Pirates vs. Ninjas

[Dairun Cates]

Originally Posted by CarpeGuitarrem

Two things that might be interesting to incorporate...

Samurai: they're the sworn enemies of ninjas, and they are probably on not-too-great terms with pirates either. It would be fun to see abilities that key against both of them.

Monks: or some sort of martial-arts master, maybe exiled ninjas or reformed pirates could come into this group.

Monks: Kinda covered with Drunken Masters

Samurai: Planning it for later. Possible expansion. Pirates gets Vikings to compensate.

[Ichneumon]

I like this a lot. The idea is fun and well thought through. I love the way you have include the "1 ninja is stronger than 10 ninjas"-thing.

[Forevernade]

Originally Posted by Dairun Cates

Monks: Kinda covered with Drunken Masters

Samurai: Planning it for later. Possible expansion. Pirates gets Vikings to compensate.

Oh no.... Vikings are a different team to Pirates, they don't go hand in hand.
And Samurai aren't friends with ninjas either, they are a separate team.
COMPLETELY different... *mutter mutter*

[Dairun Cates]

Originally Posted by Forevernade

Oh no.... Vikings are a different team to Pirates, they don't go hand in hand.
And Samurai aren't friends with ninjas either, they are a separate team.
COMPLETELY different... *mutter mutter*

That's the point. Vague and minor alliances in the face of a greater enemy. Otherwise, I'd just make Samurai actual ninjas and vikings actual pirates.

But yeah. There's some key thematic differences.

[Cracklord]

You should do some variation of templates. For instance:
Cannibal viking/ninja/pirate/samurai
cowoy viking/ninja/pirate/samurai

Also, there should be titles that give you abilities, earned through quests or whatever, that you can spend points on at specific circumstances. Sheriff, king, being knighted, even doctor or professor, and probably some variant of priest as well.

Yes, not really consistent, but think about how awesome a cannibal viking who also happens to be a sheriff would be. Or a Harvard professor cowboy ninja. Or a preacher samurai. Or a... well, you get the idea.

Incidentally, how would one create Sir Francis Drake, biggest pirate of them all?

[Corporate M]

Originally Posted by Forevernade

Oh no.... Vikings are a different team to Pirates, they don't go hand in hand.
And Samurai aren't friends with ninjas either, they are a separate team.
COMPLETELY different... *mutter mutter*

Samurai: Lawful stupid
Pirates: Chaotic stupid
Ninja: Neutral stupid

All we're missing is a good and evil stupid to complete the five color wheel. Possibly wizards (evil stupid) and priests (good stupid).

Monk would probably just be a subclass of priest. You know, if you don't want to heal all day.. Knight would also be a subpriest with more combat oriented abilities and could use slashing weapons. (AD&D joke..)

Samurai would have the weaboo.. err.. "oriental adventures" classes like shugenja and wujen as subclasses. Lawlz. It could get very complicated and resemble D&D too much over a freeform rpg. I think it's fine the way it is. Not that I would mind seeing an adventuring party of several different aligned characters. I'd be the samurai arguing I'm lawful because I stick to MY code. Not the code of the bushido, or the nation, or the church.. And give my kitty cat face when I lie, cheat, steal, and break my so called code cause I'll be like "my code says anything goes for me, but not for you cause you suck : 3"

IE: Evil becomes lawful when you just stick "code" and "honor" infront of everything. Thus probably being more of a ronin.. XP

[Dairun Cates]

Originally Posted by Cracklord

Incidentally, how would one create Sir Francis Drake, biggest pirate of them all?

Wait till I actually finish the Charrismatic Lords. While I haven't actually worked out ship combat yet, the Charrismatic Lords cover wise-cracking, politically-saavy, charismatic leaders quite nicely. The rest is really just making someone who's smarter than they are physical.

Originally Posted by CorporateM

Various Miscellany.

Yeah. I'm REALLY avoid getting too bogged down here. I'm really trying for a fairly simple system that still has deep mechanics. Deviating too much really ruins the spirit of it.

The idea is to make ridiculous pirates and ninjas fight each other and have a nice middle ground in the wanderers. The focus really is on the Pirates and Ninjas with the Wanderers just being an option for someone who wants to remain neutral. Even the Wanderers fit well into the theme of ridiculous feats of mental, physical, and charismatic prowess.

Anything I've statted out here, I can really point out as a reference to something in Pirate or Ninja "literature" (films, books, anime, comics, etc.) with a few exceptions in the wanderers that were thrown in for flavor (The Luckies are such an example).

That's actually the major component of why I don't want to do Vikings and Samurai just yet. They've got their own films and genre, but they're actually quite different in a number of cases from Ninja and Pirate films (A little less in the case of samurai since the "ninja films" in question are usually Kurosawa). Adding them is a RATIONAL idea, but it also VASTLY changes the atmosphere by adding them. So, I kinda want to get this main universe down before I expand it.

Also, I'll probably be cutting a number of factions that don't fit in eventually for that exact reason (I'm already looking at cutting Mad Scientists and saving Cowboys for the Vikings vs. Samurai thing since they're practically a sub-genre of their own).

As for alignment, the reference to alignment was a mild tongue-in-cheek explanation mixed with a bit of understanding for D&D 3.5 people. Ninjas fit widely into the realm of Lawful, Pirates fit widely into the realm of chaotic, and Wanderers fit widely into the realm of Neutral. That doesn't mean you should use them as exact measures of behavior, and I definitely don't care about Good vs. Evil. This is a world of profiteers, politicians, great war heroes, and explorers. The line between good and evil is very vague in some cases. Evil shows up in every faction as often as good does, but 90% of people are mostly neutral.

Also, no Wizards. Ever.