The Empire of the Rising Sun (3.5e Campaign Setting)/Running a Campaign

The Empire of the Rising Sun is a complex place with the potential to be run as any sort of campaign. It is meant to be a stand alone world, where the PCs start and end their adventure in the Empire. However, you can easily insert the Empire into any campaign. But be warned; all the politics and different social structures and laws make discovering and then adventuring in the Empire and daunting task.

The Empire of the Rising Sun has enough warring factions and organizations that it can be run as a campaign based entirely in political intrigue. However, the scramble for power that each clan is going through means that there will be plenty of wars for the PCs to fight in. Add in some shadow beasts and you can easily run a campaign entirely based on hacking and slashing. The best experience, however, comes when you combine the two elements into one, awesome whole.

Perhaps the biggest thing that will trip players up (especially veterans used to playing the host of Western based campaigns) is the honor system. In a normal DnD game you can get away with just about anything, especially at higher levels. Forcing the players to think according to how honorable their character is and also trying to keep that score relatively high (well...if their character is supposed to be honorable, that is) may prove to be a daunting challenge, but in the end the results will be awesome.