PDA

View Full Version : Samurai villain in standard game



Sir_Chivalry
2010-11-12, 05:10 PM
Okay, so I'm putting together a minor minion of one of my major villains the other day, and I get a pretty nice idea. There is a really great Samurai Redux (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134119) on the playground, with tons of awesome options, so I decide to go for that. "But wait" I say, "my campaign world is pretty standard stuff!"

Now I could just say he's from a distant land or something, but I instead decide to make him a noble the country the PCs adventure in. The king is recently (20 years) dead, and the remaining lords have carved a nice portion each of his land, so inserting this guy into that climate doesn't seem too hard.

I've always believed in fluff first, so if I use the Samurai (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7452720&postcount=1)base class and the Tsujigiri (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8651083&postcount=209)prestige class (tl;dr, warrior who is in love with war), how would you, the playgrounders, fluff him? What would a warrior from the typical pseudo-european setting of standard DnD who just happened to have all the crunch of a bloodlust-filled samurai be like?

Similar question pertaining to his elven wife, an Onna-Bugeisha (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8263846&postcount=141)/Kagemusha (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8357050&postcount=150) (tl;dr, the wife of a samurai, versed in etiquet and war equally/an assassin who uses her good looks to seduce her victims).

Thank you in advance for your responses!

tyckspoon
2010-11-12, 06:41 PM
I've always believed in fluff first, so if I use the Samurai (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7452720&postcount=1)base class and the Tsujigiri (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8651083&postcount=209)prestige class (tl;dr, warrior who is in love with war), how would you, the playgrounders, fluff him? What would a warrior from the typical pseudo-european setting of standard DnD who just happened to have all the crunch of a bloodlust-filled samurai be like?
Thank you in advance for your responses!

I don't understand your problem, I'm afraid. A typical psuedo-European warrior with the crunch of that Samurai class would.. act like a typical pseudo-European warrior with a different set of class abilities, and they're not really unusual abilities either. The only thing that really seems to be at odds with a European setting is following Bushido and the Ki pool; Bushido is not all that different from the idealized code of chivalry (basically, honor your king and country above yourself, respect other warriors, don't do bad things to people who aren't warriors) and Ki can be renamed 'Combat Focus' or something, and you'd be good to go. Just because his class is called Samurai doesn't mean he has to dress in silks, drink tea, and make brush-calligraphy signed watercolor paints in his spare time; those are all trappings of the historical Samurai, which doesn't mean the class comes from the same source.

Sir_Chivalry
2010-11-12, 06:44 PM
I don't understand your problem, I'm afraid. A typical psuedo-European warrior with the crunch of that Samurai class would.. act like a typical pseudo-European warrior with a different set of class abilities, and they're not really unusual abilities either. The only thing that really seems to be at odds with a European setting is following Bushido and the Ki pool; Bushido is not all that different from the idealized code of chivalry (basically, honor your king and country above yourself, respect other warriors, don't do bad things to people who aren't warriors) and Ki can be renamed 'Combat Focus' or something, and you'd be good to go. Just because his class is called Samurai doesn't mean he has to dress in silks, drink tea, and make brush-calligraphy signed watercolor paints in his spare time; those are all trappings of the historical Samurai, which doesn't mean the class comes from the same source.

I apologize, I was unclear. You seemed to grasp the gist of what I'm looking for though.

I'm looking for how this sort of villain would differ from other core classes as well. How would it differ from a blackguard in the same position or the all too common demon worshipper? Basically I'm looking for how to play him and his wife.

Great advice to begin with, by the way.

Maho-Tsukai
2010-11-12, 07:00 PM
I have, if you have not guessed, used the Maho-Tsukai outside of Asian themed games and I can tell you that it's quite easy to put Asian classes in a non-asian setting. Basicly all the advice about refluffing was given to you earler and as for how you play them you could simply make them your typical feudal lords. Nobility where, after all, occasionally known to strap on armor and fight depending on the noble so a samurai refluffed as a militant nobleman could easily work for what your doing. However, if you don't want to refluff the samurai as a noble knight/psudo-European warrior why not just play him as being actually from a psudo Asian area.

You TECHNICALLY don't even have to make that psudo-Asian area part of your campaign world. He and his partner could easily both be minions of an evil Maho-Tsukai who used gate or some other planeswalking spell to send them to your campaign world to establish a foothold there and do some intelligence gathering too. This Maho could even become another BBEG once the first one is defeated, and you could keep this whole thing a secret and he could SAY he comes from a far away land. He could even at one point betray the main BBEG and try to take his throne, though if you intend for the BBEG to be the main antagonist you may not want to do that.

SlyGuyMcFly
2010-11-12, 07:59 PM
I'd borrow from the typical evil renaissance italian noble... Think the Borgias.

Slightly stream-of-thought ideas.

Him: Known as a skilled and bloodthirsty duelist. Cunning, ruthless and very much the renaissance man; artist, perhaps philosopher. Cultured yet cruel. Probably likes to embarass his political enemies with the sword as much as with the pen. A sharp wit makes it easy to provoke his oponents onto the field of honour where he can dispatch them personally and without risk of scandal.

Her. Two words. Lucrezia. Borgia. The pop culture one, not the historical. Seductress, poisoner, skilled at emotional manipulation. Extremely intelligent. Probably has a penchant for the arts too. Probable modus operandi would be seduce a victim, then have her husband "defend her honour".


Hope that helps.

Calmar
2010-11-12, 08:15 PM
I'd borrow from the typical evil renaissance italian noble... Think the Borgias.

Slightly stream-of-thought ideas.

Him: Known as a skilled and bloodthirsty duelist. Cunning, ruthless and very much the renaissance man; artist, perhaps philosopher. Cultured yet cruel. Probably likes to embarass his political enemies with the sword as much as with the pen. A sharp wit makes it easy to provoke his oponents onto the field of honour where he can dispatch them personally and without risk of scandal.

Her. Two words. Lucrezia. Borgia. The pop culture one, not the historical. Seductress, poisoner, skilled at emotional manipulation. Extremely intelligent. Probably has a penchant for the arts too. Probable modus operandi would be seduce a victim, then have her husband "defend her honour".


Hope that helps.

That sounds cool.

tyckspoon
2010-11-12, 08:28 PM
I apologize, I was unclear. You seemed to grasp the gist of what I'm looking for though.

I'm looking for how this sort of villain would differ from other core classes as well. How would it differ from a blackguard in the same position or the all too common demon worshipper? Basically I'm looking for how to play him and his wife.

Great advice to begin with, by the way.

hmm.. well, I still think you'd be good to just run him like a typical member of the culture of that area, but if you want to play with it the samurai archetype does have a few things that might help him stand out. Samurai are often more concerned with grace and refinement than many western-based archetypes; perhaps the standard combat style in the area is two-handed Power Attacking, and he practices iajutsu or a Weapon Finesse-based style instead. There could be a particularly brutal and/or bloody sport that is popular in the area (bare-fisted boxing or something) that he refuses to participate in, because it offends his aesthetics (this may endear him to your party a little bit until they find out that, as a tsujigiri, the reason it offends his aesthetics is that it's not bloody enough, and he won't participate in a mock-combat merely makes a man beat up instead of letting him slice him in half.) He might be more conscious of the social graces than most Evil Overlords, and when not in full bloodlust is actually quite a friendly and easy to get along with fellow- that would work well with being married to an elven professional courtesan, I think?

Samurai-type characters are also often especially devoted to their masters, above and beyond what we think of as normal for a western-styled knight; this could be the one guy your BBEG feels he can trust almost absolutely, unlike all those other treacherous dogs who would betray him as soon as he showed weakness. Because of this, he is trusted with holding on to a secret item the bigger villain would otherwise not feel safe keeping around, and if the players manage to eavesdrop on him communicating with another ostensibly equal minion he acts subtly and not-quite-insultingly (social grace, remember? It wouldn't do to provide actionable offense.. but if the other guy wants to take it as such, he'll be happy to provide satisfaction on the end of his sword) superior.

The Big Dice
2010-11-12, 08:43 PM
Okay, so I'm putting together a minor minion of one of my major villains the other day, and I get a pretty nice idea. There is a really great Samurai Redux (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134119) on the playground, with tons of awesome options, so I decide to go for that. "But wait" I say, "my campaign world is pretty standard stuff!"
Think French. French knights were the flower of chivalry, both them and Musketeers have a romantic image that fits most, if not all of the samurai criteria.

Think about it, obsessed with perfecting martial skills, as well as highly cultured and as well versed in the courtly arts as those concerning war. An excellent swordsman who is simply itching to prove his ability in single combat.

That could be a samurai or a musketeer. Or a knight. At least in fluff terms.

Courtly love and romantic chivalry are both concepts that came from France, but that are also very Japanese. You'd be surprised how much Arthurian myth is French in origin, and how much of it could be transposed into a samurai setting with just a change of name and costume.

Somewhere along the line, the samurai became the iconic devoted warrior-noble, with people forgetting the European heritage of mounted chivalry. That confusion between class and role is one of the reasons I dislike class-and-level based games. Myself, I'd prefer to be playing something a little more free. Where I can define a character by who he is rather than what he is.

But that's my own idiosyncracies showing. I'm kind of biased and would suggest Pendragon for knights and L5R for samurai.

Sir_Chivalry
2010-11-12, 11:09 PM
So far I'm getting that he should be a cultured guy, and that his wife should be as well. That much is expected I guess.

What sort of other things should I do to involve the players in this guy?