanctioned duels in a certain town. The town has turned into a hot bed of ronin activity. As if something is drawing them to the town. The Iron Daimyo has sent some agents to the town to collect ronin. But there are so many coming to town that they are unable to talk to everyone. They are now taking to fight each other, disagreements, sport, showing they are better than the others. -Some won't be the smartest and may let slip that someone is recruiting ronin for some army. With that slipped some of the agents will head back to the lead and let them know. A couple of the agents will go around killing loose ends. If a ronin talked they will be on the list. -the agents going after the ronin are ex scorpion that are part of the Iron Daimyo's entourage. If one is captured they will bite their suicide pill or fight to their death.
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G.I. Joe
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 147
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, FATE, GURPS
Currently Playing: Isawa Miriko: Split soul made whole again... with memory issues. Homura (Formerly Isawa Kiyoi) - wandering fire Priestess; Girart - a GURPS low-tech combat monkey w/19ST
Currently Running: Fushigina Ronin (L5R 4th ed)
Favorite Species of Monkey: Winston
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Post by G.I. Joe on Oct 7, 2015 10:21:36 GMT -8
IF you have not run this campaign yet, or if anyone is going to steal the idea, I have a few ideas that may help out a little or at least be interesting. 1) If the Iron Daimyo is actually a former Scorpion Clan agent, the Scorpion would not let him get away. They treat traitors to the clan VERY harshly. Not saying it can't happen, but the Scorpion would expend quite a lot of resources to hunt him down and kill him. 2) Depending on the time that this campaign is set, you could either have the Iron Daimyo be an agent of Daigotsu Kanpeki, or in a twist, be creating the army to actually save the Empire if Kanpeki manages to take over. If you aren't familiure with the curent lore, the Emperor Iweko II basically said that he was going to remove Kanpeki as the Clan Champion, and obviously Kanpeki was a bit miffed. So he, and most of the Spider, declared war on the Empire and Kanpeki sacrified his own wife to gain immense power. So he is definately a force to be reckoned with. Whether he succeeds or not is still to be determined. But this element could add some interesting dynamics; especially if the Iron Daimyo is actually working to stop Kanpeki. 3) One thing you might want to do, and can be done in any time period, is to have the Iron Daimyo be an Oni that happens to look like a human. He could have abilities that make him more persasive, and is able to hide the fact that he is an Oni. So at least some of his agents are not working for him on their own accord, but instead have basically lost their free will. This would also help, because then no clan really knows what to look for; or even that there is something to be looked for. And the Iron Daimyo could totally unleash lesser Oni onto the Empire and then have his forces kill them so that he can gain more allies. 4) This can go along with the previous one, but what if, while he is gathering his secret army, the Iron Daimyo has a more public face? A legitimate way to do this, and build an army, is to form a band of Ronin (similar to Tawagoto's Army: l5r.wikia.com/wiki/Tawagoto%27s_Army). They can use the pretense of killing rouge Oni to gain the people's trust, and even the trust of the Empire as a whole. Trying to take over the empire by force alone is not going to work, unless you happen to be Kanpeki. The clans are too powerfull, especially when they all unite against a threat, like what happened with Kokujin. However, working both in the light and in the shadows, allows the Iron Daimyo to deny responsibility, because he is an upstanding Ronin, who simply hates the Shadowlands and lives only to serve the Empire.
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Oct 7, 2015 23:53:58 GMT -8
IF you have not run this campaign yet, or if anyone is going to steal the idea, I have a few ideas that may help out a little or at least be interesting. 1) If the Iron Daimyo is actually a former Scorpion Clan agent, the Scorpion would not let him get away. They treat traitors to the clan VERY harshly. Not saying it can't happen, but the Scorpion would expend quite a lot of resources to hunt him down and kill him. 2) Depending on the time that this campaign is set, you could either have the Iron Daimyo be an agent of Daigotsu Kanpeki, or in a twist, be creating the army to actually save the Empire if Kanpeki manages to take over. If you aren't familiure with the curent lore, the Emperor Iweko II basically said that he was going to remove Kanpeki as the Clan Champion, and obviously Kanpeki was a bit miffed. So he, and most of the Spider, declared war on the Empire and Kanpeki sacrified his own wife to gain immense power. So he is definately a force to be reckoned with. Whether he succeeds or not is still to be determined. But this element could add some interesting dynamics; especially if the Iron Daimyo is actually working to stop Kanpeki. 3) One thing you might want to do, and can be done in any time period, is to have the Iron Daimyo be an Oni that happens to look like a human. He could have abilities that make him more persasive, and is able to hide the fact that he is an Oni. So at least some of his agents are not working for him on their own accord, but instead have basically lost their free will. This would also help, because then no clan really knows what to look for; or even that there is something to be looked for. And the Iron Daimyo could totally unleash lesser Oni onto the Empire and then have his forces kill them so that he can gain more allies. 4) This can go along with the previous one, but what if, while he is gathering his secret army, the Iron Daimyo has a more public face? A legitimate way to do this, and build an army, is to form a band of Ronin (similar to Tawagoto's Army: l5r.wikia.com/wiki/Tawagoto%27s_Army). They can use the pretense of killing rouge Oni to gain the people's trust, and even the trust of the Empire as a whole. Trying to take over the empire by force alone is not going to work, unless you happen to be Kanpeki. The clans are too powerfull, especially when they all unite against a threat, like what happened with Kokujin. However, working both in the light and in the shadows, allows the Iron Daimyo to deny responsibility, because he is an upstanding Ronin, who simply hates the Shadowlands and lives only to serve the Empire. Point 4 above echoes what the Spider themselves did during their initial infiltration of Rokugan as well. They posed as ronin bands defending unaligned lands against raiders and bandits. It would have an interesting duality if the Iron Daimyo is planning to oppose the Spider in the future. While I agree with point 1, it could also be a double-blind. He may be an ex-Scorpion, or just be saying he is, or maybe still be a Scorpion posing as an ex-Scorpion. Because, you know, Scorpion....
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Post by the0gekko0state on Oct 9, 2015 14:45:39 GMT -8
I love the points G.I. Joe! Especially number one, which is a really good point. Unfortunately I don't know much about Daigotsu Kanpeki so I wouldn't know how to pull that off. An Oni is an interesting idea as well. Something with mind powers or something maybe. Or just a lot of infiltrators. I'd thought about the whole thing being a ronin thing as well, only problem is I don't know if there are enough ronin in the empire. But I suppose being GM I can change that . Unfortunately I haven't been able to get a group together to play this campaign so I stopped planning. Everyone's in love with D&D 5e. But I'm hoping to work some more on it now.
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G.I. Joe
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 147
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, FATE, GURPS
Currently Playing: Isawa Miriko: Split soul made whole again... with memory issues. Homura (Formerly Isawa Kiyoi) - wandering fire Priestess; Girart - a GURPS low-tech combat monkey w/19ST
Currently Running: Fushigina Ronin (L5R 4th ed)
Favorite Species of Monkey: Winston
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Post by G.I. Joe on Oct 13, 2015 14:45:05 GMT -8
Unfortunately I don't know much about Daigotsu Kanpeki so I wouldn't know how to pull that off. Just use L5R wiki. It is a great reference for all the current lore. An Oni is an interesting idea as well. Something with mind powers or something maybe. Or just a lot of infiltrators. I'd thought about the whole thing being a ronin thing as well, only problem is I don't know if there are enough ronin in the empire. But I suppose being GM I can change that . As to this point, get Enimies of the Empire. It has all the info on Oni, as well as rules to build your own. It also provides some additional information on ronin. For the numbers game, generally if there is a war going on, there are very few ronin; while a few years after a war, there are generally more ronin. But Enimies of the Empire has more info on that as well.
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Post by the0gekko0state on Oct 14, 2015 10:43:23 GMT -8
Ah yes the wiki, I always forget the wiki lol.
I have enemies of the empire, but haven't read it in a long time. Time for a revisit!
Thanks!
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Post by the0gekko0state on Oct 17, 2015 17:34:34 GMT -8
So if I went the route of making the Iron Daimyo a shadowland creature would it replace the Spider Clan? Or would it become a separate thing maybe feeling scorned by the Spider Clan and wanting retribution? Maybe the Spider Clan knows but hasn't warned the empire....
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2015 0:02:57 GMT -8
Other than seditious groups like the Kolat, no one would try this. It is insanity. The entire system of Rokugan depends on order. Each clan has their own power base, and each member of that clan is upholding the honor of said clan.
NO SANE SAMURAI WOULD EVER SUPPORT A PEASANT UPRISING. Even being overly kind to a peasant is not a good thing, as you might confuse them as to their role in the celestial order.
The Kolat survives because of secrecy. They can't openly oppose the great clans. Your Iron Daimyo would be annihilated. The Great Clans agree on almost nothing, except uniting against threats to their way of life. And Kolat philosophy is nearly as anathema as creatures of the shadowlands.
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G.I. Joe
Journeyman Douchebag
Posts: 147
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, FATE, GURPS
Currently Playing: Isawa Miriko: Split soul made whole again... with memory issues. Homura (Formerly Isawa Kiyoi) - wandering fire Priestess; Girart - a GURPS low-tech combat monkey w/19ST
Currently Running: Fushigina Ronin (L5R 4th ed)
Favorite Species of Monkey: Winston
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Post by G.I. Joe on Oct 19, 2015 9:15:10 GMT -8
Other than seditious groups like the Kolat, no one would try this. It is insanity. The entire system of Rokugan depends on order. Each clan has their own power base, and each member of that clan is upholding the honor of said clan. NO SANE SAMURAI WOULD EVER SUPPORT A PEASANT UPRISING. Even being overly kind to a peasant is not a good thing, as you might confuse them as to their role in the celestial order. The Kolat survives because of secrecy. They can't openly oppose the great clans. Your Iron Daimyo would be annihilated. The Great Clans agree on almost nothing, except uniting against threats to their way of life. And Kolat philosophy is nearly as anathema as creatures of the shadowlands. It would really depend on how explicit the Iron Daimyo is on recruiting peasants, where he gets the peasants from, and where his army is located. If he has taken up residence in Nazo Mori (see Book of Void), a place where there are legends of the supernatural, and is located somewhere in unaligned Rokugon. If they are in a place like that, then peasants getting recruited can easily turn into more rumors about mysterious disapearences in/around Nazo Mori. This could be a completely separate plan from the ID's ronin recruitment plan and he could have a more public face, where he goes around and helps people, kills bandits, defeats witches, and seems to generally be a good ronin. But in Nazo Mori, he is corrupting the peasants he recruits into a tainted army that will be able to sweep into Rokugon and take the Clans by surprise; wiping them out before they can rally against him! Or that's his plan at least. Perhaps he is working for the Spider Clan. In answer to the0gekko0state; no, having him be a shadowlands creature does not mean he is not Spider Clan. It can go either way. Perhaps he was annoyed at Daigotsu making the taint less spreadable, and so set off to destroy Rokugon himself. Or perhaps he is directly working for Kenpeki, and they are going to launch a simultaneous strike against the Empire. Maybe the samurai who are supporting the Iron Daimyo are either advanced Bog Hags wearing their skin, shapeshifting Shadowlands creatures, or simply samurai who are infected with taint and have the qualities that make them infiltrators.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2015 3:32:36 GMT -8
Yeah, you clearly do not understand the setting. No army of peasants, no matter their pitiful training, stands a chance compared to a great clan. As a hint, peasants start with a 1 in all their rings. Not to mention the clans all have their own groups of ashigaru, some whose families have served for generations. The great clans also have more to offer most ronin, aka Koku and prestige. Not to mention that the iron daimyo is upsetting the celestial order, which means even lowly ronin are likely to turn their nose up at him. His crime is treason, against the Emperor. There is literally nothing worse you can do.
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