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Dick Burglar posted:Scorpion dissidents liking labor is especially odd. Of any samurai, I feel like a scorpion would be most likely to engage in peasant labor (except maybe a dragon), in order to blend in with peasants when they're doing the ninja thing. They probably won't be happy about it, but if you have no idea what you're doing you'll kinda stand out, which defeats the purpose. I've not read the new rules update yet but hear me out: I mean, yes. They will disguise themselves as peasants. But read it again - pretending to do work. I mentioned it before, but you gotta understand - the Scorpion, much as they try to pretend otherwise, are still very much land owning nobility with a whole lot of privileges, and they like it that way. They'll pretend to be a peasant in order to kill another member of their land owning noble caste, but that's it - they aren't going to actually spend time with the poors. Remember: Scorpion are real big on duty, which means they're also real big on the caste system. Doing actual labor is the duty of the peasantry, and they should be happy to have that duty in the first place, etc, etc. People always paint the Crane as the big time decadent nobles, but I've always felt that matches the Scorpion far, far better. The Crane spend their free time with poetry and art and mastering the "tasteful" affair; the Scorpion spend their free time with lurid blackmail and poisoned rice wine.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:23
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Yes. I know. They are nobles who don't want to do labor. I 100% understand that. However, the air ring application of the labor skill is to pretend to work, which is exactly what they do when they hide among peasants to assassinate someone. And the act of pretending to work while you wait to assassinate a dude, rules-as-written, requires the labor skill to pull off.
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Oct 26, 2017 21:32
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SuperKlaus posted:As a house rule in editions past I permitted every character to select one bushido virtue they personally emphasized and one virtue for which they personally held less regard. When exhibiting their favored virtue, they gained more Honor. When flouting their disfavored virtue, they lost less Honor. As I also had a house rule that every Clan emphasized one virtue and de-emphasized another, giving all characters of that Clan the described benefits, this served as a way for characters to distinguish their opinions rather better than "+5 glory if you're a good boy, +1 Commerce if you're not." I don't think any of those things are really problems (well, arguably the clan assignments of virtues could use work but you're not gonna please everyone). They obviously want your clan/family allegiance and adherence to all the traditional bushido stuff (or at least a westernized version thereof) to actually matter (which this and the strife system would seem to indicate). They want Crane to behave as Crane, Crab as Crab, etc etc. An Akodo who favors compassion should be penalized in terms of honor because his clan looks down on that behavior, and other clans don't expect that from Akodo. It's seen as strange. Nobody really cares about Akodo John's personal beliefs and how he adheres to them. Your system basically invalidates the whole need of virtues since you just cherrypick whatever you want to do and basically eliminate any downside. I could see that being an option for ronin, but it's pretty clear that the designers want each clan to actually have a certain feel. And nothing is stopping you from doing a compassionate Akodo or a Kaiu nerd. If they want that love-hate relationship you mention, well now it actually impacts them-they can favor what they want, but others will look down on them (less honor) because they're not doing what's expected. Under your idea there's no love-hate, it's just love-love. You either do what your clan likes, or do whatever you like and are rewarded either way. Your idea basically takes all the flavor out of the game (at least from a mechanical standpoint). That said I'm still totally with you on the invocation thing.
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Oct 26, 2017 23:45
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I know this is a pretty basic question, but I couldn't find a clear answer in the rules. How do multiple copies of named characters work together? Do they double up like in GOT?
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Oct 26, 2017 23:57
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MoreLikeTen posted:I know this is a pretty basic question, but I couldn't find a clear answer in the rules. How do multiple copies of named characters work together? Do they double up like in GOT? If it’s a unique character, you add a fate to the one in play
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Oct 27, 2017 00:24
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Specifically you can take a Dynasty action to discard a copy of a unique character and then add one fate to that character in play.
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Oct 27, 2017 00:25
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It seems like they did address the "not agreeing with your Clan skills" problem; in the rules update it says you can pick any skill you have 0 ranks in.
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Oct 27, 2017 01:28
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I was poking around looking for multiplayer rules for this game and found a thread on the official forums that was discussing how to handle it. Many of the rules are relatively easy to adapt; the priority for the Dynasty and Conflict phases works fine with three or four players. Any more than that and you might want to think about limiting everyone to one Conflict per turn in the interest of finishing the game before the heat death of the universe. There are two things that don't work as well: Honor Bids and Rings. Honor Bids have a workable solution. Everyone bids and compares their bid to the highest and lowest. If your bid is one the highest or lowest, then you proceed as normal: you lose/gain honor equal to the difference between your bid and the other extreme. If you bid somewhere in the middle, you use this method to determine your honor gain or loss: (high - mid) - (mid - low) = total honor gained/lost Or, to put it another way, you gain honor from the higher bid and then lose honor from the lower bid. All honor goes to and comes from the pile. (This method has the advantage of essentially replicating what is going on in the two-player game.) Rings are...tricky. In a three-player game, the only way you could run out of Rings is to have five Conflicts won by the attacker, leaving the "third player" with no ring to choose. In that unlikely scenario, I suppose that player could declare a conflict with no ring effect. Anything more than three, though, and you're going to have to include another set of rings. Any thoughts? Is multiplayer as big a deal for other people as it is for me?
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Oct 27, 2017 01:28
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alansmithee posted:I don't think any of those things are really problems (well, arguably the clan assignments of virtues could use work but you're not gonna please everyone). They obviously want your clan/family allegiance and adherence to all the traditional bushido stuff (or at least a westernized version thereof) to actually matter (which this and the strife system would seem to indicate). They want Crane to behave as Crane, Crab as Crab, etc etc. An Akodo who favors compassion should be penalized in terms of honor because his clan looks down on that behavior, and other clans don't expect that from Akodo. It's seen as strange. Nobody really cares about Akodo John's personal beliefs and how he adheres to them. Your system basically invalidates the whole need of virtues since you just cherrypick whatever you want to do and basically eliminate any downside. I could see that being an option for ronin, but it's pretty clear that the designers want each clan to actually have a certain feel. Minor correction: clan adherents get more glory, not honor.
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Oct 27, 2017 01:49
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alansmithee posted:I don't think any of those things are really problems (well, arguably the clan assignments of virtues could use work but you're not gonna please everyone). They obviously want your clan/family allegiance and adherence to all the traditional bushido stuff (or at least a westernized version thereof) to actually matter (which this and the strife system would seem to indicate). They want Crane to behave as Crane, Crab as Crab, etc etc. An Akodo who favors compassion should be penalized in terms of honor because his clan looks down on that behavior, and other clans don't expect that from Akodo. It's seen as strange. Nobody really cares about Akodo John's personal beliefs and how he adheres to them. Your system basically invalidates the whole need of virtues since you just cherrypick whatever you want to do and basically eliminate any downside. I could see that being an option for ronin, but it's pretty clear that the designers want each clan to actually have a certain feel. The difference is between carrots and sticks. In their system, Akodo Niceguy feels punished by the rules if he gives a peasant his cloak. He can choose to reap a reward if he behaves as Lions typically do and shoves snow down the peasant's shirt instead ("reward" being "less Honor lost") under either system but under theirs he feels punished, and that will discourage him from being himself. Characters have plenty of distinction here. It's choosing which benefits you want to define you in precisely the same way as you purchase bonus Skill Ranks and Rings. Anyway, while I object to the negative side of the system and what it does to force cookie-cutter personalities, it's more important to me that they insert an official rule for personally tailored virtue adherence. I think there is the issue of "what the is Honor statistic" too. It measures a character's personal faith in bushido and has little to do with what others think of him - that's Glory. The book backs me up: Honor is a character's personal investment in bushido. (p. 22.) Glory is society's consensus about whether they uphold bushido. (p. 23.) Thus Akodo Niceguy's personal interpretation of bushido is important, and it would be nice if character creation gave him another outlet for that with tailored virtue rewards. quote:That said I'm still totally with you on the invocation thing. I appreciate that. It is the much, much more pressing issue. SpaceViking posted:Rising Slash looks really really good for duels to first blood, since it just inflicts a crit if you damage them. Not opportunity dependent, so it can't be hosed by earth stance. Horizontal Slash is a little underwhelming, but it's extra range on katana attacks and a damage boost. Not terrible. Yeah Rising Slash on closer inspection seems fairly potent in a duel, in the finishing blow context. I need to play out some duels to get a feel for it. Horizontal Slash is worse than underwhelming. It's total poo poo. Katana normal damage is 4. Deadliness is 5. Thus your Rank 2 kata is getting you one whole damage point...and as we know by now this is while Rank 2 invocations are bloody flying and shooting concussion blasts.
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Oct 27, 2017 03:08
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Zarick posted:It seems like they did address the "not agreeing with your Clan skills" problem; in the rules update it says you can pick any skill you have 0 ranks in. I'm still gonna play that Dragon clan sailor.
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Oct 27, 2017 04:00
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I'm a little confused about card actions. I assumed they were all once per round, but I just saw Favored Niece which says it's limited to twice per round. Does that mean if someone has a "Gain one fate" action, you can just do that infinitely? I feel like I'm missing something basic.
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Oct 27, 2017 12:24
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MoreLikeTen posted:I'm a little confused about card actions. I assumed they were all once per round, but I just saw Favored Niece which says it's limited to twice per round. Does that mean if someone has a "Gain one fate" action, you can just do that infinitely? I feel like I'm missing something basic. You can only take an action once per round unless it says otherwise. Favoured Niece just has a different limit which is why it mentions it. Same as Shoju.
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Oct 27, 2017 12:37
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SuperKlaus posted:As a house rule in editions past I permitted every character to select one bushido virtue they personally emphasized and one virtue for which they personally held less regard. When exhibiting their favored virtue, they gained more Honor. When flouting their disfavored virtue, they lost less Honor. As I also had a house rule that every Clan emphasized one virtue and de-emphasized another, giving all characters of that Clan the described benefits, this served as a way for characters to distinguish their opinions rather better than "+5 glory if you're a good boy, +1 Commerce if you're not." This is a loving terrible idea. Stop trying to rip all flavor out of the game so you can better game your honor gains, hot drat. Yes, the game encourages people from the same clan to act similarly. Clans are basically separate cultures, and in the context of honor gains, reward you for making characters that fit the clan, instead of shoehorning whatever character into whatever school you happen to wanna play in, it encourages you to make characters whose attitudes fit their clan and raising. One of the biggest things I don't understand from this forum is this obsession with being different from every One else of their school. In Rings, in skills, in attitude. It doesn't matter if every Akodo looks the same stats and skills wise, because you are going to be the only Akodo in your game. The obsession with always being the most unique [Clan] [Family] [School] Samurai who flouts tradition is weird to me, especially people's obsessions with wanting to play the exact opposite of a normal samurai. I never see Dragons who want to learn medicine and be the best doctors to heal their people, it's always Super Honorable Scorpions, or pretty crabs, or kind lions. This system encourages people to make characters that fit their clans, and also provides people who really want to be the outcaste weirdo Lion to actually have mechanics showing why they are an outcaste weirdo. Even with the formerly pretty weird skill granting given by 'being different than your Clan' every single member of our party already had taken it, just because it was extra skills. Including our short lived dragon monk who liked to sail. Everyone wants to be different. Despite the book saying 'every PC will be different, because no one is going gonna from the same clan and school as you, so it doesn't matter if two Akodo starting characters would start with the same rings'
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Oct 27, 2017 18:07
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Baka gaikokujin westerners and their obsession with individuality  not acting like proper honorable Nihonjin  No but seriously, while I agree that playing a acting-totally-out-of-character-for-their-clan character is weird and sometimes dumb, I do like the option of being able to train in a skill not normally associated with your clan from the get-go. A dragon that likes sailing isn't necessarily a "gently caress all the dragon clan stand for" kind of guy, he just has an additional interest that extends beyond his clan's stereotypical ones, while also not forsaking the stereotypical ones. Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Oct 27, 2017 |
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Oct 27, 2017 18:11
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Dick Burglar posted:Baka gaikokujin westerners and their obsession with individuality It's not even that, but thanks? It's just like... if you roll up a Thayan wizard in a forgotten realms D&D campaign, you can be expected to act like a Thayan. Same with if you roll up a Haltan Lunar in an Exalted campaign, you should act culturally Haltan. These are innate assumptions the books all say, that 'hey, characters raised in a certain culture act as if they were raised by that culture '. So why does everyone miss that the Great Clans of Rokugan are very distinct cultures? Edit: to the edit yeah. I don't mind people who wanna play outside just the stereotype. But I don't know why people think playing wildly different PCs from the clan standard should be as viable in a game with stratified caste systems and a super ultra judgemental society that sees you as basically just extensions of your family until you prove yourself, as... playing to fit in. Being the outcaste weirdo can be fun, but not if you don't get any penalty for it. I've played plenty of outcaste characters in games, but I generally expect 'hey this means someone who fits what society would want would work way better' KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Oct 27, 2017 |
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Oct 27, 2017 18:13
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I was just making a lovely joke. I edited in a serious comment after I posted. Honestly I think they should just bake in "you get one bonus skill from whatever. Be aware that, if you take a skill that is way outside of your clan's normal interests, people might think you're weird" as part of chargen, rather than make it an optional aside. Edit: but sometimes I wish I could play a dragon clan ninja. Cuz I like dragon clan and I like ninjas 
Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Oct 27, 2017 |
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Oct 27, 2017 18:16
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Dick Burglar posted:I was just making a lovely joke. I edited in a serious comment after I posted. Honestly I think they should just bake in "you get one bonus skill from whatever. Be aware that, if you take a skill that is way outside of your clan's normal interests, people might think you're weird" as part of chargen, rather than make it an optional aside. The skill thing is mostly a lesser concern, but I mean, I'm 80% sure everyone in the game I'm in chose the option just because it meant a free skillpoint, and they could earn that honor later. So maybe that's a balance concern in and of itself. My big concern is more things like Klaus wanting to strip away any penalties for acting not like a Lion on his Lion, and make it so people's personal codes matter more than their clans. Which is, in my opinion, very against l5r lore. And just an attempt to go 'but mah individualism'
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Oct 27, 2017 18:23
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KittyEmpress posted:
I always keep this sweet post from I think an old grognards.txt thread just for this occasion: quote:I get the impression that Exterminatus was originally supposed to be a super-rarity on the level of "there's only one bunker that holds the warheads and we have no idea how they even work or how to make any more, any use must be signed off in triplicate in the Emperor's blood by a whole loving bunch of Inquisition Lords" but every dumb Black Library writer wanted a piece of the pie and now they get fired off like fireworks on New Years Eve.
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Oct 27, 2017 18:29
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KittyEmpress posted:The skill thing is mostly a lesser concern, but I mean, I'm 80% sure everyone in the game I'm in chose the option just because it meant a free skillpoint, and they could earn that honor later. So maybe that's a balance concern in and of itself. Yeah, the latter issue is kind of weird. I think some variation from the norm (a little wiggle room) is okay, but trying to play essentially L5R's version of Drizzt Do'Urden is bad. Basically, it seems the problem is the same here as it is with so many things: it requires subtlety and nuance, and most people tend toward sledgehammers instead.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:00
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KittyEmpress posted:This is a loving terrible idea. Stop trying to rip all flavor out of the game so you can better game your honor gains, hot drat. Yes, the game encourages people from the same clan to act similarly. KittyEmpress posted:One of the biggest things I don't understand from this forum is this obsession with being different from every One else of their school. In Rings, in skills, in attitude.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:20
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Honestly the test of a true DM is to make the
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Oct 27, 2017 19:24
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Yawgmoth posted:The problem is that the game as it is really tries to shove you into "playing" a loving robot coded in entirely if-then statements. It's a problem that way too many people on the official forums think is a feature and it's up there with "the players never do anything interesting, that's for the canon NPCs" in poo poo I find repellent. But I find the whole "honor scale" to be right next to alignment in terms of stupid legacy mechanics too, because both tend to read as beep boop you did X thing you are now at Y quantity of this inherently qualitative thing, you must now act Z or take further losses boop burp. "Play X clan Y way or get hosed" isn't flavor, it's a straightjacket. There's nothing saying being an 'average' cultural hero is inherently more boring than being a special snowflake who doesn't resemble anything that would come from the cultural context of their upbringing. Like yeah, it is a feature, not a flaw, that the different clans all have wildly different values, so that you CAN play samurai who super value compassion, but yeah, they are more likely to be raised in Unicorn or Phoenix lands, than in Lion lands where they were raised from birth seeing it as a weakness. Or maybe they didn't take to that lesson and are Different - that doesn't mean they should just be 'oh well, every samurai is different, they have their own personal code'. It means they should struggle more than someone who is just like their culture, or at least closer. Nothing says that a Unicorn who values compassion, and is a friend to all castes is inherently less interesting as a character than any other clan doing so, just because it's a more expected trait. If the only way you can make a compelling character is to go 'gently caress EVERY THING THE BOOK SAYS, I AM MY OWN MAN' then I would argue that you need to expand your horizons. You aren't Kakita duelist 8472, you are the Kakita duelist in your party that is probably a Kuni, a Togashi, a Bayushi, and a Mirumoto. You are unique in your party. You are unique in your role due to that. You don't have to be some weird random character with none of the personality of your clan to be unique. This fear of being 'just another Kakita' is silly, because yeah, you probably will be similar to those npc Kakita. This doesn't really matter, because you are the only PC one. Distinctions/disadvantages/etc all provide plenty customization, without allowing people to completely ignore the cultural context of their characters, and that's a feature. I say this as a player of a character who is playing a Kakita who is Different But Still Kakita, and I have been having a TON of fun with her, despite her differences being entirely in cultural context to the setting. I've never felt punished in my honor gains or glory, just because I'm not playing an exact perfect Kakita and do have a personal goal she follows. You can write characters without them being strictly optimal. You can take suboptimal choices if it fits the narrative. This is actually exactly what those grogs you keep complaining about are claiming is bad with Outbursts/Unmasking, that you are forced to take suboptimal choices sometimes and that that Punishes You. It really doesn't punish you. You don't have to play the game optimally 24/7. It's a big conceit of role-playing that sometimes even though you can see what path will be the most rewarding, your character would want something else, and do it. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Oct 27, 2017 |
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Oct 27, 2017 19:39
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A group of samurai who all come from different clans traveling together is already a weird thing in Rokugan. The idea that they would all be a little weird individually is to be expected. Besides, tension between a samurai and their clan is a useful tool for players because it’s an easy source of drama and plot hooks.Yawgmoth posted:The problem is that the game as it is really tries to shove you into "playing" a loving robot coded in entirely if-then statements. It's a problem that way too many people on the official forums think is a feature and it's up there with "the players never do anything interesting, that's for the canon NPCs" in poo poo I find repellent. But I find the whole "honor scale" to be right next to alignment in terms of stupid legacy mechanics too, because both tend to read as beep boop you did X thing you are now at Y quantity of this inherently qualitative thing, you must now act Z or take further losses boop burp. "Play X clan Y way or get hosed" isn't flavor, it's a straightjacket. Ugh, I see nothing has changed over the past couple of years. The official AEG forums were full of this poo poo too even though 4e was relatively accommodating about what kinds of characters you could play.
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Oct 27, 2017 19:54
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Not getting into the honor system itself (it is a pretty rigid +/- thing and that's kind of dumb), but the clan bonuses and penalties to honor... Don't seem like that big of a deal? Like, yeah, they're a thing, but I don't see gaining/losing more/less honor from certain actions based on which clan you're from as a major issue that's stifling roleplaying or character concepts. Maybe I'm just underestimating how big a deal honor mechanically is or how often it should fluctuate, but, like, I don't see "you gain only half the points you normally would from being nice to people" as a reason to not play this hypothetical not-a-bastard Akodo, for example. The thing that is tripping me up is, since this stuff is all based on your clan's perception and belief of how you should act, and to a lesser extent how other people expect a samurai of your clan to act, shouldn't your clan affect how you gain glory, not honor? Because honor is internal and personal and stuff, while glory comes from how others see you. Admittedly glory gains and losses don't map to the tenets of bushido as well since it's its own thing and not all bushido aspects are as glorious as others (giving a poor peasant your coat isn't going to get you much glory, even if it is an honorable thing to do), so mechanically it's easier to do as an honor thing, but still, it seems kind of odd to me. Roland Jones fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Oct 27, 2017 |
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Oct 27, 2017 20:12
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KittyEmpress posted:This is a loving terrible idea. Stop trying to rip all flavor out of the game so you can better game your honor gains, hot drat. Yes, the game encourages people from the same clan to act similarly. Clans are basically separate cultures, and in the context of honor gains, reward you for making characters that fit the clan, instead of shoehorning whatever character into whatever school you happen to wanna play in, it encourages you to make characters whose attitudes fit their clan and raising. Your language and response are disproportionate. Do not project baggage from past RPG arguments onto this. At no point did personal codes matter more than clan standards. The personal values actually had equal weight. It is true that I would remove penalties from the virtue assignments and that is because I believe more strongly in encouraging behavior through bonuses than penalties. The plan was not solely about encouraging "Drizzt Dourdens." Observe the original examples: Bayushi Keikaku #1 favored Courage and disfavored Compassion. He is not a Drizzt. He is a Scorpion who believes in Duty but also believes bushido is about bravery. Perhaps he got this from a particularly militaristic sensei at his fencing academy. He also believes Compassion is not such a big deal. If anything, that makes him a better Scorpion, a more typical Scorpion, because as Cirno points out being invested in Duty means being invested in the caste system. His disregard for Compassion might also drive him to be a dick to other samurai, which is also pretty classic Scorpion. He is a more rich and interesting character for being allowed to tailor his beliefs mechanically. Keikaku #2 doubled down on loving him some Duty and dumping all over Righteousness. He is a Scorpion's Scorpion. He is a more rich and interesting character for being allowed to tailor his beliefs mechanically. Keikaku #3 flipped the virtues. He, perhaps, is a "Drizzt." That's fine. For being a "Drizzt" who can "game the honor system" he has paid the opportunity cost of not being Keikaku #1, who gets rewarded for a wider variety of behavior, or Keikaku #2, who is paid handsomely for being exactly what his Clan wants him to be. He remains a more rich and interesting character for being allowed to tailor his beliefs mechanically. In fact, not a single one of my PCs chose to flip on a virtue, leaving my table with anything but a bunch of "Drizzts." I have several "Keikaku #1s" who picked whatever suited them and a Crab who doubled down on disregarding Courtesy, but rather than double up on Courage chose to additionally favor Duty. As far as I am aware, neither L5R 1e, 3e, nor 4e had any tailored bushido virtue rules at all. I'm ignorant about 2e. Thus there was never any penalty for a Lion acting un-Lion-like, as far as Honor was concerned (remember, that and Glory are different). Why is it so important to inflict one now? ANYWAY this is very unimportant the real issue remains kata/kiho/invocation imbalance But I will beat that drum again in another post. Right now I wanna ask everyone about duels. What have duels been like at your L5R 5e tables? I'm looking over the duel rules, having not experienced one in the natural course of play yet, and I don't see how they reflect the classic "scene at the end of Kurosawa's Sanjuro" L5R Iaijutsu duel. You know, where the guys stare and focus and then BAM violent death in one stroke. What's your incentive, having won the right to go first maybe through bidding strife, to Center instead of hacking the other dude with an Attack? KittyEmpress as you play a Kakita I expect you have something interesting to say about duels. I value your input and continued civil discussion.
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Oct 27, 2017 20:30
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You can make people who are plenty different attitude wise while having similar or even the exact same rings, skills, and honor virtue. It's what distinctions, passions, etc. Unless you, I guess, game them to whatever would be the most beneficial to what your clan would like you to enjoy? Which sounds really boring and like bad minmaxing powerbuilding, not making a character. Players don't need to be mechanically rewarded for making well rounded characters. In fact, every game I have ever played has had few rules to encourage well rounded characters like you keep insisting ate necessary, Klaus... and yet at the table, I constantly have seen them. The penalties encourage people to look at where they are from and, yes, sometimes change their actions to better fit their clan. But that doesn't mean I haven't been taking more than the average number of Compassion honor points, or that our Unicorn hasn't gotten quite a bit via Duty. Because they fit our charwcters, we have done it. Whether or not we had double bonuses for them or something. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Oct 27, 2017 |
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Oct 27, 2017 20:33
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SuperKlaus posted:But I will beat that drum again in another post. Right now I wanna ask everyone about duels. What have duels been like at your L5R 5e tables? I'm looking over the duel rules, having not experienced one in the natural course of play yet, and I don't see how they reflect the classic "scene at the end of Kurosawa's Sanjuro" L5R Iaijutsu duel. You know, where the guys stare and focus and then BAM violent death in one stroke. What's your incentive, having won the right to go first maybe through bidding strife, to Center instead of hacking the other dude with an Attack? People have mentioned seeing the updated rules already, which includes updated duel rules, but I haven't seen those yet. Am I missing where to find them? They weren't in the email and stuff. I'd like to offer my thoughts here but first I should probably know the current rules for this sort of thing instead of working off the old stuff.
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Oct 27, 2017 20:59
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Roland Jones posted:People have mentioned seeing the updated rules already, which includes updated duel rules, but I haven't seen those yet. Am I missing where to find them? They weren't in the email and stuff. I'd like to offer my thoughts here but first I should probably know the current rules for this sort of thing instead of working off the old stuff. Took me a while to find them as well. https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/legend-of-the-five-rings-roleplaying-game/#/support-section They’re at the bottom of the page, under “support” along with the new Mantis rules.
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Oct 27, 2017 21:10
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I can't reply to how changed iajutsu and stuff works, we are taking a break from sessions to 'rebuild' ourselves with the new changes to stances, combat movement, etc. We haven't been doing Iajtusu duels previous to it, mostly because, well, they're dumb 1-4eisms imho, where duels were their own singular thing that no one who wasn't an iajutsu master could stand in, meaning you got dumb poo poo like rockstar perfect duelist who couldn't out fight two peasants throwing rocks. Most of our duels have been duels to first crit, because dueling to first hit generally caused whoever went first to win. Unfortunately we had just hit rank 3 a day before the new rules, and I had picked up the kata to auto crit, and I was pretty sure I could reliably get it every time, first turn. In general duels are hard because it's easy to hit in this system, but hard to really take people out. They re mostly won on initiative in my experience, where he who moves first wins 99% of the time, especially past a certain point in XP. So far my best use of the Kakita duelist thing has either been: turning a minor injury to his arm on a ronin who decided that since he was outnumbered would try to force us into an honorable duel... into cutting off his arm. Though I also had the reverse happen recently, where a more powerful samurai and I were dueling to first crit, and I lowered my crit severity purposefully, going from 'I cut off your hand ' to "i stabbed the edge of your palm and you can't hold your sword for a bit'. Which made said Lord actually like me more, because he realized if I hadn't held back, his whole hand would have been gone, and he thanked me for not crippling him. Going into just theory crafting; I feel like the change to air stance may make it the go to stance for all dueling now, where as before a case could be made for fire if you knew you could go first, since fire has some great offensive, or water if You had some strife and didn't want to hit outburst. You can actually pump your TN enough that it's not trivial to get past. Which is huge, combined with otherr changes. But no actual testing yet. KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Oct 27, 2017 |
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Oct 27, 2017 21:16
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Bakeneko posted:A group of samurai who all come from different clans traveling together is already a weird thing in Rokugan. The idea that they would all be a little weird individually is to be expected. Besides, tension between a samurai and their clan is a useful tool for players because it’s an easy source of drama and plot hooks. Nothing is stopping you though. You will be minorly disadvantaged compared with someone who follows their clans ideals perfectly. You can still play your crab pacifist painter or whatever. Like, I get the arguments that can be made to divorce all background/fluff/world stuff from hard numbers and relegate it to pure roleplaying, but that's not what they seem to want. They don't want your clan/family to just be a pile of numbers on your sheet, they want the game system itself to help enforce the feel of the gameworld (even if it's in a relatively minor way).
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Oct 27, 2017 21:43
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I actually really like every aspect of character creation, especially the random choice table, because it means there is basically no optimization potential in chargen. This means it avoids the E xalted/CofD/Star Wars RPG issue where knowing what is good to buy at chargen makes a huge difference in your long term character. Any clan + Family + School combo is pretty much completely balanced, and there s no trap options. If they kept the random table but turned it into choices, I could see it easily being abused for optimizing. But I know a lot of people dislike the random aspect, so I dunno, perhaps just remove the name giving you anything.
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Oct 27, 2017 22:23
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I think I'd be perfectly fine with the Honor/Glory systems if it didn't take spending Void for disadvantages to end up helping you, though this an easy thing to flip. In proper situations, advantages should become disadvantages and vice versa; the fact that they work exactly the same but mirrored supports this even more. So I don't like that a dishonorable (or low Glory) character is only really penalized. If the disadvantages you got made you more likable with riffraff, more intimidating to people who know you don't give a poo poo, etc., then I'd be more okay with it. Also, for the record, I actually really like the "pick personal virtues in addition to Clan virtues". It seems like it'd work well, give characters a personal leaning, and while it's "gamist", I love that poo poo. If I want to watch a story play out without interacting with it I'll watch a movie or read a book. If I want to have fun interacting with systems with which to tell a story, I'll play a game.
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Oct 27, 2017 22:47
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KittyEmpress posted:It really doesn't punish you. You don't have to play the game optimally 24/7. It's a big conceit of role-playing that sometimes even though you can see what path will be the most rewarding, your character would want something else, and do it.
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Oct 28, 2017 04:11
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In over 10 years of playing Legend of the Five Rings, I've yet to see a single character that was just a stereotype. Even the ones that held closely to their clan archetype still had some personality traits that set them apart.
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Oct 28, 2017 04:19
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Yawgmoth posted:If having fun and playing optimally are at consistent odds, your game sucks. End of discussion. And if "play a stereotype" is the only way to be optimal, your game is boring as hell. I shouldn't have to pick between what is fun and what is useful; down that road lies groggy bullshit that has no place in late 90s gaming, much less 2017. It's a ridiculous Wick-ism to put all these "play the way I think you should or else" rules in. Like, if you wanna play "the clan stereotype but with one slight difference" then cool, go for it. But some of us want to play something else because a bloodthirsty phoenix or compassionate lion breeds inherent conflict and that conflict is compelling. If you can't imagine why it would be enjoyable to play such a character, I'd suggest you need to expand your horizons. Okay, this seems really extreme. Like, I still don't see how "earns a bit more honor for some things, less for others" is a huge, character-destroying deal or whatever. It's arguably not necessary, and I still feel that acting according to your clan's ideals/the popular perception of your clan feels more like a glory thing than an honor one, but the idea that getting fewer points for a thing that might not even come up in multiple sessions is a huge punishment for not playing right or whatever seems a bit overblown to me.
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Oct 28, 2017 08:28
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https://imgur.com/gallery/nfLBk First pack leaked!
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Oct 28, 2017 13:28
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LordNat posted:https://imgur.com/gallery/nfLBk Goblin Sneak could be interesting. Not a huge fan of the Scorpion event, but I like the new character a lot. Probably add both the Goblin and the Meek Informant to my Scorpion deck. Dragon wise, the attachment seems quite good and the character is a mixed bag.
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Oct 28, 2017 14:37
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I feel like the stand out is Yurt. Flexibility, deck thinning dishonor protection, potential honor strategies. It is boringly good.
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Oct 28, 2017 16:42
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I've been a distant fan of L5R for ages, reading up on the lore but never really having a chance to play. Now I finally found a table and I have zero idea on how to make a workable character. I was thinking of making a vaguely monk-ish, sleepy kakita duelist and I need to have it ready by tomorrow. Any quick hints on what to pick/avoid? Not looking for any broken combos (But if you wanna share... *cough*), just not really eager to suck at what I should be good at.
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Oct 28, 2017 22:31
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