In prior editions of L5R, (dis)advantages all had their own unique effects on top of their narrative implications. In 5R5, they’re all mechanically the same within the 4 basic subsets. This bothers me. Makes them feel pretty vanilla.
“Oh you reroll due to daddy issues? Yeah I reroll because I’m a poppy addict. They guy there rerolls whenever he sees spiders.”
Thoughts?
13 minutes ago, AndyDay303 said:In prior editions of L5R, (dis)advantages all had their own unique effects on top of their narrative implications. In 5R5, they’re all mechanically the same within the 4 basic subsets. This bothers me. Makes them feel pretty vanilla.
“Oh you reroll due to daddy issues? Yeah I reroll because I’m a poppy addict. They guy there rerolls whenever he sees spiders.”
Thoughts?
I kind of prefer it - it means they're all mechanically as bad (or good) and hence it's just a question of how often they trigger: rarely (so they don't mess up your life) or often (so they are an issue but you get regular infusions of void points rather than one-per-session)
Thats just ne, though. How would you prefer it to work?
I actually like the streamlining of this. And by the way, the re-rolls are basically the same as what emphasis had been in 4th edition, where you re-rolled certain diice under certain conditions, now the conditions just have been expanded to not just be a matter of specialisation, but also about all kinds of other favourable circumstances.
In our L5R 4th ED homebrew, we actually threw away the entire advantage/disadvantage system and replaced it with streamlined advantages/disadvantages that picked a skill or topic and allowed you to reroll and pick better of the two (or worse of the two, if it was a disadvantage); from our experience, the AVD/DISADV system of old was a poorly priced, unbalanced mess.
I think the advantages and disadvantages are indeed pretty bad on this system. Which is funny due to the GREAT advantages that you get just by choosing clan (Wish you had more stuff on that style).
But then i'm a GURPS advocate. you only need to say that my favored system has a rule for digging holes and people will pretend that this is a good argument.
Obs:Its party of the system tough, what i do is accept their idea and go on with it, nothing i can do. What i would like is more flexibility to advantages and disadvantages. Should be a completely optional stuff like it is in most games and like it was in previous editions.
2 hours ago, WHW said:In our L5R 4th ED homebrew, we actually threw away the entire advantage/disadvantage system and replaced it with streamlined advantages/disadvantages that picked a skill or topic and allowed you to reroll and pick better of the two (or worse of the two, if it was a disadvantage); from our experience, the AVD/DISADV system of old was a poorly priced, unbalanced mess.
So much this. I absolutely do not understand the point costs of so many of the old advantage and disadvantage.
You're incapable of killing people in a game where just talking can be killing people! 2 points. Ghosts you may never encounter will attack you. 4 points!
4 hours ago, llamaman88 said:So much this. I absolutely do not understand the point costs of so many of the old advantage and disadvantage.
You're incapable of killing people in a game where just talking can be killing people! 2 points. Ghosts you may never encounter will attack you. 4 points!
There are two disadvantages that give you -1k0 damage, both are worth 3 points. One (Bishamon's Curse), that's all it does, the other (Small) also reduces your move speed by 1 full water ring.
5e Small Stature is now an advantage, but I am still going to use it to slow down the party. (NO , Lion-san, I will NOT ride on your shoulders.)
But yes, the old system was super unbalanced. I did really like it though.
I wouldn't mind some of the new advantages and disadvantages being more narrative. They don't all need a to apply to die rolls, some can cause trouble (or good) without any rolling.
6 hours ago, Krofinn said:There are two disadvantages that give you -1k0 damage, both are worth 3 points. One (Bishamon's Curse), that's all it does, the other (Small) also reduces your move speed by 1 full water ring.
5e Small Stature is now an advantage, but I am still going to use it to slow down the party. (NO , Lion-san, I will NOT ride on your shoulders.)
But yes, the old system was super unbalanced. I did really like it though.
I wouldn't mind some of the new advantages and disadvantages being more narrative. They don't all need a to apply to die rolls, some can cause trouble (or good) without any rolling.
The narrative part is more on the players and GM - it's easy to roleplay out that you're Small Statured and have it affect you in a narrative manner. Maybe you grew a sense of humor so you could outwit those clever short jokes? Maybe you became the best **** duelist so you can silence them with a blade? Maybe you just need a step stool to reach the top shelf? The mechanical benefits or drawbacks are only there to point out the narrative - your advantages and disadvantages should always inform how you play your character.
19 hours ago, WHW said:In our L5R 4th ED homebrew, we actually threw away the entire advantage/disadvantage system and replaced it with streamlined advantages/disadvantages that picked a skill or topic and allowed you to reroll and pick better of the two (or worse of the two, if it was a disadvantage); from our experience, the AVD/DISADV system of old was a poorly priced, unbalanced mess.
I agree that pricing was odd in some cases. Though I suspect that the group metagame would affect the relative value of any advantage, depending on the table you’re playing at.
I just liked that (dis)adv made your character unique in a mechanical sense. I suppose techniques sort of do that in this edition, along with Your School. And that is good. But it still leaves a lot of room for sameness. Like, my Kakita duelist will end up a lot like Dan’s Kakita duelist. At least in 4E we’d have some little differences, the most interesting of which came from (dis) advantages. Imo
Point costs were wonky at times on the 4E Disadvantages, but the Disadvantage system in the beta is "non-starter broken" as written.
It's okay to point out the flaws in 4E's point-buy system, and there were many, but it's still infinite times better than the 5E beta because any division by zero produces an undefined result. Disadvantage point costs were wonky at times, but their importance to the game also wasn't overly important. Mostly just a charade to getting those 50 starting XP with some minor in-game consequences unless the player foolishly took one of the insta-gib selections and the GM held them to it (good luck passing that Brash Willpower check with your entry-level Lion, lol).
Honestly, in my 4E campaign, I just removed the charade, lol. I gave the players 45 starting XP, with a max of +5XP from Disadvantages, but they weren't allowed to take meaningless Disadvantages (or broken ones like Dark Fate) based on that social contract of me saying "I'm not going to force you to cheese." Had somebody wanted something more harsh than 5 Points, I'd probably have given them the bonus points, but, as you can imagine, nobody started blind, weak, one-armed, or ignored by the universe.
Players will always take advantage of disadvantages. (if you get my meaning).
It's up to the GM to make the disadvantage pay. If the Player insists on having some phobia of water, then put the macguffin in a waterfall.
Is that right? Should the GM do it that way? **** yeah! It's a disadvantage for a reason. That's how I've always used them (in all game systems that I've played). It doesn't have to happen all the time, just enough to remind the players that if they decide to be Blind One Armed boxers, then guess what... that is limiting, and that does have an effect on everyone in the team.
They have to be measured, but if the GM isn't going to squeeze them one or twice, then can they be called disadvantages?
Count me in the "fewer discrete mechanical systems is better" chorus.
That said, a few that have other, specific effects might be nice. There's no "different school" (which mechanically was just a penalty for taking another clan's schools), nor clan weapon advantages, and that's a thematic loss. Likewise, the estate and vassals advantages are no longer concept elements because they're no longer pickable advantages.
Some characters are, in fact, defined more by their gear than their psychology. Someone with a Kakita blade, for example, is defined as much by that blade, and the relationship to it - burden or blessing? Are others challenging you to prove you unworthy? or do others see it, and defer to you?
Sure, the ancestral weapon table can produce this kind of artifact, but it's not core to the concept in such a case; having it core to the concept makes a lot of the choices in character gen different, because you already know you have the blade.
6 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:Sure, the ancestral weapon table can produce this kind of artifact, but it's not core to the concept in such a case; having it core to the concept makes a lot of the choices in character gen different, because you already know you have the blade.
That's one of my big issues with having that being the only bit randomly generated; If one of my players wanted to have an Aragorn-esque character who's fundamentally intimidated by the legacy of grand-pappy's armour, or whatever, being able to know you're going to get that result makes sense. I don't object to the ability to randomly generate bits of a character but people shouldn't be forced to.
The only Advantages I miss from the previous editions are the Ancestors, I thought they were very flavourful (maybe a good thing from a power level perspective, and perhaps the could be visited in another auspice entirely). Other than that when you have less symmetrical mechanics you end up with things that everyone takes, or that are never taken, or worse, things that only those that want to be really good take, and your average player doesn't, which creates considerable differences in power level.
Symmetrical systems, like Advantages in this edition, are very useful in channelling characters in certain directions as they are taken not for raw power, but instead characterisation. My character has a passion for history and it means that in order to dump Strife I need to engage in this, thus ensuring that am I always looking for justifiable opportunities to engage with this aspect of my character. It's not a case of 'I have +1 dice to hit people', it is actually providing mechanics that also reinforce my character's personality.
Edited by Bazakahuna
9 minutes ago, Bazakahuna said:The only Advantages I miss from the previous editions are the Ancestors
The list of what advantages exist is something that can be addressed - firstly any future sourcebook can list more specific crane-ish or scorpion-esque (or whatever) passions and distinctions, and secondly you are actively encouraged to generate your own custom ones. With all the distinctions having the same mechancial effects, creating a custom distinction is merely a question of agreeing with your GM whether your concept will trigger about the right amount, or if it needs to be more general or more specific to be equivalent to the 'book' ones.
So if you want an ancestor-related advantage.....go with it.
@Magnus Grendel I think I would rather they tackled ancestors under some other mechanic and kept them separate to Advantages. That said, I'm not sure how.
In principle though I am happy with how they have dealt with advantages and disadvantages. Mechanically balanced and thematically diverse, the only real incentive to chose one over another is for characterisation.
Edited by BazakahunaOn 10/15/2017 at 3:43 PM, Krofinn said:There are two disadvantages that give you -1k0 damage, both are worth 3 points. One (Bishamon's Curse), that's all it does, the other (Small) also reduces your move speed by 1 full water ring.
Bishamon’s Curse applies to all (weapon) damage rolls, Small only to melee damage. Small is pretty much a freebie for archers if it doesn’t have a non-damage component. That said, sure, advantages and disadvantages aren’t all that balanced for their cost in 4th. Keep in mind that how good/bad most of them are depends in large part on the GM though. That in itself makes the costs a bit tenuous, but it’s also something that applies to most aspects of a character.
On 10/16/2017 at 1:05 AM, AK_Aramis said:Count me in the "fewer discrete mechanical systems is better" chorus.
That said, a few that have other, specific effects might be nice. There's no "different school" (which mechanically was just a penalty for taking another clan's schools), nor clan weapon advantages, and that's a thematic loss. Likewise, the estate and vassals advantages are no longer concept elements because they're no longer pickable advantages.
Some characters are, in fact, defined more by their gear than their psychology. Someone with a Kakita blade, for example, is defined as much by that blade, and the relationship to it - burden or blessing? Are others challenging you to prove you unworthy? or do others see it, and defer to you?
Sure, the ancestral weapon table can produce this kind of artifact, but it's not core to the concept in such a case; having it core to the concept makes a lot of the choices in character gen different, because you already know you have the blade.
I miss the ability to buy up status, glory and honor. I always liked the concept of making a really high status PC. Especially sincestatus is supposed to be fundamentally static.
Combat boosting abilities can be handled with techniques. It’s the non combat stuff that I’d like back.
Full game will contain rules for gaining TItles. If you check the character sheet, it mentions "XP invested into Titles". There might be a way.
11 hours ago, Bazakahuna said:@Magnus Grendel I think I would rather they tackled ancestors under some other mechanic and kept them separate to Advantages. That said, I'm not sure how.
In principle though I am happy with how they have dealt with advantages and disadvantages. Mechanically balanced and thematically diverse, the only real incentive to chose one over another is for characterisation.
The d10 heritage/legacy roll, at the moment.
I'd rather it not be a roll (or at least not compulsorily so) but the mechanic itself is about right.
Ancestors could easily be done within the current framework:
Define the ancestor's key skills. Say, 3. Treat the ancestor mechanically as either a passion or distinction on those skills.
This is mechanically pretty bland, tho'.
I can see a better mode. Inherent assistance. A third kind of advantage, where it counts as an assistant with the skill for +1 Skill die and +1 kept, plus a distinction... but takes a void roll on the skill as a downtime action to prepare it for a specific task, or a void point to use it unprepared. Also, either acknowledge the ancestor (reducing the glory for the act by 1) or forfeit 2 honor (for self-delusion).
I really don't mind that disadvantages are mechanically same-y. Makes sure they're pretty balanced against each other. For me, the benefit of diverse disadvantages in a party is that they bring different story elements to the table. If they're all mechanically balanced compared to each other, then they become attractive (or unattractive) as story elements.
On 10/15/2017 at 6:43 AM, Krofinn said:I wouldn't mind some of the new advantages and disadvantages being more narrative. They don't all need a to apply to die rolls, some can cause trouble (or good) without any rolling.
Don't they generally do both by default? Like doesn't each have a narrative effect and a mechanical effect? (die rolls, strife)
1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:I can see a better mode. Inherent assistance. A third kind of advantage, where it counts as an assistant with the skill for +1 Skill die and +1 kept, plus a distinction... but takes a void roll on the skill as a downtime action to prepare it for a specific task, or a void point to use it unprepared. Also, either acknowledge the ancestor (reducing the glory for the act by 1) or forfeit 2 honor (for self-delusion).
This sounds like a good start. Really like the idea of the downtime activity. Sounds like a ritual!
Just now, sidescroller said:I really don't mind that disadvantages are mechanically same-y. Makes sure they're pretty balanced against each other. For me, the benefit of diverse disadvantages in a party is that they bring different story elements to the table. If they're all mechanically balanced compared to each other, then they become attractive (or unattractive) as story elements.
Don't they generally do both by default? Like doesn't each have a narrative effect and a mechanical effect? (die rolls, strife)
The mechanical aspects aren't all equally balanced. Some have bigger lists of opportunity spends than others for that very reason.
Just now, sidescroller said:This sounds like a good start. Really like the idea of the downtime activity. Sounds like a ritual!
Yes, it does... but it's not the kind of thing one should be taking with experience, but the kind of thing one should have from character generation and not be able to gain in play.
7 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:The mechanical aspects aren't all equally balanced. Some have bigger lists of opportunity spends than others for that very reason.
Balanced in a sense that they all do the same thing (reroll 2 dice or manipulate 3 strife). The variance is the frequency with opportunities relating to them come up; which is within the gift of the storyteller to control.
asdasfa
8 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:The mechanical aspects aren't all equally balanced. Some have bigger lists of opportunity spends than others for that very reason.
By "opportunity spends", do you mean frequency of appearance, like Magnus Grendel just addressed? Or spending Opportunity that you roll on dice? Don't really see the latter...
8 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:Yes, it does... but it's not the kind of thing one should be taking with experience, but the kind of thing one should have from character generation and not be able to gain in play.
I dunno. If that's how it makes sense to you, more power to you! But I think if I was running a campaign, and--after a few sessions--a player made a good case for why having a notable ancestor would improve the story, they could go ahead and add it. We could just say that, until now, the character hadn't earned the regard of their ancestor. Or the ancestor is trying to protect the reputation of their bloodline. Or the ancestor is taking pity. Or something.
Edited by sidescroller