1 hour ago, JBento said:

Ok, this confuses me a bit, because the best way to power game L5R is to go all-out on Honour/Glory/Status* gains. The rules actually enforce this via the Bushido code. If your GM isn't enforcing the Bushido code, plus the consequences of low H/G/S, then that's a different problem.

*My character has the Playful advantage, and my ultimate goal is to reach the H/G/S level that'll let me make fun of ANYONE that isn't Emperor Hent, er, Hantei, without consequences.

the GM cannot make a player lose honor, it is always ultimately the player's choice. So being a honor paragon is just, easy.
sure, you can put the players in situations that they have to lose honor or they FAIL at a specific task, but again, if that happens too often, it just creates bad vibes. That is basically saying to the players that they cannot succeed by being honorable, so you create that weird mood.

losing Glory is also very hard. The only way to make them lose glory is mostly if they FAIL something. But players shouldn't FAIL that much, otherwise it isn't much fun for anyone.

1 hour ago, UnitOmega said:

That may be the best way to powergame L5R, that is not typically what you do in other RPGs. If someone accepts the inherent limitations of honor and glory and is like "I'm gonna climb that ladder" they are invested in the game, and if your GM is doing his job right (as outlined by the rules) you are gonna have a hard time sticking to your guns because living a life of honor is not easy, and comes at personal sacrifice. It will mean you have to do some "sub-optimal" things for the sake of honor, which is 100% intended. But some people are not gonna be okay with the idea that to defeat the evil samurai guy, you're supposed to challenge him in the street and let him ready himself, even arm himself if unarmed when man, revenge is so much easier if you just cut him down naked in the bathhouse or something.

some of the older Bushido ('B-series') adventures are very much like this. There is basically no ideal outcome, and the challenge is figuring out which tenets of bushido you're going to sacrifice, and how personally cruddy an ending you're prepared to accept, in the name of a slightly less awful ending for your friends and allies.

6 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

It is a good game (the core system is beautiful), but a lot of the added stuff (depth and structured stuff) is just amateurish, clunky or clumsy, rushed, unpolished and bloated.

edit: If your GM can make decent houserules and control the cheese, and your players are not too much rule lawyers, it is workable.
But this is an extremely hit and miss system. Let me know after you have some more sessions under your belt.

Oh I’ve played about 20 + sessions. And I agree the system is a Disaster. But it doesn’t drive me to troll every post on the forum. Just a few of them!

To the topic at hand, I think using Dojis Decrees seems very reasonable from a roleplay standpoint. However, as you said, it also leads to a rather ridiculous problem in duels. You also mentioned some other techs and schools that cause problems in duels, like the Ikoma (I’m surprised nobody had mentioned the Miya Herald). I think the issue is less Dojis Dec and probably more the issue of duels.

I really like the idea of strife as a method of controlling duels, via the finishing blow. Unfortunately in execution it doesn’t typically feel right to me. I guess that’s because I want Iaijutsu duels, and I just don’t get them.

8 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

some of the older Bushido ('B-series') adventures are very much like this. There is basically no ideal outcome, and the challenge is figuring out which tenets of bushido you're going to sacrifice, and how personally cruddy an ending you're prepared to accept, in the name of a slightly less awful ending for your friends and allies.

which is ideal. no ideal outcomes, but the players still feel like they succeeded.

sacrificing honor though, is not something than will happen unless the player wants to. there is always a way to NOT lose honor. and if the only way is to FAIL... it fall into the weird space.
but that have nothing to do with the rules per say. this is strictly a setting thing and how insane of a GM you need to be to run that.

2 minutes ago, AndyDay303 said:

Oh I’ve played about 20 + sessions. And I agree the system is a Disaster. But it doesn’t drive me to troll every post on the forum. Just a few of them!

To the topic at hand, I think using Dojis Decrees seems very reasonable from a roleplay standpoint. However, as you said, it also leads to a rather ridiculous problem in duels. You also mentioned some other techs and schools that cause problems in duels, like the Ikoma (I’m surprised nobody had mentioned the Miya Herald). I think the issue is less Dojis Dec and probably more the issue of duels.

I really like the idea of strife as a method of controlling duels, via the finishing blow. Unfortunately in execution it doesn’t typically feel right to me. I guess that’s because I want Iaijutsu duels, and I just don’t get them.

I troll a lot, but also bring a lot to the discussions and dare I say, after the many iterations my houserules went thru, they are in a solid spot!

Yeah, duels are just weird. The composure "timer" is fine to force an outcome at some point, but it can become weirdly unsatisfying and dare I say, easily abusable with the cheesiest possible ways. If you avoid the cheese though, I mean, it works. With allowing Iai kata to crit.

2 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

there is always a way to NOT lose honor.

True. But sometimes it's basically ".....and seppuku for everyone!" - debates about honour impact tend to be both more emotive and more interesting when it's more a 'least dishonourable' debate, especially (in this version) with distinctly different honour impacts of different tenets for different clans.

2 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

True. But sometimes it's basically ".....and seppuku for everyone!" - debates about honour impact tend to be both more emotive and more interesting when it's more a 'least dishonourable' debate, especially (in this version) with distinctly different honour impacts of different tenets for different clans.

it does work. but then again, a choice between HONOR or straight up FAILURE/DEATH, is just not super fun and feels gimmicky for the players.
"Grey zones" are where you want it to be, and also trying to convince your players than playing an honorific character is not more "OP" or "FUN" than a slightly dishonorable one. (which is the preferable way, I suppose).
Glory is another thing altogether, and will probably just go up until the character dies, with only a few dips at rare intervals.

9 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

it does work. but then again, a choice between HONOR or straight up FAILURE/DEATH, is just not super fun and feels gimmicky for the players.
"Grey zones" are where you want it to be, and also trying to convince your players than playing an honorific character is not more "OP" or "FUN" than a slightly dishonorable one. (which is the preferable way, I suppose).
Glory is another thing altogether, and will probably just go up until the character dies, with only a few dips at rare intervals.

I agree with the comment about Grey Zones, but I have to disagree with some other bits here.

1. I agree it shouldn't be a choice of Honour/Death. The point is that most meaningful choices shouldn't be Honour/Death, they should be Honourable Choice A/Honourable Choice B, or - frankly, in my experience more interesting - Least Dishonourable Choice A/Least Dishonourable Choice B. That's not the same as going out to play a dishonourable character, but being put in a situation where there is no right answer means there isn't always a single red or blue choice of action.
2. Almost every choice that matters in a game - i.e. where it's not "do you want to do the blatantly honourable thing or not?" - follows some tenets of bushido by violating others. Violating courtesy to sincerely tell the truth to someone who doesn't want to hear it (but needs to). Violating your orders to save your lord from a preventable dishonour. Choices like that 'work' either way, and it's the clan's different views on the different importance of the various bushido tenets which drive that decision-making because those will be honourable or dishonourable for different clans.
3. Glory should (hopefully) trend up, but I think I see it as a bit more dynamic. Honour increases are called sacrifices 'precisely' because they involve losing something 'in the name of honour' - and in a lot of cases, especially Righteousness or Sincerity - you're basically trading a Glory hit for your Honour increase.

A bit back to the original topic here - The problem once again lies in the absolute nature of Lady Doji's Decree. If the check is successful, the target can not attack, full stop. Sure the duration is variable, but the fact that it is a complete shutdown for the duration is what drives the main issue, much like the issues with Earth Stance, and is compounded by the rules concerning duels where time can be of the essence.

When outside of a duel, being prevented from attacking 1 single target for a few rounds may be a problem, but it will rarely shut you down completely. There may be other targets, or other objectives to concentrate on. In a duel, you have 1 target, and when you absolutely can not attack that target at all, that becomes a much bigger issue.

I understand the intent of perhaps creating a discouragement of using the practice by imposing a loss of honor or some such to the practitioner, I would probably house rule it the other way - allow a player to take a loss of honor to ignore it. Basically, the Crane is free to make their insightful / distracting comment and most would stop to listen to such a profound statement, but if you want, you can be the crass brute who ignores it and bulls ahead. There is a reason those with lower honor act first in initiative if there is a tie, after all.

Now it becomes less of a definite tactic for the Doji - can be effective, by punishing your opponent, but are you willing to spend your action on a result that may actually do nothing for you as long as you opponent is willing to take on that punishment. Outside of a duel, especially within an intrigue, I think the opponent would be likely to abide by the decree, not wanting to lose face and honor and having other options most likely available. In a duel on the other hand, depending on what is on the line ...

As those above have posted, to me this creates the interesting aspect of choice in the situation.

So I'm not 100% sure not having my own copy, but I believe that in the rules for "traditional Crane style duels" in the new Courts of Stone there's a callout for trying to use social skills to hax your opponent, which reduces your point total - might mean the opponent ends up winning on a technicality or you look worse for winning. And any Crane who goes against such rules would surely be embarrassing themselves and losing Glory.

10 minutes ago, UnitOmega said:

So I'm not 100% sure not having my own copy, but I believe that in the rules for "traditional Crane style duels" in the new Courts of Stone there's a callout for trying to use social skills to hax your opponent, which reduces your point total - might mean the opponent ends up winning on a technicality or you look worse for winning. And any Crane who goes against such rules would surely be embarrassing themselves and losing Glory.

-5 points if you speak "discourteously" to the opponent .

Not really what Doji's decree is.

but to be fair, this game runs better when the GM raise an eyebrow when a player is trying to cheese. There are just too many loopholes if you start to just play with the rules as written too squarely.

As someone who tried to "fix" the game, I eventually gave up going crazy on all possibilities and simply fix the core stuff that makes the game more fun.

edit: typo in "discourteously". That was a given..

5 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

-5 points if you speak "discourteously" to the opponent .

Not really what Doji's decree is.

Exactly so. Using Fire to apply strife is probably likely to fall under this, or at least is more likely to, (depends how creative the player can get, narratively, with polite-sounding things that would get under their foe's skin) but Lady Doji's decree isn't necessarily about making the other duellist angry.

9 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Exactly so. Using Fire to apply strife is probably likely to fall under this, or at least is more likely to, (depends how creative the player can get, narratively, with polite-sounding things that would get under their foe's skin) but Lady Doji's decree isn't necessarily about making the other duellist angry.

Which makes the "strife out the opponent" gameplay of duels even less possible.

Really, I don't understand their intent with duels... So bad. So. Bad. It is honestly boiling do be just like a skirmish. Smash the opponent to incapacitated... I don't even care that much about balance at this point, at least make the thing fun and dramatic.

The "big gameplay" is basically do I earth stance or fire stance?

Oh..well..

3 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

Which makes the "strife out the opponent" gameplay of duels even less possible.

Not necessarily; it depends on setting (formal rules are for formal places) and to a degree it depends how clever you can be.

For that matter Sadane (the game of insults) is a thing in Rokugan quite independant of duels - the loser being the one who cracks, or resorts to crude slurs or language, or who can't think of a response quickly.

5 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Not necessarily; it depends on setting (formal rules are for formal places) and to a degree it depends how clever you can be.

For that matter Sadane (the game of insults) is a thing in Rokugan quite independant of duels - the loser being the one who cracks, or resorts to crude slurs or language, or who can't think of a response quickly.

well, we were discussing the Crane Duel Rule of " -5 points if you speak "discourteously" to the opponent ."

I am a bit confused by how clever you can be with Fire Opportunities to inflict 2 strife, or what Sadane have to do with it.
But I guess as a GM you can decide to let your duelists inflict strife on each others in subtle, out of the written rules ways.

edit: bottom line is, putting strife on an opposing duelist thru social means is discouraged by the game. Leaving yet, even less options to make duels more interesting than a clubbing contest.

1 hour ago, Avatar111 said:

well, we were discussing the Crane Duel Rule of " -5 points if you speak "discourteously" to the opponent ."

I am a bit confused by how clever you can be with Fire Opportunities to inflict 2 strife, or what Sadane have to do with it.
But I guess as a GM you can decide to let your duelists inflict strife on each others in subtle, out of the written rules ways.

Nowhere do the rules say that using Fire to inflame an opponent are penalised.

You are permitted to speak to your opponent. The rules say you are penalised in formal settings if you speak discourteously .

A player spending Fire for an effect defines what in narrative terms the opportunity actually is and why it has the desired effect.

Figuring out what to say to scare, anger or distract an opponent without - quite - violating the tenet of courtesy is not easy, but if you spent your turns in duels even before Courts of Stone slinging unsophisticated 'Yo Mamma' insults in public (okay, I accept that's an oversimplification but you get what I mean), you should have been bleeding honour for breaches of courtesy, even if you won the duel.