I'm trying to pinpoint where strife is the worst.

Is it in social situations, combat? It doesn't add anything narrativly to things just handled as pure die rolls outside of scenes such as crafting or investigation.

In my opinion, the problem is in combat. I think this can be done well however since its limited to once per scene. In combat, a character can lose his control and enter a frenzy, opening himself up to harm. He can take a moment to look around at the carnage around him in stunned silence. He can do a lot of things appropriate to the scene. During outbursts, I have been making my players use their turn for their outburst, so they miss an action as they react.

So far it works well enough, but I do see that it becomes difficult to keep repeating the same outburst every single fight, unless your a berserker.

There are only so many times you can have that ptsd reaction and feel the drama is appropriate.

Combat seems like the problem place for a lot of people to suffer an outburst to me. Anyone feel any other place is worse from a mechanical perspective?

2 hours ago, SideshowLucifer said:

It basically boils down to two sides, those that want strife associated to die rolls and those that don't.

Chances are they will stay attached to them. The mutable part will be how they affect the game.

There is likely a happy medium for all the players who are open to trying the new system, and those are the ones the beta tends to be most geared towards. You can't beta something you have already decided to hate or love no matter what changes are made.

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.

Those are some really solid ideas, i probably don't agree with all of it but that will always happen whoever we are.

Character creation is certainly complex at the moment and the fact a character can start with 2 Rings at 1 is a problem, but I do like the spread of 3/2/2/2/1 (in whatever order). Having a defined weakness and a defined strength often helps with roleplaying imho. I think FFG could do a lot to encourage TN1 difficulty checks, that would help with this problem of Ring 1 being too low.

For Advantages and disadvantages I can't see why there are not a range of levels for these, ie Minor Moderate and Major. It would help so much with the distribution of them and help with choosing them for a character. But most of all it would provide a tiered structure to rewards as well as consequences to Critical hits.

For Strifei need to play more, I agree these are definitely the best Narrative Dice FFG have made, but there's a whole mess of complexity that needs sorting out.

9 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

Didn't you say everyone just used Fire a lot more?

Nope. Everyone used Narrative Opportunities a lot more. Fire Stance became a little better, but since Strife Nuking with Fire went out of the window, using Fire was still pretty 'meh'. Water and Earth were the uncontested kings, but they have been since we play the Beta.

Tenchi2a, I can pretty much agree on every point there.

7 hours ago, SideshowLucifer said:

I'm trying to pinpoint where strife is the worst.

As far as I see, there are two cases:

1. If the gaming group can roleplay all by themselves just fine, and doesn't need a convoluted mechanic to tell them when and how to do it. In this case, Strife can be a major source of anxiety as it tries to assert dominance over the gaming group through mechanic means, so it does literally everything wrong.
2. If the gaming group does not care about the roleplaying opportunities Strife supposedly represents. This can be because they aren't into roleplaying that much, they just want to have cool adventures with their fantasy samurai in Rokugan, or because they aren't high on L5R Standard Samurai Drama(tm) - so even if they are roleplaying, they don't do it as the mechanic wants them to do it. In both cases, Strife can be quite an annoyance and is most likely completely redundant as a mechanic.

In my experience, these two cover the majority of L5R gamers. And that's highly unfortunate if you think about it.

8 hours ago, SideshowLucifer said:

In combat, a character can lose his control and enter a frenzy, opening himself up to harm.

Well, except for the fact that Hida and Matsu (classic berzerker characters) will almost inevitably start with Earth 3 and the Striking as Earth Kata, which, in Earth Stance will make them immune to Opportunity-induced critical hits thus negating most of the danger involved with the Enraged modifier.

2 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Nope. Everyone used Narrative Opportunities a lot more. Fire Stance became a little better, but since Strife Nuking with Fire went out of the window, using Fire was still pretty 'meh'. Water and Earth were the uncontested kings, but they have been since we play the Beta.

This confuses me. Why would Water remain king in a system without the Strife mechanic in play? Unless that just happened to be everyone's highest trait. Fire Stance would be unstoppable, so unless the players just didn't realize the dice odds, I can't see how it's only a "little better." 3k2 with Fire Stance is averaging 2.58 success per roll (keeping 2, sure), with a 12.4% chance of explosion for more. Water at 4k3 is only averaging 2.083 successes per roll with the same explosive potential. Water Stance would only be superior to Fire if it was the higher trait, though Fire comes with a higher baked-in chance of succeeding at TN2 per roll since the odds of rolling at least two successes is so much higher. Because Fire Stance turns the D6 effectively into a 1+:1 average output by having two 2-Success faces (one of which is explosive) that balance out its two 0-Success faces, that Stance is ridiculously overpowered without Strife Accounting as its balancing output.

Without having watched, my assumption would be that all the players just defaulted to "Rolling my highest" like I suggested they would and they were playing a majority of high Water and high Earth characters (which are common). 4k3 Anything Else is still slightly better than 3k2 Fire Stance just by virtue of the extra kept die, but a character who had Fire 3 would be murderous on Stanced checks that have escalating outcomes based on extra successes. There's still the Turtle as Earth benefit to using that in a Skirmish, however, which is probably safer in combat to use than Fire Stance. In an Intrigue, the Fire Stance character with 4k3 is just going to rack up Rhetorical Points at a ridiculously prodigious rate, and he no longer has to worry about Outbursts. Persuade Spam. Especially if he has a character Assisting him with Water Opportunities. You don't even need the Strife Nuking if you can just win the points-based objective. Narrative Opportunities are neat for players who like that kind of thing, but this game has far too much crunch for it to really matter unless the GM goes out of his way for it to matter. And not all GMs are going to be interested in the wackiness of Narrative Opportunities and making them really meaningful in the game.

The whole game mechanic breaks down without Strife.

1 hour ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

This confuses me. Why would Water remain king in a system without the Strife mechanic in play?

Simple: because accumulating Successes aren't that important. Especially with Strife out of the window, so you can make as many checks as you want. Extra Successes are even less important because they don't add a lot to the roll. On the other hand, Narrative Opportunities (both the "surprise terrain" and the "utility belt" variants) are super good all the time. And let's be honest here, the Fire Narrative Opportunities ain't that hot.

With an extra Success, you add +1 damage to your attack. With a good Water Opportunity, you add an object that instagibs your opponent in the next turn. Which one would you take?

Sounds like an abuse of a Water Opportunity, lol. Like I said, GM buy-in on meaningful Narrative Opportunities is going to be a Mileage May Vary situation.

Water : You spot an interesting physical detail present in your
environment not directly related to your check. At the GM’s discretion , you
may use this to add a (previously unnoticed) piece of terrain or a mundane
object to your environment.

Not sure that's going to translate into a sheer cliff or a precarious boulder in any of my games that instagibs your enemy. If the group is playing in Looney Toons Rokugan, none of the dice matter anyway, so I can see why the problematic complications of dice probabilities doesn't impact the game.

Hey, I can't fight with the intent of the game. If they give me the choice to add a convenient cliff to the scene to play "This is Rokugan!" with my opponent, then you can bet your butt that I will live with it. It ain't much different than abusing any other mechanic, and at least we have some very creative gameplay rolling around and not just a bleak Strike exchange that pretends to be combat.

Depending on your roll, you can pretty much double your sucesses using fire stance. Its not one extra sucess or just +1damage.

And honestly. Narrative Opportunity does not mean that you are a wizard that can shape reality.You are not, by any means Felix the Cat. GM discretion is a huge part of it.

I don't think that's the intent of the game. Like the disturbingly large number of other problematic design choices, it's just an unintended side effect.

10 hours ago, 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.

I kinda like the idea that your clan and family give you a rank in skills which you would be exposed to just by living with them. The problem is that you don't get extra xp after character creation to add on more! What I think the character creation really needs is, after all of the current system is done to just say "now gain x experience points to spend." With this you could then buy up your weakest ring to a 2, or add a few more skills or kata and have a decent starting character. Right now I feel new characters are a bit too limited / generic and just adding a few xp could fix this quick. This also fixes the problem you have of a starting ring of 1. For some people that isn't much of an issue, for others it is. If it is an issue then a player can dump a few xp to bump up their weakest ring. If it isn't an issue for that player to have a ring of 1, then they can spend more on skills.

I totally agree with you that the "oppose bushido" or "oppose clan philosophy" is done poorly. All Dragon who don't believe in an introspective life in the mountains observing life while detached from it are suddenly seafarers ... okay ... lol This is bad and should be redone. They should pick 2-3 ways in which a person could break from their clan - or even trust the player to simply pick what skill represents breaking from the clan. This could also be omitted in favor of saying "You now get x experience to spend on a few skills as you want" injecting a bit of much-needed customization into the process, and their list can simply become "recommendations.

Quote

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.

I disagree on disadvantages. I like the way they've done them here for 2 reasons. 1 is that they are very generic. You choose narratively what you want the disadvantage to be, and how oten you want it to come up. This means I don't need to run through 20 books to find the list of advantages, or worry about the balance of the advantages, or worry about disadvantages being overlooked. I can just say it is whatever it should be for each character.

The other reason I like it is that it is balanced by a reward for including your disadvantage. I don't know if reclaiming Void is the best reward, but the fact that you get something for calling your character out on their disadvantages means you kinda want them to be included in the story. The balance of any disadvantage is in how broadly applicable it is. If it is too broad you will be hindered more, but have much more void to spend. If it is too narrow your character can have a less challenging life but they also get less void for it.

Is Void the right answer though? I don't know... but I'm not sure what else would be appropriate. I'm glad to hear ideas of what the rewards should be. I'm definitely sold on the current concept of Adv/Disadv because they are easy to build custom to a character and provide incentive for a player to want them to be used against them.

Quote

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.

100% agree - they need to revisit the subskills section to build it up a bit more. Currently I feel the subskills system they suggested is a completely throw away. I like that the skill list is finite, so maybe some type of specialization bonus is more appropriate than actually creating extra skills.

Approaches need to be more fleshed out. I don't mind a character in combat simply using the ring most beneficial to them all the time. When I fight, I tend to fight a certain way all the time. This makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense to me is how worthless each stance is on its own, without kata to back it up. I think the elements should give a bit more definition for what is able to be done through them. The system is a bit too vague here.

18 minutes ago, shosuko said:

All Dragon who don't believe in an introspective life in the mountains observing life while detached from it are suddenly seafarers ... okay ... lol This is bad and should be redone.

This one still throws me a bit. It seems most of the issues with this is thematic. My take away wasn't that all (dragon in this instance) who don't fall in line suddenly decide to go set sail and more that they are given the crap job down at the docks. Would something a simple as changing the explanation and maybe giving you the choice between two skills help? Without removing it completely I don't think choosing from any skill is a good way to go for exploitation reasons. (yes yes most people won't but their's always that one guy in the group)

5 minutes ago, Darksyde said:

This one still throws me a bit. It seems most of the issues with this is thematic. My take away wasn't that all (dragon in this instance) who don't fall in line suddenly decide to go set sail and more that they are given the crap job down at the docks. Would something a simple as changing the explanation and maybe giving you the choice between two skills help? Without removing it completely I don't think choosing from any skill is a good way to go for exploitation reasons. (yes yes most people won't but their's always that one guy in the group)

I'd like to see a bit more variance in chargen, so what I think might be best is to just give a player the option to pick any skill, even if they are in alignment with their clan. If they pick a skill that is given by clan / family choice then give them a bit of glory. If they pick one that isn't then give them a bit of honor, and maybe a few xp because a rank 2 skill is worth a bit more than a new rank 1, so it balances out.

I don't mind this being more of an open choice because right now the characters are a bit too similar between clan / family / school / ect. Regardless of the choice, even if the choice is to try and power up in the system, I want to see some more options.

2 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

With a good Water Opportunity, you add an object that instagibs your opponent in the next turn. Which one would you take?

This seems like it's way out of line with the intent of the system. A critical hit is 2 opportunities and isn't anywhere near instant death.

12 hours ago, player2636234 said:

This seems like it's way out of line with the intent of the system. A critical hit is 2 opportunities and isn't anywhere near instant death.

Keep in mind AtoMaki's expressed distastes... He seems to hate all the social aspects in the mechanics, and has explicitly said he wants a generic engine, not samurai drama... so he's probably looking for the very worst possible interpretations of his hated mechanics... and, to a point, that's not really a bad thing.

On 10/18/2017 at 5:17 AM, AtoMaki said:

Giri and Ninjo, Strife, Outburst, the way Advantages and Disadvantages are set up, regaining Void Points, etc. These things should be either neutral or not exist. And not try their bestest to force cheap soap opera drama into my Doom of the Five Rings: **** on Rokugan game. If you know what I mean .

On 10/18/2017 at 5:39 AM, AtoMaki said:

No. I want a generic system for adventuring in Rokugan with my fantasy samurai. I will handle the genre emulation in whatever way I see it fit, I don't want the game to constantly tell me that meat is fine just because it is in a hamburger.

14 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Hey, I can't fight with the intent of the game. If they give me the choice to add a convenient cliff to the scene to play "This is Rokugan!" with my opponent, then you can bet your butt that I will live with it. It ain't much different than abusing any other mechanic, and at least we have some very creative gameplay rolling around and not just a bleak Strike exchange that pretends to be combat.

Note that the requirement is one opportunity for a "minor preparatory action". If you don't already own the instagib item, you're not buying it. You're just having brought it along. So, his instagib is either a misread or perhaps a sincere exaggeration for dramatic effect.

Terrain features being added? sure, you can add that cliff... and I can then possibly shove YOU off it, because you added it after YOUR action. That's not an instagib, unless the GM is a total pushover. (And some will be; I'm a realist - some people running the game will be walked over like Snoopy, Lucy, and Peppermint Patty do to Charlie Brown.) I'm the type to say, "Sure, there is a cliff - at range 5. Because, any closer, and you would have noticed it earlier." If you can push him there... a lot depends upon how one uses the range bands. (And, my read has been stated elsewhere - while some say i've misread it, they've not shown examples from the text contradicting it, but have interpreted it to something almost, but not quite, sane.)

Now, the Tributaries of Trade Shūji is an action, and procures an item of a rarity of 1 per success (TN is 1, and the rarity of item is 1 + bonus successes), AND you have to pay for it, albeit possibly at up to 75% off... but that's for producing gifts. Not InstaGib items. Tho', an expensive item is itself a form of social instagib, as they now have to reciprocate. Or lose much honor and possibly glory.

Look if this is going to devolve into taking potshots at each other then nothing is going to get done.

Yes the system is broken, so stop arguing how its broken or not broken and give some ideas how to fix it.

No-one cares if you can come up with a out there instance of game breakage if you don't say how you think it can be fix.

16 hours ago, player2636234 said:

This seems like it's way out of line with the intent of the system. A critical hit is 2 opportunities and isn't anywhere near instant death.

I'm not saying that it is balanced, but it is definitely there.

3 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Terrain features being added? sure, you can add that cliff... and I can then possibly shove YOU off it, because you added it after YOUR action.

2

Obviously . That's part of the fun!

6 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

Look if this is going to devolve into taking potshots at each other then nothing is going to get done.

Yes the system is broken, so stop arguing how its broken or not broken and give some ideas how to fix it.

No-one cares if you can come up with a out there instance of game breakage if you don't say how you think it can be fix.

You haven't given any evidence that the system is broken. You've given your opinion, opinion isn't fact.

3 hours ago, Moon of Dalo said:

You haven't given any evidence that the system is broken. You've given your opinion, opinion isn't fact.

Except the guy who said he was doing it very specifically used the word "abusing"and the phrase ""not saying it is balanced" which means he knows it is broken too. You may be the only person in this argument who doesn't think it is broken.

8 minutes ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

Except the guy who said he was doing it very specifically used the word "abusing"and the phrase ""not saying it is balanced" which means he knows it is broken too. You may be the only person in this argument who doesn't think it is broken.

It isn't broken. It needs a tremendous amount of player effort (both creativity and imagination) to work, and even then, a grumpier GM may shut the whole thing down. Not only that, but abusing the Narrative Opportunity mechanic is good for the game because it makes for more awesome stories and a higher level of player involvement. And that's cool.

Sorry man, but you're not even playing the system as released, and you called what you were doing "abuse" and you know it isn't balanced. Not terribly interested in your creative rephrasing. If it needs a bunch of extra work, to work, it's broken. You can call it whatever you want, lol. Heck, you just insulted GMs who wouldn't be interested in your Toon Town Rokugan game where characters paint train tunnels on the side of mountains.

24 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

It isn't broken. It needs a tremendous amount of player effort (both creativity and imagination) to work, and even then, a grumpier GM may shut the whole thing down. Not only that, but abusing the Narrative Opportunity mechanic is good for the game because it makes for more awesome stories and a higher level of player involvement. And that's cool.

Generally speaking, a product that needs to be altered/changed/fixed by its consumer, specifically because it doesn't work well when following the instructions, is considered broken.

22 minutes ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

If it needs a bunch of extra work, to work, it's broken.

1 minute ago, player2636234 said:

Generally speaking, a product that needs to be altered/changed/fixed by its consumer, specifically because it doesn't work well when following the instructions, is considered broken.

Sheesh, you misunderstand. It needs a lot of work to make it effective, not to make it work in the first place. It is a high investment -> high reward mechanic. Where there is a chance that the reward won't even come into play. But at least the possibility of disappointment is obvious and is not hidden like in the case of Critical Strike.