enough of this! I call upon everyone to stop the madness. Stop. Stop. Just stop this.

This is not what we want. Lets not kid are selves this mess will just sell some specialty dice.

Repent I say: follow the true path the your heart. The true path the Tao of L5R RPG

Take this vow with me: I swear I will not win a L5R LCG tournament by enlightenment victory {bring all 5 rings into play) a Peaceful resolution to the conflict.

No roll and keep RPG rules No Peace!

We; we made the story of L5R. Let us do so again.

Sorry, but I like the direction it's going.

I like making what I roll and keep matter, and choosing what I keep matter, which is why I like what is going on now and really got bored by old RnK which could be entirely replaced with a RNG and called a day, simply feeding you results.

U high mate ? Kudos for the emphatic flaming spirit, made me ?.

while I agree I don't like what FFG made, I'll steal a few stuff to homebrew in 4e. But if I can win enlightenment (whatever enlightenment end up being but I doubt it will be bring 5 rings into play) in the LCG, then f...k yeah I will. As I would have in old5r.

I understand why people may like it though. they kinda tried to dust the old lady,change RnK, make indeed what you roll and keep matter. But it end up mattering too much about rolling and keeping. Game expectations need you to roll to produce mechanical effects that are organic to the game. If you don't roll, the game doesn't really reward glory, honor or void. You don't take a risk with raise, you roll then use opportunities. It's in many way less abstract than previous edition (like with this weird combo of weapon traits and armor effects mixed with opportunities that end up breaking your Katana...)

Worst is in any other game I may be interested by that. But for Gming L5R I can't. Too much history

maybe if one day I'll find a GM Who wants to do it I'll give a try as player.

I'm very happy otherwise with what FFG is currently doing with the LCG though.

I for one don’t mind the new system. I would not have wanted a 4.5 ed because... well I already got one And I will probably stick to it, to be honest! But this edition has a lot of interesting mechanics and while I was guarded about them custom dice at first, I do like the way they give a new level of subtlety to the old R&K mechanics. Will probably steal a few things for my 4.5 homebrew (or is that a 4.6 now?) too.

And most of all, I will reserve my final judgment for the finalized product! Even if I don’t play it, I’ll watch it with keen interest.

Finally, thank y’all, it was fun debating all these new rules with you

Whatever happens, I can tell you guys that this edition is going to be a homebrewing gold mine. The possibilities with the system are insane, though I admit that exploring them needs a little in-depth exploration and thinking outside the box.

Like, I really like what this edition brings to the table, and I'm sure that we can make it into a lot better game than 4th edition and even our 4.5 homebrew. Yeah, that's gonna be a lot of changes, but it took me a lazy afternoon to figure out the core ideas , so we can make it work for sure.

The overall framework is fantastic. All you need to homebrew for it is to produce elements that match the desired tone of your game, and plug them into the overall framework. Want high wuxia fantasy? Make techniques achieve fantastical results faster and with smaller TN and Opportunity costs, etc.

The grit factor can be increased easily by setting unmasks to "required if starting turn over composure" and "2nd unmask in a scene is a forced unmask for choice of flee, surrender, or compromise". And by putting any damage over resilience as modifying the crit value up.

10 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Whatever happens, I can tell you guys that this edition is going to be a homebrewing gold mine. The possibilities with the system are insane, though I admit that exploring them needs a little in-depth exploration and thinking outside the box.

Like, I really like what this edition brings to the table, and I'm sure that we can make it into a lot better game than 4th edition and even our 4.5 homebrew. Yeah, that's gonna be a lot of changes, but it took me a lazy afternoon to figure out the core ideas , so we can make it work for sure.

I think this is kinda where I'm at. I do like the rings and approaches, and I like the system for advantages and disadvantages all being similar in application (I like this because it makes it easy to let the players go completely custom in declaring their advantages and disadvantages.) There are things I don't like, but I'm not afraid of simply changing the system to run it how I want.

I think my players are enjoying the more open skill definitions and approach based stats too. Once we made the change from "this is what I will do" to "this is how I want to accomplish this" things got a lot easier and more fun.

Sadly opportunities really fly in the face of this... The one thing I am certain to homebrew is scrapping ALL opportunity only techniques, as well as the fixed opportunities listed in the books and going to a more narrative system similar to raises where a player can tack on things that we can agree are in nature with the element they are using without needing pages of checklists to ensure the book says you can do it...

I'm also thinking I will allow a player to include raises in their initial detail. If they do they may use success OR opportunities to accomplish that effect but they are required to satisfy the full effect or fail (so a TN 2 check with 1 OP declared will mean 2s1o or 3s will accomplish the task but 1s2o or 2s0o will fail.) I think this might create a middle ground where a player can take a bit more risk of failure for a more assured success+raises.

I just hope the lukewarm response to the Beta at least moves them to allow Print on Demand 4th Edition hardbacks on DTRPG at this point. At least that way my new players can actually get their hands on a physical copy rather than everyone having to have laptops or other e-readers with them. The 5th Edition Beta was an interesting idea, but it just has so many inherent flaws and there was never any apparent interest from the development team in fixing a lot of them. I'm actually not sure if some of them were even fixable without ground-up re-working of the mechanics, so it will be interesting to see what happens with the final product and if they go Full Dark Heresy 2 on it, or they stick with some iteration of what they have now.

More likely, if the 5th does poorly they will chalk it up to lack of interest in a RPG and drop the idea of making anything RPG related.

FFG just strikes me as the "if you don't like what we give you then you don't want an RPG" types.

Is this what happens when someone keeps too much Strife on their Fire/Internet check ?
For I don't understand what this is about ? Why does it reference both the RPG and the LCG ?

On 12/30/2017 at 1:18 AM, Exarkfr said:

Is this what happens when someone keeps too much Strife on their Fire/Internet check ?
For I don't understand what this is about ? Why does it reference both the RPG and the LCG ?

I think he failed a Fire invocation, "Summon Troll," with 3+ strife showing. He attempted to get an angry mob, but instead triggered a far more interesting discussion.

I’m not very happy with the beta. That said, it *is* R&K, even with the special dice. It just doesn’t feel particularly L5R-like to me and mechanically it’s not better than 4th overal IMO. It does some things better but just as many not as well. The only real advantage is that it will be the “current” edition, but right now that doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough. I’d rather go back to 3rd with a few houserules than try to convince my groups of switching to 5th with a bunch of houserules (especially since one of my hangups with the beta is the blandness of schools, which isn’t as easily fixed as changing a general mechanic I don’t like or toning down a few overpowered rules).

I think @nameless ronin pinpointed well the feeling. It does some stuff very good, others very bad, yet the balance of both doesn't justify a switch from a previous editions if you have enough experience and tweaks already for what you were running.

I don't want to have to houserule tons of stuff, test them and balance them, don't have time anymore for that.

4 hours ago, Nitenman said:

I think @nameless ronin pinpointed well the feeling. It does some stuff very good, others very bad, yet the balance of both doesn't justify a switch from a previous editions if you have enough experience and tweaks already for what you were running.

I don't want to have to houserule tons of stuff, test them and balance them, don't have time anymore for that.

I have fewer tewks to explain for this one. Because of the players I have, I don't bother with the wheel - I don't need to.
I run pretty lax about ads and disads applying.

On 1/6/2018 at 4:17 PM, nameless ronin said:

I’m not very happy with the beta. That said, it *is* R&K, even with the special dice. It just doesn’t feel particularly L5R-like to me and mechanically it’s not better than 4th overal IMO. It does some things better but just as many not as well. The only real advantage is that it will be the “current” edition, but right now that doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough. I’d rather go back to 3rd with a few houserules than try to convince my groups of switching to 5th with a bunch of houserules (especially since one of my hangups with the beta is the blandness of schools, which isn’t as easily fixed as changing a general mechanic I don’t like or toning down a few overpowered rules).

This is what made me initially check out of the beta. I really looked at it, read and re-read it, playtested it, applied some rule rewrites, repeat. It all came down to the only thing that matters:

Is this new thing -better- than the last thing?

I don't speak for everybody, obviously, but the answer is no.

8 hours ago, GhostSanta said:

This is what made me initially check out of the beta. I really looked at it, read and re-read it, playtested it, applied some rule rewrites, repeat. It all came down to the only thing that matters:

Is this new thing -better- than the last thing?

I don't speak for everybody, obviously, but the answer is no.

For me, and my players, the answer is a resounding "yes, it's better."

It's slower, but it trades that speed for a meaningful decision, and a non-binary outcome.

It really depends on what you like. Assuming the final version will get a bit more polish, 5th might (mechanically) work just as well as 4th for me - albeit differently. I don’t see it matching 3rd though. But I know full well there’s plenty of players out there who prefer 4th to 3rd, so it’s not like we had consensus about the one edition to rule them all before either.

2 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

It really depends on what you like. Assuming the final version will get a bit more polish, 5th might (mechanically) work just as well as 4th for me - albeit differently. I don’t see it matching 3rd though. But I know full well there’s plenty of players out there who prefer 4th to 3rd, so it’s not like we had consensus about the one edition to rule them all before either.

The 3rd/4th divide was a big gulf. 3rd is procedurally complex, 4th isn't nearly so. I loved 3rd's bonuses for high skills. And that it was a 0-10 skill levels, with 1-5 allowed for rings (and 6 for a few NPCs).

6 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

The 3rd/4th divide was a big gulf. 3rd is procedurally complex, 4th isn't nearly so. I loved 3rd's bonuses for high skills. And that it was a 0-10 skill levels, with 1-5 allowed for rings (and 6 for a few NPCs).

For me one of the main issues is that 4th is just not the best iteration of R&K. Unless you’re an Ishi or a Shiba or something, the only reasons to increase your Void ring are the Insight and increasing your Raise cap. VP use is minimal enough that you can easily get by with 2, assuming you stuck some ranks in Meditation. Raising itself is not commonly needed beyond a couple unless you’re a shugenja (to reduce casting time), and often discouraged by mechanics that go off result minus TN (feinting is almost always better than raising for damage, for instance). That last bit incidentally also incentivizes shugenja to stick with mastery 1-2 spells instead of making it interesting to use that higher school rank to get “better” spells. If the Raise mechanic isn’t getting used, R&K is not interesting.

I disliked 4th as being bland, both setting-wise and mechanically.

I liked 3rd. I am not certain whether I like third more tha 5-Beta...

... I am sure that I like it a heck of a lot more than d20.

I know it is working for both my groups in fostering good play, but that is because I use the honor/glory and work strife.

Just last night, tho', i noticed you gain honor (1pt) for leaving scene while over composure.

2 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Just last night, tho', i noticed you gain honor (1pt) for leaving scene while over composure.

2

If you move in to kill your dishonorable lord, but make him face his mistakes before you do, you also take responsibility for allowing these mistakes to happen, and you also offer your lord to commit seppuku to atone your failing after you kill him, then you can bank in exactly 40 Honor, equal to the loss you suffer if you have Honor Rank 10. Killing your dishonorable lord like this while at a lesser Honor Rank will give you a net Honor gain .

Food for thought .

19 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

If you move in to kill your dishonorable lord, but make him face his mistakes before you do, you also take responsibility for allowing these mistakes to happen, and you also offer your lord to commit seppuku to atone your failing after you kill him, then you can bank in exactly 40 Honor, equal to the loss you suffer if you have Honor Rank 10. Killing your dishonorable lord like this while at a lesser Honor Rank will give you a net Honor gain .

Food for thought .

A calculation not unlike some others I've done. Keep in mind,gentle reader, tho, it will differ by clan...