If an NPC's strife becomes relevant during a scene (because they get some strife through skill checks or the PCs actions), do you start counting from zero? Or would it be fair (towards the PCs) if NPCs in such cases could have at least sometimes already a bit of strife. Logically they would have some, since they probably did some checks in the last time (and you can't drop to zero per sleeping), but on the other hand it would require hand-waving to determine how much strife they already got. If you do so, what could be a reasonable amount? I'm thinking along the lines of 'usually 1 or 2, but occasionally up to half their composure'. Maybe, if the NPCs situation warrants it, it could be even more, but in that case you probably already kept track of its strife before.

Of course, this would only be relevant, if the NPCs strife could possibly be important/interesting for the current scene.

Our GM often makes a "Strife Up Check" for Adversaries at the start of the conflict scene, rolling 2k1/4k2/6k3/8k4 (depending on how Strifed-up the Adversary character should be) and keeping only Strife results to determine starting Strife and emotional state (stable/unstable/explosive).

If the encounter is planned, it’s a good thing for the GM to determine in advance.

The provincial daimyo in their estate, where they have ample opportunity to practice whatever passion they have, could be at zero.. but the commander of an enemy cohort on the battlefield can well be as high as half his composure.

For a random NPC in an unplanned situation, just hand waving it on the fly shouldn’t be too hard. I wouldn’t go beyond half Composure, otherwise, composure becomes irrelevant for that NPC.

And it’s always relevant to push a NPC into Compromised territory in any encounter

1 hour ago, AtoMaki said:

Our GM often makes a "Strife Up Check" for Adversaries at the start of the conflict scene, rolling 2k1/4k2/6k3/8k4 (depending on how Strifed-up the Adversary character should be) and keeping only Strife results to determine starting Strife and emotional state (stable/unstable/explosive).

Interesting idea, thank you! Why don't you use it in narrative scenes, too, if I may ask so?

38 minutes ago, Franwax said:

If the encounter is planned, it’s a good thing for the GM to determine in advance.

The provincial daimyo in their estate, where they have ample opportunity to practice whatever passion they have, could be at zero.. but the commander of an enemy cohort on the battlefield can well be as high as half his composure.

For a random NPC in an unplanned situation, just hand waving it on the fly shouldn’t be too hard. I wouldn’t go beyond half Composure, otherwise, composure becomes irrelevant for that NPC.

And it’s always relevant to push a NPC into Compromised territory in any encounter

That's along the lines of what i was thinking, thanks for the confirmation! 😀 If I didn't overlook something, the rule book never talks about this, which I find a bit strange.^^

yeah just "eyeball it" put the value you want / feel is appropriate when the conflict start.

l5R is basically BurningWheel rpg, with star wars / d&d 4th ed "techniques/powers".

9 hours ago, Stollentroll17 said:

Interesting idea, thank you! Why don't you use it in narrative scenes, too, if I may ask so?

Strife rarely matters that much.

3 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Strife rarely matters that much.

if strife doesn't matter, then the system is not working as intended. it should matter, a lot, and is an inherent part of the difficulties of checks and the resource management.
remember, strife is one of the four symbols found on dice, this is a big deal, and it should have a relative impact in the game close to successes and opportunities.

if your players never have to deal with borderline strife, at least once in a while, you need to change something.

4 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

if strife doesn't matter, then the system is not working as intended. it should matter, a lot, and is an inherent part of the difficulties of checks and the resource management

When it matters, Strife matters a lot. It is just a rare occurrence outside of Conflict Scenes in my experience.

1 minute ago, AtoMaki said:

When it matters, Strife matters a lot. It is just a rare occurrence outside of Conflict Scenes in my experience.

yeah, it is definitely only conflict based. but conflicts are the important thing. and climax/hard conflicts should often require the players to be careful about their strife and make hard decision to either become compromise and succeed or stay cool (or in void) and fail certain checks.

in downtime, or when doing things without pressure (investigation, travelling etc), you don't even need to calculate strife.

@Avatar111 Okay then: Strife rarely matters that much in Narrative Scenes. Geez .

21 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

in downtime, or when doing things without pressure (investigation, travelling etc), you don't even need to calculate strife.

21 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

@Avatar111 Okay then: Strife rarely matters that much in Narrative Scenes. Geez .

General 'downtime' is now ruled as "you can only do one thing before [whatever], what are you doing" but I find strife a nice 'clock' on narrative scenes, to stop the players spending too long trying to do everything. That's about the only affect, though.