I saw that around the internet, but how do you guys play out the spammable Advantages?

for example, the Large Stature advantage, or Bishamon's Favor. They could be used for melee checks with large weapons, probably.

and the Keen Eye advantage, you can reroll when doing a ranged check. How do you rule that out? how "far" is far enough for the advantage to kick in?

point is, all these will need ruling and judgement on the part of the GM and players. For there is NO true/right answer (by design?). This will come up with many different advantages that are relatively easy to logically spam (either in combat situations or social situations).

so, how spammable are advantages in your games ? do someone with Bishamon's Favor always reroll when using a melee weapon and roleplaying that hes doing a big smash ?

They haven't come up in the little I've run, but I was going to have them be usable once per scene per skill type.

The social ones could be just as spammabke in intrigues, right? (Again, hasn't come up as I don't play much).

25 minutes ago, Arolem said:

They haven't come up in the little I've run, but I was going to have them be usable once per scene per skill type.

The social ones could be just as spammabke in intrigues, right? (Again, hasn't come up as I don't play much).

yeah, its not about combat vs intrigue or anything, its just a question on how you manage super spammable advantages that in some type of conflict can basically come up on almost every rolls. if you say "i let it be, i'm ok with someone with bishamon's favor rerolling on almost every melee check" it is also a valid opinion.

once per skill type per scene is a nice houserule.

i'm just gathering informations and opinions because the discussion came up with my playgroup after we realised some players were able to use their advantages in a logical way like 10 times more than other players, even if I was trying to feed them situations in which to use their advantages as much as possible.

I let my players use them anytime they see fit to explain how they help.

This is more of a self imposed restriction, specifically in regard to the large advantage. For the NPC I was running, he only applied it 1x per scene during grappling/unarmed combat, and I used it 1x per scene for a fitness skill check.. figuring that it specifically helped for scaling an outcropping using earth, water, or fire approaches.

I definitely see certain advantages being spammable by players but luckily haven't encountered it in game. If it became a problem I might restrict to only applying to certain approaches, and/or applying the number of uses per scene.

1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:

I let my players use them anytime they see fit to explain how they help.

being the judge of that every time is tedious. especially if you don't agree and the player start arguing.

edit: though I can agree with your way of doing it, just accept it most of the time unless the whole table start to think it is abusing. but you do realise that "large stature" can work in a loooot of cases, a player can argue it will help him resist critical strikes, run, attack, climb, strength feats, even social checks like command/intimidation and more!

then in your game I wouldn't take a non-spammable advantage that I can only use once per session (if even).
and this is a great power boost to the character who took an advantage he can use in all combat or social encounters.

I think the Battle Trauma anxiety has an interesting solution to avoid some advantages/disadvantages from completely enabling/disabling you: "[...] (Your GM can chose not to inflict this strife after you have taken a few turns and thematically overcome your trauma.)[...]

So, the same way you could bounce back and overcome a disadvantage after the initial shock, I'd say any (competent) opponent will get over your advantage at some point and adjust their approach to render it ineffective.

• The opponent bushi might be unaccustomed to deal with such large foes and let the first few strikes fatigue them more than they should, but they will adjust their fighting style in small ways after a few rounds.
• The opponent courtier might be stunned by your dangerous allure and let you gain ground at first, but they will eventually pull themselves together, ignore that feature and concentrate on their own game.

8 minutes ago, Agasha Kanetake said:

I think the Battle Trauma anxiety has an interesting solution to avoid some advantages/disadvantages from completely enabling/disabling you: "[...] (Your GM can chose not to inflict this strife after you have taken a few turns and thematically overcome your trauma.)[...]

So, the same way you could bounce back and overcome a disadvantage after the initial shock, I'd say any (competent) opponent will get over your advantage at some point and adjust their approach to render it ineffective.

• The opponent bushi might be unaccustomed to deal with such large foes and let the first few strikes fatigue them more than they should, but they will adjust their fighting style in small ways after a few rounds.
• The opponent courtier might be stunned by your dangerous allure and let you gain ground at first, but they will eventually pull themselves together, ignore that feature and concentrate on their own game.

I like that.

Honestly just trying to put into words (loosely) how our group want to handle advantages, for all the reasons mentioned above. Otherwise, all my players will just take a spammable advantage, because the difference is that big between a good and bad one.

I like the once per scene per different check/situation/opponent/group of opponents approach. Still very very good (arguably, some advantages are still way too good even with that clause) but at least it is not as spammable.

Advantages and disadvantages chosen at character creation are definitely something that needs attention when designing their background etc. For sure, all of them have come up in the character's past, and describing how they helped/hindered in the past might both define when you expect them to come up again, as well as promote roleplaying the reaction when they do come up. If you trust them and spur them in the directions of forethought and roleplay, players might end up establishing their own reasonable boundaries with the advantages that seem to have very broad usage; or maybe even chose advantages with narrower usage (or more punishing disadvantages) that better fit their character!

11 minutes ago, Agasha Kanetake said:

Advantages and disadvantages chosen at character creation are definitely something that needs attention when designing their background etc. For sure, all of them have come up in the character's past, and describing how they helped/hindered in the past might both define when you expect them to come up again, as well as promote roleplaying the reaction when they do come up. If you trust them and spur them in the directions of forethought and roleplay, players might end up establishing their own reasonable boundaries with the advantages that seem to have very broad usage; or maybe even chose advantages with narrower usage (or more punishing disadvantages) that better fit their character!

Thats the utopic goal.

11 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

Thats the utopic goal.

Join the Perfect Land Sect! We will show you the way!

3 minutes ago, Agasha Kanetake said:

Join the Perfect Land Sect! We will show you the way!

Everybody is equal!

The player who took quick reflex advantage and the player who took some obscure advantage that will only ever come up if the GM wants it.

Shoshi no kie ?

15 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

I saw that around the internet, but how do you guys play out the spammable Advantages?

for example, the Large Stature advantage, or Bishamon's Favor. They could be used for melee checks with large weapons, probably.

and the Keen Eye advantage, you can reroll when doing a ranged check. How do you rule that out? how "far" is far enough for the advantage to kick in?

point is, all these will need ruling and judgement on the part of the GM and players. For there is NO true/right answer (by design?). This will come up with many different advantages that are relatively easy to logically spam (either in combat situations or social situations).

so, how spammable are advantages in your games ? do someone with Bishamon's Favor always reroll when using a melee weapon and roleplaying that hes doing a big smash ?

Not very spammable at all, to be honest. As a personal guideline, for it to be an advantage the same situation should be something that poses a basic hindrance or difficulty for a regular person.

Large Stature doesn't help with putting something on a low shelf, only a high one. I don't see anything in the rules about heavy weapons being a hindrance compared to lighter ones (or about what would be a heavy weapon in the first place), so why would Large Stature be advantageous? Weapons that should be more or less commonly used are designed to be manageable by anyone with an average physique who is willing to train with it - there's little point in crafting common weapons only uncommon bushi can wield properly.

Bishamon's Blessing is Water-based, which means it has little to do with exerting force (the flavour text is pretty terrible, it would be much more appropriate if this was a Fire-based blessing). I would never allow this to be applied to just any melee check, with large weapons or otherwise. Demonstrating or teaching a motion-based art, probably. Checks to keep up a mentally taxing activity, absolutely (physical ones would be Endurance, so Earth). Checks that involve raw strength? Nope, I don't see why.

Keen Sight: again, if it's something the average samurai should be able to see without undue effort or luck, this should not kick in. Finding something via surveying (Water) should probably allow this to trigger, trying the same through analysis (Air) should not. For discerning details, like a mon on a banner or distinguishing between two similar-looking people, a workable rule of thumb could be that the difference between range band and silhouette should be at least 4. I'm even inclined to make it 5, and to assign stuff that's too small to be silhouette 0 (a small piece of jewelry, a die, a piece of the pattern on a fan, etc) a -1 silhouette value.

Wildly different opinions, and all of them are "right" just proves my point that the rule is super tedious to manage because you basically have to discuss it with you players and come to an agreement on how "creatively" you can trigger your advantage.

So, it is a bad rule (or at least it is missing a bit of better guidelines).

Also, acting with water is acting "powerfully". The book mentions that somewhere. (Because obviously they always use different adjectives to confuse us!)

Maybe that is how I should present it to my players... We will go case by case and will discuss how usable the advantage they want to pick is before they pick it.... Tedious 😕

This can go quite far, you can take large stature and be a huge sumo wrestler,

Or take large stature and be tall and lean and muscular.

In that case, large stature could be used to give an advantage for "running" but not if you decide to be fat large?

Allright, so yeah, it requires a talk with the players and come up with something that isn't too spammable so at least the expectations for its "creative use" are understood by everyone.

Wow.

24 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

Also, acting with water is acting "powerfully". The book mentions that somewhere. (Because obviously they always use different adjectives to confuse us!)

The book says the Water ring represents a powerful personality. That can mean lots of things though. On the same page, it explains that a Water approach lets characters shift when fighting - that clarifies it substantially. It literally says it's about redirecting incoming energy rather than expending you own.

Generally speaking, it's a narrative game that gives a ton of freedom in how you use the mechanics. There are lots of instances where you are told to make interpretations, come to agreements, and make things up as you see fit. If you want a system that clearly defines what you can or can't do, this isn't it. And that is meant to be a feature, not a bug. If you don't like it, you don't like it. That's fine, you don't have to. But that is not a flaw, it's just what the game is. It's no different from me not liking the d20 resolution mechanic or the class system in Pathfinder.

28 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

There are lots of instances where you are told to make interpretations, come to agreements, and make things up as you see fit.

Indeed.

On ‎1‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 4:30 AM, Avatar111 said:

I like the once per scene per different check/situation/opponent/group of opponents approach. Still very very good (arguably, some advantages are still way too good even with that clause) but at least it is not as spammable.

It's one of the recommended options as 'discrete application' - "As a general guideline, no advantage or disadvantage should apply more than once per scene in this model except at the GM’s discretion."

It's still open-ended but it does avoid advantages getting spammed a lot. I prefer it this way because it also makes gaining access to more advantages (from glory, honour, or nefariously discerning an opponent's dis advantages) more important.