14 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Of course there might be economical reasons but honestly, if someone is going to buy digital only, they will not go to a LGS to buy a book anyway, so it is kind of a 🐮 point (showing my age with that one).

Agreed. I love having paper copies of stuff - but I have nowhere near enough space for all the game systems I want to own; and all the products I own are PDF based.

15 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

😆

The **** you talking about?

More aspirational/track record than anything, but several times FFG have brought out a .pdf version of an RPG rulebook or sourcebook after the first errata/FAQ and incorporated the changes into the electronic version.

22 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

More aspirational/track record than anything, but several times FFG have brought out a .pdf version of an RPG rulebook or sourcebook after the first errata/FAQ and incorporated the changes into the electronic version.

But that is their choice to effectively create the pdf as a revised edition. Which, again, isn't exactly a big deal given that the book is being written in InDesign-- going in and changing the text a bit, so long as the length of the text does not substantially change, can be done very quickly. A few minutes work at most. Many changes in many sections of the book? Sure-- that could maybe take a days work. Again, primarily limited by the power of the computer you happen to be editing the document on.

This is not at all indicative of it requiring any extra time or costing any additional money to create a pdf beyond the work already done to be able to print the book in the first place. I promise you that creating a pdf is a job that could be done in less than a day as I have significant experience doing exactly the process the information contained within the pdf indicates they do to create the book. I don't have much experience creating nice hard-bound books, so I cannot speak to the time requirements for that to be done-- but getting a document ready for the printers and/or creating a pdf version? Done that quite a lot.

Still-- from what little I do understand of the time required to print up and bind thousands of books, I feel quite confident in asserting that they could have a pdf version available a good month or two before ever getting a physical book to the shelves-- certainly not the other way around.

Also, Diogo, don't bother waiting for this book of you want Shadow brands - they're not in it.

35 minutes ago, Myrion said:

Also, Diogo, don't bother waiting for this book of you want Shadow brands - they're not in it.

Wait, what? Don’t we have a Shosuro Shadow Weaver or something?

I mean, it weaves shadows, how is that not with shadow brands?

In the same way there are no rules for having togashi tatoos independently of being a member of the school, I guess.

Well, technically the tattoos empower your kihō, so that’s how the tattoos work in the new system, if you tell me their school ability empowers ninjutsu techniques for instance, I would be okay with that being their “shadow brand”.

I like having a FLGS, and quite like the idea of giving the bricks and mortar stores a time lead over the electronic versions of things as a way to help them. What has really annoyed me this time is that some parts of the world have just not had the access to physical books either. That's not giving my FLGS a leg up, that's breaking its kneecaps.

44 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

I like having a FLGS, and quite like the idea of giving the bricks and mortar stores a time lead over the electronic versions of things as a way to help them.

I always liked the Bits and Mortar programme , which essentially does both - buying a hardcopy entitles you to a free soft copy, which means you get a 'living' version which will pick up updates and errata.

I always found it a shame that FFG isn't a member (at the risk of mentioning a competitor, I'm quite glad Cubicle 7, who've inherited the 40k stuff, is).

7 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed. I love having paper copies of stuff - but I have nowhere near enough space for all the game systems I want to own; and all the products I own are PDF based.

Yeah, moving to another country made me give away a lot of the physical books I had to friends and the few I decided to keep are still at my parents’ house in 2 boxes and I can’t even bring stuff because my apartment doesn’t have enough space as it is. So a decision needs to be made and PDF wins. Whatever physical space I have left I leave for board games instead.

7 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Wait, what? Don’t we have a Shosuro Shadow Weaver or something?

I mean, it weaves shadows, how is that not with shadow brands?

They discussed this in the interview with Court Games pod, the shadow weaver is more of an alternate take on "stealth shugenja" with the ability to summon and control shadows, rather than actually branding effects. There's no mechanical model for Shadowbrands/Kagedo yet (probably because development of the scorpion book hasn't started) but when it happens, it'll either be another new tech type, or new inversions.

The shadow brands are mentioned in the book with a paragraph in a section on various magical/religious practices, but yeah, the Shadow Weaver is pretty explicitly not that. For whatever reason.

I think that was a hella poor choice, but so were several other schools and just generally, going with more and more schools, rather than more techniques and titles, considering what a player will actually get access to.

45 minutes ago, Myrion said:

I think that was a hella poor choice, but so were several other schools and just generally, going with more and more schools, rather than more techniques and titles, considering what a player will actually get access to.

THANK YOU!

I mean, how many kihō we have right now besides the ones in the core book? Zero, assuming there is none in Celestial Realms. And I mean, do we really need a Kitsu Medic or a Doji Bureaucrat?

I mean, at this Dev cycle, every family will have minimum 3 schools, and I actually like the diversity of spreading them out to the families rather than a problem of the previous editions where the 2-3 families which were well liked and featured in writing had like 7 schools over the years of various kinds and then the others just seemed to be left with the rest . There is both the narrative purpose of expanding what your Family is known for and can do within your clan, and mechanically new concepts to apply to the game via School Abilities. I like Kitsu Medic, both for being a medical school with direct mechanical applications, and as a non-Shugenja Kitsu school - it makes sense for their family and gives additional Kitsu or other cross-trained Lion something to do. Especially since the Kitsu and probably a lot of other "mystic" families will rack up a couple different flavors for their abilities. Doji Bureaucrat doesn't exactly leap off the page to me, but it makes sense for the Doji (the Crane are supposed to have a lot of middle-managers of the Empire in their number, those guys probably don't go to the "Diplomat" school), and is in a book that puts forward the "Winter Court" style game (which is just the L5R branding stamped on "intrigue & sociopolitic heavy roleplay" campaigns, as opposed to dungeoncrawling/tactical campaigns, gazetteer campaigns, etc), which the school is ideally suited for, even blending in with Imperial families or characters who come with a bit of social clout attached.

Now, that said, also indicated in the interview, I believe the specific reason for the formatting of schools a lot more rapidly than techniques is that FFG (and possibly EDGE too) are under some hella strict word counts and page limits, presumably for reasons of their profit margins. The books are as long as they can be, and previous books have absolutely had material cut out of them (which is probably why they had to put "Risky Checks" and some other rules stuff out in Eratta/FAQ). Schools are relatively easy to print - they fill a single page. If you make several of a theme in a book (like, I dunno, Shugenja in a magic book) you can reuse new techniques very efficiently, or construct them entirely out of corebook stuff. Meanwhile, adding techniques can be more page intense, especially if you're making a new technique group which needs special rules, but even just expanding techs like Shuji or Invocations which have multiple elements across a few school ranks can suck up space. You cut some schools you don't like, what do you get, like 3 techniques? I dunno if that's worth it. Does this mean you are likely to get a few "samey" schools which have similar tags or concepts? Probably, but hopefully they have enough distinctions or unique qualities to be quite interesting and functionally different to play. Yes, between Shosuro Shadowweaver and Soshi Illusionist, Scorpion have two "sneaky shugenja" (and in general a lot of [Shinobi] but, hey, what can you do, they shifty) but they function very differently in their roles, so a Soshi Illusionist is a shugenja who is adept at looking like a Courtier for political gaming and social maneuvering, a Shadowweaver is kind of a shadow-assassin who uses their abilities actively stealthily. You don't necessarily bring them to the same campaign setup, and L5R can do a lot of different things.

Celestial Realms is, by all accounts, a quite full book, covering the Cosmology of Rokugan, history of the Phoenix Clan and Centipede Minor Clan, Ancestral Swords, the usual GM backend stuff and new gear, and of course introducing the whole concept of Inversions. Now, obviously, FFG (transitioning into EDGE) has said they could model Kagedo with Inversions... but also they could not. They have discussed the high-level of the techniques in the fluff, but developing background, additional rules and new techs (regardless) will take space which is not necessarily best spent in a Phoenix flavored book about cosmic connections and heavens and hells. The relationship with Shadow is very particular to Scorpion, and fits better into their book, whenever it comes. I personally hope that such things are still Inversions as both an effect of condensing mechanics and fluff (relationship between Void and Shadow), but I also think that they should be new inversions, as the ones described in Celestial Realms fit the flavor of the Ishiken very well, though obviously there can be some overlap. Adding additional "shadowy" like Inversions would be more space blocked up.

I don't want to say it's a perfect system, but I like the school diversity, and we can't exactly force FFG or EDGE to add like 10-20 pages to all their books, because obviously there's something preventing that. I expect we'll get a big kiho drop in Writ of the Wilds, the book with the Dragon who are kind of the kiho guys, and that shouldn't have too much more player-facing mechanical requirements.

1 hour ago, UnitOmega said:

Doji Bureaucrat doesn't exactly leap off the page to me, but it makes sense for the Doji (the Crane are supposed to have a lot of middle-managers of the Empire in their number, those guys probably don't go to the "Diplomat" school)

We had an out-of-character discussion on this when doing Winter's Embrace .

"What's the difference between them and the Doji Diplomat School?"

"They're not very diplomatic."

1 hour ago, UnitOmega said:

Does this mean you are likely to get a few "samey" schools which have similar tags or concepts? Probably, but hopefully they have enough distinctions or unique qualities to be quite interesting and functionally different to play.

I think Path of Waves' build-a-school system is a good way of demonstrating you can make a school feel very different with remarkably few mechanical changes.

As an aside, it also means you don't have to have a million variations on 'generic bushi' and can focus on the more iconic or the wierd and wonderful.

1 hour ago, UnitOmega said:

I personally hope that such things are still Inversions as both an effect of condensing mechanics and fluff (relationship between Void and Shadow), but I also think that they should be new inversions, as the ones described in Celestial Realms fit the flavor of the Ishiken very well, though obviously there can be some overlap. Adding additional "shadowy" like Inversions would be more space blocked up.

Agreed. The same 'core' mechanics applied in different ways is one thing that I like about this edition. Much like the star wars RPG, Advantage/Opportunity tables unique to a terrain or setting can dramatically change the feel of an otherwise identical scene; have your players fight the same Oni with the 'tainted' opportunity tables and shadowlands rules and you'll see how much scarier it is.

Plus, if the 'generic' mechanic is the same, it's a lot easier for a GM to create new ones. Every Distinction gives you a 2-dice reroll, so they're all inherently balanced mechanically; all that needs discussion with a player who has a custom one in mind is how general or specific to make it in the campaign you have in mind to ensure it doesn't come up to often or too rarely (which is largely within the GM's gift to control anyway).

I kind of wish that instead of linking the schools specifically to the families, they were more generalized. I mean-- when you aren't doing every possibility, I guess it makes sense to link them to the families. But every school is based on 2 rings. That means there is a limited number of combinations.

1. Air/Earth
2. Air/Fire
3. Air/Void
4. Air/Water
5. Earth/Fire
6. Earth/Void
7. Earth/Water
8. Fire/Void
9. Fire/Water
10. Void/Water

That's it-- 10 choices. Once one has done 10 Bushi schools, 10 Courtier schools, 10 Shugenja schools, 10 Monk schools and 10 Shinobi schools, assuming one actively tried to fill out all the options, you are ultimately going to be repeating a lot of the school techniques-- or, worse, one is forced to develop new techniques that are more convoluted or just directly comparable to the old ones but flat out better or worse than the other ones-- the exact same problem that existed with the schools in 4th edition with those developed early on having very easy to understand universal techniques that were mechanically easy and then those developed later were made far more situational with convoluted mechanics that just felt wonky-- simply because the designers felt that every school had to have 5 techniques that functioned entirely different from any other school's techniques rather than repeating the same mechanics (even if the goal was create a mechanically similar or identical effect.)

With even the base rules, this RPG can be complicated enough without really trying to stretch things.

Now-- granted-- even if a lot of the techniques are the same, it is imaginable that you can still differentiate the schools based on their skills and starting honor. But that really hardly feels like dramatic difference in play style.

even within the core book, there are duplicated ring pairings: Earth/Water, for example is associated with the Hida Defender, Daidoji Iron Warrior, Akodo Commander, Shiba Guardian, Yogo Wardmaster and Iuchi Meishodo Master (4 bushi and 2 shujenga). Plus, in other books, Fortunist Monk, Kitsu Medic, Doji Bureaucrat, Togashi Chronicler, Yasuki Yojimbo. All feel very different to me.

I don't disagree, but ring increases come from clan, family, and personal excellence as well as school - they help but don't define the school that strongly.

It's the school ability and 'preferential access' techniques which really drives the feel of the school.

I will agree partially with @UnitOmega , yes, I understand page and word count limit, but honestly? I would be glad with not having the Doji bureaucrat if that would have given me 2-3 kihō because that’s would be how many would fit in the page. My group right now dropped the idea of playing a Dragon campaign because they felt the Ise-zumi would be totally bland. We have 2-3 rank 1 kihō per Ring except Void, then 1 rank 2 and 3 each for every Ring except Void who doesn’t have rank 2 and 1 rank 4 and 2 rank 5 for Void only. I mean, sure, most campaigns won’t live up to rank 4-5 but that’s no reason to not have them. Right now a Togashi monk can get Rank 1-4 Earth Kihō when they reach Rank 4. Ha, there’s no rank 4 kihō yet for Earth and chances are that whatever Rank 1 kihō the player would want, they already picked them up by rank 1 or 2 because they would not wait until Rank 4 anyway. So yeah, playing a monk right now is, in my opinion, extremely bland. I mean, either you end up playing as a koan speaking courtier (Togashi Ise-zumi have access to shūji) or as a koan speaking bushi (Mirumoto Taoist have access to kata).

And then we go to the million dollar question. Is there really this huge public of L5R players that really wanted to play as ronin or foreigners? Don’t take me wrong, Path of Waves is a beautifully written book but did we really need it right now when we still have a lot of basic stuff needed to flesh out? Never mind the delays, companies changing/splitting responsibilities, lack of communication, etc.

Quick side note: The issue with adding more inversions in another book is that it means duplicating the entire section explaining how they work, because FFG had (and perhaps EDGE will continue to have) a strong policy of only requiring the core rules and the book you're looking at.
So you can't just add more inversions in another book, because that would require you to have Celestial Realms. See also why bonds were duplicated in Courts of Stone and Path of Waves.

Here's the thing, it's not that I dislike most of the schools. Many of them are pretty cool. My issue is that they offer very little new content unless I make a new character. If you have an existing character, Path of Waves offers a bunch of cool new stuff, while every other book offers almost nothing. Sure, they diversify the families and all, again - the schools are pretty cool, but mechanically I want more titles, more bonds and more techniques and that would take _less_ space than all these schools. Instead of having 8-10 schools per new book, I'd much rather have only 2-3, and 20 new techniques.

And that's apart from schools like the Kolat Saboteur, which should have been a title, or the Kitsune Impersonator, which is a throwback to that bad old design of "Elf is a class". There should have rather been an alternate 20 Questions - whether all or just some - for spirits like Kitsune. Especially now that we have rules for making our own schools.

17 minutes ago, Myrion said:

And that's apart from schools like the Kolat Saboteur, which should have been a title, or the Kitsune Impersonator, which is a throwback to that bad old design of "Elf is a class". There should have rather been an alternate 20 Questions - whether all or just some - for spirits like Kitsune. Especially now that we have rules for making our own schools.

Just wanted to second this part.

1 hour ago, Myrion said:

And that's apart from schools like the Kolat Saboteur, which should have been a title, or the Kitsune Impersonator, which is a throwback to that bad old design of "Elf is a class". There should have rather been an alternate 20 Questions - whether all or just some - for spirits like Kitsune. Especially now that we have rules for making our own schools.

So much this, I mean, I found it odd at first that Witch-Hunter became a title instead of a school but then I started seeing how it was a better approach then create yet another Kuni Shugenja school. It’s not that I don’t mind having more schools per family, but do we really need two shugenja schools for Yogo? Shikigamis are cool and all but I would rather have a courtier or monk school for the Yogo than yet another Shugena school. Same thing for the Doji Diplomat and Bureaucrat. Use eithet one and and the other can become a title. And would you look at that, there is a title called esteemed negotiator...

So, yes, we do have too many unnecessary schools, slightly less titles and not enough techniques. Considering Celestial Realms which I still do not have. Most of the people that have it can chime in. Would you prefer 2-3 less pages of titles and schools and the same amount of pages with more inversions? I am guessing the majority of the answer will be yes...

On 8/17/2020 at 4:14 PM, Myrion said:

Straight from the source at FFG, these are the schools that will be included in Celestial Realms:

• Agasha Alchemist
• Asahina Envoy
• Ishiken Initiate
• Kaito Spirit Seeker
• Kaiu Architect
• Kitsu Realm Wanderer
• Moshi Sun Sentinel
• Shosuro Shadowweaver
• Utaku Stablemaster

Significantly, the Ishiken Initiate is apparently not tied to the Phoenix clan!

Copying from another thread.

• Do we really need an Agasha Alchemist? The description of the Agasha Mystic already mentions how they use alchemy to fuel their invocations. Or is this like an Artisan school? If it is something that takes the flavour of the Tamori smiths then I guess it makes sense.
• Same thing for the Kaiu Architect, how different they are from a Kaiu Engineer?
• And what about the Utaku Stablemaster. Do we really need one? It sounds to me like an “NPC school” but considering how NPC creation doesn’t really need to follow the same process as PC creation, then do we really need it?
• The Shosuro Shadowweaver then, doesn’t make sense to me anymore because they are not the school that uses shadow brands, so, yeah...

So, that’s, at least to me, 4 schools that feel unnecessary or that could save us 4 pages and have 2 more titles, maybe 3 and possibly 7-10 more techniques.

The Alchemist is basically the potion version of the Wardmaster. Which, fun as it is, is really unnecessary because that's one of the most obvious things you can make your own school for.

The Architect is pretty different, but doesn't fit the theme of the book and is imo pretty much only there because they needed a school for every clan.

The Stablemaster is actually pretty cool, but again doesn't actually fit the theme and is something that doesn't exactly seem like it would be very attractive to players.

And well, yeah, the Shadow Weaver should have been kagenari. It's very cool in that it shows off a school ability that is quite unlike most others, so it's not something many people would just come up with - but I'd have rather had that as an invocation that a Soshi would learn...

Thanks, so, yeah, sounds to me like 3 schools that are unnecessary, never mind don’t fitting into the theme of the book. I mean, I can see the point of two different shugenja schools in the same family like the Kitsu Realm Wanderer and the Kitsu Medium. Both Shugenja of the same family with two different flavours or like the Kaito Spirit Seeker and the Kaito Shrine Keeper who have supporting roles to the Family task as whole. On the other hand, Doji Diplomat/Bureaucrat, Kaiu Engineer/Architect, Agasha Mystic/Alchemist and Yogo Wardmaster/Preserver feel downright redundant.

On 11/11/2020 at 8:04 AM, Diogo Salazar said:

🤮 that means I have to join Twitter to ask them something?

I prefer joining an expedition to retake Shiro Hiruma

Th expedition to Shiro Hiruma is still being planned, meanwhile Edge Studios answered me and the answer was: “we are working on it”, which I guess is better than “we are not working on it”.

The actual question was if they had a release date for the PDF, so anytime between tomorrow and the heat death of the universe...
Now, if there are any people there sick of me complaining, I apologize, but to me it is a matter of deciding if I will continue supporting this product or not. If I have to wait 1 year to get a PDF of a book that was published already, I might as well go play a different RPG, because I am not in a demographic valued by them, apparently...