So the other day when my co-consipriator David Welborn and I were testing the
Starmasters combat system, the only minis I had handy were some
Reaper Minis samurai figures from the mid-to-late 90s designed by
Bob Charrette. Coincidentally, Dave's been testing the mechanics (
Starmasters shares some basic combat mechanics with
The System,
The System: Expanded, and my new
d30 project Magic, Men, Mutants & Machines) to see how they work to simulate Samurai battles. It was never an intention to specifically include any sort of Samurai genre into the
Starmasters setting, it just so happens that the various playtesting is overlapping. That being said, as part of our planned Starmasters playtesting this week, Dave's anxious to see how the system works for some actions specific to Samurai combat (particularly a
riposte action.) On the other side of things, I'm now inspired to work in a Samurai pastiche to one of the Starmasters alien races while trying to keep the obvious influnce Japanese rather than Jedi. (After all, everybody knows Star Wars is really just a rip off of Kurosawa's
Hidden Fortress.)
Just a reminder, Starmasters doesn't use a d30. I just had it handy from testing the d30 sytem, and felt like including it in the picture because it looked cool.
This is a great example of how playtesting can lead to unexpected inspiration. The overlap between Samurai combat and Starmasters mechanics sounds like a fun challenge. The idea of adding a Samurai-inspired alien race to the setting is a nice touch — keeping the influence Japanese rather than Jedi is a good call.
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