The Mirumoto family write up for the Dragon Clan makes a big deal of the fact that they get niten and can use two katanas at once. One of my players saw that and flipped out and just thought it was the coolest thing. He immediately picked a Mirumoto.

Then he found out the Dragon don't have a real bushi school and that he had to make an investigator or a monk. He doesn't even get one katana much less two. Worse it seems as though, flipping through the rest of the packet that there's no rules for niten fighting anywhere in the rules as they exist now. Which, I mean, it's a playtest and all--but why mention them in the family write up, get a new player excited and then quash it by not releasing the rules yet?

Is there some way to emulate niten in the meantime? So he has something he can do?

The Beta is not all of what will appear in the release. I expect an inner core of Alphas are working on the missing key schools.

The beta is more for figuring out if the system is

• intelligibly written
• meeting the basic mechanical expectations
• tolerable to a large part of the fanbase.

Another few elements of a public beta

• It's "free advertisment" in that anyone can take a look and see the mechanics
• It helps judge interest in the system

those last two are important to many companies, more so than the first three.

Unlike many other companies, FFG actually does listen to the beta participants, and makes adjustments. The core elements of the system are usually not negotiable, but the specifics are.

The Mirumoto Bushi are very likely to be in the release. I'd say the odds exceed 90%.

For the time being, I would tell my player he may have an extra attack with a wakizashi only by spending two opportunities. I'd also tell him this is subject to change when additional rules are released.

Use the Kakita Bushi School. The two Iaijutsu Techniques, plus the dueling and stance rules in general, allow for readying multiple weapons. If your player has one weapon disarmed, the other is ready.

Historically, niten hasn't really had many mechanical effects either.

18 hours ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

The Mirumoto family write up for the Dragon Clan makes a big deal of the fact that they get niten and can use two katanas at once. One of my players saw that and flipped out and just thought it was the coolest thing. He immediately picked a Mirumoto.

Uhm. Using two Katanas at once is a bit of a wrong. Niten is done with Long (Katana) and Short (Wakazashi) not two Longs.

18 hours ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

Then he found out the Dragon don't have a real bushi school and that he had to make an investigator or a monk. He doesn't even get one katana much less two. Worse it seems as though, flipping through the rest of the packet that there's no rules for niten fighting anywhere in the rules as they exist now. Which, I mean, it's a playtest and all--but why mention them in the family write up, get a new player excited and then quash it by not releasing the rules yet?

Spinning Blades Style Kata on page 110. It allows you to spend 2 opportunities to deal additional damage with a second readied weapon.

18 hours ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

Is there some way to emulate niten in the meantime? So he has something he can do?

If your friend wants to do dual blade Iaijutsu currently, I suggest using the Kakita Duelist School replacing the starting techniques with Iaijutsu Cut: Horizontal Blade and Spinning Blades Style.

If your friend manages to roll 2 successes and 3 opportunities they can deal 9 damage by using the Wakizashi for the Horizontal Blade and the Katana for the Spinning Blades Style.

The school is now available. Check out the 3rd preview

Where do you go to get those? I've had a hard time finding the update packets.

1 minute ago, Agasha_Kazusinge said:

Where do you go to get those? I've had a hard time finding the update packets.

same place as the update packets. Go to the RPG page expand the resources. You will see the beta. the updates and the previews

On 11/24/2017 at 10:24 AM, Daeglan said:

same place as the update packets. Go to the RPG page expand the resources. You will see the beta. the updates and the previews

Actually, click on resources, wait for "open beta" to appear, then click it to show the list.