I've been considering tweaking the Game of Twenty Questions for my campaign. I like that it encourages players to think more deeply about their characters, but I might want to guide some of those thoughts towards concepts more relevant to either the specific campaign I'm running or my GMing style in general.

For instance, in the game I'm running now, most samurai belong to vassal families. I thought it might be cool to have a question something like "Are you an heir in the main line of the family or are you one of their vassals?" If you belong to the main line of the family, you get a status bonus. If you choose a vassal family, you get a free rank in a relevant skill.

I ran a game in 4th edition set in the 5th century, during the Gozoku Alliance. I changed some of the questions to be things like, "Do you believe in the divinity of the Hantei line?" or "Are you sympathetic to the Gozoku Alliance?" There weren't mechanical implications in 4th, and maybe these questions wouldn't require them now, but I think it helped set up characters to be involved in the kinds of themes I wanted to set up during the game.

Have other people tweaked the questions, either for general use or for a specific campaign? What did you ask? Did choices affect the mechanics? Did players seem to care? Do you feel like it helped steer the game in a good direction?

I think it's a sensible idea.

The GM section actively encourages you to 'tweak' the system this way (look at Rise From The Dust, which dramatically changes the options to reflect the character's lower status). I used this option as written for the play by post, and it does create interesting differences; giving the PCs access to some extra chunks of gear.

Where you've got a campaign where everyone's Giri is going to be identical, changing the question " what is your Giri ?" to " how did you end up [serving in the Imperial Legions specifically here]" or whatever might work well, and for a campaign featuring a group of mercenary shinobi, " what is your view of bushido ?" is clearly a stupid question...

21 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The GM section actively encourages you to 'tweak' the system this way (look at Rise From The Dust, which dramatically changes the options to reflect the character's lower status). I used this option as written for the play by post, and it does create interesting differences; giving the PCs access to some extra chunks of gear.

What is “rise from the dust?”

I love this idea. I think tweaking the 20 questions is a fantastic way to tailor the game to your style and your specific campaign. I’ll have to do this when we start a new campaign. There are some questions that I really don’t like, but I’d never considered replacing them.

3 hours ago, AndyDay303 said:

What is “rise from the dust?”

I love this idea. I think tweaking the 20 questions is a fantastic way to tailor the game to your style and your specific campaign. I’ll have to do this when we start a new campaign. There are some questions that I really don’t like, but I’d never considered replacing them.

Look in the GM's section of the rulebook. It offers two variant games:

• Rise from the dust - you start as ronin or elevated peasants. It has a load of modifiers for the 'standard' 20 questions, restricting your starting status and heritage options, and offering a new family (Peasant-born) which gets trade skills and rings of your choice, but is restricted to Worldly Ronin as a school.
• Fate of the realm - you start with 30 extra XP and a nemurani (essentially a 'magic item' with a bound invocation you can trigger with a skill check - such as a sword with built-in Biting Steel you can perform with Martial Arts [Melee] if you fancy yourself as a Rokugani Berric Dondarrion)

Also note the Experienced PCs sidebar talking about starting XP levels; Young Heroes, Veteran Samurai, etc in the status section. That gives you multiple starting levels

• Young Heroes +10 XP
• Seasoned Retainers +30 XP
• Veteran Samurai +50 XP plus one title of your choice

Combining the two - Fate of the Realm plus Veteran Samurai - starts you with a 'magic weapon', a title, and 80 bonus XP and leads to some seriously powerful characters straight out of the gate, and is good for games where you're playing the ruling family of a minor clan (one PC can take the Daimyo title, another Yojimbo, another Advisor, another the Clan Magistrate, and so on)

Here is what we use:

Game of Twenty Questions

The Character’s Qualities

1. What Faction your character belongs to?

2. What Family your character hails from?

3. What School your character attended?

4. How would others describe your character’s appearance?

5. What would others say about your character’s demeanor?

The Character’s Life

6. What is your character’s duty to their Faction?

7. What does your character do when off-duty?

8. What is your character’s greatest accomplishment so far? (Distinction)

9. What holds your character back the most in life? (Adversity)

10. What activity makes your character feel at peace? (Devotion)

11. What troubles your character the most? (Anxiety)

The Character’s Commitments

12. What is your character’s primary motivation?

13. What is your character’s greatest strength and weakness?

14. How would your character succeed with a task?

15. What is your character’s highest ambition?

16. What advice would you give to your character?

The Character’s World

17. Who are your character’s closest family members?

18. To whom does your character owe the most loyalty?

19. Who would be your character’s ultimate enemy?

20. How does your character relate to the other Families and Factions?

The Character’s Fate

+1 How will your character die?

The 'Qualities' section pins down the basics. The 'Life' section gets into the thematic depths of Giri and Ninjo. The 'Commitments' section helps hammer out the character's favorite Approaches and Advantages/Disadvantages. The 'World' section is for creating all the Relationships. The +1 'Fate' question is the bonus.

Sorry for the slow response.

Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of. I didn't give my players any bonus starting experience, perhaps in part because I just totally missed that sidebar before starting my game. There are a couple things I wish were fleshed out more in their characters. I might use some of these for inspiration and to send a little more XP their way.