46 minutes ago, LordBen said:

The problem with 4E wasn't the rules but the lore and setting. Too much lore focus on mighty figures and not enough on what kinds of things low levle characters find themselves doing.

Sadly that seemed to be a recurring theme all throughout AEG's production cycle from 1e through 3e, due in no small part to the RPG metaplot being tied to CCG tournament results. 4e tried to scale it back a little with "timeline neutrality" but weren't quite as successful as they might have liked.

Frankly, I found the Heroes of Rokugan living campaigns to be freaking awesome in terms of making the PCs the center of the action and thus the major figures in each campaign's driving plot arc.

38 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Frankly, I found the Heroes of Rokugan living campaigns to be freaking awesome in terms of making the PCs the center of the action and thus the major figures in each campaign's driving plot arc.

I don't know what that is. We always just homebrewed all the adventures and the "official lore" was all about who was running which clan and that had almost zero effect out in some provincial backwaters. And all the clan conflict was because someone was manipulated into disliking another, etc. Like one side always had to be the bad guy and the other the good guy. It wasn't just that two people disagreed and fought each other over a matter of honor and nobody was objectively right or wrong. Moral ambiguity was always nice in the setting but while the dice mechanics improved the lore was increasingly Rokugan vs Something Else instead of Good Lion Guy vs Good Crane Guy.

I have to say I was worried that I might not like what they might do to L5R. Sure, I was very much impressed on how they handled the card game, but still there was this nagging doubt. Now with having read the beta rules I am much more optimistic, of course there are still things that I hope see improvement until the release of the game, and well everything else I might have to fix later then with house rules.

same here. First read I had of the beta, I felt like closing the PDF straight away

So I hanged around this forum for few days with half understood concepts that many folks helped me too understand. The book layout is so messy that things were not flowing easily for me. Now I can't wait for the after sunday lunch when everyone will go for a nap and I will have time to dive in the book again.

Regarding the card game, it was the same. Had been a long time CCG player, and was eyeing the LCG but with a bit of mistrust, with all these fates points and conflict types...

Had the opportunity to test it yesterday at an anime con in Bordeaux and must say I was convinced straight away. But most important I tested with me wife and she really enjoyed it. And she isn't a gamer. Bought a core set on the spot. Helps as well that the French trad is really well done and came out simultaneously. My wife is fluent (we lived 10 years on Eireann) but she doesn't usually enjoy board games in English.

so yes, FFG makes something very different to AEG. I think its for good. It's a bit more gamey but its definitely a fresh modern take.

So now I don't really think anymore about an exit strategy. I think I'll go all in.

If things don't workout then me and my gaming group are sticking with 4th Edition with House Rules and Homebrew. I'm still looking over the beta to get a good idea of what's going on; in the process of reading a couple of sections over and over again b/c frankly, that PDF is a messy read.

Also, dealing with the custom dice. I'm still going to test it as best I can but its going to be a hard challenge on my part to get my gaming group on board. It was the BIG reason why they don't get into EotE b/c they felt it was a money grab (which I don't fault them for). My thought is that these L5R custom dice can only be played with FFG's L5R RPG, and to me it does not feel like a good investment compared to other stranded dice IMO. Things my change but time will tell. Still, why d6s and d12s, and not d10s? Just feels strange to me. Hmm, might put together a Homebrew d10 Conversion to see how that works.

My two zeni

2 hours ago, BlindSamurai13 said:

My thought is that these L5R custom dice can only be played with FFG's L5R RPG, and to me it does not feel like a good investment compared to other stranded dice IMO.

1

Buy some standard dice and paint it up with different colors representing the different symbols. We did it and it is working. I will post photos later in my test game thread too.

On 10/5/2017 at 1:10 AM, Cold Iron1 said:

Don't really see why gamers should be afraid of special dice. I mean think back to when you first realized dice could have more or less than 6 sides. Seems like the same thing to me.

Well my standard dice are perfectly usable for a myriad of games, a d10 is a d10 it doesn't care if it used for Great Sword damage in D&D, a dice pool in WoD, or as half of a percentage set in Derp Hurresy. FFG's fetish for snowflake dice means I would have a bunch of specialist dice for single games. So far they are making three different sets of snowflake dice (Star Wars, Genesys, and L5R) and it feeds into the DRM/Cash Grab sentiment that many get from it.

I posted this from another topic...

Quote

I think it comes down to buying a custom dice set (or two) that can only be use for one type of game instead just using generic dice. If the new L5R RPG turned into a hit resolution system (Shadowrun, NWoD, etc) instead of a binary resolution system (D20, old R&K, etc) while still using generic d10s..., I think folks might be more on board with the change IMHO.

@BlindSamurai13 those count successes systems are generally single axis. recent FFG games are 2-3 axis resolutions.

Having gotten it to table, I'm liking it. My players definitely want the opportunities list printed out for ready reference, tho'.

So far, two players. A different group maybe tonight, 5-6 player.