Question about Unmasking

By Varsovian, in Rules Questions

Hello!

I'm almost completely new to the game - especially when it comes to the FFG edition of L5R. If you don't mind, I have a question...

The rules state then, when Unmasking, a character can do something emotional - shout, offend someone, storm out in a huff, kiss a lover passionately etc. The rules also state (if I understand them correctly) that a character can Unmask only when Compromised. So, does it mean that, if my character isn't Compromised emotionally, I can't have him / her behave in a non-stoic way, just by choice?

I realize that narrative consequences for inappropriate behaviour could be serious, but can't a character just choose to disregard propriety, regardless whether he / she is in emotional turmoil or not?

47 minutes ago, Varsovian said:

So, does it mean that, if my character isn't Compromised emotionally, I can't have him / her behave in a non-stoic way, just by choice?

No. You can behave however you like (understanding that repeated inappropriate behaviour will see you bleeding honour and glory). But the outburst rules would only 'zero' your strife when you unmask.

49 minutes ago, Varsovian said:

I realize that narrative consequences for inappropriate behaviour could be serious, but can't a character just choose to disregard propriety, regardless whether he / she is in emotional turmoil or not?

Yes. As noted, it may affect the consequences. Particularly honour loss - since if you're not being driven to it emotionally, it becomes something that reflects worse on you ethically, and hence hits you harder in terms of honour (which is very much about your view of yourself shorn of self-deception*).

* This is why you lose honour for murder even if no-one ever knows you did it .

I see, thanks!

So, if I understand correctly, Unmasking should be something relatively big? Not just one rude sentence, but some sort of big emotional outburst?

It's something to figure out between you and the GM, but I'd say yes.

One of the options is challenging someone to a duel; the 'scale' of other possible outbursts should be similar, so rolling your eyes and mentally counting to ten doesn't really cut it.

It should be big, but not that bad that nobody wants to ever do it. Because, in the end, the players can relatively control their strife level and not many situations will "force them" into unmasking. We found a decent middle ground, with either slight status stats loss and narrative repercussion that is ok with my players.
Eventually, because there was not enough unmasking (or that it was simply too easy to avoid) they asked me to nerf the water and earth opportunities (so that it cannot reduce below half the composure, as high water characters were simply immune to unmasking) This way, there is a bit more unmasking, and it forces the players to play more into their passions and ninjo.
We found it worked perfectly fine for us.
This game is a lot about finding your own "beat" to it. Nothing is really set in stone (advantages and disadvantages, one of the main core rule of the system, is the obvious proof here).
It is a cooperative story game, and first and foremost you need to make that clear to your players. And that saying the reward is not slaying the biggest monster, but basically doing the best story. Reward players for story by MAKING the story BIG. Characters should be able to move in very, very high places just by their stories. And make sure all players are ok with that. This game is not for number crunchers, it just isn't. Being the driving force behind the story should be the primary focus of the players, so reward them with huge story boosts and focus if they play into difficulties.

Edited by Avatar111
7 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

It is a cooperative story game, and first and foremost you need to make that clear to your players. And that saying the reward is not slaying the biggest monster, but basically doing the best story.

This. It comes up a lot with opportunities, as well - yes, you can spend opportunities to pull any amount of random stuff or spontaneously 'notice' deus ex machine, but a big part is narratively describing what you're doing; if the idea is cool and clever, I'm more likely to let the 1211841275_OpportunitySmall.png.acf41343 spend work, or let you do it for a much smaller budget of 1211841275_OpportunitySmall.png.acf41343 . Assistance is a good example. Multiple assists are really, really powerful and can quickly break the game*, but in practice there's often only so many people who can credibly 'assist' in a given check at once, and figuring out a useful thing to do is not trivial.

* in either direction. Face a medium-to-large sized squad of minions and you'll soon see what I mean!

Okay, if I may ask. It is possible to voluntarily unmask BEFORE becoming compromised? I.e. to clear all strife before it gets too high? I could see some strategic uses of unmasking (in Kyotei, Winter's Embrace, and Scroll or Blade) where it might be more beneficial to unmask in a particular scene despite not being compromised. The idea being that the character purposely overplays the idea that they have been angered or pushed around, but inside their own head they view it as a rather embarrassing way to let off steam before they REALLY shame themselves. As stated in the Core Book, a point made in the passion of emotion may still be a valid point. And a character who would normally be restrained might want to make a point they would normally not even bring up because it was gauche. Granted, it would come at a higher cost of honor and glory, but then that should be part of the calculations of unmasking early.

33 minutes ago, neilcell said:

Okay, if I may ask. It is possible to voluntarily unmask BEFORE becoming compromised? I.e. to clear all strife before it gets too high? I could see some strategic uses of unmasking (in Kyotei, Winter's Embrace, and Scroll or Blade) where it might be more beneficial to unmask in a particular scene despite not being compromised. The idea being that the character purposely overplays the idea that they have been angered or pushed around, but inside their own head they view it as a rather embarrassing way to let off steam before they REALLY shame themselves. As stated in the Core Book, a point made in the passion of emotion may still be a valid point. And a character who would normally be restrained might want to make a point they would normally not even bring up because it was gauche. Granted, it would come at a higher cost of honor and glory, but then that should be part of the calculations of unmasking early.

yes it is possible. you can unmask when you want (if it makes sense and the GM allows it, like most rules in this book, it is all in the Gm's hands... which is a weird design call considering many famous ttrpg "celebrities" talked against this type of design that leaves too much of the decisions to the GM's when it comes to mechanical things players can do.)

As an example, my Moto Shugenja gets SUPER proper. He becomes for a few rounds overly formal to the point of being unintentionally insulting, making it feel to the people being addressed like he is addressing them as if they were a child being instructed in etiquette.

6 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

yes it is possible. you can unmask when you want (if it makes sense and the GM allows it, like most rules in this book, it is all in the Gm's hands... which is a weird design call considering many famous ttrpg "celebrities" talked against this type of design that leaves too much of the decisions to the GM's when it comes to mechanical things players can do.)

Hmmm. I thought that the rules explicitely state that you can Unmask (as in, make a scene and lose Strife) when you're Compromised enough? And earlier in that post, Magnus said you can show emotions whenever you want, but it doesn't zero out the Strife...

6 hours ago, neilcell said:

Okay, if I may ask. It is possible to voluntarily unmask BEFORE becoming compromised? I.e. to clear all strife before it gets too high? I could see some strategic uses of unmasking (in Kyotei, Winter's Embrace, and Scroll or Blade) where it might be more beneficial to unmask in a particular scene despite not being compromised. The idea being that the character purposely overplays the idea that they have been angered or pushed around, but inside their own head they view it as a rather embarrassing way to let off steam before they REALLY shame themselves. As stated in the Core Book, a point made in the passion of emotion may still be a valid point. And a character who would normally be restrained might want to make a point they would normally not even bring up because it was gauche. Granted, it would come at a higher cost of honor and glory, but then that should be part of the calculations of unmasking early.

You need to be Compromised before you can Unmask, but you do have some control over when you become Compromised, by keeping more Strife symbols. You might also suggest to your GM that something an NPC said or did would have caused you to acquire Strife. Otherwise, you can always choose to act dishonorably, but it doesn't clear your Strife unless you were already at the breaking point.

If you want to add strife on yourself, you can. You can also unmask when you feel like it, even if not compromised, if the GM allows.

(like most rules in this game, it depends if the GM feels like it, so be nice to your GM, and try to guess how they want you to play)

Edited by Avatar111

" Players can even choose to inflict strife on their own characters (and the GM can inflict strife on their characters as well) when it makes narrative sense "

Obviously " when it makes narrative sense " is a matter of debate, but so long as you're not being stupid I'd be pretty open-minded if you wanted to. A player who's on, say, 9/10 strife and actively wants to unmask with an angry challenge to the small-minded little jerk honourable courtier who's been blocking their reasonable request, saying "I want to take one more strife" the next time that character speaks certainly makes narrative sense to me.

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

" Players can even choose to inflict strife on their own characters (and the GM can inflict strife on their characters as well) when it makes narrative sense "

Obviously " when it makes narrative sense " is a matter of debate, but so long as you're not being stupid I'd be pretty open-minded if you wanted to. A player who's on, say, 9/10 strife and actively wants to unmask with an angry challenge to the small-minded little jerk honourable courtier who's been blocking their reasonable request, saying "I want to take one more strife" the next time that character speaks certainly makes narrative sense to me.

You see, I let my players give themselves strife as much as they want, when they want. Want to go 0 to compromised in an instant? Sure. It does not do much aside letting the players play to allow them a relative control over their outbursts.

I guess it can be a slight mechanical advantage if you were a bit loaded on strife and want to duel an opponent so you want to "reset". But I feel just doing random failed check and keep as much strife as possible because you want to eventually unmask before calling your challenge would be too cheesy.

So yeah, just unmask, face the consequences, start fresh.

Conclusion: nobody plays this game the same way because it all depends on the GM. You need a session pre-0 "get to know how your GM interpret the rules" before playing (which we did at our table btw! No joke. And its been very useful so far)

32 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

You need a session pre-0 "get to know how your GM interpret the rules" before playing (which we did at our table btw! No joke. And its been very useful so far)

Frankly, I think that's a prerequisite with every system, if only to work through the "what sort of story do you actually want to tell" discussions, what supplements may be in or out of scope, that sort of thing.

55 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Frankly, I think that's a prerequisite with every system, if only to work through the "what sort of story do you actually want to tell" discussions, what supplements may be in or out of scope, that sort of thing.

Some amount of that is needed all the time, but l5r goes the extra mile by taxing the GM with a lot of rule adjudication. There should almost be a checklist of "select options" like in a video game when starting the campaign to avoid having to make rule calls on the spot and to make sure no player feel punished because they misunderstood how the GM would have interpreted a ruling. Nothing as unfun as a player coming up with an idea just so the GM says "nah, I do not feel like that should work in that case" (taking the strife example mentioned above). Because decisions like that will likely pile up, and eventually players will stop playing but start "dealing" with the GM all the time because that is what is the best thing to do.

Anyway, getting a bit in too deep in design philosophy here. All in good faith toward the discussion.

The Advantages and Disadvantages loose ruling really defines a lot of the concepts of this game. Leaving an absurd amount of decisive power to the GM, if they so wishes to take it. I'd personally rather decide to let the players also judge what is possible. For example, we are 3 players and a GM. When a player wants to use an advantage, I, as the GM, don't decide by myself if I should allow it. I make it a vote between me and the 2 other players who didn't take the action. Democracy wins, if 2/3 think the advantage should apply, it applies.

Not a perfect way to deal with it, but preferable to just dumping the whole decisive power on the GM imo. It also, with some time, balances itself because the players start to know how everybody is feeling about letting advantages apply. So, eventually, the "vote" becomes quite obvious, almost to be unecessary as we all have an idea of what the table generally allow or disallow.

Though, I am curious to see how other groups handle the heavy adjudication the GM is taxed with in this game; Is it fine? Or too much and need a few things to be made clear from the get go?

Edited by Avatar111