Hello everyone!

It's been a long, long time for me. In L5R, I go by 'Bayushi Tashiro', and was in the game since the 1st edition of the Roleplaying Game. I played off and on with the card game, but my first love was the RPG. I just cracked open all my old fiction from the campaigns I ran, and looked over the characters my friends played, and decided to come peek in here.

I'm looking forward to trying out the card game, stepping back into L5R, and I'm glad they're starting from the beginning(ish). I'm curious to see what stories they tell.

And I'm definitely looking forward to seeing a new edition of the RPG coming out. I helped with a bit of 2nd Edition, was a playtester for 3rd Edition and 4th Edition, and even did the conversion from d20 to R&K for the Bloodspeakers book. I would like nothing more than to step into Rokugan once more.

Any other old-timers here?

Yeah I started with the card game right when Jade started, and played through until gold. I stayed with the RPG's long after I left off on the ccg because the same books can last forever lol. I played the 1st ed, never 2nd or beyond... but I still use the 1st ed books to this day. I don't necessarily use them as a rules manual as much as I use them to build the flavor of the clans for new players (most people I run L5R RPG with aren't actually L5R fans, they just love the idea of a Samurai rpg lol). I'm planning a new game now and still plan on using my 1st ed books... I hope they release a new RPG edition for the new story line. I'd like to see the new flavor and fictions, as well as the new modern rules design (things are WAY more refined across the board now lol.)

Diamond Edition and D&D L5R for me. Always gone by Hiruma Shigure but just settled down on the old Crab forums in the past.

I've heard rumour the RPG will be declared at GenCon - and I certainly hope this is true. Yeah, if you have access to the 1e Revised Way of the Clan Books, you'll see 'Bayushi Tashiro and Bayushi Oyuki' in the side bar for special thanks along with a few other people. We're the reason why 'Twins' are considered lucky in the Scorpion Clan. I'm hoping they'll keep the Role and Keep mechanics from 1st Edition - I still consider that one of the best mechanics out there - better than quite a few others I've seen. It's strong, flexible, simple, and adaptable, and allows the game to be very deadly or cinematic depending on how you want to go about using them.

13 minutes ago, Tashiro said:

I've heard rumour the RPG will be declared at GenCon - and I certainly hope this is true. Yeah, if you have access to the 1e Revised Way of the Clan Books, you'll see 'Bayushi Tashiro and Bayushi Oyuki' in the side bar for special thanks along with a few other people. We're the reason why 'Twins' are considered lucky in the Scorpion Clan. I'm hoping they'll keep the Role and Keep mechanics from 1st Edition - I still consider that one of the best mechanics out there - better than quite a few others I've seen. It's strong, flexible, simple, and adaptable, and allows the game to be very deadly or cinematic depending on how you want to go about using them.

Another Rpg old fogey am I ?

The only edition I skipped was second.

I think R&K might be dead though. I'm fairly certain FFG is going with their Narrative Dice System. Of course that's still supposition, so I could be wrong.

Oh, and welcome ??

The R&K system was a great innovation to make the classic game unique... but I hope they go with the Narrative Dice System. In my games I've switched to using FATE dice already. This lets us focus more on the narrative without rolling too many dice, or counting up tons of numbers. We look at how +/- we are on the roll, spend assets to improve our odds and negotiate the result. Handfuls of dice and dozens of stats can become cumbersome, I prefer to focus more on the story and RP if I can.

I admit, I was a fan of 2nd Edition. A lot of the 1e books still worked with 2nd edition, which was a plus, and I loved the 'Secrets of the Clans' as well. The Skill Groups thing made life interesting - though with 3rd Edition, I had really, really hoped they'd have moved to 7th Sea's way of handling schools and skills - it made a bit more sense.

1 minute ago, shosuko said:

The R&K system was a great innovation to make the classic game unique... but I hope they go with the Narrative Dice System. In my games I've switched to using FATE dice already. This lets us focus more on the narrative without rolling too many dice, or counting up tons of numbers. We look at how +/- we are on the roll, spend assets to improve our odds and negotiate the result. Handfuls of dice and dozens of stats can become cumbersome, I prefer to focus more on the story and RP if I can.

Eh, I'm not a fan of the FATE engine - I'm really not one for narrativistic games. I'm a simulationist / gamist, myself - I want the mechanics to simulate the setting and provide a lot of crunch and options for the players. It's one reason I liked 2nd Edition - so many options, so many ways to mix and match to get what you wanted from the game. If I want to play FATE, I'd be using Blood and Honour - which allows you to make your own Great Clans - but the engine's really not to my liking.

I don't know enough about the Narrative Dice System to say anything - but there's a very specific feel to L5R that I'd like to see. For example, the idea that a single swipe of the sword can kill anyone at any level of power - a peasant with a spear can get exploding dice up the wazoo and take out a veteran samurai was to my liking. It made my players have a healthy fear and respect for combat. I want my players to worry their Insight Rank 5 samurai could be killed in an instant by a goblin with a knife.

FATE is not a forgiving system, but it is quicker and simpler to use. Exploding dice are easily replicated with FATE and a lucky ++++ role, likewise a ---- role can mean BIG trouble... The Narrative Dice is (I would say) an advancement on the vision of the FATE dice. FATE are simpler, with just a - blank and + side on each dice, and you just roll 4 for any check. The Narrative Dice takes away the numbers and turns them into dice - so you roll a number of "good" dice based on how good you are, with bonus for if you are familiar with the situation. You also roll a number of "bad" dice, which can also escalate if the situation is particularly against you. If you get more success symbols than failure symbols then you succeed - but there are symbols for critical success and critical failure which don't cancel each other out... so you can have really good AND bad things happen from the same role.

I admit, I'm partially aware of how the Narrative system works, having glanced at Star Wars before, but I didn't go into depth reading it, so I'm not going to say I like or dislike it just yet. I like giving games a fair chance before giving my thoughts on whether or not it's for me. FATE, on the other hand, I've seen in depth - my wife helped edit Houses of the Blooded and I own that and Blood and Honour, which both use the FATE engine. For me, the games are, to be honest, too narrativist for me. I'm too used to 'the player character sheet is built on this, with a number of moving parts to make the characters unique', and 'the players describe action, GM describes reaction' without a lot of back and forth on what's being done, what's being triggered, etc.

I also liked the R&K system for the horizontal growth as well as the vertical growth. Picking up skills, getting new Advantages, grabbing new School techniques or spells or kiho. FATE, I feel, doesn't really go for that to the same extent. I could be wrong, but when I looked at it everything seemed tied to the attributes and 'tags' for the characters, and I can't quite remember how progress worked in FATE. Like, if I tried to convert my old L5R character from 2e to FATE (which I tried to do with Blood and Honour) I was at a complete and utter loss as to how to go about it.

Yeah I can see that. I like it for the simplicity - I have friends who haven't rpg'd before but they want to play a game because I'm telling it, and its easier if we cut down on the math and focus on the story. Its definitely focused more around the narrative and shared story experience than it is "a game." The narrative dice hit a great balance between them with the variance. You get success / failure, plus advantage and disadvantage, critical success and failure, which are all different. You can critically succeed and fail at an action and that is awesome, like kharmic strike.

I started with the CCG in Imperial and bought the RPG the day it came out. I still have thousands of cards and while I've pared down the book collection I still have all my old 1st and 2nd edition volumes.

Are any of you old-timers in the Seattle area? I'd love to do Organized Play with folks who share my... historical view of the game.

I've played a good bit of Star Wars, and I really like the narrative dice. I would love high-quality, clan-themed dice for L5R; heavy with sharp edges.

Fair enough. I'll take a 'wait and see' approach to this - but I still want to see School Techniques, Clan and Family, Advantages and Disadvantages, and Skill sets.

I have played several systems.

I fell in love with Roll and Keep early and quickly.

FATE has a beautiful character creation system and I use the system on occasion but I never fell in love with it.

The Star Wars story dice have impressed me, but I have only just started that campaign and I am still not in love with them either.

18 hours ago, Tashiro said:

my wife helped edit Houses of the Blooded and I own that and Blood and Honour

In this case, I can tell you what FFG's Special Snowflake Dice System is like: it is the exact opposite of the narrative system used by HotB and B&H. Like, in those, you have a fairly standard dice roll, and then just tell whatever wildly bizarre story you want as a result. In the FFG system, you make a wildly bizarre roll, and it will give you a fairly standard result you must translate into a story. It is pretty much like this:

- B&H: standard dice, narrative system

- FFG: narrative dice, standard system

Interesting! Thank you for helping clear that up - it makes me a bit more hopeful if they switch to that game engine.

Yeah. Old timer.

Started in Imperial. Missed Gold. Played until end of Samurai. Loving the new art and rekindling the original stories. Loving the gender balance and even storytelling of New5r

Not sure if I will jump into the game again ( I mainly play X-wing and Destiny at the moment) but I am not far to being tempted. Probably back to the Scorp as that was my first real clan. Don't acknowledge the dark times before the ruined fortress and Kachiko ;-)

Hmm, now I'm curious. Okay, so let's say they're using Narrative Dice. How would they capture the feel of the School Techniques. Because a big part of the game was the feel of the Clans and the various schools. So, for example, the Bayushi Bushi School - the feint, where you open up the opponent's guard and get a quick hit in - follows up by the 'if you score a solid hit, the opponent has to match you or they miss'. That was a 1-2 punch I really enjoyed - especially when playing an archer.

2 hours ago, Tashiro said:

Hmm, now I'm curious. Okay, so let's say they're using Narrative Dice. How would they capture the feel of the School Techniques. Because a big part of the game was the feel of the Clans and the various schools. So, for example, the Bayushi Bushi School - the feint, where you open up the opponent's guard and get a quick hit in - follows up by the 'if you score a solid hit, the opponent has to match you or they miss'. That was a 1-2 punch I really enjoyed - especially when playing an archer.

So far in star wars you start with almost nothing special. Then the majority of special abilities give you an extra dice under specific circumstances.

A very few give you a special ability you can roll and try to do.

That being said in star wars half of the special abilities are what weapons you have gotten your hands on.

I really liked the idea of five element combat stances of the... 3rd edition I think? but I was very disappointed that two were just total defense.

On 8/5/2017 at 10:26 PM, Tashiro said:

I've heard rumour the RPG will be declared at GenCon - and I certainly hope this is true. Yeah, if you have access to the 1e Revised Way of the Clan Books, you'll see 'Bayushi Tashiro and Bayushi Oyuki' in the side bar for special thanks along with a few other people. We're the reason why 'Twins' are considered lucky in the Scorpion Clan. I'm hoping they'll keep the Role and Keep mechanics from 1st Edition - I still consider that one of the best mechanics out there - better than quite a few others I've seen. It's strong, flexible, simple, and adaptable, and allows the game to be very deadly or cinematic depending on how you want to go about using them.

Can't wait to find out what I'll be replacing my set of Unicorn Clan d10s with!

1 hour ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

So far in star wars you start with almost nothing special. Then the majority of special abilities give you an extra dice under specific circumstances.

A very few give you a special ability you can roll and try to do.

That being said in star wars half of the special abilities are what weapons you have gotten your hands on.

Mind you, Star Wars is a very different beast from L5R. But here's a question - how do Force techniques work? Because I'm thinking of kiho and shugenja spells in L5R, and that's got to be more than 'extra dice'. The effect that would come off them, for example, would vary.

Force Techniques come in two flavors really. Some are baked in t the different force based classes, but for the most part those are minor, passive things. Full on powers like sense, push, heal/harm and enhance arre their own talent trees that you purchase separately and can improve upon

So for force powers are pretty well done but very limited early on.

Each technique has several ways to rank up. Number of people effected, distance, power, and usually a special effect. Leaving lots of room to specialize.

The problem was getting force dice. You usually start with one. About half light side half dark side.

Some force powers let you focus a dice, thus losing the dice but gaining the effect for a period of time. Some powers even allow you to focus several dice for a stronger effect like jumping hella high.

Most powers require you to roll the dice and spend the one or two pips of force you roll to activate the power. But using dark side pips usually strained your character. You can often spend many pips for many stronger effects.

Some powers had special effects or upgrades for using only light or only dark side points.

Given three or four dice you could do all kinds of cool stuff, but starting with only one dice has looked really limiting.

This experience all comes from running a total of four sessions.