Character Creation Example

By Vutall, in Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game Beta

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Since there wasn't one in the rules, wanted to post this up. If anyone sees any errors, please let me know!

Character Creation Example:
Step 0: All rings at 1, All skills at 0. Note, no selection may improve anything over rank 3. If your selection would, you must may still make the selection, but must pick a different ring/skill than what your selection granted as long as that wouldn't increase higher than 3
Step 1: Clan
Unicorn (+1 Water +1 Survival 30 Status)
Step 2: Family
Otaku (+1 Earth, +1 Fitness, +1 Tactics 44 Glory)
Step 3: School
Shinjo Outrider (+1 Earth, +1 Fire Choose 5: +1 Commerce +1 Fitness +1 Martial Arts [Melee] +1 Martial Arts [Ranged] +1 Medicine +1 Survival +1 Tactics)
Techniques Available to purchase later: Kata, Shuji, Rituals
Starting Tech
Kata: (Choose 1: Striking as Fire, Striking as Water)
Shuji: Lady Shinjo's Speed
Honor: 40
School Ability: Born in the Saddle
Starting Outfit (gear)
Step 4: How do you stand in school?
(Choose +1 Fire, +1 Air, +1 Water, +1 Earth, +1 Void)
Steps 5-6: (Roleplay only, no direct mechanics)
Step 7: Opinion of Clan? (Gain +5 Glory OR +1 in a skill based on this list: Crab Clan (Aesthetics or Design), Crane Clan (Commerce), Dragon Clan (Seafaring), Lion Clan (Skulduggery), Phoenix Clan (Tactics), Scorpion
Clan (Labor), Unicorn Clan (Culture)
Step 8: What do you think of Bushido? (Gain +10 Honor OR one of the following skills: Commerce, Labor, Medicine, Seafaring, Skulduggery,
or Survival)
Step 9: Greatest Acomplishment? (Chose a Specific Distinction)
Step 10: What holds you back? (Choose Specific Adversity)
Step 11: What makes you feel at peace? (Choose Specific Passion)
Step 12: What concern/fear troubles you most? (Choose Specific Anxiety)
Step 13: Who have you learned from most? (Chose one advantage related to mentor and relationship OR chose one disadvantage related to mentor and relationship but gain one rank in a skill
Step 14-17: (Roleplay only, no direct mechanics)
Step 18: Who was your character named to honor? (Roll 10 sided dice twice selecting whicher rol you prefer and consult Samurai Heritage table. Then roll 10 sided die a third time and do what entry says on table to gain bonus.
Step 19-20: (Roleplay only, no direct mechanics)
Step 21: Fill in derivative stats
Sooo
Final Character:
Utaku Omar
Unicorn Clan, Otaku Family, Shinjo Outrider
Status: 30
Honor: 50
Glory: 54
Rings:
Air: 1
Earth: 3
Fire: 1
Water: 2
Void: 2
Skills:
Fitness: 1
Martial Arts [Melee]: 1
Martial Arts [Ranged]: 1
Medicine: 1
Smithing: 1
Survival: 2
Tactics: 1
Derived Statistics:
Resilience (Water+Earthx2): 10
Composure (Earth+Firex2): 8
Focus: (Air+Fire): 2
Vigilance (Water+Air/2): 2 [note, any fractions are always rounded UP]
Max Void: 2
School Standing:
+1 Void
Opinion of Clan:
+5 Glory
Opinion of Bushido:
+10 Honor
Heritage:
Wondrous Work (Increase Glory by 5, gain +1 to Smithing skill)
Distinction:
Indomitable Will (Earth)
Ally [Name] (Water) - earned from Step 13
Adversity:
Gaijin Name (Fire)
Passion (Max 3):
Animal Bond (Earth)
Anxiety (Max 3):
Ferocity (Air)
Techniques:
Kata: Striking as Water
Shuji: Lady Shinjo's Speed
School Ability:
Born in the Saddle
Available Techniques to Learn:
Any Kata, Shuji, and Rituals
Edited by Vutall
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It's a long process for now as we learn the system but it seems to develop a very rich character

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Nice Example.

Makes things a bit clearer for me. Which is always a good thing.

Will have a try myself in the near future.

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It took me about 30 minutes to do the above without reading any of the selections I took. I imagine it will take seasons RPG players about an hour to make a character the first time and newbie RPG players about 2 (with heavy GM help).

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The Fire Ring should be 2, because of the Shinjo Outride School.

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As a big L5R fan after some time reading the beta playtest pdf i have tried the character generation process too.

The game of 20 questions is nothing new. Obviously one needs to consider the GM's campaign when selecting duty/giri.

My experience was that this was not a very streamlined process, and fairly time consuming.

I am very disappointed in the inability to truly customise my character i.e. with CP, further selecting skills, rings, or advantages.

On the up side i did like the streamlined skill groups quite a lot.

There was nowhere on the character sheet to list gear.

The mechanical and limited nature of this character generation process was disappointing.

After all that effort I don't really feel inclined to actually play.