If it's even remotely like Genesys then the system will be polarising. Either people love the 3 axis of success or they don't, for some it's too hard to see the benefits.

With the FFG system from WFRP, through Star Wars and now Genesys the basic concept has stayed the same.

First you measure success; you either pass or fail.

Separate to that you measure luck, boon/bane in WFRP and Advantage/Threat in Star Wars and Genesys. You can be lucky but fail or unlucky an succeed.

Finally there's the Critical Luck which allows you to do extraordinary things... of have disastrous consequences. Sigmars Comet and the Chaos Star where from WRFP then SW introduced Triumph and Despair. Unlike the other axis these don't cancel out, you can have both happen in the same roll.

The system significantly reduces the planning effort for GM's and when things go off the rails it's very very easy to GM by the seat of your pants.

10 hours ago, Daidoji Mumei said:

I ran Age of Rebellion for a year and a half and that whole experience managed to turn me from thinking the narrative dice system was kind of neat into sort of hating it.

Kind of the same. I like the custom dice pooling system but coming up with narrative interpretation for advantage and threat gets old fast.

4 hours ago, shosuko said:

Anyway - tl/dr - whatever the system is, I may or may not use it - because my game I'm starting right now is already using a good amount of custom rules, based on 1st ed R&K. I plan to give this a shot, but if it doesn't jive then it gets the boot - just like 2nd ed L5R did. The core book was alright, but everything after that sucked lol.

Not to be rude or anything, but it does sound you have exactly what you want with your system, and--short of getting amnesia and starting a new life-- any system by any developer with any set of mechanics will never be good enough. If you're using a variance of the R&K and FFG uses a variance of Genesys (or almost anything else), then you're pretty much wasting your time.

1 hour ago, Blackbird888 said:

Not to be rude or anything, but it does sound you have exactly what you want with your system, and--short of getting amnesia and starting a new life-- any system by any developer with any set of mechanics will never be good enough. If you're using a variance of the R&K and FFG uses a variance of Genesys (or almost anything else), then you're pretty much wasting your time.

That isn't true. I like the sound of Ninjo and Giri. If there is an awesome system that can represent that struggle I'm 100% down. I love how l5r lcg does the mono no aware, and would love more tension in my games. I'd also love to see any new rules for battles. I'm not married to R&K but I don't know about dice telling me more than the result of the skill check in question. With R&K, as well as FATE the players can sort of barter with the GM for a greater effect through raises, or justify advantages to gain free raises through narrative play. If there is a die that just says "Oh yeah, make something awesome happen" then idk.

I love the mechanic in Star Wars , and I'd be happy to see it adapted to L5R. I'm not particularly attached to roll-and-keep, though I understand others are for their own reasons.

I just hope we're not going to see multiple cores for one setting like we see with Star Wars. Or, if we do, I'd like to see FFG take the White Wolf approach and release a single setting/mechanical core rulebook, and template cores to augment it; that way base mechanics aren't getting reprinted over and over again.

But I'm excited! I'm running a 4th Edition L5R game now, and I was going to take a break and run Shadowrun 4th Edition, but with the beta dropping next week I'll run that instead.

i'm excited for this week to pass and for the "will they won't they" of R&K vs Genesys to finally be over.

i can't fathom they'll use R&K personally. theres a plethora of books out there, you can buy the pdfs on drivethru. it seems a questionable business decision to revise that, again, especially when FFG has its new in house system on deck. whatever you think of the two systems, from a business standpoint, i can't see the logic in not using genesys or some derivation thereof. BUT i'm excited to never have to talk about it again, and instead to just have to defend narrative dice!

38 minutes ago, shosuko said:

With R&K, as well as FATE the players can sort of barter with the GM for a greater effect through raises, or justify advantages to gain free raises through narrative play. If there is a die that just says "Oh yeah, make something awesome happen" then idk.

In many ways, that is how FFG's narrative dice work.

In most systems I've ever seen, there is some kind of "degree of success" chart. Roll 1-2 over the target number, you get a basic success; roll 3-4 over and you get a more positive success; roll 5+ or a natural 6/10/20/etc and you get a critical success. The narrative dice, looking at the results themselves, isn't much different from that. You determine if you succeed, then determine what the degree of success (or failure) is.

To me, the dice don't say "make something awesome happen" so much as "here are the resources for additional effects, decide what they are."

A thing you may have issue with, though, is the difference between an assumed, plotted outcome and a variable outcome. The system seems to be more slanted towards having variable outcomes.

I think they'll keep the basics of R&K but add on some narrative elements (at a minimum a fate/destiny pool of some sort) and maybe expand on the Raise system as part of it.

I didn't see anything in the description that screamed narrative dice system but things that seem to include and expand the old R&K system.

But who knows, we'll find out soon enough.

Oh boy, I'm living the dream right now ! And in a dedicated L5R RPG forum! I feel like it is Christmas already!

20 hours ago, TheWanderingJewels said:

I hope it's a update of R&K personally. They could make Clan dices sets (Those WOULD sell) and make the transition much easier. but I want to know what this will be like

https://q-workshop.com/en/95-legend-of-the-five-rings

These are on my list.... then again I'm not missing a single book from the first two editions of their D10 system...

I'll check out the new system, but honestly, unless it's Genesys, or a move back to the previous system, I doubt I'll pick it up. Genesys because I love the system, and will probably purchase every book I can in it, and the old system because I've been using it for so long, and love it.

I just don't understand people's fear of having to resolve every single threat or advantage. There are plenty of mechanical options. Not every roll do you need to decide what trick of fate happened. Sometimes the GM or a Player has a good idea, sometimes you just pass a blue on to the next check, or a black to the gm's next check. It's simple, move on. My group got over it pretty fast, and either helped come up with something on the fly, just passed out dice or ignored it as the pace of the scene called for. I get some folks have trouble deciphering the pool, but there's no way someone in the group can't figure it out and help read them.

Playing a system and not liking it is fine, but not even giving it a try because of some perceived notion that numbers>symbols is lame. Don't wanna buy weird dice? Wait for the free off brand app that resolves all your rolls for you and stores common rolls.

6 minutes ago, llamaman88 said:

I just don't understand people's fear of having to resolve every single threat or advantage.

That kinda defeats the whole point of having all those results, doesn't it? You might as well just check whether the roll is successful or not, then fill up the blanks all by yourself however you like it.

Some times a test is just a test. If no one has a cool idea, snag a blue or recover a strain. There's mechanical options where narrative fails you.

9 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

That kinda defeats the whole point of having all those results, doesn't it? You might as well just check whether the roll is successful or not, then fill up the blanks all by yourself however you like it.

I believe Llamaman88 meant that you don't have to think of narrative/fluff descriptions for every threat/advantage/etc... Instead, you spend those for simpler mechanical benefits. Strain recovery, passing on boost/setback, critical hits, etc.

I wish I always had a clever resolution for the dice results, but it just isn't there for some rolls, so instead I recover some strain and move on.

Just now, kaosoe said:

I believe Llamaman88 meant that you don't have to think of narrative/fluff descriptions for every threat. Instead, you spend those for simpler mechanical benefits. Strain recovery, passing on boost/setback, critical hits, ect...

You can confer those too without an actual dice result. This happens quite a few time around my playing group, actually. Sometimes, a roll just really hits it/fails it and the GM starts distributing treats for it like recovering from Conditional Effects ("You are too pissed to be Dazed now") and such. No big deal, no special dice required, and there is no awkward silence at the table when half the dice pool goes effectively unresolved because "it would be too hard".

12 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

You can confer those too without an actual dice result. This happens quite a few time around my playing group, actually. Sometimes, a roll just really hits it/fails it and the GM starts distributing treats for it like recovering from Conditional Effects ("You are too pissed to be Dazed now") and such. No big deal, no special dice required, and there is no awkward silence at the table when half the dice pool goes effectively unresolved because "it would be too hard".

The point being reiterated is there are plenty of options for any such unsure moments. It simply takes a prompt from the GM or a player with a base head-knowledge of the options/suggestions to pick one and move along. That's one of the biggest hurdles I've seen: players, and sometimes GMs, don't familiarize themselves with what they can actually do, so people look at each other and shrug.

Having options prepared in advance is helpful. A user named @Kainrath created (or collected) a list of environmental results charts. Pick a setting (snowy forest, desert, city, etc.), have that chart handy and if nothing is coming immediately, pick an option from the chart and move on. There are enough options to carry on for a while, and the events would (hopefully) spark the imaginations of the players.

If you want to get down to it, you don't need dice to roleplay, let alone what symbols are on the dice. All I'm trying to say is, if you struggle with the narrative solution, the game is kind enough to provide mechanical ones. I feel like if more people paid attention to that in their first few play throughs, instead of worrying if they're clever enough to figure out what happens with a success and 2 threat, they'd find the game is just as fun as any other. I strongly recommend easing into the narrative mindset. Handy charts with environment effects certainly help.

If they do base it on the Genesys system, I hope that system does a better job with critical injuries than the SW version. L5R has always had fast and deadly combat, and the SW critical injuries are a bad joke in comparison unless every school teaches multiple ranks of Lethal Blows and every weapon has ranks of Vicious.

My point is that you don't need dice for these specific effects (narrative or mechanical). You need dice for success/failure... and that's pretty much it.

To quote a classic, the question with including special dice is not whether we could but whether we should . In my opinion the only reason we should is to help out inexperienced storytellers. It is good that the game leads you by the hand if you can't make up stuff on the fly, but other than that... I dunno.

To be fair, Star Wars isn't supposed to be deadly like that. Mooks die, but the hero's just going to get shot in the arm. (unless they're a Skywalker, then I hope you don't like your hands) I could see a crit system being deadly for L5R

13 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

My point is that you don't need dice for these specific effects (narrative or mechanical). You need dice for success/failure... and that's pretty much it.

To quote a classic, the question with including special dice is not whether we could but whether we should . In my opinion the only reason we should is to help out inexperienced storytellers. It is good that the game leads you by the hand if you can't make up stuff on the fly, but other than that... I dunno.

If you're FFG, the should comes in with milking maximum money from the players. FFG believes they should do that, so I believe that specialty dice are assured even if the game is not Genesys.

18 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

My point is that you don't need dice for these specific effects (narrative or mechanical). You need dice for success/failure... and that's pretty much it.

To quote a classic, the question with including special dice is not whether we could but whether we should . In my opinion the only reason we should is to help out inexperienced storytellers. It is good that the game leads you by the hand if you can't make up stuff on the fly, but other than that... I dunno.

I was simply clarifying Llamaman88's original point. Clearly NarDS doesn't work for you and your group. So perhaps you will get your wish and FFG's L5R system will be a binary conflict resolution system. I have a hunch it won't be, but we won't know for sure until the beta drops.

3 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

My point is that you don't need dice for these specific effects (narrative or mechanical). You need dice for success/failure... and that's pretty much it.

To quote a classic, the question with including special dice is not whether we could but whether we should . In my opinion the only reason we should is to help out inexperienced storytellers. It is good that the game leads you by the hand if you can't make up stuff on the fly, but other than that... I dunno.

To be fair, including custom narrative dice isn't a question of ethics, like resurrecting dinosaurs may be. It's a game design choice, and not everybody is going agree, but that doesn't make the choice invalid.

6 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

To be fair, including custom narrative dice isn't a question of ethics, like resurrecting dinosaurs may be. It's a game design choice, and not everybody is going agree, but that doesn't make the choice invalid.

I'm questioning it from a game design perspective. It might be good enough from a business standpoint (well, not really, because free dice rollers and that conversion table exist), but I feel like it is largely redundant when it comes to mechanics and design.

2 hours ago, Blackbird888 said:

In many ways, that is how FFG's narrative dice work.

In most systems I've ever seen, there is some kind of "degree of success" chart. Roll 1-2 over the target number, you get a basic success; roll 3-4 over and you get a more positive success; roll 5+ or a natural 6/10/20/etc and you get a critical success. The narrative dice, looking at the results themselves, isn't much different from that. You determine if you succeed, then determine what the degree of success (or failure) is.

To me, the dice don't say "make something awesome happen" so much as "here are the resources for additional effects, decide what they are."

A thing you may have issue with, though, is the difference between an assumed, plotted outcome and a variable outcome. The system seems to be more slanted towards having variable outcomes.

idk about most systems, and I don't know about Gensys or the narrative dice personally. I'm open to new things, I've just heard issues with too much randomness when its not called for, and a lack of control given to the GM to contain things.

What I like about the R&K system and the FATE system is that they both work on a sort of gamble or barter system.

In R&K you can take raises before a roll to gain a bigger effect. If there is an opponent in full armor, and you don't see that you could reliably hit him you could instead try to target the armor, and spend some void on a risky gamble of mitigating the armor for the remainder of the combat. Similarly you could go for a disarm, remove the weapon and the armor doesn't matter much. It's a gamble the player gets to make, its their choice. Not only can a player spend void, and take raises to help deal with situation they can also add their own role play / narrative to sell me on a free raise to drop the TN or get that extra effect without making the role harder than it already is.

It doesn't matter if you roll 10000 on the dice, if you didn't make the bet it doesn't matter. Role play is rewarded as players break into describing what they are doing to tackle the challenge, or build the scene to help give them an advantage.

I'm up for trying whatever the new L5R system is, I'm just wary of random bonuses or penalties coming out of nowhere, rather than a player being allowed to recognize a challenge and join in the narrative to tackle it.

MERPS had a method of rolling that would cause crits, and some crits called for instant death or dismemberment of the opponent... This kinda sucked when they rolled a crit on some big baddie and got instant death... idk what the Gensys system is exactly, I'm not a SW fan so I never looked into it.