Blood and Honor

If you're not familiar with the game, Blood and Honor is a rules-light game where the players involved all play noble samurai in the inner council of provincial daimyo and clan of their own design in feudal Japan. The goal of the game, is to elevate your daimyo to rule japan, namely by taking over all other provinces, while they all attempt to do the same. The game moves through seasonal phases each year, with each season carrying a different theme or focus of play. It's an interesting mix of macro-view play but often represented in scattered micro-view scenes of importance, where a great deal of the details are trusted in the creative license of the players themselves. In fact, certain character abilities and good rolls give pieces of the GMy narrative directly in hands.

For example, the Spymaster can, once per "session", state anything about an NPC, and it is, by virtue of the ability, true.

In a more complex example, the Courtier can call in favors from a connection (whether an existing NPC or perhaps one fabricated then and there), which can, players and GM willing, lead to a scene where someone may roll on their social attribute, Beauty. If the player rolling their Beauty makes a spectacular roll, they are given allowance to borrow the GM mantle to add something to the scene. This could lead the player to say something such as "The honored guest also brought with him his lover, the very same that the spymaster revealed to us to be Kikohime!!" This player-made change in the scene could happen to be part of the prophecy that the Spiritual Adviser made earlier before this scene, which in turn invokes special benefits to the players privy to that prophecy, seeing that destiny is on their side that day.

I have mixed feelings on how this could play out in a PbP. Combat, for instance, is played like calling "Shotgun!" to get the front seat in a car ride, which I'm not certain would translate well in this format. Perhaps that system could be replaced by a sort of initiative roll based of Agility.

Perhaps the most difficult thing would be keeping the flow of the changing views. In reading and playing the games in this site, it looks like most of us adopt a very moment-to-moment play of events. I mean to say, we don't so often say "My character then goes to buy the equipment on the group's shopping list", but rather "My character then goes to find the market" to be followed with more detail. Now, while it would seem simple to just explain how the pace goes, the problem is that it very much does jump between "I spend the spring erecting these new structures in the province holdings" to "I cross the bridge over the creek that borders the next province, and take a moment to reflect on what the letter mentioned on the blossoms that favor this area". It's tricky.

Anyone else play this game outside of face-to-face, or just have ideas/thoughts? I think it has potential, but might require some tweaking.

Sounds interesting. *Looks for book on drivethrurpg*...

Here is the link on Drivethru, though I think I've seen it for free elsewhere, can't say I remember where though. Otherwise, one may find it by following the scent trail of Wick's peculiar ego.

It's on sale too... I'm game to try it out. Is it like World of Dew? I demo'd that last year at Gen Con.

I've never played World of Dew, but BnH is very much a play of the romantic ideal of the samurai. You age in the game as the years pass, and through play you get bonuses to rolls when your actions are relevant to your honored name or your clan.

My experience with it is limited but it plays pretty much like this:

Setup: everyone decides on a daimyo, creates their clan (name, what their region is known for, what their samurai is known for, general military/political style), then each player makes a member of that daimyo's inner council (choose a name, profession [seneschal, general, executioner, spymaster, courtier, yojimbo, or spiritual adviser], prioritize your attributes [beauty, cunning, prowess, strength, courage, and wisdom], and finally you pick a couple abilities available from the list you all put together for your clan.

Play: You play at the start of a season, following a description of the state of the province's geopolitical climate of that season, and state/roleplay what your character does/wants to do that season. Spring is typically province management where you maintain and build holdings and taxes blah blah. Summer is Adventure Time, where the clan's top samurai go on some adventure to prove their glory and honor or whatever comes up. Fall I THINK was where you recuperate and prepare for the winter and next year, and winter is typically the big political arena.

War: When you first interact with another clan, whom will vary in power, it starts a countdown. The countdown is secret and starts at a number set by the GM based on things such as that clan's aggression, and the number can be raised and lowered by the actions of the players, but each season that number ticks closer to inevitable war, as all clans are attempting to become the unifying ruling family of Japan.

Mechanics: it's rules light, your roll is based on an attribute, and you roll a pool based on that attribute's score plus any modifier that may effect it. (Example: I am writing a poem to our neighboring clan that promotes peace, my Beauty is 3 so I would roll 3 dice. However, my name means Tranquility, so I get one more die to the pool. Also, the Seneschal expanded our geisha house, thus I receive a Beauty bonus of 2 for having spent time there, making my roll a pool of 6.)

Mech cont: I may be fuzzy, but I recall you only need a combined roll of 10 or higher for a success. So, you may gamble dice away for better effects. (Rolling 6d10, I should easily make 10, so I will gamble away 2 dice. If I still make 10+ on a 4d10, I will get to narrate 2 extra things that happened. I got 13! [GM: your neighbor clan was moved, and their hostilities have been postponed] Excellent! On top of that, two things: They were so moved, that they shared this message of peace with our other neighbor. Secondly, my poem became famous in the region, and I have gained a point in Glory: Great Poet)

Stuff like that.

Sounds cool, always liked Mr. Wicks stuff. How many people do you need for a game? We'd all be in the same clan and related as PCs I take it right?

Yes, and for people needed; this game could honestly be played with just a GM and 1 player, as every clan has one of each official, so any unplayed officers will be NPCs. That said, the more players you have filling these roles, the more fun the game gets, and the less the game consists of the GM rambling on about what the other officers are doing. The Yojimbo is probably the most optional role, as they are pretty much just bodyguards, but they're also pretty fun to roleplay, considering that they're aware that it is their honor to die for the clan.

Speaking of dying; big theme in this game. It's pretty easy to die, and at some point everyone should have gone through a character or two, and thus character creation is very simple once you've all established the clan together. You can have children and they can grow up to replace their predessors, I think legacy bonuses are a thing, too. It requires a mindset that you all are collectively playing your clan more than you are your individual characters. Your PCs are effectively your precious but disposable tools in which to do this.

Oh in case you couldn't tell I'm interested if a game is started and I have the book to look through.

The two games I've ran in a PBP format (Burning Wheel, and FFG Star Wars) both have mechanics that do this - hand narrative control completely to the player at times. And I can tell you it works fantastically in my experience.

Not only does a mechanic like that work well in this format, but just as a general rule and philosophy I ask my players to use some amount of creative license when posting anything IC, which includes an ability to add details to a scene that may include things they can use with the mechanics. The way I see it, in PBP the GM generally has even less ability to describe a scene than in tabletop, the exchange of information is just less fluid and extensive by practical necessity, so I think it's pretty much necessary to trust your players with this type of control in this format. Just takes a simple discussion about the expectations and limitations of that license. And that discussion can be as simple as; "If you question whether you're about to take too much creative license, ask me a leading question OOC instead."

Oh! I totally agree, I think that aspect of the game would work fantastically here, it's the combat I'm thinking needs fiddling. The way it works RAW is that whoever says "strike" first gets the first attack, which makes it funky when waiting for posts, and especially with the GM's npc's working the same way.