Bugs Bunny using his Opportunity results.

Actually, a good example for "Narrative Opportunity Magic" would be a Jackie Chan fight scene like this - that's a lot of Opportunities used up for terrain and common items.

The difference between you and I, I think, is I would rather just play another game that doesn't require rules gyrations to be fun in the first place. To each their own, my dude.

haha, great examples - both of you.

I think that AtoMaki has a point, in that a Water user spending a lot of opportunities should have this type of fluidity in a scene. I don't think I'd give that much out of just 1 opportunity, but at 2+ opportunities an effect should be noticeable.

The system needs refinement - but I would think one of the desired outcomes of the system is one in which role playing is rewarded. Providing passing narrative to build a scene and provide more dynamic action or more drama should be encouraged. I would rather give a stronger effect to a player who takes his turn in telling his story (reinforced by spending Opportunity, just as ol5r allowed it through raises) than a player who simply looked at the Opportunity list and said "I rolled 2 Opportunity, so I can crit him, right?"

Oh, yes, one more thing I want to add: after yesterday's session where my character suffered 7(!) Outbursts, I'm fairly sure that an Outburst is pretty 'meh' and Strife is a non-issue unless someone is playing in a super-serious game filled with Duels and Intrigues with Discredit objectives. Like, all my Outbursting did was causing sitcom-level conflicts with the two other PCs and quipping at a Manifested Earth Kami and an Oni. Beither of these would have bothered me if my character had been a Fire-focused bushi who loves her Fire Stance - I would have Fire Stanced the living turd out of every Skirmish, Strife or not.

13 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Oh, yes, one more thing I want to add: after yesterday's session where my character suffered 7(!) Outbursts, I'm fairly sure that an Outburst is pretty 'meh' and Strife is a non-issue unless someone is playing in a super-serious game filled with Duels and Intrigues with Discredit objectives. Like, all my Outbursting did was causing sitcom-level conflicts with the two other PCs and quipping at a Manifested Earth Kami and an Oni. Beither of these would have bothered me if my character had been a Fire-focused bushi who loves her Fire Stance - I would have Fire Stanced the living turd out of every Skirmish, Strife or not.

Not knowing the style of game you are a part of, makes any objections to Strife meaningless.

8 minutes ago, Moon of Dalo said:

Not knowing the style of game you are a part of, makes any objections to Strife meaningless.

You can read about it in my Beta Test Game topic. There were problems with Strife and Outburst, just not the ones we have been arguing about.

33 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Oh, yes, one more thing I want to add: after yesterday's session where my character suffered 7(!) Outbursts, I'm fairly sure that an Outburst is pretty 'meh' and Strife is a non-issue unless someone is playing in a super-serious game filled with Duels and Intrigues with Discredit objectives. Like, all my Outbursting did was causing sitcom-level conflicts with the two other PCs and quipping at a Manifested Earth Kami and an Oni. Beither of these would have bothered me if my character had been a Fire-focused bushi who loves her Fire Stance - I would have Fire Stanced the living turd out of every Skirmish, Strife or not.

So the mechanic that’s supposed to be the heart of this game is a non-issue? That sounds like it needs looking at, no?

Just now, nameless ronin said:

So the mechanic that’s supposed to be the heart of this game is a non-issue? That sounds like it needs looking at, no?

Sounds like, but I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the idea. It works because it is a non-issue. Making it an issue would destroy the magic.

1 minute ago, AtoMaki said:

Sounds like, but I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the idea. It works because it is a non-issue. Making it an issue would destroy the magic.

Eh. As far as I can tell FFG wants it to matter. If it doesn’t, that means it doesn’t work. You may prefer for it not to matter, but then a) FFG doesn’t achieve what they set out to do and b) what is even the point of bothering with it for the players and GM?

14 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Eh. As far as I can tell FFG wants it to matter. If it doesn’t, that means it doesn’t work. You may prefer for it not to matter, but then a) FFG doesn’t achieve what they set out to do and b) what is even the point of bothering with it for the players and GM?

I still can't really work out whether or not it's -supposed- to matter. Half of the forum is yelling "It's forcing me to do actions that will get my character killed" and the other half is saying "it can literally be blinking." Like, is it a big messy outburst or is it just a tiny easy-to-ignore slip up?
FFG is kind of radio silent on the whole thing. I asked for a video of how this game is supposed to be played because I still don't even come close to understanding the tone or mechanics.

27 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Sounds like, but I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the idea. It works because it is a non-issue. Making it an issue would destroy the magic.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstand you, but are you saying that the Strife and Outburst mechanic comes off as a large dog with a loud bark but a weak bite?

On 21/10/2017 at 7:06 AM, tenchi2a said:

To clear the air this is what would need to happen to get me to make another try at this.

1.Character Creation.

a) Removal of Family and Clans Skills/Rings. The skills should be rolled into the schools and be awarded. example: Hida Defender School +1 Fitness, +1 Martial Arts [Melee], +1 Martial Arts [Ranged], +1 Martial Arts [Unarmed], +1 Meditation, +1 Survival, +1 Tactics, +1 Command. Where player gets them all.

b) Rings should be raised to 2, but keep starting cap at 3. This removes the need for Families and Clans to provide them (which was always an issues in 4th).

c) Players need far more choices then agree/disagree on clan precepts, One on the choice itself and on the award if they disagree.

d) the Bushidō question needs to be reworked. The idea that I don't believe in Bushidō so I have Commerce skills makes no sense to me. This is the perfect place to setup a Samurais tenets. What does he believe about Bushidō.

Does he follow his Clans beliefs openly, Does he strongly believe in a tenet opposed to his clan, ETC. This is a roleplaying element not a mechanical one so it should be up to him and the GM decide how it is handled not the game.

e) almost all instances of Advantages and Disadvantages need to be removed. These are roleplaying enhancement that should be left to the player. I do like the ideas of passions and anxiety but thats about it. anything else should be left to the player to decided.

f) There should be a starting pool of XP for the players to customize their PCs as a standard part of Character Creation. Not a tacked on amount in the adventure.

2. Advantages and Disadvantages

a) Disadvantages need to be divorced from Void gain. Void is centering oneself not over coming my missing finger.

b) each Advantage and Disadvantage need to be reviewed and have their points addressed. They are in no way equal.

3. Skills

a) Subskills need to be made part of the core rules as Emphases.

b) Approaches need to be reworked to something less random and more structured. Right now players can run rough-shot over the system to powergame them.

4. Techniques

a) a Kata is not a combat techniques. Kata a Japanese word, are detailed choreographed patterns of movements practiced either solo or in pairs. It would be better to call it a school/combat technique.

b) Rituals need to be removed. The concept is nuts and doesn't fit the setting where bushi are not magical.

5. Equipment

a) Replace Ceremonial with Honorable. it just makes more sense in what your trying to say.

b) Razor-Edged: as written makes swords to fragile. I would suggest "If damage drops bellow -Damage level it would take effect.

c) Zanbatō/No-daichi: first range 2 is a bit much. why would I take a Naginata, or Yari over this. its a long sword not a pike.

d) Naginata, Yari: with a range of 2 and how the movement system work. These weapons are pretty much useless. they need some kind of ability to hold a target at range two or (I can't believe I'm saying this) attack of opportunity. another option is to give them the stats of a staff at range 1.

e) Chokutō: just to point out this is not a tachi, and this type of sword would not be made in the era that this game is set.

f) Dao: again this is a Chinese weapon which was never used in Japan or Rokugan.

g) Crossbows: should be removed as they have no place in Rokugan.

h) The only way I would say keep these weapons is if you created add gaijin trait to the weapons that caused massive honor/glory loss to use.

i) Poison(Noxious Poison) this is way to weak for what it represents.

6. Scenes and Conflicts

a) this area is to hard to go over due to the many other issues I have that would need to be addressed first. see above and bellow.

7. Strife

a) the system is a hot mess. one of the biggest issues is no one seems to know what it is or what is for. ask a writer get one answer, ask a player/GM get another, read over the rules in the book and get still another.

b) let me say that removal is not out right necessary. with a lot of changes this could be a working system. and NO FFG! I don't mean changing its names. I mean changes to how it works and why.

c) first there needs to be some kind of "drama level" that gets set at the start of the campaign. lets say Face: = composer x drama level. and have levels from 1-3. this way the GM/player can make the determination on how many "outburst" (or what ever they are going to be call) there will be.

d) there needs to be some way to resist outburst. example: when you strife exceeds your Face make an Honor roll (doesn't generate strife) against a TN of 1+1 per 5 points over. so at 2 over the TN would be 1 but at 6 over you would have a TN 2.

And just to bring this up Encase it was not noticed I'm not saying get rid of the custom dice. I don't like them but they seem to work alright here. minus the strife issues.

well that's what I would need to see fix.

I pretty much agree with everything you say here. I tried the intro adventure with my buddies (Im a GM in a well stablished 4e L5R campaign thats been going on for around 2 years (we play once or twice a month)). We like 4e a lot but we were eager to try the new system. In the end it was too abstract for us: from rings to approaches, to strife, to narrative combat ranges... We felt character creation was railroaded (20 questions game was ok to flesh out your character, but creation here is too strict). I wont say it's a bad system. I think it's just not a system we see ourselves sticking to. We sent our feedback and we will be following the beta but a lot would have to change to appeal my group. I think in the end they are going fo a type of system (very focused on the narrative part) that is not what we usually like. Nothing bad in that.

At least hoping the books will have some gorgeous art/presentation and I would be pleased to pick them up for my personal library.

34 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

So the mechanic that’s supposed to be the heart of this game is a non-issue? That sounds like it needs looking at, no?

Person A: THIS SYSTEM IS OUTRAGEOUS AND FORCES ME TO DO CRAZY THINGS!!

Person B: No, its actually pretty tame. I've not been forced to do anything crazy yet.

Person A (or maybe C): So you mean it does nothing? Why have it then?

No one said it didn't do anything. What we're saying is that it isn't doing anything crazy or bad. What it is doing is injecting some narrative fluff into a scene so that the players aren't always stoic, logical, godly beings who never slip up.

10 minutes ago, BlindSamurai13 said:

Forgive me if I'm misunderstand you, but are you saying that the Strife and Outburst mechanic comes off as a large dog with a loud bark but a weak bite?

Sort of - yes. The outbursts I've experienced in my 2 sessions (1 each) was to make an Inappropriate Remark during a battle with some bandits, and to Shut Down near the end of an Intrigue scene.

The Inappropriate Remark cost the character 3 glory, but didn't really bring out any negative effects. I guess the character could have "gamed the system" by picking the Enraged Outburst (you aren't locked into any specific outburst, you can always pick) but cussing worked out well.

The Shut Down was an Ise Zumi monk who was giving a formal farewell to some Lion shugenja. The result was basically that he went from saying goodbye, and being generally impressive to them, to mumbling to himself (Togashi) while the Lion bowed nervously wondering if it would be rude of them to back away... Eventually they did... but nothing ill came of it.

So essentially yes - its got a bark - its called an Outburst which sounds crazy, and the Enraged one sounds like you're just going to murder everyone when you first read it - but no - there is no real bite - you can pick which of the Outbursts work best for the scene, and generally lose very little / if anything, while some narrative fluff is injected to show that your character isn't perfect.

37 minutes ago, BlindSamurai13 said:

Forgive me if I'm misunderstand you, but are you saying that the Strife and Outburst mechanic comes off as a large dog with a loud bark but a weak bite?

It is more like a very friendly rottweiler. Looks dangerous, feels dangerous, but it won't live up to the expectations at all.

Worth remembering that Outbursts can be useful way to deal with NPCs - especially ones that Flee or Shutdown due to them. While a lot of Strife-specific feedback is player-centric, Strife is quite useful tool in hand of players against NPCs.

17 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Actually, a good example for "Narrative Opportunity Magic" would be a Jackie Chan fight scene like this - that's a lot of Opportunities used up for terrain and common items.

"Never Attack Jackie Chan In A Room Where There Is 'Stuff', Regardless Of What It Is" is exactly the example I used to explain the 'add a detail' opportunities to my players.

15 hours ago, WHW said:

Worth remembering that Outbursts can be useful way to deal with NPCs - especially ones that Flee or Shutdown due to them. While a lot of Strife-specific feedback is player-centric, Strife is quite useful tool in hand of players against NPCs.

That's what has ended the fights with Shadowlands Goblin Squads to date - as their strife builds up, and their composure drops (due to squad members suffering THVMP*) you reach a 'tipping point' causing an outburst leading them to flee.

As minions they can't remove strife (short of 'take a breather' between conflict scenes) meaning that adversary NPCs (Goblin Chieftain, Goblin Shaman) using Earth opportunities to keep the minions from running are critical. Which means killing them helps break a larger force faster.

As a morale mechanic it works rather well.

* Traumatic High Velocity Metal Poisoning

17 hours ago, shosuko said:

Person A: THIS SYSTEM IS OUTRAGEOUS AND FORCES ME TO DO CRAZY THINGS!!

Person B: No, its actually pretty tame. I've not been forced to do anything crazy yet.

Person A (or maybe C): So you mean it does nothing? Why have it then?

No one said it didn't do anything. What we're saying is that it isn't doing anything crazy or bad. What it is doing is injecting some narrative fluff into a scene so that the players aren't always stoic, logical, godly beings who never slip up.

Sort of - yes. The outbursts I've experienced in my 2 sessions (1 each) was to make an Inappropriate Remark during a battle with some bandits, and to Shut Down near the end of an Intrigue scene.

The Inappropriate Remark cost the character 3 glory, but didn't really bring out any negative effects. I guess the character could have "gamed the system" by picking the Enraged Outburst (you aren't locked into any specific outburst, you can always pick) but cussing worked out well.

The Shut Down was an Ise Zumi monk who was giving a formal farewell to some Lion shugenja. The result was basically that he went from saying goodbye, and being generally impressive to them, to mumbling to himself (Togashi) while the Lion bowed nervously wondering if it would be rude of them to back away... Eventually they did... but nothing ill came of it.

So essentially yes - its got a bark - its called an Outburst which sounds crazy, and the Enraged one sounds like you're just going to murder everyone when you first read it - but no - there is no real bite - you can pick which of the Outbursts work best for the scene, and generally lose very little / if anything, while some narrative fluff is injected to show that your character isn't perfect.

17 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

It is more like a very friendly rottweiler. Looks dangerous, feels dangerous, but it won't live up to the expectations at all.

Thank you both for your responses.

Now I have to ask FFG, why have it then? If there is no real threat or punishment from suffering an Outburst, but instead, gain a benefit (insert options of benefits here), why have it?

Something just dose't feel right here...

18 hours ago, shosuko said:

The Inappropriate Remark cost the character 3 glory

I'm still confused about this. My character quipped at an Oni. He lost 3 Glory because of it... but why? Will the Oni file a complaint to Tengoku for my character being rude towards him? Or what? I'm asking!

3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

"Never Attack Jackie Chan In A Room Where There Is 'Stuff', Regardless Of What It Is" is exactly the example I used to explain the 'add a detail' opportunities to my players.

I played a Yasuki sea-captain once with the 4th ed Crab Hands advantage. Played him like Jackie Chan. He was equally deadly with a katana, naginata, nunchaku, a chair, a bucket of fish, a lantern, a ladder, etc, etc...
It was a blast every time, so it's neat that those rules still sort of exist.

21 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Actually, a good example for "Narrative Opportunity Magic" would be a Jackie Chan fight scene like this - that's a lot of Opportunities used up for terrain and common items.

Sure, but that's not what you said you were doing with it, Bugs. If you wanted to grab a handy ladder to slip through and block your enemy's progress or see a wall to hop up and do something cool, that would be in the spirit of the rules. Not exactly going to "instagib" anyone fighting like Jackie Chan. I can't imagine any GM saying "No, you can't grab that mop and hit somebody with it" or "No, you can't slide under that table" if they were interested in running a comedic kung fu genre game.

What you want to do is use Opportunities to Jackie Chan up a wall to snip the rope holding the giant anvil and drop it on someone's head.

Besides, the fallacy of that argument is you can do all those Jackie Chan things in a traditional RPG too, you just don't get to magic them out of nowhere. You just want to storygame instagibs, by admission , not "play like Jackie Chan." Leave Mr. Chan's good name out of this.

26 minutes ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

Sure, but that's not what you said you were doing with it, Bugs. If you wanted to grab a handy ladder to slip through and block your enemy's progress or see a wall to hop up and do something cool, that would be in the spirit of the rules. Not exactly going to "instagib" anyone fighting like Jackie Chan.

1

Oh, come on now, you are taking this way too literally !

The point is that there is no "magic" involved. Whatever instagib object you - as the player - narrate into the game, it was always there, you just pay an Opportunity cost to turn it into something useful. The difficulty of pulling this is making up something that fits all the criteria: it is something that can be realistically located in the area, it is something you can "pick up" with Opportunity, and it is something that is useful. This is obviously a lot more than looking at two Opportunities and saying "It's a crit!" but it also pays off better.

Example from my previous session: party is fighting an Oni in a castle. We are getting wrecked because we can't get through the Oni's Resistance. So I use up an Opportunity to reveal a shrine nearby (a common occurrence in a castle) and pull the Oni there. The shrine is sacred ground, the Oni can kiss its Resistance goodbye, and the party can finally defeat it. The shrine was always there, the shugenja PC even communed with the spirits there a few scenes ago. Its exact location was never discussed, however, so I put it right next to our fight with an Opportunity.

Similarly, you can fight an enemy in a construction site. Use up an Opportunity to notice a massive block hanging from a crane. Lure your enemy under it, cut the rope, most likely kill him with one move. The block was always there, hanging from the rope, but you bought the chance to use it, circumventing the need to specifically ask the GM.

Your second example is okay, your first one is not.

See the problems? Its GM dependant, and like all things that are gm dependant, it can not be balanced and on my opinion cant be really bragged about it. Opportunitys are common and meant to be for small things, You use a NON-DESCRIBED merchant cart as cover to avoid ranged attacks, you were in a market or something like that. Makes sense, just like construction stuff hanging around on a construction yard makes sense.

Altering the layout of my castle and putting a shrine that i didnt described on the scene, is narrative magic. (One that, by what it seems, had a high impact on your game.)

And considering your view on opportunity narrative you expressed in the past on this discussion, i am inclined to believe that you would make a wild shrine appears even if it was never referenced in the game, since like you said yourself, shrines exist in castles. And i guess you would be angry with me if i was your GM and told you "Nope." since you actually think you "bought it" and can do anything you think its appropriate. But i may be taking a leap on these assumptions.

22 minutes ago, Mobiusllls said:

And considering your view on opportunity narrative you expressed in the past on this discussion, i am inclined to believe that you would make a wild shrine appears even if it was never referenced in the game, since like you said yourself, shrines exist in castles. And i guess you would be angry with me if i was your GM and told you "Nope." since you actually think you "bought it" and can do anything you think its appropriate. But i may be taking a leap on these assumptions.

4

To be honest, the alternative to the shrine was a TPK.

Unless you were hitting the Oni with Sacred items from the Shrine (or with the Shrine itself), it doesn't actually do anything to the beasts Resistance. Hallowed Ground interacts with certain TNs beast might try to tackle, but it does not inherently debuff them. Might want to email the Beta team with a Terrain quality that does so, tho.