INTEREST CHECK( FEUDAL JAPAN EDO PERIOD UNNAMED)

OK, so I've been playing with the idea of a RP for literally years and I have finally decided to go through with it, this will be a game based in feudal Japan, more specifically the Edo period between the years 1603 and 1868, now this might not mean much to the average non-Japanese obsessed person but to me it is by far the most interesting and crazy time in Japan, when men were with men, woman became worriers and rape and violence ran rampant.

I will start by saying this, this is more or less an open world RPG with very little direction as far as story is concerned but I hope to create a immersive world were your samurai, trader, emperor or escaped slave villager can enjoy their freedom and do literally whatever they want to while still feeling like the world around the has some kind of purpose.

I completely understand that this might end in as a slow going boring, non functioning thread on the site with no real meaning or direction, or might just die out in total but I as your loyal GM will try to avoid that and keep things interesting for as long as I can.
That being said, this is a MASSIVE undertaking to say the least and might end up being an absolute waste of my time but hey, passion is passion.

I will be including a functioning map, movement system, store environment as well as countless NPC's to interact, kill, punish or just chat too as you see fit.
MASSIVE undertaking as I said xD.
Let me know how you guys feel about it in a PM any suggestions are appreciated.

did you mean "when men were with men" --or-- "when men were men" -- those two statements are drastically different ;)

The first one is correct my friend xD
In the Edo period men being WITH men was more common ground than I think even in modern Japan

Also if you do not have any story arcs present within the game then what you will most likely end up getting is a complete sand-box style game and those are extremely hit or miss with in my experience most of the missing

With that said you might want to consider creating a few story arcs some long ones and some short ones but you do not really need these until you get the players -- further if you are just going to go with nearly pre-free-form in that folks do whatever, wherever, whenever -- you are going to have a lot disjointed solo adventures -- or the dreaded a bunch of complete strangers meet in a pub and decide to risk their life teaming up with folks they know next to nothing about -- which is like perhaps one of the worst ways to start a game as it throws any cohesiveness out the window let alone makes absolutely no story sense.

In my experience if you want to do sand-box at all it works best if its a missionable sand-box which is to say the players have missions they are trying to do and while doing them side adventures and such cross their paths which they can choose to pursue or ignore but some of those that they ignore might have unsavory repercussions but this would not be obvious up front most of the time. This helps create a world that kind of feels dynamic especially if those story arcs conclude on their own and the player hears about it.

Thank you so much for the advice and ideas it really does help a lot!
The story arcs it seems are definitely a must and I will start building those if I get some interest, makes sense to have it, as well as the side missions. :)
Can't really say I have the greatest experience with sand-box type RPG's myself but I was hoping maybe an active GM, diverse world and colorful NPC's might make the difference seeing as most sand-box RPG's I've seen/participated in weren't well planned or thought out in the least, with no real interaction or direction from the GM.
Now I do understand that is after all the basis for a sand-box but I mean common, having to write in your own NPC's in a town is kind of pathetic if you ask me xD

Yes sand-box games tend to be just that directionless and may not even have story arcs just a world you can interact with maybe. But all the color and hype and details does not matter if there is no story per-sae to sink ones teeth into which is why many of these games die fairly quickly -- not all mind you as sometimes you get a player that is good at creating their own stories but then this means the GM is not really doing their job and the true GM is the player

Next having at least one large semi-vague story arc that effects things in a pre-determined manner and can also be affected by the players is good and pretty much essential -- this large story arc then creates various small story arcs over its duration that the players can choose to interact with or not -- this is one aspect of the game -- note you can have more than one of these and you can even have competing ones if you like this all has to do with the major story you are wanting to tell

Then as players make characters you create various story-arcs tailored to the characters that help to move the character along allowing them to bump into those story arcs from the large story arcs you have going on -- but these story arcs are all about the character and who and what they are more so than the those large story arcs -- further they cannot really be created until you get a player to create a character

Note if you would like I have a Story Telling 101 "game" here on this forum that one is free to join and ask questions and get answers and or help with this kind of stuff -- I am been a GM/Story Teller for about 40 years now and had the luck of having been able to play/run other really good story tellers during that time as well as read a lot of the guides on GMing and Story Telling (which is more akin to writing stories than rpging them)

Lastly as counter-intuitive as this may seem -- creating a lot of detail up front is a near waste of time -- and I speak from extensive experience on this. As a lot of time the players only end up interact with a very small subset of all the time and effort. It is best to create skeletal frameworks for ideas and then create a minor cosmos of detail just enough necessary to place the characters into and then as they adventure you flesh things out as they go -- this means sure you can dive into the details at any time just make those details mutable in that you can use them to flesh whatever part of the skeleton that the players have chosen to pursue and no more than that otherwise you as the GM will simply burnout

OMFG thank you so much for all of this and I will definitely check out story telling 101, I cannot thank you enough for the guidance you have given me here, I mean I would like to think I have a comprehension of what I want to do but this advice completely changed my perspective and gave me a lot more direction for my RP, hail to your 40 years of experience and blessing me with some of the wisdom you have obtained.
Also If Im being honest I was afraid I might get burnt out with this thing which is why I never tried it before but I think you might have cut my work in half for me if not making it "easy" for me.
So again and again THANK YOU, YOU LEGEND.

Oh okay I have sent you an invite -- you can just step right on in -- and I posted what I did here there for others to see as well

I'd be interested

OK, so that's one xD hopefully we can gather at least 2 more then I have something solid to work with.
Already playing around with some story and smaller missions for our characters but will also have character driven arcs thanks to DeJoker :)

Also I am looking for somebody to be Co-GM or a Moderator of sorts for content, context and help shaping the world and directing/driving the people in it forward this will include but will not be restricted to our party, meaning you will have to control NPC's directly as well as enemy NPC's in order to give the story direction and purpose, this was not a problem for me before, simply because I had no intention of having to direct my player but it seems I cannot, or will be incapable of building an entire world and playing the NPC's when need be for all of the people interacting with them.
Therefor I need help, please PM if you are interested and are at the very least capable of squeezing one paragraph a post, not always necessary but preferred.

I think I have a character idea for this. I was thinking about Kikuchiyo from Seven Samurai. A dude with no money, no trade, no prospects at all finds a dead samurai and takes his sword, some basic armor, and fine clothes that has seen better days but are a lot better than the burlap sac he was wearing. **Note** I have no idea if burlap was a thing...it's just the cultural reference I have.**

i would like to give thsi a shot

I would be interested as well. I've read a little about the Sengoku period and enjoyed films like 'Kagemusha'. I haven't played any RPGs about feudal Japan but would be open to learning.