So, after a few years away from these forums (and getting my account deleted during the forum transfer to Nocturnal for some strange reason), I'm planing a new KAP campaign. That brought me to re-register at these forums again, and I'm glad to be back.

A few days ago I remembered Greg saying that a Japanese developer of his acquaintance was developing a setting book for KAP for Feudal Japan:

http://nocturnal-media.com/forum/index.php?topic=698.0

I notice that there has been no announcements/comments regarding that book since then, either by Greg or in the Forums (at least as far as I could find since the last time I've been to the forums). So I'd like to ask Greg or someone else in-the-know if that project is still alive or not. I'm a sucker for Feudal Japan and I'd love to see KAP's brilliant system adapted elegantly to such a setting. Is there any hope for that still?

Best wishes,
Pedro

I too would love to see a Feudal Japan adaptation to Pendragon. I would probably merge it with L5R as soon as possible though.

Here's some old work on the subject (not my work, mind you).
http://genpei.pbworks.com/w/page/13885659/FrontPage

Thanks for the link!

L5R has some nice stuff there, like a fast a furious combat system that captures very well the spirit of chambara stories/movies, as well as providing mechanics for Jaijutsu duels and "sensing" your opponent strenghts and concede defeat without even taking your sword out of the scabbard. Those two things are something that I'd like to see incorporated into a KAP version. As for the setting of L5R, meh, no thanks. :p

Anyway, still waiting for some official words from the forum lieges. I REALLY hope that project is still alive. KAP is just too perfect for a feudal Japan setting to let that setting book die.

Alas!
The author I had approached has been unable to do it
I have been so busy I've not asked anyone else
Yet

NOOOOOOOO! >:(

But are you still *seriously* considering it? Couldn't take so much of your time just to ask around if anyone would be interested... (please?) :'(

Alas!
The author I had approached has been unable to do it
I have been so busy I've not asked anyone else
Yet


This period interests me and Id love to work on it alas, im not that great of a writer :(

any word on Before iron, the classical greek translation of the Pendragon system?

Maybe if fellow KAPers showed significant interest in this supplement (e.g. by posting in this thread) that would show Greg and the good folk at Nocturnal that it's a project worth giving serious attention.




This period interests me and Id love to work on it alas, im not that great of a writer :(

any word on Before iron, the classical greek translation of the Pendragon system?


Well, I wouldn't mind working on it myself either, but my writing skills amount to academic papers, plus I'm not an English native speaker. To add shame to injury, I'm way to busy with a PhD to give a project like this the attention it deserves. Plus I'd like to see it as an actual "official" supplement, not just a fan project on a web page.

I would be very interested in a samurai version of KAP. I am currently running a RuneQuest campaign set in the Sengoku period. Now that the PCs have been granted lands (manors), I bought The Book of the Manor so the players can have fun managing them. However, I need to dig deep into books about medieval Japan in order to make an adaptation that is good/credible enough. Has anyone tried this before? For example, in Japan there is no need for bakeries or wineries (!). So, until I know more, I'm substituting those for tea-manufacturing houses and plum liqueur breweries (umeshu). Still there are other investments I have no substitute for, like daires and coneygarths. Any suggestions? :o

I would be very interested in a samurai version of KAP. I am currently running a RuneQuest campaign set in the Sengoku period. Now that the PCs have been granted lands (manors), I bought The Book of the Manor so the players can have fun managing them. However, I need to dig deep into books about medieval Japan in order to make an adaptation that is good/credible enough. Has anyone tried this before? For example, in Japan there is no need for bakeries or wineries (!). So, until I know more, I'm substituting those for tea-manufacturing houses and plum liqueur breweries (umeshu). Still there are other investments I have no substitute for, like daires and coneygarths. Any suggestions? :o

Sake, pottery, and possibly production of silk or cotton cloth.

http://www.grips.ac.jp/teacher/oono/hp/lecture_J/lec02.htm <-- this has a section on industry developing in the Edo period, roads, taxes, etc. Might be a useful source or initial reference.

I would really love to do this, if I wasn't too busy with my job these days and the need to survive!
Even if I earn a living through western antiquity (I am a Classical Archaeologist) I am crazy about Kurosawa, Kobayashi, etc.. and all the chambara stuff.
I've read tons of Samurai- and Sengoku-related books and I have played L5R for a long time...however I would love to exploit KAP passions & personality Traits, since I feel that the Samurai Drama would really fit well with the whole personality system.
And the honour conflicts could make everything interesting. If I really had more time for creating homebrew rules ....

I have received the manuscript for this game yesterday
It looks pretty good
but it has a long process before publication
but it is happening! Patience!

Wow! This is fantastic news! Subarashii!!! \(^_^)/
Who is the author???



Sake, pottery, and possibly production of silk or cotton cloth.

http://www.grips.ac.jp/teacher/oono/...re_J/lec02.htm <-- this has a section on industry developing in the Edo period, roads, taxes, etc. Might be a useful source or initial reference.

BTW oaktree: thanks a lot for that link. It's going to be really helpful!

Wow! This is fantastic news! Subarashii!!! \(^_^)/
Who is the author???

Sorry, I am very conservative about this & want to wait until it has been completely vetted
I have a lot of confidence, however

It is currently being vetted by a Japanese friend to determine its accuracy
patirnce!

I have received the manuscript for this game yesterday
It looks pretty good
but it has a long process before publication
but it is happening! Patience!

Been a few months without setting a metaphorical foot in this forum and this happens. AWESOME!

I do wish to be realistic about its appearance.
For various reasons we have to other settings using the KAP system that will come before it.
The Charlemagne book will be first. It is the most advanced in the production process. We will kickstart it when it is ready to go--we will not be taking funds for a product that is not ready for publication.
After that is our Greek Legends setting. Again, the manuscript is done but just starting into the production process. A kickstarter will also finance this game.
Then some time after that will be our Japanese setting. The manuscript is being finished up now.

I'm excited to see that the other settings are moving along and we're getting close(-ish). Out of curiosity, will any of these settings also have a GPC-style campaign, either initially or down the road? I'm interested if they'll mostly be rules sets to enable play in the different eras, or if any of them will also include a campaign, especially since all 3 seem to lend themselves very well to that type of story - Charlemagne's reign, the Sengoku period, and the Trojan War all seem like they'd make for great GPC-style play.

None of them have a campaign ready to be published.
All of them have scenarios.

Sounds good. It would be great to see a larger campaign for any of them, but even with just the settings I'm psyched to get my hands on all of them.

I do wish to be realistic about its appearance.
For various reasons we have to other settings using the KAP system that will come before it.
The Charlemagne book will be first. It is the most advanced in the production process. We will kickstart it when it is ready to go--we will not be taking funds for a product that is not ready for publication.
After that is our Greek Legends setting. Again, the manuscript is done but just starting into the production process. A kickstarter will also finance this game.
Then some time after that will be our Japanese setting. The manuscript is being finished up now.

I'm new to the forums and happy to be here and find THIS EXCITING NEWS. I'll back all three of these settings easily. They all look fantastic, and the KAP system seems like a good fit in each case.

Friends

Please rest assured that this game is being done
I've seen the first draft of the ms and love it
it is currently being reviewed by a Japanese game designer friend of mine
meanwhile, we have a couple of other settings that are in front of it in line
A Charlemagne-setting
A Greek-mythology setting

I've been using Pendragon for all my samurai needs for ten years now. Looking forward to how other people have done it. ^^

I am currently running a samurai campaign with RuneQuest. :D
I am using The Book of the Manor adapted to feudal Japan to manage the PC's granted lands.
As they were losing money quickly, they whined and asked for a way to raid their enemy's lands, and I found a quick system in a blog about KAP.
I also adapted rules for marriage and children from the Pendragon rulebook (mixed with some info from the Bushido RPG).

While we wait for the samurai version of KAP, I would like to know how people manage recruiting soldiers (ashigaru infantry) from the peasants, i.e. how many can a lord be able to recruit to fight for him, and how much that impacts on the peasants hating their lord.

Also, how would you go about land revenue if you have a Shinto priest asking the kami to bless the crops?

:confused:

While we wait for the samurai version of KAP, I would like to know how people manage recruiting soldiers (ashigaru infantry) from the peasants, i.e. how many can a lord be able to recruit to fight for him, and how much that impacts on the peasants hating their lord.

Also, how would you go about land revenue if you have a Shinto priest asking the kami to bless the crops?


For the first, I would treat the ashigaru as your basic spear infantry, so 0.5 libra per man. A one-manor/village/whatever samurai can't bring that many ashigaru to the fight, although he would have 3 who are already paid for in the money-you-do-not-see accounting of the manorial administration. As long as he pays the wages, no problem. I might set a limit to about 10 per manor, after which the volunteers are starting to thin out and he'd have to start conscripting people, but it is unlikely that he would get to that point anyway, just from monetary reasons. If he is dragging the LEVY off to fight for him in big battles far away, it would collapse the whole economy and cause Hate; these guys are needed in the fields! Take them off, and their families will starve. Even a close by battle, the death toll amongst the peasantry might cause economical hardship.

As for the blessing from the shinto priest, it depends. My take on it is that this is what is already done as a default, so it has no effect, whilst not doing it causes penalties as the local kami is insulted. However, if you make a distinction between default ceremony and actual magic (if actual magic is rare), then I could easily see bonuses ranging from +5 to Stewardship to automatic +1 of the income level.

Thanks a lot for your reply, Morien. ;) My three samurai own two manors each.

I like both of your suggestions. However:

- Now how many people can you conscript? Does a maximum of 20% of the population seem right? And how many before Hate becomes problematic? Let's say you know you're going to be attacked by the neighbouring daimyo. I'm sure this must have been addressed in some Pendragon publication.
It could be cool if a player were to be driven by revenge/oath/honor to conscript his population in order to attack a neighbour, but then, if the battle starts going badly, he may swallow his pride and retreat before too many of his peasants die and then everyone starves. But in order for this to happen in a game, this kind of info is needed.

- For the Shinto priest I think it would be cool for his character to shine if he can increase Stewardship or income as you suggest. But I'm thinking perhaps he needs to do something out of the ordinary to achieve that. Something requiring enough resources or effort that he won't be doing that to increase everyone's land income. Perhaps the default is dealing with the local kami, but then for the extraordinary he needs to build a shrine to Inari (kami of rice and wealth)?

20% would be every male above the age of 15 or so. So that would be the absolute limit, assuming that everyone shows up (i.e. is not sick or feigning to be sick or something) and fights for you. Defending the village against an enemy coming to kill them all and burn down the village? Sure, even a rat will fight when cornered. To march off to attack the lord's neighbor who has nothing against them, personally, because of the lord's personal vendetta? Expect a sudden 'flu season'. You'd be lucky with 10%, and even they would be grumbling.

Now, I am no expert by any stretch of imagination of the Japanese arrangement between the lords and the peasants, but in Europe, the Lord was supposed to be the one who fights to protect the peasants. Dragging unwilling peasants off to fight in the Lord's battles (in contrast to more mercenary/looter type of commoners) would go against that deal, and would definitely cause hate. I'd probably make it something like this:
+1 Hate for every 5% of the population taken off to fight in a battle (rather than defend their homes and families)
+1 Hate for every 1% of the population killed.
-X Hate depending on how much loot they get rewarded with. (Basically, if they win loads of loot without losses, they likely figure that it was worth it.)

Example:
A manorial estate with 500 people. You order all the able-bodied men to march off with you to fight a guy you have a vendetta against. That is 100 people, so you get +4 Hate for simply dragging them to go with you. A battle happens, and due to the poor equipment and training of your peasant arrowfodder, 10 men die before the rest of them rout from the field, costing you the battle (peasants have a poor morale, and I would start doing morale rolls maybe at every 5% losses). 10 men is 2% of the whole population, adding +2 Hate. Since you lost the battle, there is no loot, so the survivors remain surly.

Example:
A manorial estate with 500 people. You order all the able-bodied men to march off with you to fight a guy you have a vendetta against. That is 100 people, so you get +4 Hate for simply dragging them to go with you. A battle happens, and due to the poor equipment and training of your peasant arrowfodder, 10 men die before the rest of them rout from the field, costing you the battle (peasants have a poor morale, and I would start doing morale rolls maybe at every 5% losses). 10 men is 2% of the whole population, adding +2 Hate. Since you lost the battle, there is no loot, so the survivors remain surly.

Excellent Morien! Thanks a lot!
If you do get loot, I guess you can share it with the peasants as expressed in p. 20 of The Book of the Manor, that is, -1 Hate for every 20L spent.

For the number of Levy you have available, wouldn't you find that by rolling for your manors like during character creation? 3d20 or something I think? That would give you a good indicator of how many able bodied men are on your manors (obviously, roll twice since they have 2)

3d20 or something I think?

5d20, actually. About 90% of the results will be in the 30 - 75 range.