Romance of the Three Kingdoms

[Jagged]

Well gentlemen it seems we can agree on that we all want a strategy thread (feel free to join my btw) and Asia if not specifically Japan should not be the setting. Perhaps smaller kingdoms..........Clans So you can build a character and a small city/state in your image. Personally I like muskets and monsters.

 

[SamuraiHeroD]

Haha, no no, this story was set in China, not Japan, at 200 AD, so no guns there. There were guns in Samurai Warriors though, as that was set in the 1600s. There was also Magoichi Saika, who's hella dope. The Japanese James Dean...

And there were plenty of clans in RotK, it's just that about halfway through the "war" (more appropriately "perpetual chaos between warlords"), the provinces coalesced between three lords. For a long time, though, China was just as fragmented as usual. And, of course, they didn't really succeed in unifying the country. At least, not for long; I believe the Mongols came in and beat them up after like 50 years. Kind of depressing, after like 100 years of effort to unify the place.

Lol, making an "asian-themed" country is like making a "european-themed" country -- the Thai are as different from the Nepalese as the French are from the Russians, maybe even more so. I mean, I know people do that sort of thing in RPGs all the time, but I've always laughed about it.

And though monsters are all well and good, sometimes, human monsters are more interesting to deal with than the fantasy kind.

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

For an initial adventure there is always the traditional treasure hunt, perhaps a band of warriors get together seeking the scrolls Zhang Jiao used to create the Way of Peace or plot to steal Red Hare from Lu Bu or Guan Yu (whomever has him at the time).

The group could have motivations to unify the land but lack a land of their own like Cao Cao or the Sun family, or even a reputation or credible link to the Han like Liu Bei. Only able to count on each other they have to start from absolute rock bottom, securing land, treasures, faithful retainers, and soldiers. One person could be the would-be warlord and others could fill in the positions of the strategist, bodyguards, lovers, or just faithful retainers or sworn brothers, etc.

 

[SamuraiHeroD]

You know, that sounds like it would work well, at least to me. I think you'd have to be GM, though, since you seem to know a lot about the setting. Searching for some scrolls would be awesome, though. How about the original Sun Tzu teachings, long sought after by Sun Jian and the budding Wu clan!

If it went that way, I'd rather play a retainer than a warlord. A young scholar and mystic/healer (love that Doctor skill in RotK), a Zhuge Liang type (only more political and less tactical) to support whoever the warlord is. I'd get great kicks out of that.

I wonder who else would play, though.

 

[Jagged]

Sun Tzu teachings the orginal text on bambo...that is something worth hunting for......and a hell of a bonus to wisdom rolls.



Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
Sun-tzu
Chinese general & military strategist (~400 BC)

 

[SamuraiHeroD]

Hah, Jagged, you should play too.

 

[Jagged]

Never know....

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

I could GM I guess, but I haven't actually read the books yet I'm still waiting to get them. Any "knowledge" I have comes strictly from Koei games.

 

[SamuraiHeroD]

Eh, you know more than me. And we could just wing it.

As long as it's not required that one knows the setting particularly well (which probably means that someone has to pick up the slack on knowing historical characters), I bet we could get a few players for a game like this.

 

[IDreamofBunnies]

Works for me. Who actually wants to play? I don't want to run a game with one person. I'm already playing a game with just one person (though neither of us really run it).

 

[TheScarletBlade]

I will I guess and if you dont want to run it,I guess I can.

 

[SamuraiHeroD]

I think that if this is the kind of game we're going to play, it would work best with more than one person... different players playing different heroes, you know? More RPG and less strategy, and building up from there. I only suggested DoB be the DM because of all that background knowledge; even if it is just from video games.

I know a little, but not that much -- from the same sources, though, haha.