Need help for game set during Tokugawa rule.

[Harry J J Gardner]

I have been toying with the idea of Using GURPS for a historical game set in one of two periods during the Edo bakufu. One possible avenue is the Kan'ei era (1624-1643) with the backdrop of the contents of the novel Suruga-jō Gozen Jiai (for those who have read or seen shigurui death frenzy it is based on this novel).

Another is the Shōtoku (1711–1716) and Kyōhō (1716–1736) periods when the boy Tokugawa Ietsugu was made Shogun and the power struggle that ensued between the Gosanke (three branches of the Tokugawa clan) when he died. A lot of early major Edo cultural and society developments during this time.


This will be my first time using GURPS and any advice or suggestions on devising rules central to Edo society and culture would be greatly appreciated!

To give you a idea of what I'm hoping to accomplish let me list some of the genres and styles of play I'm looking for.

Firstly I am wanting my game to be grounded in historical realism and grittiness as a core template, secondly I want a system that centres around themes of courtly intrigue and investigation. But also Neo-confucianism laws and warrior laws/philosophical concepts such as the Buke shohatto and Shoshi Hatto that governed bushi society, to translate well into rules regarding such things as Face and 'honour', etiquette and duel of verse.

Thirdly a gritty but engaging and tactical combat system based on near to real bujutsu and other forms of japanese martial arts such as Kyūdō or pole-arms and unarmed combat would be great.


And last but not least I want to incorporate Horror elements, some forms of mythology and subtle magic for rare fantasy moments appropriate to the culture and mindset of the era.


Kind regards,

Harry :)

[hari]

I think I'm not entirely clear on what you're looking for help with. At first, judging by the thread's title, I assumed you wanted help with the history. That doesn't seem like the case though, you seem to have that down pretty well, better than myself in any case. So I'm guessing you're looking for help with the GURPS side of it. Again, I'm not the best person to ask.

But let me try. What books are you using? Are you looking more for an idea of what books to look into or what optional rules to use? Do you have Martial Arts? Do you have the 3rd edition GURPS Japan book? You're talking a lot about the social side of things, do you have Social Engineering? If you're interested in investigation, Mysteries would likely be helpful as well. Aside from that, low tech could be useful, and one of the later Dungeon Fantasy books is all about ninjas and has some fun ninja equipment that you may or may not be interested in.

Sounds like fun, in any case!

[Crakkerjakk]

Like I said in the other thread on RPG.net, there's a bunch of books that would be awesome, but if you're a first-time GURPS GM I strongly suggest you stick to the core books and Japan 3e. Better to add more later than to get frustrated and swamped right away.

[Piestrio]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Like I said in the other thread on RPG.net, there's a bunch of books that would be awesome, but if you're a first-time GURPS GM I strongly suggest you stick to the core books and Japan 3e. Better to add more later than to get frustrated and swamped right away.

I'd go even further and start with GURPS Lite and add from there.

[Polydamas]

I would recommend Low Tech, although I playtested it so I'm biased. Its very useful to have a catalogue of gear, and it doesn't make things more complicated unless you let it (eg. you have to design armour pieces, but you can probably get by with one samurai suit, one ashigaru suit, plus a few pieces of concealable armour). Other than that, see if you enjoy basic combat before you try advanced, and see if you enjoy advanced combat before you try Martial Arts.

If its your first GURPS game, I would use no more than the Basic Set, Low Tech, and possibly one rules-light supplement like GURPS Mysteries or the old GURPS Japan.

[Jukkaimaru]

Pretty much all the above are good places to start.

Though even if you don't plan on using advanced combat, if you're looking for historical accuracy one of the things you'll want to be using is the Late Katana stats from GURPS Martial Arts, if you go with the Shōtoku or Kyōhō era settings. Kan'ei, OTOH, is far enough back that you can still use the statline given for a Katana in the Basic Set.

[Harry J J Gardner]

Originally Posted by hari

I think I'm not entirely clear on what you're looking for help with. At first, judging by the thread's title, I assumed you wanted help with the history. That doesn't seem like the case though, you seem to have that down pretty well, better than myself in any case. So I'm guessing you're looking for help with the GURPS side of it. Again, I'm not the best person to ask.

But let me try. What books are you using? Are you looking more for an idea of what books to look into or what optional rules to use? Do you have Martial Arts? Do you have the 3rd edition GURPS Japan book? You're talking a lot about the social side of things, do you have Social Engineering? If you're interested in investigation, Mysteries would likely be helpful as well. Aside from that, low tech could be useful, and one of the later Dungeon Fantasy books is all about ninjas and has some fun ninja equipment that you may or may not be interested in.

Sounds like fun, in any case!

Hey there hari sorry I should of been clearer, I'm looking for help regarding the GURPS side of things! As of yet I don't own a single GURPS book so I was wanting the community to help suggest where to begin but also the optional rule suggestions would be greatly appreciated for me to keep in mind for adding to the game at a later date if deemed appropriate.

Apart from the Dungeon Fantasy book (which may be too fantasy for my tastes) a lot of people over at RPG.net have suggested the same titles so it seems I can't go wrong with these recommendations.

Thank you for the advice.

[Harry J J Gardner]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Like I said in the other thread on RPG.net, there's a bunch of books that would be awesome, but if you're a first-time GURPS GM I strongly suggest you stick to the core books and Japan 3e. Better to add more later than to get frustrated and swamped right away.

We meet again my friend! Thank you for all the support and advice, your words have been taken on board.

Originally Posted by Piestrio

I'd go even further and start with GURPS Lite and add from there.

Duly noted! I think I will for as a newcomer it can be a little daunting even with just starting with the core and the Japan supplement.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I would recommend Low Tech, although I playtested it so I'm biased. Its very useful to have a catalogue of gear, and it doesn't make things more complicated unless you let it (eg. you have to design armour pieces, but you can probably get by with one samurai suit, one ashigaru suit, plus a few pieces of concealable armour). Other than that, see if you enjoy basic combat before you try advanced, and see if you enjoy advanced combat before you try Martial Arts.

If its your first GURPS game, I would use no more than the Basic Set, Low Tech, and possibly one rules-light supplement like GURPS Mysteries or the old GURPS Japan.

Concealable armour you say? This will be most helpful for things such as Kote (armoured sleeves), Kusari katabira (mail shirt or vest) and some forms of headgear but unless I'm going to play out the shimabara rebellion in the Kan'ei era I'm probably not going to need full armour types. Noted on the combat, thank you for the advice!

Originally Posted by Jukkaimaru

Pretty much all the above are good places to start.

Though even if you don't plan on using advanced combat, if you're looking for historical accuracy one of the things you'll want to be using is the Late Katana stats from GURPS Martial Arts, if you go with the Shōtoku or Kyōhō era settings. Kan'ei, OTOH, is far enough back that you can still use the statline given for a Katana in the Basic Set.

Great I will look out for those but are you talking about the quality and development of the sword in regards to the 'Late' Katana stats?

[Mailanka]

Cherry Blossom Rain, my GURPS Japan campaign is set in an ahistorical fantasy Japan that roughly coincides with the Sengoku era. It's more high powered, I expect, than you want (350-400 points) but I suspect we have similar themes: Gritty, lethal combat, political intrigue, haunting beauty, wabi-sabi and tragedy.

Get GURPS Martial Arts and GURPS Japan (which is available on e23). While my campaign used considerably more cinematic resources, the down-to-earth, non-cinematic versions of the Japanese martial arts schools will work just as well. Also, consider looking up the campaigns in the back and see what best fits your setting. Personally, I went for a chambara feel, because that's what I was trying to emulate. While you want a more realistic take on samurai than I have, it might be worth using chambara rules anyway. Chambara exaggerates both bloodshed and samurai skill, and it's certainly the former that we want. If you keep your point totals fairly low (say, 200 to 250, realizing that many of those points are going into political resources), I think you'll diminish the excessively cinematic feel of the game (while making a few concessions to the poetry of Japanese cinema and story-telling) while keeping the "Oh god, there's blood EVERYWHERE" feel of movies like 13 assassins and Seven Samurai.

(Also, I found that the style familiarity perk was too narrow for Japanese schools. I expanded each school (a "Ryu") to include several styles and a unique collection of perks and advantages that a school might teach. For example, samurai of this particular clan or in this particular province might learn Kenjutsu, Bajutsu and Aikijutsu, with an emphasis on power and strength, and thus gain access to some perks that reflect that. Style familiarity covered an entire Ryu, thus this version of Kenjutsu AND Bajutsu AND Aikijutsu. This falls within the spirit of the perk, and it represents the fact that where Chinese styles were kinda all-inclusive, Japanese martial arts schools often taught several styles side-by-side)

Martial Arts contains several useful templates. The one most interesting to you would be Warrior, with the knight lens. Use the Samurai template in GURPS Japan, and find a way to blend the two together. I often found my characters ended up with skills like poetry, artist(calligraphy), Meditation, and Meditation (Tea Ceremony). You'll want to expand beyond this core template, though, because it covers combat fairly exclusively. Thus, it's a fine depiction of a samurai-as-a-warrior, but not a good depiction of a samurai-as-a-ruler.

For that, you might consider Social Engineering. I haven't used it much, but that's because I seem to have come to many of the same conclusions as Bill did in his book. It might be a useful asset to you.

For battle, take Mass Combat. It's not really recommended when players are soldiers in the war, but it's excellent when players are running the war, as will probably be the case in your campaign (and was certainly the case in Cherry Blossom Rain). I built a series of units available to each clan, those opposing the players, and those the players could rally. I kept it fairly simple (Feudal warfare is very complex), with each clan only bringing a small variety of units to the field, and only a small number of clans in the game (9-12), whereas in reality you had one major clan PER PROVINCE and minor clans beneath them, thus gobs and gobs of clans. You might want to go that route. I found it unwieldy for players to grasp (that's also why I went for a not-Japan approach. Fewer, more distinct clans are easier for players to understand and play with than numerous, more realistic clans, which often aren't particularly unique at all. Similarly, Game of Thrones is easier and more entertaining than the actual War of the Roses, while still feeling authentic). Still, the idea here is that players have their armies and they can't really change them except perhaps by raising levies (which are crap). My reasoning behind this was you're not playing Civ, but an RPG, and thus whatever wars you're going to fight will be immediate and intense and tragic, and when you run out of soldiers, you're done and you've lost. You can "regroup" but you can't "rebuild" on the time scale of this particular campaign.

For magic, I simply followed the suggestions from GURPS Magic, plus my own instincts from the media I was drawing inspiration from, and kept magic almost exclusively in the hands of NPCs. Thus you might meet freaky witches or sickness-inflicting ninjas, but you don't have teleporting, invisibile, death-touching PCs. You'll probably want something even more subtle, but I suggest keeping magic almost entirely in the hands of NPCs, while allowing the players small scraps of it, if they pursue it (in my case, I allowed some weapons to be subtly magical, things like a minor armor divisor here, or a ninja blade that creates wounds that are difficult to heal, and so on). That'll keep it mysterious and spooky.

EDIT: The Low Tech books are also a must. They'll help you work out things like samurai armor, which is tricky (and nothing like what's in the core book) and has stats for things like teppo. I believe instant armor will also cover you here. Fantasy-Tech is also decent if you want the KATANA! but I suspect the more realistic katanas will do fine for you too.

[Harry J J Gardner]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Cherry Blossom Rain, my GURPS Japan campaign is set in an ahistorical fantasy Japan that roughly coincides with the Sengoku era. It's more high powered, I expect, than you want (350-400 points) but I suspect we have similar themes: Gritty, lethal combat, political intrigue, haunting beauty, wabi-sabi and tragedy.

Get GURPS Martial Arts and GURPS Japan (which is available on e23). While my campaign used considerably more cinematic resources, the down-to-earth, non-cinematic versions of the Japanese martial arts schools will work just as well. Also, consider looking up the campaigns in the back and see what best fits your setting. Personally, I went for a chambara feel, because that's what I was trying to emulate. While you want a more realistic take on samurai than I have, it might be worth using chambara rules anyway. Chambara exaggerates both bloodshed and samurai skill, and it's certainly the former that we want. If you keep your point totals fairly low (say, 200 to 250, realizing that many of those points are going into political resources), I think you'll diminish the excessively cinematic feel of the game (while making a few concessions to the poetry of Japanese cinema and story-telling) while keeping the "Oh god, there's blood EVERYWHERE" feel of movies like 13 assassins and Seven Samurai.

I certainly want chanbara and cinematic elements but I want to limit them if possible, no taking on dozens of individuals at one time or performing wild feats. As for adding in dark, bloody atmosphere and some forms of severing limbs I'm all for the moody Takashi Miike feel.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

(Also, I found that the style familiarity perk was too narrow for Japanese schools. I expanded each school (a "Ryu") to include several styles and a unique collection of perks and advantages that a school might teach. For example, samurai of this particular clan or in this particular province might learn Kenjutsu, Bajutsu and Aikijutsu, with an emphasis on power and strength, and thus gain access to some perks that reflect that. Style familiarity covered an entire Ryu, thus this version of Kenjutsu AND Bajutsu AND Aikijutsu. This falls within the spirit of the perk, and it represents the fact that where Chinese styles were kinda all-inclusive, Japanese martial arts schools often taught several styles side-by-side)

Great advice thank you. I have to admit one of my weakest areas of study in pre-modern Japanese History is the martial arts aspect strangely. Are there things like spiritual perks as Japanese swordmanship went from self-protection to self-prefection during the last two and a half centuries of samurai rule. What about Ryu's treasured secret techniques? that could be one form of adding subtle fantasy to the game...

Originally Posted by Mailanka

Martial Arts contains several useful templates. The one most interesting to you would be Warrior, with the knight lens. Use the Samurai template in GURPS Japan, and find a way to blend the two together. I often found my characters ended up with skills like poetry, artist(calligraphy), Meditation, and Meditation (Tea Ceremony). You'll want to expand beyond this core template, though, because it covers combat fairly exclusively. Thus, it's a fine depiction of a samurai-as-a-warrior, but not a good depiction of a samurai-as-a-ruler.

For that, you might consider Social Engineering. I haven't used it much, but that's because I seem to have come to many of the same conclusions as Bill did in his book. It might be a useful asset to you.

Yes any help I can get on translating philosophical beliefs, values and laws into rules would be greatly appreciated as the bushi class during these periods were experiencing a change in Social perception. Once seen as warrior nobility but with no more wars to fight they were transformed into warrior scholars and bureaucrats, hence why the Tokugawa government incorporated neo confucianism and Social stratification as the basis for the beliefs and laws of the land for keeping the samurai in power and at the top of the social structure. Personalities such as Yamaga Sokō enforced this by writing treaties on the Confucius's idea of the "superior man" to the samurai class and defined the warrior as an example of Confucian purity to the other classes of society, and as punisher of those who would stray from its path.

Originally Posted by Mailanka

For battle, take Mass Combat. It's not really recommended when players are soldiers in the war, but it's excellent when players are running the war, as will probably be the case in your campaign (and was certainly the case in Cherry Blossom Rain). I built a series of units available to each clan, those opposing the players, and those the players could rally. I kept it fairly simple (Feudal warfare is very complex), with each clan only bringing a small variety of units to the field, and only a small number of clans in the game (9-12), whereas in reality you had one major clan PER PROVINCE and minor clans beneath them, thus gobs and gobs of clans. You might want to go that route. I found it unwieldy for players to grasp (that's also why I went for a not-Japan approach. Fewer, more distinct clans are easier for players to understand and play with than numerous, more realistic clans, which often aren't particularly unique at all. Similarly, Game of Thrones is easier and more entertaining than the actual War of the Roses, while still feeling authentic). Still, the idea here is that players have their armies and they can't really change them except perhaps by raising levies (which are crap). My reasoning behind this was you're not playing Civ, but an RPG, and thus whatever wars you're going to fight will be immediate and intense and tragic, and when you run out of soldiers, you're done and you've lost. You can "regroup" but you can't "rebuild" on the time scale of this particular campaign.

Sounds great but because of the period there were no wars or battles on the scale of the Sengoku era (apart from the shimabara rebellion and the later Boshin war).

Originally Posted by Mailanka

For magic, I simply followed the suggestions from GURPS Magic, plus my own instincts from the media I was drawing inspiration from, and kept magic almost exclusively in the hands of NPCs. Thus you might meet freaky witches or sickness-inflicting ninjas, but you don't have teleporting, invisibile, death-touching PCs. You'll probably want something even more subtle, but I suggest keeping magic almost entirely in the hands of NPCs, while allowing the players small scraps of it, if they pursue it (in my case, I allowed some weapons to be subtly magical, things like a minor armor divisor here, or a ninja blade that creates wounds that are difficult to heal, and so on). That'll keep it mysterious and spooky.

Yes I was considering the otherworldly and magical elements to be solely in the hands of NPCs. I like the example of the blade, that's keeping in with the sort of mysterious and spooky fantasy elements I'm looking for!

Originally Posted by Mailanka

EDIT: The Low Tech books are also a must. They'll help you work out things like samurai armor, which is tricky (and nothing like what's in the core book) and has stats for things like teppo. I believe instant armor will also cover you here. Fantasy-Tech is also decent if you want the KATANA! but I suspect the more realistic katanas will do fine for you too.

Again apart from the concealable armour types I will not need full armour at all really as they become very much a part of ceremonial activity in the Edo period. But things such as teppo will defiantly be a must and yes are be wanting the realistic katana feel instead of the fantasy trope version :)