If you wanted to play in Medieval Japan, or a fantasy world inspired by Japanese lore, which RPG is your choice?

I know of Legend of the Five Rings, but don't know much about it. 

There are also two free games I know of.  Both are rules lite by their nature, amateur in quality, but seem fine as games go.  Being free helps.

Whitebox Eastern Adventures.  This is not a Whitebox FMAG expansion book, but a stand-alone game.  It is very much an old school, 0-edition D&D game.  For example all weapons are 1D6-1, 1D6, or 1D6+1 damage.  Only four classes with some minor customization options, and optional four races of human, Japanese "Dwarves", Tengu, and Kitsune.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/268199/White-Box-Eastern-Adventures

Shinobi and Samurai is another free game, B/X style D&D rules, and the shortest page count of the games I just listed.  But, it's free, and hosted on the writers own site.  That means no barrier to download the PDF.  It's also nice as it has 10 classes.  But, it's still B/X, so not a lot of customization, and only humans. 

http://taxidermicowlbear.weebly.com/downloads.html

Sengoku Revised seems like a great source for lore, culture, and history, but a 3D6 Fuzion rules system is not my thing.   Also, this is a game you pay for.  It's somewhat worth it for the lore. 

I'm not sure there are more games than this, but naturally you can convert most fantasy RPGs by just re-naming classes and places.  But, I prefer to not need to do that. 

Any other suggestions?

There's quite a few out there. Sengoku is, as you surmised, nice to have just for the resources including some conversion notes to other systems if I recall.

OSR works include Ruins & Ronin (some good takes on youkai monsters on the creator's Sword +1 blog, but the game itself wasn't terribly authentic iirc) and Shinobi & Samurai has a companion for other races iirc and an associated document of OSR rules for various Youkai that used to float around. Oriental Adventures 1e also exists from which you can port non-humans.

I'd heard Bushido by FGU was good, but I've never had the chance to play it despite owning it. There was a feudal Japan RuneQuest supplement back in the day too.

For my own purposes, I would probably try Bushido or do a modified version of D&D using what's available as material.

That said, I haven't really seen a system with a take on magic that feels right in my personal opinion. I'm kind of hoping to use Lion & Dragon for it one day for this reason. There's a lot of good stuff in Sword & Caravan already and suggestions on how to do a Fangshih wizard which could easily be reskinned into an Onmyouji while retaining historical accuracy, but the options for combat, glamour, curing, banishing and alchemical practices are still very western/middle-eastern. I'm hoping Pundit offers more esoteric Buddhist and Taoist magics leading up to the Song Dynasty project he'll probably eventually work on. The Inugami (a somewhat Ku adjacent evil sending) and Izuna rituals (for a fox familiar) are the only spells in Japanese lore I do not know to have an immediate Chinese equivalent off the top of my head (although they may). I think even the well-known Ushi no Koku Mairi curse has one.

Bushido.  I'm not a big fan of the system itself, but everything else is great.  And it's feudal JAPAN, not some weird "throw everything Asian in a blender" like Rokugan.  And I really like the magic system.  Plus you can play Shinto or Buddhist priests, not priests of a made-up pantheon.  I also own the Runequest feudal Japan supplement and it's BRP-based, of course, which I like -- but it's very skimpy on cultural detail.  My ideal mythological Japan game would be Bushido with BRP but retain the Bushido magic system, modified to fit in BRP.  It would take a lot of work, though.

I think you'd enjoy reading Bushido anyway, even if you don't use the rules as-written.  It's that good.  The one (SFAIK) published adventure for it, "Valley of the Mists," is also very good.

Never tried anything but Bushido and Legend of the Five Rings, so I can't comment on the others.

I ran Bushido (years ago) and we had a great time with it. I'd run it again.

Quote from: I on January 28, 2024, 12:21:41 AM
The one (SFAIK) published adventure for [Bushido], "Valley of the Mists," is also very good.

There were some other adventures published by other companies or in magazines. At least one of them (Takishido's Debt) was "official". The magazine adventures were in White Dwarf and Adventures Unlimited. I never ran any of them, though, so I can't comment on their quality.

Definitely Bushido for me. Although, I'd make a few simplifications to the system if I played it nowadays.

interesting.

Bushido.  Never heard of this game before.  I will have to look into it.

Quote from: WERDNA on January 28, 2024, 12:03:31 AM
There's quite a few out there. Sengoku is, as you surmised, nice to have just for the resources including some conversion notes to other systems if I recall.

OSR works include Ruins & Ronin (some good takes on youkai monsters on the creator's Sword +1 blog, but the game itself wasn't terribly authentic iirc) and Shinobi & Samurai has a companion for other races iirc and an associated document of OSR rules for various Youkai that used to float around. Oriental Adventures 1e also exists from which you can port non-humans.

I'd heard Bushido by FGU was good, but I've never had the chance to play it despite owning it. There was a feudal Japan RuneQuest supplement back in the day too.

For my own purposes, I would probably try Bushido or do a modified version of D&D using what's available as material.

That said, I haven't really seen a system with a take on magic that feels right in my personal opinion. I'm kind of hoping to use Lion & Dragon for it one day for this reason. There's a lot of good stuff in Sword & Caravan already and suggestions on how to do a Fangshih wizard which could easily be reskinned into an Onmyouji while retaining historical accuracy, but the options for combat, glamour, curing, banishing and alchemical practices are still very western/middle-eastern. I'm hoping Pundit offers more esoteric Buddhist and Taoist magics leading up to the Song Dynasty project he'll probably eventually work on. The Inugami (a somewhat Ku adjacent evil sending) and Izuna rituals (for a fox familiar) are the only spells in Japanese lore I do not know to have an immediate Chinese equivalent off the top of my head (although they may). I think even the well-known Ushi no Koku Mairi curse has one.

This is the project I'm working on right now.  I'm actually reading books on Shinto mysticism and Japanese folklore to get a handle on making a magic system for a Japanese setting.

I've always been directed towards Bushido, and I briefly looked into it. It actually looks good, and if I remember correctly it takes stuff like honor and your class into consideration. Ruins and Ronin is also good, but it's a fairly simple reskinning of BECMI D&D so it's a bit basic.

For a while I was working on a personal gazetteer for Sengoku period Japan, using RPGPundit's Dark Albion as a reference. Most of it was just simple changes such as limited what armor and weapons were available, creating a system for social backgrounds, etc. It was a fun little project I wanna finish, and if I do I'll upload it on the forum after it's had a little testing.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on January 28, 2024, 05:45:56 AM

Quote from: I on January 28, 2024, 12:21:41 AM
The one (SFAIK) published adventure for [Bushido], "Valley of the Mists," is also very good.

There were some other adventures published by other companies or in magazines. At least one of them (Takishido's Debt) was "official". The magazine adventures were in White Dwarf and Adventures Unlimited. I never ran any of them, though, so I can't comment on their quality.

Thank you.  I'll have to try to find these.

If Bushido had one problem, it was the one common to all Fantasy Games Unlimited's products:  it was more complicated than it needed to be, and often seemed to be complicated simply for the sake of being complicated.  I felt the same way about their post-apocalyptic title, "Aftermath".

Quote from: I on January 28, 2024, 01:30:48 PMIf Bushido had one problem, it was the one common to all Fantasy Games Unlimited's products:  it was more complicated than it needed to be, and often seemed to be complicated simply for the sake of being complicated.  I felt the same way about their post-apocalyptic title, "Aftermath".

Bushido desperately needs an editor to go in and rewrite it. The rules aren't nearly as complicated as they seem but they are explained in the most confusing way possible as well as being presenting out of order (especially true with character creation).

The core of Bushido is that it is a class and level game but also a skill-based games. Skills range from 0 to 20 and use a d20 roll-under for success. If the skill is a class skill you add your level to the number you need to roll under. So it is possible to have a high level character with a low skill or a low level character with a high skill. For combat, you subtract your opponents armor value from the number you need to roll and do damage vs hit points. Which means that, in practice, it is similar to a roll-low D&D.

Sadly, "best" is a very relative word in this context.  I've never played "Bushido," but heard some positive (and some negative) things about it.  "Legend of Five Rings," especially its current iteration is woke as fuck and the 5e conversion doubled down on that by forbidding seppuku, among other ridiculous things.  "Ruins & Ronin," is lame and weak.  Virtually nothing there.  Other games, like "Mists of Akuma," or "The Ninja Crusade" add things like steam punk or anime in copious amounts. 

Do you want more historical with fantasy elements?  Or the reverse?  Of the games I've checked out or played, AD&D Oriental Adventures remains the best in some ways.  It has certain mechanics to differentiate it from the "Western" game and if you know D&D, you can play it.  THe Hackmaster 4e game tweaked some of the Asian classes for the better IMO.  There's a 3e version that's tied to Rokugan, but is better than the current version by far.

The thing is, this is a huge hole, particularly in the OSR sphere, where we at least have Joseph Bloch's Swords of Wuxia and the new C&C Codex Sinarumfor China.  Not sure if people are afraid of the woke mob, or think it wouldn't sell or what, but I'd love to see a good take on Japan, especially Sengoku era.

Quote from: WERDNA on January 28, 2024, 12:03:31 AM
There's quite a few out there. Sengoku is, as you surmised, nice to have just for the resources including some conversion notes to other systems if I recall.

  It's also an exceptional bargain in PDF if you look in the right place. While the products are listed at 'normal' prices individually, Gold Rush Games offers a bundle of the whole line on DTRPG for $6 US.

AD&D's Oriental Adventures.

I'm in the middle of developing a Shinobi game right now using Cepheus Engine as a core.  I'm doing research right now into Shinto mysticism and traditional folklore beliefs in trying to develop the magic system.  In doing my prep, I got a hold of all the Japanese historical setting games I could.  Here's what I can tell you.

Legend of the 5 Rings is a mix of Japanese, Chinese/wuxia, and Korean flavors.  It all blends well but it isn't samurai really.

Sengoku is well researched and the details of the setting are well done.  The system is a bit clunky though.  Still, an excellent place to start with building a setting.  It's trying to be a heavy historical game rather than a samurai with traditional culture and mysticism.  Worth a look, IMO

Bushido is a mess.  The system sucks IMO.  The setting is a bit cartoonish, heavily inspired by 60s and 70s Japanese sword fighting films rather than actual history.  Think Samurai Champloo rather than actual historical fiction.

Neither Katana-Ra, WarSong, nor New Edo are useful if you're looking for a samurai game.  Too western and too much trying to be cyberpunk cool rather than embracing the honor and duty of the thing that draws us to a samurai setting.

Wave Man kind of gets it right but it's a bit too rules light for me.  Maybe check it out.  I'll be doing a review of it in a week or two.

Yokai Hunters Society is very much trying to be Demon Hunter with the serial numbers files off.  Cool but not samurai at all.

Ronin is Mork Borg with Japanese flavoring.  It has this on the inside cover: "SEXISTS, RACISTS, HOMOPHOBES AND TRANSPHOBES PUT THIS DOWN AND FUCK OFF."
(Jack Byron-Bently, Michael 'Mill' O'Farrell, you guys made it political.  I'm just making sure people got your message.)

I would think that if you're trying to do a medieval Japanese fantasy game that OSR would be perfect.  Samurai for fighter, ninja/shinobi for thief/rogue, onmyoji for wizard, and Shinto priest is obvious.  You need a magic system that reflects the Japanese mysticism, a beastiary for yokai and kami, and a general setting guide.