My wishes for L5R RPG ?

- Campaign

- No Star Wars / Warhammer RPG like dice (R&K rules)

- More developped rules, call John Wick !

- No special dices (Buying special dices for one RPG is rubbish)

- Keep the fourth edition, upgrade it (4.5)

- Please don't kill L5R rpg

- Thanks

Oh god no, no multiple face'd dices and wacky system.

I like SW system for SW, but WHFantasy system was AWFUL, I can't imagine either of them working for the Rokugan either :s.

I have played half a campaing using WHFantsy before we grow tired of the system, and I am currently playin a SW one. I am all in for changes in the overall system, but changing R&K for 5 different dices? No ty :s.

The John Wick discussion is being had on another thread around here somewhere...

Wick is like Lucas -- grand ideas, but in desperate need of a whole team of people there to refine his work, who are willing to tell him " no ".

A L5R LCG is going to be VERY similar to AGOT LCG.

Would you like to make a wager on that? Could you make an L5R CCG that's kind of a re-skin of A Game of Thrones? I suppose. Would FFG? Not in this lifetime. That would be a horrible, horrible business decision. They spent money on this IP. They aren't going to kill it by making the LCG a pseudo-copy of another LCG they already have. FFG is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them.

What I would love to see for the RPG in the future, regardless of what form it takes, would be something akin to Pathfinder's adventure paths and campaign modules. While the majority of L5R-games we play here are home-made scenarios and such, we would love to have pre-written modules, adventure paths and campaigns to play around with once in a while.

L5R has done so in the past, with old ones like Night of a Thousand Screams, Legacy of the Forge, and more recently in the Second City box set (oh gods, box sets! <3), and would love to see more of it!

I'd be immensely interested if FFG managed to bring in the freelancers from Legends of the Wulin to work on fifth edition Legend of the Five Rings. Or just took inspiration from their work.

Folks who love roll-and-keep, remember that nothing prevents you from continuing with 4E. As someone who owns the whole line (having even pre-ordered Atlas of Rokugan), I can tell you there is plenty of great material. And of course there is also the backlog of material from previous editions to fill out the weaker spots in the 4E product line (such as published adventures). This is actually a great time to consider completing your 4E collections as retailers start putting the line on clearance.

BUT it is unrealistic to expect FFG to continue with 4E or even carry over (a substantially similar version of) roll-and-keep. I think the Star Wars RPGs are a pretty good indication that FFG views RPGs as a platform to sell cards and proprietary dice so, if you expect anything at all, expect that the coming L5R RPG will be designed with that kind of product development in mind.

As far as board games go, I can't tell you how many times I have looked at my copy of "Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan" and wished FFG had designed and produced it. Suffice it to say that the L5R IP is a natural fit for cloning Descent, as per Imperial Assault. I hope, also as per Imperial Assault, this will entail some kind of miniatures game crossover (new version of Clan War) -- although I hope this turns out a lot better than the rather weak effort with Imperial Assault.

FFG views RPGs as a platform to sell cards and proprietary dice so, if you expect anything at all, expect that the coming L5R RPG will be designed with that kind of product development in mind.

Blerg. Sounds pretty bleak when you put it that way. Speaking purely personally, cards-and-special-dice RPGs have never yet resonated with me.

Well, if that's how it falls out, we'll always have Paris 4th Ed. But I also wouldn't be surprised if FFG now has the rights to R&K, since AEG is pretty clearly getting out of the RPG game (the fact their 7th Sea forums were put into limbo at the same time as the L5R ones also suggests this to me, though that may be reading the tealeaves a little too intensely). And if they do, I would be surprised if they don't use R&K in some form, for something--it's a mature and pretty well-regarded system, especially after the critical success of L5R 4E.

Also, looking at it from another angle, if the RPG continues, as it's always been, to be essentially an afterthought to the card game, FFG may prefer to tweak an existing and basically functional set of mechanics rather than invest in designing and playtesting a whole new one from the ground up. Yes, that's what they did with Star Wars, but A) the last version of that RPG had been based on D20, and they probably preferred to have their new version run on a system they could copyright themselves; and B) it's Star Wars, which is basically a license to print your own money (certainly compared to L5R).

Anyhow, all purest speculation at this point since, as others have pointed out, if we don't see the card game before mid-2017 we'll doubtless have to wait even longer to see what they do with the RPG.

As far as board games go, I can't tell you how many times I have looked at my copy of "Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan" and wished FFG had designed and produced it. Suffice it to say that the L5R IP is a natural fit for cloning Descent, as per Imperial Assault. I hope, also as per Imperial Assault, this will entail some kind of miniatures game crossover (new version of Clan War) -- although I hope this turns out a lot better than the rather weak effort with Imperial Assault.

I hope they do new board games for L5R rather than reskins, especially over something that's already on the market in a more popular license.

But I rather suspect I'll be disappointed, at least at first.

I honestly doubt L5R products will be simple reskins of current games. With their Star Wars lines, FFG redeveloped existing designs (Wings of War, WFRP 3E, Descent). And of course, the Star Wars LCG is not just a reskin of the Call of Cthulhu LCG. And keep in mind, we're talking about developing games for a licensed property with all of the approvals back-and-forth that entails. How much more creative will FFG be with a property they themselves own? Time will tell, but I suspect management will foster more rather than less innovation.

BUT it is unrealistic to expect FFG to continue with 4E or even carry over (a substantially similar version of) roll-and-keep. I think the Star Wars RPGs are a pretty good indication that FFG views RPGs as a platform to sell cards and proprietary dice so, if you expect anything at all, expect that the coming L5R RPG will be designed with that kind of product development in mind.

I have been completely unimpressed by the FFG Star Wars RPG products as far as mechanics go, and any RPG that requires special cards and dice is immediately off my purchase list.

When I pick up a book and go through the character creation section, and it's full of "career paths" and "progression trees" and all sorts of pidgeon holes and straight jackets... well, that's not for me.

But ... L5R does exactly that. If you are a Shiba Bushi, you have exactly the same techniques as every other Shiba Bushi in the universe. You have no options whatsoever as you progress in your "career path," unless you switch to a different school/path. The L5R "progression tree" is a stick.

The cards aren't required for the the Star Wars RPG any more than they are for L5R 4E Either. FFG sells them separately if you want them. AEG packaged them as part of a boxed set. There are more cards for the Star Wars RPG, but that's because (as noted above) you have many more options in your "progression tree." I've personally never felt any inclination to buy them.

The dice, on the other hand, are required (and realistically two sets of them).

The dice, on the other hand, are required (and realistically two sets of them).

Ah yes I remember the time Edge of Empire just came out.

He ordered a book which came with a set of dice and ordered an extra set of dice...

He waited ages for the second set to finally arrive.

But ... L5R does exactly that. If you are a Shiba Bushi, you have exactly the same techniques as every other Shiba Bushi in the universe. You have no options whatsoever as you progress in your "career path," unless you switch to a different school/path. The L5R "progression tree" is a stick.

I think I've mentioned "a few" times that I'd like a much more flexible system than L5R 4th...

Roughly, I'd prefer it if Techniques worked more like Kata and Kiho, just things you spend XP on that have some requirements, and are cheaper for some Clans, Families, Schools, or whatver, as fitting. I'd ditch School Rank and Insight Rank from all the system mechanics entirely.

With the way star wars is put together I would expect to see some adventure books coming out in one form or another.

Question answered! Its official, I am jumping up and down like its Christmas. I mean, the only thing that would be better is if they also bought intellectual rights to 7th sea as well!!!

I don't feel like they answered the question at all. It was a non-answer. What does "engaging" mean in that instance? It could mean they use the info from the RPG for their fluff text on the cards.

Sure, the "done thing" in RPGs these days is something developed by Paizo in Dungeon Magazine that grew into Pathfinder. It's called an adventure path. These are not traditional modules in the sense of being room-by-room dungeon crawls. They are more like campaigns plotted at a relatively high level. In contrast to Paizo's multi-volume subscription-based approach, the now-standard adventure path product is generally a single hardcover book that covers a story arc (with a beginning, middle, and end). This type of product has been adopted by WotC for D&D and FFG for its Star Wars RPGs. Unless FFG moves to a radically different mechanical basis for its L5R RPG (for example, something that focuses more on miniatures and tiles), I would guess they will also publish L5R adventure paths. This kind of material was sorely missing from the L5R 4E product line, IMO.

But ... L5R does exactly that. If you are a Shiba Bushi, you have exactly the same techniques as every other Shiba Bushi in the universe. You have no options whatsoever as you progress in your "career path," unless you switch to a different school/path. The L5R "progression tree" is a stick.

I think I've mentioned "a few" times that I'd like a much more flexible system than L5R 4th...

Roughly, I'd prefer it if Techniques worked more like Kata and Kiho, just things you spend XP on that have some requirements, and are cheaper for some Clans, Families, Schools, or whatver, as fitting. I'd ditch School Rank and Insight Rank from all the system mechanics entirely.

But...that's pretty much talents from Star Wars RPG. You have like 5 tiers of special abilities, and as long as you can connect to ability from any side - down, left, right, up, as long as there is a chain - you can buy it. You can have up to 3 careers (talent packages) accessible at once, and if for whatever reason you don't want one of them anymore, you can free up the slot. As for dice - you can play without them. I think there is a "quick and dirty" solution for this in the book itself - just grab d8/d6/d12/etc, write down what numbers are used for what type of result (so 1 2 3 are successes, 4 5 6 are advantages, etc), and consult it when rolling (it might sound annoying, but honestly, it's less annoying than adding up 8 dice and calculating the total).

But ... L5R does exactly that. If you are a Shiba Bushi, you have exactly the same techniques as every other Shiba Bushi in the universe. You have no options whatsoever as you progress in your "career path," unless you switch to a different school/path. The L5R "progression tree" is a stick.

I think I've mentioned "a few" times that I'd like a much more flexible system than L5R 4th...

Roughly, I'd prefer it if Techniques worked more like Kata and Kiho, just things you spend XP on that have some requirements, and are cheaper for some Clans, Families, Schools, or whatver, as fitting. I'd ditch School Rank and Insight Rank from all the system mechanics entirely.

But...that's pretty much talents from Star Wars RPG. You have like 5 tiers of special abilities, and as long as you can connect to ability from any side - down, left, right, up, as long as there is a chain - you can buy it. You can have up to 3 careers (talent packages) accessible at once, and if for whatever reason you don't want one of them anymore, you can free up the slot. As for dice - you can play without them. I think there is a "quick and dirty" solution for this in the book itself - just grab d8/d6/d12/etc, write down what numbers are used for what type of result (so 1 2 3 are successes, 4 5 6 are advantages, etc), and consult it when rolling (it might sound annoying, but honestly, it's less annoying than adding up 8 dice and calculating the total).

It still has the packages and the trees, chains and tiers... just not a fan of that approach. Unless the "Technique" (Talent, Feat, whatever) mechanically needs another in order to function, or just plain needs it make any sense, I don't see any reason things to be boxed up like that.

As for the dice... eh. That works, if you're OK with their odd, odd dice system. Sorry, I didn't intend to move the goalposts there, I should have said that I don't care for the system regardless of the need to buy the dice.

I actually prefer tree to no tree, because otherwise, people would skip directly to Killing Technique of Killingness. Remember your basics, and all that. Kind of like how in higher education, you first need to cover basic topics before advancing to advanced ones. First learn to count, then learn to add, then learn to multiply, and then write computer programs, or something.

Having trees allows you to present abilities in easily readable fashion. For a newcomer player, having 10000 abilities they can access all at once is not very fun or good; having too much options is about as bad as not having them at all. It's easier to wrap your head about "I want to be mercenary specializing in guns, so I'll take Hired Gun tree", and don't care about Politico or Technican trees. After you are comfortable with your chosen tree, you can reach into other trees at your leisure; still, existence of easily presentable ability trees helps learning curve immensely.

They also help balance abilities and control when they are unlocked; putting ability further in the tree makes sure that it takes some time and xp to get there, and makes some combinations that would be devastating in early game unlockable much later, when they are not as disruptive. And it prevents cherry picking .

In L5R, you totally could use Clans as Backgrounds, and use Bushi/Courtier/Clan Specialist as 3 basic Career Paths. This basically would allow you to start as a Bushi, pick abilities that you find interesting, and later go into courtier to round yourself off. To be fair, some kind of chain progression also fits the genre, because eastern teaching philosophy is all about cultivating your basics and going from one lesson into another, and understanding that all is one in the end.

BTW, Ability Trees should TOTALLY be represented by Martial Arts Scrolls.

Really, I'd rather see things balanced purely by cost.

Points cost is not really a great balancing mechanic because how much points an option costs inevitably becomes a feature of the option rather than the liquid value of the option. A weaker but cheaper option can be better overall than a stronger but more expensive one.

Really, I'd rather see things balanced purely by cost.

Prerequisites are opportunity costs.

If you want an ability that costs 5 and requires another ability that costs 3, what you're looking at is, in a sense, an overall ability that includes both "smaller" abilities and costs 8. You might be paying, overall, a *slightly* increased cost for the option to get the smaller ability sooner, but negligible.

I'd rather get a little something on the way to saving that 8 (so here, the smaller ability at 3).

Obviously, saving 8 XP is probably not a big deal, but what happens when you get to end of tree abilities with several prerequisites? Here, especially, I'd rather be able to mark milestones on the way to saving for the big ability by gaining some less powerful abilities as prerequisites, rather than saving a huge amount of XP to buy a single ability (which is what would be required to balance end-of-tree level abilities without prerequisites).

I have to agree that I find talent trees very well suited for L5R and its concepts of schools. As to the concept of something being absolutely neccissary, that does not bother me because from a character perspective the player does not determine what one learns but ones sensei does. As a teacher I have found the learners often do not understant the complexities of how things interconnect. Also these are abstract mechanics so claiming that you can tell if they are absolutely required is meangingless as you will never have enough infor to determine that.

Edit: Also, one of the bigest weeknsesses in my opinion with L5R is that techniques did not have costs. It helped unbalance schools.

I have to agree that I find talent trees very well suited for L5R and its concepts of schools. As to the concept of something being absolutely neccissary, that does not bother me because from a character perspective the player does not determine what one learns but ones sensei does. As a teacher I have found the learners often do not understant the complexities of how things interconnect. Also these are abstract mechanics so claiming that you can tell if they are absolutely required is meangingless as you will never have enough infor to determine that.

Edit: Also, one of the bigest weeknsesses in my opinion with L5R is that techniques did not have costs. It helped unbalance schools.

How can one not have enough info to tell if a certain Technique (or talent or feat or whatever) mechanically requires another in order to function?