I think FFG needs to start a Forum for the Legend of the Five Rings RPG. so we don't have to keep post in the LCG Forum.
Even if they are not going to put it out for awhile (or at all) they own the licence and have the only official forum for L5R right now.
15 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:I think FFG needs to start a Forum for the Legend of the Five Rings RPG. so we don't have to keep post in the LCG Forum.
Even if they are not going to put it out for awhile (or at all) they own the licence and have the only official forum for L5R right now.
Especially since it's been all but confirmed.
We've only been saying it since September 11, 2015.
They will, once they actually plan on making one and announce that intention. Getting it before then is... unlikely.
Yes open a thread in the RPG section so we can start with our wild speculation! On a side note, Im stoked that my in depth knowledge of pre-coup and clan wars era knowledge will be put to good use.
I Want an RPG! Card game naaaaa! I stop play the ccg when the RPG first edition came out. Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep. Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep. Don't mess with it. It ain't broke. 4th edition forever! (Mabey fix the monsters.)
1 hour ago, deathdealerDAN said:I Want an RPG! Card game naaaaa! I stop play the ccg when the RPG first edition came out. Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep. Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep, Roll and Keep. Don't mess with it. It ain't broke. 4th edition forever! (Mabey fix the monsters.)
While you are speaking gibberish, I do agree that 4th edition is both quite complete and quite well done. My tabletop group has discussed this and honestly see no reason to change off of 4th Edition.
I (and my gaming group) think the combat system and the skills system are in a dire need of a revision. The rest are (largely) cool tho.
2 hours ago, AtoMaki said:I (and my gaming group) think the combat system and the skills system are in a dire need of a revision. The rest are (largely) cool tho.
What are your issues with it? I actually feel like it has a decent reasonably fast paced combat system, and the generic roll/keep system always felt like it was one of the strongest to me of games I played.
For us, the combat feels unwieldy and counter-intuitive. There isn't much to do there, especially with the rigid stance limitations. Some momentum and tactical depth (or any other kind of depth tbh) would be good. This definitely includes the abomination that is SAA.
For the skills, those things just need to worth a ****. Good and actually desirable Skill Mastery Abilities would be nice, for example.
I love 4th edition and have pretty much all the books for it. But what's the point of releasing a 5th edition if it's just going to be a release with tweaks of 4th, which is near perfect? I have no interest in spending 300-400 dollars just for a set of new paint.
If they go with an RPG, I hope they draw some inspiration from Star Wars and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, with some unique cards and dice and smart mechanics, but steeped in the honor and glory of Rokugani samurai.
Of course, to avoid an angry backlash from some fans like what happened with Warhammer, they probably need to rename it something else. L5R Tactics? L5R Edge of Empire? 
I dunnu..
If they go with a 5th Edition of the RPG, I hope they take it in entirely a different direction. Take advantage of the reboot to tighten and refocus the narrative.
4th Edition is a solid game. It could use some tweaking, but at this point? I suspect we are going to see an overhaul and rebuild from the ground up, rather than a rehash. The core mechanic of the LCG's walking Prisoner Dilemma strikes me as tempting and thematic.
How much do you want to win? Will you sacrifice your Honor for victory?
4 minutes ago, lumia2 said:I love 4th edition and have pretty much all the books for it. But what's the point of releasing a 5th edition if it's just going to be a release with tweaks of 4th, which is near perfect? I have no interest in spending 300-400 dollars just for a set of new paint.
If they go with an RPG, I hope they draw some inspiration from Star Wars and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, with some unique cards and dice and smart mechanics, but steeped in the honor and glory of Rokugani samurai.
Of course, to avoid an angry backlash from some fans like what happened with Warhammer, they probably need to rename it something else. L5R Tactics? L5R Edge of Empire?
Problem with those is the cost, and are they even very successful? My view is could be entirely skewed, but I didn't think they were doing very well (but not poorly), given that they are giant popular IPs. Admittely, as far as I have been able to tell also don't have any good implementation of an RPG in either of these universes. If the games weren't Star Wars or Warhammer, but had the exact same mechanics, would you still play them?
1 hour ago, Mirith said:Problem with those is the cost, and are they even very successful? My view is could be entirely skewed, but I didn't think they were doing very well (but not poorly), given that they are giant popular IPs. Admittely, as far as I have been able to tell also don't have any good implementation of an RPG in either of these universes. If the games weren't Star Wars or Warhammer, but had the exact same mechanics, would you still play them?
The Star Wars RPG appears to be extremely successful for FFG. Anecdotally, when I worked for an online game shop, we had a much harder time keeping Star Wars books in stock than L5R. I even compared the numbers between Warhammer FRP3 and Dark Heresy 2 once, and found that, judging from his long DH2 had been out and pulling from the same amount of time from the release of WFRP3, WFRP3 had sold more, despite a healthy increase in sales for the business overall between those times.
While some people cannot get past the dice, FFG has been producing incredibly solid RPGs for several years that utilize these "wonky" dice.
They would need to tailor a system specifically to L5R, rather than just cloning SW, but there's definitely a solid foundation.
9 hours ago, Mirith said:While you are speaking gibberish, I do agree that 4th edition is both quite complete and quite well done. My tabletop group has discussed this and honestly see no reason to change off of 4th Edition.
I started running a 4th ed group just this week for 2 vets and a new player. The only change I would really like to see in 4th ed rulebook is a clean up of timeline stuff. We are playing Pre-Coup (I decided on this time period a few weeks ago, lucky me :P) and having Mantis seemingly be a Great Clan as well as things like Battle of Beidan Pass marked on the map make it hard to explain to the new player "oh that hasn't happened yet and won't be a thing for another 10 years. Emperor Toturi? Yeah, ignore those references, he won't be a thing in our game. Oh the Agasha are a Dragon family in our game". I love that 4th ed was timeline agnostic but I wish they would have had better delineations of this in the main rulebook. I know it would have been a near impossible task but I would have liked to have seen it *somehow* so it would be easier to explain to a new player what is going on in our particular point in time. There is a lot of head canon to keep track of as a GM let alone a new player trying to make sense of how things fit together.
5 hours ago, Mirith said:Problem with those is the cost, and are they even very successful? My view is could be entirely skewed, but I didn't think they were doing very well (but not poorly), given that they are giant popular IPs.
Based purely on volume moving through distribution channels (which would not cover all sales), FFG's Star Wars RPG line is the best selling RPG on the planet that is not D&D, or was not D&D at one time (Pathfinder). And Pathfinder is hurting nowadays (there's a reason they're putting out Fifth Edition books).
As I mentioned elsewhere, when FFG makes a 5th Edition, I would love them to do what CGL did with Shadowrun; take the core foundation of 4th Edition and clean up the mechanics (it sold well).
I can see the same progress done with a L5R 5th Ed.
If FFG goes a different direction, then I hope the Five Rings are use in some way. Right off the top of my head; Ring Dice...
Air Dice: Defense
Earth Dice: Health
Fire Dice: Attack
Water Dice: Damage
Void Dice: Use Bonus Dice equal to your Void Dice Rank and add it to your Air, Earth, Fire or Water Dice rolls.
Total on the spot brainstorming and nothing else. 
I was pondering about a similar system myself:
QuoteBy the way, I was thinking this morning about how to implement the special dice into L5R without getting rid of R&K (so that we can have some backward compatibility), and the idea that popped into my mind was a sort of "elemental dice": basically, there are 5 different kinds of D10s in the game themed after the five elements (Air Dice, Earth Dice, Fire Dice, Water Dice, Void Dice) - they are numbered somewhat differently (for example, Water Dice has 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 6, 6, 6, 9, 9 sides while Fire Dice has 2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8, 0, 0, sides) and each of them confers some sort of thematic narrative element once the player keeps them (keeping Water Dice will cause powerful change in the scene, keeping Fire Dice will cause some sort of destruction, etc.); the player decides what dice he wants to roll and keep, so he can shape the narrative if he is up to sacrifice some "hard" results (you might want to keep Water Dice for the narrative despite all your Water Dice showing bad results). This way, everyone can be happy: Roll&Keepers can just ignore the whole "elemental dice" thing and narrative gamers can have their special narrative dice system.
15 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:I was pondering about a similar system myself:
Sounds like a good foundation for a FFG system. But clearly @BlindSamurai13 knows something we don't about what's coming, despite all the talk of "on the spot brainstorming". <.< Typical Crane to always have the political connections.....
:-)
Well, remember that in the end, fancy symbols or large numbers, it's just a way to represent probability. It's just that people are primed to see numbers as the "correct, proper" way to do things. Give them a game where you get a success on 5 and 6 on k6, and it's "good". Replace it with a graphic for success on two out of 6 sides, and it's weird and bad. Funniest thing is people would rather memorize a number table ("if you get under 3, x happens, if get between 4 and 7, Y happens, and..."), which is essentially the same as "if you get a dragon head symbol, you win"; you just forge association between a graphic and a result, instead between a number and a graphic.
Here is a random idea if you want to keep 10 dice:
Each dice has 2 sides dedicated to an element, so you get 2 sides with Fire, 2 sides with Air, 2 sides with Earth, 2 sides with Water, and 2 sides with Void. Each action get an Element associated with it. Rolling a side with the target element brings you closer to a success (say, you get a Raise); Void either acts as a wild card (so you get 60% chance of getting a Raise per dice rolled), or something; maybe you need to spend a limited resource (say, Focus) to turn Void dice into a dice of your chosen element (including GM's rolls!). Or maybe you get to wild card up to your Skill in Void dice. Whatever. Elements neutral to the one guiding your roll don't do anything. Dice that roll element opposed to the one guiding you? Unless you do X (say, pay limited resource, or accept a drawback), they take away your Raise.
Add the ability to spend Honor to "close the gap" between what you aimed at and what you rolled, and you get an example of how "weird dice" can emphasize samurai fantasy in their own way.
Whatever will happen I'll remain 4th edition with my own tweaks and house rules.
I've spent too much on printed books to get a new set.
11 hours ago, Gaffa said:Based purely on volume moving through distribution channels (which would not cover all sales), FFG's Star Wars RPG line is the best selling RPG on the planet that is not D&D, or was not D&D at one time (Pathfinder). And Pathfinder is hurting nowadays (there's a reason they're putting out Fifth Edition books).
I did not know this, but I was wondering people's experience with the system too. I am personally put off by the new dice, but it is not the worst thing in the world and it can make sense (You can always make your own by defining numbers as symbols, etc). Usually when I talk to people about these things, which is why I say I may be skewed, FFG RPGs never come up, but we may all be unwilling to try the new thing either.
Whether it's a R&K system or not I will say that the hierarchical structure of the game really is a relic of 90s RPGs, and while that's not inherently bad, it does contradict a general free-form philosophy that modern game design espouses and which I think is for the better. Even FFGs own RPGs show this "a la carte" style of character creation and advancement that I think could appeal to new and old players. An ability to focus on aspects of your character's abilities that you want to improve rather than being forced to improve your character in predicable and often times lackluster ways.
For example, in the current 4E, one is diving for Insight so that they can advance in Rank to get either more powerful techniques or spells or kihos or what have you. To do this you must make the most efficient use of your experience. You pick up non-specialty skills up to rank 3 with maybe some focus skills at 4-5 (a specific utility skill or two) and maybe weapon skills or those skills with a rank 7 mastery ability at Rank 7. The same thing with Rings, you may specialize in a Ring to get it up to 4, but after that, to advance quickly you most often get all your other rings to 3. It's formulaic and doesn't allow for characters with sharp deficiencies. I recall back even in 3E where iconic characters like Yasuki Taka or Kakita Yoshi had to be "cheated" into their Rank 5 status because they were meant to be characters with little if any physical prowess. Their Rings were heavily lopsided with physical stats of 2-3 and Mental stats of 5-6 and so their insight calculation was terrible since they had Rings of 2 or maybe 3. The game has trouble upholding its own narrative NPCs, and forces PCs to build completely differently than many iconic characters.
A free-form system would allow this kind of variation by giving players choices. Do I want a balanced character, or do I want to try and be truly great in my chosen field? Do I focus on ability, skill, technique, or spirituality (magic, kiho, etc.)? I think that's a far more interesting choice that doesn't require, for example, my pacifistic Water Shugenja to hit like a truck because they were required to have a Strength of 5 in order to be good at casting spells. Yes you lose out on some of the thematic notions of physical and mental balance as the root of true insight, but I'm willing to lose some of that flavor to have something that's more evocative of the kind of variation we see in the setting.
4 minutes ago, SonofScarlet said:Even FFGs own RPGs show this "a la carte" style of character creation and advancement that I think could appeal to new and old players.
You are not very familiar with the SW character creation/advancement, are you?
12 hours ago, BlindSamurai13 said:As I mentioned elsewhere, when FFG makes a 5th Edition, I would love them to do what CGL did with Shadowrun; take the core foundation of 4th Edition and clean up the mechanics (it sold well).
I can see the same progress done with a L5R 5th Ed.
Total on the spot brainstorming and nothing else.
Honestly, I think they can take something else CGL has done with Shadowrun and have the reporting system for their living world.
Currently they have new modules & story progression released for SR supplements with PDF story session report logs. They take the feedback of how story progressed at both big conventions and home game play, take the best ideas and progress the story in that manner.
RPG affecting story was only really done well - I feel - through the PbP Winter Court boards (still have some of my writing on canonized on those stories) and could have done so much more with it.