Samurai and Oriental fantasy

Savage World, Gups.

>>55036049
Bushido.

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>>55036398
There are dozens of games called bushido at this point, you should probably explain it better.

>>55036049
>First, clan society is too totalitarian. It leaves almost no room to personal ambition.
You know that there's a mechanic whereby whenever you gain glory you can brag about it to gain an extra point, right?
There's only no room for personal ambition if you're playing a completely duty bound samurai that never takes an opportunity presented.

>>55039328
Yeah, I don't really get it. Fantasy samurai are very honorbound to their code and their lord. If you want a more "freed", make them ronin. But Samurai were a class that served their daimyo unless the were wandering about.

>>55039372
See that wasn't true in the real world and for all that it's more true in Rokugan, walk into an establishment swinging a cat and you'll offend a handful or more Samurai out for themselves. Sure it's true that most samurai try to do their duty well, but a desire for fame and glory is endemic to basically all the clans.
Really it's just down to how you run the game/what modules you run that determines how many ambitious samurai are out there, but there should always be some. After all ambition isn't mutually exclusive with doing your duty, and it's not like searching for opportunities for advancement is forbidden if you're fulfilling your duties. Frowned upon by some, sure, but is a bit of disapproval going to stop an ambitious, greedy, hedonistic or self-serving samurai? No, of course not.

Now I'll grant you that you can't do everything you'd like with the magic system as is, but I'd think that you could use the technique of the Tamori family as a basis for paper shikigami, ofuda and magic pills. And surely something like modified kata or kiho could sub in for secret gestures and what have you.
It'd take some work but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

>>55036049

Tenra, if you don't mind a TINY bit of overpowered characters.

Yeah, I know, animu. But let's be honest, those samurais are more Ogami Itto than any sengoku moeshit, special effects aside.

>>55036049
If you're looking for flexibilty AND quick simple rules, you've kind of got two options. Tri-Stat or FATE (though I've heard the second edition is total garbage)

Tri-Stat's main problem is it's easy to break the damn game. Fate, on the other hand REQUIRES improv skills from everyone at the table.

Or there's savage worlds I guess. But the thing about savage worlds is there's little to no mechanical difference in it's arcane backgrounds. A ninja popping shadow clones with hand signs and a preist tossing offuda is going to work exactly the same mechanically, the only difference is in how many powers vs power points they all start with.

Honestly? I'd go with Anima. If you get the artifact splat book you get a much better understanding of what each of those three points means for how potent your heirloom katana is.

They have some special rules in the magic splat book for ofuda, and other styles, though the end effects from pure magic are pretty static you've got ways to play with how their invoked. Or you could use Ki abilites, Dominion Techniques (The former are thinsg like sensing power levels, having so much spirit energy weaklings can't cut you, and a battle aura that can knock enemies out, the latter are things like Kamehameha's and limit breaks) or psionics or summonings.

Or you could try Sengoku. But that's a chanbara roleplaying game, so it's reeeeeal light on the mystical stuff. Much more for adapting your favorite Kurosawa movie, or Zatoichi or Hanzo the Razor, you sick fuck I only ever played a one shot with that. So I can't really remember how the rules in that were on the mystcial stuff. I know I played a dude who was the latest poor bastard stuck wandering around carrying the Murasame. But then the only "power" it had was to make a rainbow when you swung it, anouncing to everyone that sees me fight that I'm carrying a cursed fucking sword....

I recommend Sengoku. The system, Fuzion, is simple and the players will know how to play it quickly, reducing downtimes. It details also medieval Japan pretty well. I DM'd it a lot back in the days. Sadly, I lost all PDF's and only have the prints I did back then.

>>55042967
I recall it had a table for generating your katana's personality if that kind of stuff interested you, like the sword with a massive superiority complex that would smack it's saya against the saya of every samurai you passed trying to start shit, or the one with separation anxiety that would fall out of every sword stand you ever tried to leave it in trying to get back into your obi... as well as the one everyone knows "A thing I don't like is hapening? I'm going to rattle around until you rap me with your knuckles and tell me to shut up"

>>55039284
Bushido by FGU, one of (if not the actual)the earliest games to provide a coherent system, rather than being an "add on/sourcebook" to an existing game, which usually resulted in inconsistent and potentially overpowered characters.

>>55036049
>First, clan society is too totalitarian. It leaves almost no room to personal ambition.
So don't run it like that. Break the clans down and set up rivalries/alliances/feuds/ambitions between each family and dojo, be aware the emperor is only truly all powerful in name.

>Second - bestiary is basically dull and generic. Oni is an unkillable hellspawn, and regular youkai are goblins and ogres.
Simple - stop using that one oni statline and only goblins and ogres from the shadowlands beasts section. Open your assuredly tightly closed asian eyes and pay attention to the pages of gaki/naga/nezumi/kenku/ningyo/trolls/tsuno/zokujin/shapeshifter spirits/lying darkness spawn/other that are not oni, goblins, or ogres.

>And finally, magic. It is pretty nice, but it won't allow me to fluff it to using paper shikigami, ofuda, magic pills or secret gestures - only spirit summoning or maho.
That's because you know nothing, friend anon.

>paper shikigami
This literally is conjuring beings, aka spirit summoning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikigami
Legacy Of Kaze no Kami is a rank 1 air spell that allows you to send a message to someone. Not hard to adjust that for sending messages via paper mannequin. Other uses (theft, tracking, etc) can be replicated through various other spells, or basic Commune/Command.

>ofuda
Yogo and Toritaka use paper wards.

>magic pills
Agasha or Tamori schools do potions and other spells bound to physical objects.

>secret gestures
Roll Stealth(Spell Casting) for casting via hidden words or gestures. If successful, no one notices where the spell came from. Memorising the spell (spend xp equal to the spell rank, so you don't have to pull out the scroll) will be helpful.

Ignorance is one thing, but if you really have "even played it", you haven't done more than skim the surface before deciding to go elsewhere.

>>55036049
Might wanna try Gurps the fights are cool and the system can be outright lethal. The magic stuff can easily be very Wuxia instead of animu