M&B - Daimyo Wars Mod: Poll.

Should M&B: Daimyo Wars include a Shinobi, (ninja,) character class?

  • 1. No. I hate ninjas.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2. No. I have nothing against ninjas, but I feel they are inappropriate for this game.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3. Yes. I think a ninja class would work well with this style of gameplay, as long as it is done rig

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4. Yes. I just want to play a ninja, period.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5. I have no strong feelings on the matter.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0
  • Poll closed .

Users who are viewing this thread

Arahan

Recruit
As of 7-9, voting for this poll is concluded. Thanks to everyone for their contribution.


Hello everyone,

The purpose of this poll is to account for the opinions of the general player base in regards to the availability of a shinobi, (ninja), character archetype for Mount & Blade: Daimyo Wars, a mod for M&B currently being developed under the leadership of Mitsuhide.

M&B: Daimyo Wars is a mod of classic M&B which is set in feudal Japan during the so-called Onin War. The team is planning a total conversion of armor and weaponry, thematic character profiles, and scores of new quests to undertake. Look forward to Samurai duels, epic battles between at least two warring clans, and, of course, hours of excitement and adventure.

If you are interested in getting involved with this project, there is still much work to be done, (modelers are especially needed,) so have a look at the up-to-date information available in the main thread: http://taleworlds.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2065&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Poll Question:

Should a shinobi, (ninja), character archetype be included in the Daimyo Wars mod of M&B? Such a character class would include a unique range of skills and gameplay characteristics, an exclusive class of historic weapons to choose from, and a slection of quests designed for an assassin. However, maintaining historical accuracy, (which is a chief goal of the mod team,) will necessitate some limitations. It should also be noted that the sort of ninja in question is not entirely the darkly clad, nocturnal denizen of movies and popular imagination, but rather a muderer for hire and master of disquise.

Eligible poll options are as follows, including an explanation of each choice:
1. No. I hate ninjas.
2. No. I feel that a shinobi character is not in keeping with the theme/gameplay of M&B. It is unrealistic for a party of ninjas to take part on the battlefield and unlikely that a single ninja would lead a host of mercenaries.
3. Yes. As long as the character is unable to recruit non-NPC mercenaries into their party, and there are plenty of interesting quests to make this class worth playing.
4. Yes. I love ninjas, this character class should be included in the game no matter what.

If you are looking forward to giving this mod a try once it has been completed, please take a few moments to vote. Your feedback will be very useful and much appreciated.

- Arahan[/b]
 
One thing is a Shinobi is not a Ninja.

A Shinobi is a spy used for finding traiters.


A Ninja is an assasin used to kill generals or opposing Daimyo.
 
I think M&B is a game focussed on battles and strategy. Ninjas would be a good idea in a traditional shoot-em-up you're the hero now save the world kind of game. I don't see Ninjas riding around leading twenty or thirty troops and saving peasants from raiders and dark knights.
 
Ninjas are a fun concept. They used poison, explosives, and other unorthodox means to kidnap, sabotage, and of course, assassinate.

However, having them used in conjunction with other "normal" troops would damage authenticity greatly. Ninja (or shinobi, or whatever you want to call them) were hated by almost everyone, especially samurai and others who served the daimyo. They're not troops, only men hired for great sums of money to do difficult jobs. They operated under very different codes than the rest of Japan, if literature describes them accurately.
 
Hmmm. I think, if you could add assasination quests and other such things that would be appropriate for a ninja, you could add them. It'd be loads of fun to be able to put shurikens into guards while blowing into a door to kill the person inside (Ever seen or read Shogun?). This would require some more coding, for the stealth, detection, etc.

As for the battlefields-it would seem odd to have a black clad ninja leading samurai. Perhaps the player could just use different armor for the different missions, so their mercenaries wouldn't realize it was a ninja leading them.

Crazed Rabbit
 
If you could enchance the game play to make a stand alone stronger npc who can use stealth and strategy etc to kill people it would work, however ninjas wouldn't also go around the map killing eniter armies. It should be a target focused game where you are given missions to eliminate specific people not random armies around the map.
 
I've read Shogun, Rabbit; one of my favorite books. That's where I drew most of my knowledge of "ninja," to tell the truth. :???:
 
I would like to point out a few misconceptions about the Ninja and Ninpo in general.
Many consider the Ninja to be assassins. They were, in truth, not assassins but did use methods and techniques that were similar.
The Ninja evolved as a counter-culture to the Samurai and at the time, were mostly Yamabushi (Mountain Mystics) or Sohei (Warrior Monks) and exclusivly Buddhist, with roots in Shaolin teachings from Chinese immigrants seeking refuge in Nippon.
At the time, the Samurai and Daimyo's were Shinto and had not embraced Buddhism at all. The Yamabushi and Sohei were viewed as a nusiance but not a real threat to the ruling bodies until the serfs and peasantry started embracing Buddhism.
In retaliation, several Clans of Samurai moved to erradicate the Yamabushi and Sohei, forcing them into hiding and splitting them up into 13 areas of Nippon.
Some remained Yamabushi or Sohei but many began to work against Bushido and the Daimyo's. Being greatly outnumbered, they had to resort to subterfuge and stealth to inflict any real damage to thier now enemies.
Over 300 years, the Ninja trained, perfecting body, spirit and mind, adapting the Shaolin forms of combat to suit the much heavier armored adversaries in Nippon as well as adopting Kenjutsu (swordsmanship), Iaijutsu (quick draw), Yarijutsu (spear) and Kyujutsu (bow) of the Samurai and tailoring it to thier needs, as well as developing thier own ryu (schools) with various mundane farm tools, climbing tools etc...
When the clans were ready, they struck fast and hard, inflicting much damage to thier enemies through poisoned rice shipments, fires, Kunoichi (female Ninja) disguised as Geisha (entertainers) infected with various STDs sent to entertain soldiers etc...
The initial damage was great and ultimately the peasants suffered. In retaliation, the Samurai decended on the populace, exacting vengence for a perceived coup or rebellion.
The Ninja, realized that thier duty was to free the people of the oppressive Daimyo's, any way they could.
Many would say that they were assassins. This is a misnomer as, an assassin kills for monetary or political gain, which the Ninja never did. Thiers was a war against oppression and the strong enslaving the weak and for a battle to have the freedom to practice thier religion without persecution.
As with many wars however, when the enemy outnumbers you 1000 to 1, you resort to unorthodox means to whittle them down, shatter morale, demonize then and play sides against each other.
As time went on yes, they indeed hired out thier services to the Daimyo's, became spies, assassins and the like, but gain, this was done to gain intelligence, start infighting, fuel blood fueds with rival clans and generally work every side against the other.
This of course began to change when Oda Nobunaga began his move to become Shogun of Nippon and the eventual victory of Tokugawa Ieyasu and the Ninja allying with the Tokugawa Shoganate as police and spies.
 
Blue Coyote said:
This information seems sketchy, and conflicting at times. Where did you get all this, Mordraneth?

You mean despite the fact that I am a long time practioner of Togakure-ryu Ninjutsu?

Many many sessions of history with my Shidoshi. Remember, the victors write the accepted history books, but usually the beaten keep thier own account as well.

If you are interested in history from the Ninpo side, I would be happy to provide some links to several Bujinkan sites.
 
Hello Mordraneth,

I do not necessarily question the validity of the information you provide, but I would like to see any sources you might have handy, just out of interest. Thanks for your contribution. Perhaps you would like to get involved with the mod project overall? We could always use another theme guru.

- Arahan
 
Arahan said:
Hello Mordraneth,

I do not necessarily question the validity of the information you provide, but I would like to see any sources you might have handy, just out of interest. Thanks for your contribution. Perhaps you would like to get involved with the mod project overall? We could always use another theme guru.

- Arahan

No insult taken =)

Here are some brief descriptions I have found on Ninpo history:

http://www.shinobi-kai.com/history.htm

http://www.boston-ninpo.com/History.htm

http://www.ninpo.org/ninpohistory/ninpohistory.html

If you wish to purchase a book written by the 34th Soke Massaki Hatsumi, the URL is:

http://www.kungfumovies.net/29633.html

or for a complete list:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/V0O8F9FY2L7T/104-1651564-2042356

Hope these help =)

I would be honored to assist in the project if I may. Though I am unsure as to how. My area of knowledge mainly is the Edo period. If I can though, sign me up and thank you.
 
You can say "the victors write the history books" as lightly as you please, but since, as you say, you are a practitioner of the art, then you are just as biased when it comes to the history of Japan. It really comes down to what we prefer to believe.

Even the histories on the links you provided condradict each other. For example, one has the ninja as purely Shinto practitioners. Another has them, as you said, as Buddhists persecuted and harrangued for their beliefs- which is interesting, considering ninja were still active even after Japan became predominately Buddhist. The links even admit that ninja history is extremely foggy and indefinate, relying on reproduced diaries and other questionable ancient literature.

Note: Was I to assume that you were a practitioner of said art just because you discussed ninja with us? I don't know how you expected us to draw that conclusion without actually telling us beforehand.
 
Blue Coyote said:
You can say "the victors write the history books" as lightly as you please, but since, as you say, you are a practitioner of the art, then you are just as biased when it comes to the history of Japan. It really comes down to what we prefer to believe.

Even the histories on the links you provided condradict each other. For example, one has the ninja as purely Shinto practitioners. Another has them, as you said, as Buddhists persecuted and harrangued for their beliefs- which is interesting, considering ninja were still active even after Japan became predominately Buddhist. The links even admit that ninja history is extremely foggy and indefinate, relying on reproduced diaries and other questionable ancient literature.

Note: Was I to assume that you were a practitioner of said art just because you discussed ninja with us? I don't know how you expected us to draw that conclusion without actually telling us beforehand.


That is why I supplied several sides of the history books, so people could decide on thier own.
Yes, that is when the assassin for hire image began to surface and what many view us as today, unfortunately. When a culture only learns to fight, after the war is over, what does one do?
Also, I apologize, I had thought I had mentioned it in my first post. After rereading it, I realized I had not.
 
Arahan:

Don't draw anything from what Mordraneth says, at least not if you don't want a fantasy-setting, because that's what he offers.

Firstly, there was no bushido prior to the Tokugawa reforms, Mordraneth suggests that the ninja were fighting what their later ally created, before it even happened. Obviously complete bull....

Secondly there were no geishas prior to the edo jidai, which puts out even more of his ideas as pure fabulations.

Thirdly, shinobi and ninja are still just terms for medieval japanese covert operators. These could be anything from hired thugs to actual samurai, they could also be clans/families specializing in the trade, either to further their own interests(self-preservation or ambitions of power) or to hire themselfes out to others. These families may or may not have had their own teachings, but know this, just as there was no bushido by that time, there was no ninpo either.
Instead, each house or clan had their own "house-codes". That holds true for merchants, farmers and ninja too, not just samurai. These were simply family-rules, in the manner of "the head of the family suggest this and that should be done, and these are matters worth pursuing etc...". These codes could also include recommendations in fighting styles, if the house concerned was a fighting family(buke), and would thus suggest the members to use various weapons or tend perticular schools.

Furthermore, there were no secret society of persecuted religous refugees such as Mordraneth describes. Sure, many religious sects came in conflict with various daimyos, and then they used all manners of warfare against them(they probably employed shinobi too), but some allied themselfes to daimyo instead and supported them(religously, monetary or with soldiers), given that it would protect their interests. Religious sects who fielded soldiers gave birth to sohei, military priests. It was basically just a powergame, to keep the influence on the population that supported their temples/shrines/teachings and made their livelyhood.

A note should also be made about the yamabushi; this is not so much a term for a militant group, as for a very different branch of religous practitioners, with roots in Yamato-japan. The practice, named shugendo, was actually an escape from the state enforced buddhism of that time, and derives much from the indigenous believes of japan. It later became a mix of a vide variety of sects and beliefs, and served to bring the imported religions(buddhism and confucianism) closer to the native ones.
The term yamabushi, which seems to have something to do with warriors(due to the -bushi) simply translates as 'one who sleeps in mountains'. So as you might understand, "yamabushi ninjas" who were strictly buddhists is a strong paradox too.
However, just as the more directly buddhist sects spawned militants, so did the yamabushi.

Also note that there were no special ninja-armor made from leather and split bamboo, that would just have been a waste of good leather, since the bamboo would actually weaken the leather rather than reenforce if used as a compound. You would actually practice weaponcuts on bundles of bamboo, that sort of explains the materials protective quality.

The bottomline is, heed anything that Mordraneth provides at your own risk, if you wish to keep the historical approach.
 
TomteOfDoom said:
Arahan:

Don't draw anything from what Mordraneth says, at least not if you don't want a fantasy-setting, because that's what he offers.

Firstly, there was no bushido prior to the Tokugawa reforms, Mordraneth suggests that the ninja were fighting what their later ally created, before it even happened. Obviously complete bull....

Tokugawa reformed Bushido into what we know in modern day but did not create the ideals of Bushido. The code was first formulated in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) and put into writing in the 16th century.; the term itself, however, did not come into wide use until the 17th century under the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Also, perhaps instead of being condencending and rude, you could cease the personal assault and stick strictly to your version of Nippon history.

TomteOfDoom said:
Secondly there were no geishas prior to the edo jidai, which puts out even more of his ideas as pure fabulations.

Actually, you are incorrect. Geisha have indeed been around since pre-Edo, however, they were both men (Taikomochi) and women until the Edo period when the practice became legalised. Ochaya (tea houses) used Geisha for over 500 years by this time, albiet, without licenses.

TomteOfDoom said:
Thirdly, shinobi and ninja are still just terms for medieval japanese covert operators. These could be anything from hired thugs to actual samurai, they could also be clans/families specializing in the trade, either to further their own interests(self-preservation or ambitions of power) or to hire themselfes out to others. These families may or may not have had their own teachings, but know this, just as there was no bushido by that time, there was no ninpo either.
Instead, each house or clan had their own "house-codes". That holds true for merchants, farmers and ninja too, not just samurai. These were simply family-rules, in the manner of "the head of the family suggest this and that should be done, and these are matters worth pursuing etc...". These codes could also include recommendations in fighting styles, if the house concerned was a fighting family(buke), and would thus suggest the members to use various weapons or tend perticular schools.

Again incorrect. The characture Nin is comprised of 2 Kanji characters, To (sword) and Shin (Heart). The characture represents Sword over Heart, or to Endure. The actual translation is "To Endure". The suffix -ja- denotes a person or persons. Like Nihonja (one who is Japanese) or Ninja (one who endures). Ninja, were and are still a class of operative seperate from Shinobi in the minds of most Japanese.
Shinobi translates as "stealer in" or "in stealth" and is now commonly used to describe any spy, agent or assassin uwho uses subterfyge and stealth to achieve a goal.
Thugs are not called Shinobi, nor Ninja. The term used to describe them is Yakuza or, translated "violent men".
Again, you allude that there was no Bushido or Ninpo at this time. Again, you are incorrect. Ninpo, or the basis of the system of belief, formed over 1000 years ago. Perhaps you need some links to historical sites and books to correct your mistakes?

TomteOfDoom said:
Furthermore, there were no secret society of persecuted religous refugees such as Mordraneth describes. Sure, many religious sects came in conflict with various daimyos, and then they used all manners of warfare against them(they probably employed shinobi too), but some allied themselfes to daimyo instead and supported them(religously, monetary or with soldiers), given that it would protect their interests. Religious sects who fielded soldiers gave birth to sohei, military priests. It was basically just a powergame, to keep the influence on the population that supported their temples/shrines/teachings and made their livelyhood.

The Zen Buddhist is taught that should one meet thier master on the road, kill him. This literaly means that no man or woman has any master. This teaching, among others, was against the ideals of the Daimyos and this lead to the persecution of these Zen Buddhist sects. Also, the practice of martial disciplines of any kind by commoners was outlawed and the Yamabushi violated this decree daily. Again, perhaps a link or two, maybe some book referances would clear up your misconceptions?

TomteOfDoom said:
A note should also be made about the yamabushi; this is not so much a term for a militant group, as for a very different branch of religous practitioners, with roots in Yamato-japan. The practice, named shugendo, was actually an escape from the state enforced buddhism of that time, and derives much from the indigenous believes of japan. It later became a mix of a vide variety of sects and beliefs, and served to bring the imported religions(buddhism and confucianism) closer to the native ones.
The term yamabushi, which seems to have something to do with warriors(due to the -bushi) simply translates as 'one who sleeps in mountains'. So as you might understand, "yamabushi ninjas" who were strictly buddhists is a strong paradox too.
However, just as the more directly buddhist sects spawned militants, so did the yamabushi.

Again, let me clarify. The Yamabushi split into various sects after the persecution. Some became Sohei, following a more Tao look on combat and spirituality. Others, became Yamabushi Tendai, who formed enclaves in the mountains and stayed with thier Zen teachings, still training in militant practices however. Of the last two, one went on to develop the Kuji Kiri (9 Gates) and began to discover what is now Ninjutsu; the other, became Sugenja and discarded the Zen aspects of thier beliefs, embracing a more esoteric outlook; worshiping nature and the elements.

TomteOfDoom said:
Also note that there were no special ninja-armor made from leather and split bamboo, that would just have been a waste of good leather, since the bamboo would actually weaken the leather rather than reenforce if used as a compound. You would actually practice weaponcuts on bundles of bamboo, that sort of explains the materials protective quality.

Ahhh you see, here is where you are assuming. The Koga did indeed have such armors. The difference is again, they were split and dried bamboo stalks, soaked in Koji (rice mould base) then sun dried. The peices were then attached to tooled leather, not boiled or hardened. This was used only in battlefield formations to prevent archers from decimating the rear ranks and could easily and quickly be discarded for melee combat. This type of armor however did not last very long as this was made around the time the Portugese started trading firearms to the Samurai, making it effectively useless.
The Japanese use bamboo bundles for cut testing that are not treated or dried save for being pitted of thier cores. They are then, cut into strips, tied and woven like a mat and then rolled into bundles. Much weaker then a split stalk.

TomteOfDoom said:
The bottomline is, heed anything that Mordraneth provides at your own risk, if you wish to keep the historical approach.


Perhaps you should do some research and then debate your stance. Again, if you like I can provide links to numerous sites and a listing of books you may purchase inorder to prove or disprove what I have said, if you are so inclined. :wink:
 
Back
Top Bottom