Kinzen, I agree, my phrasing may have been poorly chosen, sorry about that. Also, total Togashi Dynasty fanboy.

No need to apologize; I just figured it was worth noting that people may have read something different out of your comment than you intended. And thanks!

Ok, I know I'm going to come off as a bit pedantic and mother-hen, not to mention just a touch hypocritical considering how I used to lay into people on the rules boards, but I think that it would be in all of our best interests if we remain civil and polite to each other in our discussions of rule mechanics and RPG forum topics. I know the passions run deep, but considering the originating topic, let us remember that, should we desire an actual forum to appear at some point here, specific to the RPG, then our conduct should be appropriate to it.

It's clear from the board's mechanics that this forum is run as a tight ship, much like AEG's boards were, only moreso. So, let's keep things civil when discussing the RPG, please.

It's clear from the board's mechanics that this forum is run as a tight ship, much like AEG's boards were, only moreso. So, let's keep things civil when discussing the RPG, please.

Wait what ? Sorry but the AEG forum was one big mess. There was nothing like politeness or good management there just some people who tried to enforce their point of view on others and when you dared to crite them or try to bring up arguments

related to the matter but not in line with their understanding guess what you got banned. Sorry but this comparrison is so off it hurts and I hope FFG will never have so bad moderators than the one we had at the AEG forum.

It's clear from the board's mechanics that this forum is run as a tight ship, much like AEG's boards were, only moreso. So, let's keep things civil when discussing the RPG, please.

Wait what ? Sorry but the AEG forum was one big mess. There was nothing like politeness or good management there just some people who tried to enforce their point of view on others and when you dared to crite them or try to bring up arguments

related to the matter but not in line with their understanding guess what you got banned. Sorry but this comparrison is so off it hurts and I hope FFG will never have so bad moderators than the one we had at the AEG forum.

I won't say the AEG mods were without their flaws, but compared to many of the forums I've seen elsewhere on the Internet, AEG's were a model of civil discourse. I would never have gotten so involved with them if they weren't so well-moderated: users might disagree strongly, but it didn't descend into swearing and flaming; mods issued a series of warnings before banning people (and I don't recall seeing a single actual ban in the years I was active, not on the RPG and setting boards); conversations were largely on topic and reasonably filled with content. I felt they misstepped most when it came to civil criticism of the DT and ST . . . but you know, given a choice between an overly protectionist approach on behalf of the employees, and the "rabid hyenas tearing one another apart" mood of (say) Bioware's old user community, I will take the former any day.

AEG's forums were pretty good in the time I was there. There were a couple of times that the mods seemed to care mostly about a veneer of civility, allowing some pretty intellectually dishonest behavior and veiled personal commentary to go on, while coming down hard on anyone who wasn't able or willing to play that sort of courtly game.

Huh... I never thought about it quite like that before... it's almost appropriate. Heh.

(On the topic of Bioware, the SWTOR forums are in fact a pit of "rabid hyenas tearing one another apart", largely because the mods act just like the droids they portray themselves as, allowing massive amounts of trolling, flaming, griefing, and general toxicity... and then auto-infracting any post that gets reported, regardless of context or nuance...)

From my experience, the FFG forums and the forums on CardGameDB (which they also own) are typically very polite and civil. So much so that I was actually shocked by what I saw on AEG's forums.

One point that has not been discussed is that the FFG RPG system allows for multivalued results. Success/failure is only one axis of the result, you also have advantage/threat (in which I would include triumph and failure).

The Star Wars dice are set up to shade toward success with threat and failure with advantage. I characterize these as "Yes, but" and "No, but" results. However you could set the dice up to shade toward success with advantage and failure with threat, which I characterize as "Yes, and" and "No, and" results. Not sure which would be better for L5R, but it bears thinking.

You cannot mechanically do that with R&K.

Other people have already mentioned how the Raise mechanic allows some of this, and how it is actually rather easy to achieve other effects with simple house rules that exploit the R&K system itself in ways not used by its 'official' implementation.

So I'll go for a minor nitpick and comment on some specific, official (or at least once official) rules that work a bit like some of the other effects mentioned:

1) Skimming at the 4e book now I cannot find this rule (which I actually kept during 4th edition games), but at least in 3e there was a rule that any roll in which 2 or more dice explode allows recovery of 1 Void Point. This in itself may act as both a "Success, and" and more rarely a "Failure, but" mechanic, so there was at least this one around

2) The optional rule for 'misfires' when using firearms (misfire if at least one "1" is rolled on a failed roll, explosion if 3 or more "1s" on a failed roll) is a clear case of "Failure, and" - even if a very specific one, limited to something used in few games. Similar ideas could be easily created, of course, although that once again enters the homebrew arena.

3) The "breaking" rule for Parangu and Kumade and I think a few other weapons (weapon breaks if it inflicts over X Wounds in a single blow, where X is different depending on the weapon) is a clear case of "Success, but", which is also quite limited as presented, but could easily be adapted for other uses.

EDIT: It just dawned on me that this one is also one clear example of how the "control" aspect of R&K may be interesting and challenging - depending on your roll, if using a "breakable" weapon you may be thrown into a situation where you must choose between dealing more damage with your successful blow but losing your weapon and dealing less damage but ensuring you can keep fighting. Of course I don't remember many situations in which people would be left with nothing but a Parangu in their hands, but it might happen, and as mentioned a similar rule might be exploited for other interesting effects.

Of course these examples do not completely negate your point that R&K, especially in its 'canon' version, does not have many options or lay great importance on "success/failure, but/and" situations, but I tend to think they do show there is some of this in the canon version, and imho this clearly shows there are options to implement these situations in a game with relatively simple changes.

And for what it's worth - yeah, numbers are clearer than symbols for most people... perhaps unless the symbols in question were simple "something" vs "nothing" symbols. I'm now relatively curious about the SW system though. I wonder how it would translate to 'normal' dice - and I'm guessing it would be much more complicated than most systems, which is probably why it needs different symbols on the dice to begin with.

I wonder how it would translate to 'normal' dice - and I'm guessing it would be much more complicated than most systems, which is probably why it needs different symbols on the dice to begin with.

So I'll go for a minor nitpick and comment on some specific, official (or at least once official) rules that work a bit like some of the other effects mentioned:

1) Skimming at the 4e book now I cannot find this rule (which I actually kept during 4th edition games), but at least in 3e there was a rule that any roll in which 2 or more dice explode allows recovery of 1 Void Point. This in itself may act as both a "Success, and" and more rarely a "Failure, but" mechanic, so there was at least this one around

It got removed in 4th because it allowed some to recover all their void points really fast (like the schools which have a bonus to exploding dice or kenjutsu 7).

The corebook suggests things how to interpret various degrees of success. But as always the 4th edition paradigm was to rule less and leave lots to interpretation, hence why there is not a full page on suggestion of degrees of success (as there is also not many for raises and what they do).

It's great that people are talking about their house rules, but that is a different discussion. Mechanically, there are no rules in L5R that address this issue.

Raises address it. If you want some beneficial side effect to your actton, describe it and you and the GM decide how many raises its worth. Now RnK doesn't give you *random* benefits and side effects that you never tried to get, but the system does already distinguish between average/moderate successes and great successes. You just have to try for the great success. Crawd's houserules work for him I guess, but in the official system the way to get an epic success is to say you're going for it, make the TN harder, and then meet it.

I wholly agree with your other post about having a forum. I understand the reasoning behind not doing it until they know how they're going to support the product line, but since they bought the licensing I don't see any particualr issue with having at least single forum set up where the players can congregate and discuss their experiences. We dont't need an errata or faq or 'official' thread from the product team. That's a "nice to have," but its not necessary.

Of course I guess from one perspective, we already have that - here, in this thread (and one other)! Its just difficult to find because its in the wrong section and is a thread rather than a board, but so far FFG has shown no desire to shut down RPG talk in the CCG area. So I guess our own forum would amount to a symbolic upgrade, but isn't technically necessary??? I think I just talked myself into ambivalence on the subject. Well regardless of whether it's necessary or not, it sure would be nice to have an RPG board of some sort.

Raises don't help with it. It's still "You succeed" vs "You fail" - a binary result. Closest thing to scaling results in L5R 4ed are attacks and duels. This is achieved by them having multiple components that interact with each other. In duels, your Assessment can increase your Focus, and your Focus can buff your Strike. You don't need to win Assessment to win Focus, and you don't need to win Focus in order to Strike.

Attacks are trickier, but basically, each attacks has minimum of two and possibly more components - attack roll, damage roll, and possible manuever roll(s). Attack rolls are "all or nothing" rolls versus definied TN which you can increase in order to gain more benefits; succeeding on your attack activates the second component, damage roll, which is a scaling roll without definied TN "the more the better". Third possible component is manuever rolls, which are again, binary All Or Nothing Rolls against your opponent.

This means that while hitting someone is all or nothing deal, *what exactly* your attack achieves can differ from attack to attack, even if they all are vs 20+10 ATN. You may hit someone and fail to achieve your knockdown, but still deal respectable damage, etc. By the way, note that combat mobilizes all of characters rings - Earth based resource is depleted by being hit (Wounds), Air determines your ATN and Initative, Fire definies your ability to connect hits, and Water definies what exactly your hits achieve (which is why I feel that stuff like Knockdown, Disarm and other Manuevers should always be keyed off Strength); and Void offers Void Enhancements. This is a quite good design.

I wish that Courtiers would have something similar going for them, instead of being Awareness Machines in default rules.

Raises don't help with it. It's still "You succeed" vs "You fail" - a binary result.

Well, ish. You decide whether mere success is all you want, or success+ -- "yes and." But it's true that Raises are designed to be a gamble, an all-or-nothing bid If you want that "and," you have to increase your risk of a flat "no." Removing that, so you still get a basic success even if you miss your new TN, more or less turns the system into scalar success, with your scale being capped by your Void. Which could in theory work, though you'd have to turn Free Raises into just a +5 to the roll.

I do hope that FFG's edition of the game will keep working with courtier stuff. L5R 4e already had more development on that front than most of the games I've played (barring some which went so far into developing social mechanics that they got in the way of RP), but there was definitely room to do a lot more -- especially if it got built in from the start, rather than being tacked on late in Imperial Archives .

Raises don't help with it. It's still "You succeed" vs "You fail" - a binary result. Closest thing to scaling results in L5R 4ed are attacks and duels. This is achieved by them having multiple components that interact with each other. In duels, your Assessment can increase your Focus, and your Focus can buff your Strike. You don't need to win Assessment to win Focus, and you don't need to win Focus in order to Strike.

Attacks are trickier, but basically, each attacks has minimum of two and possibly more components - attack roll, damage roll, and possible manuever roll(s). Attack rolls are "all or nothing" rolls versus definied TN which you can increase in order to gain more benefits; succeeding on your attack activates the second component, damage roll, which is a scaling roll without definied TN "the more the better". Third possible component is manuever rolls, which are again, binary All Or Nothing Rolls against your opponent.

This means that while hitting someone is all or nothing deal, *what exactly* your attack achieves can differ from attack to attack, even if they all are vs 20+10 ATN. You may hit someone and fail to achieve your knockdown, but still deal respectable damage, etc. By the way, note that combat mobilizes all of characters rings - Earth based resource is depleted by being hit (Wounds), Air determines your ATN and Initative, Fire definies your ability to connect hits, and Water definies what exactly your hits achieve (which is why I feel that stuff like Knockdown, Disarm and other Manuevers should always be keyed off Strength); and Void offers Void Enhancements. This is a quite good design.

I wish that Courtiers would have something similar going for them, instead of being Awareness Machines in default rules.

The way I see it, the main difference here is that SW favors simple luck ("oh wow, I rolled awesomely even if I totally didn't expect it! I thought I didn't have a chance even!"), while R&K favors gamble/calculated risk ("Hmm, with this pool I should be able to hit 34 easy... and the TN is just 25. I call 2 raises!").

I actually like using Fate for some Games set in Rokugan because I like the social conflict system in that so much more. Apocalypse World and some of the Powered by the Apocalypse games also have really interesting social mechanics.

Designing such systems requires a deft touch and a lot of guidance about when and how to engage them. Overly mechanized systems can inhibit role playing, while under-mechanized systems punish players who want to play a character with more social skill than they have. To truly play a talented Doji courtier is way beyond my skill as an improvisational actor, but I still want to be able to play one sometimes and feel as though I'm effective. In the same way that I cannot fight with a katana or cast spells, I want a system to allow me to be a courtier.

I think one thing that has to be done is that people need to define what they mean by the R&K System or Mechanic? Its clear to me that some people here are discussing the R&K Mechanic as opposed to the System used by L5R RPG. I think it is best not to conflate the different sets of mechanics used in L5R. Rolling and Keeping a set of ten sided dice is a single mechanic, as is Raises, and are a number of other things people are bringing up.

I have to agree that the R&K Mechanics does bog down the games I run for several reasons.

• First, any time R&K keeps more than three dice it goes beyond the normal human abilities to add quickly (Its a nueroscience thing regarding how many different things can be kept in active memory).
• Secondly, its TNs are what I call base 5 meaningless. That is, in other dice rolling systems their is meaning to say a TN 12 or 15, but because the distribution is so potentially large in L5R in scale the difference between five and ten has little meaning to it. This becomes especially true at high rank
• Third, As stated its binary and that is frustrating when say you need at 20 and roll 200. This lead GMs to give extra effects in these cases or the opposite cases. This Undermines the very system or raises built into the game.
• Fourthly: In general, exploding dice is an annoying waste of time. Sure they are fine but all they do is add some momentary hype for nothing in the long run. The only time you really would take advantage of them is at low rank where they make a difference and honestly get annoying at high rank where they do represent a statistical extra dice. They spread the the statistical pattern in a way that most mathematically knowledgeable players (they understand averages) don't understand (but don't understand distributions).

When I ran a game regularly in a home game I was fine with the R&K mechanic but this last year I became involved with a Living campaign where I had many GMs and ran adventures for many players. It pointed out the flaws in the R&K mechanic and how it interacted with the rest of the game.

I think one thing that has to be done is that people need to define what they mean by the R&K System or Mechanic? Its clear to me that some people here are discussing the R&K Mechanic as opposed to the System used by L5R RPG. I think it is best not to conflate the different sets of mechanics used in L5R. Rolling and Keeping a set of ten sided dice is a single mechanic, as is Raises, and are a number of other things people are bringing up.

I have to agree that the R&K Mechanics does bog down the games I run for several reasons.

• First, any time R&K keeps more than three dice it goes beyond the normal human abilities to add quickly (Its a nueroscience thing regarding how many different things can be kept in active memory).
• Secondly, its TNs are what I call base 5 meaningless. That is, in other dice rolling systems their is meaning to say a TN 12 or 15, but because the distribution is so potentially large in L5R in scale the difference between five and ten has little meaning to it. This becomes especially true at high rank
• Third, As stated its binary and that is frustrating when say you need at 20 and roll 200. This lead GMs to give extra effects in these cases or the opposite cases. This Undermines the very system or raises built into the game.
• Fourthly: In general, exploding dice is an annoying waste of time. Sure they are fine but all they do is add some momentary hype for nothing in the long run. The only time you really would take advantage of them is at low rank where they make a difference and honestly get annoying at high rank where they do represent a statistical extra dice. They spread the the statistical pattern in a way that most mathematically knowledgeable players (they understand averages) don't understand (but don't understand distributions).

When I ran a game regularly in a home game I was fine with the R&K mechanic but this last year I became involved with a Living campaign where I had many GMs and ran adventures for many players. It pointed out the flaws in the R&K mechanic and how it interacted with the rest of the game.

1) I don't know if that is true or not, but assuming it is, there is a simply way around it. It's how I and many others have worked with multiple dice pools (or even multiple sums) over the years: add the first two dice, then add the third to the previous sum, and so on. In other words, a result of 5,7,9,6,3,11 becomes 5+7=12; 12+9=21; 21+6=27; 27+3=30; 30+11=41. Although typed like this may make it look weird and hard, when it comes to mental calculus, this is actually faster.

2) Erm... a glance at a probability table will show you that this is just wrong.

3) I don't think that this undermines the game, although I do know it can be a little frustrating. But then again, so is any application of extreme luck to a game that relies on random phenomena for balance (ie.: dice).

4) It only becomes irrelevant if the difficulty level of the game/campaign doesn't adjust to the increased abilities of the characters. When that happens, the flaw lies not with the game system, but with the ones applying it.

I think one thing that has to be done is that people need to define what they mean by the R&K System or Mechanic? Its clear to me that some people here are discussing the R&K Mechanic as opposed to the System used by L5R RPG. I think it is best not to conflate the different sets of mechanics used in L5R. Rolling and Keeping a set of ten sided dice is a single mechanic, as is Raises, and are a number of other things people are bringing up.

I have to agree that the R&K Mechanics does bog down the games I run for several reasons.

• First, any time R&K keeps more than three dice it goes beyond the normal human abilities to add quickly (Its a nueroscience thing regarding how many different things can be kept in active memory).
• Secondly, its TNs are what I call base 5 meaningless. That is, in other dice rolling systems their is meaning to say a TN 12 or 15, but because the distribution is so potentially large in L5R in scale the difference between five and ten has little meaning to it. This becomes especially true at high rank
• Third, As stated its binary and that is frustrating when say you need at 20 and roll 200. This lead GMs to give extra effects in these cases or the opposite cases. This Undermines the very system or raises built into the game.
• Fourthly: In general, exploding dice is an annoying waste of time. Sure they are fine but all they do is add some momentary hype for nothing in the long run. The only time you really would take advantage of them is at low rank where they make a difference and honestly get annoying at high rank where they do represent a statistical extra dice. They spread the the statistical pattern in a way that most mathematically knowledgeable players (they understand averages) don't understand (but don't understand distributions).

When I ran a game regularly in a home game I was fine with the R&K mechanic but this last year I became involved with a Living campaign where I had many GMs and ran adventures for many players. It pointed out the flaws in the R&K mechanic and how it interacted with the rest of the game.

1) I don't know if that is true or not, but assuming it is, there is a simply way around it. It's how I and many others have worked with multiple dice pools (or even multiple sums) over the years: add the first two dice, then add the third to the previous sum, and so on. In other words, a result of 5,7,9,6,3,11 becomes 5+7=12; 12+9=21; 21+6=27; 27+3=30; 30+11=41. Although typed like this may make it look weird and hard, when it comes to mental calculus, this is actually faster.

2) Erm... a glance at a probability table will show you that this is just wrong.

3) I don't think that this undermines the game, although I do know it can be a little frustrating. But then again, so is any application of extreme luck to a game that relies on random phenomena for balance (ie.: dice).

4) It only becomes irrelevant if the difficulty level of the game/campaign doesn't adjust to the increased abilities of the characters. When that happens, the flaw lies not with the game system, but with the ones applying it.

1) On average, according to the neuroscience, a person can put approx seven (plus or minus 2) separate items in that aforementioned active memory. That said, Karyudo is absolutely right that, to ease the burden, grouping the numbers can help.

2) See Karyudo's response.

3) Again, Karyudo hits this one on the nose. If someone rolls really, really high (200 on TN 20 as you mentioned), give them an added benefit. If they roll a 50 on a 20, then don't. They should've called raises. Raises only become pointless if you allow them to. My players had a tendency, for awhile, not to call any. I started giving them reminders in the form of NPCs that were beating them out in various tasks because they actually called their raises.

4) See Karyudo once more. That said, exploding dice become super-relevant in contested rolls (which occur more often in higher rank games), in going for numerous raises, and in those instances where the PC is trying to do something that, generally speaking, is beyond their skill level. As for adjusting the difficulty level (see Karyudo), that's something to be careful on. At higher ranks, those tasks that were once TN 15 should still be TN 15. Does this make exploding dice kinda pointless? At times. But it also allows for higher rank PCs to call 4-5 raises even if they're just toward doing something with style. Higher TNs should come in when and where the PCs are doing tasks that actually should have a higher target number.

A small post, because I'm preparing for moving out of my current room - contested rolls are probably *the worst* part of the game. They are the swingiest, discourage you from using the basic, most distinct part of L5R (Raises), and there is little strategy to them - in most cases, it's "do I void or not", and "keep your highest results, Luck/Dark Paragon them if they are low". Which is why I don't like basic social and courtly mechanics - they are pretty much "if something happens, go and throw a contested roll at it".

As for TNs - I usually keep basic TNs low or in middle, and use Raises to "build it up"; I prefer to have TN 10 task that evolves into TN 30 after applying Raises, than to have TN 30 no Raises. This is, however, mostly because my players tend to have Void Rings at the same level which in turn allows me to use Raises as gating mechanic (read - I know that they won't be physically able to talk that guilty guy into seppuku because it would take 5 Raises to do so, but they might make him turn himself in with 4 Raises. Etc.)

Exploding Dice are ultra-important after certain point of game, which in turn makes techniques that prevent exploding really powerful on contested rolls - which is why I consider Kenburo's Way the strongest dueling technique in the game, simply because it warps opponent's dice pool and physically contains it at maximum of "ten times number of kept dice". Ditto for Bayushi and Yoritomo "no you don't explode because".

• First, any time R&K keeps more than three dice it goes beyond the normal human abilities to add quickly (Its a nueroscience thing regarding how many different things can be kept in active memory).

1) I don't know if that is true or not, but assuming it is, there is a simply way around it. It's how I and many others have worked with multiple dice pools (or even multiple sums) over the years: add the first two dice, then add the third to the previous sum, and so on. In other words, a result of 5,7,9,6,3,11 becomes 5+7=12; 12+9=21; 21+6=27; 27+3=30; 30+11=41. Although typed like this may make it look weird and hard, when it comes to mental calculus, this is actually faster.

As someone who played a ton of HERO system (think Champions), adding up massive pools of d6 for damage results became second nature.

The "method" is pretty much as you describe -- it's easier to sequentially add them to a running total, than to try to add them all up at once. Sometimes it involves grouping the dice by result, multiplying, and adding up the subtotals.

A small post, because I'm preparing for moving out of my current room - contested rolls are probably *the worst* part of the game. They are the swingiest, discourage you from using the basic, most distinct part of L5R (Raises), and there is little strategy to them - in most cases, it's "do I void or not", and "keep your highest results, Luck/Dark Paragon them if they are low". Which is why I don't like basic social and courtly mechanics - they are pretty much "if something happens, go and throw a contested roll at it".

As for TNs - I usually keep basic TNs low or in middle, and use Raises to "build it up"; I prefer to have TN 10 task that evolves into TN 30 after applying Raises, than to have TN 30 no Raises. This is, however, mostly because my players tend to have Void Rings at the same level which in turn allows me to use Raises as gating mechanic (read - I know that they won't be physically able to talk that guilty guy into seppuku because it would take 5 Raises to do so, but they might make him turn himself in with 4 Raises. Etc.)

I don't know what happened to it in later editions, but reading through some older books I came across the concept of Blind TNs. Basically, any time the GM wished to keep the TN of a challenge or task secret, they could, but the players weren't obligated to call raises before rolling - they could do so after the fact at a cost of +10TN per raise. This also meant that you usually knew how difficult a task was before you called raises on it.

I don't remember where I saw this, but I recall a proposed fix for Social Contested Rolls. I never tried it myself, so I'm unsure how much it solves the problem or just create new ones, but here it is for reference.

Opposed social rolls have a starting TN of 15. Each side is then free to call raises (either secretly or "auction" style). Then both contestant roll and the side with the most succesful raises win. If both sides fail the roll or both sides called the exact number of raises, the conversation is a tie and neither side clearly wins the argument.

I don't remember where I saw this, but I recall a proposed fix for Social Contested Rolls. I never tried it myself, so I'm unsure how much it solves the problem or just create new ones, but here it is for reference.

Opposed social rolls have a starting TN of 15. Each side is then free to call raises (either secretly or "auction" style). Then both contestant roll and the side with the most succesful raises win. If both sides fail the roll or both sides called the exact number of raises, the conversation is a tie and neither side clearly wins the argument.

I have done something similar, but with your starting TN being 5 + 5 x your opponent's Awareness or Intelligence, depending on the situation. The NPC or the PC with the lowest Awareness declares their number of Raises first. Whomever successfully rolls with the most amount of raises wins.

I have to agree that the R&K Mechanics does bog down the games I run for several reasons.

• First, any time R&K keeps more than three dice it goes beyond the normal human abilities to add quickly (Its a nueroscience thing regarding how many different things can be kept in active memory).
• Secondly, its TNs are what I call base 5 meaningless. That is, in other dice rolling systems their is meaning to say a TN 12 or 15, but because the distribution is so potentially large in L5R in scale the difference between five and ten has little meaning to it. This becomes especially true at high rank
• Third, As stated its binary and that is frustrating when say you need at 20 and roll 200. This lead GMs to give extra effects in these cases or the opposite cases. This Undermines the very system or raises built into the game.
• Fourthly: In general, exploding dice is an annoying waste of time. Sure they are fine but all they do is add some momentary hype for nothing in the long run. The only time you really would take advantage of them is at low rank where they make a difference and honestly get annoying at high rank where they do represent a statistical extra dice. They spread the the statistical pattern in a way that most mathematically knowledgeable players (they understand averages) don't understand (but don't understand distributions).

When I ran a game regularly in a home game I was fine with the R&K mechanic but this last year I became involved with a Living campaign where I had many GMs and ran adventures for many players. It pointed out the flaws in the R&K mechanic and how it interacted with the rest of the game.

First, learn some trick to speed up the count. Sure if you're simply trying to add up all the dice at glance, you'll find it is a problem, however take a few steps before counting and it's easier. On my side, I start by grouping up the dice to get values of 10. I'll take Karyudo's example: a result of 5,7,9,6,3,11. Group up the 11 and the 9 for a 20, group up the 7 and 3 for a 10, which leaves you with 5 and 6 that makes 11 for a total of 41. By regrouping first to a 10 factor, you simplify the problem and makes your dice counting faster than simply adding them one by one. If you really want a faster way to count it, take a dice roller, but be warned that dice roller are software which doesn't have a "real random".

Second, actually, there's no such things as "base 5 TN" in the game. In fact, if you take a look at the armor TN they aren't all 5 based. Ashigaru is +3TN, the Riding Armor is +4/+12. This all "base 5" is simply a way to work the system as a standard and make it easier. Also, the difference between a 20 and 25 doesn't seem much, but add wound penalties and external penalties (Poison, disadvantage, etc), you'll see that the difference is a lot. It's meaningless if you don't use the whole system, yes, but once you use it all, a small increase in TN may become a huge difference.

Third, it's binary if the storyteller is playing the system as a binary system. It is also the storyteller's job to encourage the players to call raises is they want some actions going into a direction. Plus, I'll say that in your example, if the storyteller simply says the success result with a roll of 200 for a TN of 20, that's poor storytelling... If I see this kind of roll, let's say in a combat, I won't even let him roll his damage and ask the player what he wants to do to the opponent because that's an awesome strike that would kill his opponent, unless he doesn't want to kill him and simply humilliate him. There's a few mentions in the storyteller section of the corebook that states to play outside the rules to make the game even better. Does it make raises weaker? No because the results will go in a general direction, but a raise will ask for a specific direction. But one thing for sure, you won't see a lot of exceptional rolls so it's great to give something great when it happens and the normal result most of the time. If you get too much exceptional rolls, maybe your TN difficulties are way too low for your players. Some fanmade tables are really great to look for the right TN difficulties. It's part of a game preparation.

Fourth, explosing dice a waste of time? How is that a waste of time? The only waste of time I see is if you don't have enough dice, but it's not the point you're talking about. I'll restate what I say in my 2nd point, take the whole system in consideration (Poison, Wound Penalties, Disadvantage, Enemy techniques, Fear, status of effect, etc). This is when the game request that you need those explosing dice to reach the basic TN. I tend to play with difficulties around 50% of success from my players, this requires the explosing dice most of the time. I also don't force them to roll when I know they have 80+% chance of success, unless they want something specific. Once you know the whole system and play with them it's easy to say that explosing dice isn't a waste of time.

Is the R&K system the perfect system? Nope, there is no perfect system, they all have flaws. I'm sure nobody will say there is a flawless system. Of course, going from storytellers to storytellers, players to players, you'll see those flaws. It's like everything. You basically said it yourself, in the hand of different people, the same system doesn't have the same results. This is because of each people involved. You can have some min-max players, some quality players, some poor players, etc. I think that the rule #1 should always apply, as long as you're having fun. It happens to have a group where you don't belong, adapt or change it.

Also, on the matter of the R&K having issues with a large-scale game.

I was, many years ago, a GM on a chat-based L5R online game (Five Rings Online). Back in the day, it was normal for the chat to have around 80-100 registered players with about 30 on average at all hours of the day. One of the great challenges was to adapt the R&K (back then in its 3rd edition) to such a large scale game. And the folks in charge did so. If we made it work for such an environment, doing it for a Living Campaign should be very much doable.

It's all a matter of sitting down, thinking on what the problems are, and then thinking of ways to fix them - because, like Crawd said, no system is perfect.