OOC Chat — "Hoshihige Most Auspicious Inn"

[Starbeard]

Along a sleepy road high in the mountains sits the spa hotel of Hoshihige, "Starbeard." Weary travellers rest here for a chance to bathe in the hot springs that surround the labyrinthine network of cozy guest houses, sake taverns and tea rooms.

This space is reserved for all of our OOC discussions: news, questions, rules debates, inspirational remarks.

[ffilz]

I'm definitely excited about this.

Frank

[Starbeard]

Yep! It'll probably take me another day or two to get the whole thing underway, but everyone can expect a player's guide handout that explains the gist of the rules and character creation, and a short Primer to Rokugan. There's a huge wiki full of info about the setting, but the information has been pulled from all books ever published, so there's a lot to sift through and 90% of it we probably won't use. (http://l5r.wikia.com/)

[Starbeard]

Alright everyone, it's time for us to sit down and go through the first steps.

First, I've sent a PM to the group with a Dropbox link. In it are two skills handouts: one from the published game, and one house ruled list that I came up with for my players the last time played. If you can, I'd like you to peruse them and we can discuss which we should use.

Pros for the house ruled skills: Most of the skills in the game have no mechanics attached, plenty of them never get used, and a bunch also have significant overlaps (if I had a nickel for every time the players argued over whether a roll should use Sincerity, Courtier, Etiquette or Law, I'd be rich!). A lot of the skills tend just to be ignored or roleplayed out anyway. Anyway, I addressed this for my players by consolidating the skills that tended to overlap, got rid of skills that only had roleplay value or simply never came up, and that cut down the list to almost half the number of broadly relevant skills, something akin to Classic Traveller or MeRP in scope.

Pros for using the skills by the book: Since this is a new group and we're all looking at the game with fresh or refreshed eyes, there's something to be said for playing the game as it's printed. This won't be a long campaign anyway, so we don't have to worry about the never-ending useless skills bloat. And we can always house rule later as we go along.

Advantages/Disadvantages: Frankly, when first played this game I dropped advantages and disadvantages entirely and never missed them, so I think I'll do the same here. The same 3-4 got picked almost every time, and some of them are very problematic (for 4 points you can give yourself a 'Great Destiny' and force the GM to go easier on your character than the rest…). The remainder can all just be roleplayed anyway. I've sent you the handout so you can at least peruse them if curious, and if something really seems like a great idea then feel free to ask about having it included.

[ffilz]

Alright everyone, it's time for us to sit down and go through the first steps.

First, I've sent a PM to the group with a Dropbox link. In it are two skills handouts: one from the published game, and one house ruled list that I came up with for my players the last time played. If you can, I'd like you to peruse them and we can discuss which we should use.

Pros for the house ruled skills: Most of the skills in the game have no mechanics attached, plenty of them never get used, and a bunch also have significant overlaps (if I had a nickel for every time the players argued over whether a roll should use Sincerity, Courtier, Etiquette or Law, I'd be rich!). A lot of the skills tend just to be ignored or roleplayed out anyway. Anyway, I addressed this for my players by consolidating the skills that tended to overlap, got rid of skills that only had roleplay value or simply never came up, and that cut down the list to almost half the number of broadly relevant skills, something akin to Classic Traveller or MeRP in scope.
"Rokugan Primer" — if you're entirely unfamiliar with the setting, the first 6 pages cover the entire history and cosmology of the setting. The remainder give more description about the current culture and society, but frankly, you'll probably do just as well by watching a few samurai movies and remembering, "Honoring your superiors and ancestors is better than heaven; shame is worse than death."

Pros for using the skills by the book: Since this is a new group and we're all looking at the game with fresh or refreshed eyes, there's something to be said for playing the game as it's printed. This won't be a long campaign anyway, so we don't have to worry about the never-ending useless skills bloat. And we can always house rule later as we go along.

Advantages/Disadvantages: Frankly, when first played this game I dropped advantages and disadvantages entirely and never missed them, so I think I'll do the same here. The same 3-4 got picked almost every time, and some of them are very problematic (for 4 points you can give yourself a 'Great Destiny' and force the GM to go easier on your character than the rest…). The remainder can all just be roleplayed anyway. I've sent you the handout so you can at least peruse them if curious, and if something really seems like a great idea then feel free to ask about having it included.

I'd vote for sticking with the RAW for skills. I'd also say let's have a look at the advantages/disadvantages and if someone wants them, why don't we talk it out. But I'd also be ok with dropping them.

Frank

[Rex]

The dropbox doesn't work for me here so I will try again when I get home.

[Starbeard]

After thinking about it I think I'd be inclined to be conservative and stick with the RAW skills for this one too, but I'll wait for more feedback—I'm happy either way. There aren't so many skills that we're swimming in a sea of them, and any without mechanics (dance, poetry, etc.) we can come up with rulings along the way if a player tries to use them in a significant way.

That's one of the things that's nice about all of L5R's editions, I think. They are bloated with skills & character options like many 'new school' games, but much of it is left open to the players to define, very much like old school games. Anyone who has experience with ruling on the fly can really make the system sing.

[Starbeard]

edit: Sorry, I got part of my PM garbled in the middle of the first post there! Fixed it, everything should make sense now.

[LtTibbles]

Keep it RAW I say!

[Rex]

As far as Skills and Advantages/Disadvantages go I don't care. Maybe after playing a bit I will have a better opinion.

[Starbeard]

Brilliant, RAW skills it is. Advantages & Disadvantages, take them or leave as you will—if you're interested in taking something, just say so and take it piecemeal.

Does anyone have any ideas already for character clans or professions? The adventure should be fine regardless of who takes what: in fact, I kind of like the idea of just rolling the dice for a random location on the Empire map and finishing the design based around that, so that the way each character will fit in is a bit of a surprise. Combine that with a secret side goal that will be given to each player at the start, we should have an interesting little sandbox scenario on our hands!

[Rex]

Can we run a monk?

[Captain Kinkajou]

Looks like I missed all the discussion overnight but I'm happy with RAW for skills. I do vaguely remember some similar issues to what Starbeard describes, from back when I played before, but I think we mostly just said that if people could reasonably justify it, it was fine. And the GM, as always, had final say. That seemed to work OK.

Moving away from using advantages and disadvantages is fine too. They can add some interesting wrinkles but, as you say, can be a bit awkward too.

As for initial character ideas, I'm thinking a lady bushi (but haven't entirely ruled out a shugenja yet), most likely strong in Air (reflexes and awareness). Dragon Clan appeals, or possibly Crane (though I'm leaning away from that now). I'm pretty easy if it works out better for me to go another direction though.

Starbeard, one of the things I always found a little weird with L5R is justifying why a group of samurai all from different clans was working together in the first place. Is that something you had any thoughts on? I guess I'm asking if it would be of benefit to try and keep the number of different clans we're from down or whether you'd rather just see what happens / have the rivalries?

[LtTibbles]

I was thinking about making a Phoenix or Dragon character myself what class yet I'm not too sure

[Starbeard]

Can we run a monk?

I think so. The monk schools were never published until the Way of Shinsei sourcebook, but I think it makes more sense with the setting to just use the schools we've already got in the book.

One option is simply to create a shugenja priest and call him a monk. The inspiration for shugenja is a combination of the classic court wizard, the Shinto priest, and real-life shugenja, also called 'yamabushi' (mountain hermits who practice Shugendo, a peculiar form of esoteric Buddhism mixed with Shinto practices, which gives them the reputation for having mystical insight and supernatural abilities). If you want him to be a martial artist then just buy him some training in jujutsu.

Another option is to create a bushi and say that he has retired from public life and become a monk. That's how they always describe monks in the setting anyway, as retired bushi. In this case, just create your bushi like a Class Ronin or True Ronin, and his +3 points from Social Disadvantage are spent as +1 rank in Shintao, Meditation, and Jujutsu.

[Starbeard]

Starbeard, one of the things I always found a little weird with L5R is justifying why a group of samurai all from different clans was working together in the first place. Is that something you had any thoughts on? I guess I'm asking if it would be of benefit to try and keep the number of different clans we're from down or whether you'd rather just see what happens / have the rivalries?

I agree, I've always thought it was a little counterintuitive to give all of these character options and then overstress the whole "Clan secrets" angle so much. It makes you bend over backwards to come up with a reason why the party isn't all from the same clan. The classic go-to is to make everyone travelling to a world famous festival or tournament, or make them working for the Imperial Magistrates, but this time I'd like to try something a little different.

For this game I'd like to be a little more organic and historical with the clan structure than what's written in the book. Consider the lore to be 'the way the Rokugani like to think about themselves,' but in reality, it's very possible to have grown up in the Crane lands but married into a Crab family, or maybe your father had to change lords from one clan to another, but still teaches his children the same techniques he learned from his homeland. The lure of the big city may have brought a country Phoenix samurai with no ties to the Crane territories. A Lion might have spent his entire life as a foster hostage at the castle of a minor Dragon lord, so that in game terms he's a Dragon bushi with a Dragon family bonus, but as a character he's still considered to be part of the Lion clan even though he's only been 'home' twice in his whole life.

In the rules all of these are things you have to buy as advantages and disadvantages, because they really play up the whole 'Clan secrets' thing. but I think it will make the game run much more smoothly and the setting feel more alive if just do it and forget about the points. Once I get a firm idea of exactly where the game will be set (I'll consider requests on that too), we'll have a much better idea of how to fit every character in.

[Rex]

The retired bushi should work fine. I was thinking more like a Shaolin Monk, as in they do use weapons as well as unarmed. So my build might be something like a clanless (True) Ronin Monk (Bushi).

[Starbeard]

The retired bushi should work fine. I was thinking more like a Shaolin Monk, as in they do use weapons as well as unarmed. So my build might be something like a clanless (True) Ronin Monk (Bushi).

That would work just fine for a Shaolin monk. True Ronin shouldn't be underestimated—you might lack any school techniques, but look how many points you get! You'll be rolling 6k4 in just about every combat skill you want.

Okay, so instead of taking Social Disadvantage, just pretend that the Shaolin 'school' provides Meditation 1, Shintao 1, Defense 1. You'll keep your Glory (and can buy more), but you're treated as Glory 0 whenever dealing with worldly affairs.

[Rex]

For Rings and Traits are we using the "as published" or "for accuracy" groupings?

[Starbeard]

Let’s get RAW. That (and the skills) were made in part to keep the game interesting to our group who had already played awhile, so we wanted Rings that reflected the ‘actual’ characteristics of the Godai Elements, and to make balancing the Rings more important overall.

The Rings are just fine RAW, even if Fire & Water aren’t nearly as valuable as Earth & Air.

The only house rule we’ll have to start is that Combat Initiative will be 1k1+[ranks in Air], not 1d10+[Ranks in Reflexes]. I don’t think I ever even played it any other way.