How does one make Samurai work in a western setting? Have them as travelers from a distant land? Have a cloistered...

Go watch "The Warrior's Way". That's how.

Be one who learned that there is a culture beyond the seas wholly different from theirs, and is willing to try out their lifestyle to such an extent that they want to be the paragon of that culture.

Basically medieval weeaboo.

No. Fit the fucking setting we established. You can play a samurai input next japanese-themed game.

>his setting is a single generically medieval european country floating in black void

shit setting desu baka senpai

IIRC a bunch of Japanese dudes who had converted to Christianity ended up in Mexico on the way to Rome

Make western samurai. Wear ceremonial clothing that mixes western and japanese styles, think of your weapon as an extension of yourself rather than a tool, and have fealty to a lord. Ronin are the variety that have no lord and so are more the wandering type.

You know that Bushido is essentially the same gentlemen's code that was used by Gunfighters, Knights, Magi, and other serious warrior types?

"I found this neat scroll and paid a guy to translate it for me. Said it was from "tie one" or something, teaches you how to use these weird curved swords for ritual executions and stuff. It's pretty neat, I guess."

Also they could be a traveller from beyond the seas who was actually apprenticed to someone else, but who is now stranded for whatever reason. That way, they're not the experienced one (and possibly have a mentor character, if that works for your campaign)

I think the best way to make Samurai work as a thing in Western settings is to focus on the ascetic, monk-like quality that's usually associated with them. If you ask a Japanese person about swordsmanship, archery and the other skills associated with Samurai, they would tell you their function is as much meditative as martial, and a zen-like denial of self for the sake of duty is a strong theme in a lot of idealized Samurai in literature.

Start from that point thematically and you can easily create something very distinct from a traditional Knight that doesn't stick out too much.

The Japanese never cared about fairness in duels, user.

That's cool and all user, but won't the samurai find it difficult against cowboys with 6 shooters?

Maybe there are isolationist enclaves with oriental cultures scattered throughout the kingdoms. They could exist in a weird "we're on your land but not your people" sort of agreement with the local rulers.

>He's never seen Sukiyaki Western Django

>If you ask a Japanese person about swordsmanship, archery and the other skills associated with Samurai, they would tell you their function is as much meditative as martial, and a zen-like denial of self

Nah, that's just the ZNKR sales pitch that they came up with back in the fifties or thereabout so people wouldn't mistake them for the Tojo fanclub.

But at the same time, what the fuck does it matter what the average Japanese thinks here? It isn't them we need to sell a westernised samurai to. It's what OP's player thinks is central to the samurai theme that matters.

So OP, ask him, and work from there.

And use western weapons. When your crappy katana breaks, there won't be anyone around capable of making a new one. Time to pick up a proper sword and a fechtbuch to complement your spear.

Moors were common in medieval europe and the noble knights were black, so were the samurai in Japan (look up Yosuke on wikipedia, it's totally real, black people were ADMIRED in feudal japan for their VIRILITY and general SUPERIORITY), so just play a samurai that was born and raised in the west.

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>black people were ADMIRED in feudal japan for their VIRILITY and general SUPERIORITY
>Had to check that I wasn't in a /gif/ interracial thread again
>Veeky Forums
>Look up Yasuke
>They said he was over 6 feet tall and did battle with the enemies of Oda Nobunaga himself to prove his worth as a samurai warrior.

You know what, I can't find anything else on medieval Japan's opinion of black people but I'll believe you just because the idea of a huge muscular black man in medieval Japan is already "What the fuck" enough.

Failed samurai from the last vestige of his social class, comes over to work on the railroad to support his family, but still honors his traditions so he brings his family armor and sword

Date Masume sent an expedition of samurai to meet the Pope. Most converted.
Some went home only to find that Christianity had been outlawed and western influence while they were gone so whether they converted or not they were killed. The rest just kept traveling or stayed in Rome.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasekura_Tsunenaga

So basically do that, they were sent on a diplomatic mission and found they couldn't go home due to changing politics. Or your not-Japan had a colony that the empire no longer considers its people if you want them to be able to go home.

I take a page from TES:

>not!Japanese invaders go on a weeaboo crusade in the distant past of the setting
>end up settling down after a while
>most of their culture dies down over time, but enough of it lingers on that their weapons and armor become somewhat commonplace
>some of their culture and equipment more concretely stays among certain groups (in TES, the Blades)

All you have to do is twist things so that the past isn't so distant and there are still distinct enclaves of invadaboo not!Samurai culture in certain areas. Maybe they've even been prized as warriors of a kind or mercenaries, allowing their culture to survive (if changed) even when surrounded by more culturally dominant not!westerners. You can even contrast these guys with the distant not!Japan if you want.

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Thought I was back on Veeky Forums for a second.
>FACE
>FRAME
>HEIGHT

While that's cool history and all, I can see someone reeing about seeing that in a fantasy setting because it is so specific and would be almost impossible to have happen without several things happening at once (Mexico needing guards, Japanese ronin getting stranded in Mexico, etc), making it seem 'unrealistic.' And even then, it assumes that your setting has something like colonial Mexico, which is pretty damn distant from Europe, which I'd assume would be the heart of a typical fantasy setting. So the samurai would still be pretty distant, to the point you might as well just have the normal distant Nippon.

Nah. I think a kriegsmesser or something similar would work well for a western samurai. Alternatively like a rapier or other niche nobleman's weapon focused on extensively.

I personally think the ideal would be to take the core tropes of a samurai and view them through a western lens. Monkish, hyper loyal knights strictly following a code of ethics/conduct while perfecting their spiritual and martial prowess. I don't think it's at all necessary, or even a good idea, to try to ape the actuality of the historic samurai. Rather, I think you should copy the modern idea of what a samurai was and should be. Otherwise you just basically get knights with shittier equipment and more suicide

Yeah...their version of honor was pretty alien to the West.

In the West honor means following a set of rules that mostly revolve around playing nice with other nobles and ransoming them when captured. Their version of honor meant doing whatever their lord told them to do, up to killing their own family.

An explorer or a shipwrecked guard from a trading vessel.

They thought he was a pretty cool guy. Didn't believe his skin was real though, so the lord got Yosuke some cloth and water to see if his skin colour came off.
Despite being a baka gaijin they let him fight along because he was pretty good. When they lost, they didn't let him commit sudoku though, that's only for Japanese, so the victors send him back home.

Go for a more steppe-flavor character and an older, Kamakura-era, "the way of horse and bow" mounted archer samurai.

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>stranded warrior class goes mercenary after homeland goes full retard isolationist.

Shit, I need to use this somehow.

Holy shit

get your Moto as outta here

We had a samurai in a Chill game set in victorian england. He had fled the meiji restoration, lamenting the westernization of his home, paradoxically ending up in the west himself. Pretty fun fish out of water stuff.

When I build a setting, I make it a point to go through every mechanical class and subclass in the game and rewrite its fluff to preserve the core feel of the concept while also integrating it into the world. For samurai, it really depends on a lot of other factors, but my guess is that they would be practitioners of a particular martial tradition that is primarily common among the aristocracy. I'd need to know what kind of mechanics we'd be working with, but their tradition might involve a bit more spiritualism than the average knight, in order to bring in a hint of Shinto feel.

Actually, given the similarities between Shinto and shamanism, samurai might work well as a nature magic equivalent to paladins. Substitute kami for nature spirits, swap in bushido for the paladin's oath, and get your anime spirit magic samurai integrated into a western setting in a way that feels like it fits.

They have to use katanas because the folding of the metal is a ritual appeasement of the kami of the fire, the forge, and the metal itself. A blade that hasn't been folded a million times won't respond to the samurai's devotion properly, and might as well just be a masterwork bastard sword.

Cannot find my source, but as a Mexican in Mexico who studied the Hasekura Travel and the Enomoto Migration (which developed comunism in Mexico), there was an account of a samurai who bumped a Mexican.

Obviously, the Mexican was "quite violent and in a drunken stupor" and "unsheathed a short and straight katana", and five minutes later the Mexican is calling the samurai an "hermano" and is inviting him and his other non-spaniard companions to eat with the family.

Also, Mexico recognized Japan with one of the first non-unequal treaty, with a hidden clause to allow Japan to make the treaty unvalid at any given point.

youtube.com/watch?v=T3JSm01Vw1c
Veeky Forums is too nofun to allow this

>country floating in black void
>black void
...Do you mean an Ocean?

Teleporter from another dimension

To be honest, 80% of the appeal most people who want to play a samurai have is in using a katana

>How does one make Samurai work in a western setting?

Make it a Western.
Turns out there were a few Ronin mercenaries roaming The Wild West and possibly Mexico

Pic semi-related: a Blackfoot scout for the NWMP who had somehow obtained a katana

Juggernaut from dota

What about the Naginata or the Yumi? Those are p cool.

Also, my main appeal for playing Samurai is iaido sword techniques, which you could theoretically do with a western sword. Quick draws are the shit.

Can you? Doesn't the not-curveness of the sword get in the way of a swing straight out the scabbard?

>a Blackfoot scout for the NWMP who had somehow obtained a katana
And a pretty sweet hat, too.

Actually... the more I look at this picture, the more badass this guy seems.

>cat-girl samurai
>even the not-weebs make one

There are curved western swords you know.

>How does one make Samurai work in a western setting?

Nioh was okay-ish about it. A naval navigator is locked up in England, escapes, and winds up chasing his newfound nemesis to Japan. There he spends several years learning more about Japanese-style weapons, fighting styles, and is trained by various teachers in more and more advanced techniques, in order to fight a tide of demons and kill the man largely behind their sudden appearance.

At the end of the game, he finds out that he needs to return to England in order to take out the guy responsible for orchestrating the whole mess. Once there, a few NPCs make reference to his crazy samurai gear, wacky weapons, and foreign fighting techniques.

So I guess you could get away with a traveler that went East for trade or some personal quest, and ended up staying there long enough to pick up on fighting techniques for their novelty. When they return to the West, they can bring their knowledge back with them, and might even use the weapons/armors/techniques because they enjoy their novelty factor, or because the warrior code struck a personal note with them.

This is all sort of assuming that taking a long voyage to the East would be less dangerous and demanding than whatever your campaign would entail, though.

>Have them as travelers from a distant land?
You can justify pretty much any class and race with that.