Deth Muncher
2008-12-27, 02:58 PM
Despite my great enjoyment (that's a word, right?) at doing a good deal of my DM-ing "on the fly", as it were, occasionally I need to actually write stuff down, and come up with actual, fleshed out ideas. When these times happen, I turn to you, the playgrounders, as the collective hivemind that is the Gaming (d20 and General RPG) Forum generally has all the knowledge necesary for no matter what needs to happen.
Currently, I'm running an Updated Oriental Adventures campaign, and the PCs (level 4) are fleeing their city at the behest of their elder to get to a port town to enlist the help of their elder. This elder, of course, happens to be the leader of the town's Yakuza. And as I was doing this, I realized "Well, wait a sec, how would a Yakuza actually work in game? Heck, how does a Thieves Guild work, for that matter?" Which is why I come to you guys, because I realized that really, I have no clue how to make this kind of thing anything more than just a vague "Oh, yeah guys, there's a Yakuza. Mhm. Don't ask questions, or your character's dead." kind of thing.
I was looking at both the Yakuza PrC in OA, as well as the Stretfighter PrC in CAdv, both of which seem to facilitate that whole "gang" thing. They both get a save to shrug off damage (altough SF's is better). They both get bonuses at gathering local information (although Yak's is better). Also, Streetfighter has the benefit of advancing/granting Sneak Attack, whereas Yakuza gives you lots of skill points to invest in all sorts of crimelord things. (Like Forgery! Yeah! -_-*) I think they'd both be great classes to invest in for the ranks of the Yakuza, having SF's for the "enforcers" and having people with the actual Yakuza class being the upper-level crimebosses/lieutennants.
But, even with that being said, how does the infrastructure of this work in Oriental Adventures. The setting as I'm playing it...well, not really biased one way towards one specific culture, so I mean, if it works one way in Japan but another in China, I'd be interested to see the differences.
So, without further ado, help please!
Also, WALL OF TEXT ATTACK!
Currently, I'm running an Updated Oriental Adventures campaign, and the PCs (level 4) are fleeing their city at the behest of their elder to get to a port town to enlist the help of their elder. This elder, of course, happens to be the leader of the town's Yakuza. And as I was doing this, I realized "Well, wait a sec, how would a Yakuza actually work in game? Heck, how does a Thieves Guild work, for that matter?" Which is why I come to you guys, because I realized that really, I have no clue how to make this kind of thing anything more than just a vague "Oh, yeah guys, there's a Yakuza. Mhm. Don't ask questions, or your character's dead." kind of thing.
I was looking at both the Yakuza PrC in OA, as well as the Stretfighter PrC in CAdv, both of which seem to facilitate that whole "gang" thing. They both get a save to shrug off damage (altough SF's is better). They both get bonuses at gathering local information (although Yak's is better). Also, Streetfighter has the benefit of advancing/granting Sneak Attack, whereas Yakuza gives you lots of skill points to invest in all sorts of crimelord things. (Like Forgery! Yeah! -_-*) I think they'd both be great classes to invest in for the ranks of the Yakuza, having SF's for the "enforcers" and having people with the actual Yakuza class being the upper-level crimebosses/lieutennants.
But, even with that being said, how does the infrastructure of this work in Oriental Adventures. The setting as I'm playing it...well, not really biased one way towards one specific culture, so I mean, if it works one way in Japan but another in China, I'd be interested to see the differences.
So, without further ado, help please!
Also, WALL OF TEXT ATTACK!