So I'm guessing the OP doesn't like the system. I'm not a particular fan of abstracted symbols either but the new way R&K is set up is interesting to say the least. plus a lot of information I can use in general. I want to see where this goes

One thing about the old d10 system... I saw sssssooooo many gms, and even mods from HoR written in such a way that rolling high, even without calling raises, was treated as MORE successful than just beating the target number... even though the basic system calls this out as doing it wrong. This removes all the risk from the system (as represented by raises).... not that there was much risk once you had a decent die pool calling 2-3 raises almost every time you rolled.

Wow. I'm currently in the "dislike" camp but this topic is a little absurd...

9 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

(...) Opportunities are literally Raises bound on the dice, and Strife is easy to ignore (you can do it and lose nothing).

This is the part I hat the guts of. This completely ruined my single favorite thing in the old system and one of the best tools to get actual engaging combat in a RPG I've ever seen.

I also dislike dice systems that take away the decision from you like that, similar to the Dagon Age RPG. It breaks your decision in two, first you say what you action, in generic terms like "melee attack" or "cast spell" is. But only after the roll you can say what maneuvers you will try. You can't first determine your intent with the attack and then roll to see if you made it. That gives me an horrible "game feel" for the system...

5 hours ago, player2636234 said:

If that's your taste, that's your taste. Other players enjoy betting raises first, especially when it creates that tense moment when you feel like you need to bet big or go home, and a player calls a number of raises that they can't reliably make. The new system takes away all the risk and excitement from raises while also making success way more reliable. It's boring to a lot of people and the dice can be slow when deciding to resolve explosions or not.

Further, what the dice actually represent isn't exactly great. Bonus successes tend to just add +1 to your result, which is almost pointless when you're swinging a tetsubo or otsuchi. It's also incredibly boring that there's no "wasted potential" on each roll.

This.

1 hour ago, Mirumoto Saito said:

This completely ruined my single favorite thing in the old system and one of the best tools to get actual engaging combat in a RPG I've ever seen.

[...]

You can't first determine your intent with the attack and then roll to see if you made it. That gives me an horrible "game feel" for the system...

Except you can determine intent and then roll. You state your intention, and the GM can tell you how many successes and/or opportunities it will take on the roll to achieve this intent. Then you roll to see if you do, in fact, achieve it. I contend that it is even more engaging, as you have to describe HOW you go about achieving your intentions.

The key difference, as I have said before, is that it is no longer all or nothing. I will use an absurd example to get this point across.

Previously, if you wanted to jump across a chasm, and then raise so you can actually land it (rather than hit the far side and have to climb up). Had you then failed the roll by less than the raise value? You now fail the jump entirely, rather than still succeed and hit the far side and have to climb up.

I think for some of use the big rub with the custom dice is, we spend money on dice for this game, and then if the group falls apart and you can't find another one or build another one you have dice sitting around you spent money on that are useless for anything else. I've bought game specific dice before, world of darkness, the clan dice for L5R 4th, shadowrun. but at least I can use them for other games as they have the normal numbers on them.

24 minutes ago, Mirumoto Seiichiro said:

I think for some of use the big rub with the custom dice is, we spend money on dice for this game, and then if the group falls apart and you can't find another one or build another one you have dice sitting around you spent money on that are useless for anything else. I've bought game specific dice before, world of darkness, the clan dice for L5R 4th, shadowrun. but at least I can use them for other games as they have the normal numbers on them.

Exactly!

2 hours ago, Jennkryst said:

Except you can determine intent and then roll. You state your intention, and the GM can tell you how many successes and/or opportunities it will take on the roll to achieve this intent. Then you roll to see if you do, in fact, achieve it. I contend that it is even more engaging, as you have to describe HOW you go about achieving your intentions.

Not really, because if you attack, and you describe that you intend to attack, and you roll no successes and choose 3 opportunities, your intent is kind of discarded. You didn't just miss, you're now actively doing something else that isn't hitting your target. Sure you can end up spinning some kind of justification if you're willing to try, but that it needs to be done at all is a strike against the system and its ludonarrative feel in my mind. Further, don't bring up R&K, no one in this thread has even remotely suggested it was a flawless dice system. By creating a point not in contention and attacking, you're only showing how little you feel your words stand on their own.

18 minutes ago, Mirumoto Seiichiro said:

I think for some of use the big rub with the custom dice is, we spend money on dice for this game, and then if the group falls apart and you can't find another one or build another one you have dice sitting around you spent money on that are useless for anything else. I've bought game specific dice before, world of darkness, the clan dice for L5R 4th, shadowrun. but at least I can use them for other games as they have the normal numbers on them.

Please, I mean no offense intended but I find this constant refrain argument difficult to comprehend or sympathise with. I buy miniatures that can only be used for 40k, Blood Bowl, Xwing, Battletech, books that can only be used for D&D, Battletech, Werewolf, L5R, cards that can only be used for Magic, Rage, L5R, dice (namely d20s) that can only be used in d20 games (only 1 of my aforementioned games) but it is one set of custom dice for a game you can play over and over again that is the straw that breaks the camel's bank, the thing that breaks the bank? Not playing a game you may love because you need to buy a handful of new dice for it seems like cutting off your head and nose to spite your face.

Say the core book were to cost $50, a set of dice cost $10; you are saying no deal. What if the core book were to cost $60 and you could use your existing dice? Would you buy it then? I suspect people would.

53 minutes ago, player2636234 said:

Not really, because if you attack, and you describe that you intend to attack, and you roll no successes and choose 3 opportunities, your intent is kind of discarded. You didn't just miss, you're now actively doing something else that isn't hitting your target.

Needs more detail. Did you attempt to attack them by overwhelming their defenses in a Fire-y manner? Because a 0 success/3 Opportunity attack may result in 0 damage, but you have still done a number of Overwhelming things, so you did succeeded in that.

53 minutes ago, player2636234 said:

Further, don't bring up R&K, no one in this thread has even remotely suggested it was a flawless dice system.

The original post referenced it, and it has been brought up many times since. A couple times by you, in fact. So I will bring it up as I wish.

I will also point out the flaws in it, especially when the people who bring up said flaws claim 'it is not a flaw, it is a feature!'... and then later concur that it is, in fact, a flaw.

1 hour ago, DarkHorse said:

Please, I mean no offense intended but I find this constant refrain argument difficult to comprehend or sympathise with. I buy miniatures that can only be used for 40k, Blood Bowl, Xwing, Battletech, books that can only be used for D&D, Battletech, Werewolf, L5R, cards that can only be used for Magic, Rage, L5R, dice (namely d20s) that can only be used in d20 games (only 1 of my aforementioned games) but it is one set of custom dice for a game you can play over and over again that is the straw that breaks the camel's bank, the thing that breaks the bank? Not playing a game you may love because you need to buy a handful of new dice for it seems like cutting off your head and nose to spite your face.

Say the core book were to cost $50, a set of dice cost $10; you are saying no deal. What if the core book were to cost $60 and you could use your existing dice? Would you buy it then? I suspect people would.

Miniatures can be used for any game you regardless of what they look like, so long as they get the point across to what they are. I've used bloody D&D miniatures for Exalted and Shadowrun cause it's what we got, and even though I know that lich is not really a vampire or a street sam, it worked cause of what it represented. Even thought books for tabletops have mechanics that only really work with that particular game they are written for, doesn't mean it can't be used to for some form of basis in another game, I don't know how many times battle tech has severed some from of inspiration or a Technocracy group in a Mage game. As for the magic cards, the cards are the game, it's kind of the point, also the last I checked it's a heck of a lot easier to play some magic on the weekend than it is to find a group of people that not only click together but also agree on the game to play, all you ahve to do is go to your local card shop on a Friday or a Saturday and bam there you go. A RPG group is a lot harder to form let alone get into an existing one. And last I checked there is a tone of games that use d20's outside of the actual d20 system.

And $50!!! lord I must be showing my age but that's kinda high for a dang book. Heck even white wolf books weren't that much, and they where pretty expensive.

4 minutes ago, Mirumoto Seiichiro said:

Miniatures can be used for any game you regardless of what they look like, so long as they get the point across to what they are. I've used bloody D&D miniatures for Exalted and Shadowrun cause it's what we got, and even though I know that lich is not really a vampire or a street sam, it worked cause of what it represented. Even thought books for tabletops have mechanics that only really work with that particular game they are written for, doesn't mean it can't be used to for some form of basis in another game, I don't know how many times battle tech has severed some from of inspiration or a Technocracy group in a Mage game. As for the magic cards, the cards are the game, it's kind of the point, also the last I checked it's a heck of a lot easier to play some magic on the weekend than it is to find a group of people that not only click together but also agree on the game to play, all you ahve to do is go to your local card shop on a Friday or a Saturday and bam there you go. A RPG group is a lot harder to form let alone get into an existing one. And last I checked there is a tone of games that use d20's outside of the actual d20 system.

And $50!!! lord I must be showing my age but that's kinda high for a dang book. Heck even white wolf books weren't that much, and they where pretty expensive.

(I want to preface this by saying I am not having a go at you personally, just you expressed the opinion about the cost of dice being a barrier that I disagree with so I am responding to you directly as part of the greater discussion)

I still don't see where buying 1 set of $10 custom dice is a deal breaker. Getting *any* type of RPG group together is a challenge, no matter what is in your dice bag. If I don't get a game of D&D am I supposed to complain about my "useless" d4s and d20s? I know there are other games that use d20s and d4s but I don't play them so they are just as useful to me as custom L5R dice would be in another system I chose to play.

Will a GM buy a core book to run a game? A system specific GM screen? They will pay for that to run a game but not pay for a set of dice to run a game? Again, I don't see how it is a deal breaker. If you just don't plain like the dice resolution mechanic, that is totally fine, that can be addressed and discussed but buying new dice being a barrier to entry just strikes me as odd.

As for the price of books, a standard FFG SW RPG core book is $60USD RRP. In Australia, we pay $85USD RRP for the same book. Having to buy a set of dice for an RPG group to share is no consideration. We already pay an arm and a leg for game books, $10 more for a few dice is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
A Werewolf 2nd ed core book was $28USD RRP in 1997, L5R RPG 1st ed was released the same year at $30USD RRP - double the price for 20 years of CPI/inflation and higher production quality feels about right to me.

As a counter point, I use my RPG dice in miniature games. dead Mans hand uses d10s and d20s, Beyond the Gates of Antares uses d3, d4 etc.. It doesn't matter where these dice came from I still have multiple uses for them.

The entire reason I have never played FFGs Star Wars is purely because I have no interest in buying dice I can't use elsewhere (and I hated their dice in Imperial Assault, never playing that game again). Playing with one set of dice for a group isn't an answer for any of the groups I have ever played with (takes too long to share between everyone for a combat, some people are very particular about only them rolling their dice etc)

As with all games, I look for perceived value. And having to buy an extra set of dice is a turn off as the perceived value of choosing that game, and the required dice, or spending money elsewhere when I have the extras is a turn off.

Not everyone will see it as a negative, but there are people who do see it as a negative and if enough people avoid a game (that they would otherwise purchase) because of the way they perceive it is something FFG needs to know.

3 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

(I want to preface this by saying I am not having a go at you personally, just you expressed the opinion about the cost of dice being a barrier that I disagree with so I am responding to you directly as part of the greater discussion)

I still don't see where buying 1 set of $10 custom dice is a deal breaker. Getting *any* type of RPG group together is a challenge, no matter what is in your dice bag. If I don't get a game of D&D am I supposed to complain about my "useless" d4s and d20s? I know there are other games that use d20s and d4s but I don't play them so they are just as useful to me as custom L5R dice would be in another system I chose to play.

Will a GM buy a core book to run a game? A system specific GM screen? They will pay for that to run a game but not pay for a set of dice to run a game? Again, I don't see how it is a deal breaker. If you just don't plain like the dice resolution mechanic, that is totally fine, that can be addressed and discussed but buying new dice being a barrier to entry just strikes me as odd.

As for the price of books, a standard FFG SW RPG core book is $60USD RRP. In Australia, we pay $85USD RRP for the same book. Having to buy a set of dice for an RPG group to share is no consideration. We already pay an arm and a leg for game books, $10 more for a few dice is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
A Werewolf 2nd ed core book was $28USD RRP in 1997, L5R RPG 1st ed was released the same year at $30USD RRP - double the price for 20 years of CPI/inflation and higher production quality feels about right to me.

(also not arguing just trying to show where some of us are coming from) A d4 is never useless, they are perfect at home security fro barefoot robbers. GM screens are always good to hide dice regardless of system, and you can wack a dumb player over the head with it without causing serious injury (except for those chronicles of darkness ones they are pretty sturdy). And frankly there is nothing the system is doing with custom dice that can't be done with normal dice already, It just feels like a money grab. And eventually you will need another set or your going to be having to stop and roll again for the same check as you won't have enough dice cause i highly doubt they are going to be selling 5 ring and 5 skill dice in a set. And dude you really pay $85 for a book?? That's not even cool man.

21 minutes ago, Mirumoto Seiichiro said:

And frankly there is nothing the system is doing with custom dice that can't be done with normal dice already,

Then don't buy them! Use the dice you already have, problem solved.

I don't get people being turned off by custom dice. Star Wars gave custom dice a bad rap because you had to buy so many dice, of different types. You had to have skill dice, advantage dice, challenge dice, good mod dice, bad mod dice, super good dice, and super bad dice. That's a LOT of dice!!

For L5R you have to buy maybe 10 dice total. 5 are d6, and 5 are d12. You do not need more than this to play the game. Further you can easily affix decals to the sides of the dice or just use a conversion chart... I bet after a few sessions using a conversion chart I would probably just know the die faces numerically anyway.

You can also just use a dice app... Not even the $5 beta one (5 bucks for an app! friggin crazy lol) but you can get free ones. There is already at least 1 free dice app posted in these forums you can use, and I bet there will be a few more soon to come.

39 minutes ago, Mirumoto Seiichiro said:

And frankly there is nothing the system is doing with custom dice that can't be done with normal dice.

I mean.... how is this a conclusion you've come to? Other than the chart they provide to convert regular dice, which if that is your argument why the heck do you care about the custom dice?

Again it is a perceived value thing. And if I am in a game store deciding on buying or not, a 3rd party app or a sticker sheet, or conversion chart, to use my existing dice does little to change to the diminished perceived value.

In fact for me it makes it much worse value that fans have had to step in to make the game “work”.

i actually don’t mind the way the dice are used in this beta, I was skeptics but am coming around and keen to play the beta adventure and test it out.

The argument that people should just get over custom dice or shut up about it is much more off putting than people letting a company know during a beta test that something is really off putting or a deal breaker.

On the flip side proposed dice that would work within the rest of the game mechanics may be useful for those not immediately giving it a hard pass

36 minutes ago, llamaman88 said:

I mean.... how is this a conclusion you've come to? Other than the chart they provide to convert regular dice, which if that is your argument why the heck do you care about the custom dice?

I came to this conclusion from the 20+ years I have of playing other rpg's that count the number of successes you roll to determin success or failure. Once i read how the dice are read and how they function with the rules. Didn't need to look at a chart for that.

Did that 20+ years make you blind to the system not being binary pass/fail? That the two other symbols on the dice have mechanics all of their own that would make 1 roll 2-3 rolls on regular, numeric dice? I'd say that's not nothing. That you're being dismissive of a game developers hard work for no reason reason.

You buy a book, it's a new system, costs $40 bucks because it's an Indi or cheap artwork and print quality. Your group hate it, what do you do? Shrug your shoulders and move on to a new game!

What if that book was much higher print quality, artwork worthy of a coffee table book, it costs $75 (cheap for a coffee table book!). But best part is it's for a setting you love, it's got a cool map, heaps of ne lore, piles of references to awesome little tidbits from the IP's history. Now what do you do? You buy the dam book, you try the system, you hate it! But that art works nice, so it stays on the coffee table.

I don't understand how books that become useless are in a different category to dice you can't use. There's no reasonable explanation.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

I don't get people being turned off by custom dice. Star Wars gave custom dice a bad rap because you had to buy so many dice, of different types. You had to have skill dice, advantage dice, challenge dice, good mod dice, bad mod dice, super good dice, and super bad dice. That's a LOT of dice!!

Here lies the issues. Some people already have a bad in their mouth from SW, and WHF and the game already had a system that thou it had problems work for a lot of people. So to some it seems like FFG is changing it to custom dice just to sell dice.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

For L5R you have to buy maybe 10 dice total. 5 are d6, and 5 are d12. You do not need more than this to play the game. Further you can easily affix decals to the sides of the dice or just use a conversion chart... I bet after a few sessions using a conversion chart I would probably just know the die faces numerically anyway.

The point is that most (Not all) RPG on the market use standard dice. And that most RPGers have at least one or two standard set of die just laying around. And even if you don't you can buy them for cheap and they will be useful for about 90+% of the games out there. So when you pick up a new game you can just pull out your dice and play. Overall its not that there are custom die it FFG attempts to get more money out of us by gearing their games to require these dice. This is a pattern that they have shown with most of the IPs that they pick-up so it starts to get on some players nerves. Now just to clarify, I'm not all that upset about them is this game as they seem to work OK (Still needs lot of work). Another issues is with previous games the dice gave a success or failure, but the custom dice try to direct the narrative of what happened which is the job of the GM or player not the dice.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

You can also just use a dice app... Not even the $5 beta one (5 bucks for an app! friggin crazy lol) but you can get free ones. There is already at least 1 free dice app posted in these forums you can use, and I bet there will be a few more soon to come.

I hate it when people bring this one up. Some old-timers (myself included) Like to roll the dice our self. I don't like letting a computer randomly generate a result based on some formula that gives the illusion of random needs but is not.

Overall I like some of the changes they have made. not sure if some of them where needed, but I'm starting to get tried of FFG making everything they touch into a custom dice game.

4 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

I hate it when people bring this one up. Some old-timers (myself included) Like to roll the dice our self. I don't like letting a computer randomly generate a result based on some formula that gives the illusion of random needs but is not.

Overall I like some of the changes they have made. not sure if some of them where needed, but I'm starting to get tried of FFG making everything they touch into a custom dice game.

Old timer? You're on a forum. Sucks to say this b/c ur old, but grow up. Cry over like 10 bucks worth of dice for a game that you've probably already played for 20 years... I had to buy a bunch of d10's for L5R, I didn't cry about that, and I didn't use them for other games because it used a lot of d10's and other games that asked for it asked for just 1, or for 2 to do a percentile roll. If you're a grown person you should be able to put a few dollars towards dice that will literally last you as long as you play this game... You prolly spend more on the power bill for your computer, or a subscription to hulu / netflix / prime / whatever else you do each month than you will on dice 1 time for this game.

16 hours ago, Torg Smith said:

First, ninja are honorless assassins. They are not honorable warriors.

No, they weren't, historically most notable "ninjas" or rather shinobi, had been actually from the samurai class (stories of peasent shinobi have not or seldomly passed down, but they may have existed propably as well). They did spying for their lords and it they were indeed honorable nontheless.

Your take on ninjas comes from cheap animes and fantasy movies.

2 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

No, they weren't, historically most notable "ninjas" or rather shinobi, had been actually from the samurai class (stories of peasent shinobi have not or seldomly passed down, but they may have existed propably as well). They did spying for their lords and it they were indeed honorable nontheless.

Your take on ninjas comes from cheap animes and fantasy movies.

I'm pretty sure Torg's take on ninjas is pulled directly from the L5R lore, unless we want to change how Shugenja work to a more real-world model.

18 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Old timer? You're on a forum. Sucks to say this b/c ur old, but grow up. Cry over like 10 bucks worth of dice for a game that you've probably already played for 20 years... I had to buy a bunch of d10's for L5R, I didn't cry about that, and I didn't use them for other games because it used a lot of d10's and other games that asked for it asked for just 1, or for 2 to do a percentile roll. If you're a grown person you should be able to put a few dollars towards dice that will literally last you as long as you play this game... You prolly spend more on the power bill for your computer, or a subscription to hulu / netflix / prime / whatever else you do each month than you will on dice 1 time for this game.

I was stating my opinion which is just as valid to me as yours is to you. so the grow up commit is unnecessary. It actually shows how immature you are since you have to start of your argument by insulting me.

I myself have used my D10s in multiple games so I don't see this as a defense for custom dice.

As for price I can buy a pack of D10s for between $5-8. Where FFG dice pack tend to be in the $10-15