The only problem I have with the Heritage Tables is that they are not balanced.

Give me some balanced, in depth Heritage Tables? Then I will gladly allow them in any game I run. The 4th Edition Heritage Tables were better than the 1st Edition ones, but there was still a long way to go on them.

^ Agreed. Ancestors were the same. More balance would be absolutely necessary. Also, if they are balanced out, I say throw in 1 free Heritage Table roll for every PC. Gives some easy background info and some other bennies or penalties that can add flavor to the characters.

4th Ed. Standards for Courtiers- Prior to 4e, people tended to ignore courtiers in game. Whenever they'd try their social machinations, folks would try to work around them, or simply ignore them, stating that 'courtier is not mind control'. In 4th Ed, AEG apparently got sick of this and gave courtiers techniques that allow them to socially manipulate people into specific actions. That definitely needs to stick around. It puts courtiers on par with bushi and shugenja. It also keeps people from just dancing around them as if they do not matter.

Some of the "it's not really mind-control magic, honest" Techniques for Courtiers are probably the FIRST thing I'd drop.

The problem becomes how to get players to respect the abilities of courtiers without employing such techniques. Otherwise, if they know OOCly that the courtier is just trying to make them angry, they can choose to have their character not get angry. If they know the courtier is trying to trick them into slandering someone, they won't do it. The list goes on and on.

Courtiers -should- be able to manipulate people into social stances, actions in social situations, etc. That's entirely what they do. It's not mind control to be able to push someone into losing their temper, becoming your friend, or that your trade deal really is better than the other guy's. It's manipulation.

At one point, I stood on the opposite side of this argument. However, after playing a courtier in numerous pbp games and watching how players simply dug for justification to ignore social rolls (He SOUNDS sincere. That doesn't mean I believe him. When I'm intimidated THIS is how I respond. Just because he told that lie well doesn't mean I believe it.), I was very glad to see 4th Ed. add mechanics that allowed for social manipulation.

As an aside, they also allowed inexperienced players to get their feet wet playing courtiers, without getting their backsides handed to them. Mistakes could certainly still be made, but these techs gave people an excellent way to supplement their courtier roleplaying with roll-playing.

The problem becomes how to get players to respect the abilities of courtiers without employing such techniques. Otherwise, if they know OOCly that the courtier is just trying to make them angry, they can choose to have their character not get angry. If they know the courtier is trying to trick them into slandering someone, they won't do it. The list goes on and on.

Courtiers -should- be able to manipulate people into social stances, actions in social situations, etc. That's entirely what they do. It's not mind control to be able to push someone into losing their temper, becoming your friend, or that your trade deal really is better than the other guy's. It's manipulation.

At one point, I stood on the opposite side of this argument. However, after playing a courtier in numerous pbp games and watching how players simply dug for justification to ignore social rolls (He SOUNDS sincere. That doesn't mean I believe him. When I'm intimidated THIS is how I respond. Just because he told that lie well doesn't mean I believe it.), I was very glad to see 4th Ed. add mechanics that allowed for social manipulation.

As an aside, they also allowed inexperienced players to get their feet wet playing courtiers, without getting their backsides handed to them. Mistakes could certainly still be made, but these techs gave people an excellent way to supplement their courtier roleplaying with roll-playing.

I get your point.

The other possible balancing point, then, for me, would be for there to be a blanket section on how Courtier Techniques interact with "the world", aren't magical mind control or word illusions, etc (and that IS how some of them read). Oddly, like Shugenja spells, the defenses against them and complications in using them are woefully under-explored in the RPG books.

* They're modified by the circumstances -- making a character believe their spouse is having an affair is harder if they have a good relationship and easier if they have a bad relationship, "forcing" a more honorable character to do something despicable is harder, etc -- especially if there are Advantages/Disadvantages involved.

* Can't make a character believe something that they KNOW isn't true -- "What are you going to believe, your own eyes, or me?" doesn't work.

* Failure carries consequences, including the target realizing what you've tried to do, and being most unhappy about it.

* Can't make up something out of nothing -- if your Technique reveals embarrassing secrets about the target, and they have no embarrassing secrets, well, then too bad, no roll you make will ever reveal what doesn't exist.

Edit -- I realize that these are things that a good GM might take into consideration on their own... but too many gamers will read a book that doesn't say these things, and then feel "slighted" when the GM says "Sorry, your Courtier Technique can't undo multiple Advantages and Disadvantages to make that character believe something he can plainly see is not true".

Essence of Air. Air Kami's Blessing.

Another problem of 4th Edition magic was that it offered zero counterplay. If Shugenja wanted spell to go off, it went off, and you had literally zero way aside of killing him before he completed it, to do anything about it. And in case of spells that were shortened to 1 round casting, you didn't even had this much to say. Combine that with spells having powerful, combat warping effects tackled on them, and unavoidable damage that was on par or better than Bushi's attacks. You didn't need "Broken" Shugenja or "munchkin" Shugenja to leave rest of the party behind - you simply needed Shugenja who casted his spells when they were naturally useful.

Pretty much only thing that could help you against Shugenjas was stealth and line of sight breaking, but good luck doing that without grid and things to break the LoS with .

These flaws probably came from the basic assumption that spells should be powerful than anything else, because they are limited resource per day, and other characters can do their things infinite times. Which is a terrible assumption, because you had so many spell slots available, and usually needed only one spell to decide the encounter, that you would run out of the steam only if

a) your GM was GMing some kind of Dungeon Crawl Gauntlet Of Battles, or other kind of attrition game

b) your GM forced artificial ways to expend your spell slots ("you cannot bless these crops without using up 3 water spell slots!")

c) your Shugenja was using his spells on right and left

Starting character has at least 10 spell slots. This only get bigger as the game progresses. Using "but you only can cast 10 Nukes per day!" as a argument to making Nukes super-powerful is bad design, imho.

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You wanna talk insane.

I had a siege going on in my game, and the Isawa Fire Tensai decided to take the entire western flank by herself.

Fun fact, with a Fire Ring of 8, a "Rise, Fire" spell, combined with the Inferno Guard Path? Cue an invulnerable juggernaut of a Fire Spirit with a Fear Rating of 8 and a 8k8 to everything. She then fortified it with a Fire Shield and Bob's yer uncle.

That thing soloed Legions. No samurai or ashigaru could deal with a Fear 8, and there was only a handful of enemies able to do this, and those guys had plenty to worry about with the other characters charging their lines. Fire Gojira waltzed through the armies of the Shogun like a scythe through grain.

For a samurai fantasy game, that really blew my mind.

Given a Fire Ring of 8, I see absolutelly zero problems with the scene you described. But yes, I get your point and agree.

Given a Fire Ring of 8, I see absolutelly zero problems with the scene you described. But yes, I get your point and agree.

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Fire Ring 8 is not *that* hard for a focused Shugenja. I knew they were powerful. Just, imagine that the Phoenix has the Elemental Guard that needs a ring of 6 just to enter.

With this insanity, I'm amazed the Phoenix has been showed around like they have. Cards are to blame, I know. But still.

There's a need for a certain devaluation of the power of RPG characters, to align them with the fiction. I'm not saying we shouldn't get the power we're talkin about, only that it should be... more exclusive and not feel like you're the run of the mill IR5 samurai, which, when you look at the techniques and people fielded in fiction, was pretty much the case.

All I'm looking for is not a reduction of magic. It has it's place in the setting. But make it more than just fire and forget, where you just toss the fire kami around like crazy.

Even Isawa always knew that his craft was based on spirits, well, after he stopped using blood magic ofc.

An idea I've been toying with could be the use of the Mastery 0 spells as innate abilites for Shugies, making them able to commune and sense the spirits around them, without just tossing out what is often a valuable resource.

And this was why Unicorn bushi and Matsu Berserkers were effective in games that kept track of such things. Unicorn fought from horseback (meaning greater movement), and Matsu Berserkers just dropped into Full Attack, and start with a Strength of 4, so usually have a Water of 3 or 4 out of the gate.

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Well. Unicorns also had Utaku Mounted Infantry, which is one crappy school besides this, but with Swift 2, they pretty much controls any battlefield, to a degree that my player was considering to take up the Usagi Bushi school just to make it even more ridiculous.

R&K is something I hope they keep in future editions, although I too believe its 4th Ed. version could use a clean-up - perhaps with some things returned to the past, as some mechanics were needlessly watered down (IMHO). It's also a pretty balanced dice-system: the more dice you roll, the better your chances of succeeding. The more dice you keep, these chances increase even more.

Shugenja are something that... yeah, needs a look. The tac-nuke option should be present, yes, but it should be something with a cost (like, say, the shugie gets KO'd after channeling the kami in such a violent way, or something like that).

As for courtiers... I'm all for them keeping their techniques, for the reasons Natsumi mentioned and one more: you never see someone argue that "it doesn't matter how well you rolled your Kenjutsu, my character just dodges cause (s)he is really good at it". So..... there shouldn't be any reason for people to do so on mental/social challenges.

R&K is something I hope they keep in future editions, although I too believe its 4th Ed. version could use a clean-up - perhaps with some things returned to the past, as some mechanics were needlessly watered down (IMHO). It's also a pretty balanced dice-system: the more dice you roll, the better your chances of succeeding. The more dice you keep, these chances increase even more.

Shugenja are something that... yeah, needs a look. The tac-nuke option should be present, yes, but it should be something with a cost (like, say, the shugie gets KO'd after channeling the kami in such a violent way, or something like that).

As for courtiers... I'm all for them keeping their techniques, for the reasons Natsumi mentioned and one more: you never see someone argue that "it doesn't matter how well you rolled your Kenjutsu, my character just dodges cause (s)he is really good at it". So..... there shouldn't be any reason for people to do so on mental/social challenges.

At least as I'm seeing it, the complications and modifiers caused by trying to hit someone while doing a handstand or standing on loose rocks are made far more clear and blatant than the complications and modifiers for the social equivalent when using Courtier Techniques or social rolls.

Lots of typos and mistakes to fix tonight, it seems.

Shugenja can be awesome, you simply need to

1. Go away with spell slot system which isn't fitting modern RPG at all, and it definitely isn't fitting rest of this game

2. Write spells smartly; there is a lot of smartly written spells. And if a problem spell like Touch of Nothingness pop up, fix them.

3. Open up options of wuxia awesome to the other archetypes, too. Bushi and Courtiers should not be left behind simply because one prefers swords and another prefer words.

Shugenja can be awesome, you simply need to

1. Go away with spell slot system which isn't fitting modern RPG at all, and it definitely isn't fitting rest of this game

2. Write spells smartly; there is a lot of smartly written spells. And if a problem spell like Touch of Nothingness pop up, fix them.

3. Open up options of wuxia awesome to the other archetypes, too. Bushi and Courtiers should not be left behind simply because one prefers swords and another prefer words.

I can understand 1 and 2, but you lost me on 3. Explain, please?

R&K is something I hope they keep in future editions, although I too believe its 4th Ed. version could use a clean-up - perhaps with some things returned to the past, as some mechanics were needlessly watered down (IMHO). It's also a pretty balanced dice-system: the more dice you roll, the better your chances of succeeding. The more dice you keep, these chances increase even more.

Shugenja are something that... yeah, needs a look. The tac-nuke option should be present, yes, but it should be something with a cost (like, say, the shugie gets KO'd after channeling the kami in such a violent way, or something like that).

As for courtiers... I'm all for them keeping their techniques, for the reasons Natsumi mentioned and one more: you never see someone argue that "it doesn't matter how well you rolled your Kenjutsu, my character just dodges cause (s)he is really good at it". So..... there shouldn't be any reason for people to do so on mental/social challenges.

At least as I'm seeing it, the complications and modifiers caused by trying to hit someone while doing a handstand or standing on loose rocks are made far more clear and blatant than the complications and modifiers for the social equivalent when using Courtier Techniques or social rolls.

Lots of typos and mistakes to fix tonight, it seems.

I'd say that that is because, as there are countless variables in social situations (and is nigh impossible to account for them all), such task is left to the GM. It's his judgement on the particular situation that defines the proper bonus/penalties to apply to a Social Contested Roll.

If your Rank 4/5 Shugenjas are learning how to cause Earthquakes, change landscapes, edit memories, and cause giant lasers to obliterate armies, characters of equivalent rank should get stuff that also reaches similar proportions. It's silly that when Shugenja are learning how to obliterate armies, your Bushi get's awesome secret of "when people hit me, my next attack against them has +2k0 bonus" and your Courtier gets "If they disagree with me and I succeed on my stuff, they will lose 5 points of Honor!"

Eastern fantasy is full of awesome martial characters whose abilities go beyond human, while still being reliant on their martial discipline and training, without help of magic. There is no reason to not-enable them while enabling Orbital-Lasering Shugenjas "because they wield magic".

R&K is something I hope they keep in future editions, although I too believe its 4th Ed. version could use a clean-up - perhaps with some things returned to the past, as some mechanics were needlessly watered down (IMHO). It's also a pretty balanced dice-system: the more dice you roll, the better your chances of succeeding. The more dice you keep, these chances increase even more.

Shugenja are something that... yeah, needs a look. The tac-nuke option should be present, yes, but it should be something with a cost (like, say, the shugie gets KO'd after channeling the kami in such a violent way, or something like that).

As for courtiers... I'm all for them keeping their techniques, for the reasons Natsumi mentioned and one more: you never see someone argue that "it doesn't matter how well you rolled your Kenjutsu, my character just dodges cause (s)he is really good at it". So..... there shouldn't be any reason for people to do so on mental/social challenges.

At least as I'm seeing it, the complications and modifiers caused by trying to hit someone while doing a handstand or standing on loose rocks are made far more clear and blatant than the complications and modifiers for the social equivalent when using Courtier Techniques or social rolls.

Lots of typos and mistakes to fix tonight, it seems.

I'd say that that is because, as there are countless variables in social situations (and is nigh impossible to account for them all), such task is left to the GM. It's his judgement on the particular situation that defines the proper bonus/penalties to apply to a Social Contested Roll.

You have a point -- but at the very least they could make the fact that those bonuses/penalties/etc should happen more direct, and give some guidelines.

Why should they? Should I get more ATN because I can say that I'm totally best dodge guy and my master was the dodgest of the dodge? Honestly, it feels like core issue here is irrational fear of losing control of your character.

As a general guideline, when character's core values are questioned, add Honor to their roll. If there is a circumstance making given situation harder than usual, person trying to influence another should declare some Raises towards that.

Why should they? Should I get more ATN because I can say that I'm totally best dodge guy and my master was the dodgest of the dodge? Honestly, it feels like core issue here is irrational fear of losing control of your character.

Try reading for context before you resort to ad hominem directed at people whose discussion you haven't managed to follow.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/188067-what-about-the-rpg-license/?p=1805187

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/188067-what-about-the-rpg-license/?p=1805893

Why is it that combat has a clearly defined set of guidelines for penalties and bonuses both ways, but there's hardly anything of the sort of "courtier"/social rolls, or for magic? And no, that's nothing to do with any nonsense about "the dodgy of the dodgiest". The only thing dodgy around here is that strawman.

I've gotta go with the folks that talked about the GM arbitrating the modifiers in social situations. Trying to turn someone against their spouse, sensei, etc? Higher TN (Or the target receiving bonuses on the contested roll). Same goes for trying to incite an action that isn't in line with the target's personality.

At the end of the day, there are simply too many variables to consider in social situations. You lay the framework for what can be done and allow GMs to adjust it accordingly based on the circumstances. Courtiers need to be able to manipulate people socially. That's a given. The current techniques offer a wide variety of ways to do that. If sensible modifiers are applied in odd situations, said techniques can also cover things like trying to turn friends against one another. More importantly, the current techniques cover how to manipulate someone in the ways that players are likely to try to worm their way around.

As for making people believe things they -know- aren't true- That's where common sense applies. So you've made a roll to show you're sincere in your belief that the sky is orange? All you've managed to do is prove you're a fool that believes things that clearly aren't true.

I've gotta go with the folks that talked about the GM arbitrating the modifiers in social situations. Trying to turn someone against their spouse, sensei, etc? Higher TN (Or the target receiving bonuses on the contested roll). Same goes for trying to incite an action that isn't in line with the target's personality.

At the end of the day, there are simply too many variables to consider in social situations. You lay the framework for what can be done and allow GMs to adjust it accordingly based on the circumstances. Courtiers need to be able to manipulate people socially. That's a given. The current techniques offer a wide variety of ways to do that. If sensible modifiers are applied in odd situations, said techniques can also cover things like trying to turn friends against one another. More importantly, the current techniques cover how to manipulate someone in the ways that players are likely to try to worm their way around.

As for making people believe things they -know- aren't true- That's where common sense applies. So you've made a roll to show you're sincere in your belief that the sky is orange? All you've managed to do is prove you're a fool that believes things that clearly aren't true.

Right -- I wouldn't ask for a multi-page breakdown of every possible social-interaction modifier, any more than we have that for combat. Just something for the GM to go on and something to point players to so they have a fair framework / expectation.

There are no clearly definied rules to apply penalties for fighting. There are no rules about how to fight mid air, how to penalize attack roll made on slippery rocks, or attack while making a headstand. No rules to make jumping strike or attack usning your non-dominant hand. Closest thing to these would be rules for being Knocked-Down, and penalties from Wounds, which apply to everything, not only combat.

Most of things in this game are supposed to be done using Raises. If your gamemaster considers making an attack while standing on one attack worth one raise, that's the deal. If she considers it worth 3 Raises, that's the deal. Maybe 5 Raises mean that you are making a Windcutter anime type projectile attack with your sword. Or maybe that's 7 Raises.

Point of the Raises system is that it's extremely flexible - making that guardsman let you into the building might be harder if he saw you running naked last night, yelling "praise Fu-Leng", demanding 4 extra Raises to otherwise easy check (take note that this way, even if you are trying to fool literally a Rank 1 samurai with 3k2 defence roll, if you can't declare enough Raises, you can't do it - which is an elegant solution to a problem of "this thing is ridiculous, but he keeps 4 times more dice than him, so he has no chance of beating this Sky Is Orange roll"). On the other hand, if you helped that guardsman gain favor of his beloved guardsmate, you may receive Free Raise on this check.

Sure, you could include a big spreadsheet of "happy marriage forces 2 additional Raises on Temptation Seduction rolls", and "being from Clan which is at war with your conversation partner forces 1 Raise to appear friendly and overpower the adversity", and someone would probably find it useful.

Usually, though, you can gauge it with your GM on fly, because sometimes being from hated Clan might be worth +1 Raise, and sometimes it might be worth +4 Raises.

At the end of the day, there are simply too many variables to consider in social situations.

I don't believe there are, tbh. Legends of the Wulin manages to make social combat a viable part of the game, modifiers are easily thought out without using pages of examples, and social / physical combat are (with the right stuff) interchangeable. That's something I'd like to see L5R manage.

If your Rank 4/5 Shugenjas are learning how to cause Earthquakes, change landscapes, edit memories, and cause giant lasers to obliterate armies, characters of equivalent rank should get stuff that also reaches similar proportions. It's silly that when Shugenja are learning how to obliterate armies, your Bushi get's awesome secret of "when people hit me, my next attack against them has +2k0 bonus" and your Courtier gets "If they disagree with me and I succeed on my stuff, they will lose 5 points of Honor!"

Eastern fantasy is full of awesome martial characters whose abilities go beyond human, while still being reliant on their martial discipline and training, without help of magic. There is no reason to not-enable them while enabling Orbital-Lasering Shugenjas "because they wield magic".

Got it. That would work, though personally I'm more of a fan of bringing down the power-level a bit, rather than rising everyone to the same silly levels. Otherwise it'd be a superhero game, not a samurai game

This is not only a Samurai game. It is a Fantasy Samurai game which means lager than life characters are totaly ok and wanted. I thin it would be a good Idea to raise the courtier and Bushi to the Shugenja level but I also want to find a solution for the Courtier proble.

I had so many times where people said yes your roll was better than mine but I don´t buy into your argument cause it is no mindcontrol. Therefore what I want is finaly a clear mechnic thats allows social rolls to be with as much consequence as combat rolls. It is really time that I don´t have to fear that people just ignore the rolls and arguments when I play in a non private game cause this is highly anyoing and sometimes the techniques even don´t help. Given that I don´t want someone to get good in a social game only cause he has the best dice pool I would go for a different route.

Actually I see it as a good Idea to spilt it into 2 parts 1 part is the roll and the other the argument. So that the players can get bonus points for compelling or good formulated arguments and beat one with a bad one but a good roll.

Therefore I think while I like the powerlevel some adjustments are needed to make the game even better than it is now and I hope that these changes will not be nerves.

I want a combat system that goes down way simpler, to the point that "social combat" uses the same system with different stats to create the numbers. (Also, I want a defined social combat system).

A samurai game wants simplicity that is both elegant and stark. Making the go-big-or-go-home system of Raises more central to combat would, I think, be a very good thing. I am fighting someone. I, as a player, should not be tracking how far away he is or how fast he moves or the terrain conditions; the question I should be asking myself is more like "How much danger am I willing to expose myself to in order to hurt this person? How confident am I that he will screw up before I do?"

If they made a conflict system that felt like duels were supposed to feel (whether or nto the current system actually did this) -- feeling out your opponent, steeling your resolve, looking for the nearly imperceptible opening and then making a swift decisive strike -- and then applied it to every form of conflict, that would be thematic as all hell. In one-on-one non-formalized combat, we won't be trading stabs, we're feinting and parrying and evading until someone gets a decisive strike that ends it. A system that says "You have, like 6 health boxes. When the first five are marked off, you haven't actually been hit, but you're getting closer. When the last box is marked off, you are hit and are now bleeding to death." would be great for this.

An RPG should not play significantly differently than it reads.

Also this, like a million times.

I'm sorry, but until you actually play, you don't really manage to understand the game. Certain things only become obvious and/or make sense once you're actually rolling dice, in an actual situation thought by your GM, with an opponent (PC or NPC) trying to counter your efforts.

I'm sorry, but until you actually play, you don't really manage to understand the game. Certain things only become obvious and/or make sense once you're actually rolling dice, in an actual situation thought by your GM, with an opponent (PC or NPC) trying to counter your efforts.

The reality of the games market is that more people will read RPGs than play them. If you have a game that does not read fun but plays fun, it will be far less successful than one that reads fun, because people won't want to try it.