Hello

I am an french old player and GM, I have known L5R as a player since 1st edition and I have game mastered it with the 4th edition.

When AEG sold L5R property to FFG I was pleased and also afraid...

Pleased : yes I was because, of all the good work FFG has done with the Warhammer 40.000 brand in terms of ideas, background, stories and refinement of their system throughout the different game lines.

Afraid because I never liked the need of custom dices in Star Wars and I am not the only one. I hoped that L5R by FFG would not use this, I really hoped...

Finally, when I received the beta, I immediatly went to the system part and was disappointed : yes the game will use custom dice, you have to pay for an android app to use it...believe me it does not start good for me and for the other L5R GM in my group who share the same feeling about custom dice and an app you have to pay just to test it...

So, yes, I will read all the L5R beta, I assure you because FFG guys have done a great work on it and they want my feedback as much as all the others testers feedback (and because of my GM's curiosity sake) but I don't think I will run it or even my players will want to play it. I am not here to troll, I express just my feelings and I hope my intention will not be misunderstood.

Merlyn.

Another frenchie!

I share a bit the same feeling. It's not full disappointment but more unfulfilled expectations. And indeed 4 bucks for the app is exagerated. Should have made a very basic free one for the beta.

It's not like you lose the app when the beta ends.... its a finished product (that they did goof up on lol) you buy once.

Ifyou want to play for free they were nice enough to send cut outs and a chart.

3 hours ago, Nitenman said:

...4 bucks for the app is exagerated. Should have made a very basic free one for the beta.

Or just made the app free for the duration of the beta test, and then charge for folks who want to keep using it. I suspect that's technically feasible, and it would let people try out the app as well as the game without a financial commitment.

if you had read my initial post, you would have understood than the main issue is not the app but the custom dice. The app is necessary to roll these custom dices, the other wa y is to print the template and make my own dice set, I am not the manual type and it is too much of work *just* to test a system.

Besides, after this, when the game will be out, I will have to buy a custom set of dice in my hobby store ... IF my hobby store order these because, yet my hobby store sells star wars, but will he sells the new L5R edition ? It is not even sure, you know, in France, the only hobby store who sell non-french RPG books are in Paris only and even then, they sell the best selling books (D&D 5, Star Wars). I am a Mutants & Masterminds fan, it has became very hard to find M&M books here for instance. and then, not every one in my gaming books reads english fluently (in fact my girlfriend and two others players does not read english). Plus I am not the only one in my gaming group to dislike custom dices . The other player in my group who has the beta test L5R book has said on my forum (and I will translate it to you :

Quote

Je ne trouve pas ça très engageant... Les jeux avec des dés spéciaux sont chiant parce qu'il est souvent difficile d'avoir des dés pour tout le monde. Je regarderais le système quand j'aurais plus de temps mais pour le moment ça part mal.

Translation :

Quote

I don't find this very appealing... Games with special dices are a pain in the *** because it's often difficult to have dices for everybody. I will look at the system when I will have more time, but, at this time, this is a bad start.

I mean... It's free and you don't need the app at all. Or for $5 you won't have to worry about the dice ever.

one of my regular player said

Quote

Je suis opposé aux systèmes à dés bizarres qu'ils ont mis en place pour SW et WH, je n'achèterai pas cette version, même qd elle sortira en librairie, et je resterai fidèle à la v4.

Translation :

Quote

I am opposed to weird based system that has been used in SW and WH. I won't buy this edition even when it will be available at a hobby store. I will stay faithful to 4th edition.

2 minutes ago, llamaman88 said:

I mean... It's free and you don't need the app at all. Or for $5 you won't have to worry about the dice ever.

well don't stay fixed on the app...it is the CUSTOM DICE WHO ARE THE ISSUE DUDE

There's a chart to use regular d6 and d12 unmodified, if you have missed that.

that's an inadequate work around for me.

R&K has worked for 4 edition, why change it ?

if it's not broken, don't fix it

You can hate custom dice all you like. Lots of folks seem to.

But with a $5 app you can roll and have your results deciphered for you for as long as you choose to play. Don't have to hope your hobby shop sells them, just have to have a phone handy.

There's tons of reasons to change it. The biggest being 4e is a complete line and there's no reason to retread that ground.

Another being that it's a new company with a new take on the story, cards and how they want their role-play experience to feel

Also because they have different game designers with different ideas.

1 minute ago, llamaman88 said:

There's tons of reasons to change it. The biggest being 4e is a complete line and there's no reason to retread that ground.

Another being that it's a new company with a new take on the story, cards and how they want their role-play experience to feel

Also because they have different game designers with different ideas.

like doing a system with custom dice and selling them to everybody wanting to play the game in the correct way....that's stupid and it's only for money...Steve Kenson also had different ideas as a game designer, he had done nonetheless Mutants & Masterminds and Icons who are very cool system which use regular dices , dices everyone can buy everywhere...I am not even sure I will find your "so praised custom dices" in my hobby store dude even if I wanted to buy them....please, don't insist because you obviously don't understant.

Why should a finished product be free for a beta test? We should be thrilled they even bothered to make an app probably 6 months before the game is out.

Don't buy, what you don't like, but don't complain that you've chosen not to buy something.

Stop being entitled, FFG didn't have to give a free PDF at all. Let me explain it to you like you're a child; they're a business and the app is a finished product that an employee was paid to create.

I said to stop answer me because you don't understand my point of view and I don't want to talk to you dude.

I have bought many products from FFG (Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, Deathwatch, Black crusade, Only War, Dark Heresy 2nd and several supplements) so don't patronize me. I am 46 yo and I was playing D&D when you were not even born

Why is this board full of so many people who want to be contrary just for the sake of.

He told you how he felt. It's a valid complaint that the cost of developing the app is one that FFG should logically absorb until the game is a finished product. That's the end of it. llamaman88. Assing yourself the 3-Point Disadvantage of Contrary, but gain no points for it.

19 minutes ago, player2885333 said:

Or just made the app free for the duration of the beta test, and then charge for folks who want to keep using it. I suspect that's technically feasible, and it would let people try out the app as well as the game without a financial commitment.

Yeah, not making the app a trial seems foolish. Either that, or they don't actually care if anyone tests it

41 minutes ago, malcolm_merlyn said:

like doing a system with custom dice and selling them to everybody wanting to play the game in the correct way....that's stupid and it's only for money...Steve Kenson also had different ideas as a game designer, he had done nonetheless Mutants & Masterminds and Icons who are very cool system which use regular dices , dices everyone can buy everywhere...I am not even sure I will find your "so praised custom dices" in my hobby store dude even if I wanted to buy them....please, don't insist because you obviously don't understant.

I mean, it's just a D6 and a D12. It's not like they're forcing you to buy d9s or d14s.

and to be pedantic, but it's dice, not dices.

yeah sure... because you think I have not think about it ?

the symbol are not the same for each result of a d6, same thing for the d12, so, you have to remember for each dice which is the right symbol and the meaning is not the same depending on the ring...I am not playing to waste time in the rules and my players neither...

I like my rules simples and elegants. R&K was doing just that. This custom dice system dice don't.

Just now, malcolm_merlyn said:

I like my rules simples and elegants. R&K was doing just that. This custom dice system dice don't.

I'd argue custom dice are simpler. 4 symbols vs. looking / adding up numbers. But that's just me.

Well I am finished with that topic. Keep your system if you like, I will go on playing with my 4th edition. The only impression I give is not being a fan but just someone who rants. FFG had already decided to use that system, that's not me or even a few players who will change this fact, fair enough, I won't be a customer anymore, that's all. I think anyway I have given enough money to FFG to not feel guilty about it.

Some how I'm contrary and childish for pointing out that A; FFG provided both a chart and cut outs to play their beta 100% free. B; for pointing out that if finding custom dice at you hobby shop is an issue, they were kind enough to create an app so you don't have to search around for their dice (which aren't on sale yet). And C; that this app is already (despite a bug) ready to be used months before the game is out. Like... hate on the custom dice all you like, you are spreading misinformation. You do not need to buy a single FFG dice to play this system, or their APP. They have a conversion chart anyone with a Yahtzee board game and a d12 can use. And it will continue to be that way after launch.

If you want to argue the pros and cons of numbers vs symbols, there's lots of that going on on the forum. But all your arguments were about inaccessibility of these custom dice. Which is flat out wrong.
If having dice for everyone at the table is an issue (which again, shouldn't be the case because of the free conversion chart), for $5 you can put an app on someone's phone or a tablet (which most modern gaming groups will have handy anyways). Or for $5 a head everyone can have their own app. And beyond that I'm sure we'll see unofficial rollers for free.