The Last Samurai

Well I suppose you could call CheapAss' "Witch Trial" a sort of jury-nobbling game, but that isn't quite what you are looking for, is it? :)

I suppose a further development of that concept would be more likely to work as a game, although, of course, the further it went the more suspect it would become...

"Play the OJ game! As either the Prosecution or the Defence, present and refute evidence as you try to persuade the different jury members of the suspect's guilt or innocence. And remember - the more you pay, the more convincing your lawyer will be!"

On second thoughts, perhaps not.

If you are seriously considering this idea, then you should read Shogun for a better example of that era, as well as a better understanding of the political strain that was heavily in effect with EVERY act and sentence.

Since, as even the movie pointed out, the ending result is fairly apparent as the result of guns vs. swords perhaps looking towards the political side of the environment might produce a better chance for the players to have a fair chance against eachother.
Alot of the wins by the samurai were due to the political chess played with every bit of care that was available.

Also, using the setting to allow the players to make their own paths in history (like axis/allies) rather than finiting the result to the win of the bullet could also be beneficial.
By this I mean that the players don't have to be souly sword weilding samurai, or gun toating revolutionaries. They could have both as they did earlier on in Japanese history when they got their trade from Spain(Portugal). The rulers would fight eachother offten times with mixed troops using a special squad or troop of gun samurai (a rather short lived sect of samurai).
Cannons were part of these troops as well, but america hadn't entered into the game until later on. It was mostly the Spannish, Portuguese, Dutch, and British.
Spain and Protugal were allies (actually Spain conquered Portugal so...)
and Dutch and Britain were allies (the Dutch needed the British sailors and the British needed the Dutch trade line...I think I have that correct.)

The Portuguese had a monopoly on the chinese tradeline at the time which made the Spannish VERY wealthy and happy.
Now they wanted Japan as well, but Britain just found out how to get to Japan and they were NOT about to let the Spannish just have that trade.
This is during the time that Spain and Britain were fighting over religion so they already hate eachother.

The interesting thing about all this is that rather than Spain and Britain fighting over the trade, Some of Japans rulers were with Britain and others with Spain and then again, there were those who were for seclusion from both.
The first two were played like pawns against eachother and supplied by the Spannish and the Bittish (who fought eachother in the oceans any chance they saw to prevent the supply) in hopes that their favored Japanese rulers would win and thus favor them in this new trade.

Those who favored seclusion simply tried to ambush BOTH British and Spannish supplied Japanese rulers.

In this setting ALOT can be done to produce a VERY exciting game that has MANY twists and turns on practivally every turn.

Something to think about.
-Stumps