Hi,

i have a player who is sensei to an NPC. I’d like him to work towards a title. Does anybody have any ideas for what a thematic title ability would be?

Thanks for brainstorming with me.

I would suggest looking over the existing titles as a guide for how to build a title progression. I will do so myself before I give you my suggestion.

The first question you have to answer is what is the area of expertise of your "teacher" character? Is the elder a monk, shugenja, shinobi, courtier, or bushi?

The major role will drive the primary techniques that you character should nominally "learn" for xp progression. Monks should pick up Kiho, Shugenja should have Invocations, Courtiers Shuji, and Bushi receive Kata. On the unusual off chance the character is a Shinobi/Ninja, then ninjutsu techniques would be most appropriate.

With techniques covered, the question of skills comes into play. Naturally Bushi and Monks would have martial skill group as their group focus, while Courtiers would benefit from social skill group. Shugenja would benefit most from scholar skill group while monks could use it as a secondary focus. The Trade skill group lends itself well for Shinobi/Ninja sensei.

The last thing to consider and this requires working with the GM is to figure out what special ability is granted by said title. From a thematic standpoint, allowing the student to learn a skill or technique the sensei already knows at a discount cost might make sense, but that doesn't really benefit a player character much. Another option would be allowing the Sensei player character to "mentor" another character by providing bonus results or opportunity on a check. This is a much more powerful and useful effect for a player character.

Hope that gives you some things to think about. it was what I could come up with on the fly.

12 hours ago, neilcell said:

The last thing to consider and this requires working with the GM is to figure out what special ability is granted by said title. From a thematic standpoint, allowing the student to learn a skill or technique the sensei already knows at a discount cost might make sense, but that doesn't really benefit a player character much. Another option would be allowing the Sensei player character to "mentor" another character by providing bonus results or opportunity on a check. This is a much more powerful and useful effect for a player character. 

It is a very appropriate ability, though. I'd suggest giving an accomplished Sensei (i.e. one who's completed the title) some variation of Agasha Sumiko's Expert in the Dojo ability, even if you give the title a second string so it does something 'during' a game session.

What might work is a variation on the Advisor's ability. An Advisor assisting can provide assistance that effectively grants your ranks in a skill. You don't want to clone that wholesale, so maybe reverse it; instead of letting someone you're assisting duplicate your skill ranks, let your pupil perform techniques that you know as if they know them (potentially at a higher TN if it's a high rank technique, as per importune invocations)

One of the things about becoming a teacher is that you learn about learning. A sensei is someone has completed their own line of training to a level in which they can start teaching others, they've learned how to learn.

How about, when watching someone perform a technique of a category you don't know but can learn (so if a kata, you need to already be able to learn katas, ect) , roll the matching roll of what the person rolled (same ring/ability) with a tn equal to the rank of the technique plus one. If succesful, you've learned to copy that technique temporarily. You may activate the technique at any time, using it as if you knew it. Once used, the knowledge gleaned fades, requiring another demonstration to copy again. You may "Store" a number of techniques up to your school rank.

two opp on the copy roll, use it twice before it fades. two opp, make a note next to stored technique, reduce tn to use it by one when you use it.

10 hours ago, Scrivener Spills said:

How about, when watching someone perform a technique of a category you don't know but can learn (so if a kata, you need to already be able to learn katas, ect) , roll the matching roll of what the person rolled (same ring/ability) with a tn equal to the rank of the technique plus one. If succesful, you've learned to copy that technique temporarily. You may activate the technique at any time, using it as if you knew it. Once used, the knowledge gleaned fades, requiring another demonstration to copy again. You may "Store" a number of techniques up to your school rank.

two opp on the copy roll, use it twice before it fades. two opp, make a note next to stored technique, reduce tn to use it by one when you use it.

There is great merit in your proposal there. Not what I would go with but it most certainly deserved play-testing with feedback. I look forward to hearing your report on its "field testing".

Temporary techniques could be interesting, I think it might be easier to go simpler though, especially since the sensei can tutor on a number of different subjects, after all schools have skills to. And it should be school rank agnostic as a title.

I'd say maybe like when you provide skilled assistance to a student, they may also roll your ranks in Command (Command is Instruction) in Skill dice instead of what they have in the skill. If they have equal or better ranks in the skill, they keep an additional die set to opportunity instead. So when you offer instruction to a student, they benefit proportionally to your ability as a teacher. If they're already really good, or you're not a great teacher, they maybe just get a little something extra out of it. If you're a phenomenal teacher, they're likely to act like they're one of the most skilled in the world, though obviously they still need underlying Rings to keep some of that.

EDIT: Also, on the discount end, that could work too, but might seem less impressive, but I'd look at the Ties that Bind ritual in CoS. FFG refuses to take my money so I can't exactly look it up on the fly, but after you do the test you can reduce the price for the targeted characters to buy Bonds with XP, but you wouldn't want to reduce it too far - that technically makes you advance slower in your school. Which doesn't quite make sense, if you have direct tutelage from a sensei, shouldn't you rank up faster? KISS is a great principle for this kind of thing.

For Sensei title ability I would use Venerable Provincial Daimyo's Lord's Command (Core book page 315): Once per scene as Support, sensei may advise single character in action and the target may use sensei's Ring or Skill rating instead on next roll to perform the action.

A thought I had Was this:

sensei advises his student and gains 1d10 strife. If he is not compromised, the student regains a void point as the secrets of the training become manifest in his mind.

Another idea:

As a downtime action you can train another character. You and he may immediately spend any accrued experience to improve stats and skills.

This option might also be interesting if it allowed a character to go into “XP debt” and gain an ability be couldn’t afford. Of course, you cannot benefit from additional training until you’ve paid off your XP debt.