@zebratron2084 1) is actually straightforward. Pat Mills wrote (and Wayne Reynolds, who’s an art hero, illustrated) a comic called The Redeemer, for Games Workshop. It had that Judge Dredd feel where the humor was the protagonist’s sheer bastardliness as part of a really vicious world, and yet you wanted him to succeed somehow.

@zebratron2084 2) Legend of Five Rings. I *vaguely* remember the rules as obtuse. I definitely remember them showing rules creep and favoritism. The setting’s supposed to be “Asian” but don’t hope for wuxia action or Romance of Three Kingdoms epic, since it’s all Sengoku Japan as parsed by an American VtM player. I’ve played this only once and don’t mind never revisiting it.

@Leucrotta Oh, man, that was a bit of a shock to my system because I LOVED L5R when it was just a card game, and the ornate changing world was a bit part of that. But in retrospect, yeah, SUPER problematic Western "oriental adventures" cultural tourism, a real shallow go at being anything remotely resembling Japanese. Reminds me a lot of some of the EXECRABLE worldbooks that were published for the Torg RPG. (The Japanese on the cover of the Nippon Tech splatbook was REVERSED ffs... *sigh* )

@Leucrotta (NTM, lots of interior art whose "Japanese" consisted of "random chicken scratches arranged vaguely in the shape of That Furrin' Nonsense Thems Jap People Raihts." A vision of Japan that was 50% Shinto monk, 50% ant-like sarariman, and 50% ninjamurai. Tom Clancy would've been proud. *sigh* )

@zebratron2084 it’s just so bland. There’s all this cool Tenko no Ran history and Edo period stuff is a huge RPG setup, and all they could do with it was... uh, animal named clans where the ninja are obvious the MOST AWESOMCOOLESTNESS and also there are monks cause you gotta have gong fu (but not naginatajitsu like a sohei might use) in an Asian game, and Vecnasauron is walled off in the south somewhere.

@zebratron2084 I actually don’t mind TTRPGS being slightly appropriative (it beats telling only really derived Western European stories), but I mean, if I show up to a theoretically Pan-Asian actually Japanese flavored game, I want the feel of all the jidaigeki I liked, not just vaguely VtM intrigue and tromping around in full armor ala D&D, but also ninja.

@Leucrotta Now I'm curious if you ever ran into Shadowfist/Feng Shui and what you thought of it...

@zebratron2084 I did but never got to play it. But it felt less, y’know, intended to be authentic. It felt more like “oh hey we all love Master of the Flying Guillotine” and less “we know each other from bagua boxing, and wanted to do a game.”

@zebratron2084 3) probably either kochujang or the Mae-Ploy chili garlic sauce.

@Leucrotta Dammit, I could murder some ddukbokki right about now. Not too much good Asian in NOLA, sadly...

@zebratron2084 well there’s always that in favor of visiting Atlanta!

@zebratron2084 4) I’m not really sure. It’s tempting to say “automobile” simply because for a useful piece of tech its effects have been profoundly negative.

@zebratron2084 a little like saying the Beatles are the most overrated band because, well, Beatles are the most *everything* group, y’know?

@Leucrotta I could see a decent world with a decent place for cars, but... yeah, it's kinda the same way I could see a healthy planet with a healthy place for humans. There'd have to be about 80-90% LESS of them. >_<

@zebratron2084 5) possibly Ivar the Boneless swindling king Aella out of enough land for a giant fort by fiddling with how much one ox-hide could technically cover. Either that or Zheng He’s exploration fleets.

@zetasyanthis *hugs* thanks. I’m just stuck at the day job is all.