47 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

When the mechanics define too much of the narrative your kind of in this wierd place where actions defined by the rules negative the narrative. If the mechanics are too fiddly, take too much time to resolve or attempt to replace the player interaction, then you have a kind of balance issue in the game where your mechanical character is more important then your narrative character.

Hmmmm... this is actually one of the major failing of Genesys as far as I'm aware. Too much "the game plays you" with the special dice dictating the story, and too much time wasted on working out dice results (including decisions of whether a result should translate to crunch or narrative).

I would like to point out, that the reason I find mechanical rigor so important, especially in l5r, is that my play groups really dig into the confrontational conceits of the setting (most games we play we do this). Most of our great climaxes are tinged (or centered around) with betrayals, the revealing of hidden loyalties, and often open instances of pvp. One on pc kills another pc because of clan ties, it should be a tense and epic moment, a battle of wits and tactics. The deciding factor should never be that one person casts spells and the other swings a sword.

5 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Hmmmm... this is actually one of the major failing of Genesys as far as I'm aware. Too much "the game plays you" with the special dice dictating the story, and too much time wasted on working out dice results (including decisions of whether a result should translate to crunch or narrative).

This is my reaction to a lot of games that aim to be focused on narrative: in the course of trying to build mechanics to help the story, they end up making the story feel mechanical, rather than organic.

I always felt it was so harsh, the way that the Ninja class was treated, especially in a 1st Ed style. To allow people who may not be familiar:

For multi-classed characters, sometimes Experience Points were split evenly between the classes; often, however, one class would become the more prominent class. Not uncommon for a Fighter/Magic User to be 4th Level Fighter and 2nd Level Magic User. For the poor Ninja character: 1. They had to be dual class; 2. Had to be secret; 3. Didn't get awarded Experience for most of the actions of the other class.

One of my players had a Bushi/Ninja at 6th Level Bushi/2nd Level Ninja (I felt sorry for him and allowed him to split XP when using the Ninja-to). The other way to get around it, was to always keep the Ninja character in Disguise, so that even the other party members didn't really know who he was (hey if it's good for Strider, sorry, Aragorn, sorry King Elessar).

Oriental Adventures did Honour (or Honor) well. Sometimes the penalties felt stricter than they ought to be, but in true AD&D style, there were a few charts to make it all better (who didn't like getting strings of coins as a birthright).

I'm keen to see what this L5R will bring to the table.