What would people look for in an 3.5/PF Oriental Adventures game?

[Dusk Raven]

(Wasn't really sure whether to put this here or in the "Finding Players" forum, as it originally was both asking questions and gauging interest. Decided to put it here so I could focus on the questions)

A short while ago, I found a recruitment thread for an Oriental Adventures game and setting - which came at a time when I was looking heavily into OA and pondering a setting of my own. The thread got me thinking about running an Oriental Adventures game of my own on here - I'd already been working on a setting and campaign prompt, it'd just be a matter of tailoring it for an online group.

However, I wanted ask a few things about Oriental Adventures games here: what draws people to them over any other game? Are there a lot of players who'd be willing to play in such a setting, particularly if it's designed with strong cultural differences in mind?

Also relevant: how acceptable is it to link PDFs of, say, old Dragon Magazine issues? I'd definitely have to use various non-OA sources, such as the 3.5 updates to OA in one of the Dragon Magazine issues. Possibly homebrew sources as well, though that's less problematic...

[Wartex1]

The way I see it, which may not be entirely accurate, is that there are four main categories of players when it comes to Oriental Adventures.

Group 1: The Dungeoncrawlers

This group more or less approaches an OA game the same as traditional DnD, though maybe with some cultural considerations such as the prevalence of monks and "weird" casters such as Sha'irs or Wu Jens.

Group 2: Romanticism

This group wants a mostly accurate simulation of real-world eastern culture, which can be different depending on the primary culture of origin or the setting is styled after. Samurai are noblemen under the employ of a shogun or daimyo, ninjas are almost purely reconnaissance and use disguise more often than the "Hollywood Method." A decent example would be the Red Cliff movies. Fighters and the Samurai class would best be at home here, though with basically all supernatural elements dummied out.

Group 3: Wuxia

This group wants the traditional fantasized version of real-world oriental history. Samurai were powerful warriors, ninjas were masterful assassins and spies, ascetics could perform magical feats, and clergymen could banish demons and control the very earth. Stuff like Dynasty Warriors and Nioh would fit into this category, and Tome of Battle finds itself in this sweet spot, mostly.

Group 4: Hyper-Wuxia

This group takes everything about Wuxia and dials it up to 11. Where Wuxia is the beginning of Naruto, where most facets of ninjutsu were forms of physical mastery, Hyper-Wuxia is the end of Naruto where ninjas are essentially Wizards altering the landscape at a whim. Expect high levels of Weeaboo Fightan Magic here, but to extreme degrees. This would basically be a Gestalt game using Tome of Battle and full casters.

[rigsmal]

Check out Yoon-Suin: The Purple Land. It's OSR but it's pretty great. A good take on that 'Eastern Exotic Lands' vibe without getting crap and cliched

Not long ago someone was recruiting for a game called Sentinels of Houshen (or something). It's 5e but is set in not-China. It's also pretty well-written. GM seems like a forum regular, you would probably know better than I do.

[BWR]

what draws people to them over any other game?.

Speaking only for myself and theoretically (since I'm not looking to join any games now - I have enough): because it looks cool. Something different than the same old pseudo-European stuff.


Are there a lot of players who'd be willing to play in such a setting, particularly if it's designed with strong cultural differences in mind?

Define 'a lot'. L5R is fairly popular with a dedicated following that likes the setting, but it has nothing on D&D in size. Strong cultural differences would be the main attraction to me. Sure, it might be an effort to get to know the details, but present a fun setting and I'm willing to put in the work to learn it. And this is the most important thing: a fun setting. While anthropology and cultural studies may be fun, a campaign setting is more than this, and you have to offer something enticing to the players, however you dress it up.


Also relevant: how acceptable is it to link PDFs of, say, old Dragon Magazine issues?..
You'll probably run into copyright issues if you link to copies of them, so best to ask players to get their own copies. You can refer people to it and you can quote bits and pieces, but at some point you go from legal quotation to illegal sharing. The exact limit is something you'll have to look up on your own.
Legal issues aside, what do you mean by 'relevant'? Relevant to the setting you're making? Only you can answer that. Relevant to RAW? Well, it is 100% official. Some other meaning of 'relevant'?

[Vaz]

Oriental Adventures is heavily influenced by Legend of the 5 Rings, which has some old 3E of reasonably high standard Third Party produced. Rokugan Campaign Setting, and then specific 'Secrets of the Clan' books which detail the specifics.

If you have any players who have played the Living or Collectible Card Games, you'll do wonders. I've played L5R 3E, grandfathered into 3.5, as an actual plane the players visited. Over the course of the freeform campaign setting, the players ended up abandoning their old characters or having them adapt to being in the setting as Gaijin, to the extent when the arc ended, and they had an opportuunity to return home, the players requested that the campaign be put on hold, and instead start a new one in Rokugan.

We have just started the L5R LCG, and are having brilliant fun. (Unicorn baby!)

[Gnaeus]

The way I see it, which may not be entirely accurate, is that there are four main categories of players when it comes to Oriental Adventures.

Group 1: The Dungeoncrawlers

This group more or less approaches an OA game the same as traditional DnD, though maybe with some cultural considerations such as the prevalence of monks and "weird" casters such as Sha'irs or Wu Jens.

Group 2: Romanticism

This group wants a mostly accurate simulation of real-world eastern culture, which can be different depending on the primary culture of origin or the setting is styled after. Samurai are noblemen under the employ of a shogun or daimyo, ninjas are almost purely reconnaissance and use disguise more often than the "Hollywood Method." A decent example would be the Red Cliff movies. Fighters and the Samurai class would best be at home here, though with basically all supernatural elements dummied out.

Group 3: Wuxia

This group wants the traditional fantasized version of real-world oriental history. Samurai were powerful warriors, ninjas were masterful assassins and spies, ascetics could perform magical feats, and clergymen could banish demons and control the very earth. Stuff like Dynasty Warriors and Nioh would fit into this category, and Tome of Battle finds itself in this sweet spot, mostly.

Group 4: Hyper-Wuxia

This group takes everything about Wuxia and dials it up to 11. Where Wuxia is the beginning of Naruto, where most facets of ninjutsu were forms of physical mastery, Hyper-Wuxia is the end of Naruto where ninjas are essentially Wizards altering the landscape at a whim. Expect high levels of Weeaboo Fightan Magic here, but to extreme degrees. This would basically be a Gestalt game using Tome of Battle and full casters.

I would definitely either use ToB/PoW (maybe with incarna which defaults to a kind of Indian subcontinent feel) or plan to upgrade all the “eastern” muggles (monk, Ninja, Samurai, maybe Barbarian) Unchained Monk or a little stronger should be the power level goal. You want to reward, not punish people for playing the appropriate classes. Probably some power upgrades coupled with relevant social treats so a Samurai is better than a Fighter who calls himself a Samurai.

[Dusk Raven]

The way I see it, which may not be entirely accurate, is that there are four main categories of players when it comes to Oriental Adventures.

Group 1: The Dungeoncrawlers

This group more or less approaches an OA game the same as traditional DnD, though maybe with some cultural considerations such as the prevalence of monks and "weird" casters such as Sha'irs or Wu Jens.

Group 2: Romanticism

This group wants a mostly accurate simulation of real-world eastern culture, which can be different depending on the primary culture of origin or the setting is styled after. Samurai are noblemen under the employ of a shogun or daimyo, ninjas are almost purely reconnaissance and use disguise more often than the "Hollywood Method." A decent example would be the Red Cliff movies. Fighters and the Samurai class would best be at home here, though with basically all supernatural elements dummied out.

Group 3: Wuxia

This group wants the traditional fantasized version of real-world oriental history. Samurai were powerful warriors, ninjas were masterful assassins and spies, ascetics could perform magical feats, and clergymen could banish demons and control the very earth. Stuff like Dynasty Warriors and Nioh would fit into this category, and Tome of Battle finds itself in this sweet spot, mostly.

Group 4: Hyper-Wuxia

This group takes everything about Wuxia and dials it up to 11. Where Wuxia is the beginning of Naruto, where most facets of ninjutsu were forms of physical mastery, Hyper-Wuxia is the end of Naruto where ninjas are essentially Wizards altering the landscape at a whim. Expect high levels of Weeaboo Fightan Magic here, but to extreme degrees. This would basically be a Gestalt game using Tome of Battle and full casters.

From the sounds of it, the idea I have would largely appeal to 1 and 3, though given my style of both worldbuilding and DMing there'll likely be room for 2's there. The setting is a very hostile world recently thrown into darkness by the rise of a demonic warlord, though I plan to have it be more than just a hack-and-slash -- the most obvious option may be to fight everything in sight, but I always reward subtlety and creative thinking...


Check out Yoon-Suin: The Purple Land. It's OSR but it's pretty great. A good take on that 'Eastern Exotic Lands' vibe without getting crap and cliched

Not long ago someone was recruiting for a game called Sentinels of Houshen (or something). It's 5e but is set in not-China. It's also pretty well-written. GM seems like a forum regular, you would probably know better than I do.

I'll have to check those out. Dunno if I'd recognize the GM -- on these forums, I mainly hang around the World-Building forum -- but you never know...


Legal issues aside, what do you mean by 'relevant'? Relevant to the setting you're making? Only you can answer that. Relevant to RAW? Well, it is 100% official. Some other meaning of 'relevant'?

I'm confused by the question. I stated why -- it's relevant because I want to use material from one of the Dragon magazines, and I want to know what I'm allowed to share, and at what point I have to simply leave it to the players to find or have the material.

[Psyren]

I'm confused by the question. I stated why -- it's relevant because I want to use material from one of the Dragon magazines, and I want to know what I'm allowed to share, and at what point I have to simply leave it to the players to find or have the material.

You can't post any links to copyrighted material here if that's what you're asking. Only OGL links are allowed.

As for what I personally look for in a Wutai campaign, groups 2 and 3 in Wartex's post capture most of it.

[BWR]

edit: nevermind

[atemu1234]

I tried running something like this a while back, the trick is to eliminate the non-competitive classes and turn Wu-Jen into something more like the Wizard, Shugenja more like the (Druid was the equivalent, I think), and the like, and just refluff, refluff, refluff.

[Dusk Raven]

Something came up in another thread, where I was trying to create a tweak for the Knight class to turn it into a Samurai class - would it matter that much if Samurai had their own class? Or would it be better for Fighters, Rangers, etc., to be able to be Samurai? I lean somewhat towards the former, so long as I can make the Knight/Samurai class fun to play, but I hadn't really thought about it before so I was curious what others thought.

[Psyren]

Samurai do have their own class, are you saying you don't want to use that one?

As others have suggested you might be better off using ToB/PoW classes and simply calling them samurai, particularly Warblades / Warlords.

[Dusk Raven]

Samurai do have their own class, are you saying you don't want to use that one?

As others have suggested you might be better off using ToB/PoW classes and simply calling them samurai, particularly Warblades / Warlords.

Well, the Complete Warrior Samurai sucks. It is almost objectively worse than the Fighter, since the Fighter can do basically everything a CW Samurai can, and much more. The Oriental Adventures Samurai, meanwhile, is essentially a Fighter with fewer feats, a narrower bonus feat selection, and their sole class ability is now a single feat, Ancestral Relic from Book of Exalted Deeds. So I don't really want to use either of those unless I get a group that only wants to use OA and nothing else. Hence why I've been trying to rework the Knight into a Samurai, though someone on that thread asked why Samurai had to be a class and not a background, and it was a question I thought worth answering even if I do intend to have a Samurai class.

I'm unlikely to use ToB stuff in place of Samurai, though -- not because I don't like ToB (I'd love to play a ToB-centric campaign sometime), but because I'm not very familiar with it and I don't really know what the classes in that book are capable of.

[Psyren]

Well there's a third samurai you can consider - the Pathfinder one. It's also not the greatest, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of the CW and OA ones, putting aside the one cheesy fear-spam build.

[Dusk Raven]

Well there's a third samurai you can consider - the Pathfinder one. It's also not the greatest, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of the CW and OA ones, putting aside the one cheesy fear-spam build.

I'd only use it if I were actually playing Pathfinder. I'm fine with porting stuff from 3.5 to Pathfinder (mostly spells and feats, classes tend to need a little sprucing up first), but not the reverse. It is, of course, the obvious option if I were to play Pathfinder, and the PF Samurai being a variant of the Cavalier is partly what inspired me to try making a variant of the Knight.

[Psyren]

I'd only use it if I were actually playing Pathfinder. I'm fine with porting stuff from 3.5 to Pathfinder (mostly spells and feats, classes tend to need a little sprucing up first), but not the reverse. It is, of course, the obvious option if I were to play Pathfinder, and the PF Samurai being a variant of the Cavalier is partly what inspired me to try making a variant of the Knight.

Your opening post did not contain such stipulations, it just says "3.5/PF", so I'd have no way of knowing what the restrictions are.

[Dusk Raven]

Your opening post did not contain such stipulations, it just says "3.5/PF", so I'd have no way of knowing what the restrictions are.

Well, I've never heard of anyone bringing PF classes into 3.5, and when I gave examples from 3.5, that meant I was talking about 3.5 in that context. Of course, I forgot I'd even mentioned PF, so I suppose that's my fault.

I've mostly been thinking about running it in 3.5, even though PF isn't actually off the table. I don't really know which I'd prefer for this, so I'd kinda locked myself into thinking of it in 3.5 terms, so-as to force myself to make a decision.

Point is, PF Samurai is only an option if I actually play Pathfinder. I'd still like something for if 3.5 is the game of choice.

[weckar]

I played an OA game a couple of years ago that really embraced a different kind of supernaturalism.
Specifically it was a gestalt game in which the banishment of rogue spirits was a central activity.
Spirit Shaman is an excellent class for this, IMO.

The game fell apart due to a coddling DM, unfortunately, who would just not let us die even if we by all accounts should have - even breaking rules to 'save' us.

[Psyren]

Well, I've never heard of anyone bringing PF classes into 3.5, and when I gave examples from 3.5, that meant I was talking about 3.5 in that context. Of course, I forgot I'd even mentioned PF, so I suppose that's my fault.

I've mostly been thinking about running it in 3.5, even though PF isn't actually off the table. I don't really know which I'd prefer for this, so I'd kinda locked myself into thinking of it in 3.5 terms, so-as to force myself to make a decision.

People do that all the time, and again, if you start the thread off with "3.5/PF" my logical assumption would be that you were doing the same. In particular people like bringing the Alchemist back to 3.5 (as 3.5 has few options in that direction), the Oracle (as a SAD alternative to the Favored Soul) and the PF Unchained Monk or Brawler, as a non-ToB/non-caster unarmed fighter that actually functions.

In any case, your choice is simple - if you must have a class called "Samurai" you can either use the two 3.5 ones (which you have rejected), the PF one (which you seem to have also rejected), refluff something else and call it a "Samurai" (which you're attempting to do with Knight, I guess?), or homebrew something.

[Wartex1]

Tome of Battle works great for samurai, with Swordsages being the archetypal "robed samurai" and Warblades resembling traditional "armored samurai."

However, Pathfinder's own ToB, Path of War, does eastern stuff much better with more supplementary materials including a discipline entirely based off of iaijutsu.

[atemu1234]

Tome of Battle works great for samurai, with Swordsages being the archetypal "robed samurai" and Warblades resembling traditional "armored samurai."

However, Pathfinder's own ToB, Path of War, does eastern stuff much better with more supplementary materials including a discipline entirely based off of iaijutsu.

I've often been tempted to make a gunslinger-geared ToB-style book, with various attacks and effects solely based around ranged attacks, similar to how ToB works with maneuvers.

[Wartex1]

I've often been tempted to make a gunslinger-geared ToB-style book, with various attacks and effects solely based around ranged attacks, similar to how ToB works with maneuvers.

Path of War has options solely for ranged attackers and switch-hitters, and many maneuvers can be used melee or ranged.

As for gun-based characters, there's the Desperado Warlord and Gunsmoke Mystic archetypes.

[Dusk Raven]

In any case, your choice is simple - if you must have a class called "Samurai" you can either use the two 3.5 ones (which you have rejected), the PF one (which you seem to have also rejected), refluff something else and call it a "Samurai" (which you're attempting to do with Knight, I guess?), or homebrew something.

Not a case of rejection, it's just a case of wanting to keep my systems separate. I'd certainly use it if I played Pathfinder.


Tome of Battle works great for samurai, with Swordsages being the archetypal "robed samurai" and Warblades resembling traditional "armored samurai."

However, Pathfinder's own ToB, Path of War, does eastern stuff much better with more supplementary materials including a discipline entirely based off of iaijutsu.

I think this thread has inadvertently made me realize why I didn't favor Pathfinder for this, or why I'm hesitant to use Tome of Battle/Path of War (which, fortunately, I have on PDF) - it's because 3.5 feels a lot grittier and less flashy to me than Pathfinder, and the former is what I was going for with this particular campaign idea.

I generally prefer Pathfinder, especially with all the things one can do compared to a character in 3.5, but I'm not sure that's what I want for this campaign. That's more of a campaign/setting decision than a rule one - do I want a gritty, dark game? Or do I want something where the heroes feel more powerful? That also goes into whether or not I use ToB/PoW, although that decision also has to do with "How much of a '#2' OA gamer am I?" Do I want Samurai to have near-supernatural techniques, or should they only have more mundane swordplay?

[angelpalm]

I cringe every time someone mentions wuxia and people start talking about ninjas and samurai.