Monday, April 30, 2012

Consider the rule-book, how it blossoms in its time



Be not ashamed of mistakes, and thus make them crimes - Confucius

So, long time, no post about Kitsune & Kensei, the updating/revision of 1E Oriental Adventures for Labyrinth Lord and its Advanced Edition Companion. I posted a brief thought about it all on G+, to whit that I was tempted to just run OA "as is" either in PbP or real-life. Just to see how it would run. That got me thinking about some aspects that I hadn't really considered before.

e.g. We all know about 1gp = 1xp and about how this becomes the primary motivator for the adventurer aka thieving scumbags, and how monsters become the roadblocks to be avoided or circumvented to achieve this. Where does this leave the humble shukenja and indeed most of the character classes, who (if played true to the mileu) would disdain to loot tombs and rob the dead?

(Mike D in Ruins & Ronin brilliantly avoids this problem by stating outright that his game emulates the historical/fantastic cinema of Japan, and thus the characters are every bit as ahistorical as their western paladin, magic-user equivalents.)

Also, with the whole new monetary system of OA, do we still keep the 1gp = 1xp standard, converting across each time, or do we need to rejig it to reflect the different distribution of money? That is, if we accept that the PCs are looters or that the DM will reward them with treasure/goods from their lord/monastery. It's the sort of thing that I should do a close analysis of, much as Chris K has done with the AD&D Name Level warbands and wandering "monsters" of berserkers, bandits etc.

My time is rather curtailed with a baby and performing with the local amateur dramatic society (and DMing 4E again), but I hope to have a bit more to say about this soon.

No comments:

Post a Comment