1 hour ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

This is quite a common thing in RPG settings which are deep enough to have different, varied threats: each threat tends to be represented simultaneously as both very dangerous and not very dangerous at all. This is because each threat must be simultaneously very dangerous (so that PCs feel good about defeating them if that's what the focus of the campaign is on) and not very dangerous (so that it's possible to run a campaign which isn't about them.)

This may seem like a problem, but consider the alternative. When you run an RPG, you are implicitly promising your players that what they're involved in is the most interesting part of the game setting right now. If something fascinating happens elsewhere, they'll want to go and get involved. If they can't get involved then they'll be annoyed at you, and rightly so.

(Imagine being a player in a slice-of-life campaign of intrigue and swordsmanship amidst the ronin villages along the Shinomen Mori border. That would be enormous fun, right? Now imagine that you're playing that campaign while the events of the Scorpion Clan Coup are happening, but all you can do is hear about it second-hand. Less fun, right?)

The way that L5R handles this is to have each threat become harmless if the players aren't interested in it. If the campaign is about hunting down maho-tsukai, then those tsukai need to be incredibly dangeous. If the campaign is about (say) a succession crisis within the Akodo family, then maho-tsukai have to be something that can be handled by a few travelling shugenja while the rest of Rokugan gets on with other stuff.

My term for this is the Basilisk Herd . Basilisks are dangerous but only if you look at them; therefore out of the entire herd, the only one that threatens you is the one you're looking at.

Best thing I've ever read on this forum.

Anyone excited for Unicorn spoils.

(Not the maho/phoenix thread)

6 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

Anyone excited for Unicorn spoils.

(Not the maho/phoenix thread)

*raises hoove*

10 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

Anyone excited for Unicorn spoils.

(Not the maho/phoenix thread)

Duuuuuude. I have been hitting refresh endlessly for a fortnight.

7 hours ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Rokugan. A land where honor is stronger than steel. But weaker than gunpowder.

Eh. A lot is talked about honor being stronger than steel, but there was usually very little to show for it.

If that where the case, when Daigotsu said he was going to help defeat Kalima, but only if the Empress Iweko compromised with Jigoku itself, the answer she would give him would be "then we see each other in Jigoku".

What I'm saying is: if Honor is stronger than Steel, as the tagline says, then gunpowder wouldn't be a thread to it. If it isn't , then gunpowder is not the source of the problem.

EDIT: Seriously, why is the... uh... word for the western equivalent of Jigoku being censored? I mean, come on.

41 minutes ago, Mirumoto Saito said:

What I'm saying is: if Honor is stronger than Steel, as the tagline says, then gunpowder wouldn't be a thread to it. If it isn't , then gunpowder is not the source of the problem.

The problem of gunpowder points beyond the samurai. If you have gunpowder, then you have cannons. If you have cannons, you have actual, honest-to-goodness sieges. If sieges become a major concern, then star forts (and other complex defense structures) and ballistics also become a thing. Cue in a massive advancement in architecture, mathematics, geography, physics, metallurgy, and chemistry.

2 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

The problem of gunpowder points beyond the samurai. If you have gunpowder, then you have cannons. If you have cannons, you have actual, honest-to-goodness sieges. If sieges become a major concern, then star forts (and other complex defense structures) and ballistics also become a thing. Cue in a massive advancement in architecture, mathematics, geography, physics, metallurgy, and chemistry.

And no more samurai hacking each other to bloody chunks

*sadness*

30 minutes ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

And no more samurai hacking each other to bloody chunks

Oh, they will, because the improvement in metallurgy will bring in better weapons to hack with and better armor to be hacked in. It will just soften up larger-scaled conflicts because of the growing stakes (costs) and the diminishing returns.

I don't know whether to be amused or dismayed that so much discussion and debate has arisen from a post I intended as a jest.

38 minutes ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

And no more samurai hacking each other to bloody chunks

With curved blades and maybe some not-so-curved blades.

5 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

I don't know whether to be amused or dismayed that so much discussion and debate has arisen from a post I intended as a jest.

*like*

hit a bit of a sore spot you did ??

4 minutes ago, BCumming said:

With curved blades and maybe some not-so-curved blades.

You realize we might still be joking about this years from now ??

*like*

1 hour ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

I don't know whether to be amused or dismayed that so much discussion and debate has arisen from a post I intended as a jest.

At this point, I'm fairly sure that you can post a Jaden Smith quote here and we will have pages of conversation about it .

3 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

At this point, I'm fairly sure that you can post a Jaden Smith quote here and we will have pages of conversation about it .

Apparently My Little Pony images are an excellent way to get this result.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/255921-wandering-warriors-unicorn-spoilers/?page=7

34 minutes ago, Doji Tori said:

Apparently My Little Pony images are an excellent way to get this result.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/255921-wandering-warriors-unicorn-spoilers/?page=7

Yes, but it was FUN ?

3 hours ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

Yes, but it was FUN ?

Not to mention, magical!

21 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

I don't consider it a "dark path". It was a dark adventure (kinda?), but it was an investigative story that led to nice (and silly) things with Tadaka mostly staying on the right side of things and laughing in the face of darkness. Also, he never had any physicals signs of the Taint - as far as his RPG stats are concerned, his highest Taint Rank was 2.8 (you might have pale skin at this point) after the Black Scrolls with no powers/mutations whatsoever.

Obviously. That's one of their leading family trait.

I think it is better to leave the 'price to power' theme to someone else. The Phoenix are supposedly to smart, wise, and humble for this stuff.

I do consider Toturi a good Lion Thunder. And in this version, I would leave Tadaka in a "twilight zone" and leave it to the fans whether he was cool or not.

Dark "adventure"... ....? You are equating "uncovering foul rituals and gleaning their secrets" to "staying on the right side of things and laughing in the face of darkness". Is that really what you want to do here? If this is standard fare for Shugenja, why the ardent hate for Tadaka when he opened the Black Scrolls? After all, you expect Shugenja to be uncovering foul rituals and gleaning their secrets. What did you think opening the Black Scrolls was about?

In the 1E RPG, Tadaka returned to the Phoenix covered in black garb. What do you suppose he was hiding? Fashion statement? His quest led him to the "darkest parts of the Shadowlands" (Page 76). "Some say that the Master of Earth is 'too close to his work' and that the mask he wears is to cover the first signs of the Taint growing in his body " (Page 76).

Where is your evidence that almost all Kuni are "arrogant"? If you have to disparage an entire family in order to push the "Tadaka was arrogant" narrative, maybe it's time for re-examination.

The price of power is a Phoenix theme. The Phoenix can do a lot of good, but they are also capable of terrible deeds. That's just a function of having human minds wielding awesome power. Sometimes, they make mistakes too.

Rather than get into my critique of Toturi, and why I don't consider him to be a Lion (or their best choice for Thunder), I'll just say that if writers can make that "twilight zone" version of ronin Tadaka work, more power to them. I wouldn't consider that version of Tadaka to be a Phoenix Clan member though.

On 8/8/2017 at 11:13 PM, Shiba Gunichi said:

Indeed- Tadaka went digging in some nasty, nasty places. Moreso than the bulk of the Kuni family, that's for damned sure.

A natural outgrowth of its status as lazy narrative crutch is that if maho were as powerful as it's cracked up to be, we would have seen more Empire-shaking Tsukai than just Iuchiban or Daigotsu... but we never did. To be sure, the Dark Daughter of Fu Leng, the Ebon Daughter, Iuchi Shahai, and Asahina Yajinden were all presented as credible threats, but never as appreciably moreso than a "normal" shugenja would have been.

And considering how tired we all got of existential threats to the Empire, I'm not sure that's an inherent problem.

Magic that is intended to be "evil" is always going to labor under a burden- and is always going to be a readily available crutch for sloppy writing. "A wizard did it" is a tired trope, and "evil magic makes you evil" even moreso.

I don't think there will be any kind of resolution to our exchange on this. The Taint is "evil," but Tadaka's tale still resonates. In other words, the trapping of an evil influence upon a character does not necessarily lead to "sloppy writing". It's all in the execution of that character's story. Actually, I think you're critique is more about your inability to imagine a writer using Maho in a story well, rather than Maho as a story device itself.

The power level of Maho can be changed by the current writers.

Speaking from the perspective of japanese folklore, I think there has to be a space for Kuromajutsu (Black Magic) and Majyo (Witches) in L5R fiction. You do not. I'm OK with leaving it there.

2 hours ago, Anemura said:

Dark "adventure"... ....? You are equating "uncovering foul rituals and gleaning their secrets" to "staying on the right side of things and laughing in the face of darkness". Is that really what you want to do here?

When "uncovering foul rituals and gleaning their secrets" is discovering how to do Jade Strike +1, then yes, I don't mind it that much. Especially if it happens offscreen. It is definitely leagues below opening the Black Scrolls and summoning an oni and giving it your name.

Quote

In the 1E RPG, Tadaka returned to the Phoenix covered in black garb. What do you suppose he was hiding? Fashion statement? His quest led him to the "darkest parts of the Shadowlands" (Page 76). "Some say that the Master of Earth is 'too close to his work' and that the mask he wears is to cover the first signs of the Taint growing in his body " (Page 76).

Again, according to his RPG stats, he has nothing. Pre-Black Scrolls, he has a meager Taint Rank of 0.8, not even enough to trigger anti-Taint effects like Jade Strike. Even his later Taint Rank of 2.8 is meager, especially with him not having any Shadowlands powers/mutations at all. Tadaka was fine when he first returned from the Shadowlands. Despite going to awful places and doing fishy businesses, his only loss was... I dunno... he became edgy I guess?

Quote

Where is your evidence that almost all Kuni are "arrogant"?

Aren't they the family who always dabble with forbidden things because they (arrogantly) think they can totally control it, but they totally can't in the end?

Quote

The price of power is a Phoenix theme. The Phoenix can do a lot of good, but they are also capable of terrible deeds.

This sounds like a Kuni thing too. I think you are mixing up the two.

30 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Aren't they the family who always dabble with forbidden things because they (arrogantly) think they can totally control it, but they totally can't in the end?

Isn't that, like, everyone? If not, it should be. The temptation of forbidden power is too good a story to be restricted to just one group.

I want to see stories about Akodo and Ide (f'rinstance) bloodspeakers. Not only would nobody would expect those, but it would also allow us to tell stories about honour and sacrifice in a new and interesting context.

49 minutes ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

Isn't that, like, everyone?

Of course, but for the Kuni, it is a family disease.

The Isawa should know better however, and they should be THE people who say "no" to the temptations of greater power because they are not willing to pay the price for it (exactly like what Isawa did) and know better than to dabble with the forbidden.

56 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Of course, but for the Kuni, it is a family disease.

The Isawa should know better however, and they should be THE people who say "no" to the temptations of greater power because they are not willing to pay the price for it (exactly like what Isawa did) and know better than to dabble with the forbidden.

That sounds less fun and interesting though.

5 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

That sounds less fun and interesting though.

I'm fairly sure that many Phoenix players would disagree with this statement.

1 minute ago, AtoMaki said:

I'm fairly sure that many Phoenix players would disagree with this statement.

*shrug* doesn't make it sound less fun and interesting to me.

6 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

*shrug* doesn't make it sound less fun and interesting to me.

That's some quite selfish thinking from a Unicorn !

Also, just as a side note, I don't like "price of power" stories and generally find them obnoxious and uninteresting. If some guy decides to go maho, I don't want to read about his edgy internal monologues and have ultimately pointless drama about his poor life choices. That's just... ugh .

I would rather have stories about people who know what they are doing and have no illusions about what they are playing with. Thus we can have intelligent and meaningful stuff like this .

1 minute ago, AtoMaki said:

That's some quite selfish thinking from a Unicorn !

Also, just as a side note, I don't like "price of power" stories and generally find them obnoxious and uninteresting. If some guy decides to go maho, I don't want to read about his edgy internal monologues and have ultimately pointless drama about his poor life choices. That's just... ugh .

I would rather have stories about people who know what they are doing and have no illusions about what they are playing with. Thus we can have intelligent and meaningful stuff like this .

It is not selfish to have an opinion.

The latter does not prevent dabbling with Maho. Just that you are aware of the power, and the potential downsides, and embrace it anyway.

But my opinion, that good story involves conflict, and conflict isn't "I know I shouldn't do this, so I won't."