@bored Interesting. Appreciate that perspective. Is the FFG version of L5R better for having reduced that niche protection? I understand the dice mechanics for 4e were popular -- is FFG worse for having lost them?
Honestly, having read all the backlog of this thread, it sounds like an L5R MU* would be a lot of fun.
-r
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@reason The roll and keep is still there, but with FFG style symbol dice, which... honestly is the tricksiest part for a MU. For Star Wars/Genesys, all dice happen and math each other. For L5R, you have to decide if you want the die with a success, or if you want the dice with advantages to trigger fancy ability.
Also, given that everybody uses rings and not attributes, this puts further importance on having the skill. You roll ring (d6 with symbols) + skill (d12 with better rng symbols) and get to keep (ring #) dice.
Edit to add: so it is not just 'big number good, but bid for cooler thing'... now it is 'I attack you at difficulty 1 and could have 4 successes... but I only NEED one, so I keep that die, and also these other two advantage dice that instead of directly dealing damage, I spend to maybe disarm you... or mess up your footing do you have a dice penalty... or aimed the blow so well I ignore your armor DR... or a bunch of other stuff outlined under each skill
@jennkryst Yeah, the more I read the system, the cooler (if a bit fiddly) it seems. Sounds like a really fun game system, though I suspect realistically playing in the setting has a pretty heavy burden on the GM + Players given how specific it is.
Interestingly enough, usually it's the CharGen systems that seem most difficult to code and the dice are fairly trivial -- FFG L5R looks like a pretty straight forward CG system, with an outrageous dice system. I'm almost imagining it being implemented as a little menu system that retains state while a player selects stuff.
-r
@reason Better/worse is always going to be a matter of personal perspective, game goals, and so on.
The prior editions are all variations on a core design (ignoring the d20 version that came out temporally alongside 3e). They retain a distinctive system throughout, even as things have been balanced over the years. If you love it, you love it, and the FFG system may disappoint because it's not the same thing. You want to play it because technique names like Pincers and Tail or The Mountain Does not Move spark the imagination. I think 4e is the pinnacle version of that system, since it benefits from so many years of playtesting and design iteration. It's streamlined and slick, and as balanced as such a lethal game can be, shaving down some of the spikes while still giving superhero samurai as you rank up. I like it a lot and would always be happy to play it. It's why I was willing to code my own stuff to run a game in it.
But if you've played a lot of it you may run into the 'school clone' syndrome, where maybe you don't want to play another Hida Bushi because you've already played one and characters from the same school have a tendency of coming out the same (unless you heavily sacrifice mechanics to play against type). The mountain still isn't going anywhere.
So in that way, I do find something refreshing in the new system and that makes me want to play it also, especially for revisiting any of my 'old favorites' in terms of Clan and school. It lets you build characters that are a lot more varied, unique and personal. That said, because it's a new system, all those moving parts can lead to some poorly balanced outcomes. It's already got a lot of errata. There is also an outstanding question over how well the FFG approach works, as it blends modern narrative RPG design with hard crunch in ways that can be contradictory. This is going to be tough on a MU.
As a final small point: an interesting facet of L5R is that its consistency across editions, even between 1-4e and FFG, means that older sourcebooks and material are often still useful to newer games. I highly recommend 4e's version of the setting book, Emerald Empire (there is a 5e version too), or the two Imperial Histories as they offer great options on time periods and settings. Also City of Lies is basically my favorite RPG location/campaign setting boxed set ever.
@bored Excellent response, thank you. It's funny -- I'm knee deep right now digging into a Cyberpunk Red Chargen System that's not too far from functional (minus the need to be refactored into something a bit more modular), and waffling a bit as I dust off 5th Edition Shadowrun and bounce between the two (CP:Red would likely be the easiest to implement, both given the current state of Chargen + a generally simpler system).
But the above response you just provided has me casting as sideways glance over at this FFG L5R book I bought on a whim. Not going to lie, the replacement of elemental rings vs. attributes has a very intriguing dynamic -- I'm not sure I've come across a game system quite like that. And your assertion that there's still some hard crunch to be found in there is all the more intriguing.
If it's appropriate to ask, what finally gave you cause to close the game down? And if it's not appropriate to ask, feel free to sidestep that question.
-r
@reason The ring vs. attribute change is definitely interesting considering it's almost entirely an anti min-max change. For any who don't know, in prior editions, each Ring was composed of two attributes (and had the lowest value between them), but because non-Shugenja rarely rolled Rings directly, and each Ring pair split really clearly on combat/other roleplay, you'd usually polarize them. Water? Strength (damage) vs. Perception. Air/Fire? Reflexes/Agility (defense and attack) vs. Awareness/Intelligence. Earth was the exception where even though it had that physical/mental split (Stamina/Willpower) you rarely rolled Stamina and Earth gave you health points, so people left that even (and tried to get Earth 3 fast to not die so much!). This also led to a weird thing where Bushi lagged behind Shugenja in rank, because you calculated insight from Rings (among other things).
Curiously, this is a change you could actually patch backwards into the older L5R rules with almost zero issue, since any roll that required one of the old stats you could just replace with its Ring. You'd have to slightly adjust the chargen but it would be an almost trivial conversion.
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.
I can see from your synopsis the difficulty in what you were running.
I love Rokugan and L5R, but I think it is a hardcore adventure game that does not lend well to the social aspect of MUing.
I think that it might work with the sort of “archetype-episodic” structure of HorrorMU, but that takes a certain kind of player to work.
IRONICALLY, the whole 'nobody needs to invest in social attributes because Rings are how you approach things' means that those who want to do social good definitely need the skill.
Funky dice are funky:
The 4 results are thus: in the d12 column, the symbol on 3 is opportunity, the symbol on 8 is success, the symbol on 12 is Success + reroll (the reroll is included in the 'keep'), and the little candle flame you'll see on various lines is strife.
As you can see, there are no... 'take away number of successes' like in the Genesys/Star Wars dice.
Strife is kind of your social damage track - not only can you gain it yourself by choosing to keep a die result that has the symbol on it, but you can inflict 2 strife on another (generally as a side effect of Fire approach), heal 2 strife from another (Earth approach), or heal 2 strife from yourself (Water approach), all by spending those specific opportunity dice. A note - any approach can heal strife from yourself 1:1 with opportunity.
Specific techniques can give you other things to spend opportunity or success on; it is very much a guideline for shaping narrative play with dice, rather than just making stuff up as you go along. There is always going to be something cool and fun, or at the very least useful, to spend opportunity dice on.
AS FOR MIN-MAXING, it's kinda still around a little bit. If your house + school add to the same skills or rings, it saves on XP in the long run. Not... a LOT, but it does. Obvious solution is the usual: give a pile of XP and start from scratch, or a set spread of what they can have. This is not a must, but it annoys me, so I will whine like a child if it's not done.
@jennkryst I suppose if you really wanted to even the playing field, you could house-rule out something based on the maximum XP gained from such min/maxing, and perhaps implement such that characters that fall short of that theoretical maximum just gain some additional level 1 skills or a ring boost to level 2 based on how far they fall short. So it's more about wanting to play a specialist / generalist than min/maxing.
...regardless, I just bought the 'Shadowlands' Sourcebook. Holy crap, this setting is so awesome. Where has this RPG been????
I think a Political Intrigue MU* set close enough to the Shadowlands to be uncomfortable (and support lots of PC types!) would be so, so, so radical. I almost want to pause refactoring this CP Red Chargen and just build a L5R chargen + dice system just to see how hard it would be. I doubt I could really run a game at the present, but maybe there's someone out there with the will that lacks the means. 
-r
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I have not read the Shadowlands book, but I am guessing it's something akin to Mousegard and other settings of that sort - a group of warriors trying to maintain peace and life while beset by an implacable other encroaching from the borders with the occasional infighting and cult. Assuming that is correct, I have said for a while that that would be a bomb-ass setting.
@ominous Yeah, spot on. Though, to be clear, I'm in my infancy of digesting L5R lore, so it's possible some nuance is still lost on me.
The short of it is that one of the Great Clans (Crab) mans this big wall that stands between the rest of the Kingdom and this supernaturally corrupted wasteland known as The Shadowlands. It is, as you describe, an implacable, encroaching force of evil that periodically breaks through (though I'd posit should be infrequently enough as to not convert a source of atmospheric tension into an opportunity for constant action).
So, assuming there's a reasonable hook for a political intrigue setting, you sort of have internal/external tension hanging over the setting, and a lot of lanes for individual character types to have a clear reason for being, and clear opportunities to shine.
-r
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Yeah, that's the Crab Clan's gimmick. They man the wall and all their lands border the Shadowlands. They're a gruff, stoic people who have little time for the social niceties adhered to by many of the other clans. I believe they were inspired by the early eras of Japanese samurai, when samurai were mostly just warriors and didn't focus so much on practicing calligraphy, composing haiku, playing go, and enjoying tea ceremonies. I always got a Scottish highlander (the actual highlanders, not the immortals) vibe from them.
@reason Would you be surprised to know that the 4e game @bored ran took place in Sunda Mizu Mura... Clear Water Village, which is INCREDIBLY close to the wall, and is a major port for Crab Clan?
As for XP... it's an easy HR. Without a ton of thought put into it, I'm inclined to say 'You get 3/2/2/1/1 rings' and then where we go for skills and techniques is ... I'm not sure yet. I glanced over all the schools, and it looks like non-Sugenja get 5 skills and 2 techniques, and Shugenja get 3 skills and 5 techniques? But you also have the one family skill and 2 clan skills, so (needs more math for all the things)...
Ooooor skills can just get a spread like the rings. But I am more inclined to use 'start 0, spend XP' because this allows for specialization, but does not punish you for generalization. Either way, more math is needed.
@ominous Ahhh, yeah cool. Still getting up to speed. Given a setting close to the Wall, I wonder if the combination of Crab's lack of social niceties and the proximity to the wall requiring other clans to "cut loose a bit", there's a broad enough range of acceptable social behavior that it acts to sort of relax what might be a more rigid, restrictive band of acceptable role play on behalf of players.
@Jennkryst Ahhh, interesting! Well, having read up on this source book, not surprised that it was a candidate for a setting. I see it there, just NE of Hida castle on the map inside this sourcebook. Very cool!
Envisioning a setting, I was actually looking at the other end of the wall, at Razor of the Dawn Castle -- it doesn't seem to be heavily detailed in any of the books so it may be flexible as far as a setting goes. It seems a bit farther back from the most oppressive spots of the wall/shadowlands, and as far as I can tell from reading some online theme has some existing tie-ins for other clans to make an appearance there. Plus, not only does it border the Shadowlands to the West, it borders heavy woodland to the North and North East, putting it square in the middle of some very interesting surroundings.
Re: XP / Chargen -- Having a little min/maxing in there doesn't bother me too much. To your earlier point, it seems fairly tame having given it some review. It's a far cry from a system like 3rd Edition Shadowrun, where it was entirely possible to have a well optimized character walk out of character generation an order of magnitude more powerful than an unoptimized character with multiple-years of playtime under their belt. But yeah -- using the XP system works, though having read the CG system L5R proposes I like how you really leave the process with a clear sense of theme rather than just a collection of numbers.
L5R is actually a super cool setting + theme + game system.
-r
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@reason Yeah, the maximum variation of most/least efficient builds is just 14 XP worth of stuff. I mean, that's still seven rank 1 skills, or four techniques and a skill... or raising a ring to 4 and a rank 1 skill...
It's not a TON in the long run. But it annoys me a tiny bit.
That's also assuming Bushi/Courtier. Shugenja get fewer skills in exchange for more techniques.
Also also, there are 4 schools in the core book that do not follow the pattern - Kaiu Engineer School, Togashi Tattooed Order, Ikoma Bard School, and Kaito Shrine Keeper School. The two monk schools get 4 skills (and variable techniques), while Kaiu Engineer and Ikoma Bard get three techniques (should probably be errata'd to a 'pick one' as almost every other school has)
@jennkryst Yeah, it certainly isn't nothing. It's about 7.5% of the way to accessing Rank 6 of a role. That's a wide enough margin to be a bit annoyed, though agree that it's not so wide as to be worried.
For some reason it's less about skills stacking up that rubs me wrong, and more about 3/3/2/1/1 Ring Distribution vs. 3/2/2/2/1 distribution (assuming I've run through CG correctly to arrive at those possible distributions), which I believe nets +6XP for being lopsided with a pair of 3s vs. more well rounded w/ more 2s. In my mind, a simple fix to something like that could just be to house rule that if you take a 3/2/2/2/1 distribution you have some benefit (which could just be the net XP difference, or a +1 raise to your lowest ring, or something like that).
On the flip side, I don't really know enough about the system to figure out if it warrants tinkering. Maybe it's fine.
Is the core book good enough for a game to be based on from a role/technique standpoint? Or do you need to bring in the other roles from the source books to get adequately rounded out?
-r
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@reason You're one ring too high - The Family bonus is a +1 between one of two rings, not a +1 to both. Which does indeed mean if you're going the most well-rounded path, you're 2/2/2/2/1, so you will have one ring that is your 'weakness'... Exciting!
I meant to go check the used book store for other FFG books, but I didn't. I only have the core at the moment, so I couldn't tell you if they are NEEDED. I think there is plenty of variety in the core, with the exception of maybe definitely bringing in some more Monk orders.
@jennkryst Let's see...
+1 Ring for Clan, +1 Ring for Family, +1 to 2x Rings for Role/School, and then +1 Ring for "Step 4: How does your character Stand out within their School? (pg. 88, core)". So that ultimately works out to distributing 5x +1s throughout your rings.
So I think that gives you a 3/3/2/1/1 as the most polarized build, and either 3/2/2/2/1 or 2/2/2/2/2 as more balanced builds, with the polarized build having a net +3XP advantage over the former, and a net +6XP advantage over the latter.
Double check me, though.
As far as sufficient variety -- okay. Cool. I've skimmed content, I need to sit down and read it all now I suppose.
-r
@reason ... oh shit, I skipped step 4 in my calculations. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING (okay not really)... yeah, strait 2's is 30 xp, and 3/3/2/1/1 is 36 XP, so it's still the 6 XP difference MAX for rings I accounted for with my previous math, just more than 2/2/2/2/1 vs 3/2/2/1/1 (with a 3 XP variable if you go in the middle, with 3/2/2/2/1).
Skills have a max spread of 8 XP for Bushi and Courtiers (16 XP for eight 1's vs 24 XP for 3/2/1/1/1), and 8 XP for Shugenja (12 XP for 1/1/1/1/1/1 vs 20 XP for 3/2/1)... admittedly fewer overall skills, but they also get 5 techniques vs the Bushi/Courtier 2 techniques (so 9 XP extra... but it's all their basic 'do spirit world' kit, so this is fine)
Edit because math is hard, mmkay?
@jennkryst said in FFG L5R:
@reason ... THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING (okay not really)...
Ha!
Skills have a max spread of 8 XP for Bushi and Courtiers (16 XP for eight 1's vs 24 XP for 3/2/1/1/1), and 8 XP for Shugenja (12 XP for 1/1/1/1/1/1 vs 20 XP for 3/2/1)...
Yeah, so you were right. Max spread of 14(6+8)XP. I suspect in practice it will be more likely a bit less pronounced, as I suspect most players will bias towards having a couple of skills rated 2 (or more) -- were I to guess, the most common distribution would be having a 3/1 between two skills, or a 2/2. Which is like a 2XP difference.
So I'm guessing min-maxing probably nets you +5XP most often (+3 XP for rings, +2XP for skills). That's small enough that disturbing the system may not be warranted, though also small enough that giving a modest boost to non-min/maxed characters doesn't break anything either -- that's a GOOD place to be for a CharGen system.
So... I suppose the REAL question is... why aren't we coding one up right now? 
-r
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