I don't know about everyone else, but I strongly dislike the honor mechanics. I'd rather see it reflecting a character's reputation. As it stands, there's a huge internal and psychological component that, while interesting, also has a host of unpleasant implications for characters.
Honor Mechanics
What specifically is the issue?
I have a character that I love in the game I'm running that cares nothing about his honor and is all about glory. He wants to be famous and is completely inappropriate a lot. He is like a Japanese Achilles.
1 hour ago, Chrislee66 said:I don't know about everyone else, but I strongly dislike the honor mechanics. I'd rather see it reflecting a character's reputation. As it stands, there's a huge internal and psychological component that, while interesting, also has a host of unpleasant implications for characters.
Historically, Honor in L5R has always been a completely internal measure of how much and how well a character has adhered to Bushido. This isn't a departure for 5E.
Glory has always been (and remains) a character's external measure of how Rokugani society views them.
I think it's hugely important that both Honor and Glory have a meaningful impact on a character's stats. Why? Because two of L5R's major themes are (1) how well a character has performed according to the moral code that's been drilled into them and their family for literally a thousand years by literal actual gods and (2) how well a character maintains their public face and hides their personal emotional landscape. Having mechanics that reinforce those themes is borderline necessary.
4 hours ago, Chrislee66 said:I don't know about everyone else, but I strongly dislike the honor mechanics. I'd rather see it reflecting a character's reputation. As it stands, there's a huge internal and psychological component that, while interesting, also has a host of unpleasant implications for characters.
That's what Glory does.
I am with the others here on the whole "Honor is your internal adherence to Bushido, Glory is what people think about you!", but I actually dislike the current Honor system as it stands. Or, more directly, the Advantage / Disadvantage part of the system. It may sound strange to put it this way, but Honor should be its own reward. You want to be an honorable character? Awesome! Go for it. Here is your Honor score. Mechanical benefits to having higher Honor? Uhh... Well, I think it may make you more resistant to certain forms of magical corruption (i.e. certain Maho spells), but really... there's nothing there to reward you.
Being a good / honorable person is its own reward.
On the flipside, there's no penalty inherently to being sketchy except, you know, you're more willing to do what is necessary to get the job done.
Have there be an Honor system, and keep Honor rank. Add a mechanic to figure out what someone's Honor Rank is built into the game, but leave any other mechanical effects at the door.
2 hours ago, sndwurks said:I am with the others here on the whole "Honor is your internal adherence to Bushido, Glory is what people think about you!", but I actually dislike the current Honor system as it stands. Or, more directly, the Advantage / Disadvantage part of the system. It may sound strange to put it this way, but Honor should be its own reward. You want to be an honorable character? Awesome! Go for it. Here is your Honor score. Mechanical benefits to having higher Honor? Uhh... Well, I think it may make you more resistant to certain forms of magical corruption (i.e. certain Maho spells), but really... there's nothing there to reward you.
Being a good / honorable person is its own reward.
On the flipside, there's no penalty inherently to being sketchy except, you know, you're more willing to do what is necessary to get the job done.
Have there be an Honor system, and keep Honor rank. Add a mechanic to figure out what someone's Honor Rank is built into the game, but leave any other mechanical effects at the door.
I like having high honor bestow some kind of mechanical advantage. Honor as a strength is thematic for the setting, and one of the cornerstones Rokugani society is supposed to be built on. It also balances out that being dishonorable is otherwise a far easier and more powerful path for a character. “Honor is stronger than steel” should not be an empty saying. The current honor mechanics are a bit bland though. They feel more like a bit of bookkeeping than as an inner strength.
18 hours ago, sndwurks said:I am with the others here on the whole "Honor is your internal adherence to Bushido, Glory is what people think about you!", but I actually dislike the current Honor system as it stands. Or, more directly, the Advantage / Disadvantage part of the system. It may sound strange to put it this way, but Honor should be its own reward. You want to be an honorable character? Awesome! Go for it. Here is your Honor score. Mechanical benefits to having higher Honor? Uhh... Well, I think it may make you more resistant to certain forms of magical corruption (i.e. certain Maho spells), but really... there's nothing there to reward you.
Being a good / honorable person is its own reward.
On the flipside, there's no penalty inherently to being sketchy except, you know, you're more willing to do what is necessary to get the job done.
Have there be an Honor system, and keep Honor rank. Add a mechanic to figure out what someone's Honor Rank is built into the game, but leave any other mechanical effects at the door.
The thing is, the literature and visual media of the genre do make honor rewarded by the kami protecting the honorable one...
... at least in the minds of the characters in the story.
And, further, Honor and Glory had massive mechanical effects in prior editions... and it was a good thing. It wasn't as "in your face" as the beta version, but the beta version is far more of a cosmic "The Kami demand Honor among Samurai".
Glory represents pretty easily the social advantages of being famous, and seen as an honorable samurai. The lack of a parallel infamy for the truly despised but famous is a clear sign of "This game is about the actions of honorable and glorious samurai, not anti-heroes."
See, I like the idea that Glory and Infamy have advantages. Being famous, one way or the other, can always work in one's favor. I have always found the idea that Infamy and Glory work counter to each other to be a little inaccurate, though. If you are famous for being The Best Duelist in the Empire (TM), that should not protect you from being known throughout the Empire as the Butcher of Otosan Uchi who murders peasants for funsies.
For example, take Bayushi Shoju. He is feared throughout the land as the Master of Secrets and someone who can literally have your reputation destroyed and your family murdered with a tip of his fan, and will do it just because he can. He is, without a doubt, one of the most villainous individuals in the Empire. Thus, he should be Glory 0 or thereabouts. However, he is also a trusted adviser to the Emperor who is considered throughout the Empire as one of the most capable Scorpions. Thus, his Glory should also be in the 90's. Unfortunately, you cannot have both in the extreme, and if you average it out, it becomes "Bayushi who?"
Furthermore, a samurai known for being a bandit who saves a village against an Oni should not suddenly be LESS talked about because they did the right thing.
Glory is its own mess, in my opinion, and needs to be reworked to reflect a more accurate Reputation system.
Back to the Honor system, presently the system does not give you supernatural resistance or anything like that. It gives you social Advantages if you are able to maintain a high Honor and social Disadvantages if you maintain a low Honor. I feel that a higher Honor should, absolutely, be reflected in a spiritual and fantastic sense, since you are succeeding in walking the path of Tengoku which is built out of contradictions. If Honor protects you, it should protect you from the affects of supernatural creatures, like being able to see through illusions of mujina or resist the wiles of a ghost lover or cast off the chains of a maho spell afflicting you. However, the current system punishes characters for having low Honor and gives social rewards for those with high Honor. Of the two? I have more of a problem with punishing a character for having low Honor since, honestly, Honor should be a code that most aspire to, but nearly all fail to fully realize. High Honor should be like Golconda in Vampire: the Masquerade - a nifty spiritual state that a character can strive towards and even potentially achieve, but one that the majority of people (peasants, ronin, most samurai) consider to be a fruitless pursuit, and they should find a comfortable state of ethical strength where they don't shed Honor just to get by in the world.
3 hours ago, sndwurks said:See, I like the idea that Glory and Infamy have advantages. Being famous, one way or the other, can always work in one's favor. I have always found the idea that Infamy and Glory work counter to each other to be a little inaccurate, though. If you are famous for being The Best Duelist in the Empire (TM), that should not protect you from being known throughout the Empire as the Butcher of Otosan Uchi who murders peasants for funsies.
For example, take Bayushi Shoju. He is feared throughout the land as the Master of Secrets and someone who can literally have your reputation destroyed and your family murdered with a tip of his fan, and will do it just because he can. He is, without a doubt, one of the most villainous individuals in the Empire. Thus, he should be Glory 0 or thereabouts. However, he is also a trusted adviser to the Emperor who is considered throughout the Empire as one of the most capable Scorpions. Thus, his Glory should also be in the 90's. Unfortunately, you cannot have both in the extreme, and if you average it out, it becomes "Bayushi who?"
Furthermore, a samurai known for being a bandit who saves a village against an Oni should not suddenly be LESS talked about because they did the right thing.
Glory is its own mess, in my opinion, and needs to be reworked to reflect a more accurate Reputation system.
Back to the Honor system, presently the system does not give you supernatural resistance or anything like that. It gives you social Advantages if you are able to maintain a high Honor and social Disadvantages if you maintain a low Honor. I feel that a higher Honor should, absolutely, be reflected in a spiritual and fantastic sense, since you are succeeding in walking the path of Tengoku which is built out of contradictions. If Honor protects you, it should protect you from the affects of supernatural creatures, like being able to see through illusions of mujina or resist the wiles of a ghost lover or cast off the chains of a maho spell afflicting you. However, the current system punishes characters for having low Honor and gives social rewards for those with high Honor. Of the two? I have more of a problem with punishing a character for having low Honor since, honestly, Honor should be a code that most aspire to, but nearly all fail to fully realize. High Honor should be like Golconda in Vampire: the Masquerade - a nifty spiritual state that a character can strive towards and even potentially achieve, but one that the majority of people (peasants, ronin, most samurai) consider to be a fruitless pursuit, and they should find a comfortable state of ethical strength where they don't shed Honor just to get by in the world.
The description of Glory in the beta started off very well to me: it was just about your accomplishments and how they are valued by the rest of the Rokugani society in general and your lord in particular. It’s only when you get to the table and see the lower part that it becomes problematic. Infamy should be tracked separately. Or even not tracked for mechanical purposes at all, but that would require even more reworking of the disadvantages.
To illustrate with your example, if anything Shoju’s reputation makes him even more effective. If the courts knew him to be reliable and honorable, him knowing all those secrets would not be anywhere near as dangerous. The fact that he’s known to have no scruples at all against using them is a strength. It contributes to his Glory, it doesn’t detract from it.
In general whether your deeds are heinous or not should not affect your glory, unless the nature of your reputation affects your competence and how it is viewed. If you stop a small crime syndicate by indiscriminately killing everyone in the village they worked out of, what that does to your glory depends entirely on how that is perceived in the courts. If it gets spun as being rigourous and thorough and setting an example for anyone who would think a life if crime is a good career choice, it will increase your glory. If someone who doesn’t like you sways the general opinion to see it as the action of an incompetent magistrate who is unable to discern between the guilty and the innocent, costing the local daimyo and his clan the income that village provided, it will decrease your glory. Same action, all that changes is the perspective.
@nameless ronin - a couple caveats I see -
When people do inglorious things, people stop talking about them as much to a very certain point - the old (2E had negative glory for those who were Hinin...) A pseudo-glory could be used for criminals if one was so inclined... but, as the scale has been renormed to have the hinin merely at zero...
"Hushed Whispers" - when people target you with scheme actions in social combat
"Honorless Dog" - any time you try to engage with someone with a higher status than you outside of combat
"A cur to be cut down" - Rolls to resist martial skill using techniques
"as faithless as a ..." Whenever you try to convince someone of something
"Known to slaughter" - Whenever you try to get someone to surrender
"The Beast" - Everyone thinks you're going to be advocating the most dishonorable path...
But all of these could, since the rules allow it (p 61) be used as advantages in the right circumstances
Quote[Beta, p 61]
Leveraging Your Disadvantage: If one of a character’s disadvantages creates a logical edge for that character in a specific check and the GM agrees, the player may spend 1 Void point to leverage that disadvantage, causing it to be applied as a corresponding advantage for the check (an adversity becoming a distinction, or an anxiety becoming a passion, for instance).
Hushed Whispers - everyone's talking about what a psycho you are, and doesn't want to offend... bonus to resist a social Shūji
Honorless Dog - you can trick them easier with threats of dishonorable behavior
A Cur to be Cut Down - They weren't expecting you to be combat capable... bonus to attack.
As faithless as a ... - they know your word is no good, and that scares them. Bonus to scheme
Known to Slaughter - Anything that makes them run...
The beast - again, anything that makes them run... or open intimidation... or open rapaciousness. Or even Gluttony.