As you can guess by the title, I ran my first L5R game with the beginner box. I haven’t DMed in a while and this was a first with L5R. In short, we had a lot of fun and we all agree this is our new favorite system. Particularly that there is an established culture, with family, and societal obligations/ expectations. As well as the different skill approaches. I’m pretty sure we flubbed a few things. But that didn’t’ get in the way of an enjoyable session.

***SPOILERS AHEAD for those who haven’t played the Beginner Box yet***

For the characters we had: Hida Sugi, Akodo Masako, Bayushi Kyo, and Shinjo Shuri (player went with a Gaijin name from Wakanda.)

They were all very agreeable, helping the peasant with his cart and sharing a room with Hitoshi. I knew the names were going to be difficult for us to pronounce and keep track of. So I printed 2 sided name tents for the NPCs and names like wakizashi. As the game moved along the players wrote notes on each tent, like “Day Drunk” for Tasuki Jun.

They caught on pretty quick about the Topaz champion judges looking for specific elemental approaches. I think by the 2^nd contest, and all of them scored very high. Not sure if we played it right, but they far surpassed the required points to qualify for the Gempuku.

We of course drank sake when the characters arrived at the Poisoned Water Sake House. Turns out the $3 bottle from Trader Joes tastes better than the $20 one from a Japanese market.

The first combat situation was kind of clunky. Mostly from us figuring out the Initiative. We spent more time on that than on each individual combat round.

During the final showdown they caught up with Bayushi Sugai and his paid Ronin. The Ronin lost the will to fight when Sugai was dispatched. The killing blow belonged to Bayushi Kyo, who took off her mask and let her hair down. Making her face the last thing Sugai saw.

The characters arranged Sugai’s body to be brought back to the Kakita Academy, just in time to stop Riku from committing seppuku. The PCs revealed Sugai’s plot to the crowd and the fight that brought him down. They also professed that Hitoshi is more than worthy to be a samurai, for he is the son of Doji Satsume. That’s Right, they thought the father was the former Emerald Champion. Not his brother in law. They got kind of pissed that they were denied Honor points for doing so.

They thought they were doing the "right" thing. It was a good learning moment about Rokugani culture.

I haven’t let my players know about who Hitoshi’s real father is. Think I’ll run with it for the next adventure.

For the dueling contest I had everyone roll a melee combat skill check. Hida Sugi had the most successes and was declared the Topaz champion, with Bayushi Kyo as the runner up.

During the naming ceremony in stunning move, that I’m all about, Kyo changed her name to Sugai. Making, Bayushi Sugai the runner up two years in a row, and that latter killed the former. It’s just the kind of crazy that I like and very duplicitous. Like a Scorpion should be. We also ret-conned the Unicorn bushi, having Shuri be her adult name. Wakanda forever.

For those of you who've played; how did your game go? What things went differently? Also how did you handle the weapons gifted in the Gempuku ceremony? My Topaz Champion is a walking arsenal compared to the Lion player.

Hida Sugi- (4)Topaz Champion Katana, Katana used in Bayushi Sugai fight, Wakizashi, and a Tetsubo.

Bayushi Kyo- (3)Topaz Champion runner up Katana, Katana that killed Bayushi Sugar, and a Wakizashi

Shinjo Shuri- (4)Katana used in Bayushi Sugai fight, Unicorn Scimitar, bow, and a Wakizashi.

Akodo Masako- (2) Katana used in Bayushi Sugai fight, and a Wakizashi.

Thanks for the enjoyable read. Looking forward to our first run through, hopefully this coming weekend.

I haven't finished yet, but my players also think that Hitoshi is Doji Satsume's son!

Some things I am seeing so far with the module that my players are criticizing:

-Rings are extremely complicated to them. They are complaining that the descriptions are too nebulous and similar to one another (water vs air for example) and that it doesn't make sense on which one to use or why. The module itself never explains the approaches that are in the beginner box either, so I'm hoping when I do introduce that page long table it helps a bit more.

-Distance/range is too nebulous and hard to understand. They think having figures and a grid map would help.

-Not enough useful actions and instead just becomes a game of "roll your skill/attack and wait for your next turn" I think this is because they haven't really understood that THEY have to come up with additional actions and such to use opportunity for. Additionally, the beginner module doesn't really go over stuff like Guard or Assist. Need to make sure to introduce that again next session.

-They felt like the module was too on the rails and that they coulnd't effectively do anything to help Hitoshi out. (granted, they never even tried. I would have certainly allowed some skullduggery to make other contestants have issues at the cost of honor)

-they feel like the information they gained from observing other students, like Yasuki Jun being a day drunk, was just flavor and they coundn't use that information for anything useful.

All in all, I'd say the beginner box is a HUGE miss for my players, and while they are willing to keep going and wait to see how the base game is once the rulebook comes out, I am afraid it has done a lot of damage to their perceptions of the game. I've been an L5R player since 95, so this is a huge concern to me, where they are all new (each around 30 years old, one a veteran roleplayer who loves 4th ed dnd, the other two our spouses who have never roleplayed before)

15 hours ago, DangerBob said:

During the naming ceremony in stunning move, that I’m all about, Kyo changed her name to Sugai. Making the Topaz Champion runner up two years in a row was Bayushi Sugai, and that latter killed the former.

That's just brilliant! I love it so much!

Just edited my original post. I didn't proof read it thoroughly the first time and the grammar was pissing me off.

Here's another funny thing that happened. The player for Bayushi Kyo, now Sugai, completely spaced out when I went over the custom of declining gifts twice before accepting. So when it came time to accept his gifts at the Gempuku ceremony he just says, "I humbly accept, thank you."

We all just yelled at him "Really!?! We just went over this."

On 9/10/2018 at 10:59 AM, Vutall said:

I haven't finished yet, but my players also think that Hitoshi is Doji Satsume's son!

They probably should be.

My players are worried that he might be THEIR fathers. (We're playing with beta-generated characters, not the pregens. Two of them are orphans - the Togashi and the bayushi. The BG Togashi is also an orphan.)

On 9/10/2018 at 10:59 AM, Vutall said:

-Rings are extremely complicated to them. They are complaining that the descriptions are too nebulous and similar to one another (water vs air for example) and that it doesn't make sense on which one to use or why. The module itself never explains the approaches that are in the beginner box either, so I'm hoping when I do introduce that page long table it helps a bit more.

The approaches are the text on the left side of the skills on the character sheets. They're much more vague, in a good way, than the ugly table from the beta.

On 9/10/2018 at 10:59 AM, Vutall said:

-Distance/range is too nebulous and hard to understand. They think having figures and a grid map would help.

I've been shouting that at FFG from day 1 of the EotE Beta. Along with "the sudden acceleration is unrealistic in an annoying manner." The Beta Update 4 has rules for gridded play. Grab them and use them. Even if they don't make the corebook, grab update 4 now...

On 9/10/2018 at 10:59 AM, Vutall said:

-They felt like the module was too on the rails and that they coulnd't effectively do anything to help Hitoshi out. (granted, they never even tried. I would have certainly allowed some skullduggery to make other contestants have issues at the cost of honor)

My players volunteered to go first, then gave him help dice with opportunity. Since they got him 2 successes on two day 1 events... and convinced him to use the correct ring on a third... he's on track to have a successful gempukku.

Note: I assumed he fails to intuit the correct ring on every event he's in, and had 1 success on things a Mantis would do, 0 on others. Then I added just the help dice to these. They got him a pass on the riding by 1 help die exploding for 3 successes. So, day 1 over, and he's got 4 points.

I think it really could use a grid showing the total successes and whether they used the correct ring for everyone involved, (with blanks for the PCs).

35 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

Note: I assumed he fails to intuit the correct ring on every event he's in, and had 1 success on things a Mantis would do, 0 on others. Then I added just the help dice to these. They got him a pass on the riding by 1 help die exploding for 3 successes. So, day 1 over, and he's got 4 points.

Well the book tells you which contestants fail which competition. Hitoshi fails everything but Sumai on Day 1. So after day 1 with no outside help he has 1 point. On Day 2 there are 6 competitions. I don't think he fails any of them here, which means he'll get 4 points before the Archery competition. This gives him a total of 5 points, and in the Archery competition he will gain 3 points if the players purposely score lower than 3 bonus successes. This will give him 8 points before going Hunting.

1 hour ago, ElSuave said:

Well the book tells you which contestants fail which competition. Hitoshi fails everything but Sumai on Day 1. So after day 1 with no outside help he has 1 point. On Day 2 there are 6 competitions. I don't think he fails any of them here, which means he'll get 4 points before the Archery competition. This gives him a total of 5 points, and in the Archery competition he will gain 3 points if the players purposely score lower than 3 bonus successes. This will give him 8 points before going Hunting.

My players didn't wait for day two to assist him. My reference was solely for day 1.

2 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

I've been shouting that at FFG from day 1 of the EotE Beta. Along with "the sudden acceleration is unrealistic in an annoying manner." The Beta Update 4 has rules for gridded play. Grab them and use them. Even if they don't make the corebook, grab update 4 now... 

I have no idea where to get all the Beta downloads. I only have the initial beta, update 1.0, and the Mantis preview. Any help?

22 minutes ago, Vutall said:

I have no idea where to get all the Beta downloads. I only have the initial beta, update 1.0, and the Mantis preview. Any help?

They appear to have taken it down from the interface; if you find a direct link (check the beta forum; it's not on the main list, but it's still open as I write this). The beta rulebook and update 1 are definitely still in the actual media one can download.

14 hours ago, Vutall said:

I have no idea where to get all the Beta downloads. I only have the initial beta, update 1.0, and the Mantis preview. Any help?

I posted the 4.0 update in one of these threads... I don't remember which, sorry. I'm at work, or I would upload it for you.

I found a direct link to the update 4: https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/a3/91/a391ec91-eb8c-4faf-8dbe-aac5a9cf89ff/l5r00_beta_updates_v40.pdf

it's easily summed up: Each "range band moved" is 3 movement points instead of a range band. Diagonal and obstacles/crowding each increase the cost of a square by 1 square, so a diagonal move through brush would cost 3 movement points; an orthogonal one through brush or a diagonal through clear 2 movement points; and orthogonal through clear is 1 movement point.

Range Band: Range in grid squares/hexes
0: 0
1: 1
2: 2
3: 3-5
4: 6-9
5: 10-14
6: 15+

I ran 3 groups through the Topaz Champion. No player offered any guesses at Hitoshi's backstory, but while awarding experience on completion I asked them "What is Hitoshi's secret?" to see if anyone figured it out, but just didn't share it. The first 2 groups both had an immediate "Toshimoko's son" response from at least 1 player. These groups had players experienced in L5R who knew who Toshimoko was, and I also threw in some commentary in some points like during the gift giving that Toshimoko was a man of wine and women, which I think put the nail in the coffin if anyone was still guessing (and it lead one player to offer a concubine as a gift lol). The 3rd group didn't catch it, they thought it was Satsume's progeny, but the banter in that game didn't lead to any drunken whoring comments...

I did let the players attempt to help Hitoshi during his events, as I wanted to show them how they can assist each other as the game goes on. I just cheated and made sure they were unable to assist him in other events for reasons and made sure they saw the Crane was displeased with any success they were forced to see, and got away with every fail they could otherwise.

The Archery was a climactic moment in all 3 groups. In one group the Phoenix player took a liking to Hitoshi and plotted to marry him after the first day - she saved him from being kicked out of the inn, and had a moment with him after the tea scene before the days events started that helped them grow close. During the archery event she shot her arrow at the feet of the Crane judge in defiance of his prejudice. In another group the players convinced each character who had already accomplished 8 points to go for drinks and just ditch the archery event all together, limiting the field to 4 characters, only 1 pc.

Two groups include players actively planning on wifing Hitoshi. Pheonix in one, Unicorn in the other. Both were players who were 100% on board helping him out the moment they saw him, and immediately offered their room. In one of the groups the Crane is being courted with marriage offers by several people for excessive use of Dangerous Beauty advantage... I was like "Your advantage is not really relevant to this check but... a little flirting can get you anywhere :wink:wink:nudge:nudge " and they took the bait... We'll see how they deal with multiple marriage proposals and their family negotiating their life away as we proceed through the next chapter at the Emerald Castle lol

Ah - as a suggestion to anyone running the game - be sure to mention names + clans with all characters throughout these stories, and definitely use the punch-out markers so players can easily identify who is who. Hitoshi was completely forgotten about by 1 group through all of the first session because saying Hitoshi didn't stick, but giving them a physical chip on the table any time I mentioned him worked well.

7 hours ago, shosuko said:

I ran 3 groups through the Topaz Champion. No player offered any guesses at Hitoshi's backstory, but while awarding experience on completion I asked them "What is Hitoshi's secret?" to see if anyone figured it out, but just didn't share it. The first 2 groups both had an immediate "Toshimoko's son" response from at least 1 player. These groups had players experienced in L5R who knew who Toshimoko was, and I also threw in some commentary in some points like during the gift giving that Toshimoko was a man of wine and women, which I think put the nail in the coffin if anyone was still guessing (and it lead one player to offer a concubine as a gift lol).

OMFG IT'S TOSHIKEN

WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO PUT THAT TOGETHER

2 hours ago, Hida Jitenno said:

OMFG IT'S TOSHIKEN

WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO PUT THAT TOGETHER

No. Toshiken was a different bastard - He was the child of a Seppun.

45 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

No. Toshiken was a different bastard - He was the child of a Seppun.

Do we know who Hitoshi's mother is?

Just now, Hida Jitenno said:

Do we know who Hitoshi's mother is?

I was 90% sure she was a Mantis.

Personally, I suspect that Toshimoko has the same sort of list of children as King Robert Baratheon, thus the odds that any one kid you come across is the same as the kid that someone else came across are low.

The gridded movement rules made the corebook... So don't be afraid to add them into the BG.

Haha, my players also came to the immediate conclusion that Hitoshi was Doji Satsume's bastard. At the dinner scene, I made sure to play up Toshimoko's roguish personality, and made the Scorpion gift's implications a little more obvious and they figured it out. They were all super invested in Hitoshi's story and were hilariously outraged at the results of the Fitness competition. Their ultimate goal was to get Hitoshi a place at the Kakita Dueling Academy, so he had the chance (unknowingly anyway) to learn from and spend time with his father.