Ronin_Story.pdf

Ronin Story

Honour

Your samurai has made some mistakes, the kinds of mistakes that other people get

killed for making. Your samurai is trying very hard to atone for the past by living a

life of honour. Your samurai is also trying to hide the past by pretending to be as

honourable as possible. It’s a combination of guilt and fear.

There are six types of honour:

Jin (compassion): “You go out of your way to help others in need”.

Chugo (duty & loyalty): “You do not balk at your responsibilities”.

Makato (complete sincerity): “You face every challenge with the utmost commit-

ment. You are single minded and transparent”.

Gi (honesty & justice): “You are honest in all things and strive to see the rule of the

Emperor’s law throughout the land”.

Rei (polite courtesy): “You are always respectful in your dealings with others, even

with those who would seem to deserve it least”.

Yu (Heroic courage): “You fear nothing within or without the Empire”.

Just how honourable your samurai is trying to be depends on how wicked they

have been in the past. When you create your samurai character you’ll be asked to

devise a number of secrets about the bad things they have done. Each secret gives

your samurai one point of honour. Your character starts off with either two, three or

four secrets so your character will have a starting honour score of two, three, or

four.

Your samurai has good reason to behave honourably and will be reluctant to depart

from the code. Every time you want your samurai to breach the rules of honour, or

ignore an obvious opportunity to do something honourable, your GM may force you

to make an honour roll.

For an honour roll, roll a single d6 and compare it to your samurai’s honour score

on your character sheet. If you scored lower than your character’s honour then your

samurai chooses the honourable course of behaviour dictated by your GM. If you

roll higher than your samurai’s honour then you are free to ignore the code and have

your samurai do whatever suits you.

Every time your GM asks you to make an honour roll they will award you one Will

Coin regardless of the outcome of your roll. You see, every time your samurai feels

the code constraining and ruling them it chaffs away at something inside. Determi-

nation, resentment, and ambition start to swell, the same qualities that got your

samurai into so much trouble before!

Note that the GM cannot ask you to make an honour roll if you declare that what

your samurai is doing is a hint at their secret.

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Ronin Story

Will Coins

These are coins to track how wilful your samurai is becoming. Every time the GM

insists you make an honour roll you gain one Will Coin regardless of the result of the

roll.

As your samurai’s determination and ambition increase they become capable of

feats that are unimaginable to other people. You can spend a Will Coin at any time

to have your samurai perform one of the feats available to them. These feats are the

result of years of training and require extraordinary boldness, they can only be per-

formed by spending Will Coins. This is the only use for Will Coins in Ronin Story,

remember that the only way to gain Will Coins is from the GM forcing you to make

an honour roll because your samurai isn’t following the code.

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Ronin Story

Secrets

What is it that your samurai did? Why do they drift aimlessly back and forth across

the Empire like a wave upon the sands? You decide what wicked things your samu-

rai has done. As you create a character you’ll be asked to devise two, three, or four

secrets for your samurai. That’s two, three or four completely different, unrelated,

very wicked acts. Take a note of your secrets (in case you forget them) but don’t tell

anyone else what they are!

During a game of Ronin Story you can have your character do things that are a hint

as to what one of your character’s secrets is. You may announce to the other play-

ers when your samurai’s actions are a hint. Each other player may then take one

guess as to what that secret is. Go round the table clockwise starting with the player

on your left. If someone guesses correctly then your samurai’s secret becomes

known. Your samurai loses a point of honour. Now that their secret is out the world

expects a lot less from them. However your samurai’s glory score permanently goes

up by one and you receive one Glory Coin. The terrible rumours about your samurai

is increasing their fame throughout the nation.

The player who correctly guessed your samurai’s secret gets to increase their own

samurai’s honour by one. Finding out about another’s sin has increased their own

sense of self-righteousness and also reminded them of the horrific misdeeds they

thought they had put behind them. As well as receiving the increase in honour, the

player gets to devise a new secret for their samurai’s past.

The trick then is to guess other people’s secrets as quickly as possible so as to

earn additional secrets for your own samurai. You also want other players to guess

your secrets as quickly as possible so that you can turn your secrets into additional

glory.

Note that the GM can never insist that you take an honour roll when you declare

that what the samurai is doing is a hint at their secret.

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Ronin Story

Glory

Glory is the fame, prestige, respect, and even notoriety, that your samurai enjoys.

When all the Empire is shouting your name, nothing can hold you back! There is a

glory score on your character sheet that shows how much glory you start each ad-

venture with. During the adventure you’ll use Glory Coins to track how you’re using

your samurai’s fame.

Whenever the players roll dice in a contest in Ronin Story, it’s because a problem

has developed between two people. You can use your samurai’s glory to intimidate,

impress, or beguile your opponent. For every Glory Coin you spend (just hand them

over to the GM) you get a bonus dice to add to your roll.

You can also use your Glory Coins to influence honour rolls. Famous people don’t

have to obey the rules! For every Glory Coin you spend you can increase the result

of your dice roll by one. You can wait to spend the coins till after you’ve rolled the

dice and seen the result.

Glory is a very important resource. The way to earn it is through getting other play-

ers to guess your samurai’s secrets, and through having your samurai perform

spectacular feats. Every time your samurai performs a feat your GM will offer you

the choice of one, two, or three Glory Coins. You’re not obliged to take any but if

you do there is a different type of trouble associated with each of the amounts. Glory

has its drawbacks you see, your head begins to swell, people become jealous (and

dangerous), and even fate seems to be especially cruel. You endure tragedies that

normal samurai never have to face.

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Ronin Story

Skills

You can use your character’s skills for two different purposes in Ronin Story. The

first is that you can use them for dice bonuses in situations where the skill is rele-

vant. The second is that you can use the skill to get the attention of, and also a reac-

tion from, any other character in the game.

Whenever you are rolling dice to make something happen for your character, check

to see if any of your character’s skills seem relevant to the situation. If so, then you

can take a bonus dice for each skill that your group agrees to be relevant. Make

sure you narrate how your character uses their training in that situation: if you can’t

work the skill into the story then you don’t get the bonus dice.

Anthony is trying to convince his local Daimyo not to go to war.

Anthony: My plan is to send a letter respectfully laying out my arguments. I’ve got

calligraphy as a skill, can I take a bonus dice for that?

GM: Sure but describe the scene for us.

Anthony: Alright, so I’m kneeling at the writing desk wondering what to do. We’ll say

the screen doors are open and I see a crane hunting for fish in a pond. I’ll make

sure that each stroke of the pen is as gracious as the crane’s movements. Just like

my master taught me.

GM: Sweet, here’s your bonus dice.

You may use a skill to have your character get the attention of another character in

your game. Just tick the skill you want to use in this way, and tell your group which

character in the game you are trying to get the attention of. Now you can narrate

your character using the skill to do something that cannot be ignored by the char-

acter in question. You can narrate anything you like that is relevant to your charac-

ter’s skill. Take care to narrate how your character uses their training to accomplish

this deed. If your narration doesn’t focus on your character using their skill then you

don’t get to use this ability.

If the character you are targeting is controlled by the GM, then they’ll need to think

hard about how this character responds. The character may not ignore your deed,

may not pretend it never happened, and may not wait for a more suitable time to do

something. The GM must have the character respond immediately and narrate for

you what the character does even if your own character is not present to witness it.

You can use all your skills in this way, but each skill can only be used once per ses-

sion like this. Remember to tick every skill you use like this so that you don’t mistak-

enly try to use it twice.

Anthony wants his character Kensho to attract the attention of the local Daimyo.

Anthony: Ok, I’m ticking my iaijutsu skill. I want to do something the big D can’t ig-

nore. I walk into the main street and call out the captain of the guard for a duel!

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