http://www.kazenoshiro.com/fiction/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/4th-edition-scenario-adaptation.doc should have the 3rd edition topaz championship adapted to 4th edition with all the NPCs up to date.
Rpg vets help
There is a version with the Boar daimyo's death. There is the version with the renegade harrier. I've also run a version where the Lion Clan invaded during the Hunting competition, and sought to capture as many of the Souls of Promise as possible to use as hostages against their war with the Crane.
But, speaking from experience? I usually have 2 (or sometimes 3) contestants from every Great Clan and 1 Ronin / Minor Clan / Dark horse sponsored by the Dragon Clan (because they do stuff like that). Gives me a nice stable of NPCs that have a history with the PCs.
For a more advanced play option, I usually let PCs take Disadvantages for points which they "earn" during the Topaz Championship ("Oh, you took Blind? Well, that's going to be a bad snakebite during the Athletics competition...). I often also have a "time jump" after the Topaz Championship, allowing the PCs to have some time to grow and change (considering the Topaz Championship takes place when they are 14, this is not unreasonable) and it gets out of the conundrum of 1 PC being the Topaz Champion and having those duties. It lets me do a "formative experience" story, followed by a "reunion" story. This worked well for Dragonlance, and it works amazingly well in L5R.
I would suggest you take a look at the Heroes of Rokugan Living Campaign modules. They currently have the 3rd campaign almost entirely posted. It would give you a good feel and since the campaign is over you can pick and choose from it without fear that you would be spoiling anything for your players.
The campaign is designed for bushi heavy with Shugenja support. http://www.heroes-of-rokugan.net/ , The third campaign is fourth edition and can be found in the previous campaigns section of their website.
They also are starting a 4th campaign if you want something that has things to do at cons. THough they pretty much only go to cons in the middle of the country.
There is a version with the Boar daimyo's death.
That the Badger clan's daimyo, and that the 1st edition one. It's a good one but it does start the Scorpion clan coup storyline, so between them the choice is about what you gonna do with the Scorpion clan.
Compared to everyone else, I take a pretty lazy approach to prep, but it usually works out pretty well
It works because I am super lukcy---I have proactive, creative players who love roleplaying.
I divide prep into mechanics and story.
Mechanics--know trait and skill levels well
Unless there's a very specific NPC I want to include, I don't prep any NPCs. Instead, as with any system, I try to get a rough idea of what stats represent--traits and skills in L5R. What's a normal human level trait? Above average? Exceptional? What's a hobby level skill? I job level skill? An exceptional level? World class? If I know these off the top of my head, then I rarely have to stat out NPCs before I need them.
So, when my players encounter a character, I can quickly note down their stats and skills as they use them--but if you know the stats well, you don't even have to write. If an NPC needs a particular technique, I flip to it real quick in my PDF.
Story--"Go solve my problem."
Fortunately, L5R PCs usually have lords. Those lords have agendas, and they are perfectly free to keep their servants in the dark. The lord can delegate parts of their agendas to the PCs. Nothing too detailed. "Here is my problem. Go solve it for me."
At the start of a campaign, if I don't know the overarching agenda, that's fine. For the first couple sessions, I figure out what the lord's short term goals are--take out these enemies, find this thing, investigate this strange occurrence, arrange this deal. Then, around session 3, I try to connect those disparate goals into an overarching agenda.
Then, each week is the next "Go solve this problem." My lords love delegating, and they hate micromanaging
@zoomfarg: It's really nice that you can create accurate and believable NPC stat blocks in your head (after 30-odd years of gaming, I can do that for most systems I run), but the original poster is a new GM to the L5R system. Asking him/her to do so requires a LOT of memorization, and perhaps without that much experience as a player in the system to recognize balance issues to begin with, he/she's going to need a bit of practice before getting everything smooth.
A site that might help (keep in mind its for 3E, not 4E) is
wiki.rpg.net/index.php/L5R_NPCs_and_Monsters
As I recall, the NPC section is the only one worth looking at, but since the pcs are scaled, it's not a bad place to pull some random folks from when you need them in a pinch.
@azamiko--good point, that could be a lot to memorize. (Though I wouldn't put it past OP ... They have over a decade of GMing experience). If memorizing is a challenge, you could make a little table with the insight/trait/skill level info for quick reference.
Unfortunately, 4e is pretty vague about what the different levels represent. Here's the guidelines my group uses.
Insight rank:
1-newly trained,?imexperienced.
2-"average" samurai, highest rank that most samurai achieve.
3-above average-good for PCs and lieutenant villains.
4-exceptional
5+ master
Traits:
1-too low! Below average.
2-average. Most traits at low insight levels
3-professional/significant training. At low insight levels, 3 is good for traits associated with the core/professional skills of your character, like Reflexes and Void for a duelist. At middle insight levels, 3 is the rank of your lower traits paired with non-core skills (like strength for a duelist)
4-exceptional, level of core traits at middle insight levels.
5-master, level of core traits at high insight levels.
Skills
1-newly trained, not much experience. Good for tertiary/inessential/flavor skills at low/middle insight levels. Don't sepend on them.
2-some experience. Good for some core and secondary skills at low/middle insight levels.
3-professional. Good for core skills at low/middle insight levels. Good for secondary skills at higher insight levels.
5-expert-able to begin teaching basic principals of the skill to others. Good for core skills at high insight levels.
7+ master, good for sensei
10+ legendary
By this guide, a samurai rolling their core skills (like iaijutsu for a duelist, or tetsubo for a Hida heavy weapons user) is rolling 5k3 or 6k3. These traits and skill level descriptions work if characters try to advance in insight rank rather efficiently. The highest trait is usually 1 rank higher than the lowest trait, sometimes two. A specialist might have wider variation, but their insight rank might be lower.
If anyone wants to argue with my numbers, please do. Especially if there's some precedent set by 4e RAW that I've overlooked.
With those numbers as a guide, I do very little prep. Whenever a NPC needs to use a trait or skill, I just consult this info and pick a value.
It might also be handy to prep a little table that shows wounds at different earth ranks.
Unexpected allies 2 has sample NPC discussion, but its pretty basic.
It might also be handy to prep a little table that shows wounds at different earth ranks.
That table is more than useful, even for advanced players. It just saves time and it's fairly easy to build with en Excel Sheet!
Why is it useful? Well... when I played an Earth Shugenja and I played with +/- Earth Ring spells, just by having this table, it saved a lot of time. The Wolf's Mercy is such a great spell, I'm surprised that some Earth Shugenja don't even consider that spell.
So yeah, I don't consider that table being handy, but very useful after playing that Shugenja!
Update: Played last Saturday and let it settle to reflect.
L5R is unlike any other game I have run. Much thank to everyone for all the help and the resources. The NPC charts from Atomaki are something I have not used yet, but Can see that I will very soon. I have some more questions and general thoughts. Feel fee to talk *at* me about whatever you think would help. Also much love to Zoomfarg for assuming the best in me.
So, to Zoomfarg's general advice of doing some random stuff that gets connected later, I do that a lot on DND, Pathfinder, Dungeon World, Cal of Cthulhu, etc... yet it seems hard for me to do, or at least think of how, so far. But that is a later problem, we only played 1 session so far and slated for another in a week (bi-weekly).
All of my players are VERY knew to Rokugan and 2 of them are new to rpg's. 1 of the noob-noobies couldn't make it, so we played with only 3 with the 4th coming in later. Character creation took about 4 hours HOLD ON DON'T BIT AT ME YET. We chatted and hung out and had dinner along with making characters, explaining just a little about Phoenix and Scorpion which the party consists of. We talked about the basics of mechanics on the R&K and created our own way to start out at rank 0. Since everyone is new to l5r and of the players who is new to rpg's was initially super scared of the system (looked at the char sheet and said it looked intimidating), I decided that introducing as much as possible piecemeal would be best. In the end I am very pleased with how long this took but it was so much more social and just hanging out. The remaining player is going to have to be caught up, but that is a later problem.
This basically boiled down to traits at 2, 25 exp to spend, must take 1 disadvantage that is itself not dependent on social promotion/demotion. The reason for this was because if we put all the traits at 1 like the book suggested, then they would get rofl-stomped by the other competitors in the tournament without me adjusting them. Therefore, I decided it was just easier to deny them their school techniques until they complete their gempukku and be awarded the remaining 15 exp, bringing them to 40, and their school technique to become legit rank 1 chars. To that end, the other competitors do not have their rank 1's yet either. This was easier than lowering all traits across the board.
Now the game itself. As I mentioned I asked them all to be from the same clan or atleast 2 different clans so I could try to have (easier) reasons for them being together. This ended up biting me in the ass since I asked that before I read The Topaz Championship. There is a lot of Orange in the competition this year, haha. That said, so far the aprty consisted of:
Phoenix Courtier
Phoenix Shugenja (Isawa)
Scorpion Infiltrator
Courtier's don't usually participate in the competition, while Shugenjas can but rare, that fixes the Phoenixes. The Scorpion is posing as NOT A NINJA therefore is participating. This worked out nicely. Now here is where it gets hard. The other player who will be joining, who is new to l5r and new(ish) to rpg's will be playing a Phoenix Bushi. I pleased that basically every form of Phoenix school is being played, but I wasn't sure what to do about the player showing up alter in the competition. We were throwing around ideas, and while I don't love it, we decided that for whatever reason, the Phoenix Courtier is allowed to participate in the Bushi's absence until she arrives.
O.o
I understand that this is a Gempukku ceremony and that that is probably, just like, a million levels of ****** up, but it was convenient and put off the problem of what to do until later so we rolled with it. I figure the Bushi's Daimyo owes some immense favor to the Crane for letting them do that. I will explore and consider this as it goes on.
The competition itself ran fine. I had explained the R&K system and we played around with it some so mechanically that went well. There was some social stuff going too but that is mostly unremarkable. Because I was originally brought into Rokugan with the TCG, I chose to the timeline around Iweko naming Seiken as her heir. This gives me a back drop I am relatively familiar with. I had Doji Makoto watching the competition just because I thought that was fun and they really dug that.
They are almost through the first day of the competition. I really wanted to finish the first day before stopping but time would not allow. Paid parking and all that. Some quick take-aways I have are:
HOLY **** NPC'S - I am no stranger to a lot of NPCs but this calls for so many. It's so overwhelming. I took some of the competitors out of the competition (mostly Phoenix) to cut down but there were still over 20 including other people too. This led to a difficult time for me keeping track of them and if I am having a hard time then I KNOW the players are. This lef me to do 2 things: First, I am putting mars and venus symbols next to the names of the NPCs so I can quickly tell of fe/male. Also, I need to have at least one desciptor for each. This will be less taxing in the future. The number of NPCs will go down, But I am pleased for trial by fire in this regard.
I need to know what favors or plans each other have/are using right away. That will ground me much more easily and I can improv from there, similar to zoomfarg's suggestion. Most of my dming has been 75% improv and 25% prep. And this game is hard for me to do that right now.
Cheat sheets: I started making one for my players, wounds, disadvantages, that kind of stuff. I can tell it will be very helpful but not sure what else. Does anyone have a blank sheet they use or do you make them per game?
All in all it was a very successful game. Even though I saw all the way it "went wrong" the players did not and had a great game. That's a win as far as I am concerned, I have to remember that; otherwise I will get bogged down in my own prep and frustration, and I will not let this game die like the last one which died for those reasons.
So yea, shout at me what I am doing right or wrong or thoughts. Just putting this down because someone earlier in the thread asked for updates, and I am happy to oblige and I am very thankful for everyone's input and encouragement so far.
Edited by BayushiCroyNew question. I've looked over and can't seem to find the answer in the book.
Does the gm tell the pcs the tn of a roll before hand? And does that include things like tn to hit in combat?
I assume yes since how else will they make raises, but I still haven't found confirmation one way or the other. Please point me to it in the core book if it's there.
New question. I've looked over and can't seem to find the answer in the book.
Does the gm tell the pcs the tn of a roll before hand? And does that include things like tn to hit in combat?
I assume yes since how else will they make raises, but I still haven't found confirmation one way or the other. Please point me to it in the core book if it's there.
I cannot remember this being in the book or not, but as a GM of L5R, I very much believe you need to tell the PCs the TN before the dice get rolled. So they CAN take Raises.
This is what I think so too. So they know how much they want to gamble. I just haven't had that confirmed.
When faced with a roll, try to phrase the action at it's most basic level, then upgrade that with Raises. So "seducing XYZ" isn't a 30 TN roll, it's a "Make XYZ enjoy my company" with a TN of 15, Raised 3 times. Practicing this will both help you keep TNs reasonable and will teach your players how to Raise in order to achieve their goals.
Does the gm tell the pcs the tn of a roll before hand? And does that include things like tn to hit in combat?
I, as a storyteller of L5R, don't tell them. Yes, I do understand that my player will have to guess even more, but it feels more immersive to have to gamble against the unknown odd. Why am I saying it feels more immersive? Simply because that's how real life works.
I'll take the Shugenja as an example. Sure, they know their TN to cast their spells, but they are thought to understand the difficulty of their tasks. Just like in real life when someone does a task that he already did and knows how hard it is. However, when facing someone else, specially a stranger, it feels weird to know their capabilities and their defensive skills at first sight. It feels wrong to say: "His TN to be hit is 30". It feels like telling away their stats directly. Just like in real life, when you meet someone, you might be very surprised by their capacilitites.
So to me, it feels wrong to tell the TN on task. Specially since I rarely have a static TN, I usually adjust the TN based on the roll. My goal is to tell an interactive story where the main actors are the players. They do raise on their roll, so that doesn't change, but I don't stick my result as only "Fail/Success". For example, in one of my game (They were rank 2 at that time), they investigated a strongly damaged building. At some point, the building was collapsing and here's the table I used:
Reflex + Athletic: (I do know that Athletic is normally Strength, but in that specific situation, Reflex seems more appropriate)
9 and less: Gets stuck under the debris and receives 3k3.
10 to 14: A medium debris falls on the character. He receives 1k1 + 5 dmg and if the dmg is more than 10, one of his limb is stuck under it.
15 to 24: Gets out just in time.
25+: Gets out without trouble and can help someone in trouble in the same time (giving someone +5 on their roll).
Sure, it's different from the main mechanism, but I have more fun that way. Why do I say it's more fun? Because I would like to play a character for change, but in my groupe, nobody wants to be a L5R Storyteller. At some point, it's feels like a chore, so I add a few stuffs like that. Of course, this one was harsh, but there's some other really funny, like during an investigation, if they rolled very low, they get some detailed informations on something (like a plant). So just doing those kind of stuffs brings some great moments, which is funny because in my group, there's always someone who rolls very poorly.
Does it mean that they raise don't do anything or that it's pointless to raise? Of course not, in how I handle the TN, raises are the character specific direction on their action, while the result of their roll may bring some: "I've got an idea!" Just like when someone is working on something and suddenly they have an "Eureka moment". That's the kind of stuffs that I introduce with my system. So... no, I don't tell my players the TN for all those reasons and I'm not saying it's the perfect way of doing it, I just say that it's the way that I have more fun with.
With a group entirely new, yes, it might be more interesting to know the TN so they will learn to raise. But if I would be a player, I would prefer to not know the TN, it feels even more rewarding when you succeed something you don't know the difficulty and, at some point, you get used to an "overall" difficulties, which are based on rank of the players. I wouldn't see a lot TN of 30 vs starting characters, but I would expect a TN of 20 vs starting character. So by knowing a little the odds of the system, with, let's say 6k3, I would take 1 raise, since there's 52% chance of success (57% with emphase). But that's me and I like to play a bit risky since I usually like to aim between 50% to 60%.
Also, if you want your players to have a better understanding of their capabilities, http://lynks.se/probability/ is very useful to understand the R&K probabilities.
Expanded legal and Social terminology in L5r
More Ritual Elements for Shugenja/preists
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/204250-rpg-ritual-elements-for-shugenjapreists/
And a Redressed Ritsuryo System
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/202622-rpg-the-saibankan-government-system/
Edited by TheWanderingJewelsNext question.
I was listening to the One Shot l5r podcast. If you haven't heard it then do so, it was amazing. But I noticed something. I noticed that the shugenja, in the few times he cast spells as attacks, the gm mentioned that to do that, the shugenja had to be in attack stance, while defensive or utility spells can be cast in defense.
I can't find anything for this in the book, and the stances explicitly state that shugenja can cast in defense stance. The gm also seems to have an incredible grasp of the system, so I am more inclined to believe this is a house rule of his.
Question:
Did I miss something in spell casting rules? And if not, what is the consensus on limiting offensive spells to attack stance? I must admit I think it's odd that a shugenja can "attack" while defending, but have not played enough yet to feel comfortable either making generalizations or changes to the system.
Edited by BayushiCroyNext question.
I was listening to the One Shot l5r podcast. If you haven't heard it then do so, it was amazing. But I noticed something. I noticed that the shugenja, in the few times he cast spells as attacks, the gm mentioned that to do that, the shugenja had to be in attack stance, while defensive or utility spells can be cast in defense.
I can't find anything for this in the book, and the stances explicitly state that shugenja can cast in defense stance. The gm also seems to have an incredible grasp of the system, so I am more inclined to believe this is a house rule of his.
Question:
Did I miss something in spell casting rules? And if not, what is the consensus on limiting offensive spells to attack stance? I must admit I think it's odd that a shugenja can "attack" while defending, but have not played enough yet to feel comfortable either making generalizations or changes to the system.
You haven't miss anything, because it's not how it works. It might be an house rule from the storyteller. Let's look at it. In fact, the Shugenja isn't the one creating the spells, it's just a series of movement and words to ask for a specific manifestion of the kami. Keeping this in mind, there's no way to know if the spell is offensive or defensive. So yes, your assumption about being an house rule is right.
While the house rule has some sense in a way, it makes no sense when you think about how the Shugenja is able to cast...