So,
I have just fast-read most of the beta rules, and I have one main question, which I believe will be the focus of the discussion here:



Why have you abandoned the D10 Roll & Keep system???


After all the high talk about respecting the setting and system, you have basically went against all you said and flushed one of the foundations and best aspects of the game down the drain.

Will there be an explation for this gross mistake and, more importantly, is there still time to fix it and actually, as you had promised, respect the franchise?

You make rolls based on your ring, and your skill. You keep the ones you want, which now not only has an impact on success, but the story. That sounds exactly like respecting the old system while bringing something more to it.

This makes total sense to me. Actually, I see this as a potential improvement because of the nature of Rokugan and the focus on roleplay.

Just my two cents!

4 minutes ago, marshzd said:

You make rolls based on your ring, and your skill. You keep the ones you want, which now not only has an impact on success, but the story. That sounds exactly like respecting the old system while bringing something more to it.

This makes total sense to me. Actually, I see this as a potential improvement because of the nature of Rokugan and the focus on roleplay.

Just my two cents!

Marshzd,

I have read it, and I actually do not hate the idea behind it. But D10s and the R&K have been literally the foundation upon which the entire system was built, since the 1st edition.

It's like rebuilding D&D with GURP's 3d6s system.

Yes, when I came across another set of custom dice, and not even the Genesys dice, I was terribly disappointed.
Now I hope the lore of the Legend of the Five Rings is enough to retain my dedication to Fantasy Flight Games. So let me continue reading the book and hope for the best.

56 minutes ago, Bayushi Koba said:

Marshzd,

It's like rebuilding D&D with GURP's 3d6s system.

Do you mean, like, using the 3d6 method that's been around for over a decade?

That cutting edge, HashtagDisrupting notion?

I agree with Bayushi Koba. When I saw that, my jaw dropped.

I'm an entrepreneur in real life and I'm seriously scratching my head on this. Presumably, Fantasy Flight, your primary audience for this project is fans of the previous Legend of the Five Rings RPG. But L5R 4th edition is legitimately a tough act to follow- a truly beautiful book, with great layout, rules, more than enough content for a lifetime's worth of campaigns in a single book. And on top of that, it's not that hard to find as a PDF.

So my question is... why would you drop out one of the best and most tried and true dice rolling mechanics in RPG history, just to throw in your own gimmicky custom dice? It boggles the mind.

You're already fighting an uphill battle, trying to convince a bunch of hardcore fans to buy your version of a legendary product that, last time any other company had their hands on it (WotC), they made it legitimately awful. I realize that custom dice is a Fantasy Flight "thing", but come on, you can't save yourself the cost of engineering new moulds or something?

Just... wow. Seriously? The piles of people still playing the previous editions of Warhammer Fantasy RPG weren't enough? I got rid of Warhammer Fantasy because everyone who even so much as glanced at those dice instantly hated the game, despite it's redeeming features. It is very frustrating to have to tell your players they have to buy all new dice, or to be constantly passing them around the table.

This is a mistake, and I really hope you don't have money already invested in it because if you proceed with this you're going to lose (for the second time!) to a product that's been out of print for years. This reeks of some boneheaded executive's plan to sell more dice- that can't be used with any other system, as well.

Don't do it.

Edit: Yeah, I'm done. The Approaches mechanic makes even doing basic skill checks way too complicated, and from the perspective of a person who really enjoys roleplaying, the Strife mechanic gets in the way of portraying my character how I want. This sucks, thanks for the opportunity, buh-bye.

I don't mind the thematic dice in the roll & keep method. In the heat of battle, "math am hard".

The dice are fine, but some of their mechanics are not.

Using a numerical dice system but also maintaining the Strife/ Success/Opportunity system would be incredibly complex, probably requiring fists full of dice (probably 3 different dice per Ring rank and 3 different per Skill rank).

In the end if they just reused the traditional d10 R&K everyone would be asking why they bothered with a new system. This is definitely paying homage to the previous systems while adding an entire new concept for people to enjoy.

2 hours ago, Bayushi Koba said:

Why have you abandoned the D10 Roll & Keep system???

Fantasy Flight has been notorious for paywalling basic gameplay functions since Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition.

No d10 is à sad thing but i found the porpotion of Win vs loose more sad. The statistic say dat with the new dice system you got more then 50% chance to succeed at lvl1... but in the old system the game bet more on luck.

What don't you like Gallows? I find the mechanics to be pretty sound myself.

The design choice to split Rings into d6s and Skills in to d12 also fixes a reoccurring problem that came up repeatedly in the d10 editions. Spending XP on Rings got you far more bang for your buck than increasing your Skill Ranks.

Now increasing Rings allows you keep more dice and roll additional poor dice while increasing Skill allows you to roll more superior dice.

Boosting Rings isn't the best way to improve success anymore.

5 hours ago, Bayushi Koba said:

Why have you abandoned the D10 Roll & Keep system???

To sell you dice.

1 minute ago, Radon Antila said:

To sell you dice.

Your pessimism misses some major advantages to the change that wouldn't happen if keeping to the d10 system. If they really wanted to just sell dice they could have gone with a straight d10 custom dice system.

The Strife/Opportunity system is more to force the custom dice than the d6/d12 split and the Opportunity system is mostly a way of replacing the raise system.

16 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

Your pessimism misses some major advantages to the change that wouldn't happen if keeping to the d10 system. If they really wanted to just sell dice they could have gone with a straight d10 custom dice system.

I'm the guy that told you (last week) and Mirith (way back in August 3) that FFG would drop D10 R&K because it was the financially optimal choice for FFG to make.

It's not pessimism - it's just good business.

5 minutes ago, Radon Antila said:

I'm the guy that told you (last week) and Mirith (way back in August 3) that FFG would drop D10 R&K because it was the financially optimal choice for FFG to make.

It's not pessimism - it's just good business.

You said they were going to go Gensys which would have been the financially optimal choice. They didn't. We were both kinda wrong and both kinda right.

It is a new R&K based system and a lot of the ideas used in this edition seem to be based off of the RPG discussion in the LCG forums over the past 2 years.

1 hour ago, Radon Antila said:

To sell you dice.

At the end of the beta book, they have a sheet of the dice symbols you can print on sticker paper and affix to your own dice. Works like a charm, and now you do not have to buy custom dice.

My best friend is actually working on some sweet dice for Tabletop Simulator. If he finishes them I'll bother him to put the files somewhere for yall

Just gonna slip the link in as an edit:
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=1158524551

The money will come from people being interested in a new system that's different. Probably $15 worth of dice for each player is nothing on the money they make for each book. Keeping the old system would result in long term fans leaving it alone "why buy a system we already have?"

New players won't care since they have to learn any system. Old players have a choice to try something familiar but different or keep playing their old books. It's the most financially viable solution not because they will profit from a few sets of dice

6 hours ago, SideshowLucifer said:

What don't you like Gallows? I find the mechanics to be pretty sound myself.

My main issue is defence scaling or the lack of it.

currently new characters will miss often and seasoned but equal opponents will not.

this turns seasoned warriors into two sacks of potatoes, hacking at each other with more damage but also more potatoes in the sack.

eote, has defence scaling and although the system isn't balanced across specializations the system is there to make defence an active system that scales as you become better at attacking.

This is a roll&keep system, this is ok. The custom dice system is ok.

But why d6 and d12? It makes no sense to separate the ring dices and skill dices. We could use only d10. It would be simplier. It easy to create a d10 table for the custom dice.

The book explains the dice system on five (5) pages! This is nonsense! Lol! It so complicated, that it kill the whole game. Who found out this thing? Please, commit seppuku (joke)!

You have to simplify the dice system considerably. Changing the number of the dice before and after the roll, before and after the keeping, modify the dices, etc. Noo, please!

3 hours ago, Togashi Genjo said:

This is a roll&keep system, this is ok. The custom dice system is ok.

But why d6 and d12? It makes no sense to separate the ring dices and skill dices. We could use only d10. It would be simplier. It easy to create a d10 table for the custom dice.

The book explains the dice system on five (5) pages! This is nonsense! Lol! It so complicated, that it kill the whole game. Who found out this thing? Please, commit seppuku (joke)!

You have to simplify the dice system considerably. Changing the number of the dice before and after the roll, before and after the keeping, modify the dices, etc. Noo, please!

In previous editions, you could raise your skill, sure, but raising your attribute/rings were infinitely better, because they affected MORE rolls, overall, allowing you an extra keep. The issue is that the dice were functionally the same. You get the same +1 Roll, in addition to the same +1 keep.

Now, you may raise the ring, sure, and get an extra die to roll... and while that gives you a possible extra keep, that die also has fewer chances of success, while raising the skill itself affords a higher chance of success. Which is neato.

8 hours ago, Daigotsu Kai'Sen said:

At the end of the beta book, they have a sheet of the dice symbols you can print on sticker paper and affix to your own dice. Works like a charm, and now you do not have to buy custom dice.

They did that with Star Wars too, and they still managed to sell enough custom dice sets that, last year, they and their largest brick-and-mortar retailers actually ran out of dice to sell.

2 minutes ago, Radon Antila said:

They did that with Star Wars too, and they still managed to sell enough custom dice sets that, last year, they and their largest brick-and-mortar retailers actually ran out of dice to sell.

To say nothing of sales of the App.