1 hour ago, nameless ronin said:

Simple question: how is a GM supposed to make it hurt for characters who don’t much care (if at all) for honor or glory?

Other social penalties. Like being politely ignored when they ask for more shochu. Or being served tea preemptively. Or being called before their liege and dressed down, or even demoted or dismissed.

Or being called out by sensei for "target practice" by the cadets... handed a shinai, and the kids have bokken...

To be honest, if they're totally, completely not motivated by honor, you pick their disads for low glory and low honor. And you make them hurt that way.

You can even invent a new disad for them, either short or long term, when they unmask. Make it fit their unmask.
The Crab who is being rude, add, "Too rude to be interacted with - all rings, social" or "Social Ghost - all rings, social." Make them start failing to get anything socially.

Likewise, the crane doesn't get to keep revealing the same flaws in one scene.

Unfortunately, there's not equivalent to the "Can't spend XP" in FFG SW when Obligation-total exceeds 100. THAT is a motivational situation. (I had a party that spent three highly productive sessions of 7 hours each unable to spend XP, because the Obligation total was 102... The munchkin player finally decided to pay off his debt...

25 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

Other social penalties. Like being politely ignored when they ask for more shochu. Or being served tea preemptively. Or being called before their liege and dressed down, or even demoted or dismissed.

Or being called out by sensei for "target practice" by the cadets... handed a shinai, and the kids have bokken...

To be honest, if they're totally, completely not motivated by honor, you pick their disads for low glory and low honor. And you make them hurt that way.

You can even invent a new disad for them, either short or long term, when they unmask. Make it fit their unmask.
The Crab who is being rude, add, "Too rude to be interacted with - all rings, social" or "Social Ghost - all rings, social." Make them start failing to get anything socially.

Likewise, the crane doesn't get to keep revealing the same flaws in one scene.

Unfortunately, there's not equivalent to the "Can't spend XP" in FFG SW when Obligation-total exceeds 100. THAT is a motivational situation. (I had a party that spent three highly productive sessions of 7 hours each unable to spend XP, because the Obligation total was 102... The munchkin player finally decided to pay off his debt...

Thing is, that still doesn’t hurt everyone. And some of it isn’t really warranted as long as they are successful, which will mitigate glory losses as well. Particularly those PCs built to be adept at managing Strife (which quite a few will be, once the players sufficiently understand the system) arguably shouldn’t be at risk of falling deep enough glory-wise that it becomes problematic unless they keep failing to achieve success during the adventures - at which point we will obviously have a much bigger problem.

The part you call unfortunate is to me the critical flaw of the system. I don’t consider FFG’s Star Wars RPG a tremendously strong narrative system, but it at least has the basic minimum universal drive to allow a narrative to work. That is a fundamental requirement and as long as it’s absent from this L5R version while that is still meant to be narrative, these beta rules are going to fall flat for me.

Disclaimer: I have never played any previous edition of L5R before.

The most succinct way I can describe my feelings on this system is, apathetic. Its mechanics seem a bit disjointed and convoluted, and from what I've gathered were intended to be some sort of hybrid system. I do find the setting very interesting, but apparently I could just go back to a previous edition if I wanted to delve into that, 4E seeming to be the most generally praised of those.

At this point, FFG might very well have been better served by tying the new L5R directly into Genesys, they could make it a Genesys sourcebook line and introduce an "honor die" to the game, producing a new set of the Genesys roleplaying dice that is L5R specific and includes the new honor die.

Genesys, presuming its the same core mechanics as FFG-SW, has way too much whiff factor for the Rokugan setting. So does D&D 3.5.

14 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

Genesys, presuming its the same core mechanics as FFG-SW, has way too much whiff factor for the Rokugan setting. So does D&D 3.5.

"Whiff factor"? ?

18 minutes ago, JorArns said:

"Whiff factor"? ?

Swingy dice, I presume. Too much “wait and see if I get what I need to do what I want”, not enough “this is what I can probably do, and if I press my luck a little I can try that”.

14 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Swingy dice, I presume. Too much “wait and see if I get what I need to do what I want”, not enough “this is what I can probably do, and if I press my luck a little I can try that”.

lol - but that's exactly what the L5R Beta has. Who knows if you'll get the success AND opportunity to do what you want - roll and find out!

Honestly if FFG released L5R as a source book for Genesys I think most L5R players would just stick with 4th ed... L5R is not the biggest IP, but it holds a VERY long standing and loyal fan base who have already experienced their game being shoehorned into another system...

FFG needs to make this its own system to catch the interest of L5R players. The problem is that the game its new, and its complex. If FFG can streamline the game, and as players learn the game, it will get easier. I'm making a new set of cheat sheets for my group this saturday that I HOPE will help with both of these... and if it doesn't work then I'm out of the beta for now. We'll go back to 1st or 4th edition and just play what we know.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

lol - but that's exactly what the L5R Beta has. Who knows if you'll get the success AND opportunity to do what you want - roll and find out!

Honestly if FFG released L5R as a source book for Genesys I think most L5R players would just stick with 4th ed... L5R is not the biggest IP, but it holds a VERY long standing and loyal fan base who have already experienced their game being shoehorned into another system...

FFG needs to make this its own system to catch the interest of L5R players. The problem is that the game its new, and its complex. If FFG can streamline the game, and as players learn the game, it will get easier. I'm making a new set of cheat sheets for my group this saturday that I HOPE will help with both of these... and if it doesn't work then I'm out of the beta for now. We'll go back to 1st or 4th edition and just play what we know.

Not sure about that. I don’t know Genesys and have only a little experiece with the FFG SWRPG, so I can’t really testify to the swinginess there. From what I can tell about this beta it is a bit more swingy than I like, but the opportunities seem to be more about getting to do a little bit extra than about basic success. I’ve seen them compared functionally to Raises and that made sense (I think it was a post by @AK_Aramis too).

I’m pretty much ready to drop this beta, but it’s not because of the system being new or complex (though I prefer elegance to be a mitigating factor to complexity - this system seems complicated, which is something else and not a good thing). I convinced my players to give it a try, but after two sessions they’re out. That means I’m out too. I’ve played plenty of systems, of many types. Being new or different is nothing special at this point. And this beta is less complex than well-known middleweights like D&D (any d20 edition), never mind such lovely games like Exalted or Ars Magica. Something like approaches is still dumb (in my humble opinion) but not supercomplex. Same with the stances.

8 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

Swingy dice, I presume. Too much “wait and see if I get what I need to do what I want”, not enough “this is what I can probably do, and if I press my luck a little I can try that”.

That isn't quite what I meant, but it's also true; what I meant is that Star Wars has too much literal missing the target due to the mechanics of dice and difficulties .

Whiff literally means "to miss the ball" as a golf or baseball term, but also many gamers I know use it for missing a target in melee, as do many SCAers I've known. (But to be fair, the SCA is rampant with gamers of all breeds. And yes, that's an intentional horrid heraldry pun.)

6 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

I’ve seen them compared functionally to Raises and that made sense (I think it was a post by @AK_Aramis too).

While I agree, and have mentioned it, I think initial credit actually belongs elsewhere.

I don't see them as functionally the same as raises - I see it as something that tries to do the same thing but doesn't. The results may be similar but the approach and method is completely different.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

I don't see them as functionally the same as raises - I see it as something that tries to do the same thing but doesn't. The results may be similar but the approach and method is completely different.

Example from a session last week:

Player wants to hit a target at range 3 with a range 1-2 invocation, with an option for +1 range per opportunity (there are several like that)... so, in declaring that range 3 attack with that invocation, the player is saying, "I need the usual two successes and one opportunity or I fail."

That's exactly the same process as for using a raise in prior for extra range, except that extras matter, while with Classic L5R, the extra does NOT matter. And they allow doing extra effect.

Now, if you want to do an all or nothing on an attack... If you can't hit with enough to drop, then opt for subtlety (Ait Opportunity spend), and no one sees you miss... but if you're not skilled enough, you won't have that option.

On ‎28‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 2:43 AM, nameless ronin said:

Thing is, that still doesn’t hurt everyone. And some of it isn’t really warranted as long as they are successful, which will mitigate glory losses as well. Particularly those PCs built to be adept at managing Strife (which quite a few will be, once the players sufficiently understand the system) arguably shouldn’t be at risk of falling deep enough glory-wise that it becomes problematic unless they keep failing to achieve success during the adventures - at which point we will obviously have a much bigger problem.

To me that is the 'threat' - failing to achieve success.

• If you rack up enough strife to become compromised you have three choices:
  • Use Calming Breath to 'uncompromised yourself' at a risk of wasting multiple actions, allowing your rivals to steal a march on you in picking up rhetorical points/attrition/whatever
  • Stick with it and just use the non-strife results on the dice - bad but possible for a skilled character, really, really bad for an unskilled one, which allows you to keep going but slower (so again your opponents take the lead in the 'victory tracker' stakes)
  • Have an outburst, which has its own serious impact up to and including auto-failing the task:
    • In an intrigue, your opponent succeeds in the Discredit objective and you don't get what you want.
    • Someone takes offence to an improper remark and you end up in a duel
    • You reveal a weakness, which your opponent can start using as a positive reroll in this scene (which might be just as bad as just remaining compromised)
    • You lose honour and glory, resulting in disadvantages which are (situational) permanent negative rerolls indefinitely.

9 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

You reveal a weakness, which your opponent can start using as a positive reroll in this scene (which might be just as bad as just remaining compromised)

"Expose a Strength or Weakness" was removed in 3.0.

55 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

To me that is the 'threat' - failing to achieve success.

• If you rack up enough strife to become compromised you have three choices:
  • Use Calming Breath to 'uncompromised yourself' at a risk of wasting multiple actions, allowing your rivals to steal a march on you in picking up rhetorical points/attrition/whatever
  • Stick with it and just use the non-strife results on the dice - bad but possible for a skilled character, really, really bad for an unskilled one, which allows you to keep going but slower (so again your opponents take the lead in the 'victory tracker' stakes)
  • Have an outburst, which has its own serious impact up to and including auto-failing the task:
    • In an intrigue, your opponent succeeds in the Discredit objective and you don't get what you want.
    • Someone takes offence to an improper remark and you end up in a duel
    • You reveal a weakness, which your opponent can start using as a positive reroll in this scene (which might be just as bad as just remaining compromised)
    • You lose honour and glory, resulting in disadvantages which are (situational) permanent negative rerolls indefinitely.

Just want to point out that regardless of strife management mechanics, you can expect very few problems from outbursts in situations where you are not being opposed (PvE rather than PvP, in video game parlance). That gives players a situational out for strife as well.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

To me that is the 'threat' - failing to achieve success.

• If you rack up enough strife to become compromised you have three choices:
  1. Use Calming Breath to 'uncompromised yourself' at a risk of wasting multiple actions, allowing your rivals to steal a march on you in picking up rhetorical points/attrition/whatever
  2. Stick with it and just use the non-strife results on the dice - bad but possible for a skilled character, really, really bad for an unskilled one, which allows you to keep going but slower (so again your opponents take the lead in the 'victory tracker' stakes)
  3. Have an outburst, which has its own serious impact up to and including auto-failing the task:
     • In an intrigue, your opponent succeeds in the Discredit objective and you don't get what you want.
     • Someone takes offence to an improper remark and you end up in a duel
     • You reveal a weakness, which your opponent can start using as a positive reroll in this scene (which might be just as bad as just remaining compromised)
     • You lose honour and glory, resulting in disadvantages which are (situational) permanent negative rerolls indefinitely.

#1 and #2 are not quite but almost forbidden for NPCs...

« Generally speaking, the first time an NPC becomes emotionally compromised during a scene, they should unmask at their first opportunity, as dictated by their demeanor and narrative circumstances. » (Update 3, page 9, entry for beta page 172)

On 30.11.2017 at 9:48 PM, AK_Aramis said:

Genesys, presuming its the same core mechanics as FFG-SW, has way too much whiff factor for the Rokugan setting. So does D&D 3.5.

But all L5R itterations where super swingy due to the RnK system... Much swingier than 3.5 ever was. I am a bit confused here.

47 minutes ago, Yandia said:

But all L5R itterations where super swingy due to the RnK system... Much swingier than 3.5 ever was. I am a bit confused here.

No, really, they aren't. Not with depth in skill. The central 50% is a good measure

Let's look at 2d10 kept vs 1d20...

1d20 has a flat distro: 5% for each. The central 50% is 6 to 15 =50%

2d10 has an 10% chance of 11, 9% ea of 10 and 12, 8% each for 9 and 13. We've got our central 44% right there, with 9-13.

3d10k2 ( a typical skill 1 with ring 2) is heavily centered on 14. 10%; the central 50%... 47.3% for 12-16, and 63.2 for 11-17

11 7.50
12 8.80
13 9.60
14 10.00
15 9.90
16 9.40
17 8.40

Yes, the extremes get wors, but the more dice, the narrower the central 50% becomes.

4d10k2 is centered on 16, 14-18 is 55.85%

13 8.32
14 9.97
15 11.16
16 11.95
17 11.84
18 10.93
19 8.68

3d10 centers at 16 & 17, with 14-19 being 43.4%, and 13-20 being 56%. Range of results is 3-30.
4d10k3 centers at 20, with 18-22 being 38.38% and 17-23 being 51.94%
5d10k3 centers at 22, with 21-25 being 42.44%, and 20-26 being 56.8%.

So, if the TN is 14, you have a 71.7% chance, ignoring open ending, on 3d10; you have considerably more on 4d10k3... 88.44%. on 5d10k3, it's 95.35.

The only element making them swingy, really, was the open ending, and even that not bad. Other wise, more dice = more strong central tendency, and the more over kept, both the higher the centroid and the narrower the centroid.

D20, however, by using only 1 die, and adding modifiers shifts the central 50% smoothly; up 1 TN is down 5%, up one skill is up 5%.

41 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

No, really, they aren't. Not with depth in skill. The central 50% is a good measure

Let's look at 2d10 kept vs 1d20...

1d20 has a flat distro: 5% for each. The central 50% is 6 to 15 =50%

2d10 has an 10% chance of 11, 9% ea of 10 and 12, 8% each for 9 and 13. We've got our central 44% right there, with 9-13.

3d10k2 ( a typical skill 1 with ring 2) is heavily centered on 14. 10%; the central 50%... 47.3% for 12-16, and 63.2 for 11-17

11 7.50
12 8.80
13 9.60
14 10.00
15 9.90
16 9.40
17 8.40

Yes, the extremes get wors, but the more dice, the narrower the central 50% becomes.

4d10k2 is centered on 16, 14-18 is 55.85%

13 8.32
14 9.97
15 11.16
16 11.95
17 11.84
18 10.93
19 8.68

3d10 centers at 16 & 17, with 14-19 being 43.4%, and 13-20 being 56%. Range of results is 3-30.
4d10k3 centers at 20, with 18-22 being 38.38% and 17-23 being 51.94%
5d10k3 centers at 22, with 21-25 being 42.44%, and 20-26 being 56.8%.

So, if the TN is 14, you have a 71.7% chance, ignoring open ending, on 3d10; you have considerably more on 4d10k3... 88.44%. on 5d10k3, it's 95.35.

The only element making them swingy, really, was the open ending, and even that not bad. Other wise, more dice = more strong central tendency, and the more over kept, both the higher the centroid and the narrower the centroid.

D20, however, by using only 1 die, and adding modifiers shifts the central 50% smoothly; up 1 TN is down 5%, up one skill is up 5%.

Essentially correct, except that D&D typically scales pretty badly to level. R&K gives you a bigger dice pool at higher levels (assuming you invested in the relevant skill and/or trait), whereas D&D gives you a bigger flat bonus at higher levels (under a similar assumption). So, D&D is super swingy at low levels (when the bonus is much lower than even an average roll, never mind a high result on a d20) but gets more and more reliable as you get to higher levels (when the bonus becomes the greater part of the result).

45 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Essentially correct, except that D&D typically scales pretty badly to level. R&K gives you a bigger dice pool at higher levels (assuming you invested in the relevant skill and/or trait), whereas D&D gives you a bigger flat bonus at higher levels (under a similar assumption). So, D&D is super swingy at low levels (when the bonus is much lower than even an average roll, never mind a high result on a d20) but gets more and more reliable as you get to higher levels (when the bonus becomes the greater part of the result).

Performance at higher levels in D&D is best measured against comparable foes. A "properly balanced" encounter is going to be just as swingy at first and at 20th.

L5R, the swing reduces massively with more dice Rolled,. At high levels, a 10k5 is not unreasonable, the central 50% range is 37-43 (50.96%). Half the rolls in about 10% of the range (5-50, ignoring explosions).

37 6.54
38 7.15
39 7.59
40 7.80
41 7.74
42 7.39
43 6.75

My play experiences also show the same - L5R performance is more consistent than D&D, and without the wild swings of a 1d20 roll.

Adding the explosions does make it swing more, but still doesn't much affect the central 50%.

Further, while R&K d10 does allow for failure even by the very skilled and success by the fairly inept slightly skilled (2k1), it doesn't do so very often.

Just now, AK_Aramis said:

Performance at higher levels in D&D is best measured against comparable foes. A "properly balanced" encounter is going to be just as swingy at first and at 20th.

Disagree, simply because in my experience “comparable foes” are typically only a concern in terms of combat in D&D and unless it’s a hack&slash campaign that can be a fairly small part of the game. Not every wall you run into at high levels is extra slippery. Not every mount particularly ornery. Not every crowd of listeners super discerning. And even in combat you have the advantage of a more reliable HP buffer, helped further by better saves.

Yes, challenges have to be scaled up. No, that doesn’t mean the increasing bonuses don’t start working to your advantage at some point.

10 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

Disagree, simply because in my experience “comparable foes” are typically only a concern in terms of combat in D&D and unless it’s a hack&slash campaign that can be a fairly small part of the game. Not every wall you run into at high levels is extra slippery. Not every mount particularly ornery. Not every crowd of listeners super discerning. And even in combat you have the advantage of a more reliable HP buffer, helped further by better saves.

Yes, challenges have to be scaled up. No, that doesn’t mean the increasing bonuses don’t start working to your advantage at some point.

It is the standard used in the modules for the game, the standard used within the rules, and the standard I've seen in described most often for play. That it's not your standard is irrelevant to any but you and your players.

33 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

It is the standard used in the modules for the game, the standard used within the rules, and the standard I've seen in described most often for play. That it's not your standard is irrelevant to any but you and your players.

I didn’t say it’s my standard. I said it’s my experience. NPC guard stats don’t universally go up along with the rogue’s sneakiness. Those two guys guarding the south gate of the Free City of Greyhawk aren’t training or being replaced with more cunning types while the PCs are out adventuring and leveling up. Opponents don’t become harder to hit as the fighter increases his attack bonus (they do become harder to kill, obviously). Not every minion of the BBEG is a master criminal in his own right just because the PCs have become the equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Batman. The big encounters are made appropriately challenging. That doesn’t mean the increasingly small stuff vanishes altogether.

An important thing to consider when looking at the swingy-ness of rnk is that it is only really swinging on the open-ended exploding roles. The curve of odds is fairly stable without exploding, and factoring in explosions doesn't effect the stability of the lower end. It only adds the chance for an extremely high roll. I don't mind this type of swingyness because it can tempt a player to play with raises.

1 hour ago, nameless ronin said:

I didn’t say it’s my standard. I said it’s my experience. NPC guard stats don’t universally go up along with the rogue’s sneakiness. Those two guys guarding the south gate of the Free City of Greyhawk aren’t training or being replaced with more cunning types while the PCs are out adventuring and leveling up. Opponents don’t become harder to hit as the fighter increases his attack bonus (they do become harder to kill, obviously). Not every minion of the BBEG is a master criminal in his own right just because the PCs have become the equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Batman. The big encounters are made appropriately challenging. That doesn’t mean the increasingly small stuff vanishes altogether.

In a small sense it does.

As a GM in a game I would not have the players even deal with the guards if it is a forgone conclusion.

Players in my experience are only concerned with encounters that are a challenge and give them XP.

If you have them roll against these guards that are so far below them that the challenge level gives no xp they are going to start wondering why you are even bothering.

While the guards are still there, in a sense they have cease to be an issues, so in most games no roll is needed, hence they vanishes altogether.