2 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

It means I find your conclusion inconsonant with what evidence has presented, and expected better. Either going with the preponderance or making a stronger case against it.

The evidence being FFG saying something? Regardless of whether what they say actually corresponds with the rules they created?

The NPC that have void points have it written in their abilities.

Like that Tengu from the beginner's box (and there are other examples like this I think).

Morale of the story? If you want to give your NPC void point, give them the "ability".

5 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

The evidence being FFG saying something? Regardless of whether what they say actually corresponds with the rules they created?

rule trump statements other than errata, IMO, especially unsourced statements quoth by non-staff.

3 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

rule trump statements other than errata, IMO, especially unsourced statements quoth by non-staff.

I'm talking about mechanics in the books. Adversaries "behave like standard characters", but their rings don't seem to have to obey to the same restrictions other characters' do (and their derived stats explicitly don't). They have demeanors (which I really like as a mechanic), which PCs don't. They use skill group ranks instead of individual skill ranks. They don't belong to any specific school, which means what they do can't be anticipated like with actual PCs, and if they have techniques those usually differ a bit from the ones PCs have access to - if they're not completely unique. They typically have less advantages and disadvantages (which has some bearing on their void point use and access). and the rules explicitly state the ones they have are commonly different from the ones on the list PCs can pick from or use for inspiration.

So, what I'm saying is that "behave like standard characters" as a rules statement doesn't exactly seem to mesh with several other rules statements. It certainly doesn't appear to mean "behave like standard characters in all meaningful ways".

29 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

So, what I'm saying is that "behave like standard characters" as a rules statement doesn't exactly seem to mesh with several other rules statements. It certainly doesn't appear to mean "behave like standard characters in all meaningful ways".

I think that rules statement could reasonably be taken to mean "behave like standard characters except where explicitly noted otherwise ",

And so it could be concluded that since void points are not discussed, they work exactly like player void points do,

Derived attributes, skill groups, etc on the other hand are discussed, and consequently do not break that statement.

46 minutes ago, gareth_lazelle said:

I think that rules statement could reasonably be taken to mean "behave like standard characters except where explicitly noted otherwise ",

And so it could be concluded that since void points are not discussed, they work exactly like player void points do,

Derived attributes, skill groups, etc on the other hand are discussed, and consequently do not break that statement.

except some NPC have, in their ability list: "void point; this character start the scene with 2 void points and can use them as a player would".

which mean that NPC have NO void point, unless you decide to give them void points as an "ability". Which of course, you can.

40 minutes ago, gareth_lazelle said:

I think that rules statement could reasonably be taken to mean "behave like standard characters except where explicitly noted otherwise ",

And so it could be concluded that since void points are not discussed, they work exactly like player void points do,

Derived attributes, skill groups, etc on the other hand are discussed, and consequently do not break that statement.

The issue there is that minions also "behave like other characters" but "with the following exceptions" - and yet these explicitly listed exceptions don't include any of the things I outlined in my post above.

28 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

except some NPC have, in their ability list: "void point; this character start the scene with 2 void points and can use them as a player would".

which mean that NPC have NO void point, unless you decide to give them void points as an "ability". Which of course, you can.

Actually I disagree, the playtest rules indicated one VP for NPCs,

So two void points would be a clear exception to that rule, warranting mention in the stat block.

31 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

The issue there is that minions also "behave like other characters" but "with the following exceptions" - and yet these explicitly listed exceptions don't include any of the things I outlined in my post above.

Some are, some aren't,

But most are explained clearly,

Rings I actually take exception to, as 5 is clearly presented as a human limit in the start of the rules, and so for non-humans would clearly not apply,

Skill groups are clearly discussed in the NPC section,

Advantages & disadvantages follow the usual rules, albeit they may have less of them (and as you note, the rules explicitly discuss these, so that's covered),

The only thing you mentioned that isn't discussed is schools & special abilities,

38 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

except some NPC have, in their ability list: "void point; this character start the scene with 2 void points and can use them as a player would".

which mean that NPC have NO void point, unless you decide to give them void points as an "ability". Which of course, you can.

Not sure what you where confused about, so I'll try again,

If the rules (hypothetically) said "npcs get one void point at the start of a scene", then you wouldn't need to note in each stat block that the NPC had one void point,

But you would note an NPC with two points as that would differ from the norm.

So, if we took the wording from the LTP to be valid, then your npcs notes would make perfect sense, and would not be evidence supporting 0 VP being the norm.

I probably can find an NPC with an ability that makes him start with 1 void point in EE.

but that aside, my whole point is to say; give them how many void points you want, they CAN have void point, you CAN give them how many you want; 0, 1, 2, 500...
it's all good.

i also don't play by the LTP rules.

1 hour ago, gareth_lazelle said:

Some are, some aren't,

But most are explained clearly,

Rings I actually take exception to, as 5 is clearly presented as a human limit in the start of the rules, and so for non-humans would clearly not apply,

Skill groups are clearly discussed in the NPC section,

Advantages & disadvantages follow the usual rules, albeit they may have less of them (and as you note, the rules explicitly discuss these, so that's covered),

The only thing you mentioned that isn't discussed is schools & special abilities,

Schools affect Rings, so doing schools differently (or not at all) means Rings are not done the same way as for standard characters. Of course, standard characters can't get templates (which affect Rings) like NPCs can. PCs can't advance Rings beyond ¨[lowest Ring + Void], but at least two Adversaries in EE make an exception to this (so, does this not apply to them or is that an error?) - nothing is said explicitly about this, we just have the stats in question.

Having less advantages/disadvantages is pretty clearly against the character creation rules which mandate a minimum of one of each because they're important for the narrative. Which begs the question, how does the narrative - giri vs ninjo and strife - affect NPCs? That's left open, so 'same as standard characters' is kind of confusing there too.

Assuming for argument's sake that Adversaries get 1 void point standard, how does that work? They have one the first time the PCs meet them and if they use it it's gone? Can it be gained back only in the standard ways? If so, only when they're in a scene? Regardless of how much in-game time passes between scenes with this NPC?

As an aside, @Avatar111 , can you point me to an NPC with such a "void point; this character start the scene with 2 void points and can use them as a player would" ability?

2 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

As an aside, @Avatar111 , can you point me to an NPC with such a "void point; this character start the scene with 2 void points and can use them as a player would" ability?

in the free adventure "castle of the emerald champion"
the Tengu character, Airi.

35 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

I probably can find an NPC with an ability that makes him start with 1 void point in EE.

There are at least two NPCs with an ability that requires the use of a void point in EE (Hyobu and a monk whose name escapes me at the moment) but unless I missed it no NPC writeup mentions getting a number of void points.

7 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

in the free adventure "castle of the emerald champion"
the Tengu character, Airi.

Looking that up, thanks.

edit: a single-encounter NPC (so this doesn't really tell us anything about how void points are recovered by NPCs between scenes) who is meant to be a potential dueling opponent (duels are likely to see void points used) and is a non-human, spelling out that these void points may be used in the normal ways. I may have more doubts about how this is intended to be than before I read this. 😛 Of course, FFG's normal response to rules queries seems to be "do whatever you want" so intent is not a very helpful concept to begin with.

2 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

Looking that up, thanks.

edit: a single-encounter NPC (so this doesn't really tell us anything about how void points are recovered by NPCs between scenes) who is meant to be a potential dueling opponent (duels are likely to see void points used) and is a non-human, spelling out that these void points may be used in the normal ways. I may have more doubts about how this is intended to be than before I read this. 😛 Of course, FFG's normal response to rules queries seems to be "do whatever you want" so intent is not a very helpful concept to begin with.

I don't know if it is "do whatever you want" or "we don't care", but the later seems a bit more logical (I'm still mad they didn't even correct their mismatched pdf pages in the player ressources yet, something that takes like half an hour at most to do).

You can always send them a question and communicate us the answer? I'm not writing to them because I couldn't keep my composure and probably would end up sending them my houserules and pages of explanations and sarcastic remarks. The the FFG emperor would probably sanction me.

4 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

The the F  FG emperor      would probably sanction me. 

Or cast you out as a ronin