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Author Topic: Nihon Nights: OOC - Always Recruiting!  (Read 19208 times)

thatkid

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Nihon Nights: OOC - Always Recruiting!
« on: May 12, 2012, 11:05:29 am »

IC Thread is Here.
Wiki is Here.


« Last Edit: May 25, 2012, 03:56:26 pm by thatkid »
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thatkid

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2012, 11:18:48 am »

Responses for Page 2
Digital Hellhound writes "@thatkid/GMs: +1 Agility as a mechanical bonus seems a bit odd for my family. I sort-of expected something mental instead. Also, you might want to update the Ryoshun-section with the new fluff."

Well, DH, we spoke about this in an IRC channel so I'm not going to respond again here. Anyone who wants an Int bonus from the Ryoshun should totally go with the Morikano.

Mr.Dwarfinton writes "And I have fixed it thatkid."

Got it, brah. I'll look it over in a bit but it's probably all clear. Once again, I'll inform you of anything IRL because when I can just walk downstairs to talk to you, it would be rather pathetic to use online communication.

Responses for Page 3
LordBucket writes "Incidentally, when will we be starting? Whenever I sit down to write a custom clan/family history I keep getting distracted researching the legal mechanics of the Meiji era Imperial household."
Lillipad writes "I'm pretty sure we just start whenever and faff about Startersville until we find something else to do."
Other people write things, LordBucket writes "Given the character creation process, two GMs, and the formal explanation of how combat rolls will be handled in the OP, I assumed this would be a bit more than just open roleplay."
Doomblade writes "I assume so too, but I guess we just haven't gotten there yet. After all, I haven't started spying yet, the militia hasn't started training yet, etc."
Lillipad writes "The OP says that Sumeru is a crossroad. So we probably have a few streamlined options for whenever the plot finally strikes."

I originally intended this to be a tad open world in the same vein of YaK. You guys help me make the flavor, but through your character goals you construct a plot as well (there will be other plots, side and otherwise, as well of course).
As I've said before, there is no waitlist or anything of that sort. Once we've got a few more towns in existence, players won't even have to start at Sumeru.

I've had some trouble coming up with objectives without any other clans in existence, since I originally wanted to pit players against NPCs from other player's families and clans, but that shouldn't be an issue anymore by the looks of it, and I've come up with a solution in that regard anyways.

Things will pick up shortly. Adwarf is about to (maybe, depending on his actions) get into a fight, Hori is about to witness a thing and have a chance to meet Hayoto who will be going to the same location, Hayoto in turn will be receiving a job soonish, Metasan/Metasune is either going to be contacted by members of his family/clan or get involved in Adwarf's chaos at his discretion.

In any case, the game will definitely be rewarding more proactive players who make their own goals as it's been set up that way.

Kadzar writes "Ikebana School of Etiquette. I like the sound of that. Although if you noticed the edit to my previous post, if it turns out our schools are similar enough, I'd prefer to join yours, if you don't mind, since I think it could add a nice dynamic to our characters' relationship starting off, and to eliminate redundancy."

As I said in the OP, you don't need to ask about being part of his school. Go for it.
Unless you're just asking about having a prior relationship beyond "we probably trained in the same dojo/temple/whatever."

As always, let me know (here) if I missed anything.
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Lillipad

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2012, 12:05:02 pm »

Yay, I only just started, and I'm already making myself an enemy of the government.
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Doomblade187

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2012, 01:03:33 pm »

Lordbucket, do you know what the Japanese is for "Talkative" and the correct way to honorably refer to a samurai? I think I'll change my name to "Talkative Fox"
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Kadzar

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2012, 05:29:18 pm »

Kadzar writes "Ikebana School of Etiquette. I like the sound of that. Although if you noticed the edit to my previous post, if it turns out our schools are similar enough, I'd prefer to join yours, if you don't mind, since I think it could add a nice dynamic to our characters' relationship starting off, and to eliminate redundancy."

As I said in the OP, you don't need to ask about being part of his school. Go for it.
Unless you're just asking about having a prior relationship beyond "we probably trained in the same dojo/temple/whatever."

As always, let me know (here) if I missed anything.
Well, I'll need to know more about it to decide if it will work for my character. All I know right now is that it is a courtier school.
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LordBucket

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2012, 06:26:59 pm »

Japanese is for "Talkative"

oshaberi na

Drop the na suffix and it becomes "chat" as in "a chat" or "chatter" as in "the chatter amongst the audience.

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correct way to honorably refer to a samurai?

Depends on who's speaking, the relative difference of station between them, and whether you're speaking to them directly, or speaking of them in third person.

Short answer, suitable for our purposes
 * If there is not a huge difference in station between the two people, by default, use their family name and append -san to the end. Samurai Bob Smith may call Samurai Tom Brown, "Brown san." First name plus san is less formal, but still acceptable, and may be more practical for our purposes if it turns out multiple people have the same family name.
 * When speaking to, or of, someone of significantly higher station, replace -san with -sama. For example, Joe Blow samurai speaking to the Diamyo would probably use -sama.
 * If they have a title, it would generally be used. Call the Empress, Empress. Call the Diamyo, Diamyo, or "Lord" as an acceptable english language substitute if you have no idea what a Daimyo is (Fuedal lord, basically.) Redundancy is generally not required, but is an acceptable way to show extra deference. For example "Empress Taiyo Sama" is appropriate. "Lord Suzuki Sama" is appropriate.
 * When speaking to a very close acquaintance, it may be acceptable to change -san to -kun. If you're out drinking with your buddy you've known for years, calling him with -kun is ok. Using either first or last name with -kun is acceptable. If the two samurai above have known each other since they were kids and they go out drinking together, Samurai Bob might refer to Samurai Tom as either "Tom kun" or "Brown kun." However, this will generally not be done when speaking about Tom in the third person to somebody else of greater station. If Samurai Bob Smith refers to his lifelong buddy, Samurai Tom Brown as "Brown kun" when speaking to their fuedal lord, that would be greatly disrespectful. Whereas if they've both known Samurai Joe all their lives, Samurai Bob might say to Samurai Tom "Hey, let's stop by Joe-Kun's place and see if we wants to join us." That would not be disrespectful because Bob is not diminishing Joe in the hearing of one of Joe's superiors.
 * When speaking affectionately of someone who is either emotionally close or of lower station, change -san to -chan. For example, calling your daughter, your pet, or your favorite grandmother with -chan would be ok. Sometimes using the family name with chan is not necessary. Bob Smith might call his daughter Susie Smith, "Susie-chan." Little Susie might call her grandfather "grandfather-chan." And any of the above might call a cat "neko chan" if they happen to like cats.

Long version, that doesn't really answer the question, but explains how complicated it is
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Lillipad

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2012, 06:35:14 pm »

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LordBucket

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2012, 08:57:33 pm »

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King_of_the_weasels

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #8 on: May 12, 2012, 09:51:17 pm »

Should we post character sheets here? or in the IC, still on the fence of if I want to join this.
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Kadzar

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #9 on: May 12, 2012, 10:10:01 pm »

So, this probably needs to be clarified. Note that I'm using family-name-first. Also note that this is a mix of real life with fiction for use in our forum game. There's a reasonable amount of japanese history here, but I recommend against basing any college essays off of this. Also, note that L5R seems to be a bit confused about clans and families. Within the given context, clans and families should basically be the same thing. In fact the word clan means "family" and that same synonymous meaning is also true in japanese. There can be contextual differences, but L5R seems to treat "family" as synonymous with "character class" with families being the subgroups that constitute clans. I'm basically just going to not worry about it too much.
Yeah, I was confused about the whole clan/family thing. Then I looked up the wikipedia article on clans, and from there went to the page "Japanese-clans", and from that I sort of gathered that clans must be some ancient respected line, and the families were those who were related to the main clan, but couldn't claim direct descent. So, like, the clan would be the family of the king, in European terms, and the families would be the lords and their families, if that makes sense. I'm not 100% sure how correct any of this is in real life or the game.
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LordBucket

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #10 on: May 12, 2012, 10:43:00 pm »

Yeah, it's kind of fuzzy to me what the L5R rules intended. Actually, even calling families "character classes" like I did isn't entirely accurate, since that's more what the schools are, and "families" are kind of a tacked-on attribute bonus with some flavor. I think they were just trying to give things thematic-sounding names.

It is reasonable that people who are not biological relations of a family would still be considered part of that family...but that would typically mean that they're retainers who've been working for the family for generations. Bob works for the Smith family, lives with the Smith family, gets married and has kids...then dies and his kids stay living with and working for the Smith family...those kids can reasonably consider themselves "part of the household" even if they're not actually related. They're servants. In fact, since a number of our players don't personally have family names that match the family name of the Great House/Clan/Family/etc. that they consider themselves part of...that's probably what's going on. Just ask yourself, if you're "part of the Smith family" but your last name isn't Smith...what's the supposed to mean? But the way it's presented I'm not sure those players even realize that implication.

Anyway, I see two ways to interpet it:

a) What L5R calls "families" are clans/families/great houses, and what L5R calls "clans" are alliances of those clans/families/houses

b) What L5R calls "clans" are clans/families/great houses, and what L5R calls "families" are...umm...I guess, subdivisions of those families created when children of those families married into other families but for some reason didn't get properly considered as members of either the original family or the family they married into? Not really sure.

Personally I'm leaning towards just avoiding the question. My character's last name is Taiyō, she's a biological member of the Taiyō family and she's part of "clan" Taiyō, whatever "clan" Taiyō actually is. Problem solved.

HailFire

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2012, 10:55:54 pm »

a) What L5R calls "families" are clans/families/great houses, and what L5R calls "clans" are alliances of those clans/families/houses

I'm pretty sure we're going with this, essentially.
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Lillipad

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2012, 11:05:03 pm »

Think of it like this: The clan is the royal house, and families are the noble houses. The royal house is composed of the heads of the noble houses, but only one family carries the royal lineage, and is therefore head of the clan.
Now, by this logic, 'Japan' would have multiple royal houses, meaning more than one royal family, making each one unique.
Schools are groups associated with the families that comprise the royal house, with a special school permanently associated with the royal family. Schools teach and help raise the children of the family they associate with for the promise of luxury and political and financial safety.

Now, because of the beginning of this little thing, we can surmise that the imperial house and family is separate from each royal house and family. The heads of the royal house would probably comprise the imperial court(assuming one exists) if this is indeed the case. The imperial court would most likely be in charge of keeping the rest of 'Japan' in check, and away from rebelling. They would act separately from the emperor/empress, and he/she would only be in charge of deciding which families are considered "royal."

Therefore, clans are comprised of only the heads of families, are headed by a single family considered most important, have their own special army, and are in charge of keeping the order for the emperor or empress without compromising their position. Families are the financial leaders of 'Japan' and take it upon themselves to keep the economy flourishing. Schools are the leaders of education in a specialized field, and are supported by families.
And then there are local governments, in charge of taxing the peasantry, and are a part of seeing to the law being enforced, and proper disposal of punishment on criminals.

Is that any easier to understand?
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LordBucket

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2012, 11:17:27 pm »

Is that any easier to understand?

...no, I'd say you just added an extra layer of obscurity to it.

I suppose if you liken the Japanese Emperor to the Roman Catholic Pope...what you're suggesting would kind of make sense. There are some similarities. They both claim to be divine representatives in human form, and neither rule through use of military force. But if we subscribe to your interpretation, then what L5R is calling "clans" should probably be called "countries."

I'm going with the interpretation that the authors of L5R simply Did Not Do The Research.

HailFire

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Re: Nihon Nights: OOC
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2012, 11:20:55 pm »

I think I get what he's saying, actually- just don't take the use of 'royal' literally.
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[22:59] <apotheoseGrifter> COMMIT SUDOKU ALL NIGHT LONG FUCK YEAH
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[18:14] <The_Gamemaster> I am here.
[18:14] <The_Gamemaster> I am always here.
[18:15] <The_Gamemaster> I have always been here, and I always will be here. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
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