I feel like there's this weird dichotomy here:

On one hand overwhelmingly it feels like folks favor the reboot of the timeline. The battle cry here is "clean it up for the new players, there's decades of lore out there and it's going to freak them out!"

On the other hand when talking about character creation for a game that we're talking about streamlining so new players can get into it, (which is getting timeline rebooted anyway so it's not like the families have stories to preserve) all of a sudden the battle cry switches completely around and it becomes "don't dumb down my L5R--if new players don't like it they can just play something else"

That's interesting to me.

I would imagine that one of the key benefits of trimming all the fat off L5R and taking it back to the beginning would be to remove complexity. But it doesn't seem like that's the case at all. It seems like people overwhelmingly want a game that's so complex that it can't all fit into a single beta test version. Like they aren't mad that there aren't a bajillion minor clans and schools because it's the playtest--but feel pretty ironclad that they better all be in the core book!

I would have imagined the pressure would have been totally the other way--that the world had gotten too big, all the details too filled in, that people would want more control to shape the details of the world so it isn't such a beast to try and run.

I sort of wonder if people have an underlying reason for why they want to keep what they want to keep and cut what they want to cut or if it's just entirely whim. It certainly seems that way--it doesn't seem like there's any reason to it. Yet at the same time there seems to be a clear consensus.

It's odd.

I don’t think variants are good enough in most cases. We can maybe discuss the Dragon, since they choose to remain aloof towards the empire, but the others at minimum want to be represented well in the courts and possibly need strong negotiators and politicians to be able to function at all. The Crane and Scorpion are obviously in the latter category, but so are the Crab who depend to a very large extent on others to be able to feed their troops. The Lion need representation if they want any say in how the military might they provide the empire is used. The Unicorn want to be rid of their outsider status. The Phoenix use courtiers to further their pacifist agenda. The Mantis are not a great clan (yet) in 5th, but if they want to champion the minor clans or make a bid for more power and respect (great clan status or not) they will need political strength to make that happen. Dabblers won’t serve any of them well.

1 minute ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

I feel like there's this weird dichotomy here:

On one hand overwhelmingly it feels like folks favor the reboot of the timeline. The battle cry here is "clean it up for the new players, there's decades of lore out there and it's going to freak them out!"

On the other hand when talking about character creation for a game that we're talking about streamlining so new players can get into it, and which is getting timeline rebooted anyway so it's not like the families have histories to preserve, all of a sudden the battle cry switches completely around and it becomes "don't dumb down my L5R--if new players don't like it they can just play something else"

That's interesting to me.

I would imagine that one of the key benefits of trimming all the fat off L5R and taking it back to the beginning would be to remove complexity. But it doesn't seem like that's the case at all. It seems like people overwhelmingly want a game that's so complex that it can't all fit into a single beta test version. Like they aren't mad that there aren't a bajillion minor clans because it's the playtest--but feel pretty ironclad that they better all be in the core book along with a ton more schools.

I would have imagined the pressure would have been totally the other way--that the world had gotten too big, all the details too filled in, that people would want more control to shape the details of the world so it isn't such a beast to try and run.

I sort of wonder if people have an underlying reason for why they want to keep what they want to keep and cut what they want to cut or if it's just entirely whim. It certainly seems that way--it doesn't seem like there's any reason to it. Yet at the same time there seems to be a clear consensus.

It's odd.

I won’t speak for anyone else, but I’m firmly in the camp of “it’s better to have something and not want it than to want something and not have it”. I’ve GMed campains where I let the players use anything they wanted from any sourcebook and I’ve done campaigns where I limited them to a single clan. I also tend towards less mainstream options when I play myself: not having to homebrew something with the GM just because I don’t want to play a somewhat typical Great Clan samurai would be very much appreciated.

So you'd think, if you're in the "it's better to have it and not need it" that you'd want to keep all the history and lore from the old edition and then choose what you want to use...

1 minute ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

So you'd think, if you're in the "it's better to have it and not need it" that you'd want to keep all the history and lore from the old edition and then choose what you want to use...

If that’s what you think I think, you’re thinking right.

15 minutes ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

I feel like there's this weird dichotomy here:

On one hand overwhelmingly it feels like folks favor the reboot of the timeline. The battle cry here is "clean it up for the new players, there's decades of lore out there and it's going to freak them out!"

On the other hand when talking about character creation for a game that we're talking about streamlining so new players can get into it, (which is getting timeline rebooted anyway so it's not like the families have stories to preserve) all of a sudden the battle cry switches completely around and it becomes "don't dumb down my L5R--if new players don't like it they can just play something else"

The point is that the families are not that overwheling. I jumped L5R after they were already all in place. I was a new player at that timepoint and the number of families never bothered me.

Reason is simple. Once you choose a clan and then you have 3-5 families, which is actually an easier choice (beacause before you had to select among 7).

Actually I jumped into L5R as they were more families around Hoshi, Hitomi, Horiiuchi, Daigotsu, Chuda, Susumu, and the rest of the Shadowlands families are all gone now.

What FFG presents here is the very core of L5R, which is really really good...

However when it comes to streamlining the character creation, I am all in for... But this is simply not the right point to actually archive this...

@Agasha_Kazusinge

I think that an RPG book doesn't need to be trimmed. I would say the opposite is true. A good RPG book should have as much fluff, mechanics, and support for players and GMs to use as possible before any supplements are needed. People don't need to read and understand everything in the book to play the RPG. I only learned to use L5R Shugenja a few years ago because that was the first time I actually had a player want to play a Shugenja lol.

Obviously the book is only going to be so big, so there is an upper limit to what can be encapsulated in it, but I don't think adding in 7 clans, 3-5 families, and 3-4 schools per clan is going to break the seems. What is going to break the seems is having too many pages devoted to each conflict type. A lot of space is taken up with the Clan School Advancement pages being that each school has its own full page breakdown. If they can make these things smarter, and more concise / compressed, then we can have more room for fluff to build up the story.

I firmly believe one of the major draws of the L5R RPG wasn't the mechanics or the known setting. The big draw was all of the stories that built up the universe and defined the different clans and families. Things like the Akodo book of Leadership, Mirumoto's Niten, and Tangen's Lies made the RPG a treasure trove for theme and adventure. As much space as possible should be devoted to the characterizations players can feed off of fr their own character, which is shared well through the clans and families, and the stories about their ancestors and leaders.

20 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

I don’t think variants are good enough in most cases. We can maybe discuss the Dragon, since they choose to remain aloof towards the empire, but the others at minimum want to be represented well in the courts and possibly need strong negotiators and politicians to be able to function at all. The Crane and Scorpion are obviously in the latter category, but so are the Crab who depend to a very large extent on others to be able to feed their troops. The Lion need representation if they want any say in how the military might they provide the empire is used. The Unicorn want to be rid of their outsider status. The Phoenix use courtiers to further their pacifist agenda. The Mantis are not a great clan (yet) in 5th, but if they want to champion the minor clans or make a bid for more power and respect (great clan status or not) they will need political strength to make that happen. Dabblers won’t serve any of them well.

So you would want to see a real Courtier school from each clan?

And you know, it might be different if it was in a book with all the art and everything all prettied up. I just saw that families section and got really worried. The other thing is, having tried to pitch L5R to my game group, none of whom have ever played L5R their opinion has been "that game is super complicated. It's ton of weird names that don't make any sense to me."

When I look at that complaint, what I see is families. It's not the clans that have the weird names. It's not the courtier/samurai/ninja/monk/shugenja thing. It's the five families per clan thing.

And looking at the playtest packet with just reams of names for most of a chapter and what so-and-so family does for their Clan. I can't say I disagree.

But strangely that seems very much in the minority here.

2 minutes ago, shosuko said:

So you would want to see a real Courtier school from each clan?

Yes, absolutely. Specialised towards how they can best serve their clan in the courts, as exemplified by the Yasuki courtier school having a very mercantile bent for instance, but a real courtier school. I’ll give you the Dragon as an exception if you want, but not the others. They all have very real reasons to want court specialists.

13 minutes ago, shosuko said:

So you would want to see a real Courtier school from each clan?

If each clan has a Courtier oriented family, yes! (not sure phoenix has one heh. just some poor guy they make go to court ;))

3 minutes ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

And you know, it might be different if it was in a book with all the art and everything all prettied up. I just saw that families section and got really worried. The other thing is, having tried to pitch L5R to my game group, none of whom have ever played L5R their opinion has been "that game is super complicated. It's ton of weird names that don't make any sense to me."

When I look at that complaint, what I see is families. It's not the clans that have the weird names. It's not the courtier/samurai/ninja/monk/shugenja thing. It's the five families per clan thing.

And looking at the playtest packet with just reams of names for most of a chapter and what so-and-so family does for their Clan. I can't say I disagree.

But strangely that seems very much in the minority here.

If they're interested in playing these , but aren't familiar with L5R, then you might want to just pick a family for them. Someone was recommending a different character creation model that might help too. They started with Clan, then went to School, and just put the matching Family name in with it. I think this makes sense for players who are new to the game.

5 minutes ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

And you know, it might be different if it was in a book with all the art and everything all prettied up. I just saw that families section and got really worried. The other thing is, having tried to pitch L5R to my game group, none of whom have ever played L5R their opinion has been "that game is super complicated. It's ton of weird names that don't make any sense to me."

When I look at that complaint, what I see is families. It's not the clans that have the weird names. It's not the courtier/samurai/ninja/monk/shugenja thing. It's the five families per clan thing.

And looking at the playtest packet with just reams of names for most of a chapter and what so-and-so family does for their Clan. I can't say I disagree.

But strangely that seems very much in the minority here.

Just be practical. Do they play other RPGs which feature magic, for instance? That’s often a very large part of the rulebook new players skip because they pick an easier, non-magical character type at first. This is no different. Just like they can choose not to play a shugenja so they only have to be familiar with the absolute basics of magic, they get to choose one clan and can ignore the rest aside from some broad strokes (which are conveniently summarized per clan too in the current edition, something I expect will be the case in the new edition as well). Read what you need, leave the rest aside until it comes up or you want to broaden your knowledge a bit.

And yeah I think these are great ideas. Honestly if it was just a matter of home games I would probably just implement my idea of cutting families and just let people choose between using the Great Clans and Families or else make their own minor ones. I just like that. It breathes some fresh air into a very rigid and developed setting. Plus it feels like a nice subtle protest to this being a setting where so much is being cut anyway.

This being a playtest though I've been resisting that impulse to homebrew. I've been trying to play things pretty much by the packet exactly as written. The tough part is that might mean my group may not go for it and then I'm sidelined for the playtest.

With regard to the issue of schools for the different clans, I do feel like it's more interesting to have something like: "Clan A monks are like this" rather than "Clan A doesn't have monks, play a Dragon." Same with courtiers or what have you. We'll get there though.

2 minutes ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

With regard to the issue of schools for the different clans, I do feel like it's more interesting to have something like: "Clan A monks are like this" rather than "Clan A doesn't have monks, play a Dragon." Same with courtiers or what have you. We'll get there though.

I wouldn't mind seeing a generic set of schools that all families have access to. Obviously all clans have courtiers as has been talked about earlier but not all clans have courtier families that would be known for such a school. Like wise it is mentioned that just about anyone can be a monk and all clans have them so while their might be a Hida monk school you could still make a monk just without some of the special family or clan mojo that comes from being dragon as an example.

I like the idea that much like minor clan that there's a concept of minor family and minor school where basically you have a block of potential bonuses that aren't as good as the major versions, but you get to customize your own and name it. I like the idea that you can be dressed in dragon colors and introduce yourself as Hagiwara Yota from the Chiben Spearmaster Bushi School. And everyone is like WHAT...

I think much of the overwheming problem could be solved by reorganizing the the sections of the Great Clans like this:

The <Animal> Clan

Modifier and general description what makes the clan the clan.

Families

An overview over the 3-5 families that make up the clan with modifiers listed etc.

Schools

An overview over 3-4 schools thought in this clan.

Currently there are no rules for taking schools from other clans. And even if they introduce out of clan schools and and multiple schools they are advanced player options who already know their stuff.

11 minutes ago, Yandia said:

I think much of the overwheming problem could be solved by reorganizing the the sections of the Great Clans like this:

The <Animal> Clan

Modifier and general description what makes the clan the clan.

Families

An overview over the 3-5 families that make up the clan with modifiers listed etc.

Schools

An overview over 3-4 schools thought in this clan.

Currently there are no rules for taking schools from other clans. And even if they introduce out of clan schools and and multiple schools they are advanced player options who already know their stuff.

I kinda wonder if Clan -> School -> Family might not be better. Lets be real - the family is the tertiary choice here. It is less important, and mostly symbolic. Unless you know the families that choice doesn't matter as much as your clan and school define your character much more.

But yeah - it should be more funneled. Have the clans all give a quick overview, then skip to that clan section for your clan, family, and school. Then resume the 20 questions.

I think that would help a lot. The further into character creation and the more gelled the idea of who the character is in the player's mind, the harder I think it will be to throw them.

Maybe it's as simple as your guys' idea of just shifting the family material into the section on clan. Simple, but I think it could really help.

It does sort of mess up the whole 20 Questions theme the new edition is trying to weave character creation around (which would be a shame, because I like it a lot) but I really think it would do a lot to fix this complexity issue.

8 minutes ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

I think that would help a lot. The further into character creation and the more gelled the idea of who the character is in the player's mind, the harder I think it will be to throw them.

Maybe it's as simple as your guys' idea of just shifting the family material into the section on clan. Simple, but I think it could really help.

It does sort of mess up the whole 20 Questions theme the new edition is trying to weave character creation around (which would be a shame, because I like it a lot) but I really think it would do a lot to fix this complexity issue.

This is in fact how it was handled in previous editions... I think the 20 questions character creation did bring in much of the complexity your playing group seems to struggle with.

Thinking back, yeah it does seem like it was easier to deal with in previous editions. You were looking at the spread for your clan, and there's the schools and families in with your starting gear. I think it made it easier to grasp. It still made it a hard game to run, keeping all the family names straight--and truth be told, I still am not 100% sure we need families to be in the game as prominently as they are now, or at least not ALL of them. But it feels like a sacred cow to folks so I understand that.

But yeah, I agree with you. I think just tweaking the organization would clear up the problem for the most part.

I'd be happy if there was a way to do that without divorcing character creation from the 20 Questions...but I'm not sure you can.

5 hours ago, Yandia said:

Currently there are no rules for taking schools from other clans. And even if they introduce out of clan schools and and multiple schools they are advanced player options who already know their stuff.

There are:

Quote

In most cases, a samurai is limited to the schools within their clan. If you wish for your character to study at another school, ask your GM’s permission and work out a set of circumstances that have allowed for your character to study at another school.

Essentially " This doesn't normally happen. There's no reason it can't have happened to your character, but have a darn good reason why. " (which should ideally inform your answers to later questions of the twenty).

12 hours ago, Darksyde said:

I wouldn't mind seeing a generic set of schools that all families have access to. Obviously all clans have courtiers as has been talked about earlier but not all clans have courtier families that would be known for such a school. Like wise it is mentioned that just about anyone can be a monk and all clans have them so while their might be a Hida monk school you could still make a monk just without some of the special family or clan mojo that comes from being dragon as an example.

Especially whilst we have a limited scope of stuff in the beta, I'd always recommend that you just find an appropriate school and give it and it's school ability a new name and coat of paint as required.

Any clan will have shinobi Obviously no clan will have shinobi. The training of shinobi are officially banned by Imperial Edict. But if they did want to train shinobi, then to all intents and purposes, a Crane Clan shinobi school would probably look much like the Shosura infiltrator school.

That's another reason I don't see an issue with out-of-clan schooling; if, for example, you want to represent a Hiruma scout/messenger then the best approach at the moment is Crab Clan/Hiruma Family/Shinjo Outrider School. Obviously it won't be the Shinjo school, it'd be a Hiruma school, but aside from probably dropping the scimitar for something else (probably a club-like weapon given the Crab's fondness for blunt force trauma weapons) there's nothing wrong with the spec.

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

That's another reason I don't see an issue with out-of-clan schooling

Well, given the title and original direction of the thread we are in, the one obvious issue with it is that it leads to a sudden increase in the number of (comparatively also quite weighty) options.

Without out-of-clan schools we go from choosing between 7 options to choosing between 2-5 options to choosing between 2 options, while with out-of-clan schools we go from 7 to 2-5 to 14.

Then again, this does require one to accept the original notion that the number of options presented is off-putting to (new) players.

(Also, it leaves untouched the field of advantages and disadvantages, which are even more numerous while at the same time being mechanically more involved than families [though less than schools].)

My hope and expectation is for One each bushi, shugenja, and courtier school per clan, plus one extra per clan. Hiruma Scout, Shosuro (or bayushi) Infiltrator, Unicorn Battle Maiden.

6 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

My hope and expectation is for One each bushi, shugenja, and courtier school per clan, plus one extra per clan. Hiruma Scout, Shosuro (or bayushi) Infiltrator, Unicorn Battle Maiden.

That’s my expectation too. Basics: Bushi, Courtier and Shugenja, plus a miscellaneous School that sometimes reflects on the Clan’s duty: scout, monk, duelist, shinobi, etc...