So... I suppose the REAL question is... why aren't we coding one up right now?
At a guess, because there's 7 clans, 30 families, and 31 schools in the core book (assuming there isn't a monk order somewhere outside of the chargen section). With more Clans, Families, and Schools added from other books (we will almost certainly want Mantis and other monk orders)... that's a lot. It's easier to just have chargen be '+request Chargen=I am this Clan, Family, and School, please +setstat my rings as _____, my skills as ______, my techniques as _______, and here are my +notes about whatever else'
@jennkryst Hrm. Yeah. Though...
...that doesn't sound insurmountable, it just sounds like a few flat files with some tables (or some JSON, if you're feeling cute) and a little code that queries down to the applicable stat/choice... And L5R is lucky in that the process of Chargen is fairly linear, without massive branching.
...it actually feels somewhat doable. I think the hardest part is just building the database of things -- that's likely a lot of cutting/pasting. 
I could almost see it as a straight forward menu system that you drove through sequentially (perhaps in part because the 20 questions used for CharGen are themselves a sequential vehicle).
Hrmmmmm...
re: the MU, I could get into it in a lot of detail that expands on ideas about what make MU's succeed in general, as I don't think it was any particular major thing. I was the only staffer, and it was a small playerbase, many of whom didn't know L5R, so I was teaching people through chargen and in every scene. That meant people weren't so confident to drive RP on their own. There's issues with the rigidity of Rokugani culture vs. player norms: while we had tea and sake houses, but 'bar RP' is trickier when the samurai ideal is polite emotional control. And then there's big stuff. L5R's themes are about honor and loyalty, and samurai willing to die for those things without hesitation. But MUers are risk-adverse. I created some incentives, XP refunds/ bonus XP for rerolling after a 'good samurai death.' Even had one taker, where a Battle Maiden suicide charged an oni on the Wall. That's the kind of story L5R wants to tell, but not that many players will go for it, and the game can fall pretty flat if people don't buy into those big ideas. And without those, as your average social, simulator it's going to be too stuffy for most.
Fair. Honestly, just being the only staffer is a fairly tremendous burden. And I agree with your assessment of MU* players generally being risk adverse, in part because we often associate a character completing their arc as 'losing' -- that's an unfortunate association to have. Some of my most memorable characters are memorable in part because of how they died (sometimes at the hands of other players during non-consensual PvP!). I've often pondered how to break down that association, and ease players from one story arc to the next -- without derailing this thread, I generally think stagnant, non-rotating casts of characters is usually an unhealthy sign.
Thanks for sharing. Would you ever play on an L5R MU* again, given a chance?
-r
@Jennkryst While I almost always prefer pure pointbuy CGs for this reason (I've complained about it for FS3), I think the issue you bring up is minimal in FFG because the gap is very small. Moreover, some of the questions outright let you choose between skill dots and other benefits (like honor). The game intentionally does not deliver 100% equivalent characters.
The 2/2/2/2/2 spread is so unlikely that you'd mostly only end up with it through an intentional sub-optimal/anti-type build. The natural result, because there are ring overlaps between Clans and most of their schools, or the families and their more unusual schools, is that you end up with 3/3/2/1/1 or 3/2/2/2/1 almost every time. The first one is 'worth' 6 more xp, but depending on your intended final Rings, the 2nd one may get you to your goal faster (remember the Void + lowest limit on Ring raises). There's also the simple fact that Rings at 1 are weaknesses. Do you live to reap that XP?
As the skills go... meh. None of the clans or families grant Martial Arts. The biggest 'main' skill you can get to 3 is Theology, and every Shugenja family gets it, as does every school, so most characters will get 2. Only Phoenix get 3 automatically, which... if you're annoyed by Phoenix being the best shugenja, L5R isn't the game for you 
But everyone can take it to 3 with Question 13. Other than that, the skills you can readily get to 3 without Heritage table results are Survival as Unicorn and the low skills you can raise from Question 8. Aside from sneaky Scorpion, most of these are skills people would avoid for min-maxing.
Conversely, I think if you just gave people XP... you'd see much more min-maxed results, even if they were more 'XP equivalent.' Everyone would max their chosen MA, Fitness, Theology, Courtesy, and perhaps a few others based on their character/build. They wouldn't end up reflecting their clans and families, which is important in L5R. It's part of the setting: characters strongly reflect their heritage, and breaking with tradition is rare and a big deal.
@Reason I think from all of this it should be obvious the game is a passion hobby of mine. I'd absolutely play a game using either recent system.
Conversely, I think if you just gave people XP... you'd see much more min-maxed results, even if they were more 'XP equivalent.' Everyone would max their chosen MA, Fitness, Theology, Courtesy, and perhaps a few others based on their character/build. They wouldn't end up reflecting their clans and families, which is important in L5R. It's part of the setting: characters strongly reflect their heritage, and breaking with tradition is rare and a big deal.
This is fair. Possible solutions include XP for the generalists to bring them up to min-max level... OR we give people a pick of skill ranks that conveniently add up to the same XP. Must pick from LIST, where LIST is provided by your clan/family/school.
... really, the generalist xp option FEELS like the best, as long as you put in restrictions on what it can be spent on.
On the xp differences based on build it might be easier (not simpler to code) to use the easy dots or what have you, but still keep track of the raw xp costs, and just give out the difference at the end of CG.
I think spending xps directly is harder to grasp what you are doing, and looks more complicated to players.
@jennkryst If you really wanted to fix it, you could do something like 'Everyone gets 3/2/2/2/1 for rings and your 3 must appear in the clan/family/school' and 'Everyone gets 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 (or w/e) for skills, also selected among clan+family+school.' However, this gets tricky because I think stuff like not being able to get MA is actually design intent, so do you exclude that? And what about the questions? They're important choices, but again it becomes 'unfair' if you allow them to stack, but if you don't allow it, have you devalued one choice?
I will say that I've not experienced these things being actual issues. If you look at the Questions and Heritage tables, it's clearly designed that no 2 characters should be exactly alike. It's not D&D (which I'm not knocking, I run a weekly game!), and what people can accomplish is much more contextual to their exact character and the situation. People will put 2s in skills they care about, not in just anything to save XP. Ie, a Doji courtier might take Courtesy 2 because its core, and Design 2 because they'd like to play a fashion maven who designs kimono, but not Culture 2 because... they're a little avant-garde and care more about setting new trends than aping what's popular? Or they just don't want it? And if they happen to buy Culture 2 a couple dozen sessions later because it's in their Rank 5 curriculum and they need to put a last few XP in to hit rank 6... is that a 'problem?' I'm not sure it is, especially as they had said dozens of sessions to get usage out of their other skill picks (that they probably DID continue to raise).
@Misadventure An XP refund at the end would probably be the best solution (aside from the issue of being able to buy things you couldn't have ended up with, like MA 3) and the easiest because you could just code it. You'd have to specify it not count as XP toward school advancement since the rest of CG doesn't.
Conversely, I think if you just gave people XP... you'd see much more min-maxed results, even if they were more 'XP equivalent.' Everyone would max their chosen MA, Fitness, Theology, Courtesy, and perhaps a few others based on their character/build. They wouldn't end up reflecting their clans and families, which is important in L5R. It's part of the setting: characters strongly reflect their heritage, and breaking with tradition is rare and a big deal.
Right. Makes sense. In theory, I think there's value in having some notion of XP parity on characters exiting CharGen, but the difference seemed small enough not to raise too much ire -- and to your point, there's the risk of introducing unintended consequences to a system working-as-intended.
Honestly, the CG system elegantly forcing clear line of sight on character background, motivations, etc.., is something I really like! It feels like you don't leave CG as a pile of cookie-cutter stats (as many RPGs tend to promote), but a coherent character view that happens to have stats that reflect that view.
@Reason I think from all of this it should be obvious the game is a passion hobby of mine. I'd absolutely play a game using either recent system.
Hey, just thought I'd ask. Sometimes we can be very knowledgeable and passionate about something, even as we're at a point where we'd like some distance from it.
So... In that case, let me pick your brain. Razor of the Dawn Castle in the Crab lands seems to be well situated for a game setting -- it has the Shadowlands to the South West, the haunted Shinomen Forest to the North, and the Plains above Evil to the west. The atmospheric elements of that seem to have an opportunity to draw a lot of interesting elements. Additionally, from what little theme I could gather it's historically a primarily a reservist castle though Samurai from other clans looking to make a name for themselves might find themselves stationed there (still safely far away from more central Crab holdings).
The above constitutes a good mix of Horror/Adventure opportunities, but I'm not sure that's enough for a game.
How might you weave in a consistent Intrigue/Social aspect against that backdrop? What kind of thematically reasonable explanation could a more multi-clan court-like setting emerge against that sort of a backdrop?
-r
@reason Crab settings are good, as I think was mentioned somewhere I used a Crab city for my game, and I thought it was an element that worked well. Being close to the Shadowlands adds options for more traditional 'adventuring.' And although L5R is notorious for inconsistent maps, the Crane, Mantis (or their Minor Clan predecessors), Scorpion and Unicorn are all vaguely close by so you have those interactions to work with in terms of big politics.
You'd probably want to expand to the castle town vs. strictly focusing on the actual fortification. Even if it gets more outsiders than others, the garrison would be overwhelmingly Crab and pretty regimented in terms of their daily lives. The town would let you build on that with whatever local traders, entertainment, local temples, etc. to fill out a more lively and mixed population. You would have to do it yourself, as I don't think there's any kind of write-up for it, although I wouldn't swear to it with all the material L5R has. Regardless, it is kind of an unlikely setting for 'high' politics, as it wouldn't qualify to host an Imperial Winter Court. However, lower level courts also exist. I think this is kind of a hard question to answer in a vacuum without getting into the full scope of your setting, including things like time period and what conflicts you want to focus on as overarching stories.
Basically, there's waaaay too much material to easily summarize, so it really depends what you'd be most interested in. If you just want to hunt for ideas, I recommend, again, the Emerald Empire (any edition) and both Imperial Histories (4e) books, as well as the older Way of/Secrets of the Crab (1e and 3e). FFG has Courts of Stone which is both castle and court-focused. Strongholds of the Empire (4e) is where I got some of my Sunda Mizu Mura info (although it appears a couple places), and while it doesn't have any other Crab locations it might be worth a glance just to see the way they tend to present setting info.
I would actually like to see the Capital / Imperial city, more Heian-Kyo vibes.
I don't enjoy being near the Wall, or the Crablands.(but that's me).
I am Crane/Unicorn style girl, so wild open plains for my horsey, and tea houses, Kabuki and all ikebana shops.
If we're voting for cool locations, I lean towards the new to 4e and erased in the reboot location, Kaigen's Island. The proximity to Shiro Shiba and metaplot gives you built-in Mantis/Phoenix conflict, it's an island so we got boats and sea monsters... speaking of monsters AND plot... this Island just happened to be recently raised from the ocean floor, so it's extra supernatural, which means it's got some shadowland taint of its own!
I picked up a couple of the FFG books from FLGS, buuuut local music festival didn't get canceled, so work is going to be hell until next week, not a lot of time to read through them.
I'm definitely not voting, just trying to give feedback and ideas. I stick by the opinion that Crab lands work well as a newbie area (to a point: the deeper Shadowlands are very much not). Fighting goblins is a mainstay rank 1 action activity, and the less precarious social environment is a good warmup. But obviously it isn't going to be for everyone. The capital has appeal for not being tied to any clan, but the high-stakes environment makes it harder to give PCs major agency to shake up the local world.
The difficulty of picking a static setting that appeals to everyone is another MU/tabletop split. I'd argue the tabletop game is not designed with a stable setting in mind (outside the box set campaigns), foremost because it assumes characters of mixed clans. This is why the most archetypical L5R party is the 'traveling magistrates': the PCs are deputies of the Emerald Champion and can be sent from one corner of the Empire to another, righting wrongs and dispensing justice, with the authority of the office giving them the freedom to travel freely and meddle in local affairs (things that otherwise are very much not the norm).
For more neutral options, I'll go back to suggesting book stuff because they're bursting with ideas. Zakyo Toshi, also in Strongholds, is effectively a neutral Ryoko Owari-lite in minor clan lands, at least before the Scorpion annex it. Naishou Province is a single-book campaign setting from 4e. It's not as detailed as the box sets, but it's well designed to work as a sandbox, neutral lands under Imperial authority (the book doesn't actually give it a canon location for the sake of letting a GM work it into any game, although the described history and geography makes the foothills of the mountains between the Dragon & Phoenix a good candidate, above the Lion plains and Toshi Ranbo).
All our XP calculations are wrong, we overlooked step 13. We're doomed. Doomed!
Emerald Empire has the Imperial Families, their schools, and then some monk orders. So that's probably a must for the game, on top of the core.
Courts of Stone is less REQUIRED, but it gives a bunch of ideas for Winter Court (not just for socialites - we got archery tournaments, we got hunting trips, we got snowman building contests, we got romance, we got espionage, and we got rules for that one Crane Shinobi school. Yes, that one. Ninja-Crane!)
Courts of Stone also has rules for Bonds, which are... um. Complicated, at a glance. They are your ally-type rules, but they work with both PCs and NPCs. It is tricksy because this costs XP? A social web on your +sheet or in +notes or something would be great... like Intimacies in Exalted. Some way to track ways to leverage characters?
FLGS did not have the Lion/War book, but I'm sure there are similar rules for Bushi for their Mass-Combat stuffs.
@jennkryst said in FFG L5R:
All our XP calculations are wrong, we overlooked step 13. We're doomed. Doomed!
Ha.
Emerald Empire has the Imperial Families, their schools, and then some monk orders. So that's probably a must for the game, on top of the core.
Interesting -- including Imperial Family PCs sounds risky.
I'm definitely not voting, just trying to give feedback and ideas. I stick by the opinion that Crab lands work well as a newbie area (to a point: the deeper Shadowlands are very much not). Fighting goblins is a mainstay rank 1 action activity, and the less precarious social environment is a good warmup.
Your feedback and ideas are well received and appreciated. I think having concrete activities that involve a little violence is probably a good release valve for otherwise heavily social activities.
The difficulty of picking a static setting that appeals to everyone is another MU/tabletop split. I'd argue the tabletop game is not designed with a stable setting in mind (outside the box set campaigns), foremost because it assumes characters of mixed clans.
I tend to agree with this assessment as a general challenge of MU*s vs. TTs -- there's a point where the players eventually get restless and start burning the grid down as the mystery and excitement of the backdrop starts to become mundane and well-worn.
For more neutral options, I'll go back to suggesting book stuff because they're bursting with ideas. Zakyo Toshi, also in Strongholds, is effectively a neutral Ryoko Owari-lite in minor clan lands, at least before the Scorpion annex it. Naishou Province is a single-book campaign setting from 4e. It's not as detailed as the box sets, but it's well designed to work as a sandbox, neutral lands under Imperial authority (the book doesn't actually give it a canon location for the sake of letting a GM work it into any game, although the described history and geography makes the foothills of the mountains between the Dragon & Phoenix a good candidate, above the Lion plains and Toshi Ranbo).
I'll take a peak. I'm also trying to research and understand what might cause the annexation of a holding by Imperial decry as a means of forcing some mixing of clans, factions, and political intrigues -- or if such a thing is even possible in the setting.
@songtress said in FFG L5R:
I would actually like to see the Capital / Imperial city, more Heian-Kyo vibes.
I don't enjoy being near the Wall, or the Crablands.(but that's me).
I am Crane/Unicorn style girl, so wild open plains for my horsey, and tea houses, Kabuki and all ikebana shops.
What is it about proximity to the wall that you don't enjoy? Too grimdark?
-r
@reason It's less have Imperial Families, and more 'here are a bunch of monk orders that anyone else could have left their family to go join'.
As for why crab land bad... I'd guess its 50/50 'all the crab are stoic gruff types over everyone's shit' and 'almost anything could be tainted, and if it looks at you the wrong way, you can become tainted, too'... but @Songtress can clarify further.
Okay. I'll thumb through it and take a peak.
Meanwhile, I took a break from fiddling back/forth between CP:Red and Shadowrun 5th edition, and built up a functioning +info subsystem on Evennia to be used for a (yet to be coded) L5R game.
Nothing fancy, literally just an implementation of +info that allows you to grab basically verbatim write-ups on Clans, Families, and Schools/Roles right now. -HOWEVER-, two nice points:
It's all loosely coupled under the hood so the same thing driving this +info system could also support a somewhat more ambitious set of interactions (e.g. Character Generation).
I'm building it in such a way that someone could do a vanilla install of Evennia, then download this, and make a couple of configuration modifications, and "inherit" L5R code into their vanilla install. So maybe if someone out there felt ambitious (and this actually goes somewhere) someone can spin themselves up a game.
-r
More book updates!
Path of Waves, the book for Ronin and Gaijin, also has Bonds, and has a convenient 'here is how to build your own schools' section, which... I'm not saying should be used to make custom schools for any given MU, BUT! It does have 'you get X skills and Y techniques' guidelines, which every book school appears to follow, so it a great place for doing the theoretical XP Maths! Also, because Ronin and Gaijin aren't very clan-y, it has alternate 20 questions.
Fields of Victory, the WAR book, adds Mass Combat stuffs. Oddly no bonds, these can be kit-bashed for your support staff as desired, I guess? Also details Clan Badger. I don't know anything about them, but it's a Badger, so lulz. Also has a Beastmaster school, so you can fight alongside your pet Pokémon. 10/10.
@jennkryst Rokugan has no pokemon? Wait what it does? *makes plans to round out her ffg collection)
@songtress I meant more 'go into battle with your pet', but perhaps I SHOULD read all the techniques and school abilities first. After work!
Actually I think the original idea of Razor of the Dawn Castle is a good location, and could be made to work well, if there was some Imperial reason that it suddenly needed to transform from lazy backwater border keep into a major venue to hold a Winter Court (say in two years time).
The first thing that comes to mind would be a major Shadowlands power rising that needs to be handled diplomatically rather than via the usual Crab show of force (think a new, sudden Fae Kingdom or some such that has made Alliance overtures with the Imperial Throne to help them fight some OTHER threat from the Shadowlands).
Then you'd have the PCs be envoy's from their respective Clans all racing to mini-empire build what the Clans need for the Court and to impress/ally/dominate the new Faction.
The first thing that comes to mind would be a major Shadowlands power rising that needs to be handled diplomatically rather than via the usual Crab show of force (think a new, sudden Fae Kingdom or some such that has made Alliance overtures with the Imperial Throne to help them fight some OTHER threat from the Shadowlands).
Interesting -- what kind of latitude exists in the setting for the emergence of such a kingdom and what sourcebook includes the grounding theme and details?
-r
