So I've just started running a Bushido game. The PCs are part of the retinue of a minor Daimyo (Lord/Noble) in a northern province. We are just coming to the close of a small scale confrontation between their Daimyo and another. In that confrontation one of the PCs older sister died. The PC, as a result became a priest, casting aside their families warrior tradition.

Amongst all of the different things going on, their Daimyo (the uncle of the PC in question) has taken a pretty new wife and has also begun to act irrational. He's old and it could be simply a case of senility, but the players have been investigating it on and off.

What I originally created: The wife is Kitsune who killed the original wife (disguised as a servant) and is now slowly poisoning the Daimyo (hence the senility). The Kitsune is doing this because she is in thrall to the other Daimyo in the adjacent province. He is holding one of her children hostage.

What some of the players are beginning to think: That the wife is possessed by the spirit of the older sister and that she is trying to take revenge for their uncle's unwillingness to come to peaceful terms with the other Daimyo. Which stretched out the conflict for many years and caused much suffering.

The players alternate idea has some interesting merits to it so I'm wondering. Rewrite it on the fly? Or stick to the original idea. I've got a week before I have to really make a decision on this (our next gaming session). So what does everyone think?

Pros: Draws one of the characters deeper into the relations of the province, perhaps creating more connections for her to the campaign.

Cons: Removes the involvement of the scheming lord and an interesting secondary villain (the Kitsune shapeshifter) who might come back to cause trouble later on.

Your original plot is solid, and it sets a bad tone to change things, especially when it would be so odd for the players to have it figured out already. Save the new idea for later. I'd keep what you have for now.

Well the posession angle does offer the most interesting challenge. How do you remove the ghost without killing the wife.

Shapeshifters can pop up all over the place, they're shapeshifters, that's what they do. You can move them up the story schedule indefinitely.

They both sound like very good plot devices and I have no strong preference for either. I'm just going to throw something out, maybe inspire something.  

Maybe you can make a hybrid plot. Off the top of my head the wife is possessed by her sister, the spirit is getting more uncontrollable. Removal is out of the expertise of the party (trial and error mission, mystery decipher) but if they can track down an eccentric exorcist from... somewhere she can be healed (a manhunt mission). By the time th PC's get back the possessed woman has gone from sinister to a "The Exorcist" level quasi-monstrosity, she has to be retrieved safely, restrained and the exorcist has to be protected while he ritually quells and contains the offending spirit.

Plot twist: the exorcist is morally shady/a part time necromancer/demonic in nature. After collecting his hefty fee from the allied daimyo he sells the soul to the bad guy daimyo for another hefty fee/a position in his council/88 human sacrifices.

Then you're left with another recurring enemy, the shady exorcist and the enemy daimyo has the PC's sister's soul trapped in a grisly spirit prison/soul torturing device.

I find that without an extremely compelling reason it's usually detrimental to the game to "retcon" like that. I say keep the plot you have and make a note of the new idea - you can use it in a future campaign.

It might be an interesting hybrid though to have the Kitsune actively begin to act so as to feed the PC's false suspicions.

Quote from: IceBlinkLuck;422112So I've just started running a Bushido game.

Interesting!  Which edition?  Why Bushido?

I like both ideas and you should definitely find a way to combine them.

Quote from: IceBlinkLuck;422112So I've just started running a Bushido game.

:hatsoff:

Quote from: Spinachcat;422140Interesting!  Which edition?  Why Bushido?

Because Bushido is awesome.

I had a buddy of mine I used to game with years ago, he'd retcon shit as soon as we started to sort it out.  And I knew he was doing it.  He had zero poker face, and god DAMN did it drive me up the wall.

So don't do it.  Your players have gifted you with a great idea you can put in your commonplace book for later.

Stick with what you got.  It's like going to see Romeo and Juliet and someone in the audience yells JUST SAY YOU HAVE ANTIDOTE IN YOUR PURSE! and the director goes "You know what?  That's a great idea!  Let's do that instead.  Thanks random theatergoer!"*


*-if you watch attend plays outdoors in your local park this can actually happen depending on your vagrant to not vagrant ratio.

Quote from: Cranewings;422120Your original plot is solid, and it sets a bad tone to change things, especially when it would be so odd for the players to have it figured out already. Save the new idea for later. I'd keep what you have for now.

This. Get inspired by the stuff the players throw at you, and use it. Totally. But don't suddenly shift things with what you've already got. It's actually beneficial for the sense of reality of the game for them to be wrong, sometimes. But if the idea is totally awesome, you could tweak it to use it in some other way. Like the old sister's spirit DOES have influence on someone... just not the beautiful wife...

Quote from: thedungeondelver;422152I had a buddy of mine I used to game with years ago, he'd retcon shit as soon as we started to sort it out.  And I knew he was doing it.  He had zero poker face, and god DAMN did it drive me up the wall.

So don't do it.  Your players have gifted you with a great idea you can put in your commonplace book for later.

Stick with what you got.  It's like going to see Romeo and Juliet and someone in the audience yells JUST SAY YOU HAVE ANTIDOTE IN YOUR PURSE! and the director goes "You know what?  That's a great idea!  Let's do that instead.  Thanks random theatergoer!"*


*-if you watch attend plays outdoors in your local park this can actually happen depending on your vagrant to not vagrant ratio.

Careful now.

Likening a RPG game to a play with an inflexible script is liable to get you called a storyteller or swine or some crap around here.

:rolleyes:

Romeo and Juliet was overrated anyhow. Principals, parents and pundits complain about pop culture romanticizing teenage suicide and assign the most romaticized teen suicide story of all time as mandatory highschool reading.

Foolishness.

I say stick with the original idea...
I tend to pay close attention to that sort of thing... if I noticed the GM taking one of my wacky (or not so wacky ideas) and running with it... making it true... I'd be kind of disappointed.
I want to have hypothesis about what is going on... I want to throw out various suppositions even when I know they are unlikely or just plain dumb... eventually I want to solve the mystery... but I also want to be surprised. Surprised by a well thought out explanation for what is REALLY going on.

Benoist's idea of working in the players' idea from some other, unexpected, angle could be excellent if done well.

There is a trade-off here.

Retconing the game on the fly can work very well, especially when the retcon incorporates ideas the players have had or the things the players have shown in interest in.  The end result can be much more vibrant as it effectively reflects how game is now rather than what you thought it the game might be like weeks or months ago when you did your prep work.

The downside of this kind of retcon is that it sort of shifts the goalpost. Even if none of the players have figured out the mystery and what is really behind things, the point is they have had the opportunity to do so. The characters have made choices in the game. Even if in practice these choices may not have the amounted to much (in terms sense of getting them closer to solving the mystery), it was still their choice to make. A retcon makes those choices irrelevant.    

The right answer really depends on the kind of players you have. If your players are more interested in soaking in the atmosphere, genre emulation and exploring their own characters the retcon is probably the right way to go.

If you players are more interested in solving the problem and using their skills and resource to overcome the challenges posed by the scenario than a retcon can be a very bad idea.

Quote from: Spinachcat;422140Interesting!  Which edition?  Why Bushido?

I like both ideas and you should definitely find a way to combine them.

I've always been fond of Bushido. I used to own the original books from Phoenix Games, but I loaned them to someone and never got them back. So I now use 2nd ed. by Fantasy Games Unlimited. Over the years I've run several Bushido campaigns. I tried out Legend of the Five Rings, but really wound up preferring Bushido and going back to it.

I think it depends on duration.

If they have been struggling and really haven't started to work out what is going on then use their idea to complete that sory arc and then start a new one. Do not take exactly their idea however but take the grain of thruth in it and then twist it. when they find out you want them to say 'yes of course it was obvious that was what happening' but you want it to be a reveal.

If they have only just started investigating then stick to your original idea and make them work for it. A couple of nudges from an elderly servant that points to poison or a conversation with a priest that rules out possession because of some minor behavioural quirk should be enough to redirect their investigation without setting a solid dead end.

You have to consider in the wider context of the game what the investigation is about and I don't mean an in-world consideration, which I take as given, I mean at the game level your job is to create an engaging game. If they love the investigation part then you can easily draw it out for an additional session if they tire of it and want to be fighting ninjas or casting out demons then either complete theat story arc quickly or retcon it to be more about fighting a demon.

Thanks everyone,

It's nice to have fellow GMs and players to consult about these things. I'm going to stick with the original circumstances for many of the reasons that were discussed on the board. I also got lots of good ideas to drop into the campaign along the way and I'm glad to have them. If this works out like the last Bushido game I'll be running it for a very long time.