The Stone Matsu, Nakodo Ishi, and other improbable adventures: Ishioka Q&A

[Kaito Oubaihime]

How do you compare Nakodo Ishioka with Nakodo Kuma?

[Moto Mitsuki]

Who did you plan to hook Mitsuki with if she hadn't roasted you to death when you tried to play matchmaker?

It's also one of these situations about which, in retrospect, exchanging a few PMs before going nuclear would likely have been better. Sorry about that.

[Saibankan]

What's one thing that you feel the game handled really well?

What's one thing (outside of dueling and strife) that you feels needs to be changed before the next game?

[Matsu Ishioka]

Who did you plan to hook Mitsuki with if she hadn't roasted you to death when you tried to play matchmaker?

It's also one of these situations about which, in retrospect, exchanging a few PMs before going nuclear would likely have been better. Sorry about that.

As it happens, Ishi was pretty committed to Mitsuki or Kheree for Soyokaze, for different reasons. So I'm kinda dancing that Mitsuki and Soyo ended up together, even though Ishi had nothing to do with that. Well, maybe like one word said in the Ishi/Soyo thread before the mixer. But still taking a tiny sliver of credit for putting positive energy in the universe.

No worries. It did catch me off guard but well within Mitsuki's rights as Ishi wasn't really a close friend and was kinda jumping ahead. He was wanting to be helpful and genuinely liked Mitsuki - wish we'd had better luck with our threads! - but that thread is part of where Ishi's heart was getting way ahead of his "nakodo skills." So I kinda liked it, actually!

[Shiba Raizo]

Say, that reminds me.... our guys really only talked the one time.

Some of that was only so many hours in the day, but Raizo was more than a little weirded out by Ishioka's offer of help. Anything to unpack there?

[Matsu Ishioka]

How do you compare Nakodo Ishioka with Nakodo Kuma?

Nakodo Ishi meant well, but his successes (if I'm greedy he takes credit for Bai and Mura, Tsugu and Shizuka, and Soyo and Mitsuki - basically none of whom actually needed his help which is good because he didn't provide much.

Nakodo Kuma, on the other hand, really made that Masao and Hanatsuko match overcome some odds, so I think Kuma wins, wings down.

[Matsu Ishioka]

Say, that reminds me.... our guys really only talked the one time.

Some of that was only so many hours in the day, but Raizo was more than a little weirded out by Ishioka's offer of help. Anything to unpack there?

Nakodo Ishi on a rampage? He was trying to be generally helpful at the time he thought his life was relatively in order (though it was not), and Raizo mentioning that he was trying to help Soyo meant that Ishi figured the grumpy Phoenix was a good guy - thus, offer to help, even though essentially a stranger.

[Shiba Raizo]

Now I'm wondering what the "help" to land a ronin Raizo had little trouble confessing his feelings to and who, given how the events shook out, he had NO chance of persuading the Deer to pair him with would have gone...

[Matsu Ishioka]

Now I'm wondering what the "help" to land a ronin Raizo had little trouble confessing his feelings to and who, given how the events shook out, he had NO chance of persuading the Deer to pair him with would have gone...

Look, Ishi woulda tried hard, but he also learned that he had to stop fighting the inevitable Deer decisions in the end. So... I will say, there's a decent chance that Ishi's family estate ends up as a home for wayward ronin - probably the only one in Lion lands, I suppose - so if certain people need to hide out, you know, he can help. Since you never dangled him over the wall like you wanted to.

[Matsu Ishioka]

What's one thing that you feel the game handled really well?

What's one thing (outside of dueling and strife) that you feels needs to be changed before the next game?

I much prefer 5e's dice/rolling system to having to call raises and see if Orokos will screw you by 1-2 on a TN 25 or 30 roll. Narrative style dice is much better in my estimation, especially when there are lots of event participants.

For this game specifically I liked that there wasn't too wide of a spread in courtship points in each event, although that did mean that a couple events where your main competitor did well might mean literally no way to catch up to them. I might go with a similar style but tiers A-D (1-4 points being possible), to see a little more movement. Then again, if it was only maybe an 11 day game, maybe going up to 4 possible points becomes *too* swingy.

I also enjoyed the agenda system, and think it could be good in any kind of game as a means to giving people stuff to do besides events and having it matter to the big story. Maybe mixing it with the miai match decisions was a little too ambitious, but I think the agenda system is a great way to do modest/not scary world building in games going forward.

Besides dueling and strife, I don't know that I'd make changes that are relevant to anything outside of a miai context. I like the idea of identifying advantages/disads that definitely trigger in a given event, although I think that's hard to do comprehensively and I wouldn't want people to *not ask* when it may make a lot of sense to trigger one, even if it's just because of a particular character's mental state at the time - thinking of Ishi's Indomitable Will on the last roll in sumai as an example that would have made a lot less sense if Earth had been roll 1 instead of roll 5. So I think the best answer is having an AGM for at least some events, so that people *know* the goal is asking about whether a specific thing triggers and they shouldn't feel like a burden for asking.