Hi! I just discovered Genesys yesterday and I really like how it’s so flexible!

I really love the dice system as its easy to understand, just like the SWRPG ones

i also love Japanese history and culture! Thus I was wondering if anyone has made a “sourcebook” for feudal style Japanese/Chinese campaigns.

I do like LOT5R, but I was wondering if there was something more historically accurate, similar to the Sengoku Chanbara book(though I don’t really understand the Fuzion system :/).

Thanks for reading this!

Grab a couple of Osprey books by Stephen Turnbull and use the L5R dice system without the magic?

I don't know if folks have written up Genesys setting material, but this system embraces wacky hijinks and adventures. If you want mechanics that support telling stories reflecting the actual historical world of pre-Modern Japan, where the stories are about social tension and discipline, you want L5R.

Ah i see... i didn’t wanna use lot5r cause of the classes too, while its easy to remove the magic classes, the remaining classes r q structured and rigid, unlike how real life wld be, thus i was curious. Thanks for the input though!

Or have the best of both worlds with this conversion:

From reading the thread it seems like there are two versions being developed concurrently.

Take my L5R conversion with a grain of salt.

If you want setting material, stick with Sengoku as a source. Ignore the mechanical aspects of the game. Other than that, I'd go with using the fantasy setting weapons and rules. If you're going with historical fiction set in feudal Japan, just remove the magic-related content and monsters. As for weapons and gear, just rename the existing fantasy weapons to the Japanese term and you'll be fine. Realms of Terrinoth has more talents and items to draw from.

If you want to do feudal Japanese fantasy, it's even easier, as you don't have to remove the fantasy elements. At least Revised Edition copy of Sengoku includes a section in the back discussing using magic, and you can borrow them to rebrand the magic skills.

Check out this blog for some information and inspiration; I don't think it's written by a native English speaker, so grammar and spelling is a little wonky, but the information is interesting and well-sourced. Check out this site for Japanese monster information, if you're keeping the fantasy elements.

You can also check out Shinobi: Shadows of Nihon , which is a sourcebook? spin-off? of Sengoku dealing with ninjas ( Shinobi Ryu is another supplement). There's also Bushido , which is similar to Sengoku for being based on feudal Japan, and there might be a few adventures or something to use if you want.

Ohhh i see, thank you!

Sengoku revised is pretty nice, just that i’m confused with the system XD.

i’ll def check out the conversion when i’m free, thanks!

Hmmmm... just had this idea.

what if i used the 5e LOT5R mechanics, but remove the magic and classes?

So instead of classes, we have more like a career system, where you choose a “career”(bushi, courtier, budoka etc) and gain career skills, ranks etc.

then the abilities in lot5r are entirely xp dependent and you purchase then as you wish freely as long as you can pay for them?

So sort of like the conversion, but instead of actual classes, its more general careers, so its open to the player to choose what skills they level etc to come up with what they want.

3 hours ago, Von3679 said:

Hmmmm... just had this idea.

what if i used the 5e LOT5R mechanics, but remove the magic and classes?

So instead of classes, we have more like a career system, where you choose a “career”(bushi, courtier, budoka etc) and gain career skills, ranks etc.

then the abilities in lot5r are entirely xp dependent and you purchase then as you wish freely as long as you can pay for them?

So sort of like the conversion, but instead of actual classes, its more general careers, so its open to the player to choose what skills they level etc to come up with what they want.

First, L5R 5e does not utilize Genesys and is a distinct system.

Second, several non-magic schools in that edition incorporate some of the magic abilities. So you'd have to weed out those abilities and replace them with something else.

Third, L5R as a setting isn't really magical feudal Japan. Particularly 5e, it contains a lot of elements from across east Asia and into Arabia. It also has it's own settingelements (that often translate into mechanics) that try to distinguish itself from being historical fiction and make it something other than "D&D set in Japan." For better or for worse.

So, all in all, you're probably in for more work doing this than you might think.

Sorry was a bit unclear. What i mean be lot5r mechanics is like the skills, the abilities etc, but genesys dice

ah i see... thats tru... that’s why i was thinking to remove the classes and make it more general, where skills and abilities will make your character, a bit like 4e lot5r.

and yeap ik, i don’t mean to use the lot5r setting, but rather adapt the game to be more historical. Will look into it more though, thanks!

Sengoku and probably Bushido are both more historically accurate, I'd wager.

Following with interest here...

I've had a setting shuffling around on the back-burners for a while based on the Tenchu: Stealth Assassins videogame series for awhile. Basically, Ninja vs. Samurai stuff... but also with political and social elements.

I've put together the list of Skills for the setting, the Archetypes, a set of 6 Careers, and have some Weapons and Armor lined out. Don't have anything very specific for the setting yet.

I'm setting it on a fictional, ancient mythic Japan-styled island, called "Onogoro" which is the name of the mythic first island created by Izanagi/Izanami - the traditional Japanese creation deities. Did that so as not to get wrapped up with any need for historic accuracy... but that's where the setting planning ends, atm.

Unfortunately, I do have some custom magical skills and elements built-in. "Ninjutsu", "Qi", "Sorcery", and Alchemy, for the Careers.

All that said, if you were interested in any of that, I could give you some input?

2 hours ago, Von3679 said:

Sorry was a bit unclear. What i mean be lot5r mechanics is like the skills, the abilities etc, but genesys dice

ah i see... thats tru... that’s why i was thinking to remove the classes and make it more general, where skills and abilities will make your character, a bit like 4e lot5r.

and yeap ik, i don’t mean to use the lot5r setting, but rather adapt the game to be more historical. Will look into it more though, thanks!

Playing L5R (or Genesys, or any of the more recent FFG RPGs) can absolutely be done with only skills and base stats. It's what the Beginner Boxes for the Star Wars series do, essentially.

I would personally run / play the heck out of an historically-set game using just the base stats of L5R, and I think if you were going to do it the lightest way possible, you'd even keep the "20 Questions" character creation and just ignore or omit any schools or school abilities that used supernatural elements, then reskin the whole thing. I think it doesn't matter a great deal that someone creates a "Lion bushi of the such-and-such family" if, before they start playing, they flavor it all as them playing a first son vassal of the Ii clan under Tokugawa.

It's worth noting, if you decide to go that route, that you might also ask around on the L5R RPG boards here for input and thoughts.

8 hours ago, emsquared said:

All that said, if you were interested in any of that, I could give you some input?

If you could, that would be greatly appreciated, thanks I don’t really have anything written out yet, but just exploring possibilities.

7 hours ago, BrickSteelhead said:

Playing L5R (or Genesys, or any of the more recent FFG RPGs) can absolutely be done with only skills and base stats. It's what the Beginner Boxes for the Star Wars series do, essentially.

I would personally run / play the heck out of an historically-set game using just the base stats of L5R, and I think if you were going to do it the lightest way possible, you'd even keep the "20 Questions" character creation and just ignore or omit any schools or school abilities that used supernatural elements, then reskin the whole thing. I think it doesn't matter a great deal that someone creates a "Lion bushi of the such-and-such family" if, before they start playing, they flavor it all as them playing a first son vassal of the Ii clan under Tokugawa.

It's worth noting, if you decide to go that route, that you might also ask around on the L5R RPG boards here for input and thoughts.

Ah i see. Yeah that kind of was my idea where the dice system of genesys is used, then throw in the base stats of l5r, minus the classes, reflavouring the clans and families to be more historical feudal style.

So your “career” will more be decided on the skill ranks, a bit like the Sengoku revised in a way.

So like every char can use kata, shuji and rituals(the non-magical ones), then their free to purchase any amount in either, so a more kata oriented char with higher martial skills would be more of a bushi, while a char focusing on shuji and skill likes cunning, charm etc would be more of a courtier.

13 hours ago, Von3679 said:

If you could, that would be greatly appreciated

Ok, well, I just used the standard Human Archetypes from the core (Average Human, Laborer, Intellectual, Aristocrat), as well as the Disciple, Gymnast, and Rascal from the community-made "Expanded Archetypes" supplement.

The skill list is probably exactly what you'd expect for essentially a medieval tech-level works: no Computers or Piloting/Driving/Gunnery stuff. Just Riding, Melee (H) and (L), only the single Ranged... I did Alchemy and some custom magic skills as mentioned, but you can cut that out easily enough - though I might add that this can devalue Intellect and even potentially Willpower, and thereby could necessitate a re-balancing of the Archetypes. For Knowledge Skills, I like to keep those simple, and as few in number as possible (to make each Knowledge's "reach" wider, and therefore hopefully more valuable): Education, Lore, Religion.

My Careers were Samurai, Ninja, Monk, Priest, Politician, Performer, Tradesman. And for their skills... I only have it in a spreadsheet matrix format at the moment. So not easy to provide here. And since I did magic you'd have to redo them anyway. But that's how I create my Careers: create a row at the top with the names of the Careers in Columbus, and a column at the left with all the applicable setting Skills as rows, and use that format to place"x"s under each Career for the Skills they get. And I can easily see and k keep track of AMD balance what Skills are available in play. I also like to provide an option/rules for custom Career creation wherein you only get 6 Career Skills, but you get to highly customize what they are of course, within some constraints like "Must have at least 3 General Skills", etc.

My weapon and armor list is pretty... stylized. To try and capture the feel of the Tenchu game, and so may not be great for a historic setting. But I could probably find some way to share that if you wanted to look at it.

Oh i see... i was thinking along the lines of having no classes however, letting you skills dictate “what you are”, kind of like in real life. But i’m not sure if that’ll work. Of course there still will be “talents” that represent learned techniques etc.

2 hours ago, Von3679 said:

i was thinking along the lines of having no classes however, letting you skills dictate “what you are”

You mean Careers? Careers aren't anything like Classes from D&D, they dictate very little about what kind of character you play...

That said, I have done a game that are 100% choose-your-own-Career. The guidelines you implement are dependent on the kind of play-experience you're trying to create, and so can and should vary, but I think I did something like:

1. Must have at least 1 combat Skill, but no more than 3.

2. Must have at least 3 general Skills, but no more than 5.

3. Must have at least 1 Knowledge OR Social Skill, but no more than 4 from those two categories combined.

My goal - it was a low player-count game - was to make sure every character could contribute to just about any type of challenge in some way...

There is other such guidance to be found around the forums here too, if you're looking for something different.

Ah yeah. Careers like genesys style.

Ah i see... thanks for your help!

Abit of a unrelated qn, but is there anyone/anywhere which can explain the fuzion system used in Sengoku revised to me? I’m p confused with the system.

I have Sengoku, I'd have to look at it again... but as an overall idea, I'd love to collaborate with you on making the Chanbara style game. I've got qualifications.

On this forum, I've made splat games for Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Crimson Skies, and Dinosaurs and Cowboys.

I've also studied Japanese swordsmanship and samurai history/culture for over 20 years. So I'd love to collaborate with you... maybe even put something on the Storyteller's Vault?

PM me if you're interested.

18 hours ago, Jareddw said:

I have Sengoku, I'd have to look at it again... but as an overall idea, I'd love to collaborate with you on making the Chanbara style game. I've got qualifications.

On this forum, I've made splat games for Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Crimson Skies, and Dinosaurs and Cowboys.

I've also studied Japanese swordsmanship and samurai history/culture for over 20 years. So I'd love to collaborate with you... maybe even put something on the Storyteller's Vault?

PM me if you're interested.

As a fellow weeb (samurai armor-making and martial arts practice, primarily), I support this idea.