Hmm, since I don't know a ton about the setting (I know some of the history, but I'm fuzzy on details with the time periods), are there any classes you would recommend for me Jad?

IHMN- It says Household not Family. The Household means your in charge of the Palaces and making sure they are kept in order.

The recomendation is a Courtier, poet, playwrite, or spy. Any and all can be given the /duelist class by giving them a military back ground.

If we go with L5R and the empire of Rokugan I'm going to need to change everything including the sign up so I need to know now so I can start a new thread.

Pros and cons

Avalon:
Pro: Familiar to westeners
Con: no magic
Pro: less social restrictions
Con: A lot of cerominial titles to deal with.

Rokugan (l5R)
Con: Less familiar, but similar to Fuedal Japan and imperial China
Pro: There is magic, Magic items, and monsters
Con: You will be restricted to the Samurai Caste
Pro: You won't have to deal with nearly as much beauracracy.

Restricted so Samurai? What about the other 4 classes you mentioned?

I might be leaning towards the Rokugen, just because I'm getting images of the PS2 game Way of the Samurai, and that game rocked, and it would be interesting to play a samurai in an environment where a samurai actually makes sense.

The castes in Rokugan are Eta, (YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE THIS!!!) Hinin (Farmers), Heimin (merchants), Samurai. The Ninja and Shadowlands (Creatures under the influence of Jigoku) exist outside the Celestial order

In the Samurai caste you have courtiers, magistrates, bushis, shugenja, and monks

Wouldn't that have more fighting in it (not that there is anything wrong with that)?

Ahh, that is where I was getting confused. You said Samurai caste, and the my thought was we will only be the sword wielding samurai warriors, I didn't realize those other classes all were under Samurai. I'll vote for Rokugan then.

I should explain there are two types of mages. Shugenja (White/Red mages) and Maho Tsukai (Black mages). Maho Tsukai aren't listed because they fall under creatures of Jigoku.

I'm going to restart the sign up.