One thing I would like to see is for spiritual matters to be available to everyone. More specifically, I hope that spells of the shugenja are not the primary way of handling such matters but rather that spells be an outgrowth of whatever system is created for dealing with spiritual matters.

With regard to the scale of Rokugan, while specification of exact distances and population sizes may lead to absurdity, I feel that it may be helpful to give guides to travel times between major cities and rough estimates of population of those cities. Another thing that could be helpful is if a clear relationship between population and area of regions were devised, as that could help authors avoid absurdity.

17 hours ago, shosuko said:

idk - the mechanic of the caste system aids in the presence of social interactions. If you feel strongly about the caste system, its existence then gives you a great background for drama relating to it. Maybe you find an Eta who is so beautiful that a Lord has secretly absconded with her, hiding her away as his precious pet because he can't have her publicly. Your character can fight for her freedom from the evil warlord. The focus of the mission is that he has committed no crime, so you find it difficult to gain allies against him. Eventually you get a few partners in crime. Maybe some of them are brave hinin or eta themselves, and you use your position as a Samurai to acquire weapons through the channels give to you, while obfuscating your purpose. You fill out the paper work, dodge questions, spend weeks in the forest training them for the climactic, deadly raid you will lead on the evil warlords estate. When you do free her you then must decide whether to return her to her eta village, or try to raise her in society to give her freedom.

We're not playing gritty, realistic samurai. We're playing noble, idealised heroes. Just as if I were playing in an Arthurian fantasy game I wouldn't expect to deal with the realities of 'help, help, I'm being oppressed' - save that for the historical RPG!

Having a peasantry is okay, protected by their lords whose protection keeps them safe. Having a further subclass of people below them, righteously believed to be actual scum and then saying that that society is the good guys, with honour stronger than steel...

I think you're horribly mistaken if you have ever thought the samurai in L5R were ever "good" at all. Bushido, by a default, has nothing to do with good and evil. In fact, the only thing "Evil" in the setting is the Shadowlands. Beyond that, L5R is a social game where there are shades of gray opposed to distinct aspects of right and wrong. All that matters is that you serve your Lord, follow Bushido, and try not to die. Eta are oppressed because the Celestial Heaven says so and Heaven in infallible. If you go against tradition, culture, and the status quo, you become the problem in the game.

Problem with removal of Eta is that it has an impact on corpse handling. Remove Eta and then who will dispose of bodies? We need unclean people to do unclean thing. You can't remove the taboo of corpse handling from the rokugani mindset.

Yeah, we are not all playing noble idealized heroes. We are just playing fantasy samurai and that comes with a bit of baggage. Part of that is the fact of a caste system. I'd expect an Arthurian fantasy to deal with feudalism once in a while as well.

4 hours ago, Laurence J Sinclair said:

We're not playing gritty, realistic samurai. We're playing noble, idealised heroes.

This is a perfectly legitimate way to play l5r but it is not the only one. Much of Rokugan's drama comes from that even if the PCs are playing noble, idealized heroes, they're in a society where many people - many of the most powerful people - only pay lip service to those ideals. It was strongly implied that the fall of the Hantei dynasty was only possible because of their spiritual corruption. Heroes of Rokugan overtly stated that the reason the PCs are the heroes is that all the high-ranking samurai are corrupt, incompetent, or both.

Part of the fun of l5r is fighting for an ideal against a society that no longer supports it.

So my change suggestions

• Attacking is now an Opposed Test instead of a Success Test (think Shadowrun 5th combat). IMO it will make for some great dynamic combat.
• Social Combat system please. I want my opponent to faint from my mad insult skillz yo.
• A nice flow of Adventure books/PDFs.
• Thematically, make the custom dice elemental dice.

18 minutes ago, BlindSamurai13 said:

Attacking is now an Opposed Test instead of a Success Test (think Shadowrun 5th combat). IMO it will make for some great dynamic combat.

I'm always a little bit cautious of opposed tests in combat because they have a tendency to slow down things...

...that said, it would open the possibilities to call Raises for defensive maneuvers. That is an amazingly underused design space that could vastly increase options in combat. Specially if Attack Rolls and Damage Rolls becomes one single roll.

8 hours ago, Laurence J Sinclair said:

We're not playing gritty, realistic samurai. We're playing noble, idealised heroes. Just as if I were playing in an Arthurian fantasy game I wouldn't expect to deal with the realities of 'help, help, I'm being oppressed' - save that for the historical RPG!

Having a peasantry is okay, protected by their lords whose protection keeps them safe. Having a further subclass of people below them, righteously believed to be actual scum and then saying that that society is the good guys, with honour stronger than steel...

Ah yes, Arthurian fantasy... We'd never expect politics there

Regardless of the type of adventure you want to run, if you don't like Eta you can wipe them away if you want. I would rather have it as yet another point to confront the Samurai about. Challenge the players with a scenario that makes them want to reward an eta, but society would punish them for such actions. Maybe make one of the samurai secretly an eta who has to constantly hide his true origins from everyone. If you don't like oppression then make your stories about breaking the caste system. If there is something you feel strongly about, don't erase it, use it for tension and drama.

ps - all of the stories I've run are basically about characters striving to be noble in a world that clearly isn't. The more things you can see "wrong" with the world, the more things a noble player can fight for.
(Okay, well they aren't ALL noble, but mostly they are. People tend to want to do good things.)

On the subject of katana, I love the idea of them being the "socially acceptable" armament for samurai (as part of the daisho), which is why there is a ubiquity of katana. However, I echo what others have said. They are useful because of that aspect not to the detriment of other martial advances. Those other weapons are merely seen more as tools of war rather than as station.

Mostly I would like to see this reflected in setting and mechanics if only because the notion of the katana being "a civilized weapon of a more civilized time" is so much Western tropism as to be painful to watch. During much of the history of samurai culture was more typified as "the way of horse and bow" (Kyuba no michi). That demarcated the samurai martial training. Now I'm not saying we suddenly need to only have horses and bows, but a shift away from simplifying a culture down to a single ubiquitous weapon could have very positive results.

True, the katana isn't and shouldn't be treated like a lightsaber. No cutting through trees in the absence of tank cannons. I'm just weary of games where swinging a three foot length of sharp steel at a character isn't cause for concern. The thing is still a bloody instrument of death (like any sword) and while there are better tools for actual warfare having a player know that one hit won't hurt is tiresome.

10 minutes ago, Manic Modron said:

True, the katana isn't and shouldn't be treated like a lightsaber. No cutting through trees in the absence of tank cannons. I'm just weary of games where swinging a three foot length of sharp steel at a character isn't cause for concern. The thing is still a bloody instrument of death (like any sword) and while there are better tools for actual warfare having a player know that one hit won't hurt is tiresome.

It certainly is deadly, all weapons can be deadly, but a naginata can keep a katana at range to combat it quite safely. Similarly full armor makes swords nearly mute, requiring better weapons like yari and tetsubo to deal with them. While Katana are deadly, they are also pretty frail. They bend and chip very easily. They work very well in an environment where people would be wearing cloth, with their head exposed, and they are easy to carry around. They aren't so great once they strap on a armor and have a 7 foot spear tip you have to go around first. Same can be said for Jitte and Kama. They can be great weapons, but reach is a very big factor in combat.

I wouldn't mind this being resolved by having combat detail the range you are at - because getting INSIDE the range of a spear can turn the tables on them. Its very risky, but I've seen it done in sparing. If you can get inside the range of a spear, then a pointed blade like a Katana, or more likely Wakisashi / Tanto would be very effective at dispatching the person - or you could just grapple them. Likewise you could switch to a weapon like the Nagamaki or No-Dachi if you wanted to still wield a sword against other weapons.

Most weapons should be deadly, but there has to be some reason as to why they are deadly - and it should be logical, and allow the use of other weapons as tactical tools. Basically I'd love to see more than just damage ratings come into play lol.

9 hours ago, Laurence J Sinclair said:

We're not playing gritty, realistic samurai. We're playing noble, idealised heroes.

One thing that is always important to remember is that what you are playing is not always what everyone else is playing.

If parts of the background don't appeal to you, leave them out. But trivial sensibilities are not a reason to exclude something from a game. Some people like there to be moral complexity in their games.

Aren't katana frail mainly because of Japan having poor iron or is it actual design?

If Rokugan could be said to have better steel than Japan, would that make a katana more viable?

3 minutes ago, Manic Modron said:

Aren't katana frail mainly because of Japan having poor iron or is it actual design?

If Rokugan could be said to have better steel than Japan, would that make a katana more viable?

Yes and no... Yes the katana is frail because Japan had poor steel, but if Japan had great steel then we wouldn't have the katana lol. One of the main differences between the katana and western swords was the differential tempering process that allowed the sword to both carry and edge, and not be brittle. In the west this was accomplished using a tempering process with higher quality steel allowing the whole blade to be hard steel. This is partly why the katana is curved, and why it has 1 edge. It was the best they could do, so they ran with it.

This isn't to say the katana can't function as a weapon, or that it isn't a good weapon. The main issue isn't even the fragility of the blade, but the fact that it doesn't have great reach, and is practically worthless against armor. Western swords had the same issues, which is why halberds and greatswords came about. Range means a lot in combat, so if you know you are going to combat then you carry a bigger weapon. Swords were the item you carried because they were not cumbersome, and were basically a side arm (as others have said.) If you walk around wearing full armor and a naginata people are going to wonder who you're fighting, but if you wear a katana in your obi its considered fine.

On Eta: So wait, I'm still not entirely clear on the argument for why people don't want eta in the game. I think it's because they're Ultra-peasants who are yet more oppressed than the heimin or hinnin classes. Is that right? How is that, a problem? Is it morally objectionable for some reason to portray that level of society as a background element? Please, enlighten me on the topic. I can't really argue one way or the other until I have a better view of the complaint.

On Swords: This seems a little bit clearer to me in that the idea seems to be that people want to see a greater variety of weapons used by the players as viable alternatives to katana. They feel the katana has been over emphasized as the only weapon ever used by samurai and that this leads to an inconsistent representation of Rokugan. There's probably a lot to clarify there, and a lot of nuance to exactly what people are looking for. I would like to address this from a game designer's perspective and from a historical enthusiast's perspective.

Beginning with historical enthusiasm, it is important to note that warfare is a product of the culture and place in which it was developed. Because of the way people interact with each other in an area and because of the properties and limitations of those areas, they are going to develop arms and armor in a different way. For example. at the time the Romans were working with Lorica Segmentata as their primary form of protection, the early Japanese had a form of solidly laced metallic lamellar that seems to be generally considered superior in terms of protection and long term durability. Now we may expect that all other things being equal, if these two civilizations and their descendants advance along similar lines at similar rates, the Japanese are always going to have more protective and more durable armor. Skip ahead to the late 15th/ early 16th century and this does not seem to be the case. The Italians (who are not yet united into a single country) along with many other Europeans are working with full plate harnesses made of solid steel that slough off solid blows from great big two-handed swords and keep on coming. Meanwhile the Muromachi armorers are turning out lamellar made of cuir boulli water buffalo hide laced with silk and backed in some places by metal strips. For straight up stopping power and long term durability, the Europeans have overtaken the Japanese in this instance. We can argue the individual merits of any part of the European and Japanese armory all day if you like, but my main point here is that things develop differently in different areas. So when we ask, "what are the most common weapons" in a given place, we must consider the actual place and surrounding culture.

Several good points have been made on here that it is easier to train with, more effective to use, and cheaper to make things like spears for battlefield use or tetsubo for armor penetration. Those people are absolutely correct. There are a multitude of weapon choices for effective battlefield use. In Europe, up until firearms became useful enough to work on the field, Pikes were the king of the day. A solid pike formation was a fearsome thing. Just ask the Swiss Mercenaries or the German Landsknechte (not sure on that German pluralization.) And in Japan (and therefore very likely in Rokugan) the yari is a great formation weapon when you have loads of Ashigaru to line up against each other. Likewise, lines of bowmen are deadly, and even some cavalry is an impressive display with whatever non-lance type weapon they used in Japan. We obviously also have stories about No-Dachi being primarily battlefield weapons, and even Naginata are deadly when brought to bear against a three foot sword. Musashi actually talks for a while in the Book of Five Rings about when each type of weapon is most useful. He's even a fan of guns! So why then does the katana get so much credit as a weapon when it's expensive, takes years of training to master, and is inferior on the battlefield?

Well, a katana is not actually a battlefield weapon. there are larger variants of it that are, but a katana or tachi sword on the field of battle is mostly a sign of rank. It says, "I'm a samurai!" and of course, samurai are not used as nameless faceless front line mooks. They have money and training enough to be officers and commanders. And as pointed out above, they were even used for a long time as mobile artillery snipers. Katana are actually much akin to rapier swords or side swords, or arming swords in Europe. They are meant to be worn around town in case someone decides to throw down. They are meant to be signs of class. They are meant to scare peasants into obeying. They are carried by so many samurai because that's what the cool kids do. They are useful as an out of armor weapon against other people with katana in close quarters.

In the Edo period Katana were further idolized as the symbol of the samurai class as Bushido became more codified and when what's his face wrote the Hagakure. (There are also lot's of weird things in the Hagakure, but that's another discussion.) That idea descends to us modernly as the romantic idealization of the katana as a super weapon that can cut SUV's in half (I'm looking at you, Laurence Fishburne!) with a single stroke. This is, of course, false. But there is a grain of truth therein and that is what we are looking at in the prominence of katana in use in the L5R game.

On to Game design! L5R is basically meant to be samurai fiction in game form. Whether we include all the wacky spirit and magic hijinks or not is another matter but the heart of the game is supposed to be samurai making choices and being miserable no matter what happens. See also: Mono no Aware. Therefore, we want to look at the aesthetics of samurai tales to invoke that same feeling. First movie that comes to mind, Seven Samurai (not saying L5R has to perfectly mirror Kurosawa, but it's definitely a design influence.) There are katana left and right in that a baby. It's how you can most easily identify the samurai. That's an example of one of the reasons you want the katana to be so common. "But wait!" I hear you cry, "There's that in town montage where all those ronin have different weapons up the wazoo!" "You're absolutely right," I respond. Certainly there should be some gameplay space for samurai to use many other weapons. Especially if they're doing something warlike and aggressive, but even at other times. Samurai are overtly war people and should use war implements. But again, culturally at least, samurai should always at least have their swords on them as a sign of station and respect to their ancestors. As Cappoferro (I think it's Cappoferro, at least), "The sword is the Queen of weapons."

Now there are other influences on L5R also, and I can't deny that a little sprinkle of some kung fu wuxia deliciousness is appreciated. This again is a good place to insert other weapons. However, I think if you have a whole panoply of different weapons you're going to get a.) some weird redundancy (and it's not like the aiguchi-tanto thing isn't already annoying, amirite?), and b.) a move away from the feel of samurai as honor bound servants to their lords and more into the underworld free wheeling punks that we call youxia...or...ronin. (Yeah, I know there's a difference there. I'm equating cultural perspectives more than grammatical technicalities or even hard line definitions.)

There probably is some good space for a not too over the top variety of weapons in L5R with the understanding that the katana, if not the most effective weapon, should be the most respected. I agree that rules-wise if we line up a bunch of dudes and they all come at each other with 2 strength and many 3k2 katana, things can get old fast. But I would think that the real key to making different weapon types interesting would be to a.) not have a mathematically ultimate weapon that is universally preferable in all cases, and therefore, b.) have different weapons have different mechanical effects rather than do differing amounts of damage. (I think that's already been brought up in here, but it certainly bears repeating.)

I would like bushi, shugenja, courtiers, and monks all operate on the same scale.

I currently don't play games over rank three because the gap in ability is to wide between the magical and martial (have a huge list of banned spells and tattoos. Stupid infinite luck tattoo)

L5R is not, nor has it ever been, a combat simulator. It is a game with combat but its purpose has never been to accurately simulate real-world combat.

At the same time, we can't just wave our hands and say, "It's just a game! Rule of cool!" because one person's rule of cool is another person's immersion-shattering incongruity. For me, having katana as ultimate weapons that outpace everything else in Rokugan is completely natural because my concept of Rokugan is strongly tied to the myth of samurai rather than the reality. On the other hand, the moment someone tries to dual-draw in an iaijutsu duel I want to throw my laptop across the room.

The thing is, everyone has different lines for flavorful willing suspension of disbelief and immersion-breaking cheese. FFG can give some guidance by making it clear how their Rokugan works, but in the end it's something each play group will have to work out on their own. One of the strengths of 4e, for example, as the guidance AEG put in the book about how to modify the rules to suit your version of Rokugan ("Rokugan Your Way"). In the end, what I want are mechanics that by default describe the world shown in the official stories and the tools to modify them if I decide to tell different stories.

I think the Wuxia would be more a musha shugyo than a ronin.

On the topic of weapons, I think there should be more abilities tied to weapon and weapon skills rank. Base and advanced Techniques common to samurai society.

And for those who want, optional clear rules on movement. I've had a hard time making combat tactical by using strategic positioning without having to use grid map and tokens. Not everyone's cup of tea I understand, but then if you play a high water matsu berserker, or a Hare, that extra movement in FA makes the difference. Else you have to eyeball it and decide on the fly if they get enough move to reach with an attack.

the problem is that the combat system in itself is fairly simple, but school flavors and advantages have many ways to disturb it, playing with movement or effects.

Also rethink the leveling system. L5R seems to support 1-10 ranks but is mostly 2-8. Schools have 5 ranks, advanced school 3, so left two. The level gaps every 3 is overpowered. Make the progression smoother, and allow to pick up training along the way, clan exclusive or not.

So what mechanical advantages would I give to the different weapons?

1) Katana and some other weapons are acceptable weapons to carry at all times. The etiquette of weapons is important, so we could list some weapons as "high" or "civilized" or we could just list other weapons as "war" weapons to denote the difference in "acceptable to carry at all times." This might give us one of the clearest distinctions allowing the katana a great general presence and importance while not making it the most effective weapon. Armor should follow the same guidelines. You don't just get out of bed, don full armor and carry a dai tsuchi around town lol. Giving some type of social penalty to carrying a "war" weapon around with you could be appropriate as carrying such a thing should let people know your business is in fighting today, not speaking.

2) Range matters - There is a dueling card game called Yomi that dealt with range in an interesting way. If you were "at range" then a successful non-ranged attack did not deal damage, but did close that gap. If you used a ranged attack without being "at range" then you would not deal any damage either, but would establish range. While "at range" there were other maneuvers you could not perform, namely throws. I think a fairly straight forward bonus to using bigger weapons without going to damage numbers would be to give them this type of a ranged bonus, where a weapon of smaller range would need to successfully attack once to get within reach, and then again to actually deal damage. While in close range the longer weapon would be less useful, requiring the character to either use a different weapon, or fight to establish range again. This could be employed simply by determining which weapon has the greater reach (if there is a significant difference) as the same situation could be told with an unarmed character or knife wielding character vs a sword. This could also provide a fun transition for a character between katana and jiujutsu, or tanto for the scene, letting it take on more depth than simple attacks and damage results. Raises could be used to get passed range while also dealing damage, or move within range and begin a grapple.

3) Armor matters - I think armor could be dealt with in a similar fashion to how I imagined range. If you had armor simply prevent damage until the character was successfully exposed (damaging the armor, or maneuvering in such a way to open up attacks in the armors weak spots) it would let armor feel very strong, which it should. Again you could make raises to expose armor quicker, or to deal some damage while exposing it, but this would also open up an opportunity to showcase other weapons which might deal damage through armor better, or give incentive to the more narrative approach of causing a character to stumble or disarming them negating their armor indirectly by negating their ability to attack.

L5R tried to do something once where Katana gave you more initiative too. I don't think that is so bad, at least for the first round of combat if everyone is starting without their weapons ready. Once weapons are ready, I don't see the merit in that anymore.

I remember being struck by the final battle scene in the Seven Samurai. "Kikuchiyo" (Toshiro Mifune's character) had a bunch of katana trust in a bale of hay near the entrance of the village and every time he broke a katana he would run back and pick up another one, which I think he ended up doing a few times.

The thing is that scene doesn't mesh with the myth of the katana that has been thoroughly integrated into the lore of L5R. In L5R each katana is treated as a unique family heirloom and an irreplaceable fine piece of craftsmanship and if one would break in combat it would be a Big Deal. I'm of the opinion that ideally each group would just decide which style they want to play (katana as the god weapon or katana as a ceremonial weapon / symbol of prestige) but I have a feeling they'll probably stick with the existing L5R lore as the "base" option i.e. katana as an extension of the samurai's soul and thus special.

I think we can all agree that how the new game should handle the katana has become a sizable topic by now, with lots of good information all around. Lets drag off that excelent conversation to another thread entirely so that any other ideas of Big Change don't get lost in all the swording.

I would like to not have to pre-plan and min-max my chargen build, for SUPER EFFICIENCY later on.

Let me explain with two examples; one from L5R 4e, and one from the FFG Star Wars system.

Let us begin with a member of the Kitsune Family who attends the Moshi Shugenja school. Each grants +1 Awareness, so now you are at Awareness 4. Now you spend 12 Experience Points to raise Intelligence from 2 to 3. If you were from the Moshi Family, attending your own Shugenja School, to get to the same end-result costs you an additional 4 Experience points. Why? Shenanigans, that's why.

Star Wars has a similar issue, only allowing you to spend Experience on your Characteristics directly during character generation. The only way to raise them later is through a talent, often times significantly deep in the trees, and almost certainly costing more Experience than it would have cost to raise directly.

So. These are two examples of what I do not want. An example of what I would like, can be found in either Shadowrun (using a specific character generation method option presented in one book), or Eclipse Phase.

Every character is given a pool of experience, and a certain level of minimum stats you begin with (in L5R 4e, for example, this was 2s across the board before picking family or school). You then spend Experience Points to raise everything from 0.

But yeah, that is my biggest wish from almost every game I ever play. If it is not 1:1 from chargen:in-play advancement, then my backup wish is for linear costs for advancement (which is a backup wish because it is a little silly). That is to say, it uses the method used in Chronicles of Darkness, where any skill raise costs 2 Experience Points, regardless of if that is a raise of 0->1 or 7->8. (Like I said, there is a reason this is my BACKUP wish)

I agree with much of that, though I would say that overall the Kitsune is only getting a 1exp advantage over the Moshi because the Kitsune had to also spend exp on picking up "Different School" which costs 3 points. Actually my bigger issue is when that happens internally within a clan. Like one, usually non-shugenja, family gets to double up on trait bonuses while the shugenja family does not making it a somewhat more optimized build with no cost. There are obvious setting issues to take into account, and a general lean in l5r away from min-max, but it's an interesting issue.

For Star Wars I'm much more against the way they handled their trait system. Now I understand the notion of player choice and what they choose to spend their exp on and all that, but I have rarely been a fan of those stagnant trait systems where post-chargen there's no movement, which had to be bought using the same pool of points as everything else on my character.

What I mean is that for something as essential and far reaching as traits I feel it balances the game and makes a far less "high-stakes" environment by offering players a resource pool specific to traits that they can then spend as they choose independent of the rest of their character (skills, abilities, advantages, powers, etc.). I'm not saying Star Wars is bad by any means, but it does have the possibility of having a player spend all of their initial experience just on traits, and rewards such builds, while the one who spends very little on traits in favor of a skill or ability heavy character is punished mechanically. And I don't think that's necessarily good. A good character generation should make me feel as though my choice of build is valid rather than required.

1 hour ago, SonofScarlet said:

I agree with much of that, though I would say that overall the Kitsune is only getting a 1exp advantage over the Moshi because the Kitsune had to also spend exp on picking up "Different School" which costs 3 points.

I should clarify - I was specifically looking at the 4e book, where Kitsune are part of the Mantis Clan. I should have just gone with 'Kakita Family/Daidori Iron Warrior School'