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If you want to distinguish between the two, you You could use Ryo or Bujutsu (Science or Study of War) for School and Budo (Way or Path of War) for the minor schools.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Don't worry, it looked to me like a communication error. At least you didn't say her dress was colorful. That is was a diplomat say to a Japanese woman at a social at an embassy party. Unfortunate he attempted to say it in Japanese, and the Japanese word for colorful is very similar to a Japanese word not used at diplomatic events. So compared to that - your golden.

It's not a mistranslation, but an example of how society and language changes over time. Originally the word courtesan mean a female courtier, that being a person who attends a powerful person of status' (i.e. a noble) court, and was some sort of retainer, knight, or in the case of a female, a lady of the court. The word was borrowed into English where overtime, as the definition of a powerful person of status shifted, so did the role of a lady who attends one. Geisha is somewhat similar in the artistic and social skills requires, but lacks the social stigma that is attached in the West. Mistress is also similar. The word courtesan is somewhat archaic today, and is mostly used as a polite way to refer to a member of the oldest profession. So the word does/did mean what you thought it meant, but it has a secondary meaning in English that is much better known.

Maybe. The original idea was to allow me to stat up a lot of things at one go by finding a similar creature and then plugging in the difference in size. I use the same approach for statting up lots of vehicles and weapons too. But you do have to go over the final results to look for problems. A Woolly Mammoth isn't exactly the same as a scaled up Elephant, but a scaled up Elephant is a good start. And using the cube-sqaure law and the creatures mass will get you in the right ballpark. We were certainly getting lots of dinosaur stats, including stats for several species of allosaurus. It's a pity we didn't finish the book. Here's a excerpt. Allosaurus (Epanterias) amplexus Average Length: 12 m Average Weight: 2 tonnes Diet: Carnivore Period Extant: Late Jurassic Characteristic Roll Average STR 3D6+45 55-56 CON 3D6+28 38-39 SIZ 3D6+40 50-51 INT 3 3 POW 3D6+2 12-13 DEX 3D6+6 16-17 Move: 8 Hit Points: 45 Damage Bonus: +6D6 Fatigue: 94 Armor: 12 points thick scales Attacks: Weapon SR Attack% Damage Bite 5 65 2D6+6D6 Claw 8 55 1D8+6D6 Kick 8 55 2D6+6D6 Notes: Skills: Skill 1, Skill 2 etc etc Optional Statistics Location D20 AP/HP Missile Melee Tail 01-02 01-02 12/15 R. Leg 03-05 03-05 12/15 L. Leg 06-08 06-08 12/15 Abdomen 09-11 09-11 12/18 Chest 12-15 12-15 12/18 R. Claw 16 16 12/12 L. Claw 17 17 12/12 Head 18-20 18-20 12/15 Allosaurus europaeus? Average Length: 7 m Average Weight: 1000 kg Habitat: Large, seasonally dry island with open woodlands. Diet: Carnivore Period Extant: Late Jurassic Characteristic Roll Average STR 3D6+40 50-51 CON 3D6+23 33-34 SIZ 3D6+32 42-43 INT 3 3 POW 3D6+1 11-12 DEX 3D6+7 17-18 Move: 9 Hit Points: 38 Damage Bonus: +5D6 Fatigue: 84 Armor: 10 points thick scales Attacks: Weapon SR Attack% Damage Bite 5 60 2D6+5D6 Claw 8 50 1D6+5D6 Kick 8 50 1D10+5D6 Notes: At this time the European archipelago was very close to North America, and whether this is distinct from all known Morrison Allosaurus species is not certain. Skills: Skill 1, Skill 2 etc etc Optional Statistics Location D20 AP/HP Missile Melee Tail 01-02 01-02 10/13 R. Leg 03-05 03-05 10/13 L. Leg 06-08 06-08 10/13 Abdomen 09-11 09-11 10/16 Chest 12-15 12-15 10/16 R. Claw 16 16 10/10 L. Claw 17 17 10/10 Head 18-20 18-20 10/13 Allosaurus fragilis Average Length: 8.5 m Average Weight: 1.7 tonnes Habitat: Short wet season, otherwise semiarid with open floodplain prairies and riverine forests. Diet: Carnivore Period Extant: Late Jurassic Characteristic Roll Average STR 3D6+44 54-55 CON 3D6+27 37-38 SIZ 3D6+38 48-49 INT 3 3 POW 3D6+2 12-13 DEX 3D6+6 16-17 Move: 9 Hit Points: 44 Damage Bonus: +5D6 Fatigue: 92 Armor: 10 points thick scales Attacks: Weapon SR Attack% Damage Bite 5 65 2D6+5D6 Claw 8 55 1D8+5D6 Kick 8 55 2D6+5D6 Notes: The remains the genus Allosaurus and its species are based on are not adequate, so taxonomic designations are not certain. All Morrison Allosaurus have usually been lumped into this species, but there is considerable diversity among the specimens, especially in the length/height ratio of the skull, and it is improbable that any one species spanned the 7 million years or more of the Morrison. A lower Morrison skull and skeleton may be a juvenile A. fragilis Skills: Skill 1, Skill 2 etc etc Optional Statistics Location D20 AP/HP Missile Melee Tail 01-02 01-02 10/15 R. Leg 03-05 03-05 10/15 L. Leg 06-08 06-08 10/15 Abdomen 09-11 09-11 10/18 Chest 12-15 12-15 10/18 R. Claw 16 16 10/12 L. Claw 17 17 10/12 Head 18-20 18-20 10/15 Allosaurus unnamed species Average Length: 8.5 m Average Weight: 1.7 tonnes Habitat: Short wet season, otherwise semiarid with open floodplain prairies and riverine forests. Diet: Carnivore Period Extant: Late Jurassic Characteristic Roll Average STR 3D6+44 54-55 CON 3D6+27 37-38 SIZ 3D6+38 48-49 INT 3 3 POW 3D6+2 12-13 DEX 3D6+6 16-17 Move: 9 Hit Points: 44 Damage Bonus: +5D6 Fatigue: 92 Armor: 10 points thick scales Attacks: Weapon SR Attack% Damage Bite 5 65 2D6+5D6 Claw 8 55 1D8+5D6 Kick 8 55 2D6+5D6 Notes: This has been placed in A. atrox, which is based on inadequate remains. By far the most common theropod in the Morrison, some Allosaurus species shared their habitats with Ceratosaurus and Torvosaurus. There may be more than one Allosaurus species in the middle Morrison. The classic nontyrannosaur large theropod. Skills: Skill 1, Skill 2 etc etc Optional Statistics Location D20 AP/HP Missile Melee Tail 01-02 01-02 10/15 R. Leg 03-05 03-05 10/15 L. Leg 06-08 06-08 10/15 Abdomen 09-11 09-11 10/18 Chest 12-15 12-15 10/18 R. Claw 16 16 10/12 L. Claw 17 17 10/12 Head 18-20 18-20 10/15 PM me an email address and I'll send you the spreadsheet and you can try it out for yourself. If it proves useful I might just upload the sheet to the forums.

RQ2 had a rule for converting over similar skills (like say from Broadsword to Scimitar) where you could covert the skill over at half cost/training time. Something like that might be better than just automatically increasing in rank. You could have them improve twice as fast (2d6 instead of 1D6) to reflect the similarities.

If you are going to go with school feats and such, you might want to look at Mythras. Mythras had fighting styles rather than weapon skills, and has special abilities for characters with high combat skills. Another approach: Each school covers several related skills.For instance a school of kenjtsu (swordmanship) might teach Sword, Iaijutsu (Fast Draw), Dodge, Etiquette, and Poetry. When a character rolls to improve skills trained at the school, add 1/10th their school skill to their improvement rolls (so they will improve faster from belonging to a school). Students will get a certain amount of free training in school related skills each month equal to 1/5th their school skill, which can be saved up. Possibly add 1/10th school skill to their base chance in the rschool elated skills as well? A school could have one or more special techniques that become available at higher school ratings. These could be a combat special (like in Mythras), a magical effect like a spell, or even a Ki Skill from Land of the Ninja. Naturally for Rokukgan these would be those that fit a particular school. ,

That is somewhat reminiscent of Ars Magica. It that RPG magical power (Vim) can come in multiple forms, say to a type of spell (usually a form, i.e. air, fire, water, earth, animal, plant, body, mind, image, a raw magical power). Also different sources of magical power (magic, faerie, divine, infernal) work differently, and interfere with each other, and sometimes bleed over into each other. . A mage can collect magical energy and either use it or store it (depending on their abilities). Most covenants of magi form near a source of magical power that they can tap for thier own uses. POW that is tied to a specific purpose can be very useful to a mage working on projects in that area. For example a mage who was strong in plant magic might benefit from being near a faerie forest, as a magical faerie plant might how POW that he could tap. Casting if done by combining their skill in a technique (Create, Destroy, Control, Change, Perceive) with one of the Forms I mentioned above and rolling that against a spells difficulty. In BRP terms, this would be similar to RQ3 Sorcery/BRP Wizardry and rolling against the lower of the two skills. But not that much different.

So pretty much like Mugen said, it's Magic the Gathering. Not that there is anything wrong with that. So how do you get the magic to power stuff? For instance, if a human wizard finds a tome of elish spells (Gold), how does he get gold magic to power the spells that require gold magic? In BRP POW has no affiliation, it just is. But with colors will each caster devote themselves to a single color, and their power gets that affiliation? Or can they be affilated to multiple colors (and if so what the point of the colors). Are there schools that teach spellcasters special techniques to attune their magic? The cloest we have to this in BRP is the cult affiliations in RQ. I'm not knocking it, I'm just trying to figure out how this would work in game for the player characters.

Yeah, if the OP wants to go with that idea. That way mages could get some clue about a spell by the aura it gives off. So if you see a spell with a dark yellow (mustard?) color aura you know it some sort of mix of elf/faerie magic and infernal magic. . A healing spell could be palet green (or pale grey) and so on. That could be a cool form of shorthand communication to spellcasters. That's exactly what I thought, except some of the colors are different. Still, I think the core concept is sound, that is subdividing the spells by their effects. Ars Magica did something similar with Techniques and Forms. Come to think of it Ars Magica's spell domains (Magical, Faerie, Infernal, Holy) are also similar, but concered more with the source of a spell rather than the effect.

Oh, I just stumbled across something on my hard drive that might help. Way back in the early days of the BGB a couple of us got together to do a dinosaur book. While the project got stalled due to other things (a move and change of jobs), I did make up a spreadsheet for it to help scale up and modify creatures. I called it the critter Fitter!. You plugged in a existing creature and then scaled it to the size you wanted and it would scale mass attributes, natural weapons, other game stats, and the dice required (you could customize the dice used, say from D6s to D8s for Chaos creatures). You could adjust armor based on a multiple of the damage bonus. It was a bit crude, but it worked, and did most of the "heavy lifting". It looked like this: I could clean it up a little and make it available if it would help.

Just wondering but do some things overlap? For instance what if a spellcaster were to raise a thrunderstorm. Technically, it's controlled natures, so it's Grey Magic, but it's unleashing elemental energies so it would be Purple Magic. Is such magic in both colors? If not, what if the rule to determine what color. If a spell can be in or require multiple colors then you might want to make your colors White (Silver), Blue, Yellow (or Gold), Red and Black so that you can mix colors for spells that mix categories. So a spell that is both Yellow and Blue would be Green, and so forth.

Yeah, most creature will have an average STR within 5-8 points of their SIZ- basically what Joerg just said about having a chance to lift itself. Real world creatures probably wont vary by more than 16-20 points. Now you can do whatever you want to with the writups, but you are also going to need to account for anything weird. For instance if you modify a fruit fly to have STR 50 you'll have to explain why they aren't snapping people in half, or maybe they are snapping people in half. They'd probably need a lot of calories for those muscles too. Those muscles would probably add a lot of mass (well a lot for a fly) so they probably would have to flap like a humming bird to fly. Just what you can get away with, depends on how well you can justify things, and as Jeorg noted above, some of that depends on if you are doing a realistic or fantasy setting. It helps if you know a little about science, animal behavior and such (a 25 ton dragon is probably going to need to eat something, probably something big or several somethings), but really, you can do just about anything, assuming you can make people believe it. Experiment with some existing species to see how it works out. Take a wolf, add some STR and SIZ, give it 4 point scales and you got a decent critter for an alien planet or fantasy world. Take a cat and give it teleport, and it probably okay for the fantasy world, but needs a bit more justification for a sci-fi setting (it would probably need to be intelligent and/or have mental powers). Generally speaking minor changes are easy to pull off (no one will probably even notice a SIZ 4 critter with 8 STR) but more drastic changes will be more obvious and might require more/better justification (SIZ 4 creature with 16 STR) or downright impossible to get players to buy into (without laughing). Like that STR 50 fruit fly. Magic helps a lot here.

"He got all of that one! It's outta here!!" The Magic Book does solve the magic system difficulties.

I think I should point out the OP's question was if "BRP was a good fit for Land of the Ninja?", not "Can I use LotN with BRP?." It's kinda of like using a Cthulhu Invictus scenario with BRP Rome or Mythic Rome. Sure you can do it, but obviously there is going to be Cthulhu Mythos stuff in the adventure that won't be in BRP Rome or Mythic Rome, that will only make sense if you are familiar with Cthulu Invictus and CoC. A lot of this will come down to just what a GM want's to use from LotN: Chargen , weapon stats (which you mostly don't need as BRP covers them), cult write ups, divine, spirit and sorcery magic, ship stats, and economics are all for RQ3 and wouldn't port over directly to BRP. Names, Homelands, New Skills, Ki Skills (although some of the actual skills are different), Social Castes, Clan Structure, HON, Drinking Rules, Ninja Skills, Ninja Equipment, most creature stats, and the scenarios probably would port over directly.(except for the magic).

Not exactly. No, in RQ the damage was 1D3 before RQG. So that part would be the same. Some of the differences would be that in RQ you can ingore spirit combat from an opponent whose POW is way below yours, that someone had to be able to go dis-corporate to initiate spirit combat, that you needed to defeat a spirit in spirit combat to learn spirit magic spells. there were all sorts of possible side effects from losing spirit combat (dominant and covert possession, curses), and a host of spells and abilities that could impact the conflict, not all of which have been ported over to BRP (Spirit Screen in particular). But that's the thing with BRP. It's not RuneQuest 3. It's similar but it's not the same, and so porting anything from RuneQuest (or RuneQuest 2, Call of Cthulhu, or Stormbringer , or Elric! etc.) will require some adaptation and judgement calls, and even then won't play out exactly the same. No it's not bad that it's not the same but it is different. I agree. BRP main strength, IMO is that it collects a lot of previous stuff under one cover to serve as a toolkit, making it easier for GMs to pick and choose what they want for a given setting. For instance, BRP has a rule for multiple parries that I think would work well for a LotN campaign, and Strombringer had a rispote rule that would work well too. They would be great for games where one lone Samurai can take down several opponents. But it all comes down to what sortof Medieval Japanese setting the GM wants.