**This is the updated proposed Outburst Rule.**

After some discussion, while Outbursts by Ring may not be the best choice, having a standard Outburst mechanic instead of the current mechanic was beneficial. Presently, the greatest weakness of the Outburst mechanic is that A) after a character begins an Outburst, Strife Icons now no longer mean anything on further roles, and B) there is no inherent penalty to the Outburst, and the current system favors choosing the best Outburst available (i.e. the one with the least mechanical penalty). In addition, the rule on Outbursts lowering your Strife to half your Composure does not specific if it is rounded up or down.

We have settled on two versions of the Outburst proposed:

Outburst
The first time in a scene where a character's Strife exceeds their Composure, the stress of maintaining their On becomes too much and some of their true nature is revealed. The character immediately gains one of the following Conditions as their emotions overwhelm their self-control: Dazed, Disoriented, or Enraged (player's choice). Such emotion is not without some advantage, however. For the remainder of the scene, the player may treat Strife icons on checks the character makes as Opportunity icons in addition to being Strife icons. In most situations, the character may also lose Honor and / or Glory for their breach of etiquette. At the end of the scene, the character removes Strife until their Strife is equal to or less than half their Composure, rounded down.

Or:

Outburst
The first time in a scene where a character's Strife exceeds their Composure, the stress of maintaining their On becomes too much and some of their true nature is revealed. The character immediately gains one of the following Conditions as their emotions overwhelm their self-control: Dazed, Disoriented, or Enraged (player's choice). Additionally, the character either loses 3 Honor or 3 Glory for their loss of control (GM's choice). Such emotion is not without some advantage, however. For the remainder of the scene, the player may treat Strife icons on checks the character makes as Opportunity icons in addition to being Strife icons. At the end of the scene, the character removes Strife until their Strife is equal to or less than half their Composure, rounded down.

I have also included the latest version of the Outburst by Ring below. In these cases, Outbursts would have the following rules:

Outburst
The first time in a scene where a character's Strife exceeds their Composure, the stress of maintaining their On becomes too much and some of their true nature is revealed. If this is a Narrative scene, the player chooses a Ring from the list below. During a Conflict scene, the character's Outburst is determined by the Ring of their Stance. The effects of the Outburst remain until the end of the scene. At the end of the scene, the character removes Strife until their Strife is equal to or less than half their Composure, rounded down.

Earth Outburst - Withdraw
The situation becomes too much for the character to handle, and they withdraw into stoic silence. For the remainder of the scene, the character may treat Strife icons as Opportunity icons on Support actions, but have the TN of all Scheme and Attack actions increased by 1.

Air Outburst - Remark
Sometimes, the words just slip out. The character either says something cutting when they should not, revealing more of their true emotions than is polite. The character loses 3 Glory immediately for the outburst. For the remainder the scene, the character may treat Strife icons on dice they roll as Opportunity icons. However, they lose 1 Glory for every icon they treat in this way.

Fire Outburst - Enrage
Heated tempers flare, and the character lashes out in anger. The character immediately gains the Enraged condition. For the remainder of the scene, the character may treat any Strife icons they roll as Opportunity icons, but reduces TN of any Attack or Scheme action targeting them reduced by 1.

Water Outburst - Compromise
Not everything can be achieved by adhering to the strictest of codes, and sometimes honor must bend. The character loses 3 Honor immediately. For the remainder the scene, the character may treat Strife icons on dice they roll as Opportunity icons. However, they lose 1 Honor for every icon they treat in this way.

Void Outburst - Obsess
As the character's emotions surge, they become lost in the waves of their own personality. The character gains the Dazed and Disoriented Conditions immediately, but may reduce the TN of any action they take on their turn by 1 so long as at least one of the two Conditions has not ended. At the end of the scene, remove both Conditions unless the character has already recovered from both of them by their own rules.

Well done.

I like where you're going with this. Needs a little more work but this is an excellent idea.

I am not a fan of this because, while the FFG outburst system, if not really correctly named, gives you the chocie how to color your outburst and therefore makes you decide if it is a positive or negative emotion, this system take the freedom away and forces me to display the emotion the ring says I have to. I rather want to keep the freedom to go into a outburst and color it in any form I want than needing to conform to a certain style of it only because I was usinga certain ring.
So yes I think it is more enjoyable that the guy who got an outburst in air can scream his lunges out and the guy in fire can go all kefka an make a very dark and evil remark about how nice it is to hear onehundredthounsand saumrai dying.

I don't like this, especially the enforced Rage on Fire.

10 hours ago, WHW said:

I don't like this, especially the enforced Rage on Fire.

And void as forced compromise screws social combat.

23 hours ago, Teveshszat said:

So yes I think it is more enjoyable that the guy who got an outburst in air can scream his lunges out and the guy in fire can go all kefka an make a very dark and evil remark about how nice it is to hear onehundredthounsand saumrai dying.

Part of this is rooted in the fact that I do not think that the current Outburst system is, honestly, effective enough. As as system, it presents an opportunity to tie storytelling back in towards the Elemental Rings and how they impact characters. These are, effectively, universal constants which shape the universe around the character.

Would you be more okay with the idea that if a character has an Outburst, they choose the one from the list, and then for the rest of the scene, there is a penalty for using that Ring? This is, in many ways, similar to how the Critical Strike / Wound system works, where the character can have a temporary or semi-permanent impairment placed upon them by injury, which is tied to the Elemental Ring of their Stance in a combat scene (or a Ring of choice in a Narrative scene).

So, to bring this inline with Injury, Wounds, and Combat, it would operate at this:

Outburst - The first time in a scene where a character's Strife exceeds their Composure, they immediately have an Outburst. During a narrative scene, the character chooses an Outburst from the list below, but during a Conflict scene, they must choose the Outburst of the Ring their stance dictates. For the remainder of the scene, the character may ignore any additional Strife they gain and at the end of the scene, they set their Strife to less than half their Composure, rounded down.

This way, the character can still choose any Outburst during a Narrative scene (and customize it to their pick), but during a Conflict scene, you are taking the same risks by relying on a particular Ring as if someone was swinging a sword at you. Also, this clearly points out the fact that, with the current rules, once you have had an Outburst in a scene? You might as well get as much Strife as you possibly can generate. It all goes back to that "half your Composure" anyways at the end of the scene, whether you have 6 or 60.

22 hours ago, WHW said:

I don't like this, especially the enforced Rage on Fire.

In the current rules, if the character chooses Becomes Enraged, they gain the Enraged condition, and ignore a Disadvantage. Enraged increases the severity of all Critical Strikes you inflict and are dealt by 2, and the first time you kill someone in a scene, you gain 1 Void Point. However, reading over the rules on that, I think that that might be a good alternative to the Action restriction.

It would read as follows:

Fire Outburst - Rage
Tempers flare, and the character's anger gets the better of them. Choose one character present in the scene. You gain the Sworn Enemy Disadvantage (pg 73) for that character for the remainder of the scene. In addition, gain the Enraged condition (pg 170).

12 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

And void as forced compromise screws social combat.

Would it be better if I flipped Void and Water? Made Void more about becoming focused on a single thing (Obsess), while Water is more about Compromising your ideals? As a note, the key word in the description of Compromise is "may". There is nothing saying a character HAS to spend Strife icons as Opportunity icons, but since they really are not doing anything anyways on the roll after the Outburst, I would like to see them be useful in a mechanical sense. As it stands, once a character enters into the Outburst, further Strife does not matter.

A forced compromise ends social combat no matter which ring you put it on.

EG: Hana and Ichiro are each attempting to convince hida-sama that they should be given custody of the nemurani they just found in the hands of a (now quite dead) Dark Moto... It's a race to 7 rhetoric points. Hana has 0, as she's been really avoiding strife, and hasn't had a single non-strife success; Ichiro has 5 of his allowed 6, and would convince hida-sama with his roll of Su/St Su/St Ex/St Bl Bl Bl keeping 3. If he succeeds, he's convinced hida-sama, but thrown a fit and, since outbursts are end of your turn, while success is end of round... Ichiro, who had a clear pattern of better argument and flattery now must concede to some degree...

It snaps the progress of the narrative. It's not being on void I'm objecting to, it's being on the list at all.

1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:

It snaps the progress of the narrative. It's not being on void I'm objecting to, it's being on the list at all.

So, you have a problem with the Outburst system entirely?

Though, I think you have a good point beyond there. Having an Outburst system which says "You can no longer participate / you automatically lose this social conflict" is a problem. That's simply not fun to play. While I feel that in some situations it is appropriate (i.e. having a Courtly Debate where in getting your opponent to have an Outburst is grounds for them losing a lot of face, and possibly disqualification), it serves the same purpose as Wounds and Critical Strikes in combat. Which, honestly, is something I rarely see people object to.

Using your example, Hana and Ichiro decide that, instead of debating before Hida-sama about their point, they are going to swing swords at each other. At this point, Hana has been wearing Ichiro down so he is nearly at his Wound capacity and Ichiro has not hit Hana once. This round, he gets 2 Opportunities on his Successful attack on Hana. That's a Deadliness 11 coming at her, and Hana rolls no successes on her Fitness roll. She is quite suddenly out of the fight, having had her hand chopped off and she is now Bleeding and Unconscious. Ichiro has obviously won the fight, despite only landing a single hit to all of Hana's successful attacks.

As a point, I think the idea of the Outbursts removing the ability to choose certain Actions is a problem and may lead to a negative play experience. As such, let me think about the Air and Earth Outbursts, and see if I can rework them.

I'm not at all averse to having two or three "standard outbursts" per ring... I am opposed to them being instantly removed from scene or nerfing two of the 4 action types completely.

Raising the difficulties of the related ring - now that's a different matter.

On the gripping hand, social combat has some issues, anyway.

I have three issues with this sort of setup. The first is choice. Rarely does a person gain all their strife while in a single stance or with a single ring, so why should the final straw choose how that strife is unleashed into the narrative?

The second is having outbursts that apply to all types of situations. Your first air outburst doesn’t seem like it would be a big deal in a skirmish. Frankly, it feels like it could be a lost opportunity.

Third is a similar problem that the outbursts in the beta are suffering from: names. By giving the name rage to an outburst you partially define it. Sure, a player could reimagine it, but they are much less likely to. I’m not sure if there is a good solution. The best I have in my mind at the moment is removing the names and just leaving the mechanics so that the players can interpret and name them for themselves.

So, here is a thought.

If Outbursts by Ring is a little too much in a particular direction, how about a "standardized Outburst" mechanic? As I point out, once you enter into the Outburst, your Strife marks do not inherently contribute anything to the Roll. They become, effectively, blank faces unless you A) have a special ability which interacts with them (Akodo Bushi, Ikoma Courtier) or B) are a shugenja making Invocations (in which case they are still bad).

Would a standardized Outburst serve the purpose better? It would be something like this:

Outburst
The first time in a scene where a character's Strife exceeds their Composure, the stress of maintaining their On becomes too much and some of their true nature is revealed. The character immediately gains one of the following Conditions as their emotions overwhelm their self-control: Dazed, Disoriented, or Enraged (player's choice). Such emotion is not without some advantage, however. For the remainder of the scene, the player may treat Strife icons on checks the character makes as Opportunity icons in addition to being Strife icons. Depending on the situation, the character may also lose Honor and Glory for their breach of etiquette. At the end of the scene, the character removes Strife until their Strife is equal to or less than half their Composure, rounded down.

This would clearly delineate the process of the Outburst, and leave it within the player's hands to describe exactly how their character loses control of their emotions. The Dazed, Disoriented, and Enraged Conditions serve as good ways to "penalize" the character for suffering too much Strife. Dazed and Disoriented Conditions do not prevent the character from taking actions, but they make certain actions much more difficult. They are easily recovered from, however.

Treating the Strife icons as Opportunities saves the dice from, effectively, being boring and it will make combat certainly deadlier in many ways (which I am very much a proponent of).

Opinions?

Toss a mandatory honor hit on, and you'd get my vote on this last one, @sndwurks

1 minute ago, AK_Aramis said:

Toss a mandatory honor hit on, and you'd get my vote on this last one, @sndwurks

I'm a little hesitant on a mandatory Honor loss just because, in some situations and depending on what you do, it might not be. Raging out on the field of battle, for example, would not be dishonorable. In fact, it is one of the few areas where in it is acceptable and expected for a samurai to express emotion, especially if it is in the service of their Lord. However, that is why I put in the line about the Breach of Etiquette.

It would also give the Ikoma Bard a frighteningly powerful Special Ability in Social situations, since they can now literally make you lose Honor just by talking to you (and dumping Strife on you until you Outburst).

Just now, sndwurks said:

I'm a little hesitant on a mandatory Honor loss just because, in some situations and depending on what you do, it might not be. Raging out on the field of battle, for example, would not be dishonorable. In fact, it is one of the few areas where in it is acceptable and expected for a samurai to express emotion, especially if it is in the service of their Lord. However, that is why I put in the line about the Breach of Etiquette.

It would also give the Ikoma Bard a frighteningly powerful Special Ability in Social situations, since they can now literally make you lose Honor just by talking to you (and dumping Strife on you until you Outburst).

That's implied in the social combat system, anyway... and several other schools should be able to do that that would be in the core, but not the beta...

It also gives a good reason to stress out said bard by everyone on the opposition spamming him first!

I worry about making outbursts something that people are deliberately trying to force a lot of the time. While you should care about your honor/glory in theory, I can see someone just throwing it to the wayside so they can get a big dump of power. Right now Enrage is one of the few outbursts with a positive effect, but it’s a double edged sword. You get to crit harder, but are more vulnerable in turn.

In short, I’d want the gambling element not to be related to things like honor or glory. It would be cool if the shut down option made it so attempts against you are at higher TN, but you must make a higher TN to act as well. That would keep people from being dumped out of the scene by having to leave while giving them a method of sticking around that both makes things harder for them, but makes it possible to stay in without getting destroyed (socially or in combat. I can see a version of this as going on a kind of scene long ‘full defense’).

1 hour ago, DarkIxion said:

In short, I’d want the gambling element not to be related to things like honor or glory. It would be cool if the shut down option made it so attempts against you are at higher TN, but you must make a higher TN to act as well. That would keep people from being dumped out of the scene by having to leave while giving them a method of sticking around that both makes things harder for them, but makes it possible to stay in without getting destroyed (socially or in combat. I can see a version of this as going on a kind of scene long ‘full defense’).

This is why I like the idea of an Outburst triggering Dazed, Disoriented or Enraged Conditions. While it does not drive you out of the narrative scene, it adds a complication to your current situation. In addition, with the current Outburst system, there is no reason not to simply reveal one of your Disadvantages to a fellow PC in social situations, and then lower all your Scheme TNs.

8 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

This is why I like the idea of an Outburst triggering Dazed, Disoriented or Enraged Conditions. While it does not drive you out of the narrative scene, it adds a complication to your current situation. In addition, with the current Outburst system, there is no reason not to simply reveal one of your Disadvantages to a fellow PC in social situations, and then lower all your Scheme TNs.

It depends how friendly the game is. Just because someone is a PC doesn’t mean they won’t end up pursuing different goals than you. Revealing those disadvantages might allow them to out maneuver you.

The penalty for having an Outburst in Intrigue Conflict is potentially fulfilling the Discredit Someone objective of the opposition.

I have updated the original post with some consolidated proposals and a new title.