I'm whipping up a character for a game, and I need some thoughts on custom Advantages and Disadvantages. Backstory is that his mother is a minor Daidoji daimyō, while his dad is a geisha in Otosan Uchi. His ninjō is that he wants to earn enough money to buy his pops' contract and release him from servitude.

Would his illegitimate parentage be a proper Adversity? He's not any kind of outcast, though he's also not the favored son in his household. What would be a good mechanic for such an Adversity?

I also think his Passion is for music. The second bullet point on that Advantage description is pretty easy, recovering 3 Strife when engaging in music in some manner. However, I'm not sure what to do with the first, descriptive bonus it would give.

2 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

I'm whipping up a character for a game, and I need some thoughts on custom Advantages and Disadvantages. Backstory is that his mother is a minor Daidoji daimyō, while his dad is a geisha in Otosan Uchi. His ninjō is that he wants to earn enough money to buy his pops' contract and release him from servitude.

Would his illegitimate parentage be a proper Adversity? He's not any kind of outcast, though he's also not the favored son in his household. What would be a good mechanic for such an Adversity?

I also think his Passion is for music. The second bullet point on that Advantage description is pretty easy, recovering 3 Strife when engaging in music in some manner. However, I'm not sure what to do with the first, descriptive bonus it would give.

1. Base it upon the rules for Adopted Peasant? ( Emerald Empire , pg 245.)

2. I'd say knowledge of different musical traditions and familiarity with what feelings certain pieces are usually meant to evoke.

53 minutes ago, Sharatec said:

1. Base it upon the rules for Adopted Peasant? ( Emerald Empire , pg 245.)

2. I'd say knowledge of different musical traditions and familiarity with what feelings certain pieces are usually meant to evoke.

I think I agree. There are so many options currently, that a reskin is probably not hard to find/do.

What you want is something that can't be spammed every scene or every encounter. We have a non-written rule in our group that every player should get approximately the same amount of opportunities to use their different advantages/disadvantages. If something can always come up, we make it less able to, and if something never come up, we loosen it a bit. As a GM I do not even have to really hard rule that anymore as all the players are basically discussing between themselves now and agree to make it fair and fun.

So, really.. for us it doesn't really matter what Ring or Skill it is tied to (its so mushy and gamey anyway to have it tied to specifics I find. It becomes tedious and there is already way too many tedious stuff in that game). The first paragraph is important though, because that is a narrative given.

So, there is no right answer (yet again lol), because it really depends how your group plays those advantages/disadvantages. If your group plays very loose or open about all of this, it becomes more narrative fluff and narrative bonus than some mechanics to abuse and try to pick the ones that are easier to spam. In that case, just write something cool and do not care about the mechanical part. If rings/skills and exact situations in which you can use it are of importance to your group, I'd suggest you to simply reskin something.

On 3/1/2020 at 9:58 AM, The Grand Falloon said:

I'm whipping up a character for a game, and I need some thoughts on custom Advantages and Disadvantages. Backstory is that his mother is a minor Daidoji daimyō, while his dad is a geisha in Otosan Uchi. His ninjō is that he wants to earn enough money to buy his pops' contract and release him from servitude.

Would his illegitimate parentage be a proper Adversity? He's not any kind of outcast, though he's also not the favored son in his household. What would be a good mechanic for such an Adversity?

I also think his Passion is for music. The second bullet point on that Advantage description is pretty easy, recovering 3 Strife when engaging in music in some manner. However, I'm not sure what to do with the first, descriptive bonus it would give.

Why doesn't his daimyo mum lend him the money? Doesn't mum care about buying the geisha's contract?

1 hour ago, Miwt said:

Why doesn't his daimyo mum lend him the money? Doesn't mum care about buying the geisha's contract?

Presumably not.

Since in this case it's the mother who's the 'legitimate samurai' and the father who's the hinin, (rather than the other way around as it normally turns up with 'had a child with a geisha' in the setting) there's no particular need to do so to establish his legitimacy; whilst there can be a question about the parentage of an illegitimate child, there can't be any doubt he's his mother's son!

If she only considered it a 'fling' or 'one night stand' then she may feel under no obligation to provide the money to buy out his contract.