There is a teleport-thing. It's Iuchi Shugenja alternate path. It's very good personal "blink you, sucker", but not armyportation.

Considering that the game began with an army of undead, demons, and human samurai marching on the Imperial Capital and getting attacked by fire-breathing kung-fu god-monks, I'd say that expecting it to be a Kurosawa simulator is part of where people start running into trouble.

It has always had a sort of pot-boiler quality, and while many of the best stories have involved simple interpersonal drama and quiet human dignity, the setting at large has always been a bit more... over the top and insane?

There is a real disconnect between expectations of people who started with CCG and with people who started with RPG. Kurosawa-Simulator of Tea Consumption is usually the RPG Player, while Swagsama the OniBuster is usually the CCG Player. There is a real aesthetics and style clash between RPG perspective and CCG perspective.

Somewhat amusingly, I find far more diversity among the RPG crowd- perhaps reflective of the dozens of ways the lore has tried to pull itself over the years.

Also, random thought, but you know what I want from next L5R RPG? Changing Dangerou Beauty from "+1k0 to Temptation against opposing gender" to "+1k0 to Temptation against people attracted to you". That Advantage was probably first thing we houseruled even without fully reading the book.

Ditto. It's a pretty inexcusable blind spot, especially for a setting based on a society that had institutionalized male homosexuality for centuries.

Also, random thought, but you know what I want from next L5R RPG? Changing Dangerou Beauty from "+1k0 to Temptation against opposing gender" to "+1k0 to Temptation against people attracted to you". That Advantage was probably first thing we houseruled even without fully reading the book.

Also, random thought, but you know what I want from next L5R RPG? Changing Dangerou Beauty from "+1k0 to Temptation against opposing gender" to "+1k0 to Temptation against people attracted to you". That Advantage was probably first thing we houseruled even without fully reading the book.

Ditto. It's a pretty inexcusable blind spot, especially for a setting based on a society that had institutionalized male homosexuality for centuries.

I see what you guys are saying, and I totally applaud the effort... But a change like that is just too easy to BS your way out of.

"I specifically designed my character to be really sexy! Why does no one find them attractive??"

Also, random thought, but you know what I want from next L5R RPG? Changing Dangerou Beauty from "+1k0 to Temptation against opposing gender" to "+1k0 to Temptation against people attracted to you". That Advantage was probably first thing we houseruled even without fully reading the book.

Also, random thought, but you know what I want from next L5R RPG? Changing Dangerou Beauty from "+1k0 to Temptation against opposing gender" to "+1k0 to Temptation against people attracted to you". That Advantage was probably first thing we houseruled even without fully reading the book.

Ditto. It's a pretty inexcusable blind spot, especially for a setting based on a society that had institutionalized male homosexuality for centuries.

I see what you guys are saying, and I totally applaud the effort... But a change like that is just too easy to BS your way out of.

"I specifically designed my character to be really sexy! Why does no one find them attractive??"

Then phrase it as "+1k0 to anybody attracted to your gender."

Well, I want L5R to be a good mix between Kurosawa-Samurai-Drama and mystical-asianfantasy-RPG. I want to be able to play a Samurai who falls in love with (the wrong) Samurai and I want it to make a difference. I want to be able to play an oddball-Samurai who seems to be born into the wrong family/ wrong clan. I want social drama. Still I want supernatural stuff involved.

I want to be able to play a story about a Samurai who falls in love with someone and comes to realize it is a Yuki Onna or some other being.

I want to be able to play a story about a strange acting Daimyou and be able to realize at some point that the Daimyou was trickster-spirit and the real one was kept somewhere imprisoned.

I want to be able to play a story about two Samurai getting betrothed, but hate each other and want to find a way out.

I want to be able to play a story with someone killing a Samurai who took an important part in important negotiations. Maybe the Samurai was killed by another Samurai (Ninja), maybe the Samurai was killed by a supernatural being or an eta possesed?

That's what I want L5R to be and as it is now I can play those stories.

Yeah...the Dangerous Beauty is also rephrased in our groups to "people who are interested in your gender".

You can also avoid "takiing stance" and rephrase it to "+1k0 to Temptation" (Stealthy already does that ). Then again, I really appreciated that, for example, in "examples of character creation process step-by-step", God-Machine Chronicle used all of following: one character played by a player of different gender than character in question, female character occupying traditionally male oriented job, and gay female character. And if you wonder why character's preference comes up in character creation process - basically, there is a questionare that helps decide 5 Breaking Points (things that shake character to the core) based on events in that character's life. Boom, offhand mention about it in one of these events that breaks the default assumption. Much appreciated.

By the way, again, I would really be grateful if at least one section in new L5R RPG was dedicated purely to "how to create your character while understanding asian tropes, and how to create family dynamics for her" - it's one of most unintuitive things in the game, simply due to being very alien for people. 20 questions are ok, but I would love to see something little more modern and interesting.

Okay, I will just throw in this here, but what if FFG decides to scrap the canon universe and pick up one of the already established alternate universes? I mean, those are legitimate settings, and they can provide a neutral fresh start without sparking discontent for being "OC/OoC".

Like, what about the Sapphire Throne setting? Everyone likes the Toturi Dynasty, so this might be a safe bet, and the international campaign IIRC was very popular back then. The Thousand Years of Darkness is similarly popular and it would also allow the former canon setting to exist. The Iron Empire would be really darn interesting as canon IMHO, not to mention the Togashi Dynasty.

Also, as a side note, does anyone know how to access the old AEG L5R RPG forum (especially the Magistrate's Journals and Homebrew Rules sections)? Or was it consumed by the Nothing for good?

On the bit about teleportation:

Walking the Way (Air Spell) page 104 in Walking the Way a shugenja creates a portal at his/her location, and a connecting portal at the destination. This however is more like a ethereal passageway that eliminates rough terrain, and allows for smoother travel over distance, and even in the description is said to not be "teleportation" as the distance traveled is not instantaneous and takes the standard time for travel sans any rough terrain, or barriers between the two points.

Way of the Unicorn, first edition, page 108: There is an Ide Family Secret Spell named Teleportation, but it is used to teleport one or more objects not people. At least as the spell is written.

Looking into CCG, there is Iuchi Lixue's innate ability to move a number of personalities + their followers into a current battle. This action by rule of relevance at the time did not require you to have presence at the current battlefield, and was written into fiction as "teleportation" at times.

I am sure you could write up a teleportation type spell if you so desired. The spells listed above had a listed TN of 25, and 20 respectively. Additional targets requiring a raise per target if that helps?

Everyone likes the Toturi Dynasty

Well THAT'S taking a heck of a lot for granted.

In seriousness, if FFG opts to discard existing canon, they have little reason to adopt an altered variation of it- they might as well come up with a suitably "safe" default setting of their own if they don't like the one they were handed.

You can also avoid "takiing stance" and rephrase it to "+1k0 to Temptation" (Stealthy already does that ). Then again, I really appreciated that, for example, in "examples of character creation process step-by-step", God-Machine Chronicle used all of following: one character played by a player of different gender than character in question, female character occupying traditionally male oriented job, and gay female character. And if you wonder why character's preference comes up in character creation process - basically, there is a questionare that helps decide 5 Breaking Points (things that shake character to the core) based on events in that character's life. Boom, offhand mention about it in one of these events that breaks the default assumption. Much appreciated.

By the way, again, I would really be grateful if at least one section in new L5R RPG was dedicated purely to "how to create your character while understanding asian tropes, and how to create family dynamics for her" - it's one of most unintuitive things in the game, simply due to being very alien for people. 20 questions are ok, but I would love to see something little more modern and interesting.

Yeah, for most non-asian people the asian way of thinking is pretty alien and hard to understand. It may help to get more informations on this part of the game, since social interaction is important for L5R.

And to AtoMaki...well I like the Thousand Years of Darkness, but I'm not sure if I'd still like them if they were canon and not alternate. If FFG would decide to rewrite the history, they should either start from the scratch or start from Clan War, Scorpion-Clan-Coup or Second Day of Thunder Era. At least in my opinion.

And I'm not sure if I like the Toturi Dynasty, since I never really read information on it. I like the Iweko Dynasty, what I don't like is the whole "Spider are now a Great Clan, we have colonies and a Spider claims to be a descendant of Hantei, therefor wants to claim the throne"-thing...

Honestly, I think sometimes the RPG gets a little heavy-handed with some of the "unwesternisms", tries a little too hard in that regard.

Honestly, I think sometimes the RPG gets a little heavy-handed with some of the "unwesternisms", tries a little too hard in that regard.

Since I love Japan and even took the Tokugawa-era as specialtopic for my matriculation in history, I don't have that problem.

But I understand that most people have troubles with the ways of the rules of etiquette from the asian countries. Therefore I made a quick reference with the rules which I find most important for my players. I'm happy if they read it and use it, but I don't demand it. Since their Samurai are educated in those things, most of the times I ignore it and just assume that the playercharacter knows how to bow, address the persone s/he is talking to, how to word the things and so on. Of course there are situations were I ask the players how they present themselves and what they chose as a gift or other things, but not without shortly explaining how it works.

My players are happy about how I handle the whole etiquette and I still have fun playing.

In case of interest:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9ePcRR0ppr4QUlSazNDWER5ams

Yes, the "how to adress people"-part is a bit different from the information in the Imperial Archives, but I wrote my version before the Archives were printed and I've been too lazy to change it.

In seriousness, if FFG opts to discard existing canon, they have little reason to adopt an altered variation of it- they might as well come up with a suitably "safe" default setting of their own if they don't like the one they were handed.

If FFG came up with their own altered setting, then they would have to go through the arduous process to accept it with the fans. With the existing altered settings, they could skip this part as those are already accepted and fairly well known/liked.

If FFG came up with their own altered setting, then they would have to go through the arduous process to accept it with the fans. With the existing altered settings, they could skip this part as those are already accepted and fairly well known/liked.

But not uniformly- in fact, apart from KYD, most of them are only hazily familiar to a casual fan.

If FFG came up with their own altered setting, then they would have to go through the arduous process to accept it with the fans. With the existing altered settings, they could skip this part as those are already accepted and fairly well known/liked.

But not uniformly- in fact, apart from KYD, most of them are only hazily familiar to a casual fan.

Well, everyone with Imperial Histories I/II knows these settings, and those books (or at least IH 1) are probably in the possession of most fans (both casual and hardcore).

Therefore I made a quick reference with the rules which I find most important for my players. I'm happy if they read it and use it, but I don't demand it. Since their Samurai are educated in those things, most of the times I ignore it and just assume that the playercharacter knows how to bow, address the persone s/he is talking to, how to word the things and so on. Of course there are situations were I ask the players how they present themselves and what they chose as a gift or other things, but not without shortly explaining how it works.

My players are happy about how I handle the whole etiquette and I still have fun playing.

In case of interest:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9ePcRR0ppr4QUlSazNDWER5ams

Yes, the "how to adress people"-part is a bit different from the information in the Imperial Archives, but I wrote my version before the Archives were printed and I've been too lazy to change it.

I love you so much right now..... the main complaint in my game group was exactly this one.

Therefore I made a quick reference with the rules which I find most important for my players. I'm happy if they read it and use it, but I don't demand it. Since their Samurai are educated in those things, most of the times I ignore it and just assume that the playercharacter knows how to bow, address the persone s/he is talking to, how to word the things and so on. Of course there are situations were I ask the players how they present themselves and what they chose as a gift or other things, but not without shortly explaining how it works.

My players are happy about how I handle the whole etiquette and I still have fun playing.

In case of interest:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9ePcRR0ppr4QUlSazNDWER5ams

Yes, the "how to adress people"-part is a bit different from the information in the Imperial Archives, but I wrote my version before the Archives were printed and I've been too lazy to change it.

I love you so much right now..... the main complaint in my game group was exactly this one.

Well, I'm glad if my stuff helps others to have more fun playing L5R.

The "Small guide through rokugani ettiquette" is really just a short quick-refference kind of thing...if someone would be interested I could make somehting more detailed or update it so it will use the same rules on how to adress someone as the Imperial Archives do. Also I'm apologizing for any typos or other errors in the text.

But I'm just a crazy fangirl who puts too much time into making additional stuff for one of my favorite RPGs.

I suggested this in another thread, but may as well here.

Slightly augmented.

So imagine like Warhammer and Star Wars, FFG released multiple core books for L5R, each focusing on an aspect. This would encourage parites to have synergistic clan/family/school/path combinations.

All clans and families would be in each book, but the schools presented would be the ones for each sphere. Some might be repeated with different alternate paths.

One Book would be the Court, and Samurai Drama. So all clans would be present, the schools and paths would be focused on court, and what that school can do in a court setting.

One Book would focus on the Magistrates and Asian Horror, and hunting Maho-Tsukai, Kolat, Monsters, Spirtis and the Wall. This would be focused on the schools battling Rokugan's supernatural and Kolat threats. (Dark Heresy Rokugan)

A third book would be almost mechanically different as its Mass Battles taken as a core game in and of itself. Every school that makes sense would have a battle path in this book. Those high level spells people complain about... reworked to specific schools altering the battle roll or the mass battle table (or whatever replaces it).

I think thats better than having to thumb through mechanics spread out all over the place.

You know, it hasn't magically become a better idea on account of posting it in a different thread.

Rokugan is one setting. It'S not multiple settings that call for multiple almost distinct games, and one core book should be enough to cover the core elements of that setting.

FFG might still do it if they did it with Star Wars, but it's a bad idea. You wouldn't solve Dungeons and Dragons's wizarding problems by having the Fighter Core book and the Wizard Core Book. L5R doesn't need them either.

Someone suggested I come to this thread, only reason I cross posted.

You can't fit all of what is needed for L5R in one book. At a Minimum its three books anyhow. With 4th Its Core, Emerald Empire, and Enemies of the Empire, and even then you don't really have good rules for Mass Battles, Oni, and a bunch of other bits which can be hunted down in the other books.

But, with L5R you can, because most of the setting suggests that aside from the crazy Tamori, and the Isawa... Shugenja are not really used in combat, and social spells IMHO never really worked right.

But then why play a shugenja if... he's going to be nerfed for combat, and he's going to be as good as a bushi is in court.

At the same time all the stuff a Shugenja is good at is very focused, and most other schools are not so good with that.

Hence remove them. And put them in their own book. Problem solved.

I thought of the third because I think it would be awesome to have a full-on core Legionaire game and Mass Battles.

Every SW game prior to FFG had the problem that Jedi just overpowered everything, because setting said they did. FFG solved that problem by putting them in their own book.

Separating out the books also allows people who want Kurosawa to get one book, and those that want Asian Horror and Kami the other book. And those that want the over the top stuff, the third book (CCG Players).

Because seriously they are not compatible. Every L5R game I get into, I have to deal with this conflict, it kills so many games.

The problem is, the setting DOESN'T portray shugenja in the way Star Wars does Jedi.

Yes, Shugenja are capable of superhuman feat, but the setting doesn't pretend they routinely overpower bushi. The setting present a handful of shugenja (the most powerful ones) capable of wondrous world-altering feats, at a great cost .

Sachi raised an island - and died. Taeruko petrified the Kusatte Iru - and died. Kaigen summoned a tidal wave that crushed the Dark Wave fleet - and died. Sezaru carried out many wondrous feats - and lost his mind. Tsuke's corruption granted him the power to become a living tactical nuke, and turned his power against his former clan. Other feats instead required lots and lots of time, or lots and lots of shugenja working together, or both.

There's a trend here. With great power comes great cost . So long as you keep that in mind, Shugenja can be portrayed (in their everyday, non-self-destructive powers) at a level that doesn't make them overpowering to anyone around them.

Still won't work. After you modify shugenja to not outshine bushi in combat, to not do as well in courtiers in social settings; and since maho/spirit posession which shugenja do well with, but every other character can't do much of anything... then the suggested additional mechanics to... bless crops. Why the $#@! would anyone want to play someone that is second-rate at anything relevant in the game, or hog the GM's time?

Shadowrun runs into this problem all the time, deckers/technomancers mess up game flow, best thing GM's do there is ban them and use NPC's to handle it.

Hence take them out, and put them in their own book that focuses on hunting down maho cultists, exorcising spirits and fighting the shadowlands.

There are multiple possibilities:

1. The Bard option. Shugenja are better than courtiers in battle but not as good as bushi, and better than bushi in courts but not as good as courtiers. They trade sheer power for flexibility.

2. OR you make the shugenja EQUALLY good at combat as bushi OR (they have to chose one build or the other) EQUALLY good at court as the courtiers. And you can even subdivide the types of shugenja, with some specializing in long-range combat (and as good at it as the Tsuruchi) and some specializing in close combat (and as good at it as the Hida) and some specializing at stealthy combat (etc), and some at courtly manipulation.

The idea is that if the shugenja go for versatility, then that versatility should be a "Jack of all trade, master of none situation". If instead they specialize in certain fields, then a shugenja specialized in a given field should be AS GOOD AS a non-shugenja specialized in the same field, although with different strenghts and weakness.

The notion that shugenja have to be either more powerful or unplayable is a fantasy.

Still won't work. After you modify shugenja to not outshine bushi in combat, to not do as well in courtiers in social settings; and since maho/spirit posession which shugenja do well with, but every other character can't do much of anything... then the suggested additional mechanics to... bless crops. Why the $#@! would anyone want to play someone that is second-rate at anything relevant in the game, or hog the GM's time?

How many times do we have to outline stuff shugenja could do that isn't blessing the mother-flipping crops?

The only thing that's needed to solve the "shugenja outshine bushi and courtiers" problem is to treat the religious and spiritual aspects of Rokugan as more than just window dressing. Make those things important, and hey presto, you have a sphere where shugenja can be the leaders, and stuff for their magic to do that isn't bushi-ing or courtier-ing via kami.