Any tips for a feudal japan setting?

Keep it historical af.

Have people be paid in rice or something instead of gold bc that's really all farmers/peasants have.

Were I running one I'd be taking a lot from kurosawa films.

>muh honour
>implying honour is something to laugh at
Sounds like something you'd say if you had no honour.

Well my plan was for them to be part of a ronin band working as a sort of strike team, and they would get paid in silver.
I'm pretty sure that's legit?

Yeah that sounds pretty cool.

Depends on who they're working for. A rich lord or rich merchant would have some coin to give them, but that has upsides and downsides. It's highly portable, but also difficult to spend. Most of the economy is barter. Everyone wants and needs rice, cloth, etc.; but only a few people deal in coin.

A poor lord or a group of peasants who pool their resources to buy protection will be paying in goods. And any time you try to buy something with coin, you probably won't be getting any change. It'll be more like "hand over two coins, get room and board at an inn for about a week." Haggling would be extremely embarrassing for a samurai. Might be good to have one player be their "servant" so he can do things that they can't, socially.

None of my players so far have decided to play an honarabru samurai (thank god)

So far I have 2 ninja and 1 ronin.

As for the payment issue, I might scale back the historical accuracy in that department, just for pure simplicity. However if they end up doing a job for some farmer or something, then I will make sure they get paid appropriately.

Don't play them like the knights of novels or like fictional Samurai, play them like US cops and you're pretty close to reality.

Medieval Japan was more or less a nation ruled by US cops.

get your current day politics outta here

It was literally a way to keep the warrior class like a bunch of armless sheeps, limiting them in their subservience to their lords, fellating over a sidearm and giving them no high tech stuff.

The concept itself is cool and all but let's not kid ourselves.

It's a metaphor. Cops don't actually rule the US, but Japan was ruled by armed people whose social and political position was founded on the fact that they killed lawbreakers.

especially the japanese.

I'd argue that honour was as important to the Japanese as it was to the English at the time.
And rightfully so.
Honour is a pillar to a good man.

We know it's you Ieyasu, get off the internet

Oddly enough, "muh honour" was basically how a majority of ninja operated. Samurai and lords double-crossed and backstabbed with a moment's notice, but a surprisingly large number of ninja stayed with the lords who they served even when it was obvious that doing so would likely get them killed.

When everything you do and about is based around betrayal, you need a core of loyalty just to stay sane perhaps.

Memes. Lots of memes: youtube.com/watch?v=Mh5LY4Mz15o

Use details

I will dump stuff because I am a Veeky Forumsfag who saves everything

...

The little details that some samurai had in their early Feudal period, looks like leftovers of "attendant" type of warrior popular before samurai became a caste

more details on this kind of armor

Stance names could impress your friends, but also add a sense of: "oh shit, this is a professional warrior if he has a name for his stance"

A sword was not the only weapon used in feudal japan too, careful to not let it become like an anime

See this image for ideas

The sword is just a tool. It is a samurai's hand that brings it to life.

The sword is just a tool. It is the samurai's hand that delivers death.

It's more that japan's caste system also dictated that each social class also had a designated religious sect associated with it, and the samurai and militant caste had Zen Buddhism as their designated religion, while the lower and untouchable classes from which ninjas would have been from were much more steeped in notions of confuscianism and its concept of Ren.

Actually executioners, like tanners, leatherworkers, butchers and funeral directors, were all part of the untouchable caste, from which the yakuza would emerge out of.

About this image: the only weapons here that were commonly employed by warriors were the Naginata, Wakizashi, Tanto, Uchigatana, and various Yari. Jitte, Kanabo, Tsukubo, Sasumata, and Sodegarami were more common among police and bodyguards, while the various fans were more commonly carried by Generals and such. Shuriken were usually repurposed from coins or tools, and were't generally expected to kill.

Most of the rest of these were regional, like Sai (China/Okinawa), and Tekko/Eku (absolutely Okinawan kobudo, NOT appropriate to mainland Japan).

And the "ninja-to" is a modern addition: straight swords called "chokuto" were abandoned in favor of curved edges, and actual spies/ninja/Oniwaban would have either carried weapons based on tools or "standard" swords to avoid suspicion.

As I understand it, the idea of weapons just being tools is actually a western concept. The japanese would have thought of it more along the lines of an exstension of the samurai's body, with them together as a single entity

>no katana

0/10 see me after the dōjō

Why are people so concerned about being 'too' anime?

That's your "daito". The creator of the image seemed not to want to use the word "katana", probably because being "too weeb" is seen as a bad thing.

It's basically a meaningless statement for when people don't like something and can't explain why.

youtube.com/watch?v=YJwdMm1T_wM

It'd be neat then to have your players wield these regional weapons and have the NPC's notice it.

Feudal Japan as a real place is nothing like it is portrayed in much of the cartoons that represent it. If OP wanted anime feudal Japan, he'd just have to watch them.

If OP wants real, at least according to a bunch of anons on Veeky Forums, feudal Japan then he must look into images, writings and lore of the time

O-okay, Sensei

Have them be extremely arrogant and derisive of foreign cultures and "barbarians".

Then have them occupied by a foreign "barbarians" that are actually superior by every measure of civilization

Why is Japan, out of every single Earth culture, the one which is most commonly copy&pasted into fantasy settings? With other cultures they seem to be combinations of existing cultures with some flair and tweaking, but Japan even in famous settings is always a 100% duplicate without any original content.

The worst part is the lack of cultural transition. Go from Pakistan to India and see no major changes, then India to Burma and Burma to Vietnam, Vietnam through China then into Korea, finally across to Japan. Smooth transitions throughout, but Japan is of stark difference to Pakistan of course. In fantasy settings that's never reflected, just not-Europe with lonely Japan floating next to it with no Asian cultures to accompany it.

Feudal Japan? The Mongols scrapped with em for a while, and the Chinese considered them annoying pirate dwarves. Not occupied though.

Derisive of foreign cultures is a must though, xenophobia was a big thing in Japan then... until guns came anyway. Then foreign stuff was a-okay as long as the samurai liked it first

because at first glance it's the exact same bullshit as feudal eruope, but with an exotic coat of paint

Anime is popular.

Ha! That would be an awkward parental conversation.

He's not wrong. The metaphor is pretty apt

It is like a fantasy land in a way. Sparta was to Europe what Japan was to Asia: a stark warrior culture with a knack of being witty.

Spartans were bred for war, and the Japanese built an entire caste of society around nothing but fighting and martial arts. It is so... romantic in a way for many. For others it is something alien and great for a fantasy setting. As is.

No need to mix Roman city building with Germanic warriors and steppe cavalry... just put Japan as is into a setting for a great alien feeling. Have a sword? Better be a samurai from a notable family or prepare for some serious shit.

Want to go to war? Better train hard with a spear while wearing a metal rice paddy hat... oh, and paper armor. That's cool

Don't feel like bowing to your objectively superior samurai caste? Prepare to die.

Don't feel like farming and decide to steal? Prepare to be crucified.

They did all this well into Europe's modernization, so it stuck around in our cultural memory that Japan was this place of nostalgic mystery... then the Meiji reformation made the country chimp out in a couple decades to become the Europe of Asia.

You are mistaking Ninja with Yakuza here.

Ninja originated from peasants and woodcutters.

Yakuza originated from the untouchable Eta.

Yeah, I get it that fat chicks who were those stupid ass cat ear headphones and other fucks who have the imagination to name their character Spehiroth Tsunami are annoying but I can't help but feel these assholes are the types that hold back possible cool shit because they are afraid it's "too anime"

Fuck you, I want a loin cloth wearing bar barian who takes his axe and leaps up a fucking waterfall to axe some dude in the face and fuck you I want to suplex a dragon.

It is his karma to be shitposter.

Nagamaki master race.

its like the bastard love child of a Naginata and a nodachi.

Read Usagi Yojimbo for inspiration.

So Shinto was just a meme for the Emperor and Nobility?

Read Lone Wolf & Cub.

Shitty swords everywhere.

can I get an enlarged reaction-shot of that guy in blue's face in the middle?