Oriental campaign ideas

[BooNL]

Tomorrow I'm meeting with a friend to teach him a bit about DnD. So far he's showing a healthy interest and given his hobbies I'm sure I can win him over to the dark side.

Anyway, he's quite into anime and when I asked him to think of a character archetype he wanted to play his immediate response was to be a ninja.

Now, given that at least our first couple of sessions will be solo for him (no other players in the region, though I might be able to get one or two others in), I can cater to his wishes as best as I can. However, I don't know anything about oriental campaigns!
Basically all my knowledge about the Far East is from Discovery, Jade Empire and a couple of kung fu films. No way I'm getting a decent setting out of that.

So I turn to you guys to help me come up with at least a plausible setting. I already told him I'm no good with oriental stuff, but I would like to start in that setting, later moving on to stuff I'm more comfortable with.

I'm thinking of having his character be in some sort of secret ninja squad tasked with the assassination of some diaomo (sp?), a warlord or some sort of equivalent. He'll be the least experienced member of the group and it's his first real mission.
Now, somewhere along the way he'll probably get seperated from the rest of the group and he'll have to work out how to complete his mission on his own.

Plenty of sneaking, combat and social opportunities, I think.

So, have you guys got any tips for me running an oriental campaign?

[Eldonauran]

If you can, get access to the Oriental Adventures book for 3.0e D&D. It has a massive amount of information for running oriental style campaigns and how to adapt other classes to fit. Only small changes are needed to make it match 3.5e.

[jiriku]

That question comes up a lot here. Do a couple of searches for oriental or asian-themed campaigns and you'll find lots of good advice. For now, I humbly suggest the Rokugan sourcebook.

[Ianuagonde]

The Rokugan campaign setting is made of win. Chock full of flavor: etiquette suggestions, political alliances, government, religion, the works. I tried it, and it was awesome.

[Dusk Eclipse]

If he wants a ninja-like character, I suggest a Swordsage focusing on shadow hand, setting sun and tiger claw.

Also I third the suggestion for Oriental adventures

[BooNL]

If he wants a ninja-like character, I suggest a Swordsage focusing on shadow hand, setting sun and tiger claw.

Also I third the suggestion for Oriental adventures

Swordsage was my first thought as well. Though I'll probably walk through a couple of classes with him first, have him make the decisions.

I'll try to see if my local library has Oriental Adventures, I kind of suspected that'd be the general answer .

[AslanCross]

One thing that I think people shouldn't forget when running Asian-themed campaigns: Asia is more than China and Japan. They had a great deal of interaction with India, the Middle East, and even Southeast Asia. Oriental Adventures has some support for Indian lore (Vanaras, the Singh prestige class) and even Southeast Asia (Penanggolan and that monster that looks like it's cut in half; forgot the name).

Tome of Battle will fit in fine if the player likes anime. There's less of a gap to bridge.

[Deth Muncher]

If you can, get access to the Oriental Adventures book for 3.0e D&D. It has a massive amount of information for running oriental style campaigns and how to adapt other classes to fit. Only small changes are needed to make it match downloading the update is needed to update to 3.5e.

Fixed that for you.

[Optimator]

If he's new to D&D a Swordsage might be a bit much for him to keep on top of, unless he's pretty into games in general like video games and board games. In that case he'd probably pick it up fast enough. A Rogue or Ninja or Scout or Rokugan Ninja would all work well if the maneuvers are overwhelming to keep track of.

If you like homebrew, the Monk, Assassin and Thief-Acrobat from here (and here) would work great too. Sooo many ways to make a ninja. I just made a campaign based around a bunch of ninjas kidnapping me and they're a Scout/Master Thrower, Monk/Warblade, Rogue/Tempest and a Ninja/Bard/Dirgesinger/Stormsinger who uses a Kokyu and a big Japanese-style 4 foot drum.

One of my favorite things about the Oriental Adventures book is how much of the art was Wayne Reynolds . In all seriousness, check it out.

[WeeFreeMen]

I ran something almost exactly the same for my friend when he was just getting into it. He, as your friend, is an Anime fan [Naruto...] so naturally his response was exactly the same as your friends.

"I wanna be a Ninja!"
That being said, I asked him what kind of Ninja (Which I recommend you ask your friend as it will persuade what kind of setting and style the Campaign course will run)
For example he liked the "Naruto" Style Ninja as I call it, with flashy explosive moves and exaggerated martial art styles.
-This can be fun as it allows them to learn the basics of DnD, but not on a strict level [IE: Power gaming level] as it allows for some leeway for Rule of Cool.
On the opposite side of the coin, the play style of the "Traditional" ninja. Stealthy, not nearly as flashy, doesn't fight if he doesn't have too, Hit and Run. etc [Think Assassins Creed style. Diplomatic Avenger]
-This was fun in the sense as it lets them learn the intrigue side of the game. RP is very prominent, not to say that the flashy style can't be but usually the "Stealthy" approach almost always has more RP situations IMO.

Now to sum it all up, I suggest asking your friend what style he would enjoy most, and basing your world around that. Obviously you can start small, with a loose story line and DONT BE AFRAID to use some of his favored anime material. The more familar he is with what hes hearing the easier the mechanics are to learn. [Science]

Now as for Setting and Situations: I ran it as there was several nations, he was allowed to pick his nation and allegiance. From there I made the nations political views, and figures etc. He then got missions on the occasion, but the missions were influenced by what he did on his own when he was "In-active" [Ex: He wandered to the "Koji" Provence to deliver documents, normal bandits etc on the way, however while he was in town he was slipped a mission card to assassinate a diplomats relative to bring the relative out of hiding/protection for further missions/targeting. The catch was he had to make it look like a natural death which lead to a multitude of side missions for a "Heart Attack" poison blah blah blah.]

My point here is, let him drive the campaign direction. You don't need in dept knowledge of the master degree level to make it enjoyable. Especially as a learning experience. Just enough to set the setting. Samurai, Ninjas, Diplomats, etc. [Seriously, I used like HALF the Samurai Champloo setting just slightly re-flavored and he never caught on]

[BooNL]

Thanks for the tips, I found a copy of Oriental Adventures in my local library, there's some nice stuff in there indeed. Now I understand all this talk about Iaijutsu and CW Samurai. The OA is a lot better than that poo poo platter featured in Complete Warrior, good stuff .

Anyway, I've skimmed through it a bit, just gathering ideas. I like the idea of the Shadowlands and the Spirit subtype. Though I probably won't be using the Taint system.

Now, as I mentioned the game will be starting at level 1, solo. What kind of encounters would be good for this type of setting? I recon most enemies would be human, I can freely throw around interesting names like ashigaru and samurai that way (go me).
I would like some animals or monsters in there as well though. Any ideas for that?

[Shpadoinkle]

Thanks for the tips, I found a copy of Oriental Adventures in my local library, there's some nice stuff in there indeed. Now I understand all this talk about Iaijutsu and CW Samurai. The OA is a lot better than that poo poo platter featured in Complete Warrior, good stuff .

Commoners are better than the CW samurai. I cannot for the life of me understand what WotC was thinking when they published that godawful pileo f crap of a class.

The only thing I can come up with that makes any kind of sense is the idea that they were tyrng to say "Dammit you morons, we hate melee, magic users are so much better! Why can't you see that? Will this horribly ****ty class FINALLY convince you?"

[Optimator]

Commoners are better than the CW samurai. I cannot for the life of me understand what WotC was thinking when they published that godawful pileo f crap of a class.

Did you notice all three classes in the CW were underpowered? Also notice the book was early in the life of 3.5. The designers went out of their way to not overshadow the core melee classes, specifically the Fighter, to disastrous results.

[Jon_Dahl]

That is true Optimator, but Hexblade and Swashbuckler are at least cool and underpowered, where as CW Samurai is 'tarded and underpowered.

And yes I like Samurais in D&D, but CW's sillyness just blew me away.

[horngeek]

The Rokugan campaign setting is made of win. Chock full of flavor: etiquette suggestions, political alliances, government, religion, the works. I tried it, and it was awesome.

It's actually based on the L5R CCG and RPG. One thing to keep in mind: there are two sources of Ninja. Well, one's ninja (from the resident bad guys) and there are also shinobi (from the Scorpion clan).

If your friend wants to play a ninja, he should avoid making it obvious to NPCs. They WILL shun/try to kill him.

[Optimator]

That is true Optimator, but Hexblade and Swashbuckler are they at least cool and underpowered, where as CW Samurai is 'tarded and underpowered.

Word. Both of those classes have redeeming qualities. Swashy more so than Hexy, I would say.

[JaronK]

Here's a campaign idea I've been playing with for ages.

The PCs are all ninjas, but you can build them any way you like (could be an Artificer who makes ninja themed tools, a Beguiler for Naruto style ninja magic, a Factotum poisoning assassin, whatever). They work for a mercenary ninja school that sends out black ops ninjas to do dirty work for various groups. The PCs are younger members of the school who haven't been let in on the really good secrets, but they do know that if they do really well they will be allowed to read from the Book of Secrets, a special book that to anyone other than a sworn member of the school seems like a magical book with no purpose, except that it has a suggestion compulsion effect on it that makes you want to get rid of it and another compulsion effect that makes you not really think about the book much. If you're a member of the school, reading the book grants various powers.

The PCs are sent out on a pretty basic mission, a generic fetch the stick sort of quest. However, while they're gone the school is attacked and destroyed. When they return one of the few things they find of value (the raiders having taken anything that seemed useful) is the hard cover of the Book of Secrets. This cover itself has magical powers... it points you in the direction of the next page in the book that's currently missing. Armed with this cover, the PCs must go on a quest to recover the lost pages of the Book of Secrets and thereby master the techniques within.

This lets you pretty easily decide where the PCs are going next. Lower the normal wealth by level a little for this game, and instead every time they find a page they get some permanent ability, such as a specific feat (Braciation, Shadow Blade, whatever), a maneuver (usually of the Shadow Hand or Tiger Claw school), or some other character benefit (one page might boost your dexterity, while another might give an inherent bonus to hide). The early pages will give weaker feats, the later pages will give really powerful feats. Eventually they can rebuild the school or use its secrets for their purpose.

JaronK

[BooNL]

That's a pretty cool idea Jaron, I'll have to try that someday.

Anyway, session went fine, we did waste half of it playing Magic though. He's a pretty quick learner, but we ended up not working out the maneuvres yet, as it was all a lot of information to take it.
Instead, I gave him a couple of maneuvres to use in combat and explained to him how he could use those.

Ended up pretty fun. It's been a while since I DM'd at a table and especially with only one player it was a bit difficult to get into character, but that's fine for a firstimer.

I am toying with the idea of recruiting more players though, or finding a new group somewhere around here.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

Also, if you're planning a ninja-based start to your campaign, then take a look at the plots of the Tenchu series of console games.
Plenty of flavourful reasons to assassinate people in a variety of traditional Japanese settings.