When I was a kid all the coolest swords & sorcery books had art like this on the cover. Naked or nearly naked people are just as important an element of the genre to me as blood-drenched swords and dark pacts with infernal intelligences. So for my next campaign, set in ancient Japan, I kind of want to get some of that sword & sorcery mojo going, so instead of this sort of thing:
I sort of want the visual aesthetic to be more like this:
I've been scouring the internet looking for Frazetta style S&S art depicting Japanese people, but so far my results have been limited. If I settled for 'big eyes' style anime art, I could easily come up art, but that's not what I want. So the search continues.
In the meantime, I think I'm going to use a new house rule for the next campaign. I'm already leaning towards Lamentations of the Flame Princess as the system, and its use of an ascending AC system actually makes this idea dirt simple:
The Frazetta Nakedness Rule: PCs (and key NPCs) use their Dex score as their unarmored AC, or the normal unarmored base, whichever is higher.
Even with 3d6 in order, that ought to get a few people running around without armor, especially if the price for decent armor is kept high and magical armor of the plus variety non-existant. One of the ways LotFP cleverly avoids a lot of bloat is by keeping all ACs low and eschewing plus weapons/armor.
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dude! Where'd that last mutant Frazettoid piece come from?
ReplyDeleteI was going to use the same house rule, but one of my readers (Edowar) suggested I go with AC= 10+1/2 DEX (round down). That way PCs with lower Dex scores don't get totally hosed.
ReplyDeleteJust steer clear of pillow-book art.
ReplyDelete"Yikes" is all I'm sayin'.
@Ed H: Artist signed his name in Japanese - Matt Meyer.
ReplyDeleteBravo, sir!
ReplyDeleteAny house rule titled "The Frazzetta Nakedness Rule" is worth instantly adding to one's campaign!
Another feather for your cap to go with the Carousing rule.
Ed H:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.matthewmeyer.net/blog/2010/12/16/frank-frazetta-tribute
If the goal is Frazzetta style nakedness, shouldn't the rule only apply when scantily clad, not just when not wearing armor? Otherwise, especially in a Japan-set RPG, I'd expect to see people wandering around in kimonos instead of armor--cool in its own way, but not I think what you're going for.
ReplyDeleteYeah, except for sumo wrestlers Japanese culture is more about going covered up. But hey, pure is poor.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't call Goseki Kojima's art on Lone Wolf and Cub particularly anime-ish. It's not super-Frazetta-ish either but it is often badass violent and has a lot of female nudity.
ReplyDeleteFor completely non-Japanese stuff, there's Luke Ross who drew the limited series Samurai: Heaven & Earth.
Oh, and Frédéric Genet.
ReplyDeleteI always thought Frazetta's Egyptian Queen looked more Asian than Egyptian, so I think I'd start there.
ReplyDeleteHang on, I'm astupid. If my unarmored AC is equal to my DEX, and I'm using descending AC...what, is it AC = (20-DEX)?
ReplyDeleteHa, ha. Yeah, that illustration was my inspiration for wrestling with a swords & sorcery Nippon game. The woodblock printings are pretty cool and ended up subverting my aesthetic in the end.
ReplyDeleteDoc, I think you'd actually want 19-Dex.
ReplyDeleteSee, s'why I ask.
ReplyDeleteWHOA BRANESTORM -- How about if you have a CHA bonus, you can add that, too, on account of you are hawtsome? And how does this new wrinkle intersect with the Judges' Guild charts for generating boob sizes?!
UNTAPPED SWORD-AND-SORCERY GAMING POTENTIAL, JEFF!!!
ok unsolicited thoughts re no armor/buck naked in rpg games, a favorite subject of mine.
ReplyDeleteoptions include:
Tekumel solution: add a Wis (or Int) bonus to Dex for AC modifier.
Naked XP bonus: give an additional 20 percent xp bonus to the guys fighting in loinscloth, they level faster etc etc.
The Arneson solution: AC as a save. Roll 2d6, beat your AC take just 1 pip of damage. The maths may be wonky on this and it could cause combat to drag.
AC as weapon: Assign an AC depending om the melee weapon you wield. A dagger could give bonuse as if wearing leather, a katana a plate armor bonus. This maps pretty close to traditional class weapon/armor limits. Dont know how you handle missile AC.
Thats all..
Great DEX/AC rule, one I have been tempted to use many times. You could also try re-describing the armor so it is more ornamental in appearance rather than fully covering and functional, or say normal armor looks like you'd expect, but magical armor is skimpy like Frazetta warriors have (maybe just those big fantasy helmets and a few small accessories!)
ReplyDeleteBetter still, use Charisma for unarmoured AC; this way you only have attractive people running around naked :) After all, how many fat, ugly, naked people did Frazetta paint?
ReplyDeleteArik Kahn was a comic series by Franc Reyes in the 1970s. It only ran 3 issues but was very much Sword and Sorcery meets Asia. Google it.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea how badly I wanted to run/play in a Frazetta-based game until reading this post.
ReplyDeleteI made a blog post about the Chainmail Bikini Effect, which was just a bunch of pics of armor - from furs to plate - with the minimalist coverage possible. No rules, just a simple justification. =P
ReplyDeleteI was looking for some old-styled Japanese art in a S&S style, but all I could find is Stephane Sabourin gallery. Its not easy finding such a mix.
I also remember a gallery of old ERB book covers (with some Thongor) that mix Frazetta and classic orietal.
I could see a rule where you use DEX for unarmored AC but then give additional AC bonus for extreme CHA. That is, extreme high CHA means people are distracted by your hot sweet features and miss, or they could be involuntarily averting their eyes and vomiting at your jiggling, encrusted hair-skin exposed to view.
ReplyDeleteMight be obvious, but maybe check out some of the Legend of the Five Rings/Rokugan stuff?
ReplyDeleteNot just Frazetta. That also works well for supporting swashbucklers, pacifistic clerics, and making wizards a little less squishy.
ReplyDelete