Experiment design of a fictional variant
Posted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 9:26 pm
I know what the common feeling is: There are already too many Mahjong variants. And I agree to that feeling. However, this thing is a bit different.
I'm curious of what kind of Mahjong would get played in Rokugan (the setting of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG, CCG, novels, so on, roughly based on the original Book of the Five Rings and feudal Japan, but fictional).
However, I'm not too sure on where to start (mainly because I never thought a new MJ was needed). Although I know both fields of matter, I don't excel in neither of them. Rokugan is a fictional continent but culture, as I said, is pretty based on feudal Japan. The RPG (tabletop RPG, as RPG should mean) has skills for a couple games like Go, as well as other classical Japanese arts (like Haiku writing, or Tea cerimony, for instance).
But Mahjong is different. Go is go, wherever you... er, set your feet on. Chess, Shogi, and Shatranj come from the same game and have evolved separately. Yet, Chess is played the same all around the globe, and so is Shogi. But with this lovely game that is Mahjong, there are a lot of regional rules, and even in the same main variant the rules are not set in stone. Take riichi majan, for instance. Kan dora? Red fives? Open Tanyao? And the list is quite long.
So, while Rokugani Go can be assumed to be the same as real world Go, we can't assume the same thing about Rokugani Mahjong. I'd rather get ideas from people more knowledgeable than I in Majan and in Rokugan if possible. If this thread comes to nothing, it's no big deal (after all, there is little to no intersection between my MJ circle and my L5R circle). So it's not intended to be played anyway. But maybe something cool will appear from this. Who knows?
So, what do you guys think Rokugani Majan would look like? Or maybe you think I shall disregard this idea...
I'm curious of what kind of Mahjong would get played in Rokugan (the setting of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG, CCG, novels, so on, roughly based on the original Book of the Five Rings and feudal Japan, but fictional).
However, I'm not too sure on where to start (mainly because I never thought a new MJ was needed). Although I know both fields of matter, I don't excel in neither of them. Rokugan is a fictional continent but culture, as I said, is pretty based on feudal Japan. The RPG (tabletop RPG, as RPG should mean) has skills for a couple games like Go, as well as other classical Japanese arts (like Haiku writing, or Tea cerimony, for instance).
But Mahjong is different. Go is go, wherever you... er, set your feet on. Chess, Shogi, and Shatranj come from the same game and have evolved separately. Yet, Chess is played the same all around the globe, and so is Shogi. But with this lovely game that is Mahjong, there are a lot of regional rules, and even in the same main variant the rules are not set in stone. Take riichi majan, for instance. Kan dora? Red fives? Open Tanyao? And the list is quite long.
So, while Rokugani Go can be assumed to be the same as real world Go, we can't assume the same thing about Rokugani Mahjong. I'd rather get ideas from people more knowledgeable than I in Majan and in Rokugan if possible. If this thread comes to nothing, it's no big deal (after all, there is little to no intersection between my MJ circle and my L5R circle). So it's not intended to be played anyway. But maybe something cool will appear from this. Who knows?
So, what do you guys think Rokugani Majan would look like? Or maybe you think I shall disregard this idea...